Is test cricket about to enter a golden phase of captaincy?

[Burgey]

Ponting's rep here took a bit of a hit after Sydney 08 when Roebuck among others went to town on him and called for his sacking, which was absurd. Waugh tends to get a free pass on a lot of things which Ponting got a hammering for. The team under Waugh was far worse behaved from a sledging POV than it was under Ponting. I suppose Waugh was far less demonstrative than Ponting, who always wore his heart on his sleeve by comparison.

I think he's come to be regarded as a pretty good captain with the benefit of hindsight. He basically oversaw a massive transition in the Australian team, and stuck it out when plenty of others would have pulled the pin. Him sticking around after retiring from the captaincy was a very unusual move from an Aussie skipper - it just doesn't tend to happen at all. Good on him for doing it.

Captaincy aside, he's the best Australian batsman I've ever seen. Even better than Chappell and TOTAB imo. Those three would be my three, four and five in an Australian XI I've seen play, fwiw. Waugh at six, Gilly at seven and frankly, the other countries really shouldn't bother fronting up to try and play against them.

 

[Top_Cat]

This pretty much sums it up perfectly actually



the whole thing seems to be getting taken way out of proportion anyway. From what people were saying I thought he must have bowled a bunch of part timers for like 15 overs each, but he literally just bowled 4 overs of Hussey (which wasn't unusual for him in Tests) and 6 overs of Clarke (who has a better bowling record in India than the specialist spinners anyway). And regardless it's not at all like it would have had any influence on the result of the match. Just a massive whinge tbh

Look, don't call it a massive whinge when you clearly didn't even watch the damn game. If you had, you'd know Clarke didn't bowl after tea when the thing that people are talking about happened. The Aussies had clawed back the momentum to the point where they had Dhoni on bugger-all and Harbhajan new at the crease. Post-tea, they walked out and faced Hussey and White who proceeded to go for 7+/over, basically gifting the game back to India. Was a huge moment.

 

[mr_mister]

White was the number 8 in there for his Warneqsue leggies to be fair..


im joking but he wasnt considered a part-timer back then

 

[quincywagstaff]

Now that I have had a taste of Ponting the commentator, I am quite surprised he was such a poor captain tactically. He is such an intelligent and astute observer of the game, picking up little details here and there and always appears to know which way a certain phase in the game could be heading. These are all qualities that would make an excellent captain I would think

Yeah, it’s funny that when T20 started Ponting was hardly a fan of it and seemed to take it semi-seriously, which was reflected in how Australia went in T20 WC tournaments under him.

But at some stage he realised the intricacies and tactics of T20 and that’s reflected in how good his commentary is for the Big Bash.

Also, I reckon he was a better ODI captain than Test one; he just seemed far more attuned to that format and his captaincy record reflects that. Perhaps that’s why he was reluctant with T20 initially because he saw it as a challenger to ODIs which he loved.

 

[Black_Warrior]

I think it's more a culture/personality clash tbh. Indians and ricky ponting are like cats and dogs.

What about Kohli and Australians?

 

[Black_Warrior]

FTR, I have always like Ponting as a batsman, right from the time I first saw him play. Think it was the triseries down under in 1995 or 96, just before the WC 1996. He and Stuart Law used to look very similar with the goatees and stuff. And I have defended his record in India a few times here too. And I called Kohli to be the Indian Ponting. But apparently, saying he was an average captain means you hate him for some posters.

Not sure about Boycott but Nasser Hussain is an astute commentator and he was a very good captain too

 

[TheJediBrah]

Look, don't call it a massive whinge when you clearly didn't even watch the damn game. If you had, you'd know Clarke didn't bowl after tea when the thing that people are talking about happened. The Aussies had clawed back the momentum to the point where they had Dhoni on bugger-all and Harbhajan new at the crease. Post-tea, they walked out and faced Hussey and White who proceeded to go for 7+/over, basically gifting the game back to India. Was a huge moment.

Meh, still overblown af

 

[Black_Warrior]

This will only be looked at as a golden period of test captaincy in 15 years time. Like all captains they will be relentlessly **** on until they retire, at which point whoever takes over will be terrible in comparison. This never ends and has no winner.

Not always true. People (not necessarily talking about CW here) have been ****ting on Dhoni and asking for Kohli to replace him and they now compare Kohli quite favourably with Dhoni

 

[Black_Warrior]

True, true

It's a similar problem that a lot of people have with australian cricket in general Imo. Competitive on the field = asshole, and they can't seperate the 2. It's just a massive culture clash.

Ranatunga, Ganguly, Kohli.

It's a similar problem that a lot of Australians have with Non Australian captains in general Imo. Competitive on the field = asshole, and they can't seperate the 2. It's just a massive culture clash

 

[Daemon]

People seem to be underrating the soft skills when it comes to captaincy. I don't know much about how tactically sound Misbah was but it was all those other intangibles that made him a great captain.

