Steve Waugh v Shane Warne

[Richard]

Waugh's team never faced a team that they weren't expected to beat, and the only two series where he faced difficult conditions were against Sri Lanka in 99 and India in 2001, and he lost both series. He also nearly lost at home to both New Zealand in 2002 and India in 2004, despite facing inferior sides.

I don't know that the only two series where an Australia under Waugh faced difficult conditions were Sri Lanka in '99/00 and India in '00/01 TBH. And certainly the failure to beat New Zealand in '01/02 and to a much lesser extent India in '03/04 must be taken with a pinch of salt. Rain almost certainly denied them in the former and undoubtedly handicapped them in the latter even if the result could conceivably have been the same without it.

This is of course more about Australia than Waugh so not strictly related to the thread, but when has that mattered on CW?

 

[Uppercut]

What I saw of Warne in one-day county cricket - which was admittedly not that much, but was more than negligable - never particularly impressed me. He always seemed too slow to change the bowling, too slow to recognise what the batsmen were trying to do.

As far as his bowling is concerned, sure, there were times when he knew that he needed to prioritise defence over attack. However, bowling and captaincy aren't quite the same thing.

Funny you should mention being too slow to change bowlers. One of the features of his IPL captaincy was changing the bowling at both ends almost every over. Obviously they're different games etc. etc. but it's still an interesting comparison.

In any case, i don't care much for LO cricket. When I say i think Warne would have made a very good captain, I generally mean in tests.

I don't dispute that for a second. What I say is that captaining Australia as well as you could expect someone to at the time Waugh did isn't really very much of an achievement. There was so little of any great difficulty to do. I've never once called Waugh a poor captain, merely said that the fact he led a terrific team means people think he was some sort of superlative captain when in reality to me he was merely perfectly decent. Pretty well everyone around to watch and\or play against both he and his predecessor said Mark Taylor was notably better.

Indeed, and by contrast one of the reasons i consider Fleming so superlative as a captain is his handling of a weaker team. His opportunity to demonstrate captaincy skill, being a guaranteed pick for a below-average side playing against the best in the world, was so tailor-made that it's almost unique. The difference in situation makes captains difficult to compare to one another, but it's still something i enjoy doing (much more than comparing two bowlers or batsmen).

 

[Richard]

Funny you should mention being too slow to change bowlers. One of the features of his IPL captaincy was changing the bowling at both ends almost every over. Obviously they're different games etc. etc. but it's still an interesting comparison.

In any case, i don't care much for LO cricket. When I say i think Warne would have made a very good captain, I generally mean in tests.

Yeah. Unfortunately, precious few people will have seen Warne captain in the longer format. I'm not sure if he ever did it for Victoria; the only times he ever did it in a Test were very brief and the period lasted, what, 2 years? If that? So basically you'd have to be a hardcore Hampshire fan who went to games regularly to really know how good a captain he was in the longer game. Even that would be far from a guarantee. This was 1 season (possibly 1-and-a-bit - not sure if he did some captaincy before 2007, think he might've) at the end of his career. There's really just no way to know how he'd have gone had he been given Test captaincy in 1999, or 2002, or whenever.

 

[Migara]

and the only two series where he faced difficult conditions were against Sri Lanka in 99 and India in 2001, and he lost both series.

This was the only time I have seen Waugh bein outwitted. By whom? none other than great Ranatunga. When Chandana was bowling well in 1st test he brought a total new face for the 2nd, Herath. And boy, Aussie jaws dropped when they saw Herath spinning it in to the right handers other than spinning it away.

 

[Richard]

Wasn't Jayasuriya captain by that time?

Though clearly Ranatunga would've been very far from a peripheral figure.

 

[Uppercut]

Yeah. Unfortunately, precious few people will have seen Warne captain in the longer format. I'm not sure if he ever did it for Victoria; the only times he ever did it in a Test were very brief and the period lasted, what, 2 years? If that? So basically you'd have to be a hardcore Hampshire fan who went to games regularly to really know how good a captain he was in the longer game. Even that would be far from a guarantee. This was 1 season (possibly 1-and-a-bit - not sure if he did some captaincy before 2007, think he might've) at the end of his career. There's really just no way to know how he'd have gone had he been given Test captaincy in 1999, or 2002, or whenever.

Tbh, it's not one of the things i can heavily back up and source, because the evidence for it was limited. But from what I have seen of his captaincy, what his teammates and opponents have said about him and the positive results of it, I believe he would've been a very good captain, on-field at least. It's not enough that i can be sure of it, but it's enough to form a reasonable opinion.

It's not far from how i developed an opinion of Amit Mishra. I know you're very much anti-T20, but i assure you, leg-spin is one area where you can tell a good bowler from a bad one pretty quickly, whatever form of cricket you're watching. For all the test-match nous Warne didn't demonstrate in charge of Rajasthan, there's still a lot of common traits in the captaincy required too. A good one-day or T20 captain is a lot more likely to be a good test captain than a bad one.

