The number 7 jersey of two-time World Cup-winning captain MS Dhoni will no longer be available to any other Indian cricketer. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has decided to retire it.
BCCI took this decision about 3 years after Dhoni's international retirement. According to the report of Indian Express, BCCI said that Dhoni has decided to retire the number which he had worn on his t-shirt throughout his career.
Dhoni had decided to retire from the international format on 15 August 2020. He had retired from Test in 2014 itself. Dhoni is the second Indian cricketer to receive such an honour. Before this, the only other cricketer is Sachin Tendulkar. In the year 2017, Sachin Tendulkar's number 10 jersey was also retired forever.
This report states that Dhoni's number 7 jersey will not be worn by any other Indian cricketer. Three years after Dhoni's retirement as an international cricketer, it has been decided to retire his jersey number as a tribute to his contribution to the game.
According to the report, a BCCI official said that Team India players, especially the debutants, have been told that they cannot choose the numbers related to Tendulkar and Dhoni. The board has decided to retire the T-shirt in recognition of his contribution to the game. A new debutant cannot get number 7, and number 10 is already out of the list of available numbers.
Dhoni was born in Ranchi, Jharkhand (then Bihar). Under his captaincy, Dhoni has made the country win the T-20 in 2007 and the ODI World Cup in 2011, besides the Champions Trophy in 2013. He took retirement from Test cricket in December 2014.
Dhoni has played 90 Tests, 350 ODIs and 98 T20s. In this he has scored 4876, 10773 and 1617 runs. Dhoni has scored 4432 runs in 190 matches so far in IPL. Under his captaincy, CSK won the IPL title twice in a row in 2010 and 2011.
There is a long tradition in the game of retiring the jersey numbers of legendary players. No player in the Italian Football League Serie A club Napoli wears number 10, because this number was worn by Diego Maradona. Maradona single-handedly won the league title in 1987 and 1990.
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