Battle of the Test captains

[C_C]

Ranatunga

 

[Dasa]

Ranatunga.

 

[Goughy]

Ranatunga

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Ranatunga

 

[alternative]

Ranatunga

 

[Johnners]

The Big Man (Ranatunga)

 

[steds]

Sobers, on account of Ranatunga being a ****.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Sobers for me. Ranatunga won a world cup, but never brought his side much test success. Sobers was an average captain but a remarkable player, and his contributions to the side with bat and ball as leader certainly led to far more success in test cricket than anything Ranatunga managed.

Ranatunga is probably my least favourite cricketer of all time anyway, so I'd find it hard to vote for him unless it was about ODI cricket specifically or he was up against a genuinely poor captain.

 

[Jono]

Ranatunga, good leader.

 

[Mister Wright]

Arjuna Ranatunga

 

[Xuhaib]

Arjuna.

 

[silentstriker]

Sobers, but its close.

The winning percentages are similar, but losing percentage are slightly more pronounced. So its very close.

 

[nightprowler10]

Ranatuga.

 

[Pedro Delgado]

Sobers.

 

[Sanz]

Arjuna Ranatunga

 

[Xuhaib]

Sobers, but its close.

The winning percentages are similar, but losing percentage are slightly more pronounced. So its very close.

Ofcourse you very conveniently forget that in the first half of his captaincy career Rana captained a virtually minnow nation.

 

[silentstriker]

Ofcourse you very conveniently forget that in the first half of his captaincy career Rana captained a virtually minnow nation.

Nope, I realize that. But minnow or not, he lost.

 

[BhupinderSingh]

Arjuna Ranatunga

 

[BoyBrumby]

I do agree with steds's & Faaip's remarks about Ranatunga, I always found him to be an entirely disagreeable, chippy, odious little man with a very obvious Napoleon complex. That said he was a street-fighter of a captain that gave his country a presence on the world stage, inspired loyalty & coaxed great performances from his players; adjectives like "pugnacious" come to mind when thinking about him. He may've been a better ODI captain, but he did oversee a series win in Pakistan & the first defeat of us in the mother country in tests too.

Sobers was clearly a god-like cricketer, but possibly not a natural captain. It may be unfair & arbitrary, but the one thing that sticks in my mind about Sir Gaz's captaincy is his insanely generous declaration in the 4th test of our 67/68 tour which allowed us a scarcely deserved win & ultimately was the only positive result in the 5 test series. Ponting & Edgbaston pale beside it as a bollock to drop.

Sadly it's Ranatunga for me.

 

[aussie]

And Ponting forgot to put that plan in Mumbai. It tells us who understood the plan and who didn't.

Australia had dominated the Mumbai test up until that final innings, India had nothing on Australia during that match, if that pitch wasn't such a shocker Australia would have cruised home.