The Aussie journalist who Dhoni mocked has something to say

Samuel Ferris, the Australian scribe, who found himself at the wrong end of Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni's fire on Thursday (March 31), after India's loss to the West Indies in the World T20 semi-final, has written to clarify his stand, and it's difficult to disagree with him.

Ferris asked Dhoni if he wanted to continue playing after the World T20. "I thought it was a pretty standard question to be fair," Ferris wrote. And a pretty standard question it indeed was. Why does Dhoni get so ruffled when asked uncomfortable questions, especially concerning his retirement plans these days? Does he acknowledge the end is nigh?

"When Dhoni shocked the world with his Test retirement out of nowhere after the 2014 Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), it caught everybody off guard. With that in mind, I was sure he would get asked again if he was going to retire from limited overs cricket," Ferris wrote.

Also read: Stop mocking the media, Dhoni. The joke's on you now

"I even prefaced it with 'You've achieved pretty much everything in cricket' to soften the blow," he added. As Ferris very rightly pointed out, Dhoni has achieved nearly everything that is to be achieved in limited overs international cricket - ODIs or T20s. He had led his team to the World T20 crown in 2007, the 50-overs World Cup title in 2011 and also the Champions Trophy in 2013.

What more has he to achieve? And is he contributing a lot as a captain? Not with the way he led the team on Thursday (Virat Kohli bowling the last over in the semi-final of a world event!). So a question on whether he wanted to step down as captain, even if not one on his retirement, was totally warranted.

And Ferris said that in case none of the Indian press pack was going to ask, he was ready with the question. Little did he realise that the Indian limited overs captain just goes bonkers when asked questions on his retirement. It is like showing a red rag to a raging bull. Even if Ferris would have asked only about Dhoni relinquishing captaincy, it may have elicited a similar response from the Indian captain. Of late, he has been taking these questions a bit too personally.

"What I thought was a fairly routine question for a 34-year-old skipper just eliminated from the World T20 turned me into an unwitting media spectacle," lamented Ferris, and you can't help but feel for him. All he was trying to do was his duty as a media person.

Dhoni could have replied calmly that he still had it in him to "survive till the 2019 World Cup". But no, he chose to humiliate his interviewer publicly. Totally unparliamentary from a major public figure like the skipper of the Indian cricket team.

Also read: Why Dhoni, the Captain Cool, shouldn't lose his cool, even with the media

"You fired the wrong ammunition at the wrong time," Dhoni told Ferris.

"Word has it Dhoni hates that question and was ready to pounce on an Indian journalist who was going to ask it. Even though I fired the wrong ammunition, it seems I took a bullet for my Indian colleagues," wrote Ferris.

The Australian scribe deserves salutes for showing guts, when his Indian collegues unfortunately chose to stay silent.

Read Ferris' full article here.