Veteran spinner E. A. S. Prasanna on Tuesday termed Indian cricket team skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni's decision to retire from Test cricket as surprising, but added that he had done a great job for Indian cricket.
"No doubt this is a sort of a surprise decision to know about it, because we have just one more Test to go in Australia. He must have deliberated on this much before he took on this tour, because of the fact, that many times earlier, sometime in 2012 or 2011, he had hinted about quitting......," he told ANI here.
Praising Dhoni for building the team, Prasanna compared him to former cricketing greats Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi and Sourav Ganguly.
"Lot of credit has to go to Dhoni, where, he like Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, I think he built a team too, like Sourav Ganguly he did during his captaincy. During his captaincy, I think he brought a lot of the cultural change to the Indian cricket, lot of competitiveness, playing the game the hard way and togetherness which is very very important.... He has done a great job," he said.
He however, hoped that it would have been better had Dhoni retired from Test cricket while acting as a guide during the last Test match in Australia along with Virat Kohli.
"He is a highly principled man, highly committed and a dedicated person. It was nice to have a person like that when things were not that good for Indian cricket. Now that he has retired I would have been happier if he had stepped aside and asked Virat Kohli to lead the final Test and be there as a guiding factor for him during the final Test in Australia," he added.
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Dhoni, who led India to the number one position in the Test rankings, has chosen to retire from Test Cricket with immediate effect in order to concentrate on ODI and T20 formats.
Releasing a statement, BCCI thanked Dhoni for his enormous contribution to Test Cricket and the laurels that he has brought to India.
Virat Kohli will be the captain of the Indian Team for the Fourth and Final Test against Australia to be played in Sydney from the 6th of January 2015.
