Why are captains mostly batsmen?

[krkode]

I was just wondering this. Why do you think most captains are batsmen? The only bowler captains I can think of are Pollock and Waqar and in history, Akram and Imran Khan and 3 of those names are considerably good all rounders..

so, why do you think?

[Rik]

I think it's more to do with the fact that when your bowling you need to concentrate on getting people out. When your batting you can bat according to what your team needs (unless your name is Sourav Ganguly) and I think it's less pressure really.

Batting's more instinctive, more reactive. Bowling requires a lot of thought. How are you supposed to think about what you are going to bowl next if you have to think about the field 1st...

[Langeveldt]

I think it is because you need a captain who can stand at mid off and advise the bowlers on what to do. If you had a fast bowling captain especially, they are normally not good enough or too tired to be an infielder for the whole match...

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

An allrounder captain is ideal. You can contribute with the bat and the ball and tactically.

For instance, A.Flower (who actually batted better as captain IMO), Hooper and of course Shaun Pollock are modern day examples.

[krkode]

you can bat according to what your team needs (unless your name is Sourav Ganguly)

Hey, Ganguly can bat according to needs too when captain...A certain ICC Knockout comes to mind :P he's just in a trough right now

[Bazza]

Well Stewart had a mixed time as captain. In the end I think he really suffered as he was still opening the batting then as well, plus he was already like 36-37. Still we got some good results under him I felt, like beating South Africa and we didn't get completely outclassed in Australia. Still after the world cup debacle he was outta there!

[hourn]

Comes to down to quite a couple of reasons.


- As Rik said, its hard to think about your field, bowling changes, field in the ring etc,. while bowling.

- If your team has a bowler as captain, he/she needs to keep feelings of their own bowling out of their mind, and bowl whoever is best suited to the situation. Sometime they can overbowl themselves, or equally as bad (although rarer) you will find captains who underbowl themselves for fear of looking like someone who rates themselves highly. Few bwling captains give themselves the right amount of overs.