Successful ODI captains and their on-field legacies

Shikhar Dhawan will be the 25th ODI captain for India after getting selected to lead the Sri Lanka tour. He had not captained the Indian team in List A cricket for more than eight years. Dhawan has been the captain of just 7 List A matches in his career.

Shikhar Dhawan has the opportunity to lead the second-string Indian team and leave his mark on the Indian legacy. He was chosen to captain the team because the first choice players are busy with the England tour.

Dhawan's first match as the ODI captain would mark India’s 47th anniversary in ODI cricket. On July 13th, 1974, India played the first-ever ODI under Ajit Wadekar.

Some successful ODI captains of India are as follow:

Kapil Dev

Legendary cricketer Kapil Dev was India’s first successful limited-overs captain. He had a 54.16% success rate and won 39 out of 74 matches that he led. He was only 23 years old when he was given the responsibility to lead India in ODIs in 1982.

The reason behind his success was his aggressive approach to cricket as a player and a leader. He was also the first limited-overs captain to win a World Cup. In the 1983 World Cup, he led from the front and helped India win the lift of the trophy. During his second season as a captain, India reached the semifinal of the 1987 World Cup.

Gavaskar was the first Indian captain to record more wins than defeats in ODIs. Thereby, he was named Wisden’s Indiana Cricketer of the 20th century before Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar.

Ajay Jadeja

Ajay Jadeja was an important member of the Indian ODI squad. He was the deputy to Azhar and Tendulkar and led the team in the absence of big players. He was an intelligent leader who enjoyed decent success in ODI. Jadeja had a 61.53% success rate and he won 8 out of 13 matches that he led. He could have been appointed as the full-time captain of the ODI team after the 1999 World Cup.

Sourav Ganguly

The current BCCI president Sourav Ganguly had a good run as the captain of the Indian ODI team. His success rate was 53.9% and India own 76 out of 146 matches under his leadership

Ganguly took charge of the Indian team after Tendulkar stepped down as the captain. He led the Indian team through the turbulent phase in 2000 after the match-fixing controversy made headlines. During the same time, he was at his best as an ODI cricketer. Ganguly had chosen Rahul Dravid to be his deputy and the wicketkeeper in ODIs.

Ganguly and coach Jhon Wright helped in rebuilding the Indian team by backing cricketers from small regions. It was under his captaincy that MS Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, and many other players of the 2011 World Cup made their debut for the national team.

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