Best current international captain

[shaka]

Ponting's captaincy must be coming under a bit of pressure now that they have 2 ODI defeats in a row on this tour.

 

[vic_orthdox]

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

I think that's the point that LE is making, especially considering that the dismissals were virtually identical.

 

[marc71178]

Ponting's captaincy must be coming under a bit of pressure now that they have 2 ODI defeats in a row on this tour.

It's all part of his master plan, the great captain that he is!

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

I think that's the point that LE is making, especially considering that the dismissals were virtually identical.

Getting out in the same way twice hardly indicates a significant technical flaw though. I'm sure Sobers and Bradman got caught behind off outswingers or something a couple of times as well.

 

[Top_Cat]

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

Harsh, very harsh. Ponting's first dismissal was a straight one which was at least pitched relatively well but that second one was a 92mph (around 150km/h) in-swinging yorker. Now, great player of pace bowling or not, that's a nightmare ball to get first up especially as captain with the pressure he's under and confidence probably a bit low overall. Ponting did fall across a bit in both of his dismissals but geez, to say it was poorly played is a bit harsh on the first one but totally unfair on the second one.

 

[Pedro Delgado]

Harsh, very harsh. Ponting's first dismissal was a straight one which was at least pitched relatively well but that second one was a 92mph (around 150km/h) in-swinging yorker. Now, great player of pace bowling or not, that's a nightmare ball to get first up especially as captain with the pressure he's under and confidence probably a bit low overall. Ponting did fall across a bit in both of his dismissals but geez, to say it was poorly played is a bit harsh on the first one but totally unfair on the second one.

Quite, credit to the bowler there. All batsmen have weaknesses though, and greater judges than I have commented that Ponting is susceptible to the LBW early doors. His average and stats though, suggests that it hasn't been a huge hindrence to his career to date.

 

[Top_Cat]

Quite, credit to the bowler there. All batsmen have weaknesses though, and greater judges than I have commented that Ponting is susceptible to the LBW early doors. His average and stats though, suggests that it hasn't been a huge hindrence to his career to date.

I certainly don't disagree that Ponting has a bit of a thing with the deliveries moving into him early on in his innings (been a slight weakness for some time now) but Ponting in form and on 100* would have at least struggled to even keep that ball out I reckon. Considering most of Harmi's deliveries to that point had been at the ribscages of the batsmen, it was particularly well-planned. Genuinely good and quick fast bowling has been a rarity of late so it was good to see Harmi bowl so very well.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Harsh, very harsh. Ponting's first dismissal was a straight one which was at least pitched relatively well but that second one was a 92mph (around 150km/h) in-swinging yorker. Now, great player of pace bowling or not, that's a nightmare ball to get first up especially as captain with the pressure he's under and confidence probably a bit low overall. Ponting did fall across a bit in both of his dismissals but geez, to say it was poorly played is a bit harsh on the first one but totally unfair on the second one.

Oh, it was a very good ball, but the way Ponting heaved across the line at it didn't exactly fill me with confidence. Surely you don't think he played it well, good ball or not.

 

[Top_Cat]

Oh, it was a very good ball, but the way Ponting heaved across the line at it didn't exactly fill me with confidence. Surely you don't think he played it well, good ball or not.

I didn't see a heave; I saw a guy who barely saw it shuffle across a bit and then desperately try to get his bat in front of it before it thudded into his pad. It was such a good ball, it made one of the best batsmen against pace bowling in the world look bad.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

I didn't see a heave; I saw a guy who barely saw it shuffle across a bit and then desperately try to get his bat in front of it before it thudded into his pad. It was such a good ball, it made one of the best batsmen against pace bowling in the world look bad.

Well, it looked to me like he shuffled over and tried to hit it away on the leg side and just missed it. It was a good ball, but I don't think Ponting played it very well at all.

Anyway, I think we're in agreement that the issue with Ponting's two dismissals is not a significant technical flaw.

