MSD rules out retirement until 2015 Cup

New Delhi: A “fitter” and “healthier” M.S. Dhoni on Monday put rest to all speculations about retiring from any of the formats, saying that it would be unfair to put the burden of captaincy on a new player as the 2015 World Cup was just a year away.

“Now, it’s a point of no return. The World Cup is literally one year  away and it won’t give a new guy the ideal time to play, at least, 70-80-90 games beginning to the World Cup. It will be tough for him,” Dhoni said on the sidelines of an event here.

Dhoni keen to continue as skipper in all three formats

Last year during the Australia tour, Dhoni had said that he would take a call on whether he would play all formats of the game in order to lead India’s title defence in 2015.

“I understand the pressure, it’s not always that you turn up and at the same time, you get the kind of things which give you more experience than the others. So, we have to go through it,” he added.

The back-to-back series against West Indies and South Africa had left the Indian team tired and Dhoni too was no different. However, the skipper asserted that he is in good shape physically, at least for the time being.

“As of now, it’s looking good. The body is closely knit together. How it will be (in future), I don’t know but so far so good.”

Evaluating India’s disastrous tour of South Africa where his boys lost both the ODI and Test series, Dhoni blamed one bad session in Durban for the embarrassment.

“I agree, we had some tough times. We had one really bad session because of which we were on the losing side,” he said.

“It’s a process  where we have to improve and also the fact that now we will be continuously playing out of India, so it will give more exposure to the players.

“Most of the players, who are part of the side barring a few, they have not played, may be, more than five Test matches outside India. I know they will take some time but the overall performance was good.”

In the recent times, Indian bowlers’  ability to take 20 wickets on foreign soil was doubted and the 31-year-old admitted it’s one area where the team need to improve.