IPL captaincy is a high-pressure job especially for high-profile players heading big franchises. There have been many stalwarts who have either themselves resigned from captaincy duties or have been sacked after their team's abject performance, lack of form or stress.

Here is the list of biggest IPL names who bit the dust in their captaincy journey. Some made a voluntarily resignation citing team's benefit while others faced the sack due to sheer poor performances:

6 IPL Stars Who Stepped Down as Captains After Tough Seasons

Sachin Tendulkar - Mumbai Indians (2008-2011)

Sachin Tendulkar captained Mumbai Indians in the early stages of the cash-rich league and guided them into the final of the 2010 edition. However, the MI franchise failed to lift the IPL trophy during his tenure despite brilliant individual contributions from the Master Blaster.

The Mumbai Indians also finished bottom of the league stage in the IPL 2011 edition. Tendulkar decided to make way for Harbhajan Singh at the start of the 2012 season, admitting that managing the burden and stress had become mentally exhaustive.

Ricky Ponting - Mumbai Indians (2013)

Ricky Ponting had been handed over the leadership mantle at Mumbai Indians in 2013 to help them lift their maiden IPL title. However, the Australian veteran found himself struggling to perform in front of the bat as he could muster just 52 runs from six games in the competition.

Realizing that his performance was affecting the team balance, Ponting made a noble sacrifice of dropping himself from the playing eleven and handing over the captaincy duties to Rohit Sharma, who ended up lifting MI’s first IPL title that very year.

Kumar Sangakkara - Kings XI Punjab and Deccan Chargers (2010-2012)

Kumar Sangakkara’s reign as IPL captain never really took off with inconsistent results with Kings XI Punjab when he replaced Yuvraj Singh. Post that he was transferred to Deccan Chargers where they finished second from bottom of the league table. Sangakkara's captaincy win percentage across 47 IPL matches stood at 34.04. He stepped down midway through the 2012 season in favour of Cameron White.

David Miller - Kings XI Punjab (2016)

David Miller was made Kings XI Punjab captain in IPL 2016 and the move did not prove to be a good decision either for him or for the franchise.

Punjab lost five of their first six games under his captaincy and also the batting form of the left hander declined alarmingly. With a view to save the season, the franchise changed the captain mid tournament and appointed Murali Vijay as captain to take off the pressure from the South African.

Virat Kohli - Royal Challengers Bengaluru (2013-2021)

Virat Kohli is undoubtedly one of the greatest batsmen to have played the IPL, but even that was not enough for the IPL title to arrive during his long captaincy stint for Royal Challengers Bengaluru.