The ongoing edition of the <a href="https://www.crictracker.com/t20/ipl-indian-premier-league/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Indian Premier League</a> (IPL) is soon turning out to be the most closely-fought season of all time. The teams all seem to have conspired together in an attempt to offer the utmost entertainment for their home-struck fans.

But that’s where all the inter-team similarities end; for each side has had its own trajectory in the tournament. The highs and lows of every team have been quite unique: some of them straightforward, while some have been really complicated.

And so to evaluate how well/bad every team have fared, here’s a comprehensive analysis of each team’s captains, as we rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 based on their captaincy.

Here are the ratings of the IPL 2020 captains:

8. MS Dhoni- 5.5/10

<img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-461474" src="https://crictracker-admin-panel-08032022.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/media/attachments/MS-Dhoni-CSK.jpg" alt="MS Dhoni CS" width="640" height="400" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-461474" class="wp-caption-text">MS Dhoni of CSK. (Photo Source: Twitter)</figcaption>

A strong, three-match win-streak finish to the season should not mask some of the bigger issues that maligned the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/crictracker/photos/4043574189006605" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Chennai Super Kings</a>’ (CSK) IPL campaign this season. And as unfortunate as it is, Captain Cool MS Dhoni happened to find himself at the heart of several of those issues.

For starters, Dhoni’s policy of prioritizing experience over promise produced some rather pear-shaped results this time around. Despite their dwindling returns, the likes of Kedar Jadhav, Piyush Chawla and Shane Watson got a prolonged run in the side. By the time the team decided to add some young spark to the lineup, their journey had already come to a shocking halt.

Another area of concern was around the team’s batting order. Barring Ravindra Jadeja, Ambati Rayudu, and Faf du Plessis, none of the team’s senior batsmen looked in good touch, which further prompted Dhoni to constantly shuffle with the hierarchy of his batsmen. It would’ve helped if Dhoni himself was able to rediscover some form, but his dismal tally of 200 runs didn’t do CSK any favours.

It was a tough season for the men in yellow and their leader, with positives coming in few and far between. Nonetheless, English all-rounder Sam Curran’s rapid ascension to the side, and Jadeja’s blitzkrieg batting were two aspects that Dhoni can take some credit for. These points even out the Captain Cool’s score to a disappointing 5.5.

7. Steven Smith- 6/10

<img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-449843" src="https://crictracker-admin-panel-08032022.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/media/attachments/Steve-Smith-1.jpg" alt="Steve Smith" width="640" height="400" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-449843" class="wp-caption-text">Steve Smith. (Photo Source: IPL/BCCI)</figcaption>

A strong showing in the IPL could’ve helped ‘Smudge’ make a strong case for resuming his role in Australia’s leadership group. Sadly, though, if anything, Smith’s performances this season have dropped him further down the pecking order.

It was a wildly inconsistent journey for the world’s top-ranked Test batsman. The majority of his 311 runs came as an opener for the Rajasthan Royals (RR), yet he consciously made the decision to demote himself down the order just to accommodate other top-order batters.

Not just himself, though, under Smith’s leadership, the team were hardly ever able to settle on one fixed hierarchy of batters. In the process, several players had to bat out of position, which clearly took a toll on their confidence.

On the bowling front too, Smith was culpable of not exploring all his available options. The likes of Akash Singh, Oshane Thomas, and Mayank Markande were relegated to bench-warming duties for the entire season, while Shreyas Gopal, Jaydev Unadkat and Varun Aaron’s run-leaking issues got conveniently overlooked.

Jofra Archer and Rahul Tewatia’s MVP worthy performances played a certain face-saving role in RR’s wooden spoon campaign, which has clearly compounded the pressure on Smith for the next season. He ends the season rated 6 for his captaincy.

6. KL Rahul- 6.5/10

<img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-458933" src="https://crictracker-admin-panel-08032022.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/media/attachments/KL-Rahul-5.jpg" alt="KL Rahul" width="640" height="400" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-458933" class="wp-caption-text">KL Rahul. (Photo Source: IPL/BCCI)</figcaption>

The Kings XI Punjab’s (KXIP) IPL 2020 campaign was riddled with a fluctuating series of ecstatic highs and unsavoury lows. The one constant they had all season was their captain KL Rahul’s scintillating batting form at the top.

The early phase of Punjab’s IPL campaign saw Rahul shoulder the bulk of KXIP’s run-scoring duties all by himself. His tally of 670 runs put him at the pinnacle of the Orange Cap leaderboard by a sizeable margin. Besides his batting, the Team India keeper also turned up with a much-improved performance behind the stumps.

