Mumbai: India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has announced retirement from Test cricket following the drawn match against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Tuesday. The 33-year-old's decision followed after India failed to save the Border- Gavaskar Trophy. He was unbeaten on 24. Virat Kohli will lead the side in the fourth and final Test against Australia in Sydney.
“He has chosen to retire from Test cricket in order to concentrate on ODI and T20 formats,” said a BCCI statement.
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The statement added: “One of India’s greatest Test captains under whose leadership India became the No. 1 team in the Test Rankings MS Dhoni, has decided to retire from Test Cricket citing the strain of playing all formats of cricket. He has chosen tor etire with immediate effect in order to concentrate on other formats.”
It all started for him with the 2007 World T20, and that was followed by a dream run in ODIs and Tests too, as he presided over India's rise to the pinnacle of Test cricket from 2009-11.
Though on pen and paper, he said the effort of playing in all three formats was taking a toll but there will be speculations over the decision to withdraw with immediate effect, before the closure of the series against Australia. Chances are high that the pressure of low success rate overseas forced him to take the call. Eight back-to-back losses away (whitewashed by England and Australia) and then, almost the same treatment in England (with only one win) early this year could have triggered him to concentrate only on the limited-over format – where he has been successful. There will also be debates whether he felt insulted with his name constantly being dragged into the spot-fixing controversy during IPL 2013 being close to BCCI chief-in-exile N Srinivasan.
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He, as well as the national team, went through on-field transition as well as off-field controversies surrounding the Indian Premier League 6 spot-fixing scandal that rocked Indian cricket.
