The upcoming season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is going to be a must watch for the majority of the cricket fans, especially in India, and the biggest reason for that is, MS Dhoni will again be seen leading the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) squad after a gap of 2 years. Despite the fact that in IPL 2018 players’ auction, most of the teams witnessed a huge revamp in their squad, but there is no denying to the fact that most of the teams have managed to retain their crucial cogs along with the captains as well. The three IPL teams have managed to retain the skipper from the previous edition, and they are CSK, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Mumbai Indians (MI).
CSK will be led by none other than Dhoni, RCB will be led by the Indian skipper Virat Kohli while MI will continue to be led by the three-time IPL winning skipper Rohit Sharma. Apart from Dhoni, both Virat and Rohit didn’t start the captaincy of their respective teams as Kohli started leading RCB in 2011, while Rohit started leading the Mumbai squad in 2013 itself and the same year he went on to lift the first ever IPL trophy for MI as well. Apart from Kohli, the other 2 captains have the record of winning percentage more than 60 as Dhoni has 61.25% while Rohit is slightly above him with 61.87%, while Kohli has a winning percentage of just below 50, it’s 49.36%.
Also read: Chennai Super Kings (CSK) – The King of the Jungle is Back
Captaincy Records
When it comes to captaincy, Rohit and MS have neck-to-neck records. While Rohit has led MI in 80 matches and managed to register a win in 49 of them, Dhoni has more matches in terms of wins, as he led CSK in 152 matches and managed to go over the line in 93 matches. However, since 2011, Kohli has captained the RCB squad in 82 matches and took his team over the line 38 matches.
Individual Records
When it comes to batting there is no denying the fact that Kohli is far the most consistent, reliable and successful batsman in the history of IPL. He is the second highest run-getter in the history of IPL (only behind Suresh Raina) as he managed to gather as many as 4418 runs in 144 innings at a phenomenal average of more than 37. He has also scored 4 IPL centuries (most by any batsman) and surprisingly all of them came in the year 2016. He has the individual highest score of 113. However, in the batting record, Sharma is also not very far behind Kohli, as he is the third highest run-getting in the IPL history with a tally of 4207 runs in 154 innings at an average of 32.6, but he only managed to score one IPL century which is also his individual highest score i.e., 109*.
On the other hand, MS Dhoni’s batting record in IPL isn’t that much pleasing but still, he has managed to play some memorable knocks for CSK. In the first decade of IPL, Mahi has amassed 3561 runs in 143 innings at an average of 37.8 which is even better than Kohli. Unfortunately, He never managed to score a hundred in IPL because of the fact that in most of the matches in batted below no. 5.
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Captaincy approach
In captaincy standards, Dhoni is by far the most unconventional captain similar to his batting as the pundits say that lead from the font is the best approach, but he leads from behind. He empowers his players and asks them even you flourish great but even if you fail I am there for the team. He is brilliant and unpredictable with the bowling changes and always looks to take the game as deep as possible only because of the fact that he posses the ability to keep his cool even in the most intense of the situations. Because of all these reasons, there is no room for flaws in Mahi’s captaincy.
Rohit is the most successful IPL skipper but still quite underrated, maybe because whenever MI has been successful in lifting the IPL trophy, most of the people gave credits to the players. In terms of tactics, he is an outstanding skipper as he always likes to take the control of the game with his proactiveness and being ahead of the opposition in most of the situations. Even with his batting he likes to lead from the front and loves to bat deep in his innings in order to build faith in his team members. After seeing all these strengths, it difficult to find weaknesses in his leadership approach.
There is no doubt about the fact that Kohli is a phenomenal captain. He leads by an example asks his players to do the way he does it as he hates it when he couldn’t manage to finish games for his team. He into the face of the opposition that makes him the most difficult to conquer as well. Even in the field, he shows his team how to give 100% while fielding and expects them to repeat it. In his captaincy, there only 3 As, Aggression, Aggression and only Aggression. The key thing his captaincy style is now he keeps on improving and the way he handled the bigger stars like Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers. He managed to keep all of them together and managed to win games for the team.
Also read: Mumbai Indians – The Defending Champions
Best and Worst Seasons
Despite the fact that CSK is the most successful IPL teams, with reaching the final for six times and managing to lift the trophy for two times, but in the 2019 edition was the worst for them with a winning percentage of 53% that year but the next to next year was their best performance with a win percentage of more than 63% and ended up lifting the trophy as well under Dhoni’s captaincy. For MI, 2014 was the worst season under Rohit as they managed to reach the winning percentage of only 46% while the last year was the most successful for them with a winning percentage of more than 70 and they became the only 3-time IPL winners. Under Kohli’s captaincy, the last seasons was the worst for RCB as they finished at the last two positions in the points table while 2016 was the best for them in which they reach the final but couldn’t manage to lift the trophy against the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH).
Chennai Super Kings squad for IPL 2018:
MS Dhoni (C), Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Sam Billings, Faf du Plessis, Harbhajan Singh, Dwayne Bravo, Shane Watson, Kedar Jadhav, Ambati Rayudu, Imran Tahir, Shardul Thakur, Jagadeesan Narayan, Karn Sharma, Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Asif K M, Lungisani Ngidi, Dhruv Shorey, Murali Vijay, Mark Wood, Kanishk Seth, Kshitiz Sharma, Monu Singh, Chaitanya Bishnoi
Royals Challengers Bangalore IPL 2018 Squad:
Virat Kohli(c), AB de Villiers, Brendon McCullum, Tim Southee, Chris Woakes, Parthiv Patel, Umesh Yadav, Quinton de Kock, Manan Vohra, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Moeen Ali, Sarfaraz Khan, Kulwant Khejroliya, Mandeep Singh, Aniruddha Joshi, Pavan Deshpande, Yuzvendra Chahal, Aniket Choudhary, Murugan Ashwin, Pawan Negi, Colin de Grandhomme, Navdeep Saini, Washington Sundar, Mohammed Siraj
Mumbai Indians IPL 2018 Squad:
Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Mustafizur Rehman, Pat Cummins, Suryakumar Yadav, Krunal Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Rahul Chahar, Evin Lewis, Saurabh Tiwary, Ben Cutting, Pradeep Sangwan, JP Duminy, Mitchell McClenaghan, Tajinder Singh Dhillon, Sharad Lumba, Siddesh Lad, Tare, Mayank Markande, Akila Dhananjaya, Anukul Roy, Mohsin Khan, Nidheesh
