In the current era, there are too many injury issues and a clear distinction between formats. Hence, teams have to plan for a lot of depth in resources. Even when it comes to captaincy, it is important for nations to have a lot of options. At times, teams are playing more than one tournament simultaneously, as well. On that note, here, we take a look at three players you might not know have captained their nations.
1) Zak Crawley
Zak Crawley is one of the players you might not know have captained their nations. With the senior England players busy elsewhere, Zak Crawley was the captain of the team for the Ireland ODI series.
It was a bold call because Zak himself does not have a confirmed place on the ODI side. May be, it was England’s bet to groom Zak for future captaincy in Tests.
2) Lockie Ferguson
Lockie Ferguson had a bright start to his career but after that, his career has been on and off. Nevertheless, for New Zealand, he is an important part of all the formats of the game. However, not many would have expected him to captain the side.
In 2023, New Zealand was touring Bangladesh for an ODI series and Tom Latham had to miss that because he had a parallel commitment. Hence, Lockie was appointed as the captain of the side. It will be interesting to see if he gets more chances in the future.
3) Josh Hazlewood
It was back in 2022 that Josh Hazlewood captained Australia for the first time. It was an ODI series against England in Australia. For the second game, Pat Cummins had to sit out and it was Josh who took up the captaincy responsibility.
It is rare for fast bowlers to captain teams. Australia, though, have a full-time pacer as a skipper and at the same time, they have one more experienced pacer who led the team recently.