'They Were In A State Of Shock': Ravi Shastri Recalls India's Dressing Room Moment After MS Dhoni Announced Test Retirement

Former team India head coach Ravi Shastri recalled the moment when iconic Indian player MS Dhoni announced his retirement from Test cricket. Shastri said everyone in the dressing room was left in a shock with the decision.

Dhoni represented India in 90 Test matches and during their tour of Australia in 2014-15, the Jharkhand player decided to quit playing red-ball cricket after the MCG Test.

MS Dhoni retired from Test cricket in 2014

India had already lost the series after going 0-2 down to Australia in the first two games but displayed resilience to force a draw at MCG.

MS Dhoni knew who was the next leader in the line: Ravi Shastri

Shastri said that Dhoni intended to prolong his white-ball career and was ready to hand over the red-ball captaincy to Virat Kohli.

“He knew who was the next leader in the line. He was just waiting for the opportune time to make that announcement because he knew how much his body could take. He wanted to prolong his white-ball career. When his body tells him it’s enough, it’s enough. There are no second thoughts with MS,” Shastri said on Star Sports.

“It came as a huge surprise in Melbourne when he said ‘I am finishing with Test cricket’. In fact, he just casually walked up to me and said, ‘Ravi Bhai, I need to speak to the boys’. I said ‘sure’. So I thought he would say something; we’d drawn a great game, batted last day. To draw that match was tremendous stuff.

Dhoni scored 4876 runs from 90 Test matches at an average of 38.09 and hit 33 half-centuries and six hundreds. His best score was 224 that came against Australia in 2013 in Chennai.

Also Read: Ravi Shastri Calls MS Dhoni’s Decision To Abruptly Quit Test Cricket ‘Brave And Selfless’