Former Indian cricketer Aakash Chopra recently revealed his top six captains in Indian national cricket team history. Like his other lists, this list also moved from no.6 to no.1 position.
Chopra put Ajit Wadekar in the no.6 position in his best Indian captains list as he believes that Wadekar played the starter role to make India as a superpower team in the cricket world.
Then the former put Rahul Dravid in the fifth position. Though Dravid-led India massively failed in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 as India were surprisingly eliminated from the first round of that tournament, Chopra also mentioned his success rate as a captain, especially winning a Test series in England during 2007 tour.
Chopra believes the present captain Virat Kohli should stand in the no.4 spot in this list. The former praised his captaincy as he mentioned captain Kohli’s consistent improvement and fighting spirit. Though he mentioned that India hadn’t won any ICC trophy under Kohli’s captaincy yet, he also pointed out that they have performed consistently, and they are even standing on the top of the Test rankings for a long time.
Chopra believes that Kohli-led India will maintain the top position in the 2019-21 ICC World Test Championship and they may win the final of this tournament too.
Aakash Chopra’s top three choices in Indian captains are Sourav Ganguly, Kapil Dev and MS Dhoni
Chopra’s third-best choice among the Indian captains was his first international captain Sourav Ganguly. According to him, Ganguly hugely inspired the team to evolve as a world-class side after taking the leadership duty during the controversial period in Indian cricket. Though India may not win many trophies in international cricket under his captaincy, their successes were undisputable. Chopra also lauded him for bringing up many great young talents at the right time.
The former Indian opener put Kapil Dev in the second position in this list. Chopra is hugely impressed with India’s success in the 1983 Cricket World Cup under Dev’s captaincy as he feels that it was the pivotal moment in Indian cricket history. Apart from playing the captaincy role outstandingly as India were an underdog side in that tournament, the former Delhi cricketer also loved Dev’s top-class all-round performances in that entire tournament.
Unsurprisingly, Chopra chose MS Dhoni as his best captain in Indian cricket history. The former Indian opener believes that Dhoni was an outstanding captain which helped the Indian team to achieve massive success in international cricket. Under his captaincy, India won the ICC World T20 2007, ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, ICC Champions Trophy 2013 and more other reputed trophies.
In the end, Chopra also pointed out that he didn’t take the name of a captain in this list, but he didn’t clarify the name of that captain. Mohammad Azharuddin is likely to be that missing captain in this list.
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