What makes a better cricket captain?

“You have to try to reply to criticism with your intellect, not your ego,” said the one of the most revered England captains of yesteryears— Mike Brearley. Agreed. In his heyday, England were a stronger unit than what they are now and captains have been a topic of intense debate and discussions for decades now. If Sir Donald Bradman was discussed intently, so was England’s Douglas Jardine.
Over the years, esteemed cricketers such as Richie Benaud, Clive Lloyd, Vivian Richards, Greg Chappell, Kapil Dev, Imran Khan, Sunil Gavaskar, Sourav Ganguly, Steve Waugh, Mark Taylor, Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Brian Lara have donned the captaincy hat and while some achieved phenomenal success, some have failed quite miserably.
The biggest blot in Sachin’s otherwise glittering 2-decade old career has been his inability to motivate his players under his captaincy. No, it was not a fault on his part but at that point of time, the Indian team were labelled as poor travellers and rightly so.

Sachin was first made the captain during the Titan Cup in 1996 and he won his very first series and beat the much-favoured South Africans in the final held at Wankhede Stadium. Javagal Srinath’s best bowling figures won the Indian team a win against the Proteas in Ahmedabad and India won the series at the Eden Park in Kanpur.
But Tendulkar completely lost the plot when India toured South Africa and barring the chanceless 169 in Capetown in the company of the sublime Mohammad Azharuddin, Indian batting had nothing much to say. Dravid made his mark felt with his debut hundred at the Wanderers. The rest faltered.
Captaincy from time immemorial has been about not just leading good men but ensuring that the team performed at the right
time.
Every cricket afficionado can point a good captain, but not many know how to become one. One of the critical issues is the presence of superstars in a side. The records of Allan Border, Clive Lloyd, Steve Waugh, Mark Taylor and Ricky Ponting is a case in point. Lloyd had the services of Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes, Best, Richards, Gomes, Logie, Dujon and had Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner to fill the bowling shoes.
Similarly, Waugh or Border too had the best in the business when they were at the helm. The issue never whom to play but whom to drop. The Australians in the last 15 years have been spoilt for choice and when players such as Damien Martyn, Justin Langer, Matthew Hayden, Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne retired, Ponting suddenly appeared to be leading a bunch of amateurs who were not capable of winning in the same manner in which their predecessors were. There were a generation of players such as Adam Gilchrist who were not used to losing at all.
So, to put together mere mortals to function as a champion unit took time and Ponting’s next test will be at the upcoming Ashes.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, another example of having the right men for the job has Sachin, Sehwag, Raina, Yuvraj, Gambhir, Harbhajan, Zaheer, Ojha, Dhoni (himself), Praveen Kumar, Laxman, Ganguly, Kumble for company and the unit won matches with aplomb.

Many scholars have researched the growth of captains over the years and they have concluded that the main principle behind captaincy will help a youngster become a better leader.
The idea of captaincy or leadership is being accepted as a key ingredient to the existence of the game. However, research on this part of the game is quite subjective. One of the main elements is the ability of a captain to influence the thinking of the game and the players under him.
Captaincy is often judged in a team settings and achievement of goals (in this case a win or a series victory). 

If a Benaud or Tony Greig referred to the Australian side of late 90’s as a ‘team of skippers’, it had a valid reason. The thought processes of Steve Waugh dripped down to the lower ranked players such as Justin Langer, Mark Waugh, Matthew Hayden, Shane Warne, McGrath and others in the side. The result was ruthless victories against all and sundry.

The quest to become the best in the business always involves on: doing things right with doing the right thing. The combination of the can be lethal.
The best captains are those who make a mediocre player perform to the best of his potential and over a period of time help him become a match-winner. Sadly, in this particular point, leaders such as Steve Waugh, Mark Taylor had little to do as McGrath or Warne were individual superstars and did not have to be told what their roles in the team was.
Dhoni inherited the experience of demigods such as Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Kumble and the enthusiasm of youngsters such as Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina and Pragyan Ojha in the side.

Being a captain, is it crucial to being a great skipper? If yes, then how does one go about it?
Researches have proved that a smart cricketing brain is a trait one is born it and there are quite a few (mind you, very few!) who actually go on to learn this trait on the job. Others, just do not have it. An interesting factor also was the presence of no common factor to judge the captains. Some had good vice-captains (as in the case of Mark Taylor), some was too talented and the rest of the team just obeyed his orders (Allan Border and Clive Lloyd) and successful skippers were all different personalities and displayed different confidence levels at different stages of their captaincy.

An interesting observations of all researches was that the leaders played primarily on tasks at hand or their relationships with a particular player.

Another important trait was noticed that the best leaders were those who could adapt themselves on a situation given to them and had the uncanny knack of selecting the ‘best team’ than going in for the ‘best players’. Now this is slightly tricky because going by records (best player tag)— Rahul Dravid should be in the Indian team and that would have been a blind choice. The reality is far different and the Bengaluru boy is yet to play a ODI in the last 2 years. Sourav Ganguly is another case in point. His records speak of the southpaw but he had to retire when the Bengali himself admitted to have atleast a couple of more years left in service.

Maintaining equilibrium is another important aspect of a good leader. By equilibrium, I mean maintaining the right balance within the team and ensuring that the motivation levels are always looking positive and not otherwise.

This is one clear aspect where Dhoni seems to have failed in the World Cup and has looked clueless as to how he needs to go about it.

Cricket Australia had for the first time brought forth the concept of different captains for different formats of the game, something which definitely did not go well Tugga (Steve Waugh) at that point of time, but it worked. Soon other nations and India in particular followed the same theory and suddenly many players who were earlier featuring in all formats of the game were sidelined and labelled as Test players and ODI stars. The likes of VVS Laxman, Dravid were brought in only for the longest version of the game and overlooked for the shorter format.

