Ricky Ponting Vs. Sachin Tendulkar - As Captains

[susudear]

And suddenly NOW it's the real Ricky Ponting standing up? When he has something that doesn't resemble an attack that will take 20 wickets, players getting injured or getting in trouble or being greener than the cap? It's an opportunistic discussion. Would have been better asked a year or two down the line, or possibly once Ponting's captaincy has ended. But since the retirees he's won 4 of the last 6. Nothing especially tough, but let's remember two things: winning in India last time was something Waugh didn't achieve either and we eventually had to lose at home, and with all the circumstances surrounding us it's not hard to see why we did.

Waugh never lost a series at home. And he never lost the Ashes.

Ricky has not won a single test in India too.

 

[Ikki]

Waugh never lost a series at home. And he never lost the Ashes.

Ricky has not won a single test in India too.

Waugh never had a team as weak as this one. This is probably the weakest Australian side for the last two decades.

 

[susudear]

Huh

Waugh never had a team as weak as this one. This is probably the weakest Australian side for the last two decades.

Ricky had the best team when they lost the Ashes.

And how do you substantiate the claim that he has the worst team in 2 decades? Surely Hayden, Clarke, Hussay and himself makes probably the best batting quartet in the world now, Isnt it?

 

[ret]

I am one of those who rates Tendlkar's captaincy highly. I don't go just by the records as usually a captain is as good as his team. Captaincy has lots attached to it be it tactics, motivational skills, communication skills, leading by example, ability to take quick and right decisions, having good relationship with others and so on. Tendulkar gets top marks from me on all these aspects and those who ave seen him captaining Mumbai would probably agree with me

Who can forget his captaincy when he took Mumbai to victory in the game against Australia in 1998 and in the same year, iirc, almost beat a ROI team with Indian regulars in Irani Trophy

Only negative aspect [no one is perfect], I find in Tendulkar is that he used to slow down in his 90s to get to his 100 but now a days, it appears as if he doesn't seem to care much abt that as I have seen him get out in 90s on so many occasions in the past few years

my vote: Tendulkar

Amongst the Indians, Dravid probably competes with Ponting for the captaincy's wooden spoon .... Although Ganguly has a good record as a captain, he was not as good a tactician as Tendulkar, imo

 

[Ikki]

Ricky had the best team when they lost the Ashes.

And how do you substantiate the claim that he has the worst team in 2 decades? Surely Hayden, Clarke, Hussay and himself makes probably the best batting quartet in the world now, Isnt it?

And? Waugh lost in Lanka. At least in 05 the opposition was clearly the 2nd best team in the world.

Hayden is at the end of his career, Symonds is looking finished, Katich is new, Hussey less so and the only two really experienced/long-serving batsmen are Clarke and Ponting. Haddin and the bowling attack are very much new as well. Whilst this side would still be better than many sides during the last 2 decades, it's probably the worst Australian side in that time.

 

[susudear]

And? Waugh lost in Lanka. At least in 05 the opposition was clearly the 2nd best team in the world.

Hayden is at the end of his career, Symonds is looking finished, Katich is new, Hussey less so and the only two really experienced/long-serving batsmen are Clarke and Ponting. Haddin and the bowling attack are very much new as well. Whilst this side would still be better than many sides during the last 2 decades, it's probably the worst Australian side in that time.

Hussay, Clarke, Ponting himself, Katich would easily walk into any team on current form.

The only thing common between Tendulkar and Ponting is "slow over-rates".

 

[Evermind]

Hussay, Clarke, Ponting himself, Katich would easily walk into any team on current form.

Sorry, I'd rather have Smith or McKenzie or Sehwag or Gambhir over Katich any day - and so I suspect would the SA and Ind selectors.

 

[Ikki]

Hussay, Clarke, Ponting himself, Katich would easily walk into any team on current form.

The only thing common between Tendulkar and Ponting is "slow over-rates".

Katich, I dunno, but that's probably true. However, Hayden, Symonds, Haddin, Lee, Krezja, Hauritz and Siddle wouldn't. And Clark wouldn't walk at all.

If the side had 1-2 weak batsmen and 1-2 weak bowlers that would be something. It's bowling attack is quite easily worse than it's ever been in the last 20 years and they simply won't win any matches because of it. Right now it's all potential and whether that comes to fruition will take time. But calling Ponting a miserable failure is over-doing it more than a tad.

 

[Sanz]

Sachin is a genius, not just as a batsman but as a cricketer overall and I would have given him the nod ahead of Ponting if not for some of the worst failures in Indian Cricket coming under him. It just seems like he got brain freeze as captain.

Loss to SA @ home and Nicky Boje destroying India in India was just unacceptable as was the complete surrender @ Barbados chasing 120 runs. Allowing SL to make almost a 1000 runs in an inning was another one.

 

[Anil]

I don't wish to continue the Gavaskar debate, as it's irrelevant and it's already been done but yes, you're right. Azhar played 3 tests for Gavaskar, but I am not sure how that makes any difference in the bigger scheme of things.

same thing can be said about surinder amarnath being more occasional a bowler than i had indicated...in any case the point about azhar is that he was most prolific in the first couple of years in cricket and then he started to go downhill as his technical weaknesses against pace and bounce were exposed so in one way gavaskar got some of his best performances as captain both in tests and one dayers...

Srinath was pathetic, but he'd still be your 2nd best pace bowler, which is kind of the point. Surinder Amarnath only played once for Sunil and only bowled 11 balls in his career. I think we'll just agree to disagree on this one.

don't you see the point? every pacer other than kapil was in a support role during gavaskar's tenure but he did have kapil and some good-to-great spinners for the majority of his captaincy while sachin did not have the same quality of bowlers even when you compare the support cast...

anyway i have already answered the thread question, it is hard to argue with such disparity in results and ponting at this point is well in front as a skipper and probably will finish that way...

 

[masterblaster]

Ricky Ponting had the luxury of having guys like Warne, McGrath, Gillespie, Gilchrist, Martyn and Langer in his side. Sachin Tendulkar never had a strong enough team to captain and certainly would've done better if he had the players that are playing for India now under his disposal.

When Tendulkar was captain, India were going through one of their toughest phases in their cricketing history. Ganguly, Dravid and Laxman were young and not of the same stature as they were a few years later, India didn't have a good opening partnership and our wicket keepers averaged 25 with the bat in FC cricket. The Indian bowling attack when Sachin was captain was decidedly mediocre as well with only Anil Kumble being world class.

To compare both is a little silly but if Sachin was captain today and had the likes of Dhoni, Ishant, Zaheer and Yuvraj at his disposal I'm sure he would've done a better job now as captain.

 

[Rant0r]

In the context of bowling at the Test level. He was terrible.

i think the point he was making was that from srinath's era and before him, there wasn't many even decent seamers, which would probably make srinath second only to dev, he toiled hard during this era warming the seat for the barrage of seamers they have now to mature, so for that he must at least be given some cred.

Hussay, Clarke, Ponting himself, Katich would easily walk into any team on current form.

The only thing common between Tendulkar and Ponting is "slow over-rates".

not sure about current form, but i think he'll be back.

tha australian batting is not a real problem, but it shows how important the aussie bowlers of the last 10-15 years were, being able to bowl teams out makes it easier for the batsmen to go out there and make a competitive total, but now you see some of them are failing, for whatever reason, be is pressure, poor form, twilight of the career or better opposition who knows, but a captain such as allan border managed to find a way to save or even win tests from tough positions with fairly moderate teams, australia used to be able to it but leaned a lot on their champions.

tendulkar is still in my opinion the better tactician than ponting, but it takes more than ideas to make a leader, ponting is probably a better leader, but perhaps laking the nouse, but then that's why you have an entourage of support staff these days though isn't it ?

good captains can get the best out of their team, but i'm not sure if a bad captain can make a player perform poorly, maybe the team can perform below par though, but surely a player's own personal pride is important as well

 

[Anil]

Ricky Ponting had the luxury of having guys like Warne, McGrath, Gillespie, Gilchrist, Martyn and Langer in his side. Sachin Tendulkar never had a strong enough team to captain and certainly would've done better if he had the players that are playing for India now under his disposal.

