Who do you think are the best and worst odi captains currently?

[Johnners]

Simple fact of the matter is, the former is bull**** and the latter is quite true. Ponting's captaincy in 2005 was nowhere near as poor as it was portrayed over here, but equally a poor captain could not make Australia much of a lesser side at the current time.

Untrue imo. As an example Reverse the tactics employed by ponting & flintoff at the melbourne test match. Flintoff let Australia off the hook by employing a defensive field when they were clearly on top at 5-85. Had Ponting done the same thing when england were in simliar circumstances during their 1st innings, i think it's fair to say that they wouldnt've been bowled as cheaply. The english attack was bowling just as well as the Australian one, had Ponting employed the same tactics as Flintoff (and vice versa), it's highly likely we could've seen a much closer result.

 

[Richard]

How about England's bowling was not good enough to keep Australia on the hook and Australia's was to keep England there?

I'd say those two played far more of a part than captaincy did.

Rarely are captains given credit for being any better than their bowlers make them look.

 

[Johnners]

Englands bowlers weren't good enough to keep Australia under pressure because Flintoff's field placements were ****. How are you supposed to maintain any sort of pressure when half your fielders are on the fence and the batsmen can escape with easy singles.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

I only saw the ODIs the West Indies played in the DLF Cup and the CT, so I'm going off those. It may be that his captaincy was better elsewhere, but I wasn't particularly impressed in either tournament. Wasn't a fan of his bowler or field management at all. He's not the worst I've ever seen, but after Inzy (and Flintoff, who I didn't include because he's not a full time captain) he's the worst going around IMO.

After Vaughan, Fleming and Ponting, I'd say Jayawardene is clearly better than Lara as well, and then you've got Inzy at the bottom who is pretty shocking. Smith and Dravid are probably around the Lara level as well, and it's a bit hard to seperate them unless you watch every game, which obviously few of us can. Lara struck me as making more errors than either of the other two in recent times though, and I'd rank them ahead. On the minnows, it's pretty much impossible to judge Bashar, and I don't even know who is captaining Zimbabwe at the moment as it seems to change every series.

Speaking as someone who has been openly critical of Lara's tactics and management in past stints as captain, I can't believe we were watching the same games. I was in the anti-Lara-as-captain-for-a-third-time camp, but I've been really impressed with his captaincy lately, and especially in the CT and DLF Cup when he shuffled the bowlers around and was inventive enough to win games. The fact that the West Indies on the whole has been playing more like a team (even in the 2 defeats in India thus far) shows the effect that Lara has had on the players. I really don't see how Lara can be called a poor ODI captain at this stage and certainly the margin between him and Jayawardene is not as large as you make it out to be.

 

[pup11]

Grame smith is more talk less action.

Look performance of grame smith has been up and down and he almost lost his captainsy during the india's tour of RSA but his problem is verbal trash that he dishes out against other sides and puts unwanted pressure on his side as he did on the aussie tour and his whole team got whopped.He really doesn't back up his words he should let his bat and captainsy do the talking.

 

[Richard]

Englands bowlers weren't good enough to keep Australia under pressure because Flintoff's field placements were ****. How are you supposed to maintain any sort of pressure when half your fielders are on the fence and the batsmen can escape with easy singles.

Maybe the past performances of the bowlers convinced Flintoff that were he to have the field up the boundaries would leak?

Would certainly be the conclusion I'd come to.

 

[Richard]

Look performance of grame smith has been up and down and he almost lost his captainsy during the india's tour of RSA but his problem is verbal trash that he dishes out against other sides and puts unwanted pressure on his side as he did on the aussie tour and his whole team got whopped.He really doesn't back up his words he should let his bat and captainsy do the talking.

How d'you know the players under his command don't prefer him to do all the talking and take the focus away from them?

 

[pup11]

i can't see why is aussie captainsy taken for granted it is one of the toughest jobs in the world if you loss one series there is a strong chance of getting axed.Agreed ponting is no born leader but he has evolved into an attacking captain he is far better captain than he was in 05 ashes.But truth be told Shane warne is the best captain australia never had.Warney if only you would not have been a naughty boy!!

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

if you loss one series there is a strong chance of getting axed.

That is definitely not true and you're deluded if you genuinely think it is.

 

[Richard]

i can't see why is aussie captainsy taken for granted it is one of the toughest jobs in the world if you loss one series there is a strong chance of getting axed.

That's nonsense, Australia's selectors are poor often, but only a complete fool would sack a captain because of a single bad series. There are no such examples in Tests.

Agreed ponting is no born leader but he has evolved into an attacking captain he is far better captain than he was in 05 ashes.

He hasn't evolved into an attacking captain (nor does he need to, you can captain Australia in whatever way you want, they'll still be successful), nor is he much better a leader than he was in 2005. He was never anywhere near as poor as everyone over here claimed he was. He made one or two bad decisions (fielding at Edgbaston, allowing his batsmen to accept the light at The Oval) but overall it was mostly just English desperation to pile as much vitriol on the opposition while the chance was there that led to the amount of criticism he had.

But truth be told Shane warne is the best captain australia never had.Warney if only you would not have been a naughty boy!!

That's something that can't be known, had Warne been given the captaincy maybe he'd have been poor on the field and "an embarrassment" off it.

 

[pup11]

kallis and pollock had always expressed their displeasure about his banter many times and many former greats have also criticised his such behaviour.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

It's probably been mentioned, but worth noting again that you're debating skills are deplorable. You can't make statements, get responses and then post more random comments without addressing those you initially posted. Try harder please.

 

[Richard]

kallis and pollock had always expressed their displeasure about his banter many times

Kallis hardly ever says anything so I'd be astonished if he'd ever openly expressed displeasure about his captain's antics. Pollock is far too much of an all-for-one man to do such a thing, don't be so ridiculous.

and many former greats have also criticised his such behaviour.

Had they? I've seen not one example of said criticism. Not from his countrymen, at least. Kepler Wessels, for one, had near enough exactly the same attitude in his day.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Had they? I've seen not one example of said criticism. Not from his countrymen, at least. Kepler Wessels, for one, had near enough exactly the same attitude in his day.

Maybe he's confusing Smith with Ponting, because Ponting is the one who's gotten the criticism from former greats.

 

[Richard]

Well, everyone gets criticism from Ian Chappell...

 

[Prince EWS]

pup11 doesn't seem to really know the difference between a good captain and a good player. It's perfectly possible to be a very good captain while being an average player at the same time. The reverse is also true.

 

[Richard]

^^^Well obviously...

 

[Prince EWS]

^^^Well obviously...

I thought it was obvious too, but judging by pup11's posts, it needs to be told.

 

[Richard]

He needs to be told, possibly, yeah, but the most of us don't!

 

[Richard]

None of which are really relevant. As we see earlier in the thread, Ponting can be criticised as a skipper and he a better record than Smith in both team and individual performances.

So far as "backing-up his words with deeds", both are the only relevant thing.

Not the ultimate judge of captaincy, certainly not, but in response to that comment I was responding to the only passable one.

And which one is Smith? Very unpopular as a captain and has his struggles with the bat.

Unpopular where? His own dressing-room or said column-inches? Smith has captained teams virtually his entire life, I simply cannot believe he's managed to be unpopular everywhere.

He is a very ordinary captain and McKenzie is the far more favoured guy to skipper the team.

Amazing, that, I've never heard any remotest suggestion of that. What you get from local Press, eh?