Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar, recently brushed off the possibility of MS Dhoni’s return to international cricket, stating Dhoni would silently announce his retirement from the game.
“The team has moved on. Dhoni is not someone to make big announcements, so I reckon he would silently retire from the game,” said Gavaskar.
Now, the cricketer-turned-commentator has again dropped his thoughts on Dhoni, but this time he has revealed an interesting fact which shows how humble Dhoni is.
Gavaskar said that the Indian cricket team has a system of rewarding its top-performing players by giving them the option to take up one of the limited business class seats in domestic flights. However, Dhoni, despite being captain, used to prefer sitting with the TV crew in economy class.
“The Indian team has a lovely system of rewarding its players especially in-home matches,” Gavaskar wrote in his column for mid-day.
“As most Indian cricket followers know, during the Indian domestic, international season, both teams travel in a special chartered flight from one venue to the next. The flight also carries the technical TV crew who have to rig the cables for the next game,” added Gavaskar.
“There are limited seats in business class and the captains, coaches and managers of the teams get these. It is here that those Indian players, who have done well in their previous game, get to sit there as a reward rather than the economy class behind,” Gavaskar further added.
“Mahendra Singh Dhoni hardly ever sat in business class on these flights even when he was the skipper as he would prefer to sit with the real champs of the TV coverage, the cameramen and the sound engineers,” wrote the 70-year-old.
Gavaskar also hailed current captain Virat Kohli for following the footsteps of Dhoni and carrying his legacy. He wrote, “Virat Kohli has also sat in the economic sector to give his seat to the bowlers who had bowled India to a win in a just-concluded match (during the 2018-19 Border-Gavaskar Trophy Down Under). These are simple gestures, but they go a long way in building team spirit.”
