Player of the Decade - Ponting

[Prince EWS]

pratters,

your criteria is far from objective. while objectivity is the distant ideal, yer criteria is inherently biased against somebody like ponting (or lloyd)

By the same token though, any method of rating captains is going to be biased against those who don't get the opportunity to captain at all.

 

[Prince EWS]

There isn't much for a captain to do when he has a team like one Lloyd or Ponting had. Give the ball to Marshall or any of the other battery of fast men. Let McGrath and Warne weave their magic.

Waugh had to. He was behind in 99 and a loss away from exit. Imran had to in 92.

What great tests did Ponting face?

From a tactical standpoint you aren't far off the mark of course, but the captain still has to get all his stars working towards a common goal as a team. Good players routinely have big egos so getting them to combine is not always easy. I don't rate Ponting as anything more than an average Test captain personally but if he was terrible Australia would have performed a lot worse, even he employed the exact same tactics.

 

[Pratters]

Yes you do have to manage egos and do things right for every thing to fall into place. I don't think he is a terrible captain either but don't rate him tactically like you don't. I never see an innovative move from him on the field.

 

[Beleg]

By the same token though, any method of rating captains is going to be biased against those who don't get the opportunity to captain at all.

umm yeap but that's kinda irrelevant when ye are only concerned with rating captains. the field is all square, in that particular case.

surely we dont want to include captaincy potential in the discussion as well? that'd be rather ridiculous and is even more impossible to analyse

 

[Johnners]

There isn't much for a captain to do when he has a team like one Lloyd or Ponting had. Give the ball to Marshall or any of the other battery of fast men. Let McGrath and Warne weave their magic.

Waugh had to. He was behind in 99 and a loss away from exit. Imran had to in 99.

What great tests did Ponting face?

Didn't exactly have the greatest preperation (and therefore Warne) in 2003 eh?

What's it matter that the team didn't have to fight back from the brink of defeat though?

Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't think that winning % is the only thing that matters, but it's the way in which Ponting led his time on and off the field to that winning % that imo makes him standout the most.

That argument, and the the whole "he can just through the ball to warne" argument that ALWAYS gets thrown up, is pretty rubbish imo. To me it's almost like saying the only way someone can be a recognised as a good captain is to have a not very good team, win a few matches that you weren't supposed to, and be a gallant loser the rest of the time. It's almost like the polar opposite equivalent (if that even makes sense :S it's 1:30am in my defence ) of the "Winnings % is all that matters" argument.

 

[Pratters]

Didn't exactly have the greatest preperation (and therefore Warne) in 2003 eh?

What's it matter that the team didn't have to fight back from the brink of defeat though?

Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't think that winning % is the only thing that matters, but it's the way in which Ponting led his time on and off the field to that winning % that imo makes him standout the most.

That argument, and the the whole "he can just through the ball to warne" argument that ALWAYS gets thrown up, is pretty rubbish imo. To me it's almost like saying the only way someone can be a recognised as a good captain is to have a not very good team, win a few matches that you weren't supposed to, and be a gallant loser the rest of the time. It's almost like the polar opposite equivalent (if that even makes sense :S it's 1:30am in my defence ) of the "Winnings % is all that matters" argument.

I don't think highly of his world cup wins, sorry. I am not some one who sees win % and discounts a player instantly either. If that was the case, I wouldn't rate Taylor highly as a captain.

I judge a captain on the basis of what I see him do on and off the field and there are numerous factors associated with captaincy.

 

[Streetwise]

It's almost like the polar opposite equivalent (if that even makes sense :S it's 1:30am in my defence ) of the "Winnings % is all that matters" argument.

Dont forget no one has claimed "Winnings % is all that matters", Pratters introduced that arguement and then argued against it. I did ask him to show where it was said but he is yet to do that.

 

[Streetwise]

I don't think highly of his world cup wins, sorry. I am not some one who sees win % and discounts a player instantly either. If that was the case, I wouldn't rate Taylor highly as a captain.

