After registering a 3-0 triumph over of New Zealand in the Test series that propelled Virat Kohli’s men to the numero uno spot in the ICC rankings, the focus now shifts to ODI cricket.
The talismanic Mahendra Singh Dhoni will take over the mantle of captaincy from Kohli in the limited overs format.
With Kohli delivering as skipper in the Test series, the pressure will be high on Dhoni as India need to beat New Zealand by a 4-1 margin to claim the third spot in the ICC ODI rankings.
The Kiwis are currently ranked third with 113 points, while India are at fourth with 110.
Going into the series, India will start overwhelming favourites with the statistics clearly stacked against the visitors.
New Zealand have never won a bilateral ODI series in India, having lost all four previous such rubber.
While in multi-team events, New Zealand’s record on Indian soil is 18-11, the bigger picture is that the Kiwis have never won a bilateral ODI series in India.
New Zealand lost all the four previous series played between the two teams — in 1988, 1995, 1999 and 2010.
In fact, in the last series in 2010, India, which missed a few regular players and were led by Gautam Gambhir, whitewashed New Zealand 5-0.
Both the teams have played 93 matches against each other so far with India recording 46 wins while New Zealand notching 41 victories. Five matches saw no results and one was a tie.
However, all is not lost for the Kiwis as in the last five ODIs played between the two teams, New Zealand have won four and one was tied.
While inspirational Dhoni has returned to the ODI scheme of things, the Indian team will be without three of its key players — Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammed Shami — all of whom have been rested keeping the gruelling season in mind.
The man who Dhoni will miss dearly in the ODIs is Ashwin, who is in tremendous form of late with both bat and ball.
Ashwin finished with 27 wickets in the 3-0 Test sweep, and now has 220 wickets, the most by any bowler after 39 Tests.
PTI