IPL History: 3 Players you might not know once led a team in IPL
The auction for IPL 2020 is just around the corner as all the fans and players gear up for yet another season of the world’s grandest T20 league. Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings have been the most successful teams in the IPL history as they share seven IPL titles between themselves.
The most interesting thing about the championship victories of both the teams is that all the title wins have come under the captaincy of one player. Rohit Sharma has guided his home franchise to four IPL trophies while under MS Dhoni’s leadership, the Super Kings have lifted the IPL trophy thrice. This statistic signifies the captain’s importance in IPL teams.
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However, there have been several instances where the regular captain is unavailable for the team and in his absence, the franchises have had to nominate a standby skipper. Over the years, there have been multiple such occasions in the IPL and there have been players who have led their sides in only one or two matches.
In this article, we will have a look at the three players you might not know once led an IPL team.
#3 Parthiv Patel
The now-disbanded Kochi Tuskers Kerala team had a bunch of experienced players like VVS Laxman, Mahela Jayawardene, Brendon McCullum, RP Singh and Brad Hodge in their squad. The Kochi-based franchise played only a solitary IPL season and Jayawardene captained the side.
However, the Sri Lankan player could not take part in his side’s final match against Chennai Super Kings. Though the officials could have named McCullum or Hodge as their skipper for that match, they went with Parthiv Patel.
The wicket-keeper batsman did not have a winning day as a captain though. He lost the toss and his side lost the match by 11 runs. Parthiv opened the innings for Kochi but chasing a target of 153 runs, he could only score 6 runs off 7 deliveries before Ravichandran Ashwin got the better of him.
Though Hodge scored a fifty, bowling performances from Ashwin, Suresh Raina and Shadab Jakati ensured that Chennai won the match.