Suresh Raina deserved better, retirement at 33 has come as a shock, says Aakash Chopra

Minutes after MS Dhoni sent the internet into meltdown by announcing his retirement via an Instagram post, his Chennai Super Kings teammate Suresh Raina, arguably, dropped a bigger bombshell by announcing that he, too, was bidding goodbye to international cricket. Raina, six years junior to Dhoni, represented India in 322 internationals between 2005 and 2018, with his last Indian appearance coming over two years ago in a T20I versus England.

The southpaw, post 2015, played only three ODIs - he scored a 46 at Lord’s in one of those games - and he was largely reduced to just a seasonal IPL star after having played 223 ODIs in the first 10 years of his career. Renowned commentator Aakash Chopra feels that BCCI handled Raina poorly and simply did not give him enough chances to help him resurrect his national career.

“Raina deserved better. I think Raina could have been handled a lot better. Because when he made a comeback also, in one of the three matches he scored 40-50 I think and in one match he remained not out and was dismissed early in the other match. But he did not get a chance after that,” Aakash Chopra said in his YouTube channel, reported Hindustan Times.

Dhoni’s retirement came as a shock because of the timing - unannounced, days ahead of IPL 2020 - but with Raina, people were left mortified due to the fact that he was relatively young and had unfinished business with the national side. Chopra, who interviewed the CSK star recently, said that he was taken aback by the 33-year-old’s decision and added that he was, in fact, looking forward to Raina making a case for WT20 selection in the forthcoming IPL.

“This was actually a bolt from the blue. And there are 2-3 reasons for that. Firstly, Raina is only 33 years old, so he is fairly young.

“Second thing is that we had done an interview with Suresh Raina recently in which he regularly said that he was looking forward to play for India again. He said that he was doing his best and would be scoring a lot of runs. He said that after his knee surgery he was feeling stronger and hitting the ball well.

“I was very happy because Raina is a special player and there were two T20 World Cups coming in two years, so why not Raina. Thirty-three is no age for a guy as fit as Suresh Raina. 

“And then he was posting videos on Instagram etc where he was regularly practicing and putting lot of effort. When you see someone putting so much effort, you feel that it is going to happen. In fact, the only thing I was looking forward to was him playing for CSK and scoring a lot of runs and forcing the selectors to pick him,” said the former opener.

Raina, like Dhoni, is currently in Chennai with the rest of the CSK team and will be vying to hand his side their fourth IPL title in the forthcoming season of the T20 extravaganza.