6 Captains who led India in cricket World Cup: From Venkataraghvan to MS Dhoni

Team India will kick off their campaign at the 12th edition of the Cricket World Cup in Southampton against South Africa on June 5. This is the second time after the 1999 World Cup that the Men in Blue will play their first game in the tournament against the Proteas. In 1999, Mohammad Azharuddin’s men had lost to Hansie Cronje’s side in Hove by 4 wickets with Jacques Kallis hitting 96 to obliterate Sourav Ganguly’s 97.

This time, Team India will be led by Virat Kohli, arguably the best batsman that the cricketing world has seen at the moment. He has a balanced looking side at his disposal with experienced individuals and the force of the young guns as well. Kohli will be the seventh captain to lead India in the World Cup since the tournament was first played in June 1975 in England.

Here we take a look at all the Indian captains who have led the country in the World Cup:

1. Srinivas Venkataraghavan (1975 and 1979):

India’s most under-achieving captain at the World Cup. The off-break bowler played only 15 ODIs for India and six of them were at the World Cup as the captain of the team. Venkataraghavan led India in the first two editions of the tournament in England and out of six games that he led the country, he could win only one and that too was against a lowly East Africa at Leeds in 1975.

Under his captaincy, India lost to England (by 202 runs) and New Zealand (4 wickets) in the 1975 edition and to the West Indies (by 9 wickets), New Zealand (8 wickets) and Sri Lanka (47 runs) in the 1979 tournament. By far, he is India’s worst captain at the World Cup with 16.66 per cent success.