Stats: Countries with most number of Test captains till date

Being the captain of a cricket team is no ceremonial job. It’s a challenging role that only a few can perform. Some of the best cricketers we’ve seen have failed to cope with the burden of captaincy despite having ruled over the sport with their unmatched cricketing skills.

What’s even more, difficult is to pick the right candidate for the leadership role. Dressing room chatter, personal history, mental strength and other more unquantifiable factors help selectors make the choice while picking a skipper.

Captaining a cricket team is very different compared to other sports. Not only does a cricket captain have to be top of his own personal skill set, but he also has to be thorough with all other departments of the game. Being a team game, a captain has to build a healthy atmosphere for the remainder of the ten guys. The captain is like the lead character of a Shakespearean play, he can pause, he can improvise and captivate.

Like most sports, coaches do have a part to play in the game, but in cricket, it is the skipper who is the ultimate authority. The skipper can have a round table conference when you need 19 of the last over or he can promote himself up the order to make a statement. He can bowl a match changing spell or take a brilliant catch to turn the tide of things. A skipper is like a field marshall who has to know the individual capacity of each of his soldier.

Till date from the 10 Test playing nations, we have seen total 317 Test captains and here we bring a table which shows details related to how many captains have captained England, Australia, India and other teams.

This table is headed by England and from England we have seen 79 captains till date including current captain Alastair Cook. England’s first captain was James Lillywhite. Australia is next to England in terms of the number of captains till date and then in decreasing order in terms of the number of captains, here we present the top 10 Test countries.