• Source:JND

It was the quiet evening of August 15, 2020 when former skipper MS Dhoni announced his sudden retirement from international cricket. India's most successful captain's departure from cricket sent shock waves across the country as Dhoni is among the most followed cricketers of all time.

Dhoni is the only captain in the game's history to lift all ICC titles including T20 World Cup 2007, World Cup 2011 and the Champions Trophy 2013. The veteran batter took to Instagram to call time on his illustrious career.

Taking to Instagram, the wicketkeeper-batter had shared a video and captioned the post, "Thanks a lot for ur love and support throughout. from 1929 hrs consider me as Retired."

The video had the iconic song 'Mai Pal Do Pal Ka Shayar Hu' from Amitabh Bachchan's 'Kabhie Kabhie' playing in the background. Dhoni shared his incredible journey as India team member including his run out in the last game against New Zealand in the 2019 World Cup semifinal.

Referred to as 'Captain Cool', Dhoni is known for his calmness and exquisite captaincy on the field.

His agility behind the stumps gave India many breakthroughs. His knack and cricketing intelligence has made him famous for review calls and many have jokingly remarked to change the 'Decision-Review System's' name to 'Dhoni-Review System'.

In December 2014, he announced his retirement from Tests and gave a chance to young players like Wriddhiman Saha. Dhoni called time on his Test career after playing 90 Tests and scoring 4,876 runs at an average of 38.09.

Under Dhoni's leadership, India also managed to attain the number-one ranking in Test cricket.

The 42-year-old popular player has cricket left in him and led Chennai Super Kings to their fifth IPL trophy in 2023.

After Dhoni's retirement, India's search for his successor continues as it is next to impossible to fill big shoes of wicketkeeper-batter. Rishabh Pant filled him as wicketkeeper while the audition for finisher is still ongoing with Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Suryakumar Yadav and Axar Patel emerged as the top pick for the role but not close enough to earn the 'best finisher' tag.

(With ANI inputs)