Best ODI Captain

[aussiefan]

Who do you think is the best ODI captain as of now?

 

[Tim]

I guess people are going to say im bias, but Fleming has been top notch against Pakistan & South Africa recently.

 

[Mingster]

Tim, you aren't biast.

Fleming is the BEST.

 

[Craig]

Lara does a fanastic job with such limited resources and is the best man for the job.

Ponting has the adavtages of having some world class players at his disposel. But still they have to put the results on the board.

Fleming - a side lacking in world class players but is superbly lead. I need not explain anymore.

Ganguly - perhaps the best man for the job in perhaps the toughest job in world cricket. He has lead his side to a near Test series win over Australia and played a brillant innings in Brisbane in the first Test.

 

[AUST_HiTMaN]

Fleming always has some interesting ideas about the game.

He gets my vote, just for trying new things. (successfully and unsuccessfully :P)

 

[Tim]

Im getting tired of this argument that NZ are a team of nobodies who pull together.

NZ must be a better team than that if they can beat India 5-2, Pakistan 4-1 & South Africa 5-1 in their last 3 ODI series at home.
Certainly in a few years time I see NZ with a much larger number of individual stars than they've had previously anyway.

 

[Richard]

Ganguly is a master motivator whose tactical nous isn't especially brilliant.
Ponting has an easy job that IMO any fool could do.
Lara does a reasonable job but has always had a propensity to IMO over-experiment, and be sometimes too intellectual and too adventurous. His most bizarre decision ever has to be in his first spell when he denied Ambrose and Walsh the new-ball in the second-innings of a Test-match, tossing it instead to McLean and someone (can't be bothered with the scorecard, Liam will doubtless tell us who it was when he next reads this thread).
Fleming is a league ahead of every captain in ODI cricket ATM, a master tactician and a very good motivator to boot.
I sometimes think Fleming's brilliance must help turn substandard players into ones with better records than they IMO deserve.

 

[Craig]

I think Fleming will go down as one of the best captains ever. Certainly top 10.

 

[Richard]

Anyone know what the longest-serving term of captaincy in international cricket is, in terms of years and games-played?
Both Fleming and Graeme Smith could be on to break them, maybe?

 

[Eclipse]

Im getting tired of this argument that NZ are a team of nobodies who pull together.

NZ must be a better team than that if they can beat India 5-2, Pakistan 4-1 & South Africa 5-1 in their last 3 ODI series at home.
Certainly in a few years time I see NZ with a much larger number of individual stars than they've had previously anyway.

Well it's probably got to do with the fact they dont have any real star batsman with most of there players avraging high 20s to mid 30s.

New Zealand certainly have talented players just maybe not a real superstar. Shane Bond was looking like becoming one of the best bowlers in the world before his injury but sadly I doubt he will be quite as good when he comes back.

 

[tooextracool]

i think fleming is light years ahead of all the others in tests or odis. hes innovative,handles the press well and is very good at motivating his team. only a great captain could have led an "average" team to victory in the 2000 icc championship and to the semi finals of the 99 wc. however i must say that martin crowe was just a bit better than him as captain.

sure ponting has an easy job but i still think hes a good captain because hes done a better job than steve waugh(who in my opinion should never be considered a great captain). to go thro a wc undefeated says something about his captaincy considering they were in a big hole in some of their games.

lara shouldnt even be mentioned here

ganguly is ordinary in my opinion because he has a very talented side perhaps just as talented as the aussies, yet they doesnt seem to be able to beat them. hes not very innovative, some his field placings are just plain stupid,however there is no doubt that he is the choice as captain out of all the players available cause he does a great job with the press and his arrogant nature is certainly something that demands respect from his opposite number.

 

[Richard]

i think fleming is light years ahead of all the others in tests or odis. hes innovative,handles the press well and is very good at motivating his team. only a great captain could have led an "average" team to victory in the 2000 icc championship and to the semi finals of the 99 wc. however i must say that martin crowe was just a bit better than him as captain.

The side of 1999 most certainly was not an average side: Horne, Astle, McMillan, Fleming, Twose, Cairns, Parore, Harris, Nash, Larsen, Allott.
This was a very, very good side, especially in the bowling department.
The side of the 2000 ICC Knockout Trophy wasn't quite as good, but Twose was at the peak of his considerable one-day powers then. Plenty of the players from the previous year were still there, too.
It's a far cry from some of the nonenities around ATM.

 

[marc71178]

Im getting tired of this argument that NZ are a team of nobodies who pull together.

But the fact's are that they are a team of journeymen who pull together under a fine leader and play well beyond the sum of their parts.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

His most bizarre decision ever has to be in his first spell when he denied Ambrose and Walsh the new-ball in the second-innings of a Test-match, tossing it instead to McLean and someone (can't be bothered with the scorecard, Liam will doubtless tell us who it was when he next reads this thread).

