Cricket is a game of strategy, skill, and leadership. And one thing that plays the key role in making a team successful is a captain. Throughout the years, we have seen some brilliant captains who have led their teams to victory and made everyone in awe over the smart decisions taken on the field. Their brisk thinking, handling pressure with ease, and an eye for turning the game in their favor make them stand out. We view in this article the top 10 intelligent cricket captains who had left their mark in cricket history. Ricky Ponting Image Source: AFP When we talk about success and dominance by a captain, Ricky Ponting sits on top comfortably. He led Australia in an era where his team literally thrashed everyone. It was really hard to beat the kangaroos. He wanted a convincing win on behalf of his side, and he could not tolerate losing. Nevertheless, when things weren't going Australia's way in the later half of the 2000s, he never lost the spirit, even after being off form. Such was an indication that the hard-hitting Ricky Ponting loved fighting, and indeed from the very front by allowing himself to take all of the abuse for Australia. Also Read | The Most Selfish Players in Cricket: Controversies and Debates MS Dhoni Image Source: Getty Images When we talk about captains, we can never leave MSD out of the conversation. Such has been his impact that most of the current captains look up to him. To be fair, he has earned every bit of the praise he gets from his fans. When India went into the inaugural World T20 with a team full of youngsters, it was not easy to win matches against some of the solid teams. Not only did India do well in the tournament, but they also won the whole thing. 13 years from that moment, MSD is still in his element as a leader. He did a great job in IPL for CSK as well, helped them to win five IPL titles. There might be many captains who had an amazing run, but none as good as Captain Cool. Imran Khan Image Source: Getty Images Imran Khan had to go down as the best captain of the Pakistani side. Pakistan has always been a great cricketing nation, but they have lacked a good captain all the time. Their captains have done good stuff, but none as consistently as Imran Khan. He was a true leader as well as a great all-rounder of the game. The teammates looked at him as a player all through the time. He used to make them work collectively, and that gifted them the World Cup in 1992. Since the retirement, a thought struggle has been there in the leadership of Pakistan. There used to be huge egos on the side, and how to take them with class was possible only for such a great leader like Imran. He was spectacular in making the right choices without any bias in his mind, which the following Pakistani captains lacked. Steve Waugh Image Source: Getty Images Remember the late 90s when Australia won sixteen consecutive Test matches? Throughout those matches, Steve Waugh was the captain of the side. He was the first one to have that aggressive approach as the captain. The same sort of captaincy methods were used by Ponting in a more refined way in the years to come when the latter captained the side. Steve Waugh was a great leader, in the first place, and he had to bear a lot of criticism regarding his methods. But he made it look very effortless in the times to come. He kept improving as a captain with time, which was the biggest takeaway from his stint. He was very straightforward with his approach as a captain, but it did not mean that he would be aggressive all the time. In his last Test, he showed a great deal of composure to save the Test match against India. It must have taken a great effort for a complete turnaround for Australia to win the world cup in 1999, and he had his part to play in the transition of the Aussie team. Sourav Ganguly Image Source: AFP Before MS Dhoni came, there was Sourav Ganguly, who captained the Indian team. He became the captain of the team during the year 2000 when Indian cricket was perhaps at its worst. So, it was not an easy job for him, but somehow he made the transition quite smooth. He assisted India to the finals of the Champions Trophy very early on in his career. He remained the highest run-getter in the entire tournament. In no time, he took a couple of youngsters aside to make it a better Indian side. Guys like Sehwag, Yuvraj, Harbhajan, and Zaheer Khan went on to become crucial players during the time of MS Dhoni as a captain as well. If it were not for the controversy surrounding his axing in 2005, he could have served a bit longer as the captain of the side. He was controversially axed again early in 2008 when he had a fantastic run in both formats in 2007. However, he could lift players to the next level, and he was a genius at the same time. Graeme Smith Image Source: AFP Graeme Smith might be judged on the basis that he never won a World Cup as the captain. But he has done a lot of good as a captain. You can look at the South Africa team since he retired and how things have been going down for them. He first went into captaincy at the age of 22, a very young age to lead a side. Given that there were Gibbs, Boucher, and Kallis in the team, this decision was a bit of an early surprise. It won't be wrong to state that his critics were wrong. Graeme Smith went on to become the most successful Test captain of all time with 53 wins. He had a pretty solid record in ODIs too, with 163 wins. His calm head with fantastic determination made his legacy as one of the smartest captains ever. Arjuna Ranatunga Image Source: Getty Images From one Sri Lankan to another, let us talk about a captain, who was a great resemblance to Pakistan's Imran Khan. Though not at all that modest, he was at least a very smart captain. He would be an absolute arrogance on the field; it did not matter as long as he contributed those sorts of results. He was one of the first leaders to understand the aggressive approach required in ODI cricket. The reason why players like Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana went on to play risk-free cricket was the backing from Ranatunga. He would give it all for his team to play as aggressively as they can. Things started to happen when Sri Lanka won the world cup for the very first time in 1996. He was quite aware of the game than everybody else on the side and talked about it. Though he does have a lot of moments on the field, one still cannot take away from the fact that he stood by his players all the time. Also Read | Nitish Kumar Reddy: Family, Career, Records, IPL - All Details Mahela Jayawardene Image Source: Getty Images Jayawardene was very aggressive in his own rights. Normally it would be advised that a captain needs a calm head to keep his team together. Jayawardene was just a little different, but he provided much-needed results for Sri Lanka. He was the man of the pressure situations, both as a captain as well as a player. He would normally love to play in a situation where he had to take control. His innings in the finals of the World Cup 2011 is a fantastic example of the statement. He provided those results in the ODIs with the best winning percentage amongst the captains having captained so many matches. Mahela might have been an aggressive personality, but his game was as proper as a gentleman's. His perspective about the game and the way it is made is always highly praised by his teammates, and I must give that to him for leading from the front during the 2007 World Cup in which Sri Lanka was the runner-up. Eoin Morgan Image Source: Getty Images Let's talk about a leader from modern cricket who has done an excellent job. Eoin Morgan is one of those captains who never made any noises around. His calm and collected head never led him to do silly stuff, even if it was a match as close as the finals of the World Cup 2019. England suffered a huge defeat in the World Cup 2015 and was knocked out before the quarterfinals themselves. Fast forward to 2019, they were the favorites to win the tournament. They proved the prediction right with a great win despite losing the track midway in the tournament. Morgan would stick to his decisions no matter what happened in the course of the game. Aggressive batting was one of the mottos of England under him, and chasing targets above 300 became a routine thing too. He backed up his bowlers nicely also, which created the much-needed transition for the English side. Stephen Fleming Image Source: AFP He had a great aura as a captain too. He has one of the greatest legacies as a captain and a player. Stephen Fleming is the first New Zealand cricketer who had gone past 7k runs in Test cricket by playing 111 matches for that mark. He was considered a great strategist who knew how to play the conditions. Fleming was the captain of a side that didn't have many match-winners already. He created the moments out of those players who went on to become huge later, McCullum and Vettori, to name a few. In 2000, New Zealand went on to win the inaugural Champions Trophy, and Fleming was the captain. Under him, they went into the semifinals a couple of times too. It might not seem like a great deal on paper, but the fact that New Zealand looked like a threatening team had a lot to do with Fleming's captaincy. Conclusion Being a smart cricket captain means more than leading on the field. It involves being able to make quick decisions under pressure and bringing out the best in every player. This is what some of the most skilled captains in cricket have done on the field and set for others to emulate. They've left an indelible mark on the game, and they inspired this world's fans to carry the flag high. The most profound reminder of their success is that true leadership is not only about winning matches but about making a difference.