But unfortunately, his stellar on-field performances weren’t enough to compensate for his tactical howlers, a few of which ultimately cost his team a playoff spot. The likes of Glenn Maxwell, Chris Jordan and James Neesham were given a frustratingly long rope despite their (mostly) poor form. Much of their bench strength went untested all through the tournament.

There was an additional aspect of Rahul failing to keep his nerves calm under pressure. Decisions like bowling Krishnappa Gowtham in a clutch, final over, promoting an inexperienced Prabhsimran Singh ahead of Maxwell, choosing <a href="https://www.crictracker.com/ipl-2020-kxips-nicholas-pooran-hits-three-sixes-with-distance-of-100-metres-or-more-against-srh/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nicholas Pooran</a> for a super-over, despite his poor record in that format, suggest that the burden of captaincy did have an effect on Rahul’s temperament.

It will be interesting to see how well his maiden full-time captaincy stint grooms him for his upcoming vice-captaincy promotion in the national team. For this IPL, though, Rahul scores 6.5.

5. Dinesh Karthik- 6.5/10, Eoin Morgan- 7/10

<img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-461483" src="https://crictracker-admin-panel-08032022.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/media/attachments/Eoin-Morgan.jpg" alt="Eoin Morgan" width="640" height="400" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-461483" class="wp-caption-text">Eoin Morgan. (Photo Source: IPL/BCCI)</figcaption>

The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have had a somewhat confusing leadership dynamic in their side, with ex-captain Dinesh Karthik and Eoin Morgan, the incumbent skipper, both portraying the skipper’s role at some point in their campaign.

Karthik started as the team’s official leader for the first half of the tournament. Contrary to popular opinion, the men in purple decided against handling the team’s reigns to Morgan- a World-Cup winning leader.

That said, it would be unfair to say DK did a terrible job, as the team won four matches under him; few of those wins coming off as sensational heists. But that’s not to say his approach was flawless. The team constantly tweaked their batting order, which didn’t do any favours to their batsmen’s confidence.

Case in point being: captain DK himself, as he kept defying common convention and walked in to bat at a promoted, two-down position, where he didn’t taste much success (169-runs @ 14.08).

Morgan, meanwhile, assumed the captain’s role midway during the season after Karthik decided to relinquish captaincy. And while his win-loss record is worse (3:4) than DK, his stabilising presence at the middle-order has been vital to the resurgence of KKR’s IPL campaign. Although the conundrum around players’ batting positions still hasn’t been resolved.

That said, both the KKR captains have been vital towards empowering their raw bowling attack- featuring the likes of Shivam Mavi, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Varun Chakravarthy, and Prasidh Krishna- to play their natural game. Aside from a few minor points, there isn’t much to differentiate between the two captains’ pros and cons. DK gets a 6.5 while Morgan gets a slightly better 7 purely due to his batting.

4. Virat Kohli- 7/10

<img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-461138" src="https://crictracker-admin-panel-08032022.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/media/attachments/Virat-Kohl.jpg" alt="Virat Kohli" width="640" height="400" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-461138" class="wp-caption-text">Virat Kohli. (Photo Source: IPL/BCCI)</figcaption>

Virat Kohli’s aggressive and intent-packed captaincy style, earlier, didn&#8217;t materialise on-field when he’s playing for the #playbold army. This season, however, several of his leadership aspects have fit perfectly into the Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) scheme of things.

For starters, the captain took a brave call in backing his young and upcoming domestic players like Devdutt Padikkal and Mohammed Siraj ahead of some of the more experienced names. Thankfully, the decision turned out to be a breakthrough revelation for the team.

Additionally, captain Kohli has been very adept with handling his strike bowlers this season, particularly the likes of Yuzvendra Chahal, <a href="https://www.crictracker.com/ipl-2020-yuzvendra-chahal-runs-into-the-dressing-room-to-save-himself-after-washington-sundar-hits-a-six/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Washington Sundar</a>, and Chris Morris, all of whom have performed well. All these factors, coupled with his impressive batting form, which has seen him notch up 431 runs @ 47.88, paint a rather good-looking picture for RCB and its captaincy.

However, the cons start to weigh in rather substantially when analysing the latter stages of RCB’s campaign. Over RCB’s last couple of matches, Kohli went on to perform several experiments on the playing XI’s balance.

Unfortunately, most of them didn’t work and had a rather negative impact on the team’s momentum. A string of four successive defeats in their last league-stage matches, nearly costing them a playoffs spot, drops King Kohli’s overall rating to 7.

3. Shreyas Iyer- 7.5/10

<img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-452023" src="https://crictracker-admin-panel-08032022.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/media/attachments/Shreyas-Iyer.jpg" alt="Shreyas Iyer" width="640" height="400" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-452023" class="wp-caption-text">Shreyas Iyer. (Photo Source: IPL/BCCI)</figcaption>

The Shreyas Iyer-led Delhi Capitals (DC) arrived fresh into the 2020 season as firm favourites to win the tournament. And given their current second-rank on the points table, it’s fair to say that the team have met several of those expectations.

