A major difference from India's squad then and now will be the presence of a chinaman bowler in Kuldeep Yadav and a leg-spinner in Yuzvendra Chahal. While Kohli did have an experienced Ravi Ashwin and Ravi Jadeja then, the impact of Kuldeep and Chahal post that tournament has been tremendous. So effective has the pair been that Ashwin hasn't played limited overs cricket for India since the West Indies tour immediately following the Champions Trophy in 2017 while Jadeja made a comeback to the ODI side only last year. Not only that, but India also enjoys a rare healthy competition in the pace bowling department, having been forced to choose one between Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who offers swing and death-bowling variations, and Mohammad Shami, who has pace, swing, seam,, and pinpoint yorkers in his armory.

Aside from that, it is a very similar side that Kohli carries in the country where he lost the Champions Trophy final two years ago. He has firing openers, a dependable middle-order, and both pace as well as spin-bowling all-rounders. But despite that team can Kohli repeat what MS Dhoni did in 2011? For that to happen...

...India finally needs to settle on their number four

Not to recount the number of batsmen India has tried in that position since the 2015 World Cup, the latest front-runner for that spot seems to be KL Rahul (again). Just seven months back, Kohli was in favour of Ambati Rayudu occupying the number four slot, only to see him not make the World Cup squad at all; and when the squad was picked sans Rayudu, India's chief selector MSK Prasad believed all-rounder Vijay Shankar remained the best bet to bat at four. But after all that, Rahul seems to have disrupted everything courtesy of a commanding century in the warm-up game against Bangladesh. His 108 off 99 balls - and a partnership of 164 with Dhoni - from number four saved India following a middle-order collapse. Rahul averages only 34.30 after 14 ODIs, and he will be desperate to improve those numbers in the biggest cricket tournament of them all.

Injury Worries

India was troubled by Kedar Jadhav's shoulder a few weeks back, but he has now been declared fit to start the World Cup in their first game against South Africa. Just days back, Shankar hurt his hand while batting in the nets and the biggest scare among all those arrived when Kohli hurt his thumb recently. But concerns from all of that have been cleared ahead of India's tournament opener at Southampton, where they face an injury-hit side themselves.

Tournament Tags: Favourites

Squad: Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma (vc), Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shikhar Dhawan, MS Dhoni (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Vijay Shankar and Kuldeep Yadav.