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Who is the greatest Test skipper of the 21st century?

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Devadwal

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I think these below four name are contenders for the greatest test captain of 21st century
Ricky Ponting
Gream Smith
Steve waugh
Virat Kohli

So question is who is the best amongst these and why ?

South Africa’s Graeme Smith recorded 53 wins and tops the list for captains with the most Test wins. The southpaw led the Proteas in 109 Tests, the most by any captain to date

Steve Waugh is considered the most successful Test captain in history with 41 victories in 57 Matches and a winning ratio of 72%.

Australia’s Ricky Ponting is second on the most successful Test captains list. The Aussie’s win percentage of 62.33 as captain is the second-best

Virat Kohli's winning percentage as captain in Test cricket is approximately 58.82%. Under his captaincy, the Indian team won 40 out of 68 Test matches
 

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Waugh played just 3 years of cricket in 2000s and was fading towards the end both as captain and leader.

Ponting inherited an ATG team and he failed to win a single test as captain in India. He also failed as captain in England by losing back to back Ashes series.

Grame Smith has a decent case - toughest job of captaincy was thrust on him at very young age of 22 or 23 but he stepped up almost instantly. Under him SA became a true force especially touring overseas. He won series for SA in Aus, England, Pak, Ban, WI etc and even drew vs India a couple of times in India. Under him, SA did not lose an away series for a staggering 7 years in a row.

But regardless of.all that Smith did, he had a decent team to work with already when he got captaincy. Whereas Kohli inherited an Indian team that was it's lowest ebb, and that too midway during a series in Australia of all places. He had a team in transition with many illustrious batters having bowed out and bowlers who were rather still finding their places, and had some typical trundlers ruling the roost. But he took it by the horns, and remade the team into the massive force that it is now purely out of his own will and leadership by example. It was pyre aggression but backed with world class performance. He and Ravi teamed up to back a culture of winning at any cost including defeat. Playing for draw was like the least preferred option. He threw away the MS Dhoni philosophy of using defensive bowling using spinners to the bin and replaced it with almost unseen before brand of test cricket where fast bowlers had the freedom to go all out and were backed to the hilt. Spinners also were used as pure attacking options even if they ended up being costly.

So my choice is Virat Kohli.
 
Kohli, the most transformative of all the options. The same bowlers under Dhoni were toothless, yet somehow Kohli transformed them into the most fearsome pace trio of 2010s. Such was Kohli's selflessness that he sacrificed his own stats to encourage bowling pitches in India, every match. He made fitness the priority like no one before and truly, his team was a reflection of who he was as an athlete. Really do miss his captaincy stint very fondly.
 
I'll take Virat Kohli over Graeme Smith and Ponting.
Smith and Ponting had super strong teams.
Virat Kohli was the major reason behind success of Indian pacers.
Michael Clarke was also phenomenol.
 
Graeme Smith. He took the captaincy at a very young age and alongwith a mix of seniors and youngster, he took the team to next level winning test matches home and away everywhere. He captained the side till his retirement and South Africa's record everywhere was phenomenal during this phase.
 
Smith did nothing with a great side.He drew against ind in ind,sa .He lost against aus at home twice. kohli just decimated any one at home. He had his fair share of bad decisions to cope but truly transformed the pace culture, fitness awareness in India .He will always be remembered for the wanderer's test match for not complaining or whining like his opponents on their own pitch.
 
Vikram1989 said:
Smith did nothing with a great side.He drew against ind in ind,sa .He lost against aus at home twice. kohli just decimated any one at home. He had his fair share of bad decisions to cope but truly transformed the pace culture, fitness awareness in India .He will always be remembered for the wanderer's test match for not complaining or whining like his opponents on their own pitch.
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Kohli will also be be remembered for communicating with broadcasters through stump mics
 
Vikram1989 said:
Smith did nothing with a great side.He drew against ind in ind,sa .He lost against aus at home twice. kohli just decimated any one at home. He had his fair share of bad decisions to cope but truly transformed the pace culture, fitness awareness in India .He will always be remembered for the wanderer's test match for not complaining or whining like his opponents on their own pitch.
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When Smith got captaincy, SA was under rebuilding phase. Dale Steyn, AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla debuted in 2004-05 only.

