Spotting Shikhar Dhawan without a big smile on his face both on and off the field is a hard task. The same broad smile was on full display accompanied by his wit when the left-handed opening batter was asked about his style of captaincy at toss-time ahead of the India vs West Indies first ODI at the Queen's Park Oval in Port of Spain, Trinidad on Friday. Dhawan, who is leading India in the three-match ODI series against the West Indies in regular captain Rohit Sharma's absence - he and many other first-XI cricketers for the ODI leg - described himself as a 'cool captain' when former West Indies batter Darren Ganga asked him about captaincy at the toss.
_1658496759451_1658496767010_1658496767010.jpg)
"I am a very cool captain. I make sure the team's energy stays up and of course I love to take all the right decisions and keep the process going," Dhawan said after West Indies captain Nicholas Pooran won the toss and opted to bowl first.
"The bench strength is complementary to domestic and IPL cricket. This is a great opportunity to showcase talent, show fight, and win the series. Surya, Shreyas, Samson are all good. Even myself (laughs). We get support here, from abroad and locals which is good," Dhawan said when asked about India's team in the absence of big stars like Rohit, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant and Jasprit Bumrah.
{{/usCountry}}"The bench strength is complementary to domestic and IPL cricket. This is a great opportunity to showcase talent, show fight, and win the series. Surya, Shreyas, Samson are all good. Even myself (laughs). We get support here, from abroad and locals which is good," Dhawan said when asked about India's team in the absence of big stars like Rohit, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant and Jasprit Bumrah.
{{/usCountry}}India picked Shubman Gill as Dhawan's opening partner while Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Sanju Samson and Deepak Hooda make a strong middle order. Axar Patel got an opportunity as Ravindra Jadeja was ruled out of the first two matches due to a knee injury.
Shardul Thakur, Prasidh Krishna and Mohammed Siraj were India's three seamers.
India Playing XI: 1 Shikhar Dhawan (capt), 2 Shubman Gill, 3 Shreyas Iyer, 4 Suryakumar Yadav, 5 Sanju Samson (wk), 6 Deepak Hooda, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Shardul Thakur, 9 Yuzvendra Chahal, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Prasidh Krishna
West Indies Playing XI: 1 Shai Hope (wk), 2 Brandon King, 3 Shamarh Brooks, 4 Nicholas Pooran (capt), 5 Rovman Powell, 6 Akeal Hosein, 7 Romario Shepherd, 8 Kyle Mayers, 9 Gudakesh Motie, 10 Alzarri Joseph, 11 Jaydon Seales