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

[pup11]

Bracken i agree with you on ponting's attitude towards spinners is horrible. As for ganguly's captainsy kiwis made green top pitches on which indians struggle but after that ganguly led indians to world cup finals in 2003 so thats not pretty bad is it?

 

[honestbharani]

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.

I think Lara has been quite brilliant as a captain this time. I thought his ideas of playing with 9 batters and utilizing blokes like GAyle, SAmuels, Smith, Bravo and perhaps another guy as bowlers is one of the main reasons Windies have been reasonably successful at the ODI level recently. Plus, needless to say he was responsible for getting TAylor picked. So he is good at the spotting talent bit too. He is honestly under rated as a captain around here.

 

[Slow Love™]

I think Lara has been quite brilliant as a captain this time. I thought his ideas of playing with 9 batters and utilizing blokes like GAyle, SAmuels, Smith, Bravo and perhaps another guy as bowlers is one of the main reasons Windies have been reasonably successful at the ODI level recently. Plus, needless to say he was responsible for getting TAylor picked. So he is good at the spotting talent bit too. He is honestly under rated as a captain around here.

I would have ranked Lara very lowly too, but it does seem that people have been talking him up lately. Mind you, some of it could be relief after the sheer awfulness of Chanders. With Ponting also improving a reasonable degree it obviously indicates that it's a hard skill to learn, but if you're given the time, you should at least attain a reasonable level of competency. The real natural leaders you can generally spot pretty quickly though, and I wouldn't categorise either as such.

I still rate Vaughan as quite good (tactically and inspirationally), and sometimes with those guys you just notice a difference in the way a team carries itself, tactics aside - England seemed a more competitive outfit in those few games he captained in the CB series. IMO Ganguly's presence in the Indian side is similar. Leadership qualities aren't always about tactics on the field (providing you're not abysmal in that regard), though it's a really big advantage if you're good at both.

Got similar thoughts myself to that of JBH001 regarding Aberhardt and Fleming, though I sometimes wonder if perhaps Aberhardt wasn't the mastermind behind much of the planning that the Kiwis executed in that time.

 

[Richard]

Christ, pedant much? The correct score in the game he was referring to was 5/84.

http://www.howstat.com/cricket/Statistics/Matches/MatchScorecard.asp?MatchCode=1842

O...K...

That, unless it escaped your notice, is a TEST-match.

Given that the overwhelming majority of discussion to date had been about ODIs, you can hardly forgive me for getting the wrong match. It never remotely occurred to me that this Test was the object of conversation.

As for that - it was bad lbw decisions - nothing else, not poor captaincy, not negative bowling, not any other rubbish along those lines - that let Australia off the hook there.

 

[Richard]

Look at ganguly was one of the best captains going around but his performance wasn't good enough to hold his place in the side.

Really?

I'd be pretty happy if my captain was averaging nearly 39, personally...

 

[Richard]

May also have something to do with having Bracewell as a coach.

IMO his best period was when Aberhardt was coach, and it was Flemings team to run.

Rixon?

 

[Johnners]

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

O...K...

That, unless it escaped your notice, is a TEST-match.

Given that the overwhelming majority of discussion to date had been about ODIs, you can hardly forgive me for getting the wrong match. It never remotely occurred to me that this Test was the object of conversation.

As for that - it was bad lbw decisions - nothing else, not poor captaincy, not negative bowling, not any other rubbish along those lines - that let Australia off the hook there.

No nothing about my original post, which for your benefit i provided above, indicates that i was talking about a test match. Did that perchance escape your notice??

As for how the innings turned out, it was just as much to do with Flintoff's poor captaincy as it was the LBW decisions. Poor LBW decisions can happen at any time and it's pointless to dwell upon that fact, and what might've been. Hayden & Symonds were let off the hook due to Flintoff setting defensive fields, thus making it virtually impossible for his bowlers, who were definetly on top up until that stage, to sustain any sort of pressure.

