Bengaluru: Bengaluru: For a man who rose from obscure Jharkhand to go on to become Indian cricket's most successful captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni was unique. From sporting shoulder-length long-haired locks to effecting a mohawk, Dhoni has juggled between the sublime and the shocking, a facet that encapsulates his cricket.
Yet, the manner in which he bid adieu to Test cricket, after 90 Tests in a nine-year career following the drawn encounter against Australia at Melbourne on Tuesday, was in many ways 'unsporting'.
Strangely, Dhoni addressed the media after the draw but chose not to divulge his decision to retire immediately with the 'news' only coming through the Indian cricket board's official announcement.
"One of India's greatest Test captains under whose leadership India became the No. 1 team in the Test Rankings MS Dhoni, has decided to retire from Test Cricket citing the strain of playing all formats of cricket," said BCCI. "MS Dhoni has chosen to retire from Test cricket with immediate effect in order to concentrate on ODI and T20 formats."
As captain, Dhoni had the best numbers ever by an Indian; 27 wins out of 60 as leader but no farewell speech in what nobody realised was his farewell Test was actually a poor move by someone widely regarded as one of the game's shrewdest and calm captains.
Rustic, yet brutal; simple yet stunningly effective, Dhoni was perhaps, the most technically ill-suited for Test cricket given his inability to satisfy the purists but for all that, the 33-year-old Dhoni transformed Indian cricket and led India to the No.1 spot in Test cricket besides two World Cups in T20s and ODIs.
Under Dhoni, India were the top-ranked Test side for 18 months before the landslide began which soon turned into a deluge. Hammered 8-0 in twin Test series in England and Australia, Dhoni's Test captaincy suffered post the epochal 2011 World Cup triumph as they won just two out of 22 Tests while losing 13.
Questions had been raised about Dhoni's form and role in the longer version especially given Virat Kohli's ascendancy but no one would have grudged the now-retired skipper if he were to stretch it for another ten Tests to get to the 100-landmark. But Dhoni chose the practical, if not the perfect route. For as a Test cricketer, he wasn't perfect, just practical.
