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

#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.