Mike Brearley v Clive Lloyd

[subshakerz]

I'm guessing you mean '79/80 rather than '78/79. No captain can turn the tide when two sides are that ill-matched, no matter how good he may be.

You see how absurd it is to judge a captain purely on results?


A player's calibre should not impact one little bit on his skill as a captain. .

While I agree that it is wrong to judge a captain purely upon results, I think it it fair to judge the captain by how he manages to lift his team against a superior side, even if he loses. The only time Brearely faced a superior side was against Australia in 79/80, and his side was dominated and crushed with little fight. So yes, that is a failure on his part, because the best judge of a captain is how he deals with pressure.

It is fairly easy to captain against inferior sides you are expected to beat, as was the case with Brearely. But if he had to face the full-strength West Indies or Australia, all his tactical acumen wouldn't have cut it as he lacked the ability to inspire his side and he could not personally give the performance that he demanded from the rest of his team. That's the reason why great captains such as Imran Khan and Ian Chappell don't rate Brearely highly at all as captain.

And captains definitely can affect the results of matches against better sides. Imran Khan led Pakistan against a superior West Indies for three series, and because of his ability to inspire and lead from the front, Pakistan were able to match them in all three.

A player who is unfit to be in the side in the first place is by default unfit as captain, as from the outset it's like having a team of 10 players instead of 11. This weakness might not be exposed against weaker sides, but against tougher opponents, it becomes apparent.

 

[Engle]

His team of the WC final against WI was also dominated and crushed. At the time, he said he felt ' helpless ' against the partnership of Viv and Collis King. Not exactly a leadership statement. And his slow opening partnership with Boycott chewed up so many overs, it fell right into Lloyd's hands. Not very astute nor what could be termed a ' captains innings ' , come to think of which, I can recall many a Lloyds captain innings, but not a single Brearley one.

(BTW, those who haven't voted, please do so )

 

[wpdavid]

Both over-rated imo.

Lloyd did not inherit a disparate mob who needed sorting out, and he certainly wasn't the first WI captain to lead a successful side. He was lucky to take over at the same time as one of the most talented bunches of young cricketers you could imagine emerged who, added to the established guys, you'd have to be a complete idiot not to succeed with.
At time, he was a weak captain - notably the final test against India in 1976 and the NZ series in 1979/80.

Brearley was a great county captain and therefore probably a better captain than Lloyd. But handling Botham, Willis & Gower in the late 1970's is no great deal. Botham had only just become a test cricketer, so he was hardly going to mess around at that stage of his career. tbh I don't see Brearley being successful with him in 1982/3 or 1983/4 had he come in as a 35 year old skipper from nowhere at that stage of Beefy's career. Was Gower really a problem to anyone? Ditto Willis? Basically, Brearley was lucky in terms of the players he inherited and the opposition he faced. Even to the extent of Lillee missing 1977 and Chappell doing likewise in 1981. And 1981 was simply a glorious fluke, as any fule knows. If Brears was really so brilliant, how on earth did Aus make 400 in their first innings on that Headingley track?

 

[Richard]

Dont need to read anything - I witnessed every innings that he played against Oz during his test career and quite a few against other countries.

Yes, and those were far from the only innings he ever played. You're foolish if you judge him on those small handful.

 

[Richard]

Was Gower really a problem to anyone? Ditto Willis?

Neither were a "problem" as such, not in the way that Boycott for instance could be, but they are both players who need the understanding of their captain, deeply so. Willis was always plagued by problems, so many different problems, and it's absolutely no coincidence at all IMO that his best performances nearly all came under Brearley's leadership.

And witness Graham Gooch's wasteful attitude where Gower was concerned, which very possibly resulted in Gower being pensioned-off when he still had plenty to offer the side, simply because Gooch did not understand how Gower worked. Had Brearley had a similar attitude, who knows, Gower could easily not have got his Test career going at all.

 

[Richard]

His team of the WC final against WI was also dominated and crushed. At the time, he said he felt ' helpless ' against the partnership of Viv and Collis King. Not exactly a leadership statement. And his slow opening partnership with Boycott chewed up so many overs, it fell right into Lloyd's hands. Not very astute nor what could be termed a ' captains innings ' , come to think of which, I can recall many a Lloyds captain innings, but not a single Brearley one.

(BTW, those who haven't voted, please do so )

This (the ability to play a captain's innings) is, for mine, the only respect that Lloyd had something over Brearley. The only one.

