The Captains input regarding selection

[archie mac]

I think the captain should have a large say in selection, after all, he probably knows his players better than anyone, and his neck is on the line if the team fails..

I think he is often to close to the situation. Take Border and his good friend Geoff Marsh. I think most people could see Marsh was finished but Border would not hear of him being dropped, and when he was Border almost resigned.

Plus take Rcky Ponting who hardly ever plays any first class cricket, how does he know which player is in form? (apart from looking at averages)

 

[Richard]

yes it is, and an appropriate unbiased captain has to be selected. i think dravid fits the bill for india, so this concept works just fine for me.

"Unbiased" captains are virtually impossible to find. The captain is one of the team - he is always going to be involved. His team are his mates - and what with international cricket being ever more close-knit these days than it was even 10 years ago, being dropped from international cricket is more akin to being sacked than it ever has been.
Captains can be understandibly reluctant to undertake such a thing.

 

[howardj]

Personally, I think the Captain's views should be canvassed. However, I think it is the job of the selectors to pick the team. You don't want the players in the team to feel unable to open up to the captain about any problems they are experiencing (cricket related or otherwise). This is more likely to be the case if the captain is on the selection committee.

 

[Autobahn]

Have you read Opening Up? Atherton devotes much time to the explosion of the popular myth that he and Illingworth were constantly at loggerheads. He constantly repeats that they developed a grudging respect - he even goes so far as to say that they were "not poles apart in our views on most players".
Fred Titmus he describes as "having little to offer but harmless".
Brian Bolus was the one he had most problem with, and Nasser Hussain described him in much the same way in Playing With Fire.
If anyone was the pig-headed type, it was Bolus.

Sorry about that but i always got the impression that illingworth and titmus were pig-headed.

It's not much of an honour to lead out 9 men you haven't chosen or had any say in, and he might have been tolerated it at county level, but he only did for a year before moving to warwickshire so maybe he thought it wasn't worth kicking up a fuss about.

Not much is written about Chris old.

 

[Richard]

Indeed - one of the more underrated performers of our game.
The impression Atherton always gives me of Titmus is the "how on Earth did he ever become a selector?" sort of one. I reckon most people on this board could do a better job, based on what Atherton writes.
Illingworth was best described by Matthew Engel - "in times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with the World that no longer exists" (NBTE, Wisden 1997).
Atherton's view seems much the same, and he hinted as much at the time, too. Remember his comments on the Australia tour of 1994\95? Where he said he felt the selectors were too old and out-of-touch with the modern game? That was the time when he started becoming friendly with Ian Chappell, Chappell invariably going into transports of delight when someone gets into a row with the establishment.

EDIT: the Matthew Engel quote was not written by him, but by an American educationalist who had his words pinned to the wall of a teacher friend of ME's.

 

[Autobahn]

Right then Rich, who would you apoint as the english selectors in the case say the current ones quit?

 

[Richard]

Matthew Engel, myself and David Lewis, of course.