Dhoni completes 200 matches as ODI captain: Dhoni has become the first Indian cricketer to captain 200 ODIs for India.
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During the fifth match of the Super Four stage of the ongoing Asia Cup between India and Afghanistan at Dubai, former captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni was given the reigns of the Indian team for the 200th time in ODIs.
With the team management opting to rest as many as five players including captain Rohit Sharma and vice-captain Shikhar Dhawan for the Afghanistan match, Dhoni was considered the apt individual to lead the team.
Dhoni had resigned from the captaincy in January 2017 when he had captained India in 199 matches. As quoted by him during the toss ceremony, it is sheer destiny which has given him this opportunity to achieve this rare feat.
As a result of this match, Dhoni has become the third ever ODI captain to captain his team in 200 matches. In this list, Ricky Ponting (230) and Stephen Fleming (218) are the only two captains above Dhoni.
The next Indian on this list is Mohammad Azharuddin, who had captained India in 174 matches. Apart from him, Sourav Ganguly had also captained India in 147 matches.
Among the current captains, England’s Eoin Morgan has captained his team in 80 matches.
Overall, Dhoni had surpassed Ponting as the most matches as captain (across formats) when he was India’s regular captain. With this match, he will have captained India in 332 matches, eight more than Ponting (324). Among the current captains, Morgan is once against next on the list for he has captained his side in 119 matches across formats.
Dhoni being given the captaincy invited a lot of positive reactions on social media platform Twitter. Read some of the tweets below:
