When Irrfan Khan shielded MS Dhoni from criticism after defeat against England

On Wednesday, April 29, Irrfan Khan, the veteran Bollywood actor passed away at a Mumbai hospital after a colon infection. Only a few days ago, his mother embraced the heavens and now it was Irrfan’s turn to bid goodbye to Mother Earth. In his career, Khan churned out a number of classics, including Maqbool, Hindi Medium, Life of Pi and plenty more.

Apart from his prowess on  the silver-screen, Khan was an ardent follower of the game of cricket as well. He had the privilege of watching cricket matches even at the iconic Lord’s Cricket Ground in  London. He penned down a letter back in 2018, mentioning about ‘the mecca of his childhood dream’ Lord’s stadium and a poster of a smiling Vivian Richards’.

Irrfan Khan supported Dhoni

He mentioned how he was drained and listless while entering the venue, opposite to his hospital. Recently, his love for cricket was also seen in his tweet for MS Dhoni, which was put back in 2012. Back then, England toured India for a four-match Test series and beat the hosts 2-1 with triumphs in Mumbai and Kolkata.

Khan felt that people will now be making Dhoni a scapegoat. He took to Twitter and wrote, “Now they’ll find the scapegoat, and that would be dhoni.” India started the series with a nine-wicket victory, but lost momentum. Dhoni had a tough time as well, scoring only 191 runs from six innings at an average of 31.83.

Here is Irrfan Khan’s tweet

Now they'll find the scape goat and that would be dhoni.

— Irrfan (@irrfank) December 7, 2012

After a couple of years, Dhoni retired from Test cricket midway through the series against Australia. From there on, Virat Kohli became the full-time Test skipper. In the meantime, Dhoni kept weaving magic in ODI and T20I cricket. He went on to play the 2015 and 2019 edition of the World Cup. He is also the only captain to have won all the limited-over ICC tournaments.

However, since the mega event in 2019, he hasn’t played any cricket. In July, he will be turning 39 and he hasn’t gotten much cricket left ahead of him. He was set to play in the 2020 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), but that has now been postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak.