Mar 15, 2014 01:03 PM
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Selecting five captains from a pool of some outstanding captain’s is not necessarily the most easiest thing to do. This is a herculean task simply because the term Captaincy cannot be summed up in a single page with just the win/loss percentage and/or on-field tactics aiding support. His leadership qualities have to be taken to account, influence in the team, accountability, integrity, honesty, charisma, communication skills, man management and resource management skills, the state of mind at each and every stage of a game be it winning or losing lopsided. All of these human qualities have to be gauged before judging a captain.
And to be able to do that, you’ve to be in & around with the individual in close quarters either in the dressing room or in the periphery of cricket which will help you sniff out how good or how bad a cricket captain really is.
The topic is very subjective so there is bound to be a high degree lf personal bias and individual discretion involved in this nitpick, conjecture of an analysis which is somewhat unfair on these players, provided you’ve to pit each and every one of them with one another from different epoch’s, milieus, cultural backgrounds and circumstances so to speak.
Before divulging the five best list, let’s obliterate some names which were considered, pondered over but never made the final cut. Here they are.
MS Dhoni
Whenever such a topic is discussed in the cyberspace or elsewhere, the first name everybody mentions is that of Indian captain MS Dhoni’s. Self Indulgence and patriotic skewing I guess.
Dhoni is an outstanding, process-oriented captain and he would have easily cake-walked into my list had if the credentials of this conjecture only demands mere leadership skills and only leadership skills.
But!. But consider his away record, selection and/or on-field defensive tactics – the picture becomes rather bleak so to speak; almost a polar opposite or rather contrary to the cause to what we’ve seen off him in the time he’s been captaining his side up until now. Terrific captain, a notch above Ganguly if the weighing scale is only leadership skills and peer opinion but even then that’s not the only criteria for selection or is it.?
Sourav Ganguly
The most aggressive captain India ever produced. Ganguly taught us how to be competitive abroad whilst carving out a pool of extra-ordinary players who competed against each other to be the best, beat the bests and also for a place in the side. Players like Harbhajan, Sehwag, Pathan, Yuvraj and Zaheer emerged under Dada’s reign’s and I remember a specific incident in particular, where-in Dada alongside John Wright plucked out an S. Sreesanth the fast bowler, out of nowhere from the nets of Kaloor international stadium in Kochin in 2005 whilst giving him a direct entry into the side within an years time.
Sourav is miles ahead of Dhoni in terms of vision, connoisseurship and talent hunting but what makes him pale a bit in comparison is his role model/leadership skills; meaning not everybody in the side rated him highly as opposed to Dhoni. Had if Chappel didn’t came in as a coach and had if he not ruined Pathan’s and the Balaji’s careers – Sreesanth and India would have reached new heights in life and in the game as well. But having said that. Not everything in cricket goes as per the per-inscribed itinerary will they?
Steve Waugh
Another captain I keep in high regards but not as high as I would have loved to be. Waugh is on par with the Dhoni’s and Ganguly’s in terms of leadership skills but his tactics weren’t that impressive even in his heyday. He left a couple of games against India on auto-pilot mode both home and away and his teammates, most of them, don’t regard him in high spirits. Terrific cricketer. A street fighter. Played so many great knocks in the past but Captaincy? I don’t think he’s anywhere close to being Australia’s best.
Mike Brearly
Mike Brearly of England have always enjoyed tremendous respect in & around the cricketing fraternity once up on a time, for he made an Ian Botham to two players back in the 80’s but even then. Brearly wasn’t a good enough player to be in the side. He was an average bat. Never bowled that much. And there’s nothing about him which could make him an asset in the side. As the great Ian Chappell once quoted – “Boy! Its tough to play 11 against 11. Why do you want to play 10 versus 11?” Well said Chappell. Not so well played Brearly.
Michael Vaughn
Consistency wasn’t one of Vaughn’s virtues… Has only one ashes win in 2005 to brag about. What about the rest of the series’s he was a part of? Series win in West Indies. Really? You consider that as a big deal?
Ricky Ponting
Punter was definitely one of Australia’s very best, miles ahead of Steven Waugh in that respect but some of his revelations in the autobiography “At The Close of Play” averts me from including him in the list. No cricket captain would divulge personal details about his/her fellow colleagues albeit years post his retirement. Just not the right thing to do as far as I’m concerned.
