Top 10 double hundreds by Captains away from home

Very few sporting formats need a strong captain as desperately as cricket does. The captain marshals his resources in real-time, far away from the coaches and the support staff and has to take decisions on the fly. So, when the captain turns up even with the bat, to lead from the front, it gives the team a colossal boost. Graeme Smith, almost characteristically, holds the record for the most double hundreds by a skipper, away from home – 4.

Virat Kohli, by scoring a double hundred in his maiden Test in West Indies as skipper, became the 26th captain to score a double hundred away from home (includes neutral venues) and the first Indian to do so. In the long history of cricket, that is a small number, very small one indeed. Some of these double hundreds have come on prosaic pitches, but some of them have come under fiery conditions, against brilliant bowling line-ups.

Although no double hundred by a skipper, that too away from home, can be a mean achievement, we celebrate here, the spirit of cricketing resilience by looking at the top 10 double-hundreds by captains batting away from home.

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#10 Len Hutton (Eng), 205 (470 mins) v West Indies, Kingston, 1954

In what was probably one of the greatest innings by a visiting captain, Len Hutton scored 205 out of a score of 414 where the next highest scores were 66 and 31. England posted 414 thanks to that in response to West Indies’ 139 on a tough surface.

West Indies came back with 346 but England took the Test, reaching the target of 72 runs by losing just 1 wicket.