Mahendra Singh Dhoni [ Images ] was on Tuesday named skipper of the Indian team for the one-day international series against Australia [ Images ] and Pakistan, starting September 29.

• Schedule: Australia in India

The 26-year-old, who is currently leading the team in the Twenty20 [ Images ] World Cup, succeeds Rahul Dravid [ Images ], who recently sprang a surprise by relinquishing the captaincy, saying he wants to concentrate on his batting.

The announcement was made by Board of Control for Cricket in India [ Images ] secretary Niranjan Shah at a press conference in Mumbai [ Images ].

The selectors, however, did not name the captain for the Test team, with chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar saying a decision would be taken at a later stage.

"Dhoni is a good captain and it is the right time to groom him," Vengsarkar said.

Yuvraj Singh [ Images ] was named vice-captain.

Dhoni holds the unique feat of captaining India in an international match without ever captaining his home teams -- Bihar and Jharkhand -- in the Ranji Trophy or any other important domestic cricket match.

In fact, he had the experience of captaining a team only once, before leading India in the ICC [ Images ] [Images] Twenty20 Championship, when he led an Indian eleven against England [ Images ] [Images] 'A' at Northampton recently.

Dhoni is the fifth youngest player to captain India in one-day internationals after Sachin Tendulkar [ Images ] [Images] (23 years 126 days), Kapil Dev [ Images ] [Images] (23 years 249 days), Virender Sehwag [ Images ] [Images] (24 years 178 days) and Ravi Shastri (24 years 245 days).

He will also be the third wicketkeeper to lead India in a one-day international after Syed Kirmani (one match) and Rahul Dravid [Images] (five matches).

Team for first three ODIs vs Australia:
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain)
Yuvraj Singh (vice captain)
Rahul Dravid
Sachin Tendulkar
Sourav Ganguly [ Images ]
Robin Uthappa [ Images ]
Gautam Gambhir [ Images ]
Dinesh Karthik [ Images ]
Harbhajan Singh [ Images ]
Irfan Pathan [ Images ]
Zaheer Khan [ Images ]
S Sreesanth [ Images ]
Ramesh Powar [ Images ]
R P Singh
Piyush Chawla [ Images ]

The following players were named in the India 'A' team that will play South Africa [ Images ] 'A' at Ahmedabad [ Images ], Baroda and Rajkot on September 26, 28 and 30, 2007 respectively.

Mohammad Kaif (captain)
Parthiv Patel [ Images ] (vice captain)
Cheteshwer Pujara
Karan Goel [ Images ]
Manoj Tiwary
Suresh Raina [ Images ]
S Badrinath
Praveen Kumar [ Images ]
Praghyan Ojha
Ishant Sharma [ Images ]
Yo Mahesh
Pankaj Singh
Arjun Yadav
Abhishek Nair
Anirudh Srikanth

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