Test captains with only wins, only losses and only draws

Those who won all the Tests in which they captained:

The record is 4, shared by A Bacher, current player Babar Azam and Lord Hawke of long ago. Three more have two, and the rest were lucky in their only opportunity (e.g. Ravi Shastri and Mashrafe Mortaza). In the latter case Shakib Al Hasan captained for most of the match.

For players who saw victory in all their Tests, the record is 10 by Eldine Baptiste.

Those who lost all the Tests in which they captained:

This is incomplete, but does include all those who captained in 2 or more Tests.

It is perhaps not surprising that the first two positions are by earlier captains of Bangladesh. The 3rd place goes to an Indian captain, who is currently the oldest living Indian Test player. There is also WTS Porterfield who has captained Ireland in all their three Tests. From recent times there is Mohammad Rizwan.

Some well-known players are here, such as AJ Lamb, AR Morris and RS Madugalle.

Players who lost all their Tests are led by Alok Kapali (17).

Those who drew all the Tests in which they captained:

The record is held by the unlikely K Srikkanth. He and Majid Khan were known to be aggressive batsmen.

There are a number of well-known players here including DL Murray, G Kirsten, GA Headley, IDS Smith, RR Lindwall and TW Graveney. India’s HR Adhikari gets credit here as he drew the Test after 3 successive heavy losses. He was the 4th Indian captain in that 5-Test series.

Players who drew all their Tests are CV Gadkari and Shafiq Ahmed (6 each).

Test captains with the best win-loss ratios

Here we have the raw data for all Test captains. Naturally the W/L ration is undefined for those with no losses:

Here we have everyone who captained in 2 or more Tests without a loss.

This list is headed by WW Armstrong of a century ago with 10 Tests including 8 wins and 2 draws, followed by DB Close (7 Tests, 6 wins and a draw).

Those with an all-win record are A Bacher, today’s Babar Azam and Lord Hawke who all captained in 4 Tests.

Also note AM Rahane with 5 Tests, 4 wins and a draw.

However, this list would be more meaningful if it was restricted to those who captained in 10 or more Tests.

Here we get:

As mentioned earlier, WW Armstrong is the only one here with no losses. Next come Jardine, Bradman and Steve Waugh. Waugh has the highest ratio for those who captained in 25 or more Tests.

From India, V Kohli is the only one.

Analyzing Test captaincies – 5

Today we look at captains whose tenure included:

Only wins

Only losses

Only draws.

Only wins (complete list):

16 instances here. Bacher and Lord Hawke had the best stretches of 4 wins out of 4. In the former case all 4 wins came in a single series against Australia. In the latter case they were part of 5 wins out of 5 in his Test career, although he was a specialist (?) batsman with a single-figure batting average.

Those with 2 wins out of 2 are mainly stand-ins (Rahane and Jacobs) in recent times. Similarly for those who won their only Tests as captain (eg Shastri, Harvey, WA Brown).

Rahane is the most recent player here.

Only losses (2 or more):

Headed by the Bangladeshi duo of Khaled Mashud (12) and Khaled Mahmud (9) in their team’s early years.

However, there is also KC Brathwaite (5) from WI in recent years along with Porterfield who has led Ireland in all 3 of its Tests. DK Gaekwad, now India’s oldest living player, has 4 losses. (In that series Pankaj Roy captained for 1 Test, which was also lost).

Some other well-known players found here are AJ Lamb, AR Morris, JE Emburey and RS Madugalle.

And FL Reifer, captaining the WI third XI against Bangladesh at home. When he talked of winning the series, local journalists asked “Are you smoking something # which sounds like your name?”

# Reefer, a term for marijuana or ganja

Only draws (complete list):

The list of 21 is headed by Srikkanth (all 4 in a single series against Pakistan in Pakistan). Majid and Saeed also drew all 3 Tests in a single series.

There is no one here since BA Murphy (1 Test in 2001). Well-known players not mentioned so far include DL Murray, G Kirsten, GA Headley, MA Butcher, RR Lindwall and TW Graveney. Practically all of the 1 or 2-Test captains were stand-ins.

Srikkanth and Adhikari are the only ones from India. This did not help Srikkanth much as he was promptly replaced by Azharuddin. And Adhikari stopped a sequence of 3 heavy losses with a draw where his team narrowly escaped defeat.