Tomorrow (December 10), in Dharamsala, Rohit Sharma will join an elite group of Indian cricketers as he will lead the country for the first time in a One Day International.
With regular captain Virat Kohli rested for India's limited-overs series against Sri Lanka, the Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) selectors have handed over the responsibility to Mumbai batsman Rohit.
It is not a new innings for the right-hander as he has already had a successful captaincy stint with Mumbai Indians (MI) in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
The 30-year-old opener will become the 24th skipper from India in ODIs. The first ever Indian captain was Ajit Wadekar, in 1974. Rohit has so far played 171 ODIs, scoring 6,207 runs with 15 hundreds.
The most successful Indian captain in ODIs is MS Dhoni. He led India to 110 victories from 199 contests. Rohit will have him in the team tomorrow, to guide. He will also lead India in the three-match Twenty20 International series agains the islanders.
On his captaincy, Rohit said today (December 9), "It [captaining India] will be a different ball game altogether. But the process and basics of captaincy of leading any team will remain the same. There are different set of players that I had in the IPL team and this is completely different."
Here is full list of India's ODI captains (as on today, December 9, 2017)
| Player | Span | Matches | Won | Lost | Tied | No Result | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ajit Wadekar | 1974 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| S Venkataraghavan | 1975-79 | 7 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 14.28 |
| Bishan Bedi | 1976-78 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 25.00 |
| Sunil Gavaskar | 1980-85 | 37 | 14 | 21 | 0 | 2 | 40.00 |
| GR Viswanath | 1981 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Kapil Dev | 1982-87 | 74 | 39 | 33 | 0 | 2 | 54.16 |
| Syed Kirmani | 1983 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Mohinder Amarnath | 1984 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | - |
| Ravi Shastri | 1987-91 | 11 | 4 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 36.36 |
| Dilip Vengsarkar | 1987-89 | 18 | 8 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 44.44 |
| Kris Srikkanth | 1989 | 13 | 4 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 33.33 |
| Mohammad Azharuddin | 1990-99 | 174 | 90 | 76 | 2 | 6 | 54.16 |
| Sachin Tendulkar | 1996-2000 | 73 | 23 | 43 | 1 | 6 | 35.07 |
| Ajay Jadeja | 1998-99 | 13 | 8 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 61.53 |
| Sourav Ganguly | 1999-2005 | 146 | 76 | 65 | 0 | 5 | 53.90 |
| Rahul Dravid | 2000-07 | 79 | 42 | 33 | 0 | 4 | 56.00 |
| Anil Kumble | 2002 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100.00 |
| Virender Sehwag | 2003-12 | 12 | 7 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 58.33 |
| MS Dhoni | 2007-16 | 199 | 110 | 74 | 4 | 11 | 59.57 |
| Suresh Raina | 2010-14 | 12 | 6 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 54.54 |
| Gautam Gambhir | 2010-11 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100.00 |
| Virat Kohli | 2013-17 | 43 | 33 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 78.57 |
| Ajinkya Rahane | 2015 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100.00 |
Statistics from "espncricinfo".