 

[aussie]

Ponting's captaincy must be coming under a bit of pressure now that they have 2 ODI defeats in a row on this tour.

just 2 defeats come on , he will have to lose everything for the selectors to begin thinking along that road

 

[Sylvester]

Ponting needs to be more agressive, Aus game isnt based on defence. Theres only two ways ponting will be dropped form or as you said he loses everything.

 

[marc71178]

just 2 defeats come on , he will have to lose everything for the selectors to begin thinking along that road

4 defeats in a row, and you can bet your bottom dollar that had they won the Twenty20 it wouldn't have been discussed in the terms it was.

 

[aussie]

4 defeats in a row, and you can bet your bottom dollar that had they won the Twenty20 it wouldn't have been discussed in the terms it was.

4 tour defeats but i'm looking mainly at the international games and i agree with your comment their but you must also agree that no one expected such a poor start for Australia on tour.

By the way you are up pretty late

 

[marc71178]

Even if you're only looking at internationals there's been 3, and no I wasn't.

 

[luckyeddie]

Getting out in the same way twice hardly indicates a significant technical flaw though. I'm sure Sobers and Bradman got caught behind off outswingers or something a couple of times as well.

IT WAS A JOKE, PEOPLE!!!

<quack> Best thing they ever did, LE, stitching the stupid ones up for stealing loaves of bread and sheep, then shipping the lot of them off to Australia.

Dead right, DD. Unfortunately, how was anyone to know that they would work out how to breed?

<quack> LE, I've installed the new sound card and microphone.

 

[tooextracool]

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..

err what?
there are obviously some captains who are far more respected by their team than others. just like for example players like langer were prepared to go through a brick wall for steve waugh. fact is that good captains with excellent motivational skills and constant encouragement get the best out of their players, while others who are simply too arrogant or commanding wont manage to get the best out of their players.

Well if PAK shouldnt count as away from home situation for IND players, NZ shouldnt count as away from home for ENG players..

yea and your point is?

and RSA shouldnt count as away from home for OZ players...and vice versa...

i dont know how much cricket you watch, but if yu've been watching any cricket of late, you'd know that australian and SA conditions arent the same.

Fact is, it is away from home and its alien conditions- simply because you are not used to those conditions while the opposition is....

how in the blue hell are you not used to similar weather and pitch conditions?

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. ....

how in the world does his overall career have anything to do with ganguly's captaincy?
and only a fool would consider his performances in australia as successful(where he had about 1 good test) or even his career at home and in pakistan since.

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.....

how in the world is it the same thing? laxman was dropped, and he performed better than everyone else in domestic cricket and earned his place back in the side, not because of any brilliance on ganguly's part.
and my point about flintoff was to suggest that some captains can affect performance by being over critical, so its quite possible that players can play poorly because of poor captaincy.

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......

yes especially given that hed played about 7 innings in the middle order and averaged 47. like it or not you cant prove to me that sehwag would have been worse in the middle order.

it doesnt but it sure puts things in perspective.......

or its more likely an excuse for his performances away from home.

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 yes such a positive column that they've still been struggling abroad, and in fact have been struggling at home.

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..

why?
like it or not the captain can only improve the performance of a player to make him play to the best he can. its not possibly to make someone like hauritz bowl like shane warne, because hes simply not capable of it.

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..

it is by and large, but you can generally get several players of your side to perform more as a team and to their best of their ability. much like hussain got england to perform brilliantly in the subcontinent.

never worked ?
his field placings were a big thing in neutralising Gilly in 2001...

so getting him lbw 4 times out of 5(the 5th being the 100) had to do with field placings?
like it or not the reason gilchrist played poorly in india is because he isnt very good against spin to start off with, and harbhajan bowled fairly well.

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....

rubbish, i havent seen a single occasion where hes done something out of the ordinary and managed to get it to work. nor have i seen him set better fields than someone else before him.

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.....

decision making on the field is only about 20% of captaincy. the rest involves setting plans, encouraging, motivating your players etc. ponting was in charge of the other 80%. i can assure you that every field that was set for the batsman as soon as he came to the crease was ponting's plan.

