‘Time to move on…’- Former BCCI selector reveals story of asking MS Dhoni to leave white-ball captaincy

The former selector of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has revealed the story of how he and MSK Prasad communicated with the former captain, MS Dhoni, to tell him when the right time was to step down from the white-ball leadership, as he added how the latter tried help the team in growing under the new captain, Virat Kohli, in 2017. 

MS Dhoni was the only captain to have won all the three ICC events, including the T20 World Cup 2007, the ODI World Cup 2011, and the Champions Trophy 2013. Having retired from the Tests in 2014, he focused on ODI and T20I captaincy till the end of 2016 before Kohli handled the responsibility of the blue brigade against England in 2017.

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“Mahi was batting. He kept batting for an hour and MSK and I were looking at each other. We had prepared how to tell him most respectfully. So we went to him and said, ‘You know, Mahi, I think it is the right time to move on. So, he (Dhoni) told MSK, ‘Anna, this is the perfect decision. Let me know what you want from me.’ MSK told him that he will have to put it in writing.” Paranjpe told on the Great Indian Cricket Show.

Jatin Paranjpe tells story of asking MS Dhoni to leave captaincy

Dhoni retired from the longest format after the third Test against Australia in Melbourne during the Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) 2014/15. That showed Kohli taking the responsibility of the Indian side in the Sydney Test and taking the full captaincy in Sri Lanka in 2015.

“He (Dhoni) said, ‘Alright, I will do it.’ Late at night, we received an email: ‘I would like to step down’. We had to make this decision. We were criticised for it as well, but these are the tough decisions that you have to take.” Paranjpe expressed.

Later, Dhoni retired from the international cricket after the semifinal clash against New Zealand at the Old Trafford in Manchester during the ODI World Cup 2019, which they went on to lose. He is not part of the Indian Premier League (IPL) these days for the Chennai Super Kings (CSK).