While the Indian cricketing fraternity is clueless with regard to M.S. Dhoni’s future plans, the chairman of the senior national selection committee M.S.K. Prasad, when asked if the former India captain would be in the scheme of things for the 2020 T20 World Cup, said: “He is unavailable for this (West Indies) series. He has expressed it. Having said that, we had a certain roadmap and plans till the ICC World Cup (in England).
Grooming Pant
“Post the World Cup, we have laid down few more plans and we thought of giving as many opportunities as possible to Rishabh Pant to groom him. This is our plan right now. Pant is going to play in all three formats. Definitely (Wriddhiman) Saha and K.S Bharat will come into the picture at some point in time.”
Prasad admitted he had spoken to Dhoni. When asked if he and the committee would have picked Dhoni if he had made himself available, Prasad said: “I cannot answer that question, it’s up to him. When he is available, we will look at it.”
There were two more questions around Dhoni. One was if he (Prasad) was surprised Dhoni didn’t announce his retirement after World Cup and two about Dhoni’s strike rate at the World Cup.
“Retirement is purely individual. A legendary cricketer like Dhoni knows when to retire. But what is the future course of action, what is the road map is in the hands of the selection committee.
“I don’t think we need to discuss (the strike rate). First of all, he is not available and secondly we have already started grooming some youngsters.”
Has Prasad given sufficient hints that Indian cricket will move without Dhoni ?
