BEST INDIAN ODI XI IN DHONI ERA (2011-2016)

Mahendra Singh Dhoni took over the captaincy of Indian ODI team in 2007 after his resounding leadership which guided India to the 2007 ICC World T 20 title. Dhoni was quite the opposite to his predecessor Saurav Ganguly in his persona and style of leadership. While Ganguly was quite expressive and aggressive in his intent, Dhoni had a sense of refined aggression portrayed by his calm and cool demeanor. If Ganguly instilled a sense of combativeness to take on formidable oppositions in their own backyard, Dhoni transformed the Blue Brigade into world beaters at the major ICC tournaments.

Dhoni had a perfect blend of youth and experience which made the Indian team among the top sides in ODI cricket. After the 2011 World Cup win, a couple of Indian stalwarts retired from the ODIs. It marked the beginning of a new era of Indian cricket under Dhoni’s captaincy.

Dhoni had the huge challenge of taking Indian cricket forward with a new bunch of talented youngsters. Under Dhoni’s captaincy India improved on its dismal record at multi-nation tournament finals and won coveted ICC tournaments like the CB Series 2007/08, Asia Cup 2010, and ICC Champions trophy 2013. However, the zenith of his captaincy was leading India to victory in the ICC 2011 World Cup on home soil.

Over the past five years, the Indian ODI team has consistently been ranked among the top three sides in world cricket owing to their high percentage in winning matches both at home and abroad. It is creditable that Dhoni went past Mohammad Azharuddin’s long-standing record of most wins by an India captain in limited overs cricket.

In cricket, they often say that the captain is as good as his team. Early in his captaincy, Dhoni too was fortunate to have a set of seasoned Indian stalwarts in Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Zaheer Khan,Yuvraj Singh and Ashish Nehra who played under his aegis. Dhoni then infused fresh blood by identifying and scouting promising talents like Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Murali Vijay and Ravichandran Ashwin and turned them into cricketers of international pedigree.

So let us analyse the men from the blue brigade who could possibly form the Best XI ODI team in the ‘Dhoni Era’ post the 2011 ICC World Cup .

I have taken a time frame of five years dating back to September 2011 till present for my selection. I have taken this time period into consideration as the 2011 ICC World Cup marked the end of the ODI careers of many of  a lot of our legends who blossomed in the Ganguly Era.

Hence the last 5 years witnessed a new group of players who gelled wonderfully well under Dhoni’s captaincy.