Under Kohli's captaincy, India lost all close games overseas like SA, Eng, whitewashed in NZ, 36 all out humiliation and WTC Final choke( which should have easily been drawn with all the rain coming). The only overseas win was against a weak Australian side of 2018.
 
People's are judging based on Match winning % .

Ponting and Waugh both had the ATG teams so obviously their win % was High .
 
Babar Azam

His fans say that without Babar, Pakistan would have been ranked 12th in the Test rankings, but he single handedly ensured that the team stayed in the 6th to 7th position. What are your thoughts @Rana @mominsaigol ?
 
Ab Fan said:
When Smith got captaincy, SA was under rebuilding phase. Dale Steyn, AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla debuted in 2004-05 only.

Under Kohli's captaincy, India lost all close games overseas like SA, Eng, whitewashed in NZ, 36 all out humiliation and WTC Final choke( which should have easily been drawn with all the rain coming). The only overseas win was against a weak Australian side of 2018.
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Kohli captaincy

In England: 3w 5L
In SA : 2w 3L

Not bad. Kohli don't have abd, kallis, amla
 
Ab Fan said:
When Smith got captaincy, SA was under rebuilding phase. Dale Steyn, AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla debuted in 2004-05 only.

Under Kohli's captaincy, India lost all close games overseas like SA, Eng, whitewashed in NZ, 36 all out humiliation and WTC Final choke( which should have easily been drawn with all the rain coming). The only overseas win was against a weak Australian side of 2018.
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We are not a great batting unit and relentless pujara,rajane drought brought us issues.As I said Kohli made mistakes with his stubbornness but truly transformed the test match culture .There may be other truly thinking captains but no one else put his soul in test matches like he did as a captain. Dhoni never cared about the test match results( after 2011 with so many defeats ) and pace culture.
 
1. Virat Kohli - The Clive Lloyd of 21st century. The man who transformed Bharatiya cricket by setting up our pace attack. No other captain before him cared about it like he did. He genuinely made efforts to select pacers, to have a 3 man pace attack and by the time he retired from captaincy we had arguably the best all format pace attack in the world. Shami became GOAT ODI bowler. Bumrah became GOAT all formats bowler. Ishant resurrected his career under Kohli.

2. Ponting : The trophies cabinet doesn’t lie. Yes he was lucky to have that kind of talent all at once but ensuring they worked as a team to win tournaments is credit to his captaincy.

3. MS Dhoni - Enough said. GOAT man manager and tactician.

4. Sarfraz Ahmed- That CT 2017 win was a special one.

5. Yoni Khan - Enough Swiss he’s not a name or a person but a brand.
 
Bhaijaan said:
1. Virat Kohli - The Clive Lloyd of 21st century. The man who transformed Bharatiya cricket by setting up our pace attack. No other captain before him cared about it like he did. He genuinely made efforts to select pacers, to have a 3 man pace attack and by the time he retired from captaincy we had arguably the best all format pace attack in the world. Shami became GOAT ODI bowler. Bumrah became GOAT all formats bowler. Ishant resurrected his career under Kohli.

2. Ponting : The trophies cabinet doesn’t lie. Yes he was lucky to have that kind of talent all at once but ensuring they worked as a team to win tournaments is credit to his captaincy.

3. MS Dhoni - Enough said. GOAT man manager and tactician.

4. Sarfraz Ahmed- That CT 2017 win was a special one.

5. Yoni Khan - Enough Swiss he’s not a name or a person but a brand.
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The thread is about test skipper.

Dhoni and Sarfaraz don't deserve to be in that.
 
RyanRyan10 said:
Babar Azam

His fans say that without Babar, Pakistan would have been ranked 12th in the Test rankings, but he single handedly ensured that the team stayed in the 6th to 7th position. What are your thoughts @Rana @mominsaigol ?
Click to expand...
Pakistan would have lost the sri lanka test series if saud and Abdullah didn't solo hit a 200.

