Captain is the one who is responsible to take the team forward and is expected to lead from the front. Quiet often there have been batsmen captains and as batsmen they would be required to set example for the team.
The task of captaincy often gets difficult for a player as there are too many things a single player needs to concentrate on. But in the pressure situation as well there have been few captains who have performed brilliantly. They have not only led the team brilliantly but scored big runs as well.
So, here let us take a look at list of captains who have scored most number international runs:
| Player | Matches | Innings | Runs | Highest Score |
| Ricky Ponting (ICC/Aus) | 324 | 376 | 15440 | 209 |
| Graeme Smith (Afr/ICC/SA) | 286 | 368 | 14878 | 277 |
| Stephen Fleming (NZ) | 303 | 348 | 11561 | 274* |
| Allan Border (Aus) | 271 | 319 | 11062 | 205 |
| MS Dhoni (Ind) | 275 | 284 | 10018 | 224 |
| Arjun Ranatunga (SL) | 249 | 275 | 8726 | 131* |
| Brian Lara (WI) | 172 | 204 | 8410 | 400* |
| Mohammed Azharuddin (Ind) | 221 | 230 | 8095 | 192 |
| Mahela Jayawardene (Asia/SL) | 186 | 205 | 7673 | 374 |
| Sourav Ganguly (Asia/Ind) | 196 | 218 | 7665 | 144 |
Stat updated till 4 January, 2015
It is the Australian captain, Ricky Ponting who tops the list of captains with most number of runs in international cricket. With 15440 runs, Ponting is the most successful batsmen captain. There is no doubting that he was a successful captain as he has taken the Australia to many World Cup wins and Test wins as well.
There are only 5 players who have scored 10000 or more runs as captain. The latest entrant into the 10,000 club is MS Dhoni and he reached this landmark in final innings of Test career of 24*. Other 3 players to have reached this landmark are South African captain Graeme Smith, Stephen Fleming of New Zealand and Allan Border of Australia.
With the Tri-series and World Cup coming up Dhoni would have a good chance to go higher up the list and probably also the Number 3 position by the end of this year.