Asia Cup 2018: MS Dhoni returns to captaincy after two years

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MS Dhoni made a surprise return to his old role, filling in for Rohit Sharma as the captain of the Indian team for their dead rubber against Afghanistan in the Asia Cup.

With this, he completed exactly 200 ODIs as Team India captain and joined an elite list comprising of Ricky Ponting and Stephen Fleming as the third player to lead his country in more than 200 ODI games.

While Ponting led Australia in 230 games from 2002-2012, Stephen Fleming captained New Zealand in 218 matches from 1997-2007. Dhoni was handed captaincy in September 2007.

Speaking at the toss, Dhoni said that reaching the milestone of 200 games as captain 'is all destiny'.

"We were looking to bowl first. There are quite a few changes - both the openers are missing, Bhuvneshwar, Bumrah and Chahal are also missing. Everybody who hadn't played in this tournament gets a chance."

"They are part of the 15 and are representing India. I have captained 199 ODIs, so this gives me an opportunity to make it 200. It's all destiny and I always believed in that. It's not in my control, once I left captainship. Good to complete 200, but I don't think it really matters".

In 199 games under Dhoni, India has won 110 matches and lost 74. His win-percentage is the highest for an Indian captain after Virat Kohli (minimum 15 games).

The Indian team made five changes to their playing XI - KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Deepak Chahar, Sidharth Kaul and Khaleel Ahmed came in for Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah and Yuzvendra Chahal.

Rohit was named the captain of the side after regular skipper Virat Kohli decided to give the Asia Cup a miss.

Dhoni's last game as India's ODI captain was against New Zealand, 696 days ago, in October 2016.

He also became the oldest Indian ODI captain at 37 years and 80 days, surpassing Mohammed Azharuddin, who lead India at the World Cup 1999 against New Zealand aged 36 years and 124 days.

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