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England's greatest test captain

Who is England's greatest test captain?

  • Total voters
    28
  • This poll will close: .
ImpatientLime

ImpatientLime

International Regular
Nass will forever be my guy. He still got run over by the Aussies, but as an impressionable 13 year old he gave me an England team that found their balls for the first time in over 15 years. he gave a downbad cricketing public hope.

those series wins away in pakistan and in sri lanka v peak murali are as impressive as anything that happened later

vaughan was very good too but he is a colossal ****
 
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kyear2

kyear2

Hall of Fame Member
Johan said:
Impacting the team's morale is, in my opinion, pretty important.

Like, if you look at the last BGT, the Indian team had completely different approach to the game and a way different demeanor under Bumrah and Kohli, while they had a lazy and lousy demeanor under Rohit, who was a very inept Captain as we saw.

You can see this with the England team too, during Root's reign, very often the team hid in a shell and didn't take the initiative, but with Stokes they squeeze almost all of their talent and that has led to far better results for England.

I think Hutton, Jardine and Brearley are all tactically brilliant captains and would get picked for their abilities as tacticians themselves (Hutton for 1954 Ashes, and Brearley in general) but I think the prior two simply had much profound impact on Cricket itself and brought a killer instinct and ruthless to the English team that England lacks to this day, so I would generally favour the prior two
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My vote goes to Brearley because of what I've read about him and his record. Jardine was captain for 15 tests and most of his reputation is based on 5 of them. Hutton was known as a defensive captain, with the only ruthless streak being his selection policies, which could be looked at as sometimes misguided.
 
Johan

Johan

Hall of Fame Member
kyear2 said:
My vote goes to Brearley because of what I've read about him and his record. Jardine was captain for 15 tests and most of his reputation is based on 5 of them. Hutton was known as a defensive captain, with the only ruthless streak being his selection policies, which could be looked at as sometimes misguided.
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Hutton was very ruthless, I remember reading about him intentionally asking his bowlers to take more time to complete his over to take away a win from Australia, a game they had rightfully won. Also wanted to take a 5 paceman attack to Australia decades before that idea was common, as well as promoted short pitched leg theory by Tyson in a no helmet era. He was defensive in batting and asked his bats to be defensive (except Denis as he did whatever he wanted) because he thought English batting was weak in early 50s with Compton's knee explosion.
 
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kyear2

kyear2

Hall of Fame Member
Johan said:
Hutton was very ruthless, I remember reading about him intentionally asking his bowlers to take more time to complete his over to take away a win from Australia, a game they had rightfully won. Also wanted to take a 5 paceman attack to Australia decades before that idea was common, as well as promoted short pitched leg theory by Tyson in a no helmet era. He was defensive in batting and asked his bats to be defensive (except Denis as he did whatever he wanted) because he thought English batting was weak in early 50s with Compton's knee explosion.
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Even the first example was defensive and non sporting, not cut throat.

Leg theory was also not new and everyone with capable pace-men used it.
 
Johan

Johan

Hall of Fame Member
kyear2 said:
Even the first example was defensive and non sporting, not cut throat.

Leg theory was also not new and everyone with capable pace-men used it.
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Every Aussie captain would do that, but Stokes would not in the name of Cricketing spirit and lose the game, the tactic isn't really aggressive but it's very much ruthless and a willingness to punch under the belt that you'd not generally see with English Captains.

Leg Theory was also pretty controversial in England all the way until the 1960s.
 
kyear2

kyear2

Hall of Fame Member
Thala_0710 said:
We would have a better chance tbh. Wouldn't see the ball and likely just miss it
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What I would say to the likes of @Coronis and others who maintain that strike rate doesn't matter should look at some of the fields that were set in the session just now.

It most definitely does, it doesn't have to be from everyone and must be used judiciously, but the impact is real.
 
Johan

Johan

Hall of Fame Member
kyear2 said:
What I would say to the likes of @Coronis and others who maintain that strike rate doesn't matter should look at some of the fields that were set in the session just now.

It most definitely does, it doesn't have to be from everyone and must be used judiciously, but the impact is real.
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To be fair, we'd be saying the exact reverse if Jadeja had caught Duckett.
 
capt_Luffy

capt_Luffy

Hall of Fame Member
Johan said:
tbf Luck was in favour by the clouds gathering when he got the new ball when it was sunny and hot for 4 sessions prior.
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Won't deny but feel even without the clouds the result won't be too dissimilar. It hardly looked to have any effect in the way our other bowlers bowled.
 
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