Captaincy

	Andrew Strauss: undemonstrative on the field, but he gets the job done © Getty Images Enlarge
Related Links Saad Shafqat : The new, cautious face of Pakistan cricket Players/Officials: Misbah-ul-Haq | Andrew Strauss Teams: England | Pakistan

Ed Smith in Cricinfo 15/02/2012

A few years ago, I played in a charity match with an Australian cricketer. He was captain for the day and casually told the fielders to just "spread out". As we walked off at the end, after a laidback game, he said (at least half-seriously): "How can Tugga [Steve Waugh] get paid so much extra money just for doing that?" 

The view that captaincy is easy - perhaps even irrelevant - is not uncommon. Professional sport is a macho culture that prefers to deal in physical realities rather than abstract concepts. That bowler is quick, that batsman is powerful, that fielder is fast - as skills, they are all easy to admire. Leadership, in contrast, is an elusive thing to identify. That captain is shrewd, that one is subtle, that one encourages the players around him to be themselves - sportsmen are not trained to recognise or celebrate those gifts.

But the evidence is overwhelming: leadership matters. Look at the turnaround in Pakistan cricket. Two years ago I was at Lord's on the Saturday before the News of the World published their scoop about spot-fixing. Pakistan were not merely losing, they were broken. When Salman Butt was bowled, he initially stood his ground, as though he was waiting for some outside intervention that allowed him to have another go. When Mohammad Yousuf was caught on the boundary, hooking, he too stood still in disbelief. It was sad to watch.

Now, under the captaincy of 37-year-old Misbah-ul-Haq, Pakistan are revived and victorious - and able to beat the world's top Test team 3-0. It is a powerful riposte to the critics who argue that no one should be selected as captain if he isn't an automatic choice as a player. In fact, the best team is simply the 11 players who produce the most effective cricket. If the presence of a good captain improves the team by a greater margin than the advantage gained by picking a slightly superior player, then it is obviously rational to select the superior captain. The best XI is the most effective team: end of story.

The next question is much harder to answer: what makes a good captain?

It is easy to fall back on familiar clichés: "the natural captain", "the leader of men", "the alpha male". But it is striking how many effective captains do not fit that mould. Take Andrew Strauss. When Strauss was appointed England captain in 2008, several English cricket legends criticised the appointment because he "wasn't a natural captain". What did they mean? They meant that Strauss is unshowy and undemonstrative on the field. Off the field, he is not the biggest, loudest man at the bar. Tactically he doesn't go in for flashy, "original" field-placement. In press conferences he avoids controversy. In short, he is isn't Mr Obvious or Mr Born to Lead. Strauss - we now know - has gone on to win two Ashes series as captain.

The whole business of captaincy is misunderstood. It tends to be thought of as a list of qualities, a set of boxes to tick - as though a good captain has to be x, y and z. In fact, all captains are different. Perhaps the only essential characteristic for any captain is the one that cannot be taught or emulated: he must be himself.

Instead, pundits look for qualities they recognise in themselves and assume that's what makes a good leader. When I was appointed captain of Middlesex, a senior figure at the club asked me what "kind of captain" I was going to be, as though I had a list of adjectives up my sleeve. When I asked what he meant, he said, "You know, are you going to be a strong captain?" I replied that I'd have to be seriously stupid if I announced at the outset that I wanted to be a weak captain.

We have captaincy in the wrong box. We should not think of captaincy - or leadership in general - as a characteristic or even a quality. Instead, it is an effect. If the captain has a positive effect on the group then he is leading effectively. That doesn't sound like much. But it is, of course, mighty difficult.

	Off-field stability, good management and strong relationships at the heart of the team are infinitely more important than moving silly mid-off half a yard to the left

Captains are always being judged, but most of the analysis focuses on largely irrelevant side issues. During the deciding Test against Australia at The Oval in 2009 - it turned out to be the very day that the Ashes turned in England's favour - I bumped into a former England player who has become a leading voice in the media. "What a stupid mistake of Strauss', not using the heavy roller!" he began. "Schoolboy error! You just can't make mistakes like that!" I was surprised at the vehemence of the reaction. Despite many years as an opening batsman, it was often unclear to me when to use the heavy roller, or indeed if the decision was worthy of much analysis or energy.

Many "talking points" about captaincy are complete red herrings. Should he have a third man? Why is gully standing so deep? These "controversies" are often just convenient distractions to fill the airwaves and newspaper columns. Yes, very occasionally an inspired field placing can strangle a batsman, or a shrewd bowling change can lead to a wicket. But much more often we read far too much into surface decision-making, and radically underestimate the underlying foundations that lead to success: off-field stability, good management and strong relationships at the heart of the team. They are infinitely more important than moving silly mid-off half a yard to the left.

Captaincy is both overrated and underrated. It is overrated because people expect too much of it in the short term. Very few losing teams can be galvanised by a single stirring team-talk. "Gee them up!" is the commonest (and stupidest) advice given to captains.

