5 ways in which MS Dhoni's world No. 1 team was different from that of Virat Kohli's

Team India is numero uno in Test cricket after surpassing Pakistan post the victories against New Zealand. This time, Indian fans would hope that it will be a much longer stay at the top, unlike the last 2 times this year when India became no. 1 in Tests only for very brief periods; first in January when it was because of South Africa’s loss to England, and then in August when it was surpassed by Pakistan, courtesy their 2-2 series result in England, and India being unable to win the last Test in the West Indies.

Prior to Virat Kohli’s Team India reaching the no.1 spot in Test cricket, MS Dhoni’s team reached the top of Test cricket in 2009. The team went to the top of the rankings in December 2009 and stayed there till August 2011, for a total of 21 months. Kohli’s team’s reign at No.1, though, has only just begun.

Let’s see the 5 differences between the two teams that climbed to the No. 1 spot led by MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli:

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#1 Kohli’s captaincy stint started under much tougher conditions

Kohli took over the captaincy from Dhoni in 2014

When MS Dhoni took over the reins in November 2008, it was in the last Test of a home series of 4 Tests, where the home team was leading 1-0 heading into the Test. While captaining a Test team is never an easy job, most captains would tell you that it is relatively far more comfortable to do so in front of a home crowd and if you are ahead in the series with no chance of losing it.

Virat Kohli, by contrast, got his first taste of captaining the Indian Test team under far tougher circumstances. He captained the team for the first time at Adelaide, December 2014, in the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy as MS Dhoni was unavailable for the Test. To make your Test captaincy debut Down Under, where the crowd can be really hostile, and that too in the tone-setting first Test of a series is quite difficult.

He responded magnificently with a hundred in each innings but couldn’t avert a defeat for team India. It was in the 4^th Test of the series where Kohli led India for the first time as full-time Test captain, and again got a hundred in the first innings, making him the first player to make hundreds in his first 3 Test innings as captain.

#2 Dhoni’s was an established team

Dhoni led a dream batting line-up

Dhoni was blessed with a quality team and his debut as captain had a dream batting line-up that read: Sehwag, Vijay (who was debuting as regular opener Gautam Gambhir was not available for this Test), Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman, and Ganguly! Most captains would kill for that. MS Dhoni had the good fortune of having this line-up at his disposal in his first Test as Indian captain.

On the bowling front, things were rosy as it was led by two experienced campaigners in Zaheer and Harbhajan, ably supported by Mishra and Ishant.

To have a core team of such experienced players would make it easier for any captain to execute his plans better and chalk out a path to ascend to the top of the rankings ladder. Add to the fact that such experienced players can offer lots of valuable suggestions on the field, the life of a young captain becomes a lot easier.

By contrast, in Virat Kohli’s debut Test as captain – and let’s consider both the Tests here, where he led for the first time in Dhoni’s absence and when he started leading full-time – his team consisted of inexperienced Test players like Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Varun Aaron, Shami, Saha, KL Rahul, Umesh and Karn Sharma.

To start your Test captaincy with a team that has more than half the players with experience of less than 15-20 Test matches each is a far difficult proposition than to start iwith a team that has at least 7-8 players with well above 50 Tests under their belt.

#3 Kohli backs the 5-bowler theory

Ashwin is Virat Kohli’s lead bowler in the current Test team

Ever since Virat Kohli took over the captaincy of the Indian Test team, he made it quite clear that he would like to go into each Test with aggressive plans, and the most prominent of his plans has been the use of 5 specialist bowlers in the playing XI.

While MS Dhoni was always intent on playing 7 specialist batsmen and 4 bowlers, Virat Kohli likes to go in with 5 specialist bowlers, unless the pitch is quite tough for batting and the team feels the need for a 6^th batsman.

The stats back this up too. In the 17 Test matches that Kohli has captained India so far in his career, he has played 5 specialist bowlers in 9 of them; more than 50% of the matches in which he has been captain, whereas, in the 60 Tests that MS Dhoni captained, there were very few occasions in which he played 5 bowlers.

