Captains who have never lost a test series

[Dissector]

Viv Richards and Don Bradman come to mind and IIRC Richie Benaud. Any others? This list covers all the captains with more than 25 tests. Among those who never lost a series, Richards has the highest number of tests:50, a record that will be very difficult to break. Benaud has 28 tests. How many did Bradman captain? Any others on that list who never lost a series?

[Lillian Thomson]

Of those who had a reasonable run Hutton and Jardine never lost a series.

[subshakerz]

I believe Ian Chappell also never lost a test series.

[The Sean]

Neither did The Big Ship - in fact he never even lost a Test, though he only captained Australia in two series.

To answer Dissector's question, Bradman captained Australia in 24 Tests.

[Dissector]

Ian Chappell is a little tricky. He did captain the last test in the 70-71 Ashes. Australia lost the test and the Ashes 2-0. He didn't lose any series which he captained fully. I am actually surprised how short his captaincy was. I had always imagined that he was the Australian captain for longer than Greg though I suppose you should count the Packer series as part of his captaincy.

[Uppercut]

MS Dhoni. Actually, more than simply not losing, he's won every series he's captained the side for, as well as a one-off test against South Africa (Kumble captained for the first two games). It'll be interesting to see how long that one lasts.

[Dissector]

Here are the number of tests captained by the unbeaten captains mentioned so far who have finished their careers. I have decided to exclude Ian Chappell. After all the series was alive when he took over and a win would have both drawn the series and retained the Ashes. Dhoni incidentally has captained 7 tests. Hopefully I can add his name to the list after he finishes as captain,say, ten years from now.


Richards 50
Benaud 28
Bradman 24
Hutton 23
Jardine 15
Armstrong 10

[JBMAC]

Originally Posted by Dissector

Here are the number of tests captained by the unbeaten captains mentioned so far who have finished their careers. I have decided to exclude Ian Chappell. After all the series was alive when he took over and a win would have both drawn the series and retained the Ashes. Dhoni incidentally has captained 7 tests. Hopefully I can add his name to the list after he finishes as captain,say, ten years from now.


Richards 50
Benaud 28
Bradman 24
Hutton 23
Jardine 15
Armstrong 10

That list is all well and good but did you take into consideration only Richards and Benaud had the same number of test playing countries.The others were very limited.Maybe a fairer assessment would be based on percentages??

[Dissector]

Well the flip side is that the more tests you captained the more likely you were to lose a series. And teams like India, Pakistan and New Zealand were much stronger in the 80's than in earlier decades.