England - Ray Illingworth
Australia - Alan Border
I wanted to expand on this because Australian captains is sort of a favourite subject of mine. The thing that intrigues me about Australian cricket is that it's success was often born out of failure. Which is why Ian Chappel nearly beat Alan Border for my pick here.
When Ian Chappel took over the Australian captaincy, he wasn't inheriting a great side. Bill Lawry had left him a floundering side (of course the recent injection of Lillee, Marsh and G. Chappel helped). But Bill Lawry was taken to the cleaners because he complained to selecters about the treatment of players, especially during an overseas tour to India.
When Ian Chappel was told he was now captain he said, "The b*stards will never get me." In other words, he refused to be used as a scapegoat similar to Lawry. The result of which was a highly diciplined, motivated, intimidating side. I'm not talking bad sportsmanship, I'm talking about hard confrontational cricket, that's carried on through today (although today the Aussies really are bad sports).
Too many people think Alan Border injected hardness into the Aussies. Rather, as Martin Crowe once said (the Kiwi captain greater than Fleming), Border was the last remnant of a 70s side that had evaporated. When the amazing trio of Lillee, Marsh and Chappell vanquished, Border was left carrying the bag. He didn't carry it well as first and morphed into Captain Grumpy.
Border was my pick because much of the success of Australian cricket today is courtesy of him. Dean Jones had said it, without Allan Border Steve Waugh and Mark Taylor would have been nothing. Jones said it best when he said Border he took the baggy green cap, dusted it off, and said to the young ones, "Be proud. This is what it means." Border got that off Chappel. But Border kept it alive, instilled it in his side, made them more hungry and more diciplined. He made them winner.
It is not a coincidence that the best Aussie players of the 90s came from the school of Border.
Border's my favourite cricket story because he once got chewed and spit up. Then he changed and became hard as nails. A lot of Australia's supremacy is due to Alan Border.
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