5 reasons that helped build MS Dhoni's lasting legacy as captain

#2 Backing young players and leaving the core behind for the next captain

Dhoni gave opportunities to numerous youngsters

Dhoni’s first ODI trophy as captain came in Australia in the 2008 CB series. Dhoni's India beat Australia, a dominant team of the decade, in the first two of the three finals, Ricky Ponting had infamously claimed that they would finish off India in first two finals, one of the sweetest victories that India had.

But, the story before that series was not at all rosy. India dropped two big names – Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid from ODI squad, and Dhoni famously said that sometimes it is very important to send the message across. Since then he always backed youngsters with an eye on the future.

Sourav Ganguly is always for building team India by backing players like Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan etc but Dhoni is never given credit in this regard. Dhoni was also mocked for backing players like Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Murali Vijay, and Rohit Sharma, who have now become the core of Virat Kohli’s invincible test team.

Dhoni reaped the benefits of the team created by Sourav Ganguly. Similarly, before leaving he has built the core of the team to make India a champion team under Virat Kohli.