Worst Captain?

[Top_Cat]

McDermott spent the better part of his career(almost eight years) being an average bowler and Border had to take that for the most part.McDermott started to turn around during the last stages of Border's captaincy.So to attribute Border making his turn around doesn't make too much of sense....what did Border tell him that he didn't for almost nine years.He was the best Australia had got at that point.

It's not about what Border may have 'told' him but more about support. Before 1991, Craig McDermott was in and out of the team and didn't really recieve much support from Border or the selectors. He played his first Test in 1984 and only played 25 more before his tour of the West Indies in 1991 where he started to bowl really well. After that, he was up there with the best and this is probably because rather than putting him 2IC to Bruce Reid or Terry Alderman, they told him he was the man to lead the attack. that sort of confidence can lift you. Glenn McGrath in the WI in 1995 did the same thing. He wasn't bowling briiliantly before that point and wasn't considered a regular but with injuries to Damien Fleming and McDermott, he had to take over as the leader and did. From there the rest is history.

To me, India has so much bowling talent but needs someone to inspire confidence in them. Someone like Agarkar needs a little nurturing I think and especially Nehra. Plus, another guy like Srinath who can bang the ball in and scare out a few batsmen would be good too.

 

[marc71178]

I agree. Hussain's tactics leave a lot to be desired. As with most other mediocre captains, he doesn't back his own players enough. I mean, his quote with regards to picking two fast bowlers for Australia and not any "floating medium pacers" is atrocious. Gee, if Dom Cork thought he was on the outer before then, he's certainly left in no doubt now!

I thought that quote came from Graveney, the Chairman of Selectors, but I may be wrong.

 

[Anil]

Personally, I don't think anyone can deny that Ajit Agarkar is an exceptionally talented bowler.

Really!! On this forum, I have always maintained that Agarkar is pure crap and a big liability on an already poor attack. I still stand by that. Agarkar has been given more chances to come good than any other Indian bowler in the past 5 years, but he has muffed it time after time. Srinath at his peak could have been called an unlucky bowler cos even when he bowled well and beat the batsmen regularly, he was very rarely rewarded with a rich haul of wickets. Poor fielding & catching, quite likely unimaginative captaincy and pure bad luck had a lot to do with that. Not so with Agarkar. He had reaped a rich harvest in his first 60 odd one dayers and had a knack of taking wickets. Even then, he was never able to contain batsmen when they started dominating. Yet, he was valuable to the team cos of his wicket taking ability. Nowadays, his strike rate has diminished significantly and his wickets have a higher percentage of tail enders now and his r.p.o has increased(it's currently 5.10). Still, he is picking up wickets quite often and should stay in the team as long as he does that. That's as far as one dayers go. In tests, he just hasn't looked the part(except for the Australian series where he did a decent job) despite being given chance after chance. If you are saying Gangs hasn't been supporting Agarkar, you are quite off the mark. I think it's the opposite in Ajit's case. Gangs and other senior members of the team have given undue support to Agarkar especially in tests without anything to show for it by way of results. If you are talking about talent in the current Indian attack, Zaheer, Harb come to mind. Kumble does well in India and surprisingly did well in the England series as well. Nehra has a long way to go and Ajit really doesn't have any place to go but up. None of them except Harb and Kumble(at home) have been proven match winners at test level.

So, when you glibly say that the Indian attack is potentially great and it's totally Gangs' failure to tap it, I think you are way off the mark. The fact is that India has one of the weakest attacks in cricket and looks to the batting to bail it out almost every time they play abroad. The fact is that we had one great pace bowler in our history, Kapil. Srinath comes a distant second and then there is this deafening silence.

 

[marc71178]

I think Agarkar was at the centre of possibly my favourite post on Cricketweb so far (apart from the countless, OK 4, times I've proved Neil wrong)

That one about him becoming a true all-rounder will live in the memory for a LONG time!