Kenny Benjamin was the other bowler and I have little problem with that tactic. In fact, if the West Indies had exposed more young bowlers to the new ball instead of making then change to Ambrose and Walsh, we may not be in the bowling dilemna which we currently are.

 

[tooextracool]

The side of 1999 most certainly was not an average side: Horne, Astle, McMillan, Fleming, Twose, Cairns, Parore, Harris, Nash, Larsen, Allott.
This was a very, very good side, especially in the bowling department.
The side of the 2000 ICC Knockout Trophy wasn't quite as good, but Twose was at the peak of his considerable one-day powers then. Plenty of the players from the previous year were still there, too.
It's a far cry from some of the nonenities around ATM.

would u put players like horne,mcmillan, and an out of form fleming in the same league as sachin,dravid, and azhar?
yet nz got further than ind in the wc
harris and larsen are nothing greater than ordinary
parore was never really a world class batsman...or at least he under performed most of the time.
astle and twose will never be considered great batsmen and the only match winner in the side at the time was cairns

 

[Richard]

would u put players like horne,mcmillan, and an out of form fleming in the same league as sachin,dravid, and azhar?
yet nz got further than ind in the wc
harris and larsen are nothing greater than ordinary
parore was never really a world class batsman...or at least he under performed most of the time.
astle and twose will never be considered great batsmen and the only match winner in the side at the time was cairns

If you consider Harris and Larsen nothing greater than ordinary that explains the problem.
Larsen and Harris were both outstanding one-day bowlers. Far, far better than anything India have produced for a long, long time. Both had good tournaments, and Allott was even better.
Astle and Twose both have pretty good records, and Twose especially was one of the best one-day players in The World for a time, that World Cup inclusive.
Fleetingly I rated him up with Bevan, but of course it was only a temporary thing.
Horne, McMillan and the out-of-nick Fleming aren't in the same class as Ramesh, Ganguly, Dravid, Tendulkar, Azharruddin and Jadeja, of course not, but the fact that India's bowlers mostly had a poor tournament and New Zealand's performed up to their potential for the most part swung matters their way.
New Zealand's batting for the most part did enough to keep them in the contest, even if most were ultimately disappointing. Twose and Cairns were easily the best, but Cairns wasn't at his ultimate with the ball.

 

[Richard]

Kenny Benjamin was the other bowler and I have little problem with that tactic. In fact, if the West Indies had exposed more young bowlers to the new ball instead of making then change to Ambrose and Walsh, we may not be in the bowling dilemna which we currently are.

So you tell two of the best bowlers of the modern era that they're not allowed the new-ball for a few totally unproven (sometimes proven poor thus far, indeed) players.
IMO that would simply have made the problems occur sooner.
I think some problems have been caused by injury (King especially, but there have been others as you said) and others by the simple fact that wickets haven't offered enough bounce and seam. Plus the familiar problems in England; cricket's downgrading at youth level as other (American in this case) sports userp the place. This inevitably leads to any talented players being less likely to be discovered, and allied to the fact that the sequence starting with Hall couldn't go on forever. 30 years, indeed, is a remarkable span.

 

[aussiefan]

Boy

Stephen Fleming is miles ahead.

He too gets my vote

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

So you tell two of the best bowlers of the modern era that they're not allowed the new-ball for a few totally unproven (sometimes proven poor thus far, indeed) players.
IMO that would simply have made the problems occur sooner.

If you can back that up with an explanation I'd be very interested. The young bowlers these days don't know how to use the new ball and that's largely because they played second fiddle to Ambi and Walsh then were tossed into the limelight suddenly. Case in point, Merv Dillon.

I think some problems have been caused by injury (King especially, but there have been others as you said) and others by the simple fact that wickets haven't offered enough bounce and seam.

No doubt that these factors have also come into play, but that doesn't detract far from my point.

 

[BlackCap_Fan]

Well it's probably got to do with the fact they dont have any real star batsman with most of there players avraging high 20s to mid 30s.

New Zealand certainly have talented players just maybe not a real superstar. Shane Bond was looking like becoming one of the best bowlers in the world before his injury but sadly I doubt he will be quite as good when he comes back.

an average in the mid 30s for an NZ batsmen is good,because the pitches here aren't that great most (if not all)of the time.

A mid 30 average here is like a high 40 or low 50 average in india,and pakistan,etc (where there is good batting pitches)

edit:

astle and twose will never be considered great batsmen and the only match winner in the side at the time was cairns

you have no idea of what you are talking about.Twose was one of the greatest odi batsmen in the world at his peak,and Astle has more than 5000 odi runs,and for an NZ player to have that is amazing,what with the pitches.He also has 13 centuries and 30-something fifties.If this isn't enough to be considered a great batsman,then what is?

Allot was a match winner.Didn't he have the most wickets out of all the bowlers in that world cup or something?

and NZ played less matches then some of the other nations,because we were knocked out in the semis.

Maybe you should back up your statements.