Captain Iyer himself has been a vital cog at the heart of Delhi’s strong showing this year. Across 14 matches, the stylish Mumbai right-hander has compiled 414 runs and is the Capitals’ second-highest run-getter.

On the leadership front, too, Shreyas has proven to be quite astute with his decisions, especially the ones regarding his star-studded bowling line-up. The likes of Axar Patel, Anrich Nortje, Kagiso Rabada and Ravichandran Ashwin have all been managed smartly under Iyer’s inspiring captaincy.

But, pretty similar to RCB, the trajectory of DC and Iyer’s overall performance in the season has shown a steep decline at the latter stages of the tourney. A series of bizarre workload management and player rotations towards the backend of their campaign have proven disastrous for Delhi- so much so that a loss against Bangalore in their last league match could’ve potentially eliminated them.

Additionally, Iyer and the DC think-tank has had a somewhat fickle stance towards supporting some of their domestic campaigners like Prithvi Shaw, Harshal Patel, and Tushar Deshpande. The aforementioned factors drop his group-stage ratings to 7.

Iyer’s deputy, Shikhar Dhawan, meanwhile, earns a shout-out for his brief yet impressive captaincy outing against the Rajasthan Royals in the group stage. Having shepherded his team to a comfortable, 13-run win, Dhawan gets an 8.

2. David Warner- 7.5/10

<img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-459858" src="https://crictracker-admin-panel-08032022.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/media/attachments/David-Warner-6.jpg" alt="David Warner" width="640" height="401" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-459858" class="wp-caption-text">David Warner. (Photo Source: IPL/BCCI)</figcaption>

A reinstation to the leadership role hasn’t affected captain David Warner’s batting performances to the slightest and has kept him going at his hard-hitting best. Warner&#8217;s prolific form at the top (444 runs @ 37.00), in fact, has been a defining aspect of the Sunrisers Hyderabad’s (SRH) hot-and-cold IPL campaign this year.

SRH have been one of the worst affected teams in terms of injuries to some of their key players. Warner tried to compensate for that loss by investing faith in some of his underrated stars like Jason Holder and T Natarajan. And ultimately, his faith got rewarded as his fringe players managed to punch well above their weight and keep SRH’s campaign alive.

Having said that, SRH and Warner still haven’t been able to address the issue of a missing finisher in their team, a problem that has been their Achilles’ Heel for a few seasons now. Their middle-order vulnerability has left the team open to some disappointing batting-collapses, as was evident from their shocking 12-run loss to KXIP.

This unstable batting situation has, in turn, had a slight ripple effect on Warner’s batting too. While he has scored ample runs, the rate at which he has scored them has been far from satisfactory. Factoring all this, Warner gets a score of 7.5.

1. Rohit Sharma &amp; Kieron Pollard- 9 each

<img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-450201" src="https://crictracker-admin-panel-08032022.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/media/attachments/Kieron-Pollard-2.jpg" alt="Kieron Pollard" width="640" height="400" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-450201" class="wp-caption-text">Kieron Pollard. (Photo Source: IPL/BCCI)</figcaption>

The defending champs from the last time around, Mumbai Indians’ (MI) dominance at the top of the table has been strongly accentuated by Rohit Sharma and Kieron Pollard’s excellent leadership skills.

Kolkata and Mumbai are the only two teams who have played two different full-time captains in the ongoing season. Unlike KKR, though, whose campaign has been marred with instability and fluctuation, the tag-team captaincy aspect has worked quite well for MI.

Under the calm minds of their senior pros, the team have managed to unearth a batch of consistent match-winners for every game. Both captains prioritised their team’s continuity and did not tinker much with the combination unless absolutely necessary. Consequently, this has provided their players with a confident environment to blossom under, the results of which are evident from the ‘Q’ next to their name.

Apart from managing the side well, both the captains have been reasonably impressive with their personal form(s) as well. Before his injury, Rohit accumulated 260 runs at a healthy strike-rate of 129.35.

Meanwhile, Pollard has been a top-name on the tournament’s Altroz Super-Strikers’ list, with a staggering SR of 200. Leadership has clearly brought the best out of Mumbai’s senior-most pros. Both of them receive a near-perfect 9, which can get buffed to 10 should they deliver in the playoffs.

~Written by Soham Bhowal

While some captains have punched above their weight, a few have crumbled under pressure.

IPL 2020: Rating the captains of all teams in the league stage

The ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is soon turning out to be the most closely-fought season of all time.