Leeds: Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s move to ask for the match ball from the umpire has once more set the social media on fire with many predicting an imminent retirement from the shorter versions of the game for the legendary wicketkeeper-batsman. After India lost the third ODI by eight wickets and the three-match series 1-2 and the players were leaving the ground, Dhoni ran up to the umpires and requested for the match ball.
Twitter went on overdrive, the moment the incident happened. There were some who said that Dhoni will retire from all forms of international cricket soon, others requested him not to take any hasty decisions, while some said time for him to go had not come in spite of a poor batting show during the ODIs.
Even though, Dhoni has often publicly stated he would like to continue playing till the 2019 World Cup, there are a few who are of the opinion that the recent batting show against England in the ODIs may have prompted him to prepone his retirement decision. In the two ODIs Dhoni batted he scored 37 of 59 balls (62.71 strike rate) while at Headingley he had 42 of 66 balls (63.63 strike rate) to show against his name. This was clearly un-Dhoni like batting.
What has prompted Twitter fans to speculate about Dhoni’s retirement is the unexpectedness with which Dhoni makes his decisions public. In 2014, he had suddenly announced his retirement from Tests after the completion of the fourth game of the away series. Then in January last year, he had suddenly declared that he was giving up the captaincy in the ODIs and T20s.