But captaincy is underestimated over the long term. Losing teams often think that they should change the captain every five minutes "until the right person emerges". Quite the opposite happens: the latest captain merely takes over an unsteady ship. In contrast, successful teams quickly forget their debt to their captain, imagining that they would be just as good - or better - if they axed him. When you're winning, it's easy to underestimate the culture that helped you to win.

When it comes to leadership, cricket teams should remember a line from Bob Dylan: "No matter what you think about, you just won't be able to do without it."

Be strong, be different

Pritish Nandy
30 October 2011, 02:59 PM IST

 

I like Dhoni. He is a no nonsense guy and, like Kapil Dev and Saurav Ganguly before him, a fine leader of men. He is as dignified in defeat as in victory. He was unfazed when England ignominiously crushed us recently, and the Indian team (fresh from winning the World Cup) became the butt of all jokes. He came back and led India to a spectacular 5-0 win in the one-day series against the same England, just to prove cricket isn’t only about winning. It’s a game where defeat teaches you your best lessons so that you can go back and beat the hell out of your tormenters.

But what I like most about Dhoni are two other things. One: He speaks little and always to the point. His game talks for him. His decisions, inexplicable and flawed at times, are never defended, rarely argued over. He simply sets things right the next time. More important, he never plays to the gallery and has no desire to be anointed God, neither by his fans nor fawning sponsors. He remains that ticket checker in Kharagpur station who got lucky and made good. And that precisely is his charm. Neither fame nor money has been able to spoil him. In fact, if you watch his ads, you will figure how ill at ease he is before the camera. He’s a man best left alone. To play the game he’s best at.

Dhoni sums it all up in his new ad when he says, “Zindagi mein kuch karna hai to large chhodo, kuch alag karo yaar.” Great lines those, in response to a campaign by a rival brand which exhorted us to Make it Large. Yes, you are right. It’s the same campaign that drew a spoof from UB showing a fake Harbhajan getting whacked by his father for making ball bearings the size of gym balls at his father’s factory and asking if he had made it large. Another spoof has just appeared featuring a fake Saif as the Chhote Nawab who despite all the pomp and regalia never quite makes it large, as the real nawab.

Dhoni’s right. Any idiot can make it large. All you need is pots of money. The more money you have, the more you can go for scale. The less you need to depend on thinking new, thinking smart. Clever guys, on the other hand, put their indelible stamp on history and show us that innovation is at the heart of all success, not size. Henry Ford could have easily built the world’s biggest bicycle plant. Instead, he launched the car. Steve Jobs spent the best years of his life, not in making Apple the biggest in computers, but in enlarging the domain space and bringing out with the world’s smartest music, phone and communication devices. That’s the constant challenge before clever men and women. To think smart. Not big.

But big is what seduces us. It starts, as usual, with the stupidest claim of all. Every schoolboy boasts to others in the locker room: Mine is bigger than yours. Even though every scholar of sex, from Vatsyayan to Havelock Ellis has repeatedly reiterated that size has nothing to do with being a great lover. In fact, big is a joke among the smarter sex. It is never as important as it is made out to be. It is those who can’t afford the best who go for size. The only real yardstick is excellence, how good you are in what you do. And the less you talk about it, the more likely are others to acknowledge it.

Picasso was not a great painter because he painted large canvases. Chaplin wasn’t great because he made big films. Mozart was not a great musician because he composed large symphonies. Tagore was not a great poet because he wrote epics. You can't compare the achievements of Boeing and Airbus with the ingenuity of the Wright brothers. Or the achievements of Nokia and Blackberry with the genius of Guglielmo Marconi. All real achievers think new. Not big. That’s why Dhoni’s advice, even though it’s in an ad where one brand is spoofing the other, finds so much resonance. “Zindagi mein kuch karna hai to large chhodo, kuch alag karo yaar.”  

That’s why Dhoni is so special.

India's reinstatement of Ian Bell was a testament to their sportsmanship, not to cricket's supposed moral superiority

The oldest cricket cliche of them all

Ian Bell acknowedges the crowd after his second stint at the crease following his reinstatement against India. Illustration: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images

A question: what connects the increase in 1923 of the cost of brewing licences, the British Army's use of dum dum bullets in the Boer War, modern Toryism, Arthur Balfour's opinions on Tariff reform, the lack of bilingual librettos in modern opera, the refusal of Lancashire mill owners to limit the working hours of their employees, and the theft, in 1921, of 1,000 cigars and a consignment of Trilby hats by the theatrical agent Marmaduke Miller?

The answer is that they were all, according to the Guardian "not cricket".

Unsurprisingly enough given its overuse, the cliche eventually lost its currency. But the myth persists that cricket adheres to a stricter set of ideals than other sports. There are a set of stumps pitched permanently on the moral high ground. And so, when MS Dhoni recalled Ian Bell to the crease last Sunday, the phrase "not cricket" was dragged out and dusted down by a couple of the commentators on Test Match Special.