What, BTW, would you have expected him to do? As has been said so many times, Collis was King for a day that day in 1979, and being unable to stop an in-full-flow Vivian Richards is hardly a crime - very few could. Certainly captaincy cannot - only the bowlers can. And that day the England bowlers were, sadly, not up to the job.

 

[Richard]

While I agree that it is wrong to judge a captain purely upon results, I think it it fair to judge the captain by how he manages to lift his team against a superior side, even if he loses. The only time Brearely faced a superior side was against Australia in 79/80, and his side was dominated and crushed with little fight. So yes, that is a failure on his part, because the best judge of a captain is how he deals with pressure.

As I said earlier - if the side of 1979/80 was superior, so (in spite of the lack of Lillee) was the team of 1977. I don't believe for a second the rubbish about it being completely distracted by the Packer Schism, that's just an excuse Australians use and used to try to cover the fact they were a comfortable second-best.

If you blame Brearley for losing in 1979/80 (which I don't think is neccessarily particularly fair anyway) you must credit him also for a part (a part, I'd say, beyond that which he played) in the 1977 victory.

A player who is unfit to be in the side in the first place is by default unfit as captain, as from the outset it's like having a team of 10 players instead of 11. This weakness might not be exposed against weaker sides, but against tougher opponents, it becomes apparent.

I don't think the fact that Brearley was never a Test-class batsman should impact upon assessment of his captaincy. Just because he shouldn't ever have captained England doesn't mean the fact that he did, and did superbly, should be ignored.

 

[subshakerz]

As I said earlier - if the side of 1979/80 was superior, so (in spite of the lack of Lillee) was the team of 1977. I don't believe for a second the rubbish about it being completely distracted by the Packer Schism, that's just an excuse Australians use and used to try to cover the fact they were a comfortable second-best.

The team of 1977 was pretty poor compared to the team of 1979/80. Not only did the 1977 side not have their main strike bowler, Lillee, which is a huge loss in itself, but the 1979/80 side had Ian Chappell, Kim Hughes and Allan Border as well.

I don't think the fact that Brearley was never a Test-class batsman should impact upon assessment of his captaincy. Just because he shouldn't ever have captained England doesn't mean the fact that he did, and did superbly, should be ignored.

Yet Brearely lacked one critical asset required from every great captain: the ability to lead from the front and inspire his team. He was incapable of playing a captain's innings. In the end, he was all talk and tactics, which may have been masked against weaker sides but not against the big guns.

 

[Engle]

This (the ability to play a captain's innings) is, for mine, the only respect that Lloyd had something over Brearley. The only one.

Some others :

2. Brearley for all his brilliance never stepped outside the realm of conventional thinking the way Lloyd (4-paced attack), Imran (neutral umps) and SWaugh (go for wins) did.

3. He may have been a great county captain or English captain, but that does not translate into a good captain for a star-studded team. If a World XI were chosen at the time, I could easier envisage Lloyd leading it rather than Brearley. Lloyd would command the respect and confidence of international stars, but I doubt whether Brearley could achieve the same of the ' big guns ' .

 

[Richard]

The team of 1977 was pretty poor compared to the team of 1979/80. Not only did the 1977 side not have their main strike bowler, Lillee, which is a huge loss in itself, but the 1979/80 side had Ian Chappell, Kim Hughes and Allan Border as well.

Ian Chappell tacked those games onto the end of his career, and was no force in them - he wasn't even captain any more. Kim Hughes was in the squad in 1977; and while Lillee is obviously always going to be a loss he was replaced by Len Pascoe who wasn't exactly bad either.

The only thing which had been added to the Australian team in between those series was Allan Border.

Yet Brearely lacked one critical asset required from every great captain: the ability to lead from the front and inspire his team. He was incapable of playing a captain's innings. In the end, he was all talk and tactics, which may have been masked against weaker sides but not against the big guns.

And for this reason it would not be outrageous to say he's not the greatest captain of all-time, compared to the likes of Benaud, Worrell, Imran Khan, etc. However, when comparing him to someone who was inferior to him in pretty much every other respect of captaincy (ie, Lloyd) it doesn't make many waves.

 

[Richard]

Some others :

2. Brearley for all his brilliance never stepped outside the realm of conventional thinking the way Lloyd (4-paced attack), Imran (neutral umps) and SWaugh (go for wins) did.

Independent Umpires were far from Imran's idea, they had been thought of many times before and were not put into place for several years after his initial suggestion; nor was Stephen Waugh the first to aim for victory, by any stretch; and certainly Lloyd as I've said multiple times cannot take sole credit for the all-seam attack.

