Ravindra Jadeja, as he took over as the captain of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) yesterday, became the most capped player in the history of the IPL to captain an IPL team for the first time. Jadeja has represented three teams in his IPL career so far, with CSK and Gujarat Lions being his second and third team respectively.
Jadeja had started his IPL career as a Rajasthan Royals’ player where he became the IPL champion in the inaugural season of the league itself, before he made his way to CSK in 2012 and won the IPL twice again in 2018 and 2021 respectively.
Ravindra Jadeja had played a total of 200 IPL games before he captained CSK for the first time yesterday in the first game of IPL 2022 against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). The second on the list of the players who played the maximum number of games before captaining an IPL team is Manish Pandey.
Manish got the opportunity to captain Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) towards the end of the last season when the SRH captain Kane Williamson was injured. Manish, before captaining SRH in that game, had already got 153 IPL games under his belt.
Most IPL matches played before Captaining an IPL team
200 – Ravindra Jadeja*
153 – Manish Pandey
137 – Kieron Pollard
111 – Ravi Ashwin
107 – Sanju Samson
103 – Bhuvneshwar#IPL2022Advertisement— CricBeat (@Cric_beat) March 26, 2022
Ravindra Jadeja didn’t have a great start as CSK skipper
As far as Ravindra Jadeja is concerned, he didn’t have a great start as an IPL captain yesterday as CSK lost their first game in IPL 2022 against KKR by 6 wickets when they had actually gone into the game as favorites.
Jadeja’s own performance with bat and ball was not impressive either as he batted a bit more sedately than required and couldn’t make a mark with the ball under dewy conditions.
But, Jadeja can take heart from the fact that CSK had lost the first game of their campaign last season as well, but they ended up winning the tournament and the kind of squad that they have, there is no reason they can’t do it again.
