(Decisions That Left a Mark on Indian Cricket )Former Indian captain MS Dhoni is seen as one of the world’s best cricket leaders. Under his captaincy, Team India achieved historic wins, including the 2007 T20 World Cup, 2011 ODI World Cup, and 2013 Champions Trophy. Dhoni’s smart decisions were key to these victories. In 2009, he also led India to become the top-ranked Test team. Dhoni captained India in 200 ODIs, winning 110 and losing 74. His decisions have had a lasting impact on Indian cricket. Here, we highlight five of Dhoni’s best choices that helped transform the team and shape its success.
5. The thinking of T20 cricket in India has completely changed
When Mahendra Singh Dhoni became the captain of Team India for the T20 World Cup in 2007, he was very young and leading a team full of young players. Famous players like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, and Rahul Dravid were not in the squad.
Despite this, Dhoni did a fantastic job as captain. He led India to victories over strong teams like Pakistan, England, South Africa, and Australia. In the final match against Pakistan, India won by just 5 runs.
In 2008, the Indian Premier League began, and Chennai Super Kings made Dhoni their captain.
4. Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid were dropped from the 2007-08 CB series
For a long time, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly have been one of the important players of Team India’s ODI team. However, in the ODI World Cup 2007, Team India performed disappointingly under the captaincy of Rahul Dravid, after which he resigned from the post of captain.
When Dhoni was appointed the captain of the team, his eyes were on the ODI World Cup 2011. Dhoni appealed to the board that he needed young and fit players. After this, Dhoni dropped Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid from the Indian team of the 2007-08 CB series played in Australia. Young players like Rohit Sharma got a chance to play in this important event and Team India also won this tournament.
3. Rohit Sharma got promotion
The current captain of the Indian team, Rohit Sharma, made his ODI debut against Ireland in 2007. Rohit Sharma used to bat in the middle order and his form was also quite ordinary in this batting order. Let us tell you that, Rohit Sharma scored 1974 runs in his first 85 matches at an average of 30.84.
However, during the series against England in 2013, Rohit Sharma was given the responsibility of opening and he scored 83 runs in his first innings. This year, during the 2013 Champions Trophy, Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan opened for Team India and both of them performed brilliantly in this entire tournament.
As an opener, Rohit Sharma has scored 8836 runs in 176 ODI matches at an average of 55.57, which includes 44 half-centuries and 29 centuries.
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2. Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja given new identity in Test cricket
Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are one of the most important players of Team India, especially in Test cricket. Both of them made their international debut under the captaincy of Mahendra Singh Dhoni. While Ravichandran Ashwin made his Test debut in 2011, Jadeja made his debut in the last match against England in 2012.
Since then, both these players have played many matches together for Team India and played an important role in their team’s victory. The performance of both of them has been tremendous in Test cricket as well and not only with bowling but both the players have also played an important role in Team India’s victory with batting.
1. Dhoni supported Virat Kohli a lot in his early days
As a captain and batsman, Virat Kohli has always performed brilliantly for Team India. However, in the early days of his playing career, he also had to face a lot of difficulties. Virat Kohli failed to score runs in the 2011-12 Australia tour.
He scored only 43 runs in the first two Tests and there were reports that Kohli would be dropped from the team. However, Dhoni supported Kohli a lot. Kohli scored a half-century in the third Test played between these two teams and scored 116 runs in the fourth Test played in Adelaide.
Not only this, Kohli’s performance as a captain was also excellent and Dhoni also praised his captaincy a lot.
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