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Rate the captains
- Thread starter Richard
- Start date
Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
Archibald MacLaren is someone who has always interested me. Suffice to say there is an amount of stuff in this thread that I'd not heard about him before, but he is still someone who several rated a superlative captain.
Nonetheless, maybe I might revise my own ideas of him a little after hearing the thoughts of one or two who've posted about him in this thread.
Nonetheless, maybe I might revise my own ideas of him a little after hearing the thoughts of one or two who've posted about him in this thread.
bond21
Banned
Mark Taylor - Best ever captain in my opinion. He attacked at every possible opportunity, only defended when he absolutely had to, which was rare.
Steve Waugh - Great captain, not quite as attacking as Taylor but I remember matches when he has maybe 1 fielder who wasnt in the slips cordon.
Allan Border - Didnt have the best team, did well with what he had, not quite in the same league as a captain, still one of the best batsmen ever though.
Stephen Fleming - Above average, not in the league of Waugh or Taylor but did well with what he had...
Jardine - joke option? If creating disastrous relations between the 2 countries from "win at all costs" tactics, then yea he was the best captain....Why didnt he just bring a Lee Enfield rifle onto the ground and shoot Bradman in the head? He wouldnt lose any respect from me if he did do that, I have zero for him.
Ian Chappell - Yay sledging, thanks Ian.
Steve Waugh - Great captain, not quite as attacking as Taylor but I remember matches when he has maybe 1 fielder who wasnt in the slips cordon.
Allan Border - Didnt have the best team, did well with what he had, not quite in the same league as a captain, still one of the best batsmen ever though.
Stephen Fleming - Above average, not in the league of Waugh or Taylor but did well with what he had...
Jardine - joke option? If creating disastrous relations between the 2 countries from "win at all costs" tactics, then yea he was the best captain....Why didnt he just bring a Lee Enfield rifle onto the ground and shoot Bradman in the head? He wouldnt lose any respect from me if he did do that, I have zero for him.
Ian Chappell - Yay sledging, thanks Ian.
Zinzan
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Agree with your sentiments on Taylor and his propensity to attack. But to suggest Fleming wasn't in the same class as he and Waugh is a massive oversight. Waugh captained arguably (along with W.I of the mid 80s) the strongest team in history and still managed to lose that 2001 series in India after being well on top early in the series. Are you suggesting he would have done better than Fleming with the limited resources Fleming had to play with, I'd think not, not by a long shot.
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Flem274*
123/5
You've got to be joking.Welcome back mate. I see your seven day holiday has cooled you down a bit.
The only thing I'll give bond21 credit for is his knowledge of fast bowling actions in the coaching thread.
pasag
RTDAS
17 or so of the 18 are NZers or NZ fans, tbf. I think DJellet is the only one that isn't from NZ from the 18 that voted for him.Haha! Can not believe that Fleming is leading the votes...
By a considerable margin too, lol!
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pasag
RTDAS
Not necessary Flem, all members deserve a clean slate after they return and comments like this just make matters worse.
Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
Believe it or not, that series wasn't the only piece of captaincy Jardine did in his career. He had a long stint as captain of Surrey and captained other Tests for England. He had the ability to inspire huge loyalty in his players, greater even than Kerry Packer, and led from the front superbly in addition.
And in the opinion of some, Jardine's win-at-all-costs tactics were simply ahead of their time.
Burgey
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There needs to ber a "tongue in cheek" smiley
subshakerz
Hall of Fame Member
Waugh was a good captain but not a great one. The only major challenge facing his side was to beat a team in the subcontinent, because the rest of the teams were so poor that they didnt represent a contest abroad or at home. Waugh lost against both India and Sri Lanka and only managed to beat a second-string Pakistani side in Sharjah. And he nearly lost a home series to Fleming's New Zealand as well. Aside from the World Cup 99, no major triumph sticks out from Waugh's captaincy resume.
a massive zebra
International Captain
Considering the sentiments expressed by the authors of my quotations, I would venture to say that the opinion of him as a top class captain is probably a minority view, and therefore he was not on the whole overrated.
Also, he was only overrated as a batsman for the second half of his career, it is difficult to argue against his reputation as one of the top half dozen batsmen in the world for at least 3-4 years during the mid 1890s.
Zinzan
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Precisely
Flem274*
123/5
Okey dokey.
(Won't apologize though, just read that the public apology is really a lie and a second insult so I'll refrain
)
Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
Dylan Jellett and gettingbetter are the only ones who aren't Kiwis\NZ-fans to my knowledge, and most (maybe even all) are of our age-group too.
