MS Dhoni during a practice session in Sri Lanka recently. PIC/AFP

Back in January an English sports magazine published a list of what its editor thought were the world's top 50 cricketers.

There was though an interesting juxtaposition: Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene was 20 on the list to India's limited overs captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni's 21st and the nation's Test captain Anil Kumble came in at 18th. All of which suggests if you are not an Australian, or a Pom, you won't make the top 10.

Grab attention

Well, not quite. At least Sachin Tendulkar was given second spot behind Ricky Ponting, but don't go looking for Virender Sehwag. His name was among those who failed to grab attention while at least Zaheer Khan did something right with 35th ranking to Shane Bond's 38th.

Then again, just maybe it is a headline thing. Last September and October, different players were grabbing different headlines for different reasons.

Yet the names of the three captains suggest that this past Test and ODI series for the Idea Cup was always going to be a headline grabber for a variety of reasons.

India, having levelled the Test series in Galle, needed batsmen to put together scores that might challenge Sri Lanka's supremacy as well as the mystery of Ajantha Mendis, who before the series while not quite an unknown, probed and spun India's top batsmen into the sort of mind games that continually left them floundering.

If Viru could do it in Galle, what is wrong with him being able to do it again with further support? The problem is no one can bat like Viru except Viru.

Substance

After Kumble won the toss, you would expect one of the big names to put together an innings of substance.

That didn't happen and the Mendis mind games continued to suck dry the confidence of the Indian batsmen.

Along comes Dhoni with a different gameplan and largely with added streetwise batting from Suresh Raina, batted Mendis out of the attack to aid India to a spectacular 3-2 ODI series success. Coming as it did after the Mendis torment in the Tests explains the difference in thinking.

India were prepared to change their gameplan, Sri Lanka continued with the 6/5 formula that didn't really work.

As captain, Dhoni has knuckled down to the job in hand and more inclined to work the team into a winning position rather than wimp out and toss caution to the wind, as had happened in the past.

No one typifies the modern game more these days than Dhoni who marshalled the attack with efficiency and gave it belief to win matches.