Best current international captain

[luckyeddie]

well i agree that its was a bit strabge that Ponting chose to bat looking at the ODI record at Cardiff, but since its Bangladesh i think he just didn't pay too much attention to what usually occurs againts Bangladesh. I am pretty sure if it were England he would have bowled first

A little thought reveals that it could, in fact, be quite brilliant captaincy (I phrased it the way I did to see if I could get a certain fish to rise to the bait - not our Norwegian buddy this time) - in other words, place Australia firmly behind the eight-ball to see how his side responds under pressure, to get them to re-discover the old habits which are so sadly lacking at the moment.

Then I think back to Steve Waugh and how he would have approached it and I come to the inevitable conclusion that Ponting just got it wrong on this occasion. Unprofessional, in my book. After all, it's the bowlers who need the practice, not the batters.

 

[aussie]

A little thought reveals that it could, in fact, be quite brilliant captaincy (I phrased it the way I did to see if I could get a certain fish to rise to the bait - not our Norwegian buddy this time) - in other words, place Australia firmly behind the eight-ball to see how his side responds under pressure, to get them to re-discover the old habits which are so sadly lacking at the moment.

Then I think back to Steve Waugh and how he would have approached it and I come to the inevitable conclusion that Ponting just got it wrong on this occasion. Unprofessional, in my book. After all, it's the bowlers who need the practice, not the batters.

yeah its fair to say that Ponting got it wrong today

 

[Jono]

Choosing to bat after winning the toss wasn't the only thing Ponting got wrong today. His captaincy whilst Aus were fielding was atrocious.

 

[aussie]

Choosing to bat after winning the toss wasn't the only thing Ponting got wrong today. His captaincy whilst Aus were fielding was atrocious.

Yep without doubt this is the worst job Ponting has done since he got the job 3 years ago

 

[King_Ponting]

C_C mate your a hypocritical f*cker and u still have yet to provide on peice of evidence explaining or proving why Ganguly is a beter captain than ponting. Scallywag and numerous other people have provided evidence proving ponting is a better captain than ganguly but u have provided none to prove the latter. Mate start showing some facts and stop talking sh*t. Your argument is just so sH*t cause u aint got any factual evidence to prove your argument. Dumb C*nt

 

[Neil Pickup]

C_C mate your a hypocritical f*cker and u still have yet to provide on peice of evidence explaining or proving why Ganguly is a beter captain than ponting. Scallywag and numerous other people have provided evidence proving ponting is a better captain than ganguly but u have provided none to prove the latter. Mate start showing some facts and stop talking sh*t. Your argument is just so sH*t cause u aint got any factual evidence to prove your argument. Dumb C*nt

One more outburst like that and you'll find yourself in possession of a seven-day ban if not longer,

 

[luckyeddie]

C_C mate your a hypocritical f*cker and u still have yet to provide on peice of evidence explaining or proving why Ganguly is a beter captain than ponting. Scallywag and numerous other people have provided evidence proving ponting is a better captain than ganguly but u have provided none to prove the latter. Mate start showing some facts and stop talking sh*t. Your argument is just so sH*t cause u aint got any factual evidence to prove your argument. Dumb C*nt

You've taken a very mature attitude - well done. I'd have thought that you would have been throwing your toys out of the pram by now, or at least your dummy.

I notice you didn't question my post about the moronic decision to bat (which was posted within the first 15 overs, if you wish to check the time-stamp). Why? Because it was true. Poor decision, poor captaincy and his hands-in-pockets approach on the field of play indicated that he either didn't care or didn't have a clue.

You choose.

 

[tooextracool]

Disagree.
You cannot get your players to perform to the best of their abilities - it has to come from inside the player.
This isnt mindcontrol or a boost in physical faculties - so how exactly are you going to make a player play 'better' ?
The reason for anyone to be picked captain is to maximise the impact of your players on field - which is setting the optimal field and rotating your bowlers astutely and to maintain team harmony/integrity off the field..

err no. the best captains- imran khan and steven fleming, have consistently got their players to perform to the best of their abilities often enough, simply by using motivational techniques and trying to give your players some confidence. take a look at flintoff for example, his record under hussain was quite mediocre, largely because hussain was far too critical and put too much pressure on him to perform. yet ever since vaughan took over the captaincy hes started to score freely and develop as a player.