When Tendulkar was captain, India were going through one of their toughest phases in their cricketing history. Ganguly, Dravid and Laxman were young and not of the same stature as they were a few years later, India didn't have a good opening partnership and our wicket keepers averaged 25 with the bat in FC cricket. The Indian bowling attack when Sachin was captain was decidedly mediocre as well with only Anil Kumble being world class.

To compare both is a little silly but if Sachin was captain today and had the likes of Dhoni, Ishant, Zaheer and Yuvraj at his disposal I'm sure he would've done a better job now as captain.

it is possible that he would have done a better job as captain with the team today but that is a hypothetical at best, we just don't know and based on what we do know, the results speak for themselves...

 

[Rant0r]

i don't think tendulkar would have done better than ganguly or dhoni, maybe dravid, ganguly and dhoni are born leaders.

tendulkar is more in the michael jordan mould, ie 'give me the ball and get out of the way'

 

[Sanz]

When Tendulkar was captain, India were going through one of their toughest phases in their cricketing history. Ganguly, Dravid and Laxman were young and not of the same stature as they were a few years later, India didn't have a good opening partnership and our wicket keepers averaged 25 with the bat in FC cricket. The Indian bowling attack when Sachin was captain was decidedly mediocre as well with only Anil Kumble being world class. To compare both is a little silly but if Sachin was captain today and had the likes of Dhoni, Ishant, Zaheer and Yuvraj at his disposal I'm sure he would've done a better job now as captain.

The comparison may be silly if one looked at Ponting entire's tenure, but it isn't when we look at Ponting of the current Aussie team.

As for the talents, when Sachin became captain he had some of the best upcoming talents at his disposal. Guys like Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman, Bhajji, Sadgoppan Ramesh would later become the backbone of Indian batting lineup. I will agree that we didn't have good openers. India's bowling was poor but Let's not forget that Ganguly turned India's fortunes upside with almost same bowling attack and pretty much the same batting lineup.

 

[susudear]

By that logic

Sachin is a genius, not just as a batsman but as a cricketer overall and I would have given him the nod ahead of Ponting if not for some of the worst failures in Indian Cricket coming under him. It just seems like he got brain freeze as captain.

Loss to SA @ home and Nicky Boje destroying India in India was just unacceptable as was the complete surrender @ Barbados chasing 120 runs. Allowing SL to make almost a 1000 runs in an inning was another one.

I may agree with the debacle against SA at home. But cannot agree with the Sri Lanka one. The pitch was an absolute belter demonstrated by the fact that only 14 wickets fell in the whole match. If you say conceding 900+ runs is a bad thing, don't you think failing to defend the highest score ever in ODIs also terrible captaincy? Or losing twice in a row to SA at home? Or failing to win a single test match in India?

 

[biased indian]

No comparison

One was a dismal failure as captain, the other isnt

the other is on his way to achieving th same

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

the other is on his way to achieving th same

This is a pretty good example of the massive overstatement of Ponting's weaknesses as a captain. How can a captain with two world cup wins, a win in India and an Ashes clean sweep to his name be a "dismal failure"?

Measure success as a captain however you want, but there is no way Ponting can be considered a failure given what he's achieved, even if he never won another test as captain.

 

[social]

the other is on his way to achieving th same

Doubt it - Ponting has already won more tests and ODI tourneys than most captains could even dream of

 

[biased indian]

Loss to SA @ home and Nicky Boje destroying India in India was just unacceptable as was the complete surrender @ Barbados chasing 120 runs. Allowing SL to make almost a 1000 runs in an inning was another one.

A captain can never control his batsmen ....at the most he can do is bring confidence in his team ....the first 2 instance was both an example for that .think he was our best batsmen during both those things..

and for sri lanka scoring 1000 many a team could have done that if they decided to bat on rather than declare their inngs...there is nothing a captain can do about ...ya he could have tried to bowl them out .but then if the pitch remains the same for 5 days there is nothing much he can do ....

all said i wont even consider both as good captains ..there are lot many who have made their marks as captains .....and if i am not wrong ..pontings record is only going to get worse with each new match