Sourav Ganguly took charge as the President of the BCCI

Indeed. While Dhoni was isolating himself from the sport of cricket, one cricketer who, instead, thrust himself into the limelight was England’s Jofra Archer. From donning the English whites for the first time to setting the Ashes alight by flooring Steve Smith to then bearing the brunt of angry supporters who have continued to call him ‘lazy’, all the events in Archer’s thus-far-rollercoaster Test career have unfolded after Dhoni went AWOL. 

At the time of Dhoni’s last Indian appearance, Rishabh Pant was the darling of Indian cricket who was seen as the country’s saviour, while KL Rahul was a fifth wheel who the fans so desperately wanted to weed out. Fast forward a year, Rahul is a demigod who the fans want to voluntarily worship, while Pant, the fans think, is a moocher who they’ve had enough of. 

Zimbabwe were banned from international cricket and reinstated

Marnus Labuschagne transformed from Bangar to Bradman

When MS Dhoni last played a game of cricket, Marnus Labuschagne was a weird-named kid who was given a few charity Test caps by Australia. Now, the same ‘loose-bus-change’ is the third-best Test batsman in the world who averages 63.43 in Test cricket and is the second second-coming of Bradman after Steve Smith. 

This might just be the most significant event to have happened during Dhoni’s hibernation. Test cricket returned to Pakistan for the first time since 2009 and, almost poetically, it was Sri Lanka, who incidentally were the last team to play a Test in Pakistan, who broke the duck. 

Shakib Al Hasan was banned by the ICC

Hardik Pandya underwent surgery, took five months off and came back

Hardik Pandya gave Dhoni a run for his money in the last 365 days - he only played two professional matches. However, in the meantime, though, he underwent back surgery, took four months off for rehab, came back and killed it in the DY Patil T20 tournament. In fact, Jasprit Bumrah, too, played a handful of matches post the World Cup, sustained a stress fracture, successfully recovered from it and came back and played some 15-20 international games. 

That is right. A year or so ago, Dhoni coming out of retirement from Test cricket to play a home series against Sri Lanka looked more likely than India playing a day/night Test, but somehow, thanks to Ganguly, the ‘dream’ became a reality. What’s better and even crazier is that they have even agreed to take the Aussies on in a day/night Test later this year. 

Wasim Jaffer played a season of Ranji, announced his retirement and became a coach

Sreesanth’s life-ban was lifted by the BCCI

In August 2019, the BCCI announced that they were lifting Sreesanth’s life ban and were instead turning it into a seven-year sentence. What that effectively means is that he will now be eligible for national selection as early as September 2020. As things stand, it won’t be surprising to see Sreesanth play a game of professional cricket, this year, before Dhoni - how crazy is that? 

Four days after denying India a chance to lift the World Cup title, New Zealand went ahead and lost the World Cup Final to England after scoring fewer boundaries than their opponents. The excessive outcry over the rule - which many deemed unfair (mainly because they couldn’t digest England winning) - meant that the ICC eventually scrapped it and announced that a tied Super Over will lead to another Super Over. And oh, after the rule change, New Zealand lost ANOTHER Super Over to England. This time, though, they lost the game outrightly, meaning they had nothing to complain or whine about. 

Australia dethroned India as the number one Test side in the world

Women’s cricket hit new, unprecedented heights

The ICC Women’s World T20 in 2020 became one of the most successful women’s sporting events of all time and the final between India and Australia at the MCG was attended by a staggering 86,174 people. Such was the unprecedented success that it has forced BCCI to think about potentially introducing a Women’s IPL within the next three years. 

Just days after Dhoni’s last appearance for India, the ICC approved the usage of concussion substitutes - a rule in which a player who is ‘concussed’ can be replaced in the match by a like-for-like replacement. The man who we already spoke about, Marnus Labuschange, incidentally, happened to be the first-ever concussion substitute in the game’s history. 

The use of saliva is no longer legal; spectators are a thing of the past

And, finally, on a completely unrelated note, Liverpool won the league title for the first time in 30 years. 

It is fair to say that when MS Dhoni decides to end his hibernation, he would be stepping foot on to a completely different world - in every literal sense.