Kumble has rarely performed outside India
His career average away from home stands at 37+. However, since Ganguly took over, his away performance stands at 31 or so. That is a marked improvement.

i was referring to his abilities at home, because india since the series against australia in 2001 have underperformed against most sides at home.
and its interesting that you talk up kumbles performances away from home, when in SA he averaged 48, in WI 58,and in england 36. his 2 good series came in australia where fortunately for him he found some turners and in pakistan, which doesnt really count as 'away from home' given the similarity in conditions.

Tendy,Dravid, etc. have always performed away from home..

dravid yes, but tendulkar? i think everyone knows that tendulkar has been underperforming for the last 2-3 years or so.

Laxman- well chalk that up to Ganguly or else Laxman would've been history by now, averaging a measely 31-32 as an opener.

oh and really, as though it wasnt glaringly obvious that laxman was failing as an opener?
when laxman made his comeback they already had ramesh and das, both of whom at the time looked like they might amount to something, so there was no real reason to put laxman at the top anyways.

Bhajji is still very young and is progressing nicely. For comparison, he aint in Murali-Warne class but at his age, he is bowling no worse than a 24 year old Warne-Murali...

which changes the fact that hes been underperforming away from home how exactly?

Sehwag- chalk that up to Ganguly as well. He was instrumental in getting Sehwag to open and Sehwag has exploded since he started opening..

because sehwag was such a miserable player in the middle order?

Again- you cannot MAKE a player play to the best of his ability.You mean to say that if a player loses form or hits a rough patch, we should chalk that up to the captain ?!??
All you can do really is optimise your options on field- something Ganguly does quiete well...

players cannot keep losing form as consistently as some of them have over the years. fact is that a good captain will manage to get certain players to step up when others are out of form. when you constantly underperform in a 4 year period, it cannot always be put down to 'poor form'

I disagree.
He set some very specific field for Gillchrist, Ponting, Kallis, etc. and it has worked pretty well at times.

yes so well that both kallis and ponting scored prolifically against them, and gilchrist kept got himself bowled 3 times in australia, which is hardly ever due to brilliant field placings. i certainly dont remember these specific fields, they were always the usual 3 slips and a gully rubbish that we see in test cricket all the time.

India were lacking both direction and bowling performances overseas in the 90s..
Now they have direction but apart from Kumble's improved performance overseas,.

or rather in one game on a turner in sydney.

there is nobody else- bunch of newbie pacers and bhajji yet to fire overseas.
In test cricket, its bowling that wins you matches and until IND bowlers perform overseas,they wont win much.

so teams like WI who dont even have 1 world class bowler and have an even worse batting lineup will continue to beat india at home?
and india will continue to draw against a second string pakistan side at home?

I havn't seen much of Vaughan, but from what i've seen, i dont find him particularly brilliant.
he is decent but he is behind Flemmo and Ganguly as far as i am concerned..

yes ganguly whos field placings have never worked
i recommend that you watch vaughan closely during the ashes then.

Fleming apart, Ganguly has accomplished the most in captaincy regards..
His on-field decisionmaking is good and he has been hugely responsible in several key players innovating themselves in new fashion and having a marked improvement in performance.
As per playing at their best, like i said, a captain is not the master of puppets...he cannot MAKE you play better......

oh hes 'achieved' so very much has he? the fact that you have to use 'on field decision making' as an 'achievement' especially when no one agrees with you on it is quite amazing. his results and team underperformance speak for themself. and if vaughan's side going undefeated in 2004 isnt a greater achievement than that then pray what is?
and as i said earlier, a captain can make you play better, if hes a good enough motivator and is capable of giving his player some confidence and advice after every game.

And what exactly has ponting achieved that Steve Waugh didn't ?
If you are gonna point towards the 'final frontier', bear in mind that Gilly was in charge there, not Punter.

are you serious? do you honestly believe that ponting had NOTHING to do with australia beating india? do you know how many months of planning goes into every series, especially one thats been described as 'the final frontier'?
seriously gilchrist was simply the on field puppet, he carried out all of pontings plans on the field. but it was ponting who had to raise the spirits and keep his team going before and during the series(at the end of every day).
as far as what ponting has achieved is concerned, how about australia's ODI record since ponting has taken over? and lets not forget that when he took over australia were in disarray, after suffering the humiliation of not making the final of their own triangular tournament(after god knows how many years). he then led them to a 5-1 trouncing of SA.
then he went through the world cup undefeated, again something that waugh never did and then not only won but whitewashed Sri Lanka at home.
im sorry the question is what has ponting not done(bar the recent game against b'desh)? because it seems that with such an aussie side whatever he achieves will be thrown out the window because he has no way to prove himself as a good captain with such a good side.

