Manoj Tiwary, a former Indian cricketer and Bengal icon, has indicated that he would want to ask MS Dhoni why he was discarded after making a century in a one-day international. At 38, he confidently stated he could match the abilities of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. However, he expressed regret about not getting enough major opportunities.
Tiwary opted to retire after a successful domestic career in which he played 148 first-class matches and scored 10,195 runs at an average of 47.86. While he had a remarkable career for Bengal, the right-handed hitter only appeared in 12 One-Day Internationals for India, hitting 287 runs, with a high of 104* against the West Indies in Chennai.
PTI cited Tiwary as stating on the occasion of his felicitation at the Calcutta Sports Journalists’ Club in Kolkata:
“I would like to ask Dhoni why was I dropped from the playing XI in 2011 after scoring a century? I had the potential to be a hero just like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli but could not be. Today, when I see many people getting more opportunities on TV, I feel sad.”
Manoj Tiwary
In light of Tiwary’s revelation, we look at three previous Indian cricketers who made contentious remarks about MS Dhoni after retiring.
1. Harbhajan Singh
Harbhajan Singh, a former India off-spinner, has made his anger with MS Dhoni’s treatment of him after the 2011 World Cup quite obvious. The cricketer withdrew from all aspects of the sport in December 2021. Just a few days after retiring, he expressed his anger at not being given a reason for being pulled from the Indian squad.
“I was 31 when I picked up my 400th Test wicket, and if a 31-year-old can pick up 400 wickets, then in the next eight-nine years, I feel I could have taken at least a hundred more. But after that, I didn’t get to play matches; neither was I selected. How can someone with 400 wickets be discarded is a mysterious story in itself, which hasn’t been unraveled yet. I still wonder, ‘What really happened? Who had a problem with me staying in the team?”
“I tried to ask the captain [Dhoni] why, but I wasn’t given a reason. I realized there is no point in me asking for the reason for this treatment, and who is behind it because if you keep asking and no one replies, then it’s better to leave it.”
Harbhajan Singh
Harbhajan played 103 Tests, 236 ODIs, and 28 T20Is, taking 711 international wickets. His final match for India was a T20I against the UAE at Mirpur during the 2016 Asia Cup.
2. Gautam Gambhir
Gautam Gambhir, a former India opener, has been a vociferous critic of MS Dhoni in the years after his retirement. He has made no bones about his belief that the latter has received far more credit than he deserves for the 2007 and 2011 World Cup victories. According to Gambhir, players like Yuvraj Singh have not received their fair share of recognition, despite MSD’s successes.
Without mentioning MS Dhoni, Gambhir told News18 in 2023 that one person and his public relations staff continuously telling everyone who won India’s World Cups in 2007 and 2011.
“It’s unfortunate that when we talk about the 2007 and 2011 World Cups, we don’t take Yuvraj Singh’s name. Why not? It’s only and only marketing and PR and portraying one individual as the biggest and everyone else as smaller than him.”
“No one is underrated, it’s all PR and marketing. We have been told who won us the 2007 and 2011 World Cups [but] it was not one individual it was the entire team. No one individual can win a big tournament. If that was the case, India would’ve had 5-10 World Cups.”
Gautam Gambhir
Gambhir, incidentally, was Team India’s highest scorer in both the 2007 and 2011 World Cup finals.
3. Virender Sehwag
A big dispute erupted in 2012 in Indian cricket. Virender Sehwag publicly disputed Dhoni’s rotation approach during the CB series in Australia. He challenged the captain’s argument. This debate was about experienced players, mainly Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar and Gambhir. MS Dhoni’s argument was about rotating these slow fielder players, stating it could save their team 20 runs.
Later, the apparent feud between Sehwag and MS Dhoni was supposedly resolved. The dispute was resurrected in 2020, when the former alleged that MS Dhoni did not discuss the slow fielding issue with superiors and instead complained about it in the media.
“When MS Dhoni said in Australia that the top three are slow fielders, we were never asked or consulted. We got to know from the media. He said at the press conference but not at the team meeting that we are slow fielders. Talk at the team meeting was that we need to play Rohit Sharma, who is new, and that’s why there will be rotation policy. If the same is happening now, that’s wrong.”
Virender Sehwag
Virender Sehwag announced his retirement in October 2015. He scored 8,586 runs in 104 Tests, averaging 49.34. In ODIs, he scored 8,273 runs in 251 matches, average 35.05.