So I'm spurred onto this topic after James Faulkner was named captain of Australia A. Is it just me, or does the future of captaincy look pretty mediocre at the moment?
I mean, we're not exactly coming out of an era in which every international captain was a prodigy born to do the job, but we've had a handful of guys who at least looked like leadership candidates from young ages -- Graeme Smith and Michael Clarke being the obvious two.
And now we have James Faulkner and David Warner being touted as leadership options (though everyone knows that Smitteh will take the job and be Australia's best ever captain, but that's beside the point). And let's face it, apart from Smith, there aren't many strong candidates to do the job under the age of 35.
England looks similarly stuck -- if everybody's favourite quintessentially stodgy British opening bat suffers an injury or finally sucks enough to be deposed, the only temporary option is Matthew "my achilles is still broken" Prior. Once he's consigned to the scrap heap for Jos Buttler, the options become Joe Root, Stuart Broad and Ian Bell. I mean, really? The cupboard is so bare that Ian Bell, of all people, is in the debate? And Stuart Broad in charge of DRS -- could the imagine the hilarious horror?
India could also be in some trouble. Virat Kohli isn't exactly awe-inspiring as a leader, and may end up the next Tendulkar in that respect -- can bat, should be able to lead, but somehow conspires to completely such at it. Pujara might do a limited "**** you I'll lead from the front" job, but the remainder of the team has showed their leadership incompetence throughout the IPL. Dhawan was lolworthy, Rohit Sharma not much better. Ajinka Rahane was rated behind Shane Watson for captaincy at the Royals, so that immediately rules him out. I'm giving the armband to Wriddhiman Saha. WAFG he is.
Pakistan will eventually lose Misbah, which leaves who, exactly? Half of them are dumb as doornails, the remainder either old, likely to be dropped on a whim by selectors, or fast bowlers. Short of picking Kamran Akmal as a specialist bat, taking a punt on dumb-as-doornail Umar Akmal, or handing it to Adnan Akmal just for the sake of including all three in this post, we're reliant upon Shafiq actually doing something, or the Ghost of Misbah-ul-Haq playing into his 90s.
Sri Lanka, contrary to the usual status in Burgey's rants, are quite well placed in this respect -- they've bothered to undertake some succession planning and have Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandiguns holding some leadership experience, and are doing some blooding of Thirrimane as well. Mathews has had time to learn from Sangakkara, Dilshan and Jayawardene in a team that probably wins the award for most capped ex-captains in one XI. But still, somehow they ended up with Lasith Malinga captaining their country in a World Cup. Absolute shambles.
New Zealand aren't looking too bad either, with Fleming --> Vettori --> Taylor --> McCullum --> Williamson a pretty strong order of captains. Admittedly the way in which Taylor was deposed was pretty mediocre, but one has to hand it to Hesson -- McCullum has been very, very good so far. We'll also end up with more hilarious tumblr fanfic in 5 years time with Captain Kane and VC 5outhee having some serious textual relations. Until Hesson gives the captaincy to a 39-year-old Luke Ronchi and everybody rage quits.
South Africa have this issue with either saddling players with too much to do at once, or throwing the captaincy to a youngster because the elder statesmen cbf doing it. Hashim Amla doesn't seem like a long term solution to me -- though I'm more than happy for the second greatest beard in modern cricket to prove me wrong -- and if I'm not mistaken, every provincial and SA-A side tend to be captained by domestic stalwarts who kinda suck at any higher level (cough Justin Ontong cough). ABdV may take over if they give de Kock the gloves, but then de Kock becomes the logical successor and the entire problem repeats itself. Blood captains domestically, you fools! Don't leave us to the terror of a Dean Elgar captaincy reign.
Bangladesh is a revolving door, so I expect Mushfiqr, Tamim and Shakib will trade the captaincy six times each before Nasir Hossain gets fed up with it, leads a coup with the support of Gazi Tank's veritable army of left arm orthodox spinners and Mominul Haque, leaving everyone scratching their heads asking "Nasir who? Why didn't we think of him in the first place? Where was he all this time? Racking up 40 Tests by batting at 8 and not bowling? What?"
The West Indies have just installed Denesh 'Hey Viv Talk Nah" Ramdin as captain. Sure, he's apparently quite good despite his tendency to be childish in the face of criticism, but the complete inability of anybody in the top 6 to do the job is a bit of a concern. One can see it going to WW's favourite son -- Kraigg Brathwaite -- way too early. He might to a Graeme Smith, but he might also do an Ian Craig. Not many options around the islands who are both capable of captaincy and getting selected on merit, which is basically why Darren Sammy hung on as long as he did.
To me, there doesn't seem to be a complete lack of talent. I don't think there's huge quality in depth, but you don't need a whole lot when it comes to captaincy tbh. There's just a thorough inability by so, so many nations to nurture future captains to actually get them ready to lead. South Africa is the case in point -- literally no succession plan to Graeme Smith, and they had over 10 years to work out what to do next. Whenever a captain retires or is sacked, there seems to be an "oh ****" moment every single time.
Anyone else similarly puzzled at where captaincy is going to go over the next few years, or am I just overreacting because of the horrendous possibility of Captain Forkers? I mean, you'd think there would be more concrete methods in place for nurturing leadership; captaining your country is a pretty big thing, and in these days of sports science and performance management, you don't want to be assigning the armband to your best player and hoping he isn't like KP in the role.
I mean, we're not exactly coming out of an era in which every international captain was a prodigy born to do the job, but we've had a handful of guys who at least looked like leadership candidates from young ages -- Graeme Smith and Michael Clarke being the obvious two.
And now we have James Faulkner and David Warner being touted as leadership options (though everyone knows that Smitteh will take the job and be Australia's best ever captain, but that's beside the point). And let's face it, apart from Smith, there aren't many strong candidates to do the job under the age of 35.
England looks similarly stuck -- if everybody's favourite quintessentially stodgy British opening bat suffers an injury or finally sucks enough to be deposed, the only temporary option is Matthew "my achilles is still broken" Prior. Once he's consigned to the scrap heap for Jos Buttler, the options become Joe Root, Stuart Broad and Ian Bell. I mean, really? The cupboard is so bare that Ian Bell, of all people, is in the debate? And Stuart Broad in charge of DRS -- could the imagine the hilarious horror?
India could also be in some trouble. Virat Kohli isn't exactly awe-inspiring as a leader, and may end up the next Tendulkar in that respect -- can bat, should be able to lead, but somehow conspires to completely such at it. Pujara might do a limited "**** you I'll lead from the front" job, but the remainder of the team has showed their leadership incompetence throughout the IPL. Dhawan was lolworthy, Rohit Sharma not much better. Ajinka Rahane was rated behind Shane Watson for captaincy at the Royals, so that immediately rules him out. I'm giving the armband to Wriddhiman Saha. WAFG he is.
Pakistan will eventually lose Misbah, which leaves who, exactly? Half of them are dumb as doornails, the remainder either old, likely to be dropped on a whim by selectors, or fast bowlers. Short of picking Kamran Akmal as a specialist bat, taking a punt on dumb-as-doornail Umar Akmal, or handing it to Adnan Akmal just for the sake of including all three in this post, we're reliant upon Shafiq actually doing something, or the Ghost of Misbah-ul-Haq playing into his 90s.
Sri Lanka, contrary to the usual status in Burgey's rants, are quite well placed in this respect -- they've bothered to undertake some succession planning and have Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandiguns holding some leadership experience, and are doing some blooding of Thirrimane as well. Mathews has had time to learn from Sangakkara, Dilshan and Jayawardene in a team that probably wins the award for most capped ex-captains in one XI. But still, somehow they ended up with Lasith Malinga captaining their country in a World Cup. Absolute shambles.
New Zealand aren't looking too bad either, with Fleming --> Vettori --> Taylor --> McCullum --> Williamson a pretty strong order of captains. Admittedly the way in which Taylor was deposed was pretty mediocre, but one has to hand it to Hesson -- McCullum has been very, very good so far. We'll also end up with more hilarious tumblr fanfic in 5 years time with Captain Kane and VC 5outhee having some serious textual relations. Until Hesson gives the captaincy to a 39-year-old Luke Ronchi and everybody rage quits.
South Africa have this issue with either saddling players with too much to do at once, or throwing the captaincy to a youngster because the elder statesmen cbf doing it. Hashim Amla doesn't seem like a long term solution to me -- though I'm more than happy for the second greatest beard in modern cricket to prove me wrong -- and if I'm not mistaken, every provincial and SA-A side tend to be captained by domestic stalwarts who kinda suck at any higher level (cough Justin Ontong cough). ABdV may take over if they give de Kock the gloves, but then de Kock becomes the logical successor and the entire problem repeats itself. Blood captains domestically, you fools! Don't leave us to the terror of a Dean Elgar captaincy reign.
Bangladesh is a revolving door, so I expect Mushfiqr, Tamim and Shakib will trade the captaincy six times each before Nasir Hossain gets fed up with it, leads a coup with the support of Gazi Tank's veritable army of left arm orthodox spinners and Mominul Haque, leaving everyone scratching their heads asking "Nasir who? Why didn't we think of him in the first place? Where was he all this time? Racking up 40 Tests by batting at 8 and not bowling? What?"
The West Indies have just installed Denesh 'Hey Viv Talk Nah" Ramdin as captain. Sure, he's apparently quite good despite his tendency to be childish in the face of criticism, but the complete inability of anybody in the top 6 to do the job is a bit of a concern. One can see it going to WW's favourite son -- Kraigg Brathwaite -- way too early. He might to a Graeme Smith, but he might also do an Ian Craig. Not many options around the islands who are both capable of captaincy and getting selected on merit, which is basically why Darren Sammy hung on as long as he did.
To me, there doesn't seem to be a complete lack of talent. I don't think there's huge quality in depth, but you don't need a whole lot when it comes to captaincy tbh. There's just a thorough inability by so, so many nations to nurture future captains to actually get them ready to lead. South Africa is the case in point -- literally no succession plan to Graeme Smith, and they had over 10 years to work out what to do next. Whenever a captain retires or is sacked, there seems to be an "oh ****" moment every single time.
Anyone else similarly puzzled at where captaincy is going to go over the next few years, or am I just overreacting because of the horrendous possibility of Captain Forkers? I mean, you'd think there would be more concrete methods in place for nurturing leadership; captaining your country is a pretty big thing, and in these days of sports science and performance management, you don't want to be assigning the armband to your best player and hoping he isn't like KP in the role.
