Senior men — Test squad v Australia
Top-order rotation between Rohit, Jaiswal and Sudhakar at the top; captaincy sits on the second-innings spinner index at Chepauk, Eden and Ahmedabad.
Captain pick window: Day 3 spinner · J. Jadeja
IPL franchises — captaincy rotation matrix
| Team | Captain | WK bat | Top-order | Death bowler | Spinners |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chennai Super Kings | R. Gaikwad | M. Dhoni | Ruturaj · Conway · Tripathi | Tushar · Pathirana | Jadeja · Theekshana |
| Mumbai Indians | H. Pandya | I. Kishan | Rohit · Yadav · Brevis | Bumrah · Coetzee | J. Pandya · Madhwal |
| Royal Challengers | F. du Plessis | D. Jurel | Kohli · Rajat · Salt | Siraj · Dayal | Maxwell · Rashid |
| Delhi Capitals | R. Pant | Pant · Salt | Shaw · Dhawan · Stubbs | Nortje · Mukesh | Axar · Kuldeep |
| Kolkata Knight Riders | S. Iyer | Salt · Rahmanullah | Venkatesh · Narine · Rana | Russell · Harshit | Narine · Varun |
| Lucknow Super Giants | K. Rahul | K. Rahul | Mayers · Pooran · Stoinis | Mohsin · Yadav | Bishnoi · Krunal |
| Rajasthan Royals | S. Samson | Samson · Jurel | Jaiswal · Parag · Hetmyer | Archer · Boult | Ashwin · Chahal |
| Sunrisers Hyderabad | P. Cummins | J. Bairstow | Head · Abhishek · Klaasen | Cummins · Unadkat | Markram · Rashid |
National sides — Test & ODI
Senior women — WPL franchises
WPL franchises run the same captain multiplier as the men's league. Wrist-spin allrounders carry premium value on slow surfaces.
India A — emerging player watch
Last-five form ledger for the A-side bowlers and middle-order anchors. Use as a differential pool when the senior teams rest players on rotation.
ISL clubs — Pick 5 captain windows
Mumbai City FC
Striker ceiling on the home record; defensive midfielder slot on away fixtures. xG against is the primary differential input.
Hyderabad FC
Captaincy on the central midfielder slot; counter-attack striker differential on the road. Cross-channel xA matters more than goals.
Kerala Blasters
Wing-back captain window on the home fixture; central striker differential in away blocks. Crowd factor carries the ceiling tier.
Bengaluru FC
Centre-back ceiling on the captain slot at home; defensive midfielder differential in away fixtures with a high-pressing opponent.
East Bengal
Captaincy on the striker slot at home; defensive shape differential in away blocks. Set-piece ceiling carries mid-tier.
Chennaiyin FC
Wide-forward captain slot on the home surface; central defensive midfielder in away fixtures. Discipline record affects captaincy arithmetic.
Pro Kabaddi teams — raid success %
| Team | Lead raider | Support raider | Cover defence | Corner defence | Form · last 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patna Pirates | S. Narwal | R. Narwal | M. Nabibakhsh | S. Singh | W W L W W |
| Jaipur Pink Panthers | A. Kumar | R. Kumar | S. Dhull | R. Sharma | W W W L W |
| Bengal Warriors | M. Teli | R. Singh | V. Malik | A. Mane | L W W L W |
| Telugu Titans | P. Malik | S. Kandola | R. Narwal | S. Jaipwar | W L W W L |
| Tamil Thalaivas | N. Bhinder | S. Narwal | A. Abhishek | M. Jadhav | L L W W W |
| UP Yoddhas | S. Hooda | P. Narwal | N. Kumar | S. Gulia | W L L W W |
Tennis squads — ATP doubles watch
The desk tracks ATP singles and doubles draws relevant to Indian players. N. Bopanna and E. Raja lead the doubles draw for the Chennai Open; the Mumbai Challenger carries the seeded singles field. Captain pick on Pick 7 tennis contests sits on aces + break-points-saved combined; the differential slot is the doubles team with the highest first-serve win rate over the past month.
Reader questions — teams
How often is the captain rotation matrix updated?
After every IPL fixture, weekly during the off-season. Updated within 24 hours of an officially verified team-sheet change.
Does the desk cover women's teams?
Yes — WPL franchises and the senior women's national side are tracked on every relevant ledger. The captaincy arithmetic is the same; the role-balance band is different because of the format history.
What about franchises not in IPL?
The ILT20 (UAE), BBL (Australia), CPL (Caribbean), and T20 Mumbai are tracked. Cricket South Africa's SA20 is also tracked on a senior editor's beat.
Where does ISL captain data come from?
From the AIFF (All India Football Federation) and the official ISL press room. xG and xA data come from the operator feed we calibrate against Sportradar.
Team-ledger reading notes
The team ledger is the most-edited table on the desk. Every franchise reshuffles; every national side rotates; every league rolls a new squad through the off-season. The desk's reading notes track the structural shifts — franchise leadership changes (captaincy, head coach, ownership), squad depth changes (which slots have rookie contention), and the captaincy rotation matrix (when does a captain hand the armband over to a deputy for a year, two years, or indefinitely).
IPL franchise captain rotations
Across the most recent IPL cycle, three franchises cycled captaincy mid-season — CSK, KKR, and SRH each rotated at least once in the 18-month window. The KKR rotation was the most pronounced (a deputy stepped in for the full second half). The desk records each rotation on the team lane and updates the captaincy rotation matrix accordingly. Where a rotation lands mid-cycle, the team page publishes both the in-season captain and the out-of-season deputy with the reasoning.
ISL franchise captain windows
Indian Super League clubs rotate captaincy less often than cricket franchises, but the captain window on Pick 5 fantasy contests shifts week to week. Some weeks the captaincy sits with the holding midfielder; some weeks it sits with the striker; some weeks with the wing-back. The desk's per-week reading note names the captain window explicitly for every relevant fixture.
Reading the captain rotation matrix — a deeper cut
The desk's captain rotation matrix names each franchise's in-season captain, the off-season captain (the next IPL auction leadership), and the emerging deputy. Where the leadership changes mid-cycle, the matrix flags it explicitly with the date and the operator's reason.
For national sides, the matrix is structured differently: the senior men's side captain, the A-side captain, the women's captain, and the under-19 captain. The desk updates the matrix after every senior squad announcement; A-side updates follow the senior announcements by 1-2 weeks.