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..

conveniently forgetting that the captain is involved in getting his players to perform better. and its the captain that by and large makes it easier for someone new like clarke to adjust to the test match arena.

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..

err he faced SA immediately after the vb series in 01/02, which was also when he first took over the captaincy.

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..

a win-loss record is not irrelevant, otherwise only a fool would sack a captain when the team is not performing to expectations. fact is that player performance is impacted by captaincy skills, but because the common viewer knows nothing about what happens behind the scenes, they tend to think that captaincy is only what happens on the field.

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.

and ganguly has been by and large rubbish too. and to say that his field placings and/or bowling changes are eye catching would be seriously flattering him.

 

[tooextracool]

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.

its not a serious problem but it is a chink in his armour, gough in 2001 caused him severe problems for the first few games, as did vaas recently. even agarkar had him plumb lbw very early on in his inning at adelaide. its something that he needs to work on to make himself better, and its something that causes him sever problems when hes going through a slump.

 

[Swervy]

I have got to say I missed where CC said that Ponting has yet to lift his captaincy to the level of ganguly/fleming.

Wow!!! I still consider Ganguly to be a god awful captain on the field of play

 

[C_C]

there are obviously some captains who are far more respected by their team than others. just like for example players like langer were prepared to go through a brick wall for steve waugh. fact is that good captains with excellent motivational skills and constant encouragement get the best out of their players, while others who are simply too arrogant or commanding wont manage to get the best out of their players.

Irrelevant.
You claim that a good captain definately improves the performance of his players.
I claim that ultimately, the performance is in the hands of the players.
If your claim is correct, then logic dictates that every single player improved their performance after the said captain took over.

Are you sure that you cannot find a SINGLE player who's performance deteriorated under a said captain, nomatter how good he is/was ?

how in the blue hell are you not used to similar weather and pitch conditions?

Because :

1. Weather and pitch conditions are not THAT similar- particularly pitch conditions.
Pitches in IND/PAK/SL are no more similar than Saffie pitches are to Caribbean pitches.

2. The psychological disadvantage playing away from home remains the same.

how in the world does his overall career have anything to do with ganguly's captaincy?
and only a fool would consider his performances in australia as successful(where he had about 1 good test) or even his career at home and in pakistan since.

His overall career is very relevant to Ganguly's captaincy- it determines if captain has an impact on a player's form or not.
In Tendulkar's case, it has been almost constant since Ganguly took over - his 'worst' overseas asignment was NZ, where every single batsman struggled and batting conditions were attrocious. Otherwise, he did pretty decently/awesome in most of the overseas series.

how in the world is it the same thing? laxman was dropped, and he performed better than everyone else in domestic cricket and earned his place back in the side, not because of any brilliance on ganguly's part.

For one, Laxman was not dropped.
He got injured for the NZ series and if you ASK Laxman himself ( something i've done), you'd find that it was Ganguly's idea for Laxman to give up opening and gun for the middle order spot.
Ganguly asked him to take some time off and concentrate batting in the middle order for Hyderabad and then asked the selectors to pick him for the middle order.

and my point about flintoff was to suggest that some captains can affect performance by being over critical, so its quite possible that players can play poorly because of poor captaincy.

And my point is, ULTIMATELY, how the player performs is dependent on the player ihmself and not the captain.

yes especially given that hed played about 7 innings in the middle order and averaged 47. like it or not you cant prove to me that sehwag would have been worse in the middle order.

Like it or not, it is a FACT that Sehwag's performance has improved astronomically ( a 57 ave. opposed to 47 ave. is astronomical in my books) since Ganguly openly pushed for his opening and it is a prime example of a captain realising where the maximum potential for a player lies.

or its more likely an excuse for his performances away from home.

What excuse ?
India's performance has improved overseas under Ganguly- that is a fact.
India's performance overseas has been traditionally hampered by the lack of performance by their bowlers - again,that is a fact.

oh yes such a positive column that they've still been struggling abroad, and in fact have been struggling at home.

India's performance away from home has improved significantly under Ganguly than his predecessor. That is a fact.

why?
like it or not the captain can only improve the performance of a player to make him play to the best he can. its not possibly to make someone like hauritz bowl like shane warne, because hes simply not capable of it.

