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No Fear No Favour

Coach Ravi Shastri Reveals Why MS Dhoni Took the Match Ball

Team India coach Ravi Shastri on Thursday dismissed all speculation on Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s retirement.

“MS wanted to show the ball to Bharat Arun. He wanted to show him the wear and tear the ball had endured, to get a general idea of what the conditions were like,” Shastri told.
“That’s rubbish. MS is not going anywhere,” Ravi Shastri further said.

Shastri said Dhoni took the ball from umpire to show it to bowling coach Bharat Arun.

“But right now, all this clamour is nonsense. He just wanted to show the ball to Arun to just have a look at it after close to 45 overs had been bowled,” Shastri told.

 

Social media was abuzz with speculations surrounding MS Dhoni’s future after match footage saw him asking for the ball from the on-field umpires Bruce Oxenford and Michael Gough while walking back to the pavilion after the end of the England innings during the decider of the ODI series.

Dhoni is known to have a habit of collecting stumps as memorabilia towards the end of a game, but the variation from the usual practice set the word spreading that Dhoni might be planning an immediate retirement.

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