With Sunday’s innings victory over Sri Lanka in Colombo, Virat Kohli continued his impressive start to the India captaincy by winning his sixth away Test in twice as many matches.
Success overseas has generally been the barometer of judging any Indian cricket captain’s tenure as the team has traditionally been strong at home.
We take a look at the top five Test captains for India in foreign conditions with a minimum of five victories in their overall tenure.
Matches – 28
Won – 11
Loss – 10
Draw – 7
Win Rate – 39.28%
With 11 away victories to his credit, Ganguly remains the most successful overseas Test skipper for India. He is the man credited with changing the side’s approach to away Tests after India had long been tagged as notoriously poor travellers.
Ganguly’s men won solitary Tests in Australia, England, Pakistan, West Indies and Sri Lanka while the remaining six of their victories have come against the likes of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.
The southpaw’s victories against the formidable Aussies and England gave a new belief to the Indians that they could succeed in the swinging and seaming tracks.
Ganguly and Dravid achieved a fair amount of overseas success each.
Matches – 12
Won – 6
Loss – 2
Draw – 4
Win Rate – 50%
Sri Lanka remains a favourite hunting spot for Kohli as evident by four of his six away victories coming against the islanders. The run started in India’s 2015 tour of Sri Lanka where they won a Test series for the first time in 22 years. Kohli’s men won the three-match series 2-1.
Since then the Indian skipper has won a further two Test against the West Indies in 2016 before returning to Sri Lanka for the current tour.
While Kohli’s Test captaincy began in a tour of Australia at the end of 2014, he is yet to lead his side in England, South Africa and New Zealand among others. With age on his side, he still has a lot of time to catch up to Ganguly.
Matches – 30
Won – 6
Loss – 15
Draw – 9
Win Rate – 20%
While the Ranchi maverick remains the second most successful captain in India’s Test history, he has a bit of a mixed record when it comes to overseas conditions.
Dhoni’s men won a historic series in New Zealand in 2009 and held their own in a 1-1 drawn series against South Africa in 2010.
Apart from another away victory over Bangladesh, the World Cup winning captain had a torrid time leading against the likes of England and Australia in the latter half of tenure. He oversaw his side’s 11 losses in 14 matches against the two nations, managing only a solitary victory against England in 2014.
Dhoni’s poor record in England and Australia overshadowed his tenure.
Matches – 17
Won – 5
Loss – 4
Draw – 8
Win Rate – 29.41%
The former middle-order stalwart of India did not have a long tenure alike Dhoni and Ganguly but his limited time at the squad’s helm was a fairly successful one.
Having taken over the captaincy from Ganguly, Dravid’s time was defined with an away Test series victory in Pakistan in his first overseas assignment.
The lowest point of Dravid’s captaincy was a 3-1 loss to the West Indies in 2005. The man famously nicknamed the ‘Wall’ has away Test victories over the likes of England, South Africa and Sri Lanka in his kitty.
Matches – 11
Won – 3
Loss – 6
Draw – 2
Win Rate – 18.18%
The Amritsar-born Bedi had a four-year stint with the national team captaincy from 1975 to 1979.
The leg-spinner took over the reigns from the legendary Sunil Gavaskar and his tenure featured away tours to New Zealand, West Indies, Australia and arch-rivals Pakistan.
Bedi’s tenure included wins against the might West Indies and Australia.
India ran the mighty West Indies close but lost 2-1 in a four-match series. It was the Australian Tour down under in 1977 that Bedi earned his stripes. In a five-match series, his men famously won a couple of Tests but went down 3-2 eventually.
His three away Test victories as the national skipper gives him the final spot in the list above the likes of Mohammad Azharuddin, Kapil Dev and Gavaskar.