3. He may have been a great county captain or English captain, but that does not translate into a good captain for a star-studded team. If a World XI were chosen at the time, I could easier envisage Lloyd leading it rather than Brearley. Lloyd would command the respect and confidence of international stars, but I doubt whether Brearley could achieve the same of the ' big guns ' .

I don't TBH. Brearley had a gift for commanding respect, regardless of his own shortcomings as a player. I've said it time and again - all of Boycott, Gower, Willis and Botham spoke highly of him and had no hesitiation in kowtowing to him. And you couldn't find a more diverse list of characters than that, really. If you can subsidise them, you can do it to anyone.

Lloyd would be more likely to get into a World XI circa 1977, of course, but there's no way if a captain was chosen on its own merits rather than from the best eleven players, he'd have taken the leadership.

 

[Swervy]

Seems like a pointless comparison to be honest, two captains of totally different style and playing ability, who captained teams with different strengths and weaknesses.

 

[Engle]

Independent Umpires were far from Imran's idea, they had been thought of many times before and were not put into place for several years after his initial suggestion; nor was Stephen Waugh the first to aim for victory, by any stretch; and certainly Lloyd as I've said multiple times cannot take sole credit for the all-seam attack.

Independent umps were put in place under Imrans insistence in a home series against the WIndies '86, cause he wanted to beat them fair and square without anyone complaining about the umpiring. Prior to this, his insistence on them was being met with hemming and hawing from the big-wigs at Lords, until he just went ahead and did it unilaterally.

SWaugh aggressively pursued wins with his strategy and held the most consecutive wins record ATT. Lloyd too successfully adopted a winning strategy. Whether they were first or sole credit dont matter, they did it well. (refer to S.Barnes article in Times Online)

All 3 have this legacy whereby they challenged the status quo and came up with approaches that made people stop and take notice.

What is Brearley's legacy ?

 

[Richard]

Independent umps were put in place under Imrans insistence in a home series against the WIndies '86, cause he wanted to beat them fair and square without anyone complaining about the umpiring. Prior to this, his insistence on them was being met with hemming and hawing from the big-wigs at Lords, until he just went ahead and did it unilaterally.

SWaugh aggressively pursued wins with his strategy and held the most consecutive wins record ATT. Lloyd too successfully adopted a winning strategy. Whether they were first or sole credit dont matter, they did it well. (refer to S.Barnes article in Times Online)

If they weren't the first or the sole ones of their time, they can hardly be said to have "changed" the game. Yes, Stephen Waugh did pursue victory as not very many had before him, but he was also aided by a great deal of things which allowed it to work for him where it would never have done previously - most relating to the fact that time being taken out of a Test was difficult and his batsmen had the capability of scoring quickly.

All 3 have this legacy whereby they challenged the status quo and came up with approaches that made people stop and take notice.

What is Brearley's legacy ?

That everyone who played under him talked of him with the utmost respect, often reverence. That he took no nonsense from anyone (witness Lillee - aluminium-bat). This is more than enough for me.

To make a comparison: Imran Khan was a far, far more revolutionary bowler than Malcolm Marshall. Imran has changed the game far more than Marshall did. Yet, while to rate Imran a better bowler than Marshall would not be in the slightest outrageous, I'd imagine there'd be only a few who'd do it.

Being revolutionary and being good are not absolute analogies.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

This (the ability to play a captain's innings) is, for mine, the only respect that Lloyd had something over Brearley. The only one.

What, BTW, would you have expected him to do? As has been said so many times, Collis was King for a day that day in 1979, and being unable to stop an in-full-flow Vivian Richards is hardly a crime - very few could. Certainly captaincy cannot - only the bowlers can. And that day the England bowlers were, sadly, not up to the job.

Actually the "bowlers" all had perfectly acceptable figures, the problems stemmed from the fact that Captain Marvel decided to only play four of them.

 

[Engle]

If they weren't the first or the sole ones of their time, they can hardly be said to have "changed" the game.

They dont necessarily have to be the first Just the best at exploiting it to great affect. Akin to Jardine exploiting Bodyline.

To make a comparison: Imran Khan was a far, far more revolutionary bowler than Malcolm Marshall. Imran has changed the game far more than Marshall did. Yet, while to rate Imran a better bowler than Marshall would not be in the slightest outrageous, I'd imagine there'd be only a few who'd do it.
Being revolutionary and being good are not absolute analogies.

The point is that if you do come up with something revolutionary or use it to great affect, it counts as a credit towards that player. And it is the accumulation of many credits that can be used to determine a players standing.

Now, if ever there was a captain who could have come up with something novel, an idea, an innovation, something to challenge the conventional thinking or change the game, or exploit a whiff of a tactic......it should have been Brearley.