Ponting had that too. Was a proper leader. Imagine someone like Root trying to lead those guys, you think a bloke like Symonds is going listen to what the kid has to say?

 

[Black_Warrior]

Yeah this. Ponting gets smashed as a **** captain both for having great players and weak players around him whereas Waugh gets a free pass for the former at least. It's not impossible that Ponting was so toilet as a skipper that the success of the team was entirely independent of him but anyone who's played the game knows that's rubbish.

Have never understood why people think Waugh was a more aggressive captain either. Ponting was too blindly aggressive, bowled Johnson into the ground trying to buy wickets and never countenanced a 3rd man in the '05 Ashes despite England scoring freely there and running away with the game. Wasn't a great skipper in India, aside from the whole avoiding suspension thing. Waugh at least knew when to back off and get mean.

Captaincy does not have a quantifiable measure like batting average or strike rate so captaincy basically gets judged on completely arbitrary factors like "body lanugage" and "aggression" and "intent or if you've been captain long enough, then the massive series defeat or something horrible that happened which people just remember and it becomes your legacy sort of.

Ponting's captaincy legacy has become the 3 Ashes defeats including a home Ashes defeat, plus that India series which ultimately outweighs the 5-0, win in Sri Lanka, South Africa etc.

Dhoni's captaincy legacy became 0-8 in England and Australia, which outweighed 1-1 in South Africa (still the best ever result by India in South Africa), series win in New Zealand, not to mention the home domination

Ganguly never won a test series outside of Asia, but is generally considered a great captain mainly because of 2001 Kolkata and the 1-1 in Australia in the following series. This is a really interesting one because when I ask fans about why they think Ganguly is so great, a lot of what they associate with Ganguly happened under other captains - for example people say We won in England under Ganguly (Dravid was captain) or we won in Australia (2003 was a draw)

Waugh is considered a great captain because people associate the All Time Great Australian side of the noughties with him, The unbeaten streak started with him really with the 99 series against India and Pakistan.

These are not necessarily valid assessments but until there is some quantifiable measure of captaincy, captains will always be judged on arbitrary factors that people happen to remember

 

[TheJediBrah]

Pretty funny how Waugh was the real elevator of Australian sledging and coined the term "mental disintegration", yet Ponting's the one who gets the bad rap because he was more outgoing and less subtle about it.

Waugh's Aussies would have been the peak of cricket sledging and ****iness in this era IMO

People seem to be underrating the soft skills when it comes to captaincy. I don't know much about how tactically sound Misbah was but it was all those other intangibles that made him a great captain.

Ponting had that too. Was a proper leader. Imagine someone like Root trying to lead those guys, you think a bloke like Symonds is going listen to what the kid has to say?

This was pretty much why Flintoff was made captain. I'm sure he's a smart enough guy but doesn't strike one as a tactical genius.

 

[honestbharani]

This pretty much sums it up perfectly actually



the whole thing seems to be getting taken way out of proportion anyway. From what people were saying I thought he must have bowled a bunch of part timers for like 15 overs each, but he literally just bowled 4 overs of Hussey (which wasn't unusual for him in Tests) and 6 overs of Clarke (who has a better bowling record in India than the specialist spinners anyway). And regardless it's not at all like it would have had any influence on the result of the match. Just a massive whinge tbh

Not saying it definitely isn't "selfish", but it's definitely debatable (personally I don't see at as selfish at all, clearly the team needs its captain and best batsman after all) and comparing it to Lara's 400 in terms of selfishness is laughable

You are right. Ponting''s was so much more selfish and bad that it is in no way comparable to Lara batting on.

 

[TheJediBrah]

You are right. Ponting''s was so much more selfish and bad that it is in no way comparable to Lara batting on.

God you are just so cringey, at least come up with something that doesn't look like it was written by a small child

 

[honestbharani]

People seem to be underrating the soft skills when it comes to captaincy. I don't know much about how tactically sound Misbah was but it was all those other intangibles that made him a great captain.

Ponting had that too. Was a proper leader. Imagine someone like Root trying to lead those guys, you think a bloke like Symonds is going listen to what the kid has to say?

Ponting definitely got the best out of Symonds and Twatto. And in hindsight, seeing how Clarke went with some of the personalities in the side he inherited, Ponting's man management skills do seem to have been pretty good.

 

[honestbharani]

God you are just so cringey, at least come up with something that doesn't look like it was written by a small child

Is Yoda a favorite with children?

 

[OverratedSanity]

Dhoni's captaincy legacy became 0-8 in England and Australia, which outweighed 1-1 in South Africa (still the best ever result by India in South Africa), series win in New Zealand, not to mention the home domination

The 1-1 in SA might look like a positive result but it's actually huge blot on Dhoni's captaincy.

 

[Black_Warrior]

Why?

 

[Spark]

because you could argue he was the principal reason they didn't win that series

 

[Spark]

Is Yoda a favorite with children?

grow up, both of you.