 

[C_C]

err no. the best captains- imran khan and steven fleming, have consistently got their players to perform to the best of their abilities often enough, simply by using motivational techniques and trying to give your players some confidence. take a look at flintoff for example, his record under hussain was quite mediocre, largely because hussain was far too critical and put too much pressure on him to perform. yet ever since vaughan took over the captaincy hes started to score freely and develop as a player.

And whether a player is improving or not has little to do with captaincy motivation and a LOT to do with the internal beleif/hard work of a player.
If captain had the ultimate ability in getting their players to consistently perform to the best of their abilities, then every captain would improve the performances of every player....not just a few here and there.

i was referring to his abilities at home, because india since the series against australia in 2001 have underperformed against most sides at home.
and its interesting that you talk up kumbles performances away from home, when in SA he averaged 48, in WI 58,and in england 36. his 2 good series came in australia where fortunately for him he found some turners and in pakistan, which doesnt really count as 'away from home' given the similarity in conditions.

Well if PAK shouldnt count as away from home situation for IND players, NZ shouldnt count as away from home for ENG players and RSA shouldnt count as away from home for OZ players...and vice versa.
Fact is, it is away from home and its alien conditions- simply because you are not used to those conditions while the opposition is.

dravid yes, but tendulkar? i think everyone knows that tendulkar has been underperforming for the last 2-3 years or so.

He may be underperforming for the last 2-3 years but the fact remains that he has performed consistently overseas all throughout his career.
Infact, apart from the hidious batting conditions in NZ last time around, Tendy hasnt failed much away from home even during his slump.

oh and really, as though it wasnt glaringly obvious that laxman was failing as an opener?
when laxman made his comeback they already had ramesh and das, both of whom at the time looked like they might amount to something, so there was no real reason to put laxman at the top anyways.

That argument can be made the same way against Vaughan - it didnt take a genius to figure out that Hussain was putting too much pressure on Flintoff and he needed the freedom to do better. Fact is, both captains in this regard - Vaughan and Ganguly for their respective players - redefined the role and got them to perform at stunningly higher level.
It would've been easy to discard Flintoff or Laxman- particularly Laxman...btu Ganguly chose to pressure the selectors for Laxman to move down the order instead of getting the chop.
And he deserves Kudos for that.
Same with Sehwag- he was averaging in mid 40s as a middle order bat- which is adequate. But Ganguly saw in him the potential for opening and pushed for Sehwag for opening, which made his performance skyrocket.

which changes the fact that hes been underperforming away from home how exactly?

it doesnt but it sure puts things in perspective.

players cannot keep losing form as consistently as some of them have over the years. fact is that a good captain will manage to get certain players to step up when others are out of form. when you constantly underperform in a 4 year period, it cannot always be put down to 'poor form'

Some players are shyte and underperform all the time.....but most players go through a 3-4 year funk, like they go through a 3-4 year high. Captaincy has little to do with it.
No captain has managed to get the best out of every player on a consistent basis but the good ones (and Ganguly is one of them) have managed to put the sum total in the positive column.

oh hes 'achieved' so very much has he? the fact that you have to use 'on field decision making' as an 'achievement' especially when no one agrees with you on it is quite amazing. his results and team underperformance speak for themself. and if vaughan's side going undefeated in 2004 isnt a greater achievement than that then pray what is?
and as i said earlier, a captain can make you play better, if hes a good enough motivator and is capable of giving his player some confidence and advice after every game

If good motivation and confidence means better performance form players, then a good captain would be able to get improved performances from every single player. But no one has an no one will - because at the end of the day, your performances are in your hands. As the saying goes, you can bring the horse to the stream but you cannot make him drink the water.

yes ganguly whos field placings have never worked
i recommend that you watch vaughan closely during the ashes then.

never worked ?
his field placings were a big thing in neutralising Gilly in 2001. His field placements dont always work but it doesnt for any captain - if you think that vaughan's field placements always work, you are talkin tripe.
But the fact is, contrasting to pre-ganguly and post ganguly, his field placements work more often than not.

are you serious? do you honestly believe that ponting had NOTHING to do with australia beating india? do you know how many months of planning goes into every series, especially one thats been described as 'the final frontier'?
seriously gilchrist was simply the on field puppet, he carried out all of pontings plans on the field. but it was ponting who had to raise the spirits and keep his team going before and during the series(at the end of every day).

