Mastering the art of captaincy

The Guardian’s Barney Ronay wrote a piece last weekend arguing that Joe Root should be relieved of the England captaincy so that he might return to being the great batsman he was before being saddled with the responsibility of leadership. Well, timing is everything and not only at the crease. No sooner had the piece appeared in the paper and on the website than Captain Joe returned to form with a double century, his second highest Test score. Not of course that this will silence the many critics of his captaincy, especially not those who repeatedly condemn him on social media as a “useless” captain.

Is he? And what are the criteria on which you judge a captain? I should say that I was disappointed when Alastair Cook relinquished the captain’s baton and it was handed to Root – disappointed, not because I thought he would be inadequate, but because I feared it would shorten his Test career by at least a couple of years. Pretty well everybody who does the job finds it wearing. Michael Vaughan’s team won The Ashes in 2005, but he didn’t bat as well as he had before being given the job and very soon headed for retirement.

Some critics point to the fact that Root had almost no experience of captaincy when appointed. True, but does this matter? From 1952 to 1958 England never lost a series, and The Ashes were won in 1953, 1954-5, 1956. It was as successful a period as any in England’s cricket history. The captain was, first, Len Hutton, second, Peter May. Neither had been a county captain. They were appointed because each was the best batsman in the team – just like Root. Nor had Douglas Jardine, the only England captain to have won a series against Australia in the Bradman era, been the Surrey county captain, though he probably did captain the team occasionally.

These examples suggest that you don’t need much experience of captaincy to do the job. There have of course been county captains like Brian Close, Ray Illingworth and Michael Brearley who went on to captain England successfully, and many would rate them among England’s best captains. But the fact that they had experience of captaincy proves nothing. There have been other successful county captains who were less successful Test match ones, the astute Keith Fletcher of Essex for example.

In cricket the captain retains an importance and authority now denied to captains in football and rugby where it is quite usual to see the coach calling off his captain and replacing him with a player from the bench.

Cricket is different because the fielding captain has to make so many decisions, not immediately or instinctively as in faster-moving action sports but after reflection. The choice of bowlers and the timing of bowling changes are chief among them. So is field-setting. Here the bowler will have his own ideas, which good captains usually respect. The captain has the final say, and it is he who will be blamed if wickets don’t fall and the opposition’s score mounts.

Richie Benaud, one of the most astute of Australian leaders, naturally recognized the importance of the job, though he said that it was 90 per cent luck, 10 per cent skill or wisdom. A captain can put the right fielder in the right place, only to see him drop a catch; he can bring on a bowler who promptly takes a wicket with a full toss or long-hop. Luck or good judgement?

Joe Root came in for a lot of criticism in last summer’s Ashes series. He had two problems in the field. He was without his best bowler, Jimmy Anderson, after the first half-hour of the first Test. Given Anderson’s record in recent English summers one is bound to think that the England attack would have been stronger if he had been playing. Then Australia’s Steve Smith was in masterful, even sublime, form. Root and his bowlers never found a way to dismiss him cheaply or to control and restrict him. Various lines of attack and various field-setting were tried, none successfully. It was difficult to see what else Root might have tried. Smith’s batting was often described as Bradmanesque. Well, only Douglas Jardine, among England captains, found a way to solve the Bradman problem – and that way couldn’t be attempted against Smith because it is now unlawful.

Root’s handling of the attack was also criticised, sometimes fairly. But his opposite number, Tim Paine had an easier job. He had only four frontline bowlers; Root always had five. It may seem paradoxical but it’s easier for a captain to manipulate a four-man attack; he has less choice, therefore less opportunity to get it wrong, and to leave one bowler apparently under-bowled. That seemed, to some anyway, to be Chris Woakes last summer. Others, however, remarked that when Woakes did bowl, he didn’t by his own standards bowl very well. Others criticized Root for “over bowling” Jofra Archer. Well, there were sessions when Archer looked the only English bowler likely to take a wicket. Others would have criticized a captain who took him off when he was bowling threateningly. In any case Archer’s workload was light in comparison with what used often to be demanded of Fred Trueman and Brian Statham or Ian Botham and Bob Willis, whose death was, sadly, announced as I pondered this piece.

Root will probably develop as a captain, doing so more easily when some of the senior members of his team slip into retirement and are replaced by younger players. It’s often desirable that there is a little space between captain and followers, and it seems likely that Root, said to have been a dressing-room prankster, has in his first two years as captain still been too much one of the boys.

One should remember that the powers and influence of any captain are limited. England failed to regain the Ashes last summer because they didn’t score enough runs and there were too many batting collapses.  Root himself had a disappointing series with the bat. This may have been because of the strain of captaincy. On the other hand the Australian fast bowlers were consistently good and the best of them, Pat Cummins, produced some exceptional deliveries to dismiss Root. Margins in cricket are very fine, but sometimes a batsman just has to say “that one was too good for me”. In any case form fluctuates. Consider Australia’s David Warner. He had a miserable summer, unable to read Stuart Broad. Back home, he has been slaughtering the Pakistan attack.

One comes back to Benaud’s 90 per cent luck remark. Root hasn’t had a lot of luck as captain yet. In the field he has too often found himself defending inadequate scores and Smith’s form last summer ensured that the odds were tilted in Australia’s favour, just as long ago they were when Bradman was at the wicket.

Winning captains are almost always reckoned to be good, losing ones inadequate, if not downright bad. If England win their coming series in South Africa, Root’s stock will rise.