I tried persuading MS Dhoni to play the Sydney Test: Sanjay Patel

MS Dhoni

Sanjay Patel, the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), has revealed that he urged Mahendra Singh Dhoni to not give up Test Cricket with immediate effect and lead India in the fourth and final Test at Sydney, starting on January 6.

The 33-year-old helped India to a draw in the third Test on Tuesday, after which the news of his retirement from the longer format broke out.

“When MS conveyed his decision to me, I requested him, ‘Why don’t you continue for the final Test and then call it a day?’. But he said, ‘It will not make any difference. I was going to retire from Test cricket in six months time at the most. Then, why not do it now?’. He felt the team was in good condition and gelling well. We respect his decision,” Patel told Mid-Day on Tuesday.

He added that retirement from Test cricket might have been on Dhoni’s mind even before he left for Australia but that he had not had any chat with him about it.

“That might have been on his mind, but he never told me anything. Everything happened after the Test match was over,” he said.

Always known to surprise people with his decisions, either on the field or off it, Dhoni called up Patel to inform him about his decision soon after his post-match press conference. The 33-year-old told Patel to wait for a while before making the news public as he was yet to tell his teammates about his retirement.

The BCCI release said that Dhoni retired from Tests because he found it hard to manage the workload of playing all 3 formats of the game.

“Dhoni wanted to be fit for all the formats (Tests, ODIs and T20s). He wanted to focus 100 per cent on the other two formats. Test cricket is not just five days. We have to also take into account the previous two days of vigorous training,” Patel said.

Rubbish to say that Dhoni was a liability to the side: Patel

He also dismissed any reports of Dhoni retiring from Tests because he was being a liability to the side.

“It’s nonsense. You think he would have been in the team if he was a liability?

“Even during the finger injury (which prevented Dhoni from participating in the first Test against Australia), I was in constant touch with him and he wanted to take the field only if he was 100 percent fit,” he said.

He is a man of integrity. He did not want any farewell (Test) or a 50,000-crowd reception. He said he is only retiring from one format. Only a lion can take such a decision,” he added.

He also said that there was no pressure on Dhoni to leave the longer format of the game.

“We (BCCI) did not put any pressure on his captaincy. In fact, pressure and Dhoni don’t go hand-in-hand,” he concluded.