Tuesday, October 04, 2005

More On Captains

I am just about finishing the book 'India's Captains: From Nayudu to Ganguly' by Partab Ramchand so pardon me if I am a bit too obsessed by captaincy issues recently. As mentioned in my earlier posts here and here I am generally disappointed with captaincy in World Cricket today (other than the notable exception of Michael Vaughan)

I do not buy into this theory that 'A Captain Is As Good As His Team.' At least, not in entirety. Sure, to produce results he has to have a proportionate number of resources available. But, given a team I believe captains can distinguish themselves by utilising those resources in different manners all the time trying for optimum results within their constraints. So for eg. I believe if Michael Vaughan captained India we could be much closer to being World Champions. Or if Ranatunga captained this Bangladesh side, they would be a much tougher fighting unit. Also, if Steve Waugh was captain this Ashes series (the rest of the side remaining the same) the result could have been different.

So where are the great captains ? Where are the CK Nayudus and the Lala Amarnaths the people who believed in attacking at all costs ? On a global scale where are the Emperors like Imran and Lloyd ? The wily fox Arjuna Ranatunga ? The brilliant Mark Taylor ? And the indefagtible Steve Waugh ? Please step up to fill in the void someone !!

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