Former Indian batter Suresh Raina in a recent interview said that he played for then captain MS Dhoni first and then for India. The southpaw was a crucial part of the Dhoni-led 2011 ICC World Cup winning team as well as the 2013 Champions Trophy team. He has also won four IPL trophies with Chennai Super Kings under the captaincy of Dhoni. Talking to Sports Tak, Raina said, “We played so many matches together. I was fortunate to play with him for India, and with CSK. We got a lot of love. I've come from Ghaziabad, Dhoni from Ranchi. I played for MS Dhoni, then I played for the country. That's the connection. We've played so many finals, we won the World Cup. He's a great leader and a great human being,” Raina announced his international retirement after Dhoni on the same day. The gutsy left-hander has scored 7988 international runs in 322 matches at an average of 32.87. Suresh Raina has announced his retirement from all forms of cricket!He is India’s only centurion in ICC Men’s @T20WorldCup history 🙌Relive the brilliant knock from the 2010 edition 📽️— ICC (@ICC) September 6, 2022 Earlier in the week speaking about the upcoming Border Gavaskar Trophy, Raina said “I have played practice matches (ahead of Tests) and they are really important. They (Australia) can understand the quality of pitches in India only if they play on them,” Raina is confident that India will do well in the four-Test series and Ravindra Jadeja’s comeback will add fine balance to the squad. “I am happy with Jadeja’s comeback after a long time,” he said. “Our spinners R Ashwin, Axar Patel are doing well. Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have been in good form and I think we will get to watch an interesting series in the coming days.” While visiting teams are always welcomed on rank turners during Test matches in the sub-continent, Raina would like to see a track that would hold on for five days.
