Most successful captain in Cricket: Who is the most successful captain in Cricket?

Gurpreet Singh | 15/01/2022
Most successful captain in Cricket: Who is the most successful captain in Cricket?

Most successful captain in Cricket: Virat Kohli currently finishes at 8th spot on the list of most successful captains in Cricket history.

A captaincy career which commenced in the year 2015 with twin centuries in Australia, has finally come to an end as team India’s (now) former skipper Virat Kohli, 33, decides to absolve himself of India’s Test captaincy duty, and thereby completely as skipper in all formats of the game on Saturday.

Kohli’s shocking decision came post a day after India lost its third Test match against South Africa in Cape Town, and with it a wonderful opportunity to win a maiden Test series on South African soil.

KL Rahul is perhaps next in the pecking order for India’s new Test skipper, with Rohit Sharma being handed the ODI and T20I captaincy responsibility last year.

Kohli led team India in a total of 213 matches across all formats. He prevailed in 135 of those, lost 60, tied 3, while drew 11 with a remarkable win percentage of 63.38.

Most successful captain in Cricket (all formats)

Kohli currently stands at the 8th spot in the list of most successful Cricket captain across all formats of the game.

At the top is Kohli’s captain (in his own words), the legendary Mahendra Singh Dhoni who leads the list with 178 wins across 332 matches as captain of the Indian Cricket team. Placed below him are Australia’s Ricky Ponting (324 matches, 220 wins) and New Zealand’s Stephen Fleming (303 matches, 128 wins).

Player Span Mat Won Lost Tied Draw
MS Dhoni (INDIA) 2007-2018 332 178 120 6 15
RT Ponting (AUS/ICC) 2002-2012 324 220 77 2 13
SP Fleming (NZ) 1997-2007 303 128 135 2 25
GC Smith (Afr/ICC/SA) 2003-2014 286 163 89 1 27
AR Border (AUS) 1984-1994 271 139 89 2 38
A Ranatunga (SL) 1988-1999 249 101 114 1 25
M Azharuddin (INDIA) 1990-1999 221 104 90 2 19
V Kohli (INDIA) 2013-2022 213 135 60 3 11
SC Ganguly (Asia/INDIA) 1999-2005 196 97 79 0 15
EJG Morgan (ENG) 2011-2021 194 115 66 4 0

 

Most successful captain in Cricket (Test matches)

As far as solely the Test format is concerned, South Africa’s Graeme Smith leads the chart with 53 Test wins in a total of 109 matches as captain. Placed below him are Australia’s Allan Border (93 matches, 32 wins) and New Zealand’s Stephen Fleming (80 matches, 28 wins).

Virat Kohli, with 40 wins in 68 Tests, is India’s most successful Test captain and 6th overall in the world.

Player Span Mat Won Lost Tied Draw
GC Smith (ICC/SA) 2003-2014 109 53 29 0 27
AR Border (AUS) 1984-1994 93 32 22 1 38
SP Fleming (NZ) 1997-2006 80 28 27 0 25
RT Ponting (AUS) 2004-2010 77 48 16 0 13
CH Lloyd (WI) 1974-1985 74 36 12 0 26
V Kohli (INDIA) 2014-2022 68 40 17 0 11
JE Root (ENG) 2017-2022 61* 27 24 0 9
MS Dhoni (INDIA) 2008-2014 60 27 18 0 15
AN Cook (ENG) 2010-2016 59 24 22 0 13
SR Waugh (AUS) 1999-2004 57 41 9 0 7
Post Edited By: Gurpreet Singh
Most successful captain

About the author

Gurpreet Singh

Gurpreet Singh is a Cricket writer at The Sportsrush. His platonic relationship with sports had always been there since childhood, but Cricket managed to strike a special, intimate nerve of his heart. Although his initial dream of playing the sport at the highest level couldn't come to fruition, Gurpreet did represent the state of Jharkhand at the under-14 level. However, almost like taking a pledge to never let the undying passion for Cricket fade away even a tad, he made sure to continue the love relationship by assigning the field of journalism as an indirect Cupid. He thus, first finished his bachelor's in journalism and then pursued the PG Diploma course in English journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC). Soon after and since 2019, he has been working at The Sportsrush. Apart from sports, he takes keen interest in politics, and in understanding women and gender-related issues.

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