Suresh Raina reveals tears, hugs and party in CSK camp after retiring with MS Dhoni
"I knew Dhoni would announce his retirement upon reaching Chennai, so I was ready," Raina says
ESPNcricinfo staff
17-Aug-2020
MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina get together • BCCI
There were tears, hugs and eventually partying in the Chennai Super Kings camp after MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina announced, within minutes of each other, their retirement from international cricket on August 15.
Explaining the sequence of Saturday's events to Dainik Jagaran, Raina said it was not a surprise - he said he knew Dhoni would announce his retirement that day.
"I knew Dhoni would announce his retirement upon reaching Chennai, so I was ready," Raina said. "I, Piyush Chawla, Deepak Chahar and Karn Sharma reached Ranchi on 14 August with the chartered plane, and picked up Mahi bhai and Monu Singh.
"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."
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All of them assembled in Chennai for a short preparatory camp ahead of IPL 2020 in UAE. While Dhoni and Raina haven't played competitive cricket for over a year, speculation over Dhoni's international future, in particular, started doing rounds again when the T20 World Cup scheduled for October-November was postponed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
While Dhoni's retirement announcement on Saturday may have taken many by surprise, Raina's Instagram post where he said "I choose to join you (Dhoni) in this journey" didn't directly imply retirement initially until he officially announced it on Sunday through social media and also communicated it to the BCCI.
Raina's words, however, made it clear the call was pre-planned. "We had already made up our minds to retire on Saturday (August 15)," he said. "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.
"Dhoni began his career on 23 December (2004) against Bangladesh in Chittagong, while I made my debut on 30 July (2005) against Sri Lanka. 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."