New Delhi: Suresh Raina and his mentor Mahendra Singh Dhoni announced their retirement from international cricket on Saturday (August 15) on the occasion of Holy Independence Day. “I chose to join you on the trip,” Raina said after posting a photo of herself sitting with her (Dhoni) and a Chennai Super Kings team mate, after Dhoni first stunned the countrymen with his two-line Instagram post. But was it a spontaneous decision? Did someone follow the older brother’s path? Or have both Raina and Dhoni discussed their retirement in the past? This created a lot of questions. However, Raina has answered all these questions.
Raina recently revealed that we had already decided to retire just before we arrived in Chennai to attend the IPL4 camp last Friday. I knew that Dhoni could announce his retirement as soon as he arrived in Chennai. “That’s why I’m ready,” Raina said. We decided to retire on August 15. Mahi’s brother’s jersey number is 4 and mine is 3 and the number of both is 43. Saturday marked the 43rd anniversary of our country’s independence. “In view of the number of connections, August 15 is the best day to announce retirement,” Raina said. And that evening everything went according to plan. Chennai Super Kings’ Twitter handle posted a video. Both players were announcing their retirement and Raina was seen embracing the sadistic Dhoni. In a similar vein, the two of them boarded a party bus after a practice session. We both cried a lot when we announced our retirement. Piyush Chawla, Ambati Rayudu, Kedar Yadav and Kan Sharma then sat down together to discuss our careers and relationships. “We finally had a party at night,” Raina said.
