MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina have started international cricket career in a gap of 6 months, Dhoni in December 2004 and Raina in July 2005. Both have been friends on the field and off the field. Both played for the same franchise in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and finally announced their retirement on the same day.
On 15 August, 74th Independence Day, MS Dhoni announced his retirement thought an Instagram post after which Suresh Raina followed his skipper footsteps and announced his retirement too.
“Dhoni began his career on 23 December 2004 against Bangladesh in Chittagong, while I made my debut on 30 July 2005 against Sri Lanka in 2005. Both of us almost began together in international cricket, remained together at CSK, and so we now retired together and will continue to play in IPL together,” he said.
Raina finally revealed the reason behind the announcing the retirement together on 15 August, he said, “We had already made up our minds to retire on Saturday. Dhoni’s jersey number is 7 and mine is 3 – put it together and it makes 73. And on August 15, India completed 73 years of independence, so there couldn’t have been a better day.”
“I knew Dhoni would announce his retirement upon reaching Chennai, so I was ready. I, Piyush Chawla, Deepak Chahar and Karn Sharma reached Ranchi on 14th with the chartered plane, and picked up Mahi Bhai and Monu Singh,” said the southpaw.
“After announcing our retirement, we hugged and cried a lot. I, Piyush, Ambati Rayudu, Kedar Jadhav and Karn sat together after that, talked about our careers and our relationship. We partied during the night.” added Suresh Raina.