In a week when Steve Smith struck a career-best 192, Virat Kohli enjoyed a sledging spat with Mitch Johnson and Brendon McCullum's blistering 195 helped his Black Caps to a record fifth Test success in a calendar year, it was a shame that MS Dhoni trumped them all. Not with a great performance but a sudden announcement of immediate retirement from Test cricket.
Had he merely jacked in the India captaincy at the end of the Australia series, nobody would have been surprised. It's been a recent trend for the global superstars to plan their farewells months in advance to extract maximum media exposure and/or reach specific milestones. Not a trend of which I particularly approve. However, why would such an icon of world cricket, second only to Sachin Tendulkar, call it a day before the final match?
Was it to help Kohli bed in further as leader of the Test side? To give his body more time to recover before the next round of ODIs and the World Cup? Both, or something else entirely?! Whatever the answer, Dhoni has seen it, done it, got the T-shirt. Nobody else can have led his country to be the number one Test ranking, World Cup, T20 World Cup and Champions Trophy, all while being a great late-order batsman and wicket-keeper.
33 is no great age in terms of years. However, playing nearly 400 cricket matches in all formats, under the keenest microscope of the most enthusiastic of sports fans, must take its toll on anybody. For all his qualities, even MSD is human, and both his runs and athleticism behind the stumps have slipped this year.
It's interesting to note that many fans have accepted the decision as a good one for India. Six years as India's leader in all formats is a long time, added to his IPL responsibilities in the Super Kings yellow. He graced the sport in 90 Tests, two-thirds of them as skipper, scoring almost 5,000 runs including six hundreds and 33 mostly vital half-centuries. Only four men have claimed more dismissals behind the stumps than Dhoni's 294, nine of them this week at the MCG.
While he remains one of the one-day game's all-time greats, there is a feeling that with him goes the last real link with the golden era of 2009-10. The baton has been passed to the new generation of Kohli, Pujara, Ashwin and co, although I do wonder for how long India's latest idol Kohli can shoulder the responsibilities he faces. At least he doesn't keep wicket, too.
India now find themselves an unthinkable sixth in the ICC Test rankings, just a few points behind a resurgent New Zealand, so the only way is up. They have the talent, now all they need is to galvanise once more as a global force in proper cricket under Kohli and the BCCI. Maybe being the best in 50- and 20-over formats is all India craves. After all, that is where the money is. Dhoni, too, won't be short of a few dollars although like some of his former team-mates, he is commendably generous when it comes to charitable work. Unlike other sportsmen I could mention, he doesn't forget his roots.
So farewell MSD, for a few months at least, and good luck to his successors as Test captain and wicketkeeper!
