India (internal)
20 June 2017
Anil Kumble resigned as India head coach citing an 'untenable' relationship with captain Virat Kohli, in one of the most public coach-captain breakdowns in cricket history.
Pakistan
2 September 2015
Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt's return to domestic cricket after his spot-fixing ban attracted fierce criticism, with many arguing a captain who fixed matches should never play again.
Australia vs Various
2005-09-12
Ricky Ponting's volcanic temper produced some of cricket's most entertaining meltdowns, from umpire confrontations to dressing room blow-ups.
India (internal)
6 October 2005
India coach Greg Chappell's leaked email to the BCCI recommending Ganguly's removal as captain created a massive controversy that split Indian cricket and eventually led to Ganguly being dropped entirely.
India
5 December 2000
Former India captain Mohammad Azharuddin was banned for life from cricket after a CBI investigation found he had been involved in match-fixing, ending the career of one of India's most stylish batsmen.
England vs West Indies
1969-07-10
Ray Illingworth was appointed England captain for the second Test against West Indies in July 1969, replacing the injured Colin Cowdrey. The appointment was supposed to be temporary — Cowdrey was expected to return — but Illingworth won the match and kept the captaincy for the next three years. He went on to win the 1970-71 Ashes in Australia, England's first Ashes win in Australia since 1954-55.
Australia cricket
1968-01-12
Bill Lawry of Victoria succeeded Bob Simpson as Australia's captain for the 1967-68 series against India, beginning a three-year leadership that produced consistent results but was criticised for excessive caution. His personal batting was as effective as ever — he scored 7,614 Test runs at 47.15 — but his captaincy was eventually ended by the Australian board in controversial circumstances during the 1970-71 Ashes.
England vs West Indies
1966-07-01
Garry Sobers's 1966 England tour was the greatest all-round series by any player in Test history up to that date. He scored 722 runs at 103.14 — including a double century at Headingley — and took 20 wickets with his three different bowling styles. West Indies won 3-1 and Sobers was on another level. One England selector described it as watching a man play a different sport from everyone else.
India vs West Indies
1966-12-13
Clive Lloyd of British Guiana made his Test debut against India in Bombay in December 1966, at 22. The tall left-hander — six feet five in his socks, with the wrists and timing of a much lighter man — scored 82 not out in his first innings and announced a presence that would dominate West Indian cricket for the next fifteen years. Lloyd would go on to captain West Indies through their most dominant era.
England vs West Indies
1963-08-26
Frank Worrell's 1963 England tour was his farewell as West Indies captain — and the finest series a West Indies side had ever played in England. West Indies won three Tests, drew one and lost one, outclassing England with Hall and Griffith's pace and Sobers, Kanhai and Worrell's batting. Worrell retired as captain after the tour, aged 39, and was knighted. He had transformed West Indian cricket in four years.
India v Australia
1947-11-28
Lala Amarnath became Independent India's first Test captain when he led the tour party to Australia in November 1947, only weeks after Partition. Vijay Merchant's withdrawal had thrown the captaincy open; Amarnath was confirmed by the new Indian Cricket Board ahead of departure. India lost the series 0-4, but Amarnath's personal contributions — 228 not out v Victoria and 172 not out v Queensland — and his courteous handling of Bradman's century moment at Sydney made him a popular figure on tour.
Australia
1912-05-01
Syd Gregory was 42, semi-retired and on his eighth tour of England when the Australian Board recalled him to captain the depleted 1912 Triangular side. His tour was personally distinguished — he played his 58th Test, a then-record — but the team was beaten and Gregory never played another Test.
England
1912-08-22
Charles Burgess Fry, the polymath athlete who had played football for England and held the world long-jump record, captained England through the 1912 Triangular Tournament — winning all six Tests, taking England to the title and ending his Test career undefeated as captain.
South Africa and England
1912-06-10
Frank Mitchell, born in Yorkshire and a former England rugby international, was selected to captain South Africa in the 1912 Triangular — one of the most extreme cases of cross-national selection in cricket history. South Africa lost all five of their Tests under his leadership.
Australia, England
1909-08-31
Montague 'Monty' Noble played 42 Tests for Australia between 1898 and 1909, captaining 15 of them and winning eight. A medium-paced bowler whose 'spin-swerve' (an early form of off-cutting in-swinger) and a top-order batsman, he scored 1,997 Test runs at 30.25 and took 121 Test wickets at 25. He led Australia to the Ashes win at home in 1907-08 and the away win in 1909.
England (Stoddart's XI)
1897-12-13
The 1897-98 Ashes tour of Australia, captained by Andrew Stoddart for the second time, became the most personally bleak overseas English tour of the century. News of his mother's death reached him before the First Test; he stood down from the first two Tests and let Archie MacLaren lead. Stoddart returned for the Third and Fourth Tests, made 17, 24, 9 and 25, was barracked at Sydney, and walked off the cricket field for the last time. The tour was the high tide of his unravelling — he died by suicide in 1915.
Australia v England
1895-03-06
Across the five Tests of the 1894-95 Ashes, George Giffen — Australia's captain, opening bowler and number-three batsman — scored 475 runs at 52.78 and took 34 wickets at 24.12. The combined haul is still, 130 years later, the best all-round performance in any Test series in cricket history. Australia lost the rubber 2-3, but Giffen's series average has never been matched.
England v South Africa
1889-03-12
Charles Aubrey Smith was a tall fast-medium Sussex amateur with one of the strangest run-ups in cricket history — a sweeping curve that started from deep mid-off or even from behind the umpire and brought him in at the crease from an unexpected angle. WG Grace remarked it was 'rather startling when he suddenly appears at the bowling crease'. In March 1889, Smith captained the first English side to play a Test in South Africa, took 5/19 in the first innings of that Test, and remains the only player ever to captain England in his one and only Test appearance.
Australia / England (one Test)
1882-08-29
William Lloyd Murdoch captained Australia in 16 Tests through the 1880s, scored the first Test 200 (211 at the Oval in 1884), held the Test record score (153* against England in 1880) for several years, and was the architect of Australia's 7-run win at the Oval in 1882. He later (controversially) played one Test for England against South Africa in 1891-92.
Kent, England
1837-07-01
Edward 'Ned' Wenman of Benenden in Kent was the wicketkeeper around whom the great Kent side of the late 1830s and 1840s was built. With Pilch and Mynn ahead of him in the order he was a useful lower-order batsman; behind the stumps he was reckoned the best wicketkeeper in England, taking Mynn's fast roundarm bowling without complaint and effecting more stumpings than any contemporary.