Captaincy, indeed, has to be one of the most underrated things in Test cricket. We would always hear people talk about one of the most extraordinary daddy hundreds or any of those fiery spells bowled ever, but the thing is, one of the essential parts of a team’s fine-going has to be captaincy.
Captaincy is about more than just giving the team a good dressing room mood. It’s about inducing a never give up attitude throughout all sessions and days and executing those bowling changes that do the trick. Having a fair enough idea of when to enforce the follow-on and when to declare is also significant.
Before getting into the article, here is the complete Indian Test captaincy records, based on the number of Test wins and win percentage.
This article, however, will look at some of the finest Indian captains who have produced the most test series wins.
#5 Rahul Dravid – 5
First up, we have “The Wall” Dravid, who has been the rock of the Indian batting lineup for a long time. Unlike his defensive approach in batting, he has been known for some aggressive brand of captaincy, for he has influenced India to some of the best Test series wins.
In such a short captaincy stint, his significant wins were overseas successes against Bangladesh, England, and West Indies. Also, he did have a win against South Africa though India lost that series. Still, a win in the challenging Proteas land depicts how good he was as a captain. Find out here – a detailed stats coverage in Indian captains’ overseas records.
One would wonder why Rahul is ahead of the likes of Pataudi, leading India to their first-ever overseas Test series success. The only reason Rahul is ahead of him is his infusion of bringing up the required enthusiasm and bringing up the ante to perform abroad.
#4 Mohammad Azharuddin – 6
Have to consider him as the sub-continent king as he had not been able to conquer a single Test series win outside Asia. India lost a series against Zimbabwe during that period. Still, he had been almost unbeatable in the subcontinent, which is a great thing to boast about. He is one of the best captain in the Asia Cup history.
Other than this fact, we can focus on his sheer domination, which he had in Asia, not letting any team beat India. He was the captain under which some gems of the Indian Test cricket team were molded. Under his reign of captaincy, we saw the likes of Sachin, Javagal Srinath, Rahul, and Sourav Ganguly’s debut, which paved the best platform for the success that came after.
He successfully won 14 matches in the total of 47 he had captained.
#3 Sourav Ganguly – 10
Next is one of the best, if not the best Indian Test captain. Sure he doesn’t hold any fancy records to his name, but his presence had the most impact. He instigated the ferocious brand of cricket. Under his captaincy, India becomes a team to beat the previous overseas records. They say a good set of players’ presence helps the captain perform better, and true it is. We saw a full-fledged in-form group of players play during Ganguly’s reign. You can find a complete information on Ganguly’s captaincy stats here.
Be it the home Test series or India playing abroad, there was a will to perform better and better constantly. He has been vocal in leading the team to many series, drawn to be considered one of the best Test captains ever produced in Indian cricket history.
#2 MS Dhoni – 12
Talking about the captaincy thing and not having Captain Cool on the list would don’t make sense. So here we have the Ranchi born, one of the best wicketkeeper-batsmen to play the game, MS Dhoni. Although he couldn’t replicate the same success in the longer format as in limited-overs cricket, he still had some memorable wins to cut this list.
Talking about one of the most notable wins he had in Test cricket, leading India in his first-ever overseas match, he had a lot to prove. India had never won against New Zealand in the past 33 years before the 2009 tour to New Zealand, wherein we saw him leading the team to a memorable win and winning the series from there.
Even though his win-loss ratio doesn’t give that much faith, he is still a great captain for the team he built and the confidence that spread in the side. Read about 47 cricketing records that MSD still holds!
#1 Virat Kohli – 18
Now comes the best Indian Test captain by numbers. The way he has been able to win series overseas has been exceptional. From playing for a draw to having that same hope to win in every match was the attitude, the Indian cricket team possessed under his captaincy. He has multiple excellent captaincy records to boast for, especially this one. He has successfully won all the home Test series he has captained. That’s just great, isn’t it?
He had the best average for an Indian captain leading in Test cricket, averaging 54.80. Another critical stat we should know about should be his win percentage, wherein of the 68 matches he led, India won 40 of those. He has the most wins in India with 24 excellent wins surpassing the previous best of 21 held by MS Dhoni previously.
He had won 5 Test mace consecutively, adding more to his collection of records, making him the best Indian captain in Test cricket. He also has the best captaincy numbers in ODI and T20I.
I hope you all would have liked reading this article.