Of the 9 matches that Kohli has played 5 bowlers in, India has won 5, drawn 3 and lost just 1 Test match, proving the fact that playing 5 specialist bowlers actually produces positive results as the team has more chance of bowling the opposition out twice. This is an area where this Indian Test team under Kohli’s style is distinctly different from MS Dhoni’s.

#4 Virat Kohli’s batting stats as Test captain are much better

Kohli, on paper, is a better batsman as captain than Dhoni

It is said that some players are burdened by captaincy, so much so that their performances as a player get affected and their numbers go down. This wasn’t the case with both Kohli and Dhoni as their numbers as captain and non-captain tell us that they didn’t let captaincy affect their batting in any way.

But when we compare the two, we see that the difference in Kohli’s stats as a batsman when he is captain and when he was not captain is far greater than Dhoni’s.

MS Dhoni’s batting stats as captain

Tests	Innings	Runs	Average	Hundreds	Fifties
60	96	3454	40.63	5	24

MS Dhoni’s batting stats as non-captain

Tests	Innings	Runs	Average	Hundreds	Fifties
30	48	1422	33.07	1	9

Overall

Tests	Innings	Runs	Average	Hundreds	Fifties
90	144	4876	38.09	6	33

Difference in average as captain and non-captain: +7.56

Difference in average as captain and his overall stats: +2.54

Virat Kohli’s batting stats as captain

Tests	Innings	Runs	Average	Hundreds	Fifties
17	27	1456	53.92	6	2

Virat Kohli’s batting stats as non-captain

Tests	Innings	Runs	Average	Hundreds	Fifties
31	5	2098	41.13	7	10

Overall

Tests	Innings	Runs	Average	Hundreds	Fifties
48	82	3554	45.56	13	12

Difference in average as captain and non-captain: +12.79

Difference in average as captain and his overall stats: +8.36

As can be clearly seen from the stats, Virat Kohli’s game as a Test batsman has gone to a next level after becoming the captain and he is leading by example with the bat.

He recently became the first Indian Test captain to score two double hundreds and also holds the record for being the only Test captain to score hundreds in his first 3 innings as captain. Dhoni’s stats too show that he averaged better as Test captain but the difference in Kohli’s stats as captain and non-captain is startling.

#5 Dhoni’s team’s record as No. 1 wasn’t great

Dhoni took the Indian team to the top in 2009

Dhoni’s Team India reached the No. 1 spot in December 2009 and held onto it until the end of the Test series in England in July-August 2011. Let’s have a look at the team’s record in 2 phases – from Dhoni getting the captaincy to India reaching No. 1, and then from getting to the No.1 spot to the time they lost it:

From starting captaincy to getting the no. 1 spot:

Tests Played	Won	Lost	Drawn	Win/Loss Ratio
8	5	0	3	--

From getting the no. 1 spot till losing it:

Tests Played	Won	Lost	Drawn	Win/Loss Ratio
21	8	7	6	1.142

As we can see, during the phase where they were No. 1, they won almost as many Tests as they won and the win/loss ratio was just 1.142.

Kohli’s team’s didn’t stay at no.1 for long after reaching there for the first time in January this year, but the point of note here is that since they touched that spot for the first time, they are yet to lose a Test!

The Indian team has played 7 Tests since January, after reaching the No. 1 spot briefly, and have won 5 and drawn 2 out of those. In fact, the Indian team has not lost a single Test under Kohli’s captaincy since their loss to Sri Lanka in August last year at Galle, where a freakish performance by Chandimal followed by Herath’s magic robbed team India of a certain victory.

There are his stats:

From starting captaincy to getting the no. 1 spot:

Tests Played	Won	Lost	Drawn	Win/Loss Ratio
10	5	2	3	2.50

From getting the no. 1 spot till today:

Tests Played	Won	Lost	Drawn	Win/Loss Ratio
7	5	0	2	--

Overall:

Tests Played	Won	Lost	Drawn	Win/Loss Ratio
17	10	2	5	5.00