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MAK Pataudi, Mohammad Azharuddin, Sourav Ganguly, MS Dhoni: Captain Shubman Gill finds himself in exalted company
From Azharuddin to Shubman Gill, India’s surprise captaincy picks reshaped cricket, creating legends from unlikely leaders across decades.
Nearly a decade and a half after the iconic ‘Tera kya hoga, Kaliya?’ line in Sholay, Raj Singh Dungarpur reprised Gabbar Singh in real life with the most famous four words in Indian cricket – ‘Kyon mian, kaptaan banoge?’
Dungarpur, then the senior selection panel boss, directed these words at Mohammad Azharuddin, not so much a rookie in international cricket as a novice at captaincy. Perplexed by the question, Azhar said something along the lines of, ‘Sir, main toh kaptaan hoon’. It took the Hyderabadi, at the time the captain of the South Zone side playing in the Duleep Trophy, a little while to realise that Dungarpur was offering him the captaincy of the Indian national side.
This was in January 1990, just weeks before the Indians were to embark on a tour of New Zealand. Kapil Dev, Dilip Vengsarkar and Ravi Shastri, all of whom had led the country previously, were in the mix, as was K Srikkanth, who had just overseen a 0-0 stalemate in a four-Test series in Pakistan. Azhar was a left-field choice for the captaincy but occupied the throne across two stints for nine and a half years, leading India in 47 Tests and 174 One-Day Internationals.
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Azhar’s elevation as unexpected captain was a break from norm; Tiger Pataudi in the Caribbean in extraordinary circumstances in 1961-62 aside, India had a succession plan of sorts, grooming chosen individuals to take over as the leader at an opportune time. In many ways, his surprise appointment opened the floodgates. Over the next two and a half decades, India didn’t think twice about thrusting less obvious and less experienced players into the hot seat, be it Sourav Ganguly in 2000 or Mahendra Singh Dhoni in 2007. Or Shubman Gill in 2025.
From unexpected call-ups to legendary leaders: How India embraced the unlikely captain
Pataudi made his Test debut in December 1961 and within months, he was named Nari Contractor’s deputy for the tour of the West Indies in early 1962. Ahead of the fourth Test in Bridgetown, Contractor was felled by a bouncer from Charlie Griffith when the Indians played Barbados in a first-class game; the injury ended Contractor’s career and catapulted Pataudi, only 21 years and 77 days young, to the most coveted position in Indian cricket. Such stalwarts as ML Jaisimha, Dilip Sardesai, Vijay Manjrekar, Polly Umrigar and Chandu Borde played under Pataudi on his captaincy debut. The charismatic Nawab sparked a revolution, bringing a sense of Indianness to the set-up and immediately attracting respect and adoration for his leadership skills and a sense of fairness and purpose. To this day, he is revered as one of India’s best skippers even though the team won only nine and lost 19 of his 40 Tests at the helm.
Azhar was an unlikely successor in that regard, though beyond the fact that both played for Hyderabad (Pataudi moved from Delhi, disillusioned with the system in the national capital), there wasn’t too much that bound them. In his early days, Azhar was shy and reticent, almost a reluctant captain who was tactically wet behind the ears. He had to sometimes watch over his shoulder because some of his teammates still nurtured captaincy aspirations. He gradually grew in stature and went on to become one of India’s longest serving captains.
Sachin Tendulkar’s decision to give up the captaincy during South Africa’s tour of India in early 2000 paved the way for Ganguly to step into his shoes. To many, the obvious choice as successor was the seasoned and accomplished Anil Kumble, but the decision-makers plumped for the tempestuous Kolkatan who, like Pataudi before him, cast regional pulls aside and put together a strong young core, with no little help from his benefactor, Jagmohan Dalmiya. When, like Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, Ganguly too pulled out of the inaugural T20 World Cup in South Africa in 2007, Vengsarkar’s panel made one of the most influential captaincy calls, overlooking the claims and credentials of Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Gautam Gambhir and Harbhajan Singh to hand over the reins to Dhoni. What a masterstroke!
After becoming the white-ball skipper towards the end of 2007, Dhoni served a year of Test apprenticeship under Kumble; in his first game as full-time Test captain in Nagpur in November 2008, he captained Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid and Sehwag. He tore conventional norms to shreds and masterminded a wonderful run in white-ball cricket, though the lack of adequate fast-bowling resources meant that in overseas Tests, he was defensive and focussed on safety first.
Kohli after Dhoni and Rohit Sharma after Kohli were organic developments; not so, Gill’s elevation, especially in the Test arena where Jasprit Bumrah had been Rohit’s deputy and captained the side in three matches. But like Suryakumar Yadav supplanted vice-captain Hardik Pandya to take over the T20I reins after Rohit’s replacement, Gill has emerged as the unquestioned flavour of the captaincy cake. His coronation as ODI captain was no surprise, given that he had been named Rohit's assistant in India's previous 50-over outing, the Champions Trophy in February-March.
Gill is in elite company – Pataudi, Azhar, Ganguly, Dhoni. No one else is going to be asked in a hurry, ‘Kyon mian, kaptaan banoge?’