Lastly, the ability to quickly juggle between different formats of the game is the modern mantra for success. That’s the bottomline and the quicker the captains across the world realise it, the better it is for their teams.

What makes a better captain?

It is ultimately the team that makes a captain and not otherwise. When one says, the captain is as good as his team, he is dead right. Dhoni can’t individually change the tide of the team but needs the fellow Men-in-Blue to maneuver the ship to the shore or else……

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MNS’ overseas wing (Melbourne’s Navnirman Sena) at work?

 

Before you run your imaginations wild, let me tell you that this blog is being posted with a sense of humour and not to demean anyone. The recent (and ongoing!) attacks on Indians at various parts of Australia and for mere mortals like me, Australia can literally ‘beat’ India off the pitch too.

Take 1: Ever since I began watching cricket (I made my television viewing debut with the match between India and New Zealand at the Reliance World Cup 1987 when Sunil Gavaskar stroked his way to his maiden hundred and his only ton in ODIs), Australia has remained my favourite in terms of the team’s competitiveness on the field and their demeanour off it.
The images of Allan Border being lifted by pacer Craig McDermott and Steve ‘Tugga’ Waugh is quite clear in my mind as the Australian team lifted their captain once the Cup was theirs.

Take 2: Indians losing the Sydney Test in 1999-00 series and with it getting a royal drubbing in the hands of Steve Waugh’s men who looked unstoppable. The image of Sachin Tendulkar (the then captain of the Indian side) looking dejected at the prize distribution ceremony is still clear. However, the standout knock was the brilliant 167 blitzkrieg by VVS Laxman who was destined to torment the Aussies from their on with his once-in-a-lifetime knock against the all-conquering Aussies in Eden Gardens, Kolkata.

While Australia has produced some gems in sport such as Rod Laver, Ian Thorpe, Patrick Rafter but cricket was always the sport that I followed keenly (quite evident by now!).

Take 3: My bias with the Australians ended with the ugly second Test between India and Australia in Sydney, which the home team clinched. I might sound emotional at this point of time but every self-respecting individual would be with me when I say that it was a Test that Australia lost in true sportsmanship terms.

Take 4: While many of my friends would have ended up doing their Masters from prestigious universities in Australia, the rude shock of racism came into picture early this year and since then the picture has only become wider than a screen could accommodate.
The recent attacks on foreigners got me to look at it at a similar way in which MNS (Mumbai Navanirman Sena) had beaten up North Indians and literally drove them away from Mumbai.
While this breed of Maratha Maanoos were absent when ‘INDIANS’ fought valiantly against visiting Pakistani terrorists in South Mumbai, they had indeed left the Mumbai’s ‘free spirit’ drowned with their supremely stupid actions.

Now, Australia I assume would be in with a Melbourne Navnirman Sena that could probably be headed by Robert Thockray in command, asking his men to flee the Indians who lead a harmless existence in their nation.

Australia— the wounded tigers

It is often seen that teams that win 2-3 ODI/ Test/ Twenty20 series tend to be called a champion side but here is a team that has been winning almost everything for quite sometime and a mere series loss to India and South Africa was considered to be a point of decline by the cricketing pundits, the world over.
However, having said that Australia has lost quite a few of its top-ranked players in the last few years — namely Steve Waugh, Justin Langer, Shane Warne, Matthew Hayden, Jason Gillespie, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist and when a team players of the class and character as the ones mentioned above— it takes a lot to come back and keep maintaining the same winning momentum.
But the Australian team went on to lose the VB Series to India in 2008 and lost the Test series in India, before losing a Test series for the first time to the South Africans at home. They went on to lose the One-day series to the visitors but came back strongly to clinch the Test series on their return tour to the ‘Rainbow Nation’ aided mainly by good knocks from their newcomers, giving them the confidence that all was not lost.

Strengths: Led by the never-say-die skipper Ricky Ponting who has tasted enough success in his career to last a lifetime, the team is under safe hands. Their strength is in their discipline right from their fielding to their bowling. Not an inch will be given and that has been the cornerstone of their existence ever since Allan Border took over the reigns of the Australian captaincy. He handed it Mark Taylor who carried the torch till it was time for the Steve ‘Tugga’ Waugh to hold it.
Steve handed to Ricky Ponting who has since then led from the front and is expected to do the same. He has Michael ‘Pup’ Clarke as his deputy and Brett Lee, Nathan Bracken to shoulder the bowling burden.

Weakness: While the 2003 World Cup was marred by Shane Warne’s drug-related issues, 2007 Twenty20 World Cup has commenced on a sorry note for the Australians when Andrew Symonds was sent back home for his off-field issues.
While Ponting may not necessarily miss the burly Queenslander off-the pitch but he surely will miss Symmo on the field. Symonds brought meat to the Australian batting line-up and had enough experience to take the team out of any situation.
‘Punter’ will have the Hussey brothers (David and Mike) in the batting department and with David Warner/Brad Haddin and Shane Watson likely to open the innings, the Aussie skipper will be hoping to set the ball rolling right from the match one (against the West Indies).
Threats: Lack of Symonds indeed makes it difficult for the Australian juggernaut to roll, a fact that their skipper admitted. But, Ponting will have to lead the side sans the services of ‘Roy’ and he will be wary of the big challenge that is approaching his side when they lock horns against West Indies.

Opportunities: Its the right time for others such Mike Hussey, Michael Clarke, David Warner, Ben Hilfenhaus, Nathan Bracken and Brad Haddin to make themselves counted and perform. Within no time, the Symmo saga shall be forgotten.