Who is the second best captain of the Fab Four?

[TheJediBrah]

I also think if he had continued it would have had a bad impact on his batting too. What he is right now is best for him and for Australia, to get the best out of him as a batsman.

This is very spurious speculation. There are plenty of reasons not to make Smith captain again, but worrying about it affecting his batting is not one of them. It never affected his batting before, he averaged over 70 as captain. However you justify it, I would assume something along the lines of "pressure after sandpaper etc" it's got nothing to back it up.

 

[honestbharani]

This is very spurious speculation. There are plenty of reasons not to make Smith captain again, but worrying about it affecting his batting is not one of them. It never affected his batting before, he averaged over 70 as captain. However you justify it, I would assume something along the lines of "pressure after sandpaper etc" it's got nothing to back it up.

You can go by whatever numbers you want to. I go by what I saw and I think it was getting to him mentally.

 

[Bijed]

I think the first time I was impressed by his captaincy was when he did extremely well in SA last time out, when we came from behind to win the series and we kept losing the guy who took the most wickets in the last test to injury.

He's certainly more flexible and intuitive than Cook was, and I find that criticism of his captaincy is usually just the standard 'not enough slips!' barking that would have been put to anyone else. Specific criticisms tend to be relatively far between which is about as much as you can ask.

Agree with this. I always roll my eyes a bit when we have flat session with the ball and the cricinfo comments start filling up with comments blaming Root's captaincy, as if putting in an extra slip or two would suddenly spice up the pitch or add an extra 10mph to Broad's pace. The Captain just seems to naturally attract blame for players being a bit meh for a while or even just the opposition playing well, really. I don't think Root is going to go down in history as a 'great' captain but he's fine imo

 

[Shady Slim]

Couldn't sum it up better myself, Smith was as poor a man manager as Clark but wasn't half the tactical captain he was.

i will say it's not smith's fault per se he's not a good captain, like it's not a knock on him in the sense that i'm also not going to knock matty wade for not bowling us to victory on day five at the gabba - just really wasn't the right bloke for the job

 

[Flem274*]

Agree with this. I always roll my eyes a bit when we have flat session with the ball and the cricinfo comments start filling up with comments blaming Root's captaincy, as if putting in an extra slip or two would suddenly spice up the pitch or add an extra 10mph to Broad's pace. The Captain just seems to naturally attract blame for players being a bit meh for a while or even just the opposition playing well, really. I don't think Root is going to go down in history as a 'great' captain but he's fine imo

a lot of truth to this. sometimes there isn't a lot a skipper can do if your bowlers can't bowl to your plans. that's why bowling both sides of the pitch is such a cardinal sin (the most painful personal example for me being brisbane 2015).