Suresh Raina reveals reason behind retiring with MS Dhoni on 74th Independence Day

MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina shocked the Indian cricketing followers with their respective retirements on August 15th, India’s 74th Independence Day. Though Dhoni’s retirement was expected to come at any time, no one expected Raina to bid adieu as he was just 33 years old.

The duo is currently in Chennai for a week-long IPL 2020 preparatory camp. After the completion of the camp, the Chennai franchise will depart for UAE, where they will play the Indian Premier League, starting from 19th of September. The final will be played on November 10.

Suresh Raina reveals the actual reason behind his retirement

Speaking about the retirement on the same date, Raina revealed that they made up their minds to retire on August 15th as their jersey numbers put together make 73 (Dhoni’s jersey number is 7 and Raina’s jersey number is 3). India completed 73 years of Independence on the same day as well.

“We had already made up our minds to retire on Saturday (August 15). 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,” Raina told Dainik Jagran.

The duo began their international cricket journey almost at the same time and are still together with the Chennai-based outfit. Chinna Thala went on to add that he and MS Dhoni will continue to play the cash-rich league together.

“Dhoni began his career on 23 December 2004 against Bangladesh in Chittagong (now Chattogram), 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.”

Though Suresh Raina announced his retirement on August 15th via Instagram post, he informed the BCCI on August 16th (Sunday) officially as per the protocol. It is understood that MS Dhoni followed the protocol of informing the Indian board before announcing his retirement at 19:29 hours on Independence Day.

MS Dhoni will be remembered for his captaincy and other cricketing records. Raina is one of the few cricketers to get a century across all three formats.