9 players who surprisingly captained a team in IPL

James Hopes - Australian bowling all-rounder James Hopes out of nowhere was handed the reins for the then Delhi Daredevils for three games in the 2011 edition. However, the Delhi side won none of them, losing two while one being a no-result

David Miller - After George Bailey's departure, David Miller was surprisingly handed over the captaincy in 2016 for Kings XI Punjab. However, that didn't last long as Punjab lost five games out of six under him

Murali Vijay - After the midway captaincy change, Punjab chose opening batter Murali Vijay as their next captain in another surprising choice. The results got slightly better but not much as Punjab won three out of eight games under Vijay and lost the remaining five

Glenn Maxwell - In the very next season, Punjab underwent another captaincy change as the 28-year-old Glenn Maxwell was handed the reigns. Punjab fared better winning 7 games in the season but failed to qualify for the playoffs yet again. A year and a half later, Maxwell went on to become the captain of his BBL side Melbourne Stars

Karun Nair - When Zaheer Khan was captaining the young Delhi team in 2016-17, Karun Nair out of the blue had to stand-in for the senior pacer in three matches. Under Nair, Delhi won two out of three matches

Manish Pandey - Even though just for one game, Manish Pandey had to lead the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the tumultuous 2021 season where the franchise had moved on from David Warner and didn't have either Kane Williamson or Bhuvneshwar Kumar available for their season finale. SRH lost that clash

Ravindra Jadeja - The Chennai Super Kings attempted a succession plan in 2022 rather unsuccessfully while handing the baton to the all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja out of all people. However, after CSK lost six games out of eight Jadeja was the captain, MS Dhoni got back the reins

Sam Curran - With Shikhar Dhawan not fit for a few games, the 24-year-old Sam Curran was named the Punjab Kings skipper in the 2023 edition. Punjab won two games out of three under him

Pat Cummins - Pat Cummins may be a world-class leader in ODIs and Tests for Australia having won a World Cup and a World Test Championship title but him getting captaincy for Sunrisers Hyderabad was a surprise since Cummins isn't a starter in the Australian line-up itself in T20s and that he has never led a side in the shortest format not even in club cricket. SRH will hope that he can replicate his success with Australia in IPL too