Babar was clueless against hasranga
 
Easy
Punter is overrated.

First is Smith
Then kohli
Waugh
Punter
 
BouncerGuy said:
It has to be Graeme Smith. Led for 11 years, won 53 out of 109 Tests, including many away victories.
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But he lost a series at home to aus or twice? I believe twice
Once to england
And drew once vs india at home.

Home record needs to be dominant.
 
mominsaigol said:
Sarfraz kidhar sei aya? He's one of the worst test captains for pakistan.

He's a good whiteball captain only.
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no buddy!

I am not a fan of Sarfaraz but have to admit he was good in his decision taking abilities specially when it comes to Test cricket.

Overall he was a good captain not specifically in white ball cricket
 
Our King & Saviour, the night mayor of batting averages and runs scored at the top, Babar Azam.

Still, for me it’s Graeme Smith, he could have inherited an ATG team, but to lead them so young would be a monumental task. The names he had to captain hadn’t peaked and he was under immense pressure to earn the dressing room’s respect, and he first achieved that through his batting and then complimented it with his astute leadership on and off the pitch, I don’t feel his achievements will ever be matched because of the unique circumstances in which he became captain and to then sustain that success for 10 years or so was mind blowing.

Ponting doesn’t get enough credit because of the squad being Australia’s golden generation, but people forget he won the Champions Trophy in 2009 with babies, if there were any doubts on his leadership, he proved them wrong with the 09 win while Australia were going through a rebuilding phase.

Kohli has been great leader to in changing his country’s mindset and instilling the intent needed to succeed at the highest level, gone are the days when they’d look to out bat teams and look to strangle them with spin, Misbah was very lucky with such defensive tactics and got away with them, largely thanks to Younis Khan, Yasir Shah and Sased Ajmal. While Kohli had to deal with Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Varun Arun and mediocre spinners like Ashwin/Jadeja who relied heavily on unsporting pitches, not to mention Pujara; it’s not really a world beating team, but Kohli made the squeaky ones roar.
 
In hindsight nobody will ever remember Misbah besides his no.1 fan Annie Wilkes. Lucky to have exploited UAE’s conditions but a lot of time the series were drawn, apart from that Australian one which again was more down to Younis Khan or the England one due to Ajmal. He doesn’t really have that ‘wow’ moment during his boring reign. Unfortunately Pakistan have not had a good Test captain, the record is so terrible that this century, Shan Masood has managed to compete better down-under than Pakistan’s so called GOAT captain :misbah
 
mominsaigol said:
Sarfraz kidhar sei aya? He's one of the worst test captains for pakistan.

He's a good whiteball captain only.
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Bud , thats why sometimes its so tough to debate with some on this board based on merit as they are so biased. Sarfaraz as you said - come on ! If its a joke you understand but not the case here. And Dhoni ? He was a good white ball captain , poor as a test captain . Steve Waugh is so so underrated as captain . You could count his losses on your hand and the draws he had were more weather related. And it took a monumental effort to defeat Waughs team seen by the 2001 Ind win. He transformed a good team into a completely ruthless mentally monstrous outfit, win at all cost not going for draws, and managing all personalities like Shane Warne. Next up will be Ponting - again winning in an era where teams used to draw a lot. And he led from the front with his batting. Next up will be Kohli. He transformed kittens abroad India into an outfit that won overseas tests and series where now Ind supporters expect Ind now to win every overseas series when before that Ind would win at home but lose very badly in SENA.
 
deltexas said:
Bud , thats why sometimes its so tough to debate with some on this board based on merit as they are so biased. Sarfaraz as you said - come on ! If its a joke you understand but not the case here. And Dhoni ? He was a good white ball captain , poor as a test captain . Steve Waugh is so so underrated as captain . You could count his losses on your hand and the draws he had were more weather related. And it took a monumental effort to defeat Waughs team seen by the 2001 Ind win. He transformed a good team into a completely ruthless mentally monstrous outfit, win at all cost not going for draws, and managing all personalities like Shane Warne. Next up will be Ponting - again winning in an era where teams used to draw a lot. And he led from the front with his batting. Next up will be Kohli. He transformed kittens abroad India into an outfit that won overseas tests and series where now Ind supporters expect Ind now to win every overseas series when before that Ind would win at home but lose very badly in SENA.
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Agree with all except Kohli.

