Mahindra Singh Dhoni has been a permanent fixture in the Indian team for close to 1 and a half decade. For a long time, he was captain of the test team despite the Indian team failing repeatedly outside India. In fact, the national selectors wanted to remove him after 8 successive defeats against Australia and the MCC in tours abroad, but the casting vote by the Board president N Srinivasan saved the day for him. Dhoni survived and continued to lead Indian test team. But nemesis caught up with him when Srinivasan was removed by the Supreme Court and Dhoni lost a godfather.
The effect
of the removal of Srinivasan for malafide intent ended Dhonis captaincy in test cricket. He had no choice to resign his captaincy after another disastrous tour of Australia. Dhoni, however, is a hardy man and he thought it best to continue playing ODI and T-20 cricket. He wanted to play the 2019 world cup, irrespective of the fact that at his age and stage he would be an impediment to the development of Indian cricket.The Board and the national selector's gave him a chance but his performance as captain was lacking and even on home pitches he led India to win narrowly. Everybody wanted a change but not Dhoni who wanted to continue playing cricket and lead India in the world cup in 2019. The
motive was purely selfish.The national selectors under pressure from the Supreme Court as all other departments of the BCCI had to pull up their socks. Frankly there was no justification for Dhoni to continue and MSK Prasad the national selector met Dhoni in an ongoing Ranji trophy match and clearly advised him to call for his retirement as the BCCI could not carry him on as captain. He was told that future of Indian cricket was more important than an individual and Dhoni was made to realize that at 36 he was not an investment for the future.
Dhoni wanted to continue but the fait accompli sealed his fate. He was told that he would be sidestepped as captain in the coming series against England. Seeing the writing on the wall Dhoni resigned. Perhaps it would have been better if he had resigned two years back when he had abdicated the test captaincy also under pressure. Why he did not do it is a mystery.
Indians are hero worshippers and that carried Dhoni forward. It's good for the game, he is forced to retire and now Kohli can groom the team for the future.