His record in the sub-continent wasn’t great. He never won in India as such. But when he was captain. Even after the retirement of the big force players. He kept Australia competitive for once winning a series in South African side who literally outgunned Australia mano-a-mano! Two world cups back to back as a captain in 03 and 07. He has to be great as defending world cup victories is no mere fluke.
Stephen Fleming
Contrary to the belief in the cyberspace. I don’t think Fleming_ the New Zealander was all that good a captain either. His tactics were defensive, rather skewed to the waiting game, lazies-fairre approach. Moreover he enjoyed the privilege of having the best New Zealand side in years with players like Astle, Mcmillan, Shane Bond, Chris Martin, Adam Parore, Styris, Roger Toose giving him company. I think Brendan Mccullam at present has it what it takes to be a great Kiwi captain – if early signs are to be believed. Fleming.? Good. Great he never was…
Garfield Sobers.
Here’s a mighty west Indian’s name whom people tend to forget when the onus is on picking the best captains ever. I think Sobers was a terrific skipper but the problem is whatever he gambling decisions he took was skewed in the best interest of the game. As a result those gambles backfired on him, especially one of them against England, where he declared the Caribbean innings prematurely to keep the match alive for the audience and the spectators.
Sobers thought everybody in his side was a Sobers and that I’m afraid proved to be his ultimate downfall.
Hansie Cronje
Had if he didn’t divulge himself in the Match fixing controversy in late 1990’s, he would have been in my list. Had if.
Don Bradman? Well he will always remain as an alien player to all of us. I know Wisden once appointed Sir. Don as the captain of an all time eleven but .! To frame a judgment on Bradman the player and Bradman the captain. You got to have some knowledge about him which will possibly help carve out a well knitted Dossier on the great, on the legend. Let’s keep him as a Madame-Tussaud’s museum piece shall we?
There are still plenty of names which I would love to discuss here but because of space constraints. I’m jumping straight into the business end, i.e., twiddling the list down to just five best captains. Let’s waste no time. Here they are.
1. IMRAN KHAN
Arguably the greatest cricket captain ever lived.! A tremendous block. Fast bowler. Aggressive. Hard working individual and someone at the age of 40 played for his country Pakistan, marshaled his rather tumultuous troops and won back the elusive laurel i.e., the 1992 cricket world cup all that after bidding farewell to the game he loved the most a couple of years ago.
A game is never lost until the last bowl is bowled and Imran was one of those players who believed in that theory fundamentally. His most famous dictum.? PLAY LIKE CORNERED TIGER’S. A CORNERED TIGER IS ONLY CORNERED BUT NEVER BEATEN and IMRAN superimposed this powerful dictum on his fellow PAKISTANI players – when they were literally on the verge of getting thrown out of the tournament in 92. His vision was to build a cancer hospital and with that rather humanitarian vision he marshaled his troops wonderfully well!
2. Arjuna Ranathunga
When Ranatunga was in the middle of the pitch; Everybody knew who the boss was. so said one of the Australian players in 1996. Arjuna led a rather minnow looking Sri Lankan side to victory in their home soil i.e., in the sub-continental World Cup held in Srilanka, India and Pakistan respectively which is rated by many groups as second only to India’s greatest cricketing heist in 1983 under Kapil Dev against the mighty west Indian’s.
Tremendous leader he was. And a big, fat, (orgy) left handed batsmen.
He had the metal in him to play mind games with the Aussies in 96 by dumping down the Waugh brothers as mere average cricketers and sarcastically mock the great Shane Warne as an overrated spinner. The rest is part of Simhala folklore and the game’s very own Cricketing Almanack. Need I say more?
3. Ian Chappell
No cricket captain’s list would be conclusive without mentioning at least one Australian leader in the mix. Ian, unlike Gregg, was a terrific leader who played the game in the rightest manner possible. He never asked his bowlers to bowl under arm.
Thing that struck me about Chappell’s captaincy is his on-field tactics. The way he used Lille and Thommo in combo in the ashes and against the West Indian’s in the early 70’s. The manner in which he set counter-attacking fields against the World Eleven in world series cricket. Chappell was one of those visionary captains who advocates the principle that Cricket captains, much like business leaders, are evolved as a result of process oriented mechanism.
