Reports: Selectors unhappy with MS Dhoni's surprise return to captaincy

MS Dhoni recently achieved the rare distinction of captaining his side in 200 ODIs, at the Asia Cup, and his fans were over the moon seeing him back as skipper, but not everyone seems to have been happy with the surprise move.

Dhoni captaining the Indian side against Afghanistan in their dead-rubber Asia Cup 2018 game seems to have not gone down too well with the national selectors.

One of the BCCI sources close to India Today said "The selectors are not pleased that wholesale changes were rung in for the match and both stand-in captain Rohit Sharma and vice-captain Shikhar Dhawan sat out with MS Dhoni forced to be captain again, out of nowhere".

India made five changes to their ODI XI for the game, resting captain and vice-captain Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan, paving the way for Dhoni to complete 200 ODIs as India captain. His last game as skipper had come 696 days before, against New Zealand.

In the process, he became the oldest captain to lead the Indian side in ODIs, in a game that eventually ended in a tie.

He joined the elite list of Ricky Ponting and Stephen Fleming, as only the third player to have captained his country in 200 or more ODIs. While Ponting led Australia in 230 games from 2002-2012, Fleming captained the Kiwis in 218 matches from 1997-2007. Dhoni was handed captaincy in September 2007.

The squad, selected for the Asia Cup, did not have Virat Kohli, India's regular captain in all three formats. Rohit Sharma was tasked with leading the side, but his absence from one game seems to have made the selectors unhappy, especially after the man chosen to be his stop-gap arrangement that day was Dhoni, who stepped down on his own terms in January 2017.

As far as the result was concerned, Rohit did little to disappoint anyone, leading the side to their seventh Asia Cup title.