Five players who became victim of Dhoni’s politics according to public opinion
Ravindra Jadeja-MS Dhoni (Image Source: BCCI/IPL)
MS Dhoni has been an integral part of the rise of many a player. He led the Indian team to two World Cup titles. During his time at the helm of the Indian team, players like Ravichandran Ashwin, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Ishant Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja got the backing and made the most of it to become recognizable names in the international arena.
However, fans are of the opinion that MSD did not back certain players enough, and hence their career met a premature end. Here is a list of five players that fans feel Dhoni betrayed by.
1.Yuvraj Singh: The talismanic all-rounder was the chief architect of India’s 2011 World Cup win under Dhoni. But Yuvi’s career took a major southward drift after this. He was diagnosed with cancer and hence was out of action for an extended period. After his return to the mainframe of the Indian cricket, making it back to the final eleven for him became difficult as he lost his fitness and the prime touch he was known for. A few below-par performances saw him being dropped from the team.
As he was dropped, Yuvraj’s father, Yograj Singh alleged Dhoni of betraying the southpaw. And many fans think the MSD was instrumental in Yuvi’s career ending prematurely.
2. Gautam Gambhir: The rumors of a rift between MS Dhoni and Gautam Gambhir have become age-old in Indian cricket. In 2012, MSD publicly alleged the trio of Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, and Gautam Gambhir were slow in the field. He started rotating at the top order in the top order in ODIs. This is something the fans did not like. Later, a few failures on Gambhir’s part saw him being dropped from the national team. Many fans think that the differences of opinion led MSD to drop Gambhir from the side and thus cut short his playing career.
3. Virender Sehwag: Virender Sehwag was also an integral part of the MSD -led side that won the 2011 World Cup. But his form started to dip in Test cricket during the 2012 England series. He was dropped and consequently announced retirement from international cricket. After his retirement, he publicly slammed Dhoni for saying things in media without talking to players. Fans thought that it was unfair on Sehwag to have been dropped after bad performances in only one series.
4. Suresh Raina: The camaraderie between MSD and Suresh Raina is known to all. Their bond was so strong that Raina decided to retire from international cricket when MSD took the call. But to everybody’s surprise, Chennai neither retained Raina nor bought him back in the mega auction. As Dhoni is the brain behind Chennai’s management fans felt that he betrayed Raina by not taking him into the team for the 2022 ITL.
5. Ravindra Jadeja: MSD stepped down from the captaincy of the Chennai team just ahead of the Indian T20 League 2022. Under Jadeja, Chennai lost 6 of their 8 matches, and the string of events after that led to suspicions and rumors of a rift between Jaddu and MSD. Jadeja was dropped in a match and then ruled out of the tournament. This made fans talk about Jadeja being the latest victim of Dhoni’s politics.
