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Pietersen as a Test captain, anyone?
By Jonathan Liew 2 months ago, 9 Comments »
There’s always a tendency to make your best player captain, but of late it’s one England have found it quite easy to resist. Captains need guile, nous, subtlety and tact. Mike Brearley had those things. Conversely, I reckon there’s about a 10% chance Kevin Pietersen hasn’t even heard of Mike Brearley.
For the moment, though, KP appears to the man in possession, which allows a tantalising glimpse into an imagined, post-Vaughan future. The present skipper clearly wants to make it as far as the next Ashes series, although so did Graham Thorpe, you might remember. In fact, any one of a number of circumstances could derail Vaughan before next summer - poor form with the bat, a thumping at the hands of South Africa, a disastrous winter tour, that blasted knee, an invitation to take part in Strictly Come Dancing - you know, anything.
And so, a number of names would be in the frame. Collingwood, if he’s still in the team; Cook, probably; Flintoff as a romantic outside bet; Strauss, heaven forbid. Pietersen, though, will definitely be a front-runner. If his stint as one-day captain goes well or he has a sensational run of form, his hand will be strengthened still further.
What would Pietersen be like as a captain? More importantly, perhaps, what would Pietersen the captain be like as a batsman? This is how the captaincy has affected the batting averages of some modern-day captains:
Ricky Ponting: 62.00 as captain; 55.97 not as captain
Brian Lara: 57.83 as captain; 50.12 not as captain
Rahul Dravid: 44.51 as captain; 57.66 not as captain
Michael Vaughan: 37.71 as captain; 50.98 not as captain
Interesting, isn’t it? The best two captains - Dravid and Vaughan - are the two whose form actually dips when given the top job.
When you consider the circumstances, it begins to make a little sense. Imagine that Vaughan or Dravid comes out to bat at 10 for 1 in reply to a score of about about 500. Neither man is exactly going to come out with all guns blazing. As captain, that would be irresponsible. Vaughan and Dravid feel a great and justifiable sense of responsibility towards their team which sometimes inhibits them from playing their natural game.
If Ponting or Lara came in in the same situation (Lara’s retired, I know) they would feel less constrained by the match situation. The reason? Ponting knows that if he’s out cheaply, chances are one of the batsman coming after him will save the day. Lara knows, or knew, that even if he scored 150, the West Indies would still very possibly lose. Neither Ponting nor Lara are as central to their team’s batting line-up as Vaughan or Dravid are, and they can thus play with a far greater degree of freedom.
That’s not to say that players whose figures improve when they become captain are simply selfish and single-minded; merely that the more freedom you have to play your natural game, the less it matters whether you’re a good captain or not. Ponting could be a terrible captain and Australia would still win most of the time. Lara could be a brilliant one and the West Indies would still lose. It’s the likes of Vaughan and Dravid, in the middle ground, who have to rein themselves in for the good of the team.
The qualities that make players good captains, then, actually render them less effective as a batsman. If KP ever becomes England captain, it looks like someone else is going to have to get the runs.
9 Comments »MCC ‘more human, not so aloof and distant’
By Will last year, mid-December, 2 Comments »
Mike Atherton meets Mike Brearley, the former England captain who was named as MCC’s new president in May. In a wide-ranging piece, Brearley looks ahead to the future - and Atherton is convinced the MCC could not be in safer hands:
“The appointment of Keith Bradshaw [the Tasmanian chief executive of the MCC] could not have happened 20 years ago. He’s very forward-thinking and keen to keep Lord’s and the MCC relevant. In short, the MCC has become, I think, more obviously human, not so aloof and distant.”
Read the full piece at the Sunday Telegraph.
2 Comments »Pietersen a genius in waiting
By Will 2 years ago, at the start of June, No Comments; be the first!
It’s a fashionable word to describe people of rare ability, the word genius. It’s equally fashionable to despise its incorrect usage, which is what I tend to favour. Let’s consult the dictionary, which defines it accordingly:
genius noun (geniuses or in sense 5 genii) 1 someone who has outstanding creative or intellectual ability. 2 such ability. 3 a person who exerts a powerful influence on another (whether good or bad). 4 Roman mythol a guardian spirit. 5 formal a quality or attitude with which something (eg a country or a period of time) is identified or typically associated
Is Kevin Pietersen a creator? Yes, he is, but then so are most cricketers. A creator spawns new form and, since no player is identical, they are effectively each doing something different from eachother and creating something. I’m playing devil’s advocate here, of course, but why not.
After his two hundreds against Sri Lanka this series, the word was uttered by everyone (probably including me. I’m nothing if not a contradiction), so it was interesting to read an article penned by Mike Brearley, the former England captain, in which he states his case against the premature labelling of Pietersen as a genius. It’s worth a read.
He begins:
Pietersen is, or has the makings of, a genius. We have to see how he fares against sides with real depth of fast bowling, but I’m sure he’ll do better than most even if some team manages to match the great West Indies sides of the 1970s and 80s.
And he later continues:
He trusts himself to deal with the short ball. Anything pitched up to him, he is ready to move and utilise his great power. But he doesn’t move too soon. He is rarely out of position with his front leg. Brian Close used to be totally committed to the front foot, but could give the impression of a great tree falling, or what might happen if the leaning tower of Pisa were to keep going in its predisposed direction. Pietersen is more in control.
So let’s hold off calling anyone a genius. It’s not fair on them, and it’s boring to read. If even Tony Blair’s political ability can be described in the same terms, