Alistair Cook's (woeful) captaincy

[Aalay]

I'd dispure that. I think Vaughan was the most tactically astute captain England have had in the last 20 years (not that there's much competition).

How about Nasser Hussain? I think he was pretty good captain despite not having such a strong side.

 

[cricket_icon]

I was meant to post earlier but never had a chance, anyway, for anyone who knows my posts here, you all know I'm a massive fan of Cook the batsman and I think he is one of the best captains on the scene, as this 4th test just goes to prove. I'm not jumping on the bandwagon after another successful Ashes win but Cook showed today he isn't just a tactically astute captain who is defensive minded but someone who can go with his gut.

He gave the ball to Bresnan just when everyone was thinking Broad or Swanny should have the ball...what happened? Bresnan gets the much needed break through and then Broad came on and was told by Cook to be aggressive, not defensive, not economical but to "spice it up". Broad did just that. Of course credit goes to the bowler but bowlers always require the relevant captain to give them a role.

Cook has been successful in a number of test series' now and you can't do that by being a terrible captain. He is good, verging on very good. Cook

 

[MUFC1987]

How about Nasser Hussain? I think he was pretty good captain despite not having such a strong side.

I loved Nasser's captaincy. I can't remember whether he was that great tactically, but he was exactly what England needed at the time. Someone to play hard and try to put some fight and passion back into the side and he did a great job. He was the very start of what that 2005 Ashes side became for me.

 

[cricket_icon]

I loved Nasser's captaincy. I can't remember whether he was that great tactically, but he was exactly what England needed at the time. Someone to play hard and try to put some fight and passion back into the side and he did a great job. He was the very start of what that 2005 Ashes side became for me.

Nasser was good but not great, in the grand scheme of things he was a stop gap. A bit like his batting then.

 

[MUFC1987]

Didn't he take us from the bottom of the Test rankings or something like that? Deserves a great deal of credit in my book. Harsh on his batting as well. Only the really good players were averaging 40+ in those days. And although he was a decent enough player, he obviously wasn't in that bracket.

 

[fros23]

Everyone has raved about Clarke's and McCullum's captaincy recently and slated Cook but how many matches did these captaincy geniuses win against England?

That's right 0

 

[whiteninness]

Were Ian Bell or Jonathan Trott ever candidates?

 

[barmyarmy]

Stephen Fleming
Nuff said.

 

[Rayr27]

How about Nasser Hussain? I think he was pretty good captain despite not having such a strong side.

Hussain was very good at the man management side and, as I think someone said above, absolutely the man England needed at the time. Was ok tactically but obviously loses some points for that toss in Brisbane!

Stephen Fleming should give masterclasses on the subject!

 

[used2bcool]

I think out of the current crop of test captains, Graeme Smith is probably tops. He's got results, he uses his (considerable) resources very well, and he leads with the bat.

Clarke's not bad, but the consistently inconsistent selection and constant shuffling of the batting order (which he has to have SOME say in) counts against him.

 

[ferg512]

Everyone has raved about Clarke's and McCullum's captaincy recently and slated Cook but how many matches did these captaincy geniuses win against England?

That's right 0

Having a good captain isn't as important as having a good side. Put Cook in Clarke or McCullums position and he wouldn't have won any games either.

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Cook's just a carbon copy of Strauss. I think they're both very 'stats-driven' as Captains. By that I mean they'll analyse players a lot and if they score a lot of runs through a certain area, then a man will go on the boundary there, no matter what the match situation is. It's hard to tell whether it's a plan by Cook, or just what he's told to do by the management. I would totally agree though that he doesn't think outside the box and seems unable to adapt to conditions and the match situation.

This. Its really intriguing listening to Strauss on the commentary, you can start to see just how defensive he really was. To be fair to some of the commentators (Hussain, Botham etc.) they have been fairly critical of Cooks captaincy at times, and when we toured England recently they couldn't stop talking about how refreshing it was to see a captain such as McCullum.

 

[Owzat]

I definitely agree that England have had a long line of negative captains. Vaughan was just as bad.

Vaughan was terrible, he is too wrapped up in trying to be 'trendy' and innovative. Listening to him on TMS trying to instigate the use of the term 'bang bang' to describe two wickets falling quickly was just embarrassing.

Was it not he who thought it was ok for the (close?) fielders to be moving in the bowler's delivery stride? And he was the one who maximised the contentious 'comfort breaks', essentially resting his bowlers/players while England fielded and that is tantamount to cheating.

But the finest example of his negativity, if you don't watch the countless times the field started pushing back while England were still way ahead, was against India. A Test we 'coulda and shoulda' won, but we decided instead of pushing for the win that wasting time was order of the day.

India had posted 201 in reply to England's 1st innings 298, England were pushing for the declaration with a 97 run lead and perhaps the key score before the time wasting was 251/6 after 66.1 overs with Prior falling for 42.

That was a lead of 348, as Vaughan seems all to keen to point out when talking about Cook and England, is a tough target in itself. England then crawled along having been scoring at near 4 an over, to add another 31 runs in a further 12.2 overs, Pietersen wasn't last out but scored just 14 more runs after Prior went off 42 balls, and that is very un-Pietersen like. He was protecting the tail, why?!?!?

