Most Successful Captains in T20 Cricket

A captain is an important figure in a cricket team. A captain leads the team from the front with example and needs to be a person who can get the best out of the squad even when the chips are down. An ideal captain boosts the team’s morale and gets the best out of every player in the squad. There have been some very illustrious players in the history of the game to captain their sides successfully across formats.

Here is the list of the most successful T20 captains.

Former India captain MS Dhoni is one of the most influential leaders on the cricket field. Having led the Indian team in the inaugural T20 World Cup to victory, he then led the Chennai Super Kings franchise in the Indian Premier League and is still going strong having won the IPL 5 times and the now defunct Champions League T20 twice.

Rohit Sharma is another Indian captain on the list. Having led India and the Mumbai Indians IPL franchise, Rohit has a better win percentage than Dhoni and is the best amongst the top 10 players who have captained the most number of times in T20 cricket. He took over captaincy from Ricky Ponting in IPL 2013 and led the team to both the IPL and CLT20 titles that year. Mumbai Indians have since won 4 more trophies in Sharma’s captaincy.

Former T20 World Cup-winning captain Daren Sammy has led 11 different teams in T20 cricket around the world. He is the only captain in the world to have led their team to multiple World T20 titles. Sammy led the West Indies successfully in 2012 and 2016. Some more prominent names feature in the list with former Kolkata Knight Riders captain Gautam Gambhir, and Australia skipper Aaron Finch having brilliant records as T20 skippers.

MS Dhoni is one of the most successful captains for India and in the T20 circuit leading the Chennai Super Kings since 2008. Known for his tactical brilliance and identifying talent to overcome the team’s needs and groom young players, many players have found a better version of themselves playing under his captaincy in international and franchise cricket.

Rohit Sharma is another successful captain leading the Mumbai Indians (MI) to 5 IPL trophies and a CLT20 trophy. Another former MI skipper Harbhajan Singh makes the list who led MI to their first CLT20 title. Former India and Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Virat Kohli has led 193 times in the format but has yet to get his hands on any silverware. Gautam Gambhir has tasted success as captain with the Kolkata Knight Riders leading them to a couple of victorious seasons. He has also captained the Delhi Daredevils franchise but failed to win any title.

Among the top 10 Indian players who have been captains on most occasions in T20 cricket, Dinesh Karthik has the best win percentage having led the Tamil Nadu, Delhi Daredevils, Kolkata Knight Riders and India in the format. He led the Indian side in T20 games against county sides in England in 2022 but not in an international game. The Tamil Nadu team has been crowned the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 champions twice under his leadership.

The list features some of the great names to have led their team in one-day internationals. Ricky Ponting tops the list with the most number of wins as captain. He also has the remarkable achievement to win consecutive World Cups for Australia (2003-2007). Under his captaincy, Australia won 22 consecutive ODIs in 2003. It is still a record by a long distance.

Another Australian, Allan Border became the first captain in the world to lead the team to win 100 times. He has an impressive win percentage of over 60 and also led the team to their first World Cup title in 1987. MS Dhoni, India’s famous skipper led the side on 200 occasions with the team ending up victorious in 110 games and besides the 2011 World Cup, also won the 2013 Champions Trophy under him.

Sri Lanka’s Arjuna Ranatunga and Pakistan’s former leader Imran Khan are other captains who led their teams to World Cup titles in 1996 and 1992 respectively. Mohammad Azharuddin led the Indian team in 174 matches and was succeeded by Sourav Ganguly who took the team to greater heights and also made India the joint winners of the 2002 Champions Trophy. 

A similar story followed in South Africa with Graeme Smith picking up where Hansie Cronje left off in his successful but controversial career. South Africa won the inaugural ICC Knockout Trophy in 1998 which was later rechristened as ICC Champions Trophy.