Indian Cricketers Who Started Their Captaincy Careers Against Sri Lanka: Captaining your country in any sport is a massive achievement for any player. Some go on to lead the nation for a long time while some only fill in the roles briefly. A special day awaits on Friday, March 4th, for Rohit Sharma as he is set to become the 35th man to lead India in Test cricket when India host Sri Lanka in Mohali.
Interestingly Rohit Sharma’s first match as India’s ODI captain had also come against Sri Lanka. There have been a number of Indian players who have made their international captaincy debut against neighbouring Islanders.
Here are the 5 Indian cricketers who started their captaincy stints against Sri Lanka:
Kapil Dev
The legendary Kapil Dev debuted as India’s captain in an ODI in 1982 versus Sri Lanka when the regular skipper Sunil Gavaskar was rested. Dev scored 49 runs off 31 balls in that game and picked one wicket. Kris Srikkanth scored a blistering fifty at the top before Dilip Doshi snared 4 wickets, helping India to a 78-run victory. India white-washed Sri Lanka 3-0 in that series.
Kapil Dev was then appointed as India’s captain for the 1983 World Cup, where he led the country to its first World Cup title.
Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin Tendulkar was given the command of the Indian team at the young age of 23, despite being experienced at the international level. Despite his own thunderous form, Tendulkar didn’t achieve much success as a captain in his two different stints.
He first led India in an ODI in Colombo in 1996 against the Lankans in a quadrangular tournament involving Australia and Zimbabwe as other sides. Like a familiar story in the 90s, Tendulkar did the bulk of the scoring – with a brilliant 110-run knock – in India’s total of 226, which was comfortably hauled down by the hosts courtesy of Sanath Jayasuriya’s 120*. With just one win in three matches, India couldn’t reach the final of the four-nation series.
Virat Kohli
With MS Dhoni ruled out of the game due to injury, Virat Kohli got the chance to captain India for the first time in the tri-series in West Indies with Sri Lanka as the other team. Kohli managed just 2 runs on his captaincy debut, however, he smashed a hundred three days later against West Indies.
India lost that game against Sri Lanka who had posted 348 with centuries from Tharanga and Jayawardene; India were bowled out for 187. The Men In Blue, however, won against the West Indies with Kohli the Man of the Match.
Rohit Sharma
India’s now all-format captain Rohit Sharma got the opportunity to lead India for the first time in the home ODI series against Sri Lanka in 2017 when Kohli was rested. India suffered a defeat by 7 wickets as they could put up only 112 all out with Rohit contributing only 2 runs in it.
India, however, bounced back in the next two matches and grabbed the ODI series 2-1, followed by a 3-0 clean sweep in the T20I series.
Shikhar Dhawan
The experienced Shikhar Dhawan finally got the chance to be India’s captain for the first time when he led a second-string team to Sri Lanka last year in July when most of the first-choice players were on the Test tour of England.
Shikhar Dhawan scored 86* in the first ODI, helping the side chase down the target of 263 with rather ease. Under Dhawan’s leadership, India won the ODI series 2-1 but lost the T20I series by the same margin after more than half-a-dozen Indian players were down with covid-19.
