All time captains’ XI in ODI cricket

It is no walk in the park to captain a team in the gentleman’s game. They have always been the carriers of this baggage named blame for the right or wrong reasons, but that is the asking price of that prized capital C in brackets after their name. Not all greats of the game could take up this responsibility and produce a good result, which speaks of how difficult the job can be.

From the iconic tales of WG Grace, Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Frank Worrell to this generation’s greats like Kane Williamson and Mashrafe Mortaza, we have had so many great leaders to look up to. The cricketing world has produced enough tales of legendary captains for us to relish it for centuries to come.

Here’s an all-time XI of all those amazing captains who made the game so special with their contribution.

1. Sourav Ganguly

One of the cult legends of Indian cricket, Sourav Ganguly set a mentality in the Indian side which made them believe they can compete against anyone, on any soil. Without a shadow of a doubt, he will go down as one of the finest leaders this sport has witnessed. With a charismatic persona and unmatched aggression, he penned down a beautiful chapter in the history of Indian cricket.

With a win percentage of 53.52 in ODIs, he made a very special name for himself in the fraternity. Under his captaincy, the likes of Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni, Mohammad Kaif, Irfan Pathan and many others made great progress and contributed profusely to his stupendous success rate.

He also led the team into the final of the 2003 World Cup, where they infamously lost to Australia. Besides his astounding captaincy record, Ganguly paired up with Sachin to make up one of the most formidable opening pairs of all time in One-day cricket. Till date, their pair holds the record for the most runs by an opening combination in this format (6,609 runs in 136 innings at an average of 49.32).