India vs West Indies: India Play First T20I At Home Without MS Dhoni

India are all set to play their 32nd T20I match at home against the Windies at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Rohit Sharma is in charge of the Indian team as Virat Kohli has been rested for the three-match T20I series. Besides Kohli, former India captain MS Dhoni was a notable exclusion from the squad, and this development took people by shock. This is the first time India will be taking part in a T20I fixture at home without Dhoni. The wicketkeeper-batsman has featured in all of the previous 31 T20Is that India have played at home.

Dhoni's exclusion from the Indian T20 set-up has been making headlines for quite some time now. India have played a total of 104 T20I matches since the format's debut in 2006 and Dhoni has been part of 93 of those matches.

Dhoni, who led India to the T20I World Cup title in 2007, has scored 1,487 T20I runs at an average of 37.17 and a strike-rate of 127.90.

Dhoni has hit two half-centuries and also has 54 catches and 33 stumpings to his name in T20 international cricket.

Kohli, who recently led India to a 3-1 ODI series win over the Windies, said that Dhoni is only trying to help the youngsters.

"He anyway plays the ODIs for us regularly, so... From that point of view, he's only trying to help the youngsters; nothing that anything that other people are thinking and I as captain can certainly assure you of that."

After the first T20I at Eden Gardens, India will face the tourists for the 2nd T20I match at the Ekana International Cricket Stadium in Lucknow and the third and final match will be played at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.

Topics mentioned in this article

India Cricket Team West Indies Cricket Team MS Dhoni India vs West Indies 2018 Cricket India vs West Indies, 1st T20I