Dhoni's milestone, Ganguly questions Shastri and more - Cricket News Today, 25th September 2018

India's decision to rest their captain and vice-captain for the game against Afghanistan meant that MS Dhoni was once again back as captain. And that unsurprisingly sent Twitter into a frenzy as fans got to see the legendary skipper back to a role he essayed so well.

Also in the news was spot-fixing, which reared its ugly head once again. There was also Sourav Ganguly speaking about the role of the captain and the coach and Sunil Gavaskar's huge compliment for Rohit Sharma.

Here are all of today's important developments from the cricket world.

MS Dhoni climbs Mount 200

MS Dhoni shocked one and all when he announced that he was going to step down from his role as India's limited-overs captain. It was all the more surprising because he was captain for 199 ODIs and resigned just shy of a major milestone.

In the Super Four clash against Afghanistan at Dubai, with captain Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan rested, Dhoni returned as captain of India after 696 days. In doing so, he became only the third cricketer to lead his country in 200 ODIs after Ricky Ponting and Stephen Fleming.

That was also Dhoni's 505th international game for India across all formats. Courtesy of that, he overtook Rahul Dravid (504) and became the second most capped Indian cricketer behind only Sachin Tendulkar, who holds the record, having featured in 664 games.

Overall, the 37-year-old wicket-keeper has represented India in 322 ODIs, 93 T20Is and 90 Tests.

In 199 games under Dhoni, India has won 110 matches and lost 74.

Dhoni will be the captain of India for today's match. This time officially. #INDvAFG

— SAGAR (@sagarcasm) September 25, 2018

Sourav Ganguly questions Ravi Shastri

Ganguly wonders who picks the Indian side

Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly believes that captain should take the lead and a coach should take the back seat. He also wanted to know who picks the Indian team after he spoke about the difference between cricket and football in terms of the role of a captain and a coach.

"It is not like football. A lot of current cricket coaches think that they are going to run a cricket team like a football team, but cricket is a captain's game and coach has to take a backseat and that is important," said Ganguly at the launch his book - 'A Century is not Enough'

When asked about what question he would ask current India head coach Ravi Shastri, he said, "Who picks up the team, Rohit Sharma (stand-in ODI captain) or Ravi Shastri?"

He also added that players need to be backed and speaking about the scenario of several players not knowing whether they will play the next game, he said, "Virat (Kohli) needs to work little on it. I backed them because I saw them closely, I have seen them how they react to pressure."

Five international captains report bookies approach in the last year

Shahzad

Just when cricket thought that it can come forward without any controversy, Afghanistan wicketkeeper Mohammad Shahzad reported to the International Cricket Council (ICC) during the ongoing Asia Cup about being approached by bookies. Just after that comes the surprising revelation that five international captains have been approached by bookies in just the past year.

ICC anti-corruption unit general manager Alex Marshall said: "Five international captains have been approached. You are not going to get the names. Four of them are from full member countries and one from a non-full member country."

"Corruption happens in every single cricket playing country. Most of the bookies are based in one area. The corruptors are mostly Indian bookies. But the corruption happens everywhere," he added.

Rohit similar to Lloyd says Sunil Gavaskar

Rohit Sharma

Former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar believes that stand-in Indian skipper Rohit Sharma and legendary West Indian captain Clive Lloyd are similar in a particular aspect.

“India’s skipper Rohit Sharma is doing the Clive Lloyd thing by hiding his emotions as he smiles and turns back to his fielding position. This does not put any pressure on the person who dropped the catch or misfielded and makes him want to give an extra effort,” he wrote in his column for TOI.

“The best of teams just go on to the next delivery as they know, in a team game, all eleven can’t be successful and there is bound to be the odd failure. How to carry that failure and make him a part of the team’s success is the key. The great West Indies teams of the past did that splendidly with the phlegmatic skipper Clive Lloyd displaying no emotion with an error on the field. The same with the ’90s Australian team who bonded so well with each other that, if one of them dropped a catch, they would have a go at the batsman instead for being lucky”.