Why Dhoni and Raina retired on August 15?

Mahendra Singh Dhoni's sudden decision to retire from international cricket on Saturday, August 15, left many surprised.

Equally puzzling was team-mate and longtime friend Suresh Raina's decision to join him in retirement.

Raina revealed that there was a special reason behind the duo's decision to retire together on India's 73rd Independence Day.

'Dhoni's jersey is number 7 and my jersey's number 3 is 73 together. On Saturday, when 73 years of India's independence was completed, we thought that there could be no better day to leave international cricket,' Raina was quoted as saying by Dainik Jagran on Monday.

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Dhoni and Raina, who are both part of the Chennai Super Kings, will be seen in action in the Indian Premier League next month.

The left-hander revealed that he knew beforehand that Dhoni would be announcing his retirement upon arrival in Chennai where the CSK players had gathered for their IPL training camp.

'I knew Mahi bhai was coming to Chennai to announce his retirement, then I also prepared myself completely. I reached Ranchi on 14 August from CSK's chartered plane with Piyush Chawla, Deepak Chahar and Karn Sharma. Mahi bhai and Monu Singh joined us from there. We all reached Chennai.'

'On 15 we announced our retirement. After this, we embraced and cried together and partied a lot at night.'

On being asked how the CSK players reacted after their retirement, Raina said, 'Both of us, Piyush Chawla, Ambati Rayudu, Kedar Jadhav and Karn Sharma, we all sat together. We had a lot of fun, we talked about what was best in our career, how we spent time together.'

'Everyone has to go through this today or tomorrow. We don't want anything, we just want respect."='