Soon after his retirement from domestic cricket, Bengal’s Manoj Tiwary has opened up his heart in asking former India captain MS Dhoni why he was dropped from the ODI playing XI despite scoring a century in 2011.
The 38-year-old Manoj Tiwary played his last domestic game last week. He retires with 10195 first-class runs at an average of 47 and 5581 List-A runs at an average of 42. However, a domestic legend, Tiwary featured in only 12 ODIs and 3 T20Is for India, spread between 2008 and 2015.
In December 2011 in an ODI in Chennai against the West Indies, Manoj Tiwary played a match-winning knock of 104 runs and was Man of the Match. However, he didn’t get to play another ODI match for the next seven months. Even then he hit a fifty in Sri Lanka.
Then, despite these performances, Tiwary was dropped from the Indian team for the next two years. When recalled in 2014, he couldn’t do much in only four chances and was dropped again, never to be picked this time.
I had the potential to be a hero just like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli: Manoj Tiwary
Now retired, he spoke with News18, giving his views that he had the potential akin to the likes of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, both of whom were given significant backing from MS Dhoni.
Manoj Tiwary said, “I would like to ask Dhoni why was I dropped from the playing XI in 2011 after scoring the century?”
“I had the potential to be a hero just like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli but could not be. Today, when I see many people getting more opportunities on TV, I feel sad.”
Manoj Tiwary did have his moment in the limelight when he hit he winning runs against MS Dhoni’s CSK in the 2012 IPL final, in Chennai.
