World cup winning coach, Gary Kirsten, has opined on the retirement of talismanic Indian cricketer, MS Dhoni. He said that Mahi has earned the right to hang up his boots on his own terms, and also hailed him as the greatest sportsmen in the modern era.
Earlier this week, Twitter saw a baseless ‘Dhoni Retires’ hashtag, which went trending. MS Dhoni’s better-half Sakshi Singh, came out all guns blazing with a tweet saying the lockdown has affected the mental health of people. She later deleted the post.
Since Dhoni last donned the Indian jersey in the semi-finals of 2019 ODI World Cup against New Zealand, there have been calls for Dhoni retiring from the game.
However, fans believe that the Indian stalwart has another World Cup left in him with the upcoming 2020 T20 World Cup.
Even the current India head coach, Ravi Shastri, gave a green signal to Dhoni for the T20 showpiece event in 2020, provided he had a brilliant IPL season.
With question marks on the two marquee T20 events lined up in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a comeback for Dhoni looks distant. This theory is also backed by the fact that the management is grooming KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant for a similar role.
“MS (Dhoni) is an incredible cricketer. Intelligence, calmness, power, athleticism, speed and a match-winner separate him from others and puts him amongst the greatest sportsmen in the modern era,” Kirsten told TOI.
“He (Dhoni) has earned the right to leave the game on his own terms and no one should dictate to him when that time is,” added the former South African opener.
Kirsten enjoyed a successful captain-coach relationship with the Ranchi-born cricketer. The two went on to lift the coveted ODI World Cup title in 2011.
“I loved coaching the Indian team. It was one of the best privileges of my life. It was a fantastic journey with the players and very fond memories of the World Cup. There were a lot of expectations from the players to win the World Cup and they handled it incredibly well,” Kirsten claimed when asked about his experience coaching the Indian team.
