the post packer XI's captaining rights went to imran with almost everyone voting for his place in the team factoring in his leadership qualities. i didnt want to run a boring poll featuring him, richards, lara, tendulkar and gilchrist with warne thrown in as a wild card. i expected imran to be the runaway winner. even here, i expect hutton to emerge as winner in the end but not so easily.
Actually, if Miller had not been in the fray and frankly if Fred hadn't posted before me, I may have voted for Hutton too. He wasnt a brilliant captain but a methodical one. To me he was an early day Gavaskar, both in batting as well as leadership.
There is alovely book by AA Thomson called
'Cricket ; The Great Captains'. He divides the captains according to style. He includes Hutton under the chapter called "Method and Perseverance" Gives an idea of Hutton's captaincy to start with
Others included in the same chapter are WG and Peter May.
Its interesting to read. He starts with talking of Hutton's bad luck with the toss(he lost 11 of his first fourteen tosses) but when he comes to the series proper there isn't too much to cheer.
The first series against India was easy-they were the minnows. The next against against Australia (at home in 1953) describes basically Hutton's great batting when the team was in trouble PLUS Bedser and Trueman's bowling. Then in the West Indies again he talks of difficult conditions, loss of toss and bad umpiring. But he does mention that Huton had made up his mind that on the perfect batting tracks they faced, the spinners would not be very effective as the batsmen would have lots of time to play their strokes. He was wrong and Thomson admits as much.
Hutton played four pacers and Lock in the first Test and lost by a big margin. He brought in Laker for the second but still lost. In the third Test he played three spinners (bringing in leg spinner Wardle) and England won comfortably by 9 wickets.
He again dropped Wardle for the fourth game and brought in young Trueman (whom he had discarded after the first Test) and Windies piled up their highest score - 681 for 8. The match was drawn.
In the last game he again had three spinners and his best new ball attack in Trueman and they had their best game-needing just 72 in the last innings to win. He managed to draw the series which, however, I think England should have won. His batting was the best part of England's cricket.
Next year at home could play only 2 fof the 4 tests against Pakistan. England lost one of those and drew the other ! Having won one of the two he did not play, England leveled the series against the game's newest entrants. Poor show again. By the way, David Sheppard who led in the other two Tests did an excellent job by all accounts, including Thomson's.
Then came his second series against Australia, down under. He again played four pacers in the first Test (Bedser, Bailey, Statham and Tyson) and lost by an innings. Then came his finest time as captain. He then decided to play both his spinners in all the four Tests that were played after that and England won three of those drawing the fourth, Although Tyson and Statham did most of the damage, the two spinners did a good job when ever called upon and got 21 wickets between them at under 22 each.
This is what Thomson has to say of Hutton's captaincy.
He was not a dashing leader.... But a captain can do only what his teams can do against oppositions of varying quality and Hutton strove to build up a side that would fight every inch of the way. There were critics who blamed him for being too cautious as a batsman and captain. He certainly liked to do things prudently and there were times right through his career, ... when he must have said to himself, "If I get out then we're all out." And bearing this in mind he held the team together by sheer strength of will and technical ability.
Again Thomson uses his batting to show him as a good leader.
He never claimed to be infallible. He made errors of judgement, though his mistakes were nothing like so grievous in error as those of one later captain, but often what he did wrong may have turned out right, and then his critics, knowing only success and failure, but nothing of the causes of either, would have lauded him to the sky. He had, as he said, a liking or, as some may say, an obsession for fast bowlers, but you can to this day justify that the triumphs of Statham, Tyson and later of Trueman have justified this.
Again he is trying to defend a fault. As I have pointed out above, his successes came when he had a balanced attack though he was blessed with very high quality pacers (an embarrassment of riches in that department) and naturally they were successful.
In manner he was not extrovert. He was not easy to get close to. He often kept his own council but when he did you could be sure he was doing his own worrying and not handing it to anyone else.
Yet again Thomson is finding virtue in his unapproachability and aloofness, The fact that he kept his worries to himself and did not consult others in the side can not be considered a positive trait. When you share responsibilities or at least get a wider perspective through your colleagues, this is not called 'handing your worries to others' and painted as a negative trait.
Thomson's soft corner for the Yorkshireman comes through clearly.
Hutton was a defensive captain (as he was a batsman), he kept his own counsel and kept aloof from his young wards. His own fabulous bating and the undeniable skills of the side he was called to lead was the main factor in England's performances of the day, not his captaincy.
