Dhoni is the 'captain' of all captains, says Raina

Kolkata: "Once a captain always a captain" is what Suresh Raina feels about Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who remains a leader on the field even though not on paper.

Despite quitting ODI and T20 captaincy in 2017, three years after he retired from Test cricket, Dhoni still remains the cricketing brain behind the Indian team, something even skipper Virat Kohli has acknowledged.

"On paper he's not the captain. On the ground he's the captain for Virat I think," the out-of-favour India batsman said in an interview from the Netherlands, where he is holidaying with his family.

"His role is still the same. He communicates with the bowlers from behind the stumps, coordinates the field placements. He's the captain of the captains. Virat feels confident when Dhoni is behind the stumps. He has always acknowledged that," Raina, an integral part of the Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings in IPL, said. Raina, however, said this would be a big World Cup for Kohli. "He is a confident player, captain and a team player. It's a very big World Cup for him. He knows his role well. He needs to give confidence to his players. Everything looks in our favour. Intent has to be positive. This is the best team to win the World Cup," Raina, a member of the 2011 World Cup winning team led by Dhoni, said.

He picked Hardik Pandya as the key player for India at the upcoming event.

"He can field and bat well, can bowl 6-7 crucial overs. He can bat anywhere. He needs to get a lot of confidence from the management to express himself. If he can take his IPL confidence to the World Cup, he will be our game-changer.

"I think he will be the most important player for India in this World Cup. I won't be surprised if he gets the man of the tournament, should we make the last-four," Raina, who played 226 ODIs for India, said.

India began their World Cup campaign on a shaky note, losing to New Zealand by six wickets in a warm-up match, and Raina feels that the teams needs to be careful against the left-arm pacers.

"In our bowling line-up we don't have any left-arm pacers. In 2011, we had Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra. They have asked Khaleel (Ahmed) to come for practice. But they need to play more left-arm pacers. Every team knows this now. Rest everything looks fine with this team. "We just need to be careful against the left-arm fast bowlers. If you see last few years, we are losing a lot of wickets to the left arm pacers. Be it Mohammed Aamir or Wahab Riaz of Pakistan, Boult, Mitchell (Starc) — all have done well against India," he said, recalling Riaz's five-for in the 2011 World Cup semi-final. Raina said it was good to loss in the first practice game.

"Now we can regroup and find the combination. I feel it's a very good thing to have happened to Indian team."

This World Cup is seen as one of the most competitive with 10 teams playing against each other in the round-robin league. "India will make it to the semi-final no matter what. We have nine matches in the league. There is a lot of time to think about the combinations. It's very important to start well. Then no one can stop us."