The suspense over Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s future is set to continue as the 38-year-old has reportedly extended his sabbatical from the Indian team by a couple of months.
The 38-year-old Dhoni has been on a break for more than two months now and has not played a game of cricket since the World Cup semi-final defeat against New Zealand.
And now he is unlikely to be available for India’s domestic calendar or assignment against Bangladesh in November, according to reports. But there is no word on whether he plans to call it a day.
“It’s highly unlikely that Dhoni will be available against Bangladesh,” a BCCI source told news agency PTI. “In BCCI, we prepare a 45-day match schedule [international and domestic], training, anti-doping whereabouts chart for all senior and A team cricketer. There is nothing marked against Dhoni,”
The agency also reported that Dhoni is also not going to play the Vijay Hazare National One-Day championship for Jharkhand which starts on Tuesday.
After the World Cup, Dhoni had informed the board that he would be taking a break to complete his training with the Armed Forces but. Chief Selector MSK Prasad had informed the press that Dhoni notified the board that he was unavailable for selection for India’s tour of West Indies. But since then, the two-time World Cup-winning captain had been left out of the T20I series against South Africa, but without any explanation from the selectors.
“I think he [Dhoni] should be going without being pushed out,” Sunil Gavaskar recently said as an expert on national television. “We need to look beyond Dhoni. He, at least, doesn’t figure in my team.”
When questioned about Dhoni figuring in India’s plans for next year’s T20 World Cup, Indian captain Virat Kohli had said in Dharamsala that the wicketkeeper-batsman is a valuable part of the team as long as he is available.
“One great thing about him is that, he thinks for Indian cricket,” Kohli had said, a few days after an innocuous tweet from his account sent the Dhoni retirement rumour mill whirring. “And whatever we [team management] think, he is on the same page. The alignment is there. The kind of mindset he has had about grooming youngsters and giving them opportunities, and he is still the same person.”
READ: Virat Kohli responds to tweet that led to rumours of MS Dhoni’s retirement
The Indian captain’s answer on Dhoni’s international future was a bit open-ended.
“Look, experience is always going to matter whether you like it or not. I mean there are a numerous number of times people have given up on sportsmen and they have proved people wrong and he has done that many times in his career as well. As long as he is available and continues to play, he is going to be very valuable,” Kohli had said.
“When you decide to stop playing is an absolutely individual thing, and no one else should have an opinion on it, that’s what I think,” he added.