10 most successful captains in the history of the IPL

9. Steve Smith

Steve Smith

Steve Smith’s first stint at captaincy came in 2012 when he was playing for Pune Warriors India. He captained his team in one match against the Royal Challengers Bangalore and lost by 35 runs.

However, Steve Smith's full-time gig as captain came when he was selected to lead the Rising Pune Supergiants in 2017. He performed well as captain and led his team to the finals of the tournament before losing to Mumbai Indians.

Smith holds a pretty good captaincy record of 16 wins and eight losses in 24 matches with a good winning percentage of 66.67%.

8. Sachin Tendulkar

Sachin Tendulkar

Sachin was tasked with captaining Mumbai Indians in their debut season but couldn’t captain the team from the beginning due to an injury. He returned in the later part of the tournament to take up the mantle as captain but Mumbai Indians still failed to qualify for the semi-finals.

In 2009, he was again set to captain MI but failed to gain any success as they finished in seventh place. However, Tendulkar tasted his first successful run as captain in 2010 when he literally led Mumbai Indians to their first IPL finals. They lost the finals to Chennai Super Kings, but Tendulkar won the orange cap by scoring 618 runs in the season.

Sachin's final season as captain came in 2011. This was also a good season for MI as they made the playoffs before losing the second qualifier to Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Sachin had another successful season with the bat scoring 533 runs in 16 matches. He also scored his first IPL hundred in this season. Sachin held a great captaincy record of 31 wins and 22 losses with a winning percentage of 60.78%.