Kohli is not a good captain by any metric. Kohli throughout captaincy was being guided by a good management and good senior players who mostly did the work for him.

Theirs a reason he got so heavily exposed in 2021 as despite playing full strength he led the side to a humiliating defeat against pakistan and NZ and crashed out the wc whole rohit with literally half the indian side injured or put of commission took the team into the semi's, Obviously England was a hard stop as the bowling was so crap for india.

The reason Kohli managed to transform the side into a unit was because he was vastly respected and still is respected by not just Indian players but an entire nation, so everyone considered it a huge honor to play for kohli and automatically gelled to not dissapoint their captain.

It's the same reason for 2011, where even if Sachin didn't perform, Team India performed much better then they usually do mainly due to wanting to give Sachin the perfect send off.

(PS: BEFORE INCOMING INDIAN POSTERS ATTACK ME, no I am not discrediting 2011 India, they were the strongest team and would have likely won even without the extra Sachin motivation)
 
mominsaigol said:
Agree with all except Kohli.

Kohli is not a good captain by any metric. Kohli throughout captaincy was being guided by a good management and good senior players who mostly did the work for him.

Theirs a reason he got so heavily exposed in 2021 as despite playing full strength he led the side to a humiliating defeat against pakistan and NZ and crashed out the wc whole rohit with literally half the indian side injured or put of commission took the team into the semi's, Obviously England was a hard stop as the bowling was so crap for india.

The reason Kohli managed to transform the side into a unit was because he was vastly respected and still is respected by not just Indian players but an entire nation, so everyone considered it a huge honor to play for kohli and automatically gelled to not dissapoint their captain.

It's the same reason for 2011, where even if Sachin didn't perform, Team India performed much better then they usually do mainly due to wanting to give Sachin the perfect send off.

(PS: BEFORE INCOMING INDIAN POSTERS ATTACK ME, no I am not discrediting 2011 India, they were the strongest team and would have likely won even without the extra Sachin motivation)
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To clarify i was talking about kohli the test Captain not loi captain. He clearly was a way better test captain. And i was talking only about test captains on my post. Kohli was an average odi captain but in tests he transformed ind overseas with a pace focused attack and giving it back to the opposition. The next gen should take it up a notch era. In the ganguly dhoni era nobody expected Ind to win tests overseas consistently. Kohli was average as captain in white ball icc events.

As for pak- i think they should just stop playing test cricket and focus on t20s. Aus ind eng should be the only countries playing test cricket as they have a sustainable fanbase for viability.
 
deltexas said:
To clarify i was talking about kohli the test Captain not loi captain. He clearly was a way better test captain. And i was talking only about test captains on my post. Kohli was an average odi captain but in tests he transformed ind overseas with a pace focused attack and giving it back to the opposition. The next gen should take it up a notch era. In the ganguly dhoni era nobody expected Ind to win tests overseas consistently. Kohli was average as captain in white ball icc events.

As for pak- i think they should just stop playing test cricket and focus on t20s. Aus ind eng should be the only countries playing test cricket as they have a sustainable fanbase for viability.
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Fair enough, I agree
 
I think it is Graeme Smith. Under Smith, SA won in Australia, England etc.

Under Smith, they also drew in India (not once but twice I think).
 
Honourable mention for Michael Vaughan, hard to get out the silk sheets after 05 but a fine man manger and tactician
 
sweep_shot said:
I think it is Graeme Smith. Under Smith, SA won in Australia, England etc.

Under Smith, they also drew in India (not once but twice I think).
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But he has also lost home series against Australia twice , Draw home series against india .

Still Smith is best test captain of this century .
 
It would probably be Graeme Smith, who I rate as one of the best leaders of men that I have ever seen, and not just in cricket.
 
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