England beat India by a massive 8 wickets in the third ODI on Tuesday in Leeds and bagged the three-match one-day series 2-1.
The series loss marks this Indian team’s first bilateral series defeat under Virat Kohli with many players failing to step up.
On the television broadcast, even as the pundits analysed the performances after the game, it was a few seconds of post-match footage that’s set Twitter ablaze.
Former Indian skipper MS Dhoni was seen taking the match ball from the umpires while walking back to the pavilion which has now led viewers to believe the 37-year-old would announce his retirement from international cricket.
Under Fire Of Late
During the second ODI against England on Saturday, Dhoni was booed by a section of the Indian fans in the stadium after he failed to accelerate during India’s chase of England’s 322/7. He managed to score 37 off 59 as India went onto lose by 86 runs.
On Tuesday, with batsmen falling in regular intervals at the other end, Dhoni ensure India remained stable from one end of the crease as he managed a 42-ball-66. However, with India losing, some critics once again focussed only on the keeper instead of India’s middle order’s collective failure.
Focus on 2019 World Cup
The above pictures are what got a lot of social media users worried about the former skipper’s immediate plans. However, at 37, this could also simply be MS Dhoni taking memorabilia from what is likely to be his last bilateral series outing in England.
India are however slated to play the ICC Cricket World Cup in England next summer and even Indian chief selector MSK Prasad has gone on record in the last year to say MS Dhoni will be the team’s number one choice for his slot and behind the wickets.
The former skipper plays only the T20 and one-day format after retiring from Test cricket on 30 December, 2014 during India’s tour of Australia.
In his 321 ODIs so far, Dhoni has scored 10046 runs at an average of 51.25. He has 10 hundreds and 67 fifties to his name. Dhoni has 1487 runs in 93 T20 Internationals at an average of 37.17, including two fifties.
After the match, neither Virat Kohli nor Shardul Thakur, who attended the post-match press conference, had anything to say about the Twitter speculation.
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