‘Haven’t yet asked Dhoni why I was dropped’ India batsman on his axing

Tiwary scored a match-winning unbeaten 104 against West Indies in December 2011 in Chennai, was subsequently dropped from the team.

Manoj Tiwary has said that he is yet to ask MS Dhoni why he was dropped from India’s Playing XI a match after scoring his maiden ODI century for the team.

Manoj Tiwary has played 12 ODIs for India (Instagram)

Tiwary belongs to a rare group of batsmen who was dropped from the Playing XI after a scoring a century in the previous match. After making his India debut in 2008, Tiwary scored a match-winning unbeaten 104 against West Indies in December 2011 in Chennai, was subsequently dropped from the team and did not play the next 14 games.

“I never thought that after scoring a 100 for my country, getting a Man of the Match Award, I will not find a place in the playing XI for the next 14 games. But I also do respect the fact that the captain and the coach or the management had some other ideas as well because we as players have to respect whatever they were thinking at that point of time, maybe they thought otherwise,” Tiwary said in a video interview published on the FanCode App.

The next time Tiwary would get the opportunity to play for India was after eight months, when India toured Sri Lanka in August of 2012. The batsman scored 21 in the fourth ODI and followed it with a half-century before he was again sidelined for two years. One match later, Tiwary was out of reckoning again and the three ODI series in Zimbabwe in 2015 was his last for India.

“I’ve obviously thought about asking him in the future,” Tiwary added. “I never got the opportunity, or you say courage, at that point of time to go and ask Mahi, our captain during that time, because we respect our seniors so much that we tend to hold ourselves back on questioning a few things. So, I haven’t questioned him yet.”