IPL 2021: 3 great players who had a short captaincy stint in tournament's history

The Indian Premier League (IPL) is the most competitive cricketing T20 league on earth. Eight city-based franchises fill their squads with the best cricketers in the world for the annual tournament.

Captaining a cricket team at the international level is relatively easier than the IPL because there is not a big communication gap between the players. However, in the IPL, players from across the world play for the same team. Even the uncapped Indian players are part of the squad, which makes an IPL franchise skipper's job more challenging.

Some of the great players of the game could not hold on to the captain's position in the IPL for a long time. In today's article we will look at three top-quality players who had short captaincy stints in the IPL.

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#1 Ricky Ponting - 6 matches as captain

Ricky Ponting now works as the coach of the Delhi Capitals (Image Courtesy: IPLT20.com)

World Cup-winning captain Ricky Ponting failed to make an impact as a captain in IPL 2013. The Mumbai Indians (MI) named him as their new skipper for the 2013 edition of the league.

Ponting captained MI in six games, where the team registered three wins and three losses. Since the Australian legend could not perform well with the willow, he assigned the team's reins to Rohit Sharma soon after.

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#2 VVS Laxman - 6 matches as captain

Another great batsman who did not have a long career as a captain in the IPL was VVS Laxman. The former Indian batter led the Deccan Chargers (DC) in the inaugural edition of the IPL.

Unfortunately, the Chargers did not perform well under Laxman's captaincy. They won only one of their six matches. Adam Gilchrist captained DC later in the season, but the team could not avoid the last position.

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#3 Daren Sammy - 4 matches as captain

It is a little surprising to note that the only skipper to have won the ICC T20 World Cup twice played only four games as a captain in the IPL. Former West Indies all-rounder Daren Sammy has played for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), the Royal Challengers Bangalore and the Punjab Kings.

Only SRH assigned him their team's reins in 2014. Sammy captained SRH in four games, winning two of them before SRH elected David Warner as their new captain next season. Sammy will go down as one of the best leaders in cricket history, but sadly, he did not have a long stint as a captain of any IPL team.