5 captains who introduced revolutionary moves in cricket

#1. Firing from the beginning - Arjuna Ranatunga

Arjuna Ranatunga brought excitement to the initial overs of ODI cricket

In its early days, ODI cricket was seen as a shorter version of Test cricket and hence players simply borrowed the principles of Tests in ODIs.

One of such principles that came from Tests to ODIs was about the approach towards batting. Batsmen came to ODI cricket with the mindset of playing long innings and not going for their strokes without getting set.

This meant that the initial overs in ODIs were quiet as batsmen weren't ready to take risks. New Zeland tried to break this rule by using Mark Greatbatch as a pinch hitter in the 1992 world cup.

But the idea to have two aggressive openers who have the license to throw their bats at anything from the word go was first implemented by Sri Lanka in the 1996 world cup. And the mastermind behind this innovative strategy was Arjuna Ranatunga.

The Sri Lankan captain gave complete liberty to Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana who went to the crease and destroyed the opponent with their aggressive batting.

This strategy enabled Sri Lanka to take complete toll of the powerplay overs and the rest of the world soon filled their opener's slot with aggressive batsmen.