Dhoni is now the captain of the Indian Cricket team, Yuvraj Singh taking over as his deputy. India truly is looking at a long term vision, with these two being the more senior among a young lot. With Dravid, Tendulkar and Ganguly, still very much a part of the Indian side, and showing glimpses of their greatness in patches, Dhoni, as a captain faces a tough job ahead.

He has to get used to all the attention, criticism and pressure that comes along with this toughest job in Indian sport. But what might be tougher is the following three challenges:

• Dynamics with the big-3: How Dhoni handles the big-3, depends more on them than on him. No doubt, the trinity has done much more than enough to guarantee their place at the top of the Greatest Indian Cricketers of all time. But to forge the future of the sport, they will need to take on mentor roles, keeping their egoes in check when intereacting with Dhoni, Yuvraj and the rest of the team.
• Dynamics with the younger lot: After the recent performance in the ICC World T20 Tournament, the confidence level in the team is high. They believe they can win. Dhoni has to ensure that he himself, and his adolescent team, does not cross the fine line between confidence and arrogance. Ganguly showed great respect and trust in his younger players (Yuvraj, Pathan, Dhoni and Harbhajan) - fighting for their place in the team, even when they were going through rough patches in their careers. Dhoni needs to do the same - and he seems to be doing exactly that.
• Dynamics with his peers (namely Yuvraj): At the international level, it is very important that the rivalry within the team remains "healthy". The last time we witnessed rivalry between two potential captains of the Indian team, was probably in the 1980s, with some rift between Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar. Since then, the Indian dressing room has been very quiet in this respect. There has been mutual respect between players in the same age group and experience level. Over the last 2 years, what we have observed is that there is a good friendship between Dhoni and Yuvraj (the two possible contenders for the job of the leader). The level of respect is such that they are very open about it - going out of the way in praising the other and cracking jokes about it.

Yuvraj, in the post match interview after the six sixes against England - "We had just 2-3 overs to go and MS asked me that we should keep a left hand-right hand combination. But I said 'No MS, you go in front of me. You are a better slogger'. So he went but after the score, I said 'No mate, I'm a better slogger'.

Dhoni said, after the match against Australia - "Yuvi has been my trump-card, I mean in the batting department he is the one who makes the difference. It was a big match and see how he responded. In semifinal we expected him to score and he scored."