Ricky Ponting (Australia) as captain has scored 8497 runs in 220 innings in ODIs while playing as captain, which is the most runs scored by any captain in ODIs.
Cricket has seen only handful of successful captain-batsmen combination of players, like Ponting, who have been successful with both bat and leading the team.
Captaincy has taken a toll on most top batsmen in cricket history. Even Sachin Tendulkar, one of the best batsman ever played ODIs couldn’t be the best in both.
And, then there are batsmen like Virat Kohli, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Arjuna Ranatunga and Graeme Smith, who managed to do well as both skipper and batsman.
So here are the list of captains who scored the most runs in ODIs while playing as captain.
| PLAYER (CAPTAIN) | RUNS | INNINGS | AVERAGE | 100/50 | HIGH SCORE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ricky Ponting (AUS) | 8497 | 220 | 42.91 | 22/51 | 164 |
| MS Dhoni (IND) | 6641 | 172 | 53.56 | 6/47 | 139* |
| Stephen Fleming (NZ) | 6295 | 208 | 32.79 | 7/38 | 134* |
| Arjuna Ranatunga (SL) | 5608 | 183 | 37.64 | 4/37 | 131* |
| Virat Kohli (IND) | 5449 | 91 | 72.65 | 21/27 | 160* |
| Graeme Smith (SA) | 5416 | 148 | 38.96 | 8/37 | 141 |
| Mohammad Azharuddin (IND) | 5239 | 162 | 38.96 | 4/37 | 153* |
| Sourav Ganguly (IND) | 5104 | 143 | 38.67 | 11/30 | 144 |
| AB de Villiers (SA) | 4796 | 98 | 63.95 | 13/27 | 162* |
| Allan Border (AUS) | 4439 | 165 | 32.17 | 2/27 | 127* |
Virat Kohli’s batting average while playing as captain stands out in this list. It’s over 70, and its unbelievable that the pressure of captaincy has never crossed him. In fact his stats improved after becoming the captain of the team.
If you check his year by year stats, you will see he became a monster of a batsman after 2017, when he was made the captain of Indian cricket team.
Virat also scored the most runs playing as a captain in a calendar year.
Virender Sehwag, who captained India in just 12 ODIs, scored the highest score ever by a Captain in an innings – 219 vs West Indies (Indore) in 2011. Rohit Sharma came so close to beat Viru, when he scored an unbeaten 208 against Sri Lanka in Mohali in 2017, playing as captain.
Ricky Ponting also leads the chart for the most centuries as captain in ODIs (22) and the most fifties as captain in ODIs (51).
Ponting also batted the most ODI innings as captain (220).
NEXT READ: Most 2500+ Runs in a Calendar Year (All Formats)
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