Dravid has best ODI success rate among Indian captains
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
RSS Feeds| SMS CRI to 8888 for latest updates
NEW DELHI: With the World Cup around the corner and the top eight teams gunning to lift the most coveted trophy in the West Indies, there is good news for Indian skipper Rahul Dravid. Statistics show that the 'Wall' is India's most successful One-day captain among all those who have captained India in at least 20 matches.
Under Dravid, India have won 32 of the 58 matches that have produced results during his tenure. That's a success rate of 55%, just a little higher than the 54% success rate that Sourav Ganguly, Mohammad Azharuddin and Kapil Dev had. This may seem like a fine point, but the statistics actually understate how much more successful Dravid has been than his predecessors.
That's because, of the 62 One-day matches in which Dravid has captained, only two have been played against a traditional minnow %u2014 Zimbabwe in 2005 %u2014 while the rest have all been against the top teams in world cricket.
In contrast, Ganguly had 31 wins against the likes of Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Namibia and Netherlands boosting his success rate and Azhar had the benefit of 20 wins against the whipping boys of international cricket.
Exclude matches against the minnows and Dravid's success rate drops to 54%, but Ganguly's goes down to 43% and Azhar's to 49%.
Only Kapil Dev, with a 51% success rate against the better teams, comes close to matching Dravid's record.
Kapil, in fact, has a better record leading away from home %u2014 excluding minnows %u2014 than even Dravid. On foreign soil, Kapil won 49% of the matches he led in, whereas Dravid has won 10 out of 23 completed matches for a 43% success rate. That put's him in third place behind Gavaskar, who had a 46% success rate with 11 wins in 24 matches.
Ganguly's record abroad (23%) is the worst among the six captains who have led India at least in 20 matches each.
Azhar has the best record at home (excluding minnows) with a 65% win rate, but Dravid is not far behind at 61%. On this list, Ganguly finishes in fifth spot, ahead of Gavaskar, who could captain India to only 14 wins in 35 completed matches.