I judge a captain on the basis of what I see him do on and off the field and there are numerous factors associated with captaincy.

So in your opinion what areas do you think Ponting could improve his ODI captaincy and what areas are his strength?.

 

[Pratters]

So in your opinion what areas do you think Ponting could improve his ODI captaincy and what areas are his strength?.

Tactically foremost and tactics form the essence of captaincy.

 

[Pratters]

Dont forget no one has claimed "Winnings % is all that matters", Pratters introduced that arguement and then argued against it. I did ask him to show where it was said but he is yet to do that.

I don't want to get into a debate on it. Win %, wins, whatever you call it, you get the idea. Don't nit pick.

 

[Streetwise]

I don't want to get into a debate on it. Win %, wins, whatever you call it, you get the idea. Don't nit pick.

I'm not nit-picking, you made a claim that I implied winning % is all that matters. I asked you to point it out because I disputed it. You have not pointed it out, why?.

You just go to the post and hit quote and it will show where I implied that winning % is all that matters and I will appologise.

 

[Streetwise]

Tactically foremost and tactics form the essence of captaincy.

Well he won the champions trophy and just won in India without any star players, how do rate his captaincy in those events.

 

[Pratters]

As I have said, I think he is performing well in this tough period in ODIs.

 

[Streetwise]

As I have said, I think he is performing well in this tough period in ODIs.

How would you rate his captaincy against Dhoni in the ODI series considering Dhoni had the much better team.

 

[Pratters]

I said in the tough period of past fair few months he has done well. Don't go bringing individual series.

 

[Pratters]

I'm not nit-picking, you made a claim that I implied winning % is all that matters. I asked you to point it out because I disputed it. You have not pointed it out, why?.

You just go to the post and hit quote and it will show where I implied that winning % is all that matters and I will appologise.

You are nit picking. Can it.

 

[Burgey]

Two WCs, Two CTs and a series win in India with a depleted side against superior opposition.

Yep, bloke's a mug. Plainly having his coloured pants captained off by the collective genius of every other skipper.

 

[Uppercut]

Captaincy is one aspect of cricket I never think you can really judge on results. The only data-based way to look at captaincy is in terms of a team wins and losses, and given there are so, so, so many other factors that contribute to the result of the game, I think it's a waste of time trying to look at it statistically at all. The only inference you can make from any win:loss ratio is that if a win:loss ratio is excellent, the captain is not abysmal. No matter how good your team is, if your captain is abysmal you will still perform poorly.. I do think it's quite possible to perform well with a poor captain though, and I definitely think it's possible to perform poorly with a good captain.

I'm not a big fan of using results to judge captaincy. But Ponting's record as captain is absolutely nuts in ODI cricket. It's far, far beyond mere excellency. When you say someone is a better captain than Ponting, you're implying they could do a better job than him. How can you do a better job than Ponting though? How can you do better than winning three times as many matches as you lose and winning two consecutive Champions Trophies and two World Cups without losing a game? How can you possibly criticise a captain on any level when he holds a record like that? Either Ponting is a seriously good captain or captaincy is irrelevant.

But even apart from all that, I think he's an excellent tactician in ODIs, he's clearly one of the best at man-management, and he's an obscenely good batsman even while bearing the burden of captaincy. Every captain is given a job to do, and we judge them on how well they did it. In ODIs, Ponting did his as well as anyone who's ever captained AFAIC. You'd be having a laugh if you asked for more.

 

[social]

IMO, Ponting is the greatest ever ODI captain and that comes from someone that doesnt really rate his test captaincy too highly at all

Tactically, he is more astute in the shorter game than most people give him credit for and that is reflected to a degree in the results

 

[Sir Alex]

IMO, Ponting is the greatest ever ODI captain and that comes from someone that doesnt really rate his test captaincy too highly at all

Tactically, he is more astute in the shorter game than most people give him credit for and that is reflected to a degree in the results

Rubbish.