Truthful Tuesday | BCCI should stop retiring jerseys, starting with MS Dhoni’s No.7
The BCCI have been involved in a lot of episodes on our weekly edition of Truthful Tuesday but nothing more trivial than this edition’s, where we are strongly against BCCI retiring the No.7 jersey, made famous in the Indian cricketing history by none other than Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
As simple as it is, the trend of retiring a jersey often in the western terms is in line to respecting the player’s achievements and displaying their success in the hall of fame. In basketball, several franchises have retired jerseys, including Wilt Chamberlain, whose jersey number 13 has been retired by three different franchises, Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, and the Philadelphia 76ers.
The practice, long-established in all the major North American leagues and sports, found its place even in European football, where clubs have decided to retire jersey numbers of their club legends. In the first of its kind, Pele’s No.10 jersey was retired by New York Cosmos, an American professional football club based out of New York in 1977, still remaining an American thing. However, soon after, it found its way into European football, with Inter Milan retiring the No.4 jersey, previously worn by Javier Zanetti. But, here is the catch - thus far and even in the future, it will only be restricted to club-level and can never be extended to a national level, as BCCI have done.
Imagine this, if the Argentina Football Association had indeed decided to do away with the No.10 jersey, which was worn by their legend, Diego Maradona, what would have happened? Remove the part that it is not legal in football to do that but even from a logical point of view, you wouldn’t have got a young Lionel Messi wanting to don that famous jersey and would have always remained #19 and not one of the greatest tens in football history.
BCCI first established in 2017 that they are retiring the jersey No.10 after Shardul Thakur opted to wear the number during the series against Sri Lanka. That led to widespread criticism on social media, with people trolling the pacer for what was none of his goddamn-fault. The fault is yours, you, Indian fans for enforcing a club-level thing and taking it to the international level without understanding its importance and significance in history.
As a rookie, Thakur, who had grown up watching Tendulkar score centuries after centuries, would have been itching his hands to live up to the Indian legend, just like Messi did. But as it turned out, fate had it elsewhere cause BCCI goddamn retired the No.10 jersey, taking away the dream of many young Indian cricketers. In football, several jersey numbers, like 7,8,6 and 10 have all been significant to the player’s position on the pitch. As No.1, he is the first-choice goalkeeper for the club and vice-versa. But such a concept only started existing after nearly a hundred years of football.
Cricket isn’t nearly historic and numbers on the back of the jersey have only been the thing since the sport became fully-coloured, on the back of the new age for the sport. Since cricket started existing, several cricketers have breezed and left an impact on the sport, such as Sunil Gavaskar, Vivian Richards and Clive Llyod. However, none of them lived in an era where there were numbers behind their jerseys and subsequently, none of their jersey numbers was retired but does that mean that their contribution was not significant? Exactly not!
Their contribution was huge in shaping the way the game was played but it existed in a pre-social media era where the concept of retiring a jersey never existed, for a good reason. Just because Sachin donned the #10 jersey for a long time, it does not mean an International team retires the jersey, and if that is the case, why was the host of other players - Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman’s jersey left untouched? Didn’t they leave an impression on the Indian team? That’s not how it works, as BCCI have misunderstood it, big time.
Yes, MS Dhoni’s impact might be extreme - winning three ICC titles but that does not force the BCCI to retire the jersey, especially given that having such a significant number would only incredibly help the youngsters growing up to work towards it. Every young keeper in the country would strive for that one jersey, which they could potentially take over. In cricket, additionally, there is no concept of a hall-of-fame at the national level, given that the games don’t happen in one international venue. Jerseys should only and only be retired if the cricketer has become larger than the game.
In the past, Wayne Gretzky, who has been considered as one of the greatest players in ice hockey, has his jersey retired, for the right reason. But he was larger-than-the-game, with his statistics still being considered as the greatest to have ever-be-seen. BCCI took the wrong step as they retired Sachin’s jersey of No.10, which ultimately led to the fans wanting them to do it once again with Dhoni. If BCCI does retire the No.7 jersey, it would only set a negative example for the future years, as fans would definitely want Virat Kohli’s 18 and Rohit Sharma’s 45 to be retired in future.
Given that it will lead to an increasing prospect of every number in the country being retired, it only sets an example that is unwarranted and BCCI right now has a chance to wipe the slate clean, allow youngsters to live the dream of wearing their favourite jersey number. The Indian cricket board might have been on the wrong end and side of things but here, there is a unique opportunity in play, and even Dhoni would want the board to not retire his jersey number, as cricket is more than just jersey numbers.
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