As i've said before, had Ponting done the same thing when England were batting, things might've been a whole lot different. The same goes for Had Flintoff continued to set more attacking fields.

 

[Richard]

No nothing about my original post, which for your benefit i provided above, indicates that i was talking about a test match. Did that perchance escape your notice??

Isn't it pretty obvious it did...?

As for how the innings turned out, it was just as much to do with Flintoff's poor captaincy as it was the LBW decisions. Poor LBW decisions can happen at any time and it's pointless to dwell upon that fact, and what might've been. Hayden & Symonds were let off the hook due to Flintoff setting defensive fields, thus making it virtually impossible for his bowlers, who were definetly on top up until that stage, to sustain any sort of pressure.

It's certainly not pointless at all - it's pretty basic that both Hayden and Symonds were let-off by bad decisions, not by far-flung field-settings.

Had they not got those reprieves, no-one would be criticising Flintoff's field-settings.

As i've said before, had Ponting done the same thing when England were batting, things might've been a whole lot different. The same goes for Had Flintoff continued to set more attacking fields.

It's extremely unlikely. The bowling had been distinctly average for England, and had Flintoff set attacking fields I maintain that not much would've changed. Ditto Ponting.

 

[honestbharani]

I would have ranked Lara very lowly too, but it does seem that people have been talking him up lately. Mind you, some of it could be relief after the sheer awfulness of Chanders. With Ponting also improving a reasonable degree it obviously indicates that it's a hard skill to learn, but if you're given the time, you should at least attain a reasonable level of competency. The real natural leaders you can generally spot pretty quickly though, and I wouldn't categorise either as such.

I still rate Vaughan as quite good (tactically and inspirationally), and sometimes with those guys you just notice a difference in the way a team carries itself, tactics aside - England seemed a more competitive outfit in those few games he captained in the CB series. IMO Ganguly's presence in the Indian side is similar. Leadership qualities aren't always about tactics on the field (providing you're not abysmal in that regard), though it's a really big advantage if you're good at both.

Got similar thoughts myself to that of JBH001 regarding Aberhardt and Fleming, though I sometimes wonder if perhaps Aberhardt wasn't the mastermind behind much of the planning that the Kiwis executed in that time.

Yeah, I am sure Punter is improving too, but I just think Lara was a pretty good captain all along. When he first inherited the captaincy, he had senior players around him and his ideas were a little too revolutionary. I like to class captains as two, the blokes who are good captains when they have got an almost new side which they can direct and the blokes who inherit a reasonably successful side and keep it going by giving it a new direction while not totally changing their way of playing.


And obviously, I reckon Lara belongs to the first category, which is why I think he is doing so well in his third term, when he is EASILY the seniormost guy in the side, the next being Chanderpaul and he is not one who is likely to pick up a problem with any decisions that the captain takes. Also, I reckon Gregory King as coach has also helped him out a bit, by improving the general fielding and fitness standards etc. It means that his batters can bowl that much more, and that has definitely helped the Windies in recent times. I do reckon that there are quite a few who are better captains than him around at this point of time, but I still think his captaincy skills have been extremely under rated here at CW.

 

[Jono]

Lara has performed very well as captain since he took over the reign in ODIs. Very well. If you look at his bowling changes and the way he handled the absolute pummelling India were giving the WI (his faith in Bravo was amazing, and an excellent choice) its hard to actually criticise him, let alone put him near the bottom of the list.

I only have Fleming, Vaughan and Jayawardene as better captains in ODIs. Ponting has improved, and gets a lot of credt points for leading by example, but he often has no bloody idea what to do at the death of a ODI match and very rarely changes his conventional tactic of bowling Lee and McGrath/Bracken and then finishing off with McGrath and Bracken.

I don't have too much of an opinion on Dravid in ODIs, but I don't think there is too much to criticise yet. Smith I can take or leave in ODIs, haven't noticed too much wrong or right, whilst Inzy is poor.

 

[Saqqy Mush]

Fleming's obviously the best,

Flintoff's clearly by far the worst.

 

[JBH001]

Rixon?