 

[morgieb]

I don't know, as Warne never was captain in a test match, so can't really be judged.

 

[Precambrian]

Exactly. That's why Jayawardane ana Ranatunga were so good for SL. Always had Sangakkara and De Silva thinking it out for them.

Waugh IMO is better captain. A person who could not manage his personal life IS NOT EXPECTED to manage 11 people around him with any success.

I agree with you upto the bold part. How exactly can you say that he COULD NOT manage his personal life? Captaincy and Personal life have little in common.

 

[Julian87]

LOL

That will do me.

Richard is hinting very heavily that Warne would have been a **** captain and that he would have been miles behind Waugh and Taylor. Oh and Nasser Hussain was better than Steve Waugh. LOL. Let's bowl first in Brisbane shall we.

FMD.

 

[Uppercut]

I agree with you upto the bold part. How exactly can you say that he COULD NOT manage his personal life? Captaincy and Personal life have little in common.

That, and Warne managed his personal life precisely the way he wanted to, as does everyone. Doing things that society doesn't deem to be acceptable is not "mismanagement".

 

[Precambrian]

That, and Warne managed his personal life precisely the way he wanted to, as does everyone. Doing things that society doesn't deem to be acceptable is not "mismanagement".

AWTA. My thoughts exactly.

 

[Richard]

LOL

That will do me.

Richard is hinting very heavily that Warne would have been a **** captain and that he would have been miles behind Waugh and Taylor.

Err - no. I'm hinting that there's a strong possibility Warne would've been in the papers constantly for the wrong reasons, and that whether some people like it or not, that is the very last thing a team needs.

I'm also saying that I think Warne's captaincy that he did do is perhaps a little overstated, and that the fact he never captained Australia makes people think he'd have been better than he might well have been. The grass is always greener, absence makes the heart grow fonder, etc.

Oh and Nasser Hussain was better than Steve Waugh. LOL. Let's bowl first in Brisbane shall we.

Haha. You are aware that Waugh would have fielded first had he won the toss as well, aren't you?

Yes, Hussain was heaps better than Waugh as a captain - when you captain a team like Waugh's, you don't have the chance to prove yourself an outstanding captain because the opportunity simply virtually never presents itself. There is rarely much of a challenging decision to make.

Incidentally, even if that decision at The 'Gabba in 2002/03 was judged to be a mistake (I think it was quite fair enough for Hussain and would've been quite fair enough for Waugh as well), you know, it wasn't the only match either man captained.

 

[Paddlesmack]

Waugh. He's proven himself for years and years, and he was one of the finest batsman, cricketers, and captains to ever play the game.

Warne's only long stretch of captaincy was in the IPL playing for Rajasthan - a few T20's inside two months. Steve for me.

 

[Uppercut]

Waugh. He's proven himself for years and years, and he was one of the finest batsman, cricketers, and captains to ever play the game.

Warne's only long stretch of captaincy was in the IPL playing for Rajasthan - a few T20's inside two months. Steve for me.

Nah he was a quality captain for Hampshire too.

I think the question is more "would Warne have been better than Waugh if given the chance?" Saying "One can only pick Waugh because their experience is incomparable" is just stating the obvious really.

 

[Precambrian]

Nah he was a quality captain for Hampshire too.

I think the question is more "would Warne have been better than Waugh if given the chance?" Saying "One can only pick Waugh because their experience is incomparable" is just stating the obvious really.

No comparable data available for Warnie as a captain to make any sort of conclusive opinion.

 

[Uppercut]

No comparable data available for Warnie as a captain to make any sort of conclusive opinion.

There's certainly enough to make an opinion though, if not a conclusive one. KP had zero captaincy experience when he took over England, but it was still reasonable for people to discuss how they thought he'd do.

 

[Precambrian]

There's certainly enough to make an opinion though, if not a conclusive one. KP had zero captaincy experience when he took over England, but it was still reasonable for people to discuss how they thought he'd do.

KP's case is not comparable to Warne. Warne has finished his career, while KP's is still in the teens.

 

[Uppercut]

KP's case is not comparable to Warne. Warne has finished his career, while KP's is still in the teens.

For the purposes of whether you can judge whether they'd make a good captain, why does that matter?

 

[Richard]

I think the point is that with Pietersen it's more a case of guessing whether he's going to be a good captain. The evidence will follow and you can then make a conclusive perception based on what happens. With Warne it's simply a case of all evidence existing and you've got to make the guess - which will stay as the perception and will not be altered by new evidence, because there won't be any - based on that precious little.

 

[Uppercut]

I think the point is that with Pietersen it's more a case of guessing whether he's going to be a good captain. The evidence will follow and you can then make a conclusive perception based on what happens. With Warne it's simply a case of all evidence existing and you've got to make the guess - which will stay as the perception and will not be altered by new evidence, because there won't be any - based on that precious little.

Perhaps, but there's not so little evidence as to make such a guess blind.