MS Dhoni is an enigma. In the last 2 centuries that the sport has been played, there have been only a handful of cricketers who have inspired loyalty to the point of near lunacy from their fans. Especially in a country like India, where cricketers are placed on the same pedestal as deities, every time our heroes give us a little glimpse of their greatness, we begin to compare it to the second coming of Christ himself. 

Cricaddictor

Last night was no different. With 16 needed off 4 balls and 3 wickets in hand, MS Dhoni, donning the CSK yellow took his side home with a flurry of boundaries, that included a trademark flick-sweep off 4 off the last ball. 

Twitter

Watching the game last night, with one ball to go, I had a faint idea of what social media would look like if Dhoni pulled off another heist. And so he did. And I jumped off my couch in excitement, enough to almost send my 90-year-old grandma to the pearly gates.  

15 minutes later, everybody and their mother, blue tick or not was talking about Dhoni, almost as if he had never retired. For a brief moment, we were back in Dhoni’s glory days, where he would take it to the last over, and then like Mohammad Ali in the 13th round, just outbox his opponent. 

Suddenly all was right with the world. That was until a former cricketers and ‘journalists’ started tweeting stuff like this. 

To be fair, that sentiment is understandable, as is the desire for retweets, which you will get as long as you mention Dhoni but come on, you are supposed to be experts on the subject. Do you really think facing Unadkat will be the same as facing Starc and Cummins and Archer in the last over? 

MS Dhoni batted no 7 throughout his T20 career. In the 98 games, he played, he scored 1617 runs at an average of 37.60 and a strike rate of 126.13. Yeah, that average is great but that’s because Dhoni made never got out in the end, which brings me to the strike rate. 

Deccan Chronicle

A strike rate of 126 for a finisher, batting at No 7 is bad. It’s really bad. You can disagree but that just means, you are treating T20s as a shorter version of ODIs and that just implies that you are antiquated in your approach to the sport.

It just won’t work, not when you have the likes of Stokes and Maxwell striking at nearly 140. Also, did we forget about the last few years of his international career where we were witnessing a shadow of the batsman Dhoni used to be and it hurt the Indian cricket team? And isn’t the team winning the whole point? 

Twitter

It is understandable to romanticise Dhoni but the fact of the matter is even if he outperforms every other finisher in the IPL, international cricket is a whole different ball game altogether. So stop suggesting Dhoni come out of retirement to play the World Cup. It’s embarrassing. 

We all love Dhoni. The things he’s done for Indian cricket cannot possibly be matched. But he’s done. Let him enjoy his retirement and have fun playing a game he’s given so much to.