A captain is one of the most essential members of a cricket team. He is the one who leads the side and takes decision on behalf of the eleven players on the field. Cricket history has seen several of classy leaders over the course of the past years but also has witnessed many players stepping down from captaincy before time. In this article we will discuss five such players who decided to step down from captaincy midway through a series.
The first name in the list is of Michael Vaughan. England’s 2005 Ashes winning captain Michael Vaughan also quit mid-way through a Test series after his side lost to Graeme Smith’s South Africa the following year. Vaughan had replaced Nasser Hussain, who too had quit mid-way through a home series and interestingly, against the same opposition and also led by Smith.
The second name in the list is of Hashim Amla. Amla took over South Africa’s Test team’s captaincy from Graeme Smith, who retired from all formats of the game in March 2014, after leading South Africa for 11 years. During his stint as captain, Amla scored nearly 900 runs at an average of 49.66, short of his career average of 51.13. In tours of Bangladesh and India, Amla’s grand total was 131 runs in six Tests but announced his retirement suddenly in the midst of a test series against Bangladesh.
The third name in the list is of MS Dhoni. The former keeper-batsman had plenty of highs in Tests as well; amassing 4,876 runs in 90 Tests at 38.09 with a high-score of 224. The swashbuckling right-hander played several memorable knocks at home where he played a vital role as a skipper as well as a batsman. The former Indian captain called it quits from Test cricket last year, retiring after a series defeat against Australia, in an attempt to reduce his workload ahead of the 2015 World Cup and to give Virat much needed time to build a team.
The fourth name in the list is of Kim Hughes. The most dramatic resignation of all came in November 1984 when Australian skipper Kim Hughes resigned, announcing his decision to team-mates during the day’s play. Then in a press meet, a tearful Hughes read out his resignation letter to the media. It was an indeed illustrious and legendary tenure and stint as a captain and Hughes will forever be remembered as a revolutionary leader off all time.
The fifth and the last name in the list is of Anil Kumble. Not every time, did a captain step down due to Personal reasons. In some cases, the reason has been an injury. Anil Kumble was forced to retire mid-way through the Border-Gavaskar Series in 2008, when a finger injury prompted him to hand over charge to Dhoni. Post this decision he never got the chance to captain India again, but this unfortunate-fortunate incident gave India their one of the most successful captains of all time.