It had little to do with pointing when it comes to decision-making on field. Decision-making on field is a real-time job and not a planned job, primarly because rarely does everything go according to plan. You have to think on your feet and Gilly didnt have the luxury to consult Ponting everytime a bowler was going for runs or failing to take a wicket- as such, HE had to make the decision on field and Punter's input mattered to little.

as far as what ponting has achieved is concerned, how about australia's ODI record since ponting has taken over? and lets not forget that when he took over australia were in disarray, after suffering the humiliation of not making the final of their own triangular tournament(after god knows how many years). he then led them to a 5-1 trouncing of SA.
then he went through the world cup undefeated, again something that waugh never did and then not only won but whitewashed Sri Lanka at home.
im sorry the question is what has ponting not done(bar the recent game against b'desh)? because it seems that with such an aussie side whatever he achieves will be thrown out the window because he has no way to prove himself as a good captain with such a good side.

That is irrelevant to a large degree. Australia came of its own because several key members improved their performances ( Gilly-Hayden), several maintained it ( McGrath-Bevan-Warne-Gillespie) and the new recruits filled in the shoes of the discards/retired ones pretty well.
Also, the competition has gotten lighter in the recent years, with RSA,PAK etc. comming down several notches in ODIs and the other teams being alsoran.
A captain's win-loss record is irrelevant to how good a captain is, because player performance always play a bigger role in match result than captaincy skills.
As such, i evaluate captains based on bowling changes and field placements on field and media/team-management off field and Ponting has done a decent job but nothing eye-catching to elavate him to Fleming-Ganguly status or overtake them.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Decision-making on field is a real-time job and not a planned job, primarly because rarely does everything go according to plan

I guess the thing is that the plans were adhered to so well in India that there needed to be little deviation from them. And off field planning is hardly the sole responsibility of the captain - if anything, it's the bowlers who will know what batsmen's respective weaknesses are than anyone else. I guess the captain has the final decision about whether to implement what the bowler wants, but still.

 

[King_Ponting]

Just to let everyone know Ganguly was captaining the indian team when they too lost to bangladesh............

 

[King_Ponting]

One more outburst like that and you'll find yourself in possession of a seven-day ban if not longer,

Yeh sorry mate... i'll try and bite my tongue in future

 

[vic_orthdox]

Just to let everyone know Ganguly was captaining the indian team when they too lost to bangladesh............

It's not so much the fact that Ponting was captain, more about the manner in which he captained.

 

[luckyeddie]

It's not so much the fact that Ponting was captain, more about the manner in which he captained.

I've had plenty of fun at his expense over the last 24 hours, but today's another day.

I'm not going to bang away like a, er, necessarium door in a gale.

<quack> Yeah, right

 

[aussie]

One more outburst like that and you'll find yourself in possession of a seven-day ban if not longer,

 

[luckyeddie]

It's not so much the fact that Ponting was captain, more about the manner in which he captained.

Can I start questioning his batting technique too?

 

[aussie]

Yeh sorry mate... i'll try and bite my tongue in future

yeah mate you better be

 

[Jono]

Ponting buggers up again. Gives Lewis some free singles today, and allows Pietersen to annihilate his bowlers for boundary after boundary with a few sixes on top of that. Two days in a row Ponting.

Hey Scallywag where are you son?

 

[luckyeddie]

Ponting buggers up again. Gives Lewis some free singles today, and allows Pietersen to annihilate his bowlers for boundary after boundary with a few sixes on top of that. Two days in a row Ponting.

Hey Scallywag where are you son?

Now then...

You won't find me taking the rise out of him (it's all in fun anyway) - well, not for the next few days. CW will be a LE/DD-free zone until next friday night UK time - back to Paddyland for me tomorrow, so Scallywag won't have me to put up with for a few days.

P.S. Scallywag, all you have to do is admit that he's not Superman, and that anyone can make mistakes. The big question is - can he learn from them? I hope so - but not for a while yet.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Can I start questioning his batting technique too?

If Ponting's technique needs questioning (perhaps excluding the way he plays spin on certain wickets), then a hell of a lot of other people need looking at first. Ponting is one of the best players of quality pace bowling in the world, simple as that.

Having said that, he's played two pretty poor shots to get out so far in the NWS.