Former India selector reveals selection committee's opinion about MS Dhoni's participation in T20 World Cup
Fans expected Dhoni to play in the T20 World Cup but that wasn’t to happen as he decided to retire before the Indian Premier League 2020.
It was expected but when it came, it surprised the majority of the cricket fans. Mahendra Singh Dhoni decided to announce his retirement from international cricket last year. He hadn’t played in more than a year as Dhoni took a sabbatical from cricket after the 2019 ODI World Cup. Fans expected Dhoni to play in the T20 World Cup but that wasn’t to happen as he decided to retire before the Indian Premier League 2020.
It wasn’t just the fans that expected him to play in the World T20 in 2020 but the selectors also. Former India selector Sarandeep Singh has revealed that the selection committee had the opinion that Dhoni should have played in the T20 World Cup that was supposed to take place in Australia in October 2020. But he said that Covid-19 might have played a part in his thinking. Due to the global pandemic, ICC decided to postpone the T20 World Cup in Australia last year to 2022. There was however no change in the 2021 T20 World Cup that was supposed to take place in India apart from the fact that it was pushed to October.
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"Definitely, he would have played (had COVID-19 not interuppted). We were also thinking that he should have definitely played the World T20. He was fit. There was no reason for him to not play,’ Sarandeep Singh told Sportskeeda.
"We always see the fitness of the players first to see how long they can play. And Mahi was the fittest. He never took a break from practice. Even in optional practice, Mahi was there. And you see it never happened that he missed a game because of injury. That's why he got so much respect from everyone.
"We always felt that a player who played so much for India and won so many trophies - there's not a single trophy he hasn't won - deserved that chance. It was my personal opinion and opinion of everyone in the selection committee that MS Dhoni should have played the World T20," Singh concluded.
Sarandeep’s term as a selector of the Indian cricket team ended in 2020 and he was part of the committee that picked the team for the 2019 World Cup.
Meanwhile, Dhoni will return to the cricketing field as he captains Chennai Super Kings in the 2021 edition of IPL.