So we added 31 runs, took 74 balls in doing so to set a target of 380 - as per cricinfo commentary, "a formidable target of 380, which is a good 36 runs more than the highest target chased at Lord's"

Did we win? Did we heck. India were 247/7 after 83 overs, England got to bowl 13 more overs and India ended 282/9, nearly 100 runs shy of the target and all the time wasted would have led to probable victory if we'd got on with it and declared earlier - 74 balls would have been enough to bowl out the last wicket surely?!?!?

Panesar taking up 14 balls to score 3 sums it up, we could have declared when Pietersen was out and gotten nine extra balls, or any time after the target was around 350-360 - 264/7 after 70 overs, target 362 and 8.3 overs unwasted perhaps? That the last 18 runs took 51 balls to score is perhaps the damning evidence. Runs off the overs read 2, W, 5, 1, 2, 1, W, 7, W*

*where W = wicket maiden and W* is no runs and a wicket off three balls.

Sorry, but is that the approach of a positive side looking to win a match?!? I could accept it if we were in serious trouble not 350+ runs ahead. Pietersen was the second W of the three, he was at the crease for 7 of those overs, falling last ball of the 77th.

We lost the series 1-0



Oh and as captains go he was great at beating the minnows, and the home Ashes and away South Africa series he won were down to phenomenal performances by Flintoff and the bowlers in particular. His decision to enforce the follow on in the Ashes effectively cost us Jones and nearly cost us the match - and series

Vaughan (Captain)

Overall : P51 W26 D14 L11
vs WIN/BAN/NZL : P23 W20 D2 L1 (Won 86.96%)
vs AUS/PAK/IND/SAF/SRL : P28 W6 D12 L10 (Won 21.43%)

vs IND/PAK/SRL : P11 W0 D7 L4 (Won 0.00%)

Take away the four wins in the two series mentioned and his record is pitiful, beating minnows and not a lot else despite some very good players

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Hussain was very good at the man management side and, as I think someone said above, absolutely the man England needed at the time. Was ok tactically but obviously loses some points for that toss in Brisbane!

Loses big points for patting the ball to the silly point fielder twice in Sri Lanka and not walking, then going on to a hundred which helped win the Test, turn the series and we won 2-1. It wasn't even like he didn't know he hit it, off the face of the bat. He stood, he cheated, I can't respect someone who does that.

 

[dancingmongoose]

Cook has been successful in a number of test series' now and you can't do that by being a terrible captain. He is good, verging on very good. Cook

Yes you can, actually. It is the team that is 'good, verging on very good', not the captain. Put him in charge of the Windies or New Zealand and I doubt they'd do any better.

 

[used2bcool]

But the finest example of his negativity, if you don't watch the countless times the field started pushing back while England were still way ahead, was against India. A Test we 'coulda and shoulda' won, but we decided instead of pushing for the win that wasting time was order of the day. India had posted 201 in reply to England's 1st innings 298, England were pushing for the declaration with a 97 run lead and perhaps the key score before the time wasting was 251/6 after 66.1 overs with Prior falling for 42.

That was a lead of 348, as Vaughan seems all to keen to point out when talking about Cook and England, is a tough target in itself. England then crawled along having been scoring at near 4 an over, to add another 31 runs in a further 12.2 overs, Pietersen wasn't last out but scored just 14 more runs after Prior went off 42 balls, and that is very un-Pietersen like. He was protecting the tail, why?!?!?

So we added 31 runs, took 74 balls in doing so to set a target of 380 - as per cricinfo commentary, "a formidable target of 380, which is a good 36 runs more than the highest target chased at Lord's"

Did we win? Did we heck. India were 247/7 after 83 overs, England got to bowl 13 more overs and India ended 282/9, nearly 100 runs shy of the target and all the time wasted would have led to probable victory if we'd got on with it and declared earlier - 74 balls would have been enough to bowl out the last wicket surely?!?!?

Oh I remember this. This is Lords in 2007, isn't it? The Test where rain, bad light, and Steve Bucknor of all people combined to save us. As you said, we were 282/9 with some overs to go at the end of the Test but it was gloomy and rainy and SREESANTH WAS AS PLUMB AS IT FRICKIN GETS two balls before the eventual end due to bad light and rain. It was fantastic. We somehow came back to win the next Test at Trent Bridge and then batted England out of the series with a 664 first up in the third Test at the Oval (that match was drawn thanks to a total lack of urgency and defensive captaincy by Dravid, and a fighting 4th innings KP century).

 

[ste_mc_efc]

I think the criticism of cook is very harsh and systematic of some people never being happy.

Maybe his field placings and overall mentality lacks creativity. So what.

When he took over we'd just been embarrassed by South Africa and there were distinct factions in a fractious dressing room (see the whole KP debacle). Not to mention the 3-0 drubbing against Pakistan was still fresh in the memory with all the issues about playing in subcontinent

then he went and captained us to a series win in India. And despite his terrible captaincy this series we are 3-0 up.

He isn't perfect, but the job he has done has been fine.

I think half the people who bang on about his weak captaincy only do so because Warne rips into it all the time.