MS Dhoni's Enduring Legacy in Indian Cricket
MS Dhoni’s shadow still stretches long over Indian cricket. Nine years after he handed the captaincy to Virat Kohli and six years since he walked away from international cricket, his era still feels definitive. T20 World Cup, tick. Champions Trophy, tick. No. 1 Test ranking for the first time, tick. The 50-over World Cup after 28 years, the one that still defines a generation, tick. India haven’t lifted it again since 2011.
Dhoni’s time was about more than trophies. It was about a ruthless reset. Big names were moved on. New faces were trusted. Virat Kohli emerged as the heartbeat of the batting line-up. Rohit Sharma, once an underused talent, reinvented himself as an opener. Yuvraj Singh burned brightest between 2007 and 2011. Suresh Raina became the quintessential No. 7 match-winner. Shikhar Dhawan walked into Test cricket with a record-breaking debut as an opener.
Then came the handover. Dhoni stepped aside, Kohli stepped in, and Indian cricket’s tone changed again.
The Kohli Shift
Under Kohli, the comfort zone disappeared. Fitness wasn’t a buzzword; it was a filter. The Yo-Yo test arrived and quickly became a non-negotiable. Reputation no longer guaranteed selection. Players who had been central to the dressing room at the start of 2017 had vanished from the World Cup squad by 2019.
Raina was one of the casualties.
By the time India reached England for the 2019 World Cup, the side looked nothing like the one Raina had grown up in. KL Rahul had slotted into the middle order. Ravindra Jadeja and Hardik Pandya were established all-rounders. The No. 4 slot remained a puzzle, with Ambati Rayudu and then Vijay Shankar tried as solutions. Raina, despite his past, was out of the picture.
In a conversation with Aakash Chopra, Raina opened up on how he realised his India career was over. He retired on August 15, 2020, just hours after Dhoni’s own farewell post, at only 33. The decision, he said, followed talks with Kohli and former coaches Anil Kumble and Ravi Shastri that made it clear he was no longer part of the plan.
How It Unravelled for Raina
“See, every captain has his own team. He obviously feels someone else is better. Yuvraj Singh and I failed the Yo-Yo test, but we cleared it. We played a lot of domestic too. Scored a lot of runs. I did speak to Anil bhai (then the coach), and he told me there were certain things I needed to do. I was named Player of the Tournament in South Africa in T20Is. But in the 2019 World Cup, a different batter was preferred for England. A different keeper went there too. Back then, I felt that I could have done better,” Raina said.
Then came the part that stings more than any statistic.
“Players expect respect. The communication could have been better, such as what are the selectors thinking? What message is being given to them by them? But that’s not in our control. I asked plenty of questions, but didn’t get any answers. I spoke to both the captain and the coaches. But they did what they felt was right.”
On the field, the slide had already begun. Raina, electric and fearless until the 2015 World Cup, saw his returns dip sharply. Bowlers targeted him with pace and short-pitched bowling, and on quick surfaces, the weakness became glaring. Injuries kept cutting into his rhythm. From 2016 onwards, he featured in only three ODIs.
He still found a place in T20Is, playing 32 matches in that period. The numbers, though, were modest for a player fighting to stay relevant: 622 runs from 22 innings, an average of 25, a strike-rate of 135, and just two fifties. The impact wasn’t enough to silence doubts.
Even one of his own claims from that period doesn’t quite stand up to the record. Raina recalled being named Player of the Tournament in South Africa in T20Is. That honour actually went to Bhuvneshwar Kumar for his seven wickets in the series. Raina did walk away with the Player of the Match award in the third T20I, after a brisk 43 off 27 balls and figures of 1/27. Those matches, along with the limited-overs games in England a few months later, turned out to be his final appearances for India.
Domestic Fightback, Limited Reward
Raina insists he went back to domestic cricket and piled on the runs. The numbers tell a more nuanced story.
In 2017, across the Duleep Trophy and Ranji Trophy, he scored 243 runs in 13 innings. An average of 18.69, with just one fifty, hardly screamed national recall. The following year, he did respond. Across the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Vijay Hazare Trophy, Deodhar Trophy and Ranji Trophy in 2018, he scored 769 runs in 24 innings at 36.62, with one century and seven fifties. Respectable, competitive, but not irresistible for a player trying to force his way back into a top-heavy Indian middle order.
The Vijay Hazare Trophy brought his best returns that season: 208 runs in six innings at 41.60, with three half-centuries. It was a reminder of the old Raina, but not enough to alter the selectors’ trajectory.
For a man chasing a second act with India, those numbers fell short.
Legacy of a Cut-Short Career
Strip away the frustration of the final years, and Raina’s body of work still stands tall. He entered the Indian set-up in the turbulent Rahul Dravid–Greg Chappell phase and carved out a space for himself in a crowded middle order. He became the first Indian batter to score centuries in all three formats. In the 2011 World Cup, his cameos under pressure – especially in the knockouts – proved decisive. In the field, he helped drag India’s standards into a new era, throwing himself around in the ring and at backward point long before such intensity became the norm.
Yet as India evolved under Kohli, with younger, fitter, multi-dimensional cricketers emerging, the game moved on faster than Raina could adjust. The player who once symbolised the future suddenly found himself part of the past.
His story sits at the fault line where sentiment meets selection, where legacy collides with the brutal pace of modern cricket.
