Case for India defending World Cup stronger after Dhoni quits
Published:
India’s captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has decided to retire from Test cricket and that spells bad news for the other countries participating in the forthcoming World Cup.
Following defeat to Australia in their ongoing series Down Under, Dhoni decided to call time on his Test playing days, in order to concentrate on his leading role in the shorter forms of the game.
Clearly, the close proximity of February’s 50-over showpiece has played a significant part in the decision as Dhoni attempts to make history as the first Indian captain to secure back-to-back World Cup wins.
The men in blue are currently behind hosts Australia (11/4) and South Africa (4/1) in the betting at 9/2, though a fully-focused, fresher Dhoni is certainly a boon to his cricket-crazy nation’s chances.
Having led India across all three formats for a number of years, as well as his IPL commitments, MS has clearly been suffering from a work overload in recent times, seeing his Test average drop and his wicket keeping suffer.
Since 2008 Dhoni has actually clocked up the highest amount of games of any top cricketer in the world, standing at 398.
Still only 33, Dhoni retires as the most successful Indian Test captain of all time, and leaves the longest format as the fifth-highest dismissal taker behind the stumps.
Although the Indian legend was forced to sit out the last ODI series against Sri Lanka through injury, he’ll be leading a team in impressive form into the World Cup in the one-day format.
Starting with a 3-2 win in England at the start of the summer, India have gone on to beat West Indies 2-1 and Sri Lanka latterly 5-0.
Considering the Sri Lankans have finished runners-up at the last two World Cups and just saw England off 4-2 in their most recent ODI series, this bodes particularly well for India’s chances.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
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