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Ranking the greatest cricket captains is a mug’s game. Do you weight Test wins over World Cups? Longevity over peak dominance? What about white-ball cricket, where most major trophies live? Below, I’ve given my take, breaking down the top 10 cricket captains of all time.
10. Graeme Smith (South Africa)
Smith took the job of South African captain aged just 22 and held it for over a decade. That alone deserves respect. His Test numbers are strong: 53 wins from 109 matches, a touch under 49%. ODIs were even better, with a 61% win rate across 150 games.
Trouble was, South Africa kept bottling tournaments. Betting sites for cricket had the Proteas as favourites multiple times during Smith’s era, yet they found new ways to choke each time. Semi-final exits became a running joke.
Bottom line, Smith was a great captain, but with no trophy in the cabinet to show for it, he can’t be any higher than 10th for me.
9. Allan Border (Australia)
People forget how dire Australian cricket was when Border took over. The West Indies were hammering everyone. Half the decent players had buggered off to South Africa on rebel tours. Border was left with the scraps.
His win rate of 32% reflects that mess, not his ability. What matters is he won the 1987 World Cup and rebuilt the culture that Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting later weaponised. There’s no way of knowing for sure what Australia’s dynasty would have been like without Border, but it certainly wouldn’t have been as dominant.
8. Sourav Ganguly (India)
Ganguly’s numbers are decent rather than spectacular. Around 43% in Tests, 52% in ODIs. But those figures hide what actually mattered: India started winning overseas under him.
Test series in England. Test series in Australia. While previous Indian captains treated away tours like holidays, Ganguly treated them like wars. The 2003 World Cup final loss to Ponting’s Australia stings, but Ganguly changed Indian cricket’s mentality more than most trophy winners.
7. Michael Clarke (Australia)
Clarke bagged two major trophies as captain: the 2015 World Cup and the brutal 5-0 Ashes demolition in 2013-14. His Test win rate sat above 50%, while his ODI win rate was pushing 60%. On paper, Clarke should probably rank higher.
But he had issues off field. Dressing room politics followed him constantly. A whitewash at home in 2010-11 hurt. It doesn’t help that his tenure overlapped with Ponting’s dominance, casting doubt on what was actually Clarke’s achievement vs inherited momentum. Still, silverware is silverware.
6. Clive Lloyd (West Indies)
There’s plenty to like about Lloyd’s captaincy, namely the back-to-back World Cups in 1975 and 1979, making him the first captain to lift consecutive ODI trophies. Sure, his Test win rate of 48.6% looks modest now, but context matters.
It was Lloyd that established the model for the West Indies’ dominance. That blueprint terrorised batting lineups for 15 years after Lloyd retired. Trophies matter, but it was his innovation puts Lloyd among the greatest cricket captains of his era.
5. Eoin Morgan (England)
Spot number five is a controversial one, considering Morgan barely played Tests. His entire reputation rests on ODI cricket. But what he did in that format deserves a top five spot.
England were genuinely pathetic in white-ball cricket before Morgan. This was underlined by their group stage exit at the 2015 World Cup. On home soil.
Four years later, Morgan lifted the trophy at Lord’s after the most ridiculous final ever played: tied match, tied Super Over, won on boundary count.]
4. Imran Khan (Pakistan)
Imran’s Test win rate barely touches 30%. Doesn’t matter. He won series in India and England that Pakistan had never won before, and he delivered the 1992 World Cup through sheer willpower.
One win from five games. Dead and buried. Then Imran gave the cornered tiger speech before their match against Australia, and Pakistan won five straight to lift the trophy. He retired that same night, walked away at the perfect moment.
His ODI win rate of 54% is solid, but the World Cup run is what puts him among the greatest cricket captains Pakistan has produced.
3. Sir Vivian Richards (West Indies)
Fifty Tests as captain. Twenty-seven wins. Fifteen draws. Zero series defeats. Read that again: Richards never lost a Test series in charge. Not once.
His ODI sample is smaller, but the 63.8% win rate shows he wasn’t shabby there either. The only blemish is the 1987 World Cup final loss to Border’s Australia. In Tests, though, Richards was perfect, and there’s a fair chance such an unbeaten series record might never be matched.
2. Ricky Ponting (Australia)
Ponting racked up the most Test wins as captain ever. Forty-eight from 77 matches, a 62% win rate. His ODI numbers are somehow even better: 165 wins from 230 games at nearly 72%. That’s the highest win percentage of any captain with 100+ ODI matches.
To top it off, he won two World Cups as well. Admittedly, England nicked him twice in Ashes series, and 2005 still haunts Australian fans. But the overall body of work is absurd. Ponting was ruthless across both formats for a decade.
1. MS Dhoni (India)
Three ICC trophies in six years. 2007 T20 World Cup. 2011 ODI World Cup. 2013 Champions Trophy. Name another captain who’s done that. You can’t.
Dhoni’s ODI win rate of 55% doesn’t jump off the page, but 110 wins from 200 matches is serious volume. T20Is show a 57% win rate. Tests were weaker, around 45%, with losses in England and Australia exposing limitations. But Dhoni never marketed himself as a Test specialist.
The 2011 final is the moment everyone remembers. India needed 92 from 122 balls. Yuvraj Singh, player of the tournament, should’ve walked out at five. Dhoni promoted himself instead, made 91 not out, smashed the winning six over long-on and did that little bat twirl. Ice cold.
The IPL record with Chennai underlines Dhoni’s leadership. Five titles across 15 years with rosters that changed constantly. That’s not luck. That’s the greatest cricket captain of all time.
Honourable Mentions: Greatest Cricket Captains Who Missed the Cut
Steve Waugh might feel hard done by. His Test win rate of 71.9% is the highest of anyone with 30+ matches as captain. The 1999 World Cup was his too. But Ponting took everything Waugh built and made it even better. Hard to rank the predecessor above the peak.
Rohit Sharma has a case too. He has two ICC trophies – the 2024 T20 World Cup and 2025 Champions Trophy – as well as five IPL titles with the Mumbai Indians. For me though, his Test record sees him just miss out on the top 10.
Virat Kohli too, falls just short. The Indian batsman has elite win percentages across formats. Nearly 59% in Tests, including India’s first series win in Australia since 1947. But zero ICC trophies as captain see him miss out. If he’d won just one, he’d be in the main list comfortably.
Brendon McCullum never won a World Cup but changed how New Zealand thought about cricket. Fearless batting, attacking fields, genuine belief they could beat anyone. The 2015 run to the final was special. Now he’s doing similar work coaching England’s Test side.
Ben Stokes is too early to judge properly. His win rate sits around 54%, which is decent but not elite. The approach is box office though. Attack everything, chase anything, make Tests entertaining again. An Ashes win in Australia would change everything. Whether his body holds up long enough is another question.