My friend and colleague Rob Smyth wrote a good little book trying to fathom exactly what the spirit of cricket is. But one of the most telling definitions I've seen recently came from Steve James. "I was captain of Glamorgan for two full seasons and in both we won the MCC's Spirit of Cricket award," he wrote last Sunday. "But I've no idea what we did or what it was for." The spirit, Steve rightly points out, is a morass of contradictions. It is permissible for a batsman to stand his ground if he knows he has touched the ball, but it is a sin for a fielder to claim a catch that has touched the ground. It is against the spirit to "dispute an umpire's decision by word, action or gesture," but the DRS now encourages players to do exactly that.

As the Guardian has proven, it is often easier to point out what the spirit of cricket is not than what it is.
And what it is not has, over the years, encompassed just about everything. One of the earliest appearances of "not cricket" was in the Guardian, back in 1888, in a report of the opening match of the county season between Nottinghamshire and Sussex. "The Notts Committee agreed with the Marylebone Club in their endeavour to put down leg play," we are told. "It was not cricket, said Mr Oates, and people would not come to see play of that kind." Leg play! Perish the thought.

In England cricket first flourished as a game played by blackguards, rogues and gamblers, matches were played outside village inns for vast wagers, and results were bought and sold. It was the Victorians who recast it as an altogether more upright activity. "Not cricket" next crops up in the Guardian in a report of a sermon given by the Venerable Archdeacon Wilson at Rochdale Parish Church on 4 February 1894. "Cricket encourages a love of fair play," he told what we can only assume was an enthralled audience. "It is a moral training that operates far outside the cricket field." As for football, well, "the dishonourableness and ill-temper of its controversies is best described as 'not cricket'."

And yet anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of the way the Grace brothers played the game will know that they committed sins against "the spirit" that went way beyond playing the ball to the leg side.
Back in 1864, for instance, "not cricket" makes its very first appearance in these pages in a report of an incident in a game between Surrey and '18 gentlemen', one of whom was WG's elder brother, Edward. "Finding Jupp holding his ground at the wicket in defiance of the most insidious and trying balls," Grace "resorted to the expedient" of bowling a series of three "full pitch deliveries which culminated at 30 foot high and descended on the wicket at an angle unprovided for in the practice of the game."

Jupp, assuming it was an errant delivery, hit the first of them to leg (gasp!) for two. But then "turned sulkily" away from the next two deliveries and allowed them to take their course. The third of them landed flush on the undefended wicket. "There were bursts of hisses from the spectators, who did not conceal their disapprobation for Mr Grace's bowling. They stigmatised him as an 'old woman' and his bowling as 'no cricket'. "The Sporting Papers took up the question, and numerous correspondents angrily support either side," the report continues. "The main accusation against Mr Grace's new trick is that it is "not cricket". That it is quite legal we may assume, as the umpire did not decide against it."

And there's the rub. To this day there is a tension between the letter and the spirit of the laws. What a team is allowed to do and what we think it ought to do can be two quite different things, and when it comes to winning matches players often prefer to give the first precedence over the second, while the press do the reverse.

When Rob's publisher designed the cover for his book, they chose to use one of the most iconic photographs in the history of cricket: Andrew Flintoff with his arm around Brett Lee in the moments after England's victory at Edgbaston in 2005. And understandably so – for many people it seemed to capture the essence of the spirit of the game.

And yet there are people who worked alongside Flintoff in the England team – who insist on staying off the record – who argue that this was the moment that spoiled him as a cricketer. From that point on, they have told me, he became too obsessed with the public perception of him as 'good old Freddy', the guy who always plays the game in the right spirit. When he was appointed captain for the 2006-07 Ashes, he was too friendly with the opposition, too keen to have a laugh during the game and a beer after it. England even brought in a sports psychologist before the third Test at Perth to try and toughen him up. Flintoff himself hinted at this when he wrote, in the forward to Matthew Hayden's autobiography, that the friendships he developed with the Australians changed the dynamic, bringing "a respectful edge to the proceedings" in the middle.

And so to Trent Bridge last Sunday. Some will always argue that MS Dhoni's decision – prompted, reportedly, by the insistence of Sachin Tendulkar – to recall Bell showed weakness in his team's will to win. Others, myself among them, would say that it was simply an impressive piece of sportsmanship, albeit no more so than Paolo Di Canio's refusal to score in an open net when the former Everton keeper Paul Gerrard was down injured, or Andy Roddick arguing that the line judge was wrong to call Fernando Vedasco on a double fault when he was down match point in the 2005 Rome Masters.

The credit is India's alone. The decision was a testament to their character and sportsmanship, not to the moral superiority of the sport they play. The prattle about other sports learning from India's example seems insufferably pompous coming from a game whose history has been as riddled with controversy as cricket's has.