Pune: Young Virat Kohli will usher in a new era in Indian cricket when he leads the side in the ODI series-opener against England in place of iconic Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who recently relinquished the captaincy in the limited over formats.
These are big boots to fill for Kohli, who will seek to carry forward the superb run in the home Test series into the limited over format.
Dhoni will be playing under Kohli for the first time as a pure wicket-keeper batsman and it would be interesting to see how the new arrangement works for India. Dhoni has always appeared cool as captain while Kohli does not mind being vocal and showing emotions on the field.
The three matches against England are the only ODIs available for India to fine tune themselves before defending their Champions Trophy title in England in June.
As such the games assume enormous importance for the team which has been on the top in Test cricket in recent times but has not been as successful in the 50-over format.
After reaching the semi-finals in the 2015 World Cup Down Under, India had a mixed run in the ODIs, losing 11 out of 24 games. They lost the series against South Africa (at home), Australia (away) and Bangladesh (away), but won against Zimbabwe (away) and New Zealand (at home).
On the plus side for India is the return of Shikhar Dhawan and Ajinkya Rahane, who made half-centuries for India A in the warm-up game in Mumbai against the tourists.
Back to the side to beef up the bowling attack are spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, who combined forces to decimate England 4-0 in the Test series that ended in December. They were both rested for the preceding ODI series against New Zealand that India narrowly won 3-2.
India will miss their top limited-over star Rohit Sharma who is still out of action after undergoing surgery and have recalled Yuvraj Singh, their hero of the 2011 World Cup triumph at home, after four years.
Yuvraj will be playing for India after ten months, his last appearance being in the World T20 championship in which the Dhoni-led team lost the semifinals to the West Indies.
The left-hander has been recalled on the strength of a double hundred and a big hundred in the Ranji Trophy in October. He played in the warm-up game and showed he could still be a threat with his big hits.
However, he will be under pressure to perform with players like Manish Pandey and Kedar Jadhav, both named in the ODI team, breathing down his neck.
For Kohli, nothing changes at the toss on Saturday, save the fact that he will walk-out for the first time as a full-time India captain.
"Honestly, I don't feel any different. The only thing I am excited about is that when I will walk out for the toss tomorrow, I will be India's full-time captain. Apart from that, I don't think anything has changed mentally or in terms of environment. Everything is the same; that I have been made the captain is the only change, but my mindset hasn't changed at all," he said.
Asked what lessons he would like to carry forward from the Dhoni era as captain, Kohli replied: "I have already learnt a lot. Many people have different styles of captaincy and I think he has been so successful because he has been able to find the right balance in being offensive with his plans as well as understanding the game when it is dominated by the opposition on how to slow things down. I think that's his biggest strength and would like to strike a good balance going forward."
"It happens it Test cricket, but in the shorter format you have to make it happen even quicker because the game can drift away quickly. You need to have more composure, you need to be more aware," he added.
Now that the burden of captaincy is not there, Kohli saw Dhoni play with the sort of freedom with which he used to bat when he came into the Indian team in 2004.
"With the burden of captaincy not being there anymore, I am sure he will be able to express himself as a batsman, experiment a bit with his offensive game that he displayed when he came in. It's not that he didn't afterwards. (But) He was calculative with it, understanding the team situation.
"Now knowing that I am willing to take up more responsibility, he can be more expressive. But I'm not saying that he will go out there and slog every ball. He is a smart cricketer and we have all seen that."
"And with Yuvi coming in as well in the middle overs, both of them, give and take, that's why they are so successful in the middle overs batting together. They feed off each others momentum and one can play the aggressive role and one can keep knocking it around in singles."
According to Kohli, the series was big in terms of preparing for the Champions Trophy in June.
"We are taking these three games as knockout games in our own heads because we need to prepare for Champions Trophy and we need to be in the right kind of mind frame because the tournament is like that – it is very competitive and very quick. So we need to be at our best from game one of the series."