Difficult for me to judge that, tbh.
(I was living in Japan at the time of his tenure and lost touch with cricket for a while)

But from what I did gather, there was more of a balance between the authority of the captain and the authority of the coach. Bracewell seems to have taken this too far, the balance now preponderantly in his favour.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

I would have ranked Lara very lowly too, but it does seem that people have been talking him up lately. Mind you, some of it could be relief after the sheer awfulness of Chanders.

It's pretty obvious that the West Indies are playing well under Lara at the moment. The contrast between him and Chanderpaul is that the team looks like winning and is winning under Lara.

 

[Richard]

Difficult for me to judge that, tbh.
(I was living in Japan at the time of his tenure and lost touch with cricket for a while)

But from what I did gather, there was more of a balance between the authority of the captain and the authority of the coach. Bracewell seems to have taken this too far, the balance now preponderantly in his favour.

I always thought Rixon was generally considered NZ's best coach ever (no surprise, given that he's a non-Kiwi). Aberhart was pretty much a nonenity - I only heard his name when I heard he'd stepped-down.

I mean, the best coaches are anonymous-ish, fair enough, but Aberhart never seemed to do anything of note.

Whereas Bracewell seems to be in the news every other fortnight. IMO not a coach suited to international cricket.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Really?

I'd be pretty happy if my captain was averaging nearly 39, personally...

Well yes, let's just ignore the fact that he averaged under 25 over his last 21 matches as captain.

 

[JBH001]

I always thought Rixon was generally considered NZ's best coach ever (no surprise, given that he's a non-Kiwi). Aberhart was pretty much a nonenity - I only heard his name when I heard he'd stepped-down.

I mean, the best coaches are anonymous-ish, fair enough, but Aberhart never seemed to do anything of note.

Whereas Bracewell seems to be in the news every other fortnight. IMO not a coach suited to international cricket.

Agreed. But I kind of agree with Ian Chappell that a cricket team at the international level is primarily the captains to shape and mould. Flemings best captaincy was, imo, during Aberhardt's tenure because he was such an anonymous backroom personality - though I have heard that he contributed more than is usually reckoned behind the scenes.

Rixon brought a greater balance to the side, but it was still Flemings team - though as I said, his authority was well balanced by Rixon. Bracewell however seems to supersede his captain and his team. Not good, imo.

Also, what do you lot reckon of Mahela Jayawardene's ODI captaincy?

 

[Richard]

Well yes, let's just ignore the fact that he averaged under 25 over his last 21 matches as captain.

Against the might of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe...

IMO he only had 2 bad series - in Pak and vs NZ in Zim - and then lost the captaincy by default.

In any case - how does that alter the fact that for the vast majority of the time he was superlative as a batsman-captain?

 

[Richard]

Agreed. But I kind of agree with Ian Chappell that a cricket team at the international level is primarily the captains to shape and mould. Flemings best captaincy was, imo, during Aberhardt's tenure because he was such an anonymous backroom personality - though I have heard that he contributed more than is usually reckoned behind the scenes.

Rixon brought a greater balance to the side, but it was still Flemings team - though as I said, his authority was well balanced by Rixon.

I think Fleming's best captaincy overlapped the two tenures. His two greatest achievements were in England in 1999 (under Rixon) and in Australia in 2001\02 (under Aberhart).

I don't agree with a team being a captain's. It's a team of the players - if they need a captain to shape them, they're not gonna get far. The captain is just the man who fronts-up. Bowlers should know what fields they want.

 

[Fiery]

I always thought Rixon was generally considered NZ's best coach ever (no surprise, given that he's a non-Kiwi).

Can you please explain that comment, Richard?

 

[DCC_legend]

i dont really rate Flintoff as a captain in any form of the game. i think his batting and bowling can be much more consistant wen he doesnt have to think about the captaincy issues. I would rate Vaughan and fleming as 2 of the best in the game. Inzamam is probably not the best captain, i think younis kahn shows more leadership in some games in terms of motivation etc.