TB equally F, most of them have stated their reasoning "he's the only one I've seen and I only vote that way". Not a reasoning I'm a massive fan of TBH, but the given reasoning nonetheless.
Flem274*
123/5
Love these polls. Flavour of the month always wins. Because Flem has just gone, he wins.
I'd just like to say I completely agree with this poll and it should be the definitive poll when rating the all time greatest captains.
pasag
RTDAS
Read this today and thought it appropriate, regarding a man who got zero votes in this poll.
If I think, leaving W.G. Grace out of the argument, that Sir Donald Bradman was the greatest of all captains, with Richie Benaud as his best equipped Australian successor, I am entitled to believe, too, that Sir Leonard Hutton had been incomparably England's greatest leader in the post-war days. If, too, I think of Chapman as the gayest, Warner as the most urbane, and MacLaren and Brown at the same time the more determined, the most unlucky, I still have the right to cherish a favourite and that is F.S. Jackson, who defeated a stronger Australian side than many later MCC captains ever saw. After all, if you are your side's best batsman and their best bowler and you win the toss five times in a rubber, it would be an exacting critic that would ask much more of you.
But there is one other, whose superb technical accomplishments do not stand higher than his gifts of leadership: who, when captaining a touring team in Australia, was the best loved of all visiting captains, not excepting P.F. Warner and F.R. Brown. When in the New Year's honours of 1964 the Queen bestowed a knighthood on the cricketer known all over the world as Frankie Worrell, an honour was done to cricket and a great gentleman, who did not acquire the knightly qualities - courage, courtesy and the gift of leading - for the first time on that January morning... - From The Great Captains by A.A. Thomson.
If I think, leaving W.G. Grace out of the argument, that Sir Donald Bradman was the greatest of all captains, with Richie Benaud as his best equipped Australian successor, I am entitled to believe, too, that Sir Leonard Hutton had been incomparably England's greatest leader in the post-war days. If, too, I think of Chapman as the gayest, Warner as the most urbane, and MacLaren and Brown at the same time the more determined, the most unlucky, I still have the right to cherish a favourite and that is F.S. Jackson, who defeated a stronger Australian side than many later MCC captains ever saw. After all, if you are your side's best batsman and their best bowler and you win the toss five times in a rubber, it would be an exacting critic that would ask much more of you.
But there is one other, whose superb technical accomplishments do not stand higher than his gifts of leadership: who, when captaining a touring team in Australia, was the best loved of all visiting captains, not excepting P.F. Warner and F.R. Brown. When in the New Year's honours of 1964 the Queen bestowed a knighthood on the cricketer known all over the world as Frankie Worrell, an honour was done to cricket and a great gentleman, who did not acquire the knightly qualities - courage, courtesy and the gift of leading - for the first time on that January morning... - From The Great Captains by A.A. Thomson.
SJS
Hall of Fame Member
Of all the skills of cricket, captaincy is the most difficult to assess precisely and comparatively.
- John Arlott in the first sentence of the Preface to his lovely book Cricket - The Great Captains.
The book published in 1971, lists eight captains and has articles by eight great writers
- A.C. MACLAREN by Neville Cardus
- PELHAM WARNER by Ian Peebles
- D.R. JARDINE by Bill Bowes
- BRAIN SELLERS by J>M> KILBURN
- WILFRED WOOLLER by J.B.G. Thomas
- STUART SURRIDGE by Brain Chapman
- JACK CHEETHAM by Louis Duffus
- FRANK WORRELL by C.L.R. JAMES
He does mention that if he had the list stretching to nine, he would have included Clive Rice.
As he writes at the end of that Preface.
It is striking that three of these men, acknowledged by their contemporaries, colleagues and opponents, as outstanding captains - capable of making positive additions to the sum-total of their players' normal abilities..... If the eight have something in common it is the keenness - in several cases the greatness - of their fielding. Although it is often said that the best position in the field for a captain is wicket-keeper, mid-off or mid-on; none of them is a wicket-keeper and seven of them were close fielders.
Perhaps, however, we may say that of all the great captains that they had that blend of intellect and character which enabled them to chart a course through the uncertainties of cricket with a degree of certainty greater than other men possessed and which convinced the players under them - and often those against them
Perhaps, however, we may say that of all the great captains that they had that blend of intellect and character which enabled them to chart a course through the uncertainties of cricket with a degree of certainty greater than other men possessed and which convinced the players under them - and often those against them
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Lillian Thomson
Hall of Fame Member
This whole poll was a complete nonsense. The most successful captains ever weren't included because they only won because they had strong teams and Fleming won the poll for no other reason than he had few really high quality players at his disposal.