And what did he come up with ? Nothing. Nothing in Test cricket. Nothing in the WC where I believe he was out-foxed by Lloyd.

 

[wpdavid]

They dont necessarily have to be the first Just the best at exploiting it to great affect. Akin to Jardine exploiting Bodyline.

The point is that if you do come up with something revolutionary or use it to great affect, it counts as a credit towards that player. And it is the accumulation of many credits that can be used to determine a players standing.

Now, if ever there was a captain who could have come up with something novel, an idea, an innovation, something to challenge the conventional thinking or change the game, or exploit a whiff of a tactic......it should have been Brearley.

And what did he come up with ? Nothing. Nothing in Test cricket. Nothing in the WC where I believe he was out-foxed by Lloyd.

On what basis? It's pushing things more than a bit to suggest that the Richards/King partnership had anything whatsoever to do with Lloyd. Ditto the inability of Brearley & Boycs to score quickly or Garner's ability to clean up the rest of the innings.

As for Brearley, there's plenty of evidence of original thinking if you're prepared to read up on the matter. The whole fielding side, including the keper, on the fence for the last ball of that ODI in 1980, which led to the introduction of fielding restrictions. Placing a fielder's helmet at short midwicket to tempt batsmen to play across the line at Edmonds trying to gain 5 runs.

For all that I think Brears is over-rated as a test captain, you can't dismiss people because they didn't revolutionise the game. And in any case, Lloyd certainly didn't.

 

[Engle]

I am not dismissing captains based on their lack of ideas. I am counting it as a credit towards one and not towards the other. In a close match-up, differences such as these will surface. In fact, I'd say the 4-fasties attack had the greatest affect on the game, greater even than bodyline, while the helmet or 'keeper on the fence stuff really isn't in the same league.

 

[wpdavid]

I am not dismissing captains based on their lack of ideas. I am counting it as a credit towards one and not towards the other. In a close match-up, differences such as these will surface. In fact, I'd say the 4-fasties attack had the greatest affect on the game, greater even than bodyline, while the helmet or 'keeper on the fence stuff really isn't in the same league.

But what effect has the 4 quicks had on the game? Hardly anyone else has done it since. Only SA in the mid 90's, and they did it for exactly the same reasons. And it was hardly rocket science to pick 4 world class quicks when you don't have a spinner of any note. The selection meetings really can't have taken long. Do we play Crofty or Padmore? Hmm....

There are lots of other skippers who were way better than Lloyd who didn't revolutionise anything - Benaud, Fleming, Howarth, Vaughan & Taylor all sping immediately to mind. I know they weren't in the initial question, but they illustrate the point. Most creative ideas won't be as major as Armstrong's 2 opening quicks or developing reverse swing and, without reading up on the matter, I suggest that most people haven't got a clue about what Brearley brought to the job. OK, so he was still predominantly a lucky test captain, and I wouldn't rank him in my top 5, but I still reckon he added more value that Lloyd.

 

[Engle]

But what effect has the 4 quicks had on the game? Hardly anyone else has done it since. Only SA in the mid 90's, and they did it for exactly the same reasons. And it was hardly rocket science to pick 4 world class quicks when you don't have a spinner of any note. The selection meetings really can't have taken long. Do we play Crofty or Padmore? Hmm....

Currently, not much with the imposition of minimum overs and limiting use of the bouncer, similar to bodyline not having any effect on the game today. But at the time, its impact was to quote Simon Barnes ' terrifying' . Whether it was rocket science or not is not the point (after the fact, nothing ever seems like it anyways), the successful use to devastating affect, is.
Unlike batting, bowling, fielding, we never know what goes on behind the scenes in captaincy. Lloyd was determined to follow this strategy after the torrid time his team got with Lillee/Thommo, and he has said so himself. There's been no mention of anyone else suggesting this.

There are lots of other skippers who were way better than Lloyd who didn't revolutionise anything - Benaud, Fleming, Howarth, Vaughan & Taylor all sping immediately to mind. I know they weren't in the initial question, but they illustrate the point. Most creative ideas won't be as major as Armstrong's 2 opening quicks or developing reverse swing and, without reading up on the matter, I suggest that most people haven't got a clue about what Brearley brought to the job. OK, so he was still predominantly a lucky test captain, and I wouldn't rank him in my top 5, but I still reckon he added more value that Lloyd.

A captain can have a few points in his favor (similar to DGB), but with more weight than others who may have more points in their favor with less weight. In fact, his reign was considered an era, a title I find hard to bestow upon some of the above.