Captaining India in 200 ODIs destiny: MS Dhoni

Afghanistan won the toss and opted to bat against India, who will be captained by Mahendra Singh Dhoni, in their final Super Four game of the Asia Cup here Tuesday.

Not often does it happen that the result of the toss of a cricket match takes the backstage but on Tuesday in Dubai, it did happen. The whole world received a huge surprise as MS Dhoni walked out for the toss donning the Indian captain's hat after a gap of 696 days to be exact. For the record, Afghanistan elected to bowl first in their final Super 4 match of the Asia Cup.

India and Afghanistan are in contrasting positions in the Asia Cup with the defending champions already ensuring a berth in the final and Afghanistan out of the final's equation after losing to Pakistan and Bangladesh in the Super 4 stage.

This has provided the opportunity to both the teams to test their bench. India have made as many as five changes resting captain Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaspirt Bumrah and Yuzvendra Chahal. That obviously gave an opportunity to MS Dhoni to bring up his double century as an Indian captain in ODIs. Dhoni had stood down after captaining India for 199 ODIs, his last as captain being an ODI against New Zealand in Visakhapatnam in October 2016.

Dhoni became the first Indian and third in the world to captain in 200 ODIs with the other two being Australia's Ricky Ponting (captain in 230 ODIs) and New Zealand's Stephen Fleming (captain in 218 ODIs). 

"I was not really sure of where I am standing. 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," Dhoni said at toss time.

India handed debut to Rajasthan medium pacer Deepak Chahar. He is second Indian to make his debut in the ongoing Asia Cup after Khaleel Ahmed. KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Siddharth Kaul and Khaleel all get a game.

Afghanistan, on the other hand, have made two changes. Najibullah and Javed Ahmadi have been brought back into the playing XI.

"We would like to put runs on the board and apply pressure. We played well, but we lost two games. It's part of the game. Today we will look to play confidently," said Asghar Afghan.

Teams:

India (Playing XI): Lokesh Rahul, Ambati Rayudu, Manish Pandey, MS Dhoni(w/c), Dinesh Karthik, Kedar Jadhav, Ravindra Jadeja, Deepak Chahar, Siddarth Kaul, Kuldeep Yadav, K Khaleel Ahmed

Afghanistan (Playing XI): Mohammad Shahzad(w), Javed Ahmadi, Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi, Asghar Afghan(c), Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Gulbadin Naib, Aftab Alam, Mujeeb Ur Rahman