Veteran Indian fast bowler Ishant Sharma is on the verge of adding a new milestone to his glorious Test career. The Lanky Paceman is expected to play the Test against England with the pink ball, which will be his 100th match in the longest format. After this match Ishant will become the second fast bowler after the legendary Kapil Dev, who played 100 Test matches for India. Overall, the right-armer man will be the 11th Indian cricketer to appear in 100 matches in the red-ball format.

Ahead of the milestone game, Ishant was involved in a conversation with off-spinner and his partner Ravichandran Ashwin on his YouTube channel. During the chat, Ishant recalled an incident related to former Indian captain MS Dhoni. Wherein he shared that MS Dhoni, just before the match said “Lambu, you left me midway in my last match.”

Ishant shared a story from the 2014–15 Test series in Australia. It was Dhoni’s last series in the oldest format. Ishant revealed how he came to know about Dhoni’s sudden and shocking decision to retire. The right-arm fast bowler said that he was taking injections to bowl in the MCG Test as his knee was hurting.

Ishant told Ashwin –

“I felt very bad (on MS Dhoni’s retirement). I had taken many injections for that Melbourne Test match because I was experiencing severe pain in my knee. I did not know that Mahi bhai was going to retire. In fact, nobody knew that he was going to retire. So, I was taking an injection every session.”

Ishant said that when Australia was on the verge of declaring his innings, he informed MSD that he could not take any more injections, to which Dhoni replied that it was completely fine. However, minutes later, Dhoni expressed his feelings and said to Ishant that he left him alone in his last Test match.

Ishant added –

“When it was almost Tea on Day 4, and Australia were about to declare… I told Mahi bhai that I could not take injections any more. So, he told me, that’s okay. You don’t need to bowl now. Then something happened, and he told me, ‘lambu tune mujhe Test match mein chhod diya’ (you have deserted me in a Test match). I did not understand. Then he elaborated, ‘you left me midway in my last Test match.”

The Delhi player said that he told Dhoni that if he knew about retirement, he would have continued bowling in the match.

Ishant further shared –

“I was stunned. I told him if I knew, I would definitely have continued to play. So that was a really touching story. I didn’t know till the last day that he was retiring.”