India look to usher in new era under Virat Kohli

However, with the change of calendar, a change in colours and a rejigged group – including a specialist limited-overs’ captain – England is hoping to put on a much better display in the three ODIs and three T20Is on Indian soil. Dhoni made his debut as a captain in 2007 and has come a long way. Virat took over the Test captainship and I wanted him to have some time and get into the full captaincy role. And that’s what Dhoni is, he gives surprises and he knows what is good for Indian cricket.

“We were told that Mumbai is a city which is always on the move”. As much as it can be denied, it was indeed painful to watch the legendary Kapil Dev, the captain of the 1983 World Cup winning team in England, during his past year in cricket, struggling to break Richard Hadlee’s record as the highest wicket taker in Test matches.

There was definitely a small-town boy touch in that statement.

“Recently, South Africa turned India over, New Zealand pushed them close”, he said. Now, I can’t be the Test captain as I have quit the Test cricket.

“Captaincy is a spark and it is not just preparation…” He believed – and rightly so in hindsight after reaching the final in a high-powered campaign – that his players were better off not being scarred by previous defeats in India.

The coach added that Dhoni’s “10 years of captaincy shows his phenomenal capabilities as a leader”. Dhoni has always appeared cool as captain while Kohli does not mind being vocal and showing emotions on the field.

When England arrived in India for the World T20 past year, 10 of their 15 players had no experience of playing senior cricket in the country. “It’s a day to celebrate his successful captaincy and respect his decision”, Tendulkar tweeted. Kohli revealed that the team also considered Ambati Rayudu, but the latter’s lack of game time during the Ranji season due to injury, worked against him. During his reign Dhoni and captain became synonyms. Dhoni didn’t take names, but he could well have been referring to players like Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja, who weren’t consistent initially but went on to establish themselves as key players in his tenure. High on the list was how the team handled the period of transition following the retirements of Anil Kumble, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Virender Sehwag.