For far too long Mahendra Singh Dhoni has been indifferent to the fourth estate. This is not to say that he should bend backwards to please the Press, but his cause won’t be helped if he and more importantly, his employers the Board of Control for Cricket in India continue to ignore normal procedure
For far too long Mahendra Singh Dhoni has been indifferent to the fourth estate. This is not to say that he should bend backwards to please the Press, but his cause won’t be helped if he and more importantly, his employers the Board of Control for Cricket in India continue to ignore normal procedure.
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By normal procedure, we mean, addressing the media after skipper Dhoni retired from Test cricket after the drawn result in the third Test of the 2014-15 Border-Gavaskar Trophy series at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Not elaborating to the media as to why he took such a step before the completion of a vital Test series borders on undemocratic and gives cricket lovers the impression that Dhoni is a law unto himself.
How else does one explain his seemingly arrogant utterances on Saturday on the eve of India’s first match of the one-day internationals tri-series that went like this: “The BCCI press release explained everything. You can ask questions, but it is my decision (not to answer them). I will answer if I want to.”
For the record, the reason projected in the press release was merely this: “MS Dhoni, has decided to retire from Test Cricket citing the strain of playing all formats of Cricket.
MS Dhoni has chosen to retire from Test Cricket with immediate effect in order to concentrate on ODI and T20 formats.”
The BCCI would have done wonders to their non-transparent image by requesting their premier player to speak to the media after such an important decision. It is believed that the India captain holds the second most important post in the country after the Prime Minister. By dodging the media, the BCCI and Dhoni in a way disrespected that position. Such silence is unprecedented in contemporary cricket.
Dhoni’s silence about his farewell to the traditional form of the game is just not cricket.