MS Dhoni’s No. 7 jersey retired by BCCI as a tribute to the player: Report

MS Dhoni made the No. 7 jersey iconic while playing for India and as a tribute to the player, BCCI has decided to retire the ‘number’, it was reported on Friday. This will be the second ‘number’ that BCCI will be retiring after they did the same in 2017 with Sachin Tendulkar’s iconic No. 10 jersey.

The BCCI has informed the players in the Indian cricket team that they cannot take jersey numbers 7 or 10, a report in Indian Express said.

“The young players and current Indian team players have been told not to pick M S Dhoni’s Number 7 jersey. The BCCI has decided to retire Dhoni’s T-shirt for his contribution to the game. A new player can’t get No. 7, and No. 10 was already off the list of available numbers,” a senior BCCI official told Indian Express.

Dhoni is the only captain in world cricket to win all three ICC trophies in white-ball cricket. He led India to a T20 World Cup win in 2007 followed by ODI World Cup win in 2011. India won the Champions Trophy in 2013 under Dhoni’s leadership.

He retired from international cricket in 2020.

The decision to retire the No. 7 jersey, however, will limit the options for young players coming into the team. The ICC allows players to pick numbers between 1 to 100, but with most of the numbers already allotted to current players in the team and those in contention, the pool is considerably small. The daily reported that Yashasvi Jaiswal while making his debut in the West Indies wanted to have jersey number 19 which he also wears in IPL for Rajasthan Royals, but because it was with Dinesh Karthik, who has been out of the team for a while but nor retired, the RR opener went for No. 64.

“At present, 60-odd numbers are designated to the regulars in the Indian team and those in contention. So even if a player is out of the team for about a year or so, we don’t give away his number to a new player. That means a recent debutant has just 30-odd numbers to choose from,” a BCCI official said.