Read carefully. Nobody said anything about turning Hauritz into Warne.
You claim that a captain can directly improve the performance of a player.
I claim that regardless of how good/bad a captain is, the ultimate responsibility of a player's performance is the player himself.
If your claim is true, you'd find that a good captain improves the performance of ALL players under him ( improves relatively - ie, a hauritz doesnt turn into a Warne but a better Hauritz- average improves slightly/significantly, etc.)
However, upon checking facts, you will find that it is not true.
EVERY CAPTAIN has had to deal with players who's performance has deteriorated under his captaincy - nomatter who the captain is, that is universally true.
Which indicates that the player's performance is not in the captain's hands. You cannot motivate 7 players and 'unmotivate' 4 others....
A captain can INFLUENCE/COAX the players to pick up their performances but whether they respond or not depends on the players themselves.
A good captain is one who improves the performance of players OVERALL under his watch.
Ganguly has done that - very few players have regressed under him and a higher number of them have progressed under him.
Which is consistent with every good captain.

so getting him lbw 4 times out of 5(the 5th being the 100) had to do with field placings?

Gillchrist likes to play on front foot to spinners.
He played mostly backfoot to Harbhajan that series. If you want to know why, look at two things- the field placements Ganguly had and the length Harbhajan bowled.

rubbish, i havent seen a single occasion where hes done something out of the ordinary and managed to get it to work. nor have i seen him set better fields than someone else before him.

And i call your above statement to be rubbish.

decision making on the field is only about 20% of captaincy. the rest involves setting plans, encouraging, motivating your players etc. ponting was in charge of the other 80%. i can assure you that every field that was set for the batsman as soon as he came to the crease was ponting's plan.

Actually most of the planning for the batsmen is done by the coach.
Regardless, the standard plan is made by the management - ie, for eg, 'when Gilly comes on to bat, bring on the spinners early/ when Ganguly comes on to bat, give ihm a few rib ticklers'.
If the standard plan fails, then the changes are made according to the situation and progress of the game at hand. Something that has to be done real time, not by plan.
Cricket is an unpredictable game, which therefore implies that decisionmaking in cricket is largely 'make it as you go' routine.
Besides, in the rest 80% of the captaincy barometer, Ganguly outshines practically everybody but Flemmo in today's field.

conveniently forgetting that the captain is involved in getting his players to perform better. and its the captain that by and large makes it easier for someone new like clarke to adjust to the test match arena.

Is that why Clarke's test average is steadily heading south ?
Captain is one of the many factors that determines the player's performance and that too, a minor one. The governing principle is the skills and motivation posessed by the player individually.
As such, the primary reason for success/failure of a player is the skills and motivation aspect.
Not captaincy.
With that in mind, i dont see how you can draw the conclusion " if a player is playing poorly it is captain's fault".

err he faced SA immediately after the vb series in 01/02, which was also when he first took over the captaincy.

He was decent that series but not outstanding. Like i said, i havnt seen outstanding captaincy from Ponting on-field and i've seen nothing to rate him in the same bracket as Fleming/Ganguly.

a win-loss record is not irrelevant, otherwise only a fool would sack a captain when the team is not performing to expectations. fact is that player performance is impacted by captaincy skills, but because the common viewer knows nothing about what happens behind the scenes, they tend to think that captaincy is only what happens on the field.

Most of the sacking is scapegoating- Steve Waugh in ODIs is a point.
And like i said, a win-loss record is irrelevant - otherwise, a donkey captaining australia is a better captain than Flemmo captaining CW grannies XI.

and ganguly has been by and large rubbish too. and to say that his field placings and/or bowling changes are eye catching would be seriously flattering him.

I disagree.
He is pretty decent on field where i would rate him in the top 4-something where Ponting compares well. But off field, Ganguly blows away Ponting really-he blows away practically everybody off field. But since Flemmo is a considerably superior captain ( to any i might add) on-field and very good off field, he wins overall.