The Indian Premier League (IPL) season 2018 has entered in its last stage. This year, IPL was more entertaining than other previous editions as seven of the eight teams were in contention for the playoffs spot before the last league matches. And, at the end, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals qualified for the playoffs. Rest all the teams, including defending champions Mumbai Indians, were bowled out from the tournament.
After the playoff stage, Chennai Super Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad are the two finalists who will battle it out for the IPL 2018 trophy on May 27 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
Meanwhile, now as IPL 2018 has come near to its business end, here we look at some of the great cricketers who failed as the captains:
Virat Kohli – He had another disappointing season as the Royal Challengers Bangalore captain after he failed to lift the IPL trophy again. RCB have never lifted the IPL trophy since the start of the tournament in 2008.
Before the start of IPL 2018, Virat, who has been captaining the RCB side since 2013, was confident to grab the trophy this time with a transformed RCB side but they finished at sixth position in the points table after they could only manage to win 6 games out of 14.
Sir @imVkohli you were so hyper during IPL matches and even abused so much but still out of the tournament. So do you think that you are really a bad captain sir? And @msdhoni is really a best captain?
— KRKBOXOFFICE (@KRKBoxOffice) 20 May 2018
Besides AB de Villiers in batting and Umesh Yadav in bowling, no other player in RCB squad justified their price tags. Even Virat’s performance was also not up to the mark with the bat.
Virat Kohli becomes the first IPL captain not to make their team Playoffs FIVE times!
— Merin Kumar (@merin_kumar) 19 May 2018
Virat struggled to get the winning playing XI combinations right.
R Ashwin – India’s one of the finest spin bowlers, Ashwin debuted in IPL 2018 as a skipper. Kings XI Punjab started off the season with a bang by winning five of the first six matches. The scenario, however, changed after they returned from 7-day break. They went on to lose seven of their last 8 league matches and also failed to qualify for the playoffs.
Ashwin: I want to be unpredictable as much as possible
Dhoni: pic.twitter.com/FESysijTm9
— InGenious (@Bees_Kut) 20 May 2018
Some of Ashwin’s decisions backfired including promoting himself up the order to number 3 and got out for a duck.
R Ashwin @ashwinravi99 is the worst captain this ipl. Never lead from front bowled horribly except one match. #KxipVsCsk
— RITDHWAJ SINGH (@ritdhwajsingh) 20 May 2018
Rohit Sharma– This was probably the worst season for Rohit Sharma as a captain and as well as a batsman. Throughout this IPL season, Rohit struggled with his timings. In 14 matches, MI skipper managed to score only 286 runs, his lowest ever in IPL, with 94 being his best. Rohit’s decision of demoting himself in the batting order back-fired as MI struggled to find the right batting composition up the order. Though, the defending champions showed some fight lately but could only manage to put themselves at number 5 of the points table.
Ajinkya Rahane – He was asked to lead the Rajasthan side after their regular skipper Steve Smith was banned following the ball-tampering saga in South Africa. The team though managed to make it to playoffs at the last moment, but some of his decisions like promoting himself to open the batting and sending Stuart Binny before K Gowtham in the must-win game didn’t click for the team. In 15 matches, Rahane scored just 370 with 65 (not out) being his highest.
Ppl will be in confusion in whom should they pick up for the worst captaincy :
A Rahane or R Ashwin #KKRvRR
Sending Binny over K Gautham _@ajinkyarahane88 @ashwinravi99— Chetan Anand (@imchetananand) 23 May 2018
Dinesh Karthik – Like R Ashwin, wicket-keeper batsman Karthik also debuted as a captain for Kolkata Knight Riders. He led his team to playoffs with some of his fine batting performance. He emerged as the leading run scorer for KKR squad with 498 runs in 16 matches. As a captain, he took some game-changing decisions like introducing Nitish Rana to bowl against RCB where he took key wickets of AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli. But, some of his decisions like giving 15th over to debutant Shivam Mavi during his first game, demoting Sunil Narine in the batting order, was hard to swallow.
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