Mahendra Singh Dhoni led India in 331 matches across all formats in international cricket since taking over in 2007. Players who fell out of favour during his tenure:
| Players | Matches |
|---|---|
| Wasim Jaffer | 1 |
| Wriddhiman Saha | 1 |
| Sourabh Tiwary | 1 |
| Sreenath Aravind | 1 |
| Karn Sharma | 1 |
| Pankaj Singh | 2 |
| Ramesh Powar | 2 |
| Parvinder Awana | 2 |
| Manpreet Gony | 2 |
| Ajit Agarkar | 3 |
| Abhishek Nayar | 3 |
| Rahul Sharma | 4 |
| Jaydev Unadkat | 4 |
| Joginder Sharma | 4 |
| Subramaniam Badrinath | 5 |
| Abhinav Mukund | 5 |
| Sudeep Tyagi | 5 |
| Lakhmipathy Balaji | 6 |
| Abhimanyu Mithun | 6 |
| Murali Kartik | 8 |
| Manoj Tiwary | 8 |
| Varun Aaron | 9 |
| Dhawal Kulkarni | 9 |
| Lokesh Rahul | 9 |
| Stuart Binny | 10 |
(Note: Players making their international debut in 2016 have not been included.)
Sourav Ganguly backed his players to the hilt.
Some players he captained -- Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag among others -- still swear by him.
Ganguly led India in 195 matches in international cricket. Players who had short careers in Dada's tenure:
| Players | Matches |
|---|---|
| Amit Bhandari | 1 |
| Nilesh Kulkarni | 1 |
| Venkatapathy Raju | 1 |
| Rahul Sanghvi | 1 |
| Lakhmi Shukla | 1 |
| Iqbal Siddiqui | 1 |
| Vijay Bharadwaj | 1 |
| Ashish Kapoor | 1 |
| RP Singh | 1 |
| Sairaj Bahutule | 2 |
| Hrishikesh Kanitkar | 2 |
| Amay Khurasiya | 2 |
| Ramesh Powar | 2 |
| Aavishkar Salvi | 2 |
| Amit Mishra | 2 |
| Joginder Sharma | 3 |
| Nayan Mongia | 3 |
| Harvinder Singh | 4 |
| MSK Prasad | 4 |
| Y Venugopal Rao | 4 |
| Wasim Jaffer | 5 |
| Jacob Martin | 5 |
| Aakash Chopra | 6 |
| T Kumaran | 6 |
| Sarandeep Singh | 6 |
| Tinu Yohannan | 6 |
| Nikhil Chopra | 7 |
| S Sriram | 7 |
| JP Yadav | 7 |
| Saba Karim | 8 |
| Debasis Mohanty | 8 |
| Rohan Gavaskar | 10 |
Rahul Dravid's captaincy saw the Indian team go through a transitional phase.
Along with then coach Greg Chappell, Dravid tried to bring in youngsters into the team, showing the door to some experienced players.
Rahul Dravid captained India in 104 international matches. Players who had short careers under Dravid:
| Players | Matches |
|---|---|
| Sairaj Bahutule | 1 |
| Rohan Gavaskar | 1 |
| Joginder Sharma | 1 |
| Amay Khurasiya | 1 |
| Aavishkar Salvi | 1 |
| Sarandeep Singh | 1 |
| S Sriram | 1 |
| Amit Bhandari | 1 |
| Vijay Dahiya | 1 |
| Sameer Dighe | 1 |
| Aashish Kapoor | 1 |
| Venkatesh Prasad | 1 |
| Sanjay Bangar | 2 |
| Rohit Sharma | 2 |
| Javagal Srinath | 2 |
| Ishant Sharma | 2 |
| Reetinder Sodhi | 3 |
| Aakash Chopra | 4 |
| Hemang Badani | 5 |
| JP Yadav | 5 |
| Lakhmipathy Balaji | 6 |
| VRV Singh | 6 |
| Parthiv Patel | 7 |
| Ashish Nehra | 8 |
| Dinesh Mongia | 9 |
Anil Kumble had a brief tenure as captain, leading the team in 14 Tests and in a One-Day game against England in Chennai in 2002 in the injured Sourav Ganguly's absence.
During Kumble's tenure, India tried split the captaincy. The leg-spinner took over the Test captaincy from Rahul Dravid in 2007, while Mahendra Singh led the ODI and T20I teams.
Since no one else wanted to be captain at that point, Kumble has said it was given to him.
'I became captain after playing 17 years for India, so probably I became captain by default,' he had said.
A look at players who had short careers under Anil Kumble:
| Players | Matches |
|---|---|
| Ajit Agarkar | 1 |
| Hemang Badani | 1 |
| Sanjay Bangar | 1 |
| Dinesh Mongia | 1 |
| Parthiv Patel | 1 |
| Ajay Ratra | 1 |
| Amit Mishra | 1 |
| Javagal Srinath | 1 |
| Munaf Patel | 2 |
| S Sreesanth | 2 |
| Yuvraj Singh | 3 |
| Irfan Pathan | 4 |
| Dinesh Karthik | 5 |