It’s the process that matters the most over all the other attributes and Ian once famously quoted “I learned a thing or two about Captaincy when Keith Stackpole and Rodney Marsh called me Stupid in a test match @ Perth where I opened the spell of bowling with Spin Bowlers!” vindicating his dictum out rightly. A mighty character. Rude, arrogant, excellent middle order bat, had a hard grained Aussie wink at his colleagues whenever they make mistakes… And moreover he Always. Always played the game in true spirits. Imran rate Chappelli as the greatest of his era ostensibly. What more do ya want?
4. Graeme Smith
South Africa’s, and test cricket’s most successful, prolonged captain ever. A 107 test matches as captain and barring one or two. He hasn’t lost a major bilateral tournament not even once. It’s a tough job to captain a side for more than five years and Smith from 2003 to 2014 had done it for a wee bit more than a decade.
I’m counting him on the list not because he retired recently but because he usurped captaincy at such a young age @ 22 when his country was fathoming literally a turmoil of a period in 2003, post world cup and for never looking back in retrospect for the next decade or so whilst re-surging South Africa as a strong force to reckon with in world cricket by making them competitive both home and away. By away I don’t mean the European away. “I mean the Sub-continental away”.
His track record is envious in the subcontinent albeit in the absence of a quality spinner and even though he was slightly circumspect for my liking. The leadership skills are literally on par with the best of Captains ever to have played the game. More test wins as captain. Above 50% win/loss ratio. Enough’s enough. Period. End of story.
- Mike Gatting
The ruthless English middle order batsmen. The tearaway who turned into a thoroughbred. I’m quite certain that this is one selection which you might disagree with but truth be told. Without Mike’s services England wouldn’t have been as competitive as they were in the midst of 1980’s.
Much like Brearly. He made Ian Botham into two players in the world famous Botham’s match of the 1986 ashes, where, the latter scored century’s and took five wicket haul’s at ease. Botham is one of those players who needed a barrage of fielders all over the place. But Mike handled him shrewdly by making him bowl to the field he set and volume-controlling the eccentric in him to form the shape of a world class all-rounder.
So he’s my number five choice. England’s MIKE GATTING.
One of my great regrets in life is not being able to see the great Shane Warne leading his side Australia not even once in his career barring one or two One- Day internationals; thanks mainly due to his maverick personality on & off the field which meant the Australian dynasty couldn’t afford somebody like him to lead the side at the expense of some solid personalities in the name of Matt Taylors, Ricky Ponting’s and Steven Waugh’s.
Taylor is an excellent skipper rated by Warne as the best he had seen but…. I’m not convinced that he’s better than Ian Chappell’s reign as a captain.
Clive Lloyd was a terrific captain of the West Indies side in the 70’s and 80’s. But I see his’ more as the case of a captain leading the best looking team and not one Individual thinking out of his box 9 times out of 10. He did a fair job make no mistakes about it.
But the five or six outstanding cricketers he had by his alibi meant that his job was much easier than anybody else was during that period. Anybody could have led that Caribbean side but due credits have to be given to Clive for handling his men in such a manner that they respected their talent with humility and performed with arrogance and arrogance and most importantly without ever being counterproductive to one another.
Easy to have a Gallaticos' but even the Gallaticos' have to be man-managed shrewdly to get the best out of them.
Which brings me to the quintessential, million dollar question… Why Sachin Tendulkar did not make a successful captain? Just an Achillies heel perhaps. If he was destined to become the great player he was. Then everything else fails anyways doesn’t it?
Captain is as good as his team.? I agree with that.. But a good captain can make an average side look good, just like a great captain could transcend an above-average side to excellent. Who was the worst captain ever.? I let throw that dicey question back to you, the mouthshut scroller.
Hope you’ve enjoyed reading my blog on some of Cricket’s finest captain’s ever. Hope I haven’t bored you out of your wits. Till next time. It’s Sreejith Mullappilli waving good-bye. Good night & Good luck.
See you @ the World T-20 which commences in a week’s time from now. Enjoy the game. Take care of your health. Have a rocking good time. And don’t forget to tune-in to mouthshut.com, India’s largest ever social reviewing portal.
Thank you.
