What are some of the best decisions taken by a captain in cricket history that changed a player's career?

What are some of the best decisions taken by a captain in cricket history that changed a player's career?

Three different captains, but one common decision, and every time the result brought extraordinary success for India.

A bit reluctant in the beginning but when Mohd. Azharuddin took a leap of faith and brought Sachin to the opening slot vs New Zealand in Auckland. Sachin was batting in the middle and was shining in bits and pieces. In 61 innings in that phase, Sachin scored runs with an average of 30.84 with 13 half-centuries and 0 century. Just imagine, Sachin Tendulkar, highest centurian in the history of One Day game had no century to his credit for the first 5 odd years.

On 27th March 1994, Sachin scored 82 off 49 balls and there was no looking back. He recorded scores of 82, 63, 40, 63 and 73 in his first five innings as an opening batsman and cemented his position as an opener. In 344 matches as an opener, he made 15,310 runs at 48.29 and scored 45 of his 49 ODI hundreds.

Over to the next era, Virender Sehwag made his international debut for India in April 1999 in an ODI against Pakistan under Ajay Jadeja's captaincy. However, he blossomed as a swashbuckling opener under Sourav Ganguly, who had a huge role to play in shaping the former batsman's international career.

Sehwag initially started a middle-order batsman who came into the side on the back of his all-round skills, went on to become one of the greatest Test openers that the world has ever seen.

It all changed during India’s 2002 tour of England when Sourav Ganguly decided to push the Delhi batsman to the top of the order. And, the rest as they are history. Sehwag amassed 7518 runs in ODIs and 8586 runs in Tests respectively as an opener.

In the last decade, we witnessed that Rohit Sharma's career took off as his game reached another level after he started opening for India in the limited-overs formats.

The turn of events took place at the 2013 Champions Trophy when MS Dhoni came to him on the night before the first game and asked him to open the innings. The right-handed batsman ended up accepting the offer instantly.