Indian Premier League (IPL) is one of the most entertaining T20 tournaments in the world. All the competing squads have always tried very best in all the seasons to get that coveted trophy. Despite all this, the fans have witnessed some teams which have lost consistently and that too by huge margins.
There are various reasons for the same and lack of captaincy night be one of them. There have been numerous instances when the teams have changed the skippers. Sometimes it worked exceptionally well but sometimes it backfired drastically. Here are instances of some IPL franchises where teams changed their leader midway through an IPL season.
1. Royal Challengers Bangalore
In the IPL 2009, Kevin Pieterson broke all the auction records when he was bought by Royal Challengers Bangalore for the huge amount of US $1.55 million. RCB’s then skipper Rahul Dravid was asked to step down and he was replaced by the English star as their captain. However, that decision proved to be disastrous as Pietersen couldn’t handle the captaincy burden and even it affected his performance while the team also couldn’t do any better.
After he left for national duty, the veteran Anil Kumble took over the RCB team and he turned their fortunes around. RCB went on a winning streak which saw the side enter the finals of the tournament after being at the bottom in the inaugural season. Even though they lost the final by six runs that were some inspired cricket RCB played under Kumble.
However, Daniel Vettori did wonders for RCB as a spinner but failed when given the captaincy. As he was struggling, Daniel decided to give up the leadership and let the aggressive Virat Kohli take over as captain in 2013. The move was a huge learning curve for Virat as he led them to a final in the 2016 season of the cash-rich T20 tournament league and Vettori remains the mentor and coach of the franchise.
2. Sunrisers Hyderabad
During 6th season of IPL, Shikhar Dhawan was named the skipper of the newly formed franchise – Sunrisers Hyderabad. The newest franchise had a dream runs in their maiden IPL outing. Shikhar led the team from the front and successfully qualified for the playoffs only to be knocked out.
In the next season, Shikhar failed to replicate the performance of the previous season as the team went on a losing streak. Therefore, the SRH’s think tank took a bold decision and replaced him with a World T20 winning skipper Darren Sammy. SRH ended the season with 6 wins and 8 defeats.
