What do you value in a captain?

[Jono]

yeah good post uvelocity. The problem is when captains (Dhoni, Yousuf and a few others) do it for far too long.

 

[Prince EWS]

yeah good post uvelocity. The problem is when captains (Dhoni, Yousuf and a few others) do it for far too long.

Yeah I agree. Captains are always really reluctant to swallow their pride on this one if the batsman is farming the strike well anyway or the tailender looks comfortable in defence.

 

[Prince EWS]

I think you have to pick your batsmen a bit too. If you've got Chanderpaul in with Tino Best then yeah I'd look at just trying to keep Chanderpaul off strike because he doesn't bat very well with the tail a lot of the time and Best has virtually no defence.

A Hussey/Siddle combination would be a much different prospect though. Hussey has played some really good innings with the tail against captains employing that very tactic, and Siddle's defensive game is really sound, so I'd probably just look to attack both batsmen even if Siddle had come out at 11.

I like the tactic overall, and I'd give it a go early on in most situations, but I think a lot of captains are too rigid and stubborn with it.

 

[wellAlbidarned]

It's a good tactic if you're up against a batsman who you know doesn't like to play a subtle game. You know with 9 wickets down a guy like McCullum will just be looking for the fence, why give him those easy runs?

 

[wpdavid]

Interesting question, which seems very divisive on CW.

Obviously it's easy to tell between a good captain and a bad one, but what facet of them do you notice the most? Inspired fields? The loyalty of your team? Leading by example with bat or ball?

Discuss.

Luck

After that, man management.

After that, decision making.

 

[BeeGee]

Luck

Do you genuinely believe that some players are luckier than others?

 

[Burgey]

I want a pair of those batting gloves next season.

In the mid-to-late 70s everyone wanted a pair of the SP batting gloves. Coolest things going.

 

[Burgey]

Luck

After that, man management.

After that, decision making.

Yep. If you are not lucky, we cannot use you as captain, I'm afraid.

Do you genuinely believe that some players are luckier than others?

Yep.

 

[wellAlbidarned]

Do you genuinely believe that some players are luckier than others?

Luck is an easy way to account for all the little unnoticed things they do right which add up. If someone's consistently lucky as a skipper then they're doing something right but no one can pin down what it is.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

It depends what you mean by luck. Mike Brearley is often called a great captain, but he had the second coming of Geoff Boycott, the emergence of Gower, the most gifted all-rounder ever and England's two leading wicket takers in history - plus played mainly against weakened opponents. A tad fortunate perhaps.......

 

[wpdavid]

It depends what you mean by luck. Mike Brearley is often called a great captain, but he had the second coming of Geoff Boycott, the emergence of Gower, the most gifted all-rounder ever and England's two leading wicket takers in history - plus played mainly against weakened opponents. A tad fortunate perhaps.......

That's the sort of thing I had in mind. Ditto some of that regarding Illingworth, actually.

The other thing I should have included was having a shed load of great players at his disposal.

 

[honestbharani]

Yeah I agree. Captains are always really reluctant to swallow their pride on this one if the batsman is farming the strike well anyway or the tailender looks comfortable in defence.

Look, it really depends on the situation.. If the batsman is batting on say 5* and you push the field back just because he has no.9 batting with him, it has no logic really. It has a place when it is the no. 11 and he is not renowned for being able to stay there for too long and the batsman is batting reasonably well at the other end. At just about every other instance, it is a blunder of a tactic with very little logic behind it.

 

[Jono]

Look, it really depends on the situation.. If the batsman is batting on say 5* and you push the field back just because he has no.9 batting with him, it has no logic really.

It has poor logic*

 

[honestbharani]

It has poor logic*

by that reasoning, Joni, every human thought is logic, either poor or sound or usual.