Captaincy, and what to make of it...
Edited 15th March, 2023
"My time as captain is done, this is Patty’s team now." Steve Smith, from the post-match presser after captaining Australia to victory in Indore
Pat Cummins had previously presided over two equally close thumpings at the hands of India’s spinners. Much had gone according to plan, but when it didn't, it unravelled at a rate of knots rarely seen in Test cricket. It’s now referred to as “fast-forward cricket.”
Before we go any further, can I share Pat Cummins Test captaincy record to date?
15 Tests, eight wins, three losses (one loss before this series), and four draws represent a 53.33 win percentage compared to Tim Paine's 47.82 and Steve Smith's 56.75 before him—interesting to note, Smith has a 100% win percentage as a stand-in captain.
Caring for children is much easier knowing you can give them back!
True, the Australian men's cricket team was kicked from pillar to post following their egregiously poor performance in Delhi. So condemning themselves to an unbridgeable 2-0 series scoreline. The Border-Gavaskar Trophy vanished like a stray needle in a stack of hay. Australia being swept aside by the same brooms they used so injudiciously in their second innings Delhi batting madness.
From my viewpoint, it was more a case of "what might have been"; for many others, it was simply not good enough. The cries of not being hard enough, tough enough, or, dare I say, too woke, were a ringing chorus amongst most Republican Australian cricket fans. To me, this was completely unjust.
The hiatus that bridged the second and third Tests felt unusually long. So much so that several of the Australian touring party returned home. The most noticeable being captain Pat Cummins. At the time, family reasons were cited, but we now know it was more serious than that, and in fact, Cummins had been carrying the weight of his mother’s condition throughout the Delhi Test.
Behind the coming and going, there had to be much soul-searching amongst Australia’s think tank, perhaps some questioning of preparation and plans leading into this eagerly awaited series. To their credit, Australia’s leaders chose to bunker down, remain true to the course they had carefully charted, and, as all successful teams do, galvanise against the criticism.
Australia went to Indore with a surrogate captain and a more evenly balanced team, and they ran the tables on their petulant hosts. Without warning, Indore’s wicket was regarded as substandard by the hosts; the BCCI track-suited pitch consultants had overcooked the bloody chook!
In summary, Nathan Lyon was outstanding, Usman Khawaja enabled a decent first innings lead, and Steve Smith played the captaincy like a chess grandmaster. He was simply outstanding, never missing a move.
To digress momentarily, cricket captaincy is a complex study, one I have spent fruitless hours attempting to explain to my North American friends the influence a cricket captain can have on a match.
Broad-stroking, captaincy in American sports is little more than a badge of honour; the reins are nearly always held by the coaches.
While attempting to analyse captaincy (cricket) talent, an all-too-common scenario connects leadership potential with consistently strong individual performances. Professional sport is littered with such examples. And cricket is no stranger to this.
In 1980, Ian Botham, England’s most decorated player of the modern era, succeeded Mike Brearley as England’s captain. Botham was at the peak of his playing powers; Brearley had exhausted his inability to consistently contribute to his team’s batting, which outweighed his much-vaunted tactical acumen.
Now, 40 years later, Brearley is, and has been, widely regarded as one of England’s finest captains. His record shows: 31 Tests, 18 wins, nine draws, and only four losses. A 58.06 win percentage. Contrary to Botham, whose captaincy record was: 12 Tests, zero wins, eight draws, and four losses, needless to say, not the best win percentage!
After Botham relinquished the captaincy during the 1981 Ashes series in England, it was Brearley who was reinstated. The leadership cupboard was bare, so predictably England went back to a tried and tested formula.
With the captaincy shackles removed, Botham went on an absolute tear, culminating in the historic Headingley Test, where he brought England back from the dead with a rollicking 149 not out in their second innings. So, setting the stage for Bob Willis to run through Australia in a turn-around of epic consequence. The only consoling note for the Australians was an unexpected payout from Ladbrokes, providing them with some sorrow-drowning beer money.
Put eloquently by The Guardian’s Matthew Engel.
"Botham and, latterly, Graham Dilley batted in an Ohfuckit mode."
Engel also tellingly penned this:
“Thirteen months earlier, with no thoughtful, well-mannered, Varsity-educated contenders in sight, the England selectors took a deep breath and made their star player Botham captain at 24, succeeding Brearley who, rising 40, was keen to exercise different parts of his giant brain. It was a hospital pass, since the next two series were against the fearsome West Indies pace battery.”
Intuitively, we should know and understand that connecting individual talent with leadership potential is incorrect. However, in one form or another, leadership selection panels tend to gravitate towards it, now and in Botham’s era.
Mike Atherton was born to captain England; that’s how it seemed growing up next to him in Manchester. I’m not sure who initially planted the seed; it might have been his masters at Manchester Grammar School or James Gledhill, the father figure of Lancashire U-19 cricket. It certainly wasn’t a self-anointed prophecy; Athers was as quiet and unassuming as you could be.
Not long after he arrived at Lancashire CCC, he was presented with the nickname FEC—an acronym for the obvious "Future England Captain." I believe Graeme Fowler and Paul Allott were the architects.
Anyone who knows "Foxy Fowler" will understand there has to be more to FEC than the obvious. He and "Walter Allott" had the press on the hook for months; there wasn’t a match report without reference to FEC and how long it would be before it became a reality.
So, when the true meaning finally surfaced, it was the gullible scribes who had dragged the chain. FEC was indeed a double agent; the acronym used in the Lancashire dressing room was "Fucking Educated C#$t"—apologies for the Manchester speak.
Of course, Mike Atherton captained England; it was as inevitable as death and taxes.
He realised this as a 25-year-old, all fresh-faced and devoid of worry. His head had either been buried in books at Cambridge or perfectly positioned over effortless cover drives at Fenners and Old Trafford. 54 Tests later, he was a shadow of his former self. Captaincy had its way with even this most gifted of candidates.
There’s no doubting cricket captaincy is a bloody tough job, one that, in my opinion, is continually overplayed and can be misappropriated.
So, as we speak, Steve Smith, who is captaining again in Pat Cummins absence, has ticked the first box: winning the toss and batting in Ahmedabad (although the three previous toss-winners ended up losing!). And the Australians enjoyed a more normal day of Test cricket—apart from the pre-game trumpeting.
And, for now, I’m going to maintain that captaincy is easier when you can give it back, similar to choosing grandchildren over your own. Both Cummins and Smith are men of integrity.
