Who is India’s most successful captain? Whenever this question is asked, the first name that comes up in the answer is that of MS Dhoni. He led India to the World Cup twice and the Champions Trophy once. Kapil Dev and Sourav Ganguly are named after Dhoni. But if the criteria for winning more matches rather than trophies for India is taken then all these captains are behind Rohit Sharma.
Rohit Sharma has been playing for India since 2007. Rohit started his international career in T20 format. So let’s see about the captaincy first from this format. Rohit has captained 54 T20 matches and won 41 of them. India has thus won 76.85 per cent of its matches under Rohit’s leadership, which is more than any other captain. This list of successful captains (Indian captains) includes players who have led India in at least 10 matches. 4 Indian players have led in more than 10 matches in the T20 format. Apart from Rohit Sharma, it includes MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya. Under Dhoni’s leadership, India have won 41 out of 71 matches. Captain Kohli has won 30 out of 50 matches and Hardik Pandya has won 10 out of 16 matches. Thus Pandya (65.62%), Kohli (64.58%) and Dhoni (59.28%) are behind Rohit in winning percentage.
Captain Rohit Sharma has led India in 45 ODIs, winning 34 of them. That means India have won 77.27 percent of their matches under Rohit’s leadership, which is more than any other captain. Virat Kohli (70.43%) and Shikhar Dhawan (70.00%) are in the second position. Kohli has won 65 out of 95 matches as captain and Dhawan has won 7 out of 12 matches. MS Dhoni has won 59.52% and Kapil Dev 54.16% matches. Dhoni led in 200 ODIs, out of which he won 110 matches. Under Kapil’s leadership, India won 39 out of 74 matches. Apart from Rohit and Kohli, only Shikhar Dhawan (7 out of 12) has managed to win 70% of India’s matches under his leadership. All other captains have less than 70% success.
In terms of success percentage in Test matches, Virat Kohli has captained the most matches with 68 matches and won the most matches with 40 matches. India’s win percentage under his leadership is 70. Rohit Sharma (69.23%) is very close to Virat and surpassed Virat by winning the Dharamsala Test. Under Rohit’s leadership, India have won 10 out of 15 matches. Saurabh Ganguly (61.76%) is third, MS Dhoni (60%) is fourth and Rahul Dravid (57.14%) is fifth in terms of win percentage in Test matches.
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