Players who 'dethroned themselves' from captaincy in IPL

Gautam Gambhir recently relinquished Delhi's captaincy after the team failed to make any mark in this year's Indian Premier League (IPL).

Gambhir, who brought two titles for Kolkata, failed to spread similar magic for Delhi as his team lost five out of six matches played.

But, this is not the first time any team's captain has left his position in between the tournament.

Let us have a look at all the captains who did the same since IPL's inception.

2008: When Sachin Tendulkar suffered an injury, the responsibility was put on the veteran Harbhajan Singh to lead Mumbai. He held the captaincy for next 3 matches but unfortunately, got involved in the infamous slapgate scandal. He was found guilty of assaulting Punjab bowler Sreesanth at Mohali. He got temporarily suspended and then Mumbai found their third skipper in Shaun Pollock.

2009: Bangalore Franchise replaced Dravid with the English star Kevin Peterson. but that did not change the fate of Bangalore as Peterson did not perform well and also he left in the mid-way to attend to his national duties. then RCB chose Anil Kumble as their leader.

2012: As soon as Daniel Vettori realised that his form is not up to the mark, he passed on the captaincy to young Virat Kohli. Muttiah Muralitharan replaced him as the lead spinner for Bangalore. In that season, Kohli captained for 10 matches in which he won six. Th record brought a relief in franchise's management that Kohli is capable to lead the team.

2012: Just like Vettori, Kumar Sangakkara also stepped down from the captaincy of Deccan Chargers and decided to rest as he was going through a tough time with his bat. It was then, Australian cricketer, Cameron White was announced as the new skipper. Though, that did not come out well as Chargers finished the season at the bottom of the league table.

2013: Suffering from a personal slump in his form, Ricky Ponting decided to step down from the playing XI and make way for Rohit Sharma, who became the new skipper of Mumbai. Fortunately, that was the turning point for Mumbai as they won their first-ever title under Rohit Sharma's leadership.

2014: Though Shikhar Dhawan had a good run with the Hyderabad franchise, still they decided to replace him with West Indies skipper Darren Sammy.

2015: After Rahul Dravid's retirement, Shane Watson was handed over the responsibility of Rajasthan. In 2015, He missed starting games due to injury and Steve Smith became the stand-in skipper for the time being. Seeing Smith, handling his responsibility quite well, Watson decided to hand over the role permanently to his fellow team-mate and gave himself rest to focus more on his personal game.