I'd agree with that. Waugh is without question one of the most aggressive captains in cricket history (not that Viv was far behind - more parallels there), and there were times when his aggression got his team in a touch of strife. Sometimes their amazing talent was enough to dig them out of the hole, and sometimes it was not. The fact that he has the best win-loss ratio of any captain ever suggests that it paid off most of the time, of course.vic_orthdox said:
I don't think Australia will drop in anything like the way the West Indies did. The Windies began to decline slightly in the later part of the 80s, and in the early 90s were slipping, but the emergence of players like Ambrose and Lara kept them afloat until the mid 90s. People think of it as "75-95 dominance", but the West Indies went within a whisker of losing that epic series in 92/93 (one run from losing it, in fact), and certainly they would have been on shaky ground as a side by that time if it were not for one or two big names who came though. As time went by, the brittle nature of West Indies cricket aside from those few players became exposed, and I don't think Australia has that brittle background. Australia has a much more solid foundation of young players developing currently, and a much more stable domestic basis to remain competitive. The worst case scenario I can see for Australia in the post-2007 Ashes/WC era is a drop away from top spot to mid-pack, but they certainly won't be dismal failures at that time. More likely in my mind, and what I would predict to happen, is that after Australia lose at least McGrath, Warne and Gilly and probably another player or two (Martyn, Hayden, Langer, Kasprowicz are all getting on a bit) their hold on top spot will losen, but they will maintain it for a few more years in a similar fashion to what the Windies did after they started to decline. There's no evidence that Australia are slumping yet (and no, losing to Somerset is not evidence of such), so I'd expect Australia to remain number one until at least 2 or 3 years after the 2007 WC, and if their domestic talent lives up to potential they could well continue to dominate for some time.C_C said:
as i said, it's not purely the best captain...their performance as a player, and ability to use those capabilites to lead the team from the front also come into play.FaaipDeOiad said:
He certainly played his fair share of them. Not as many as Waugh of course, as Waugh was a much better batsman, but that can't be the only criteria or Brian Lara would be the best captain in the world today.deeps said:
FaaipDeOiad said:
