Who has in your opinion been the best captain for any team you wish to talk about.
I would say that Mark Taylor may have been the best Australian captain and I think he helped groom the likes of Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting into winning captains as well.
Mike Brearley would be the stand-out of all the English captains I have seen and Clive Lloyd for the West Indies. Hansie Cronje for all his failings got the best results from any South African captain, and Steven Fleming is clearly the best for New Zealand. I think Inzaman may be the most consistent of all the Pakistan captains and for India maybe Bishen Bedi or Azhurradin were the best captains of their side. Sri Lanka is clearly Arjuna Ranatunga who captained them to victory in the 96 World cup?
Clive Lloyd was fantastic in terms of representing his team and guiding it. A fantastic character. But by his own admission, it really didn't matter who he threw the ball to, given the bowlers he had available.
In terms of making a difference, of the captains I've witnessed I'd have to say Allan Border made himself into a fantastic captain. Yes, Mark Taylor was great and nurtured Waugh and Ponting, but Border got that process rolling. Ponting I don't rate as absolutely top drawer - no way.
Not as good as the admirable, but still not top of the tree, Clive Lloyd. He does a good job of managing great resources, but could he turn round a team? Could he lead England to victory. No, he'd just get peevy or offended, and blame others.
To be fair since the 2005 Ashes he's proved himself a superb batsman and done pretty much all that's been asked of him as captain. If England had come to Oz with Vaughn, Simon Jones (and the rest) never having been out and the only changes being potential improvements, it may have been a different story, though I don't think that takes credit away from him.
But if you look at what Border and Vaughn did to teams that had been very poor then I think they are captains of a different order.
Jardine was impressive too, but a little too contemptuous of others. Good results, the ends justified the means perhaps, but he didn't achieve glory.
Wonder how he'd go down today...
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Border certainly became a "win at all cost" captain and this may have been part of the reason Australia began to be a major power, but I remember him as a cautious captain who only used very "safe" options. He was reluctant, unlike say Greg Chappell to bowl himself, even though he took a fair few wickets with his left-arm orthodox when he did bowl.
On a side note, I remember when he retired and I was working in a pub in inner Sydney and the TV cameras came in to ask a few "old timers" for their thoughts on Border. I remember that when they showed the package on TV we only got one regular saying that he "always thought he was a bit of grumpy old bastard" which they spliced into all the praise he was getting upon his farewell.
Jayawardena - he has transformed Sri Lanka back into a winning unit. Will be contenders for the World Cup, having been written off a year ago. The way they came out of their England tour was remarkable.
Muppet wrote:I'd like to put in a vote for the best captain Australia NEVER had: S K Warne.
Please elaborate on that thought, Muppet.
Shane Warne would have made an excellent captain of Australia. I mean it's hard to mess up the job given the players they have (which surely makes it one of the most attractive posts in the world), but I think they could have done even better by giving the captaincy to Warne. Still, at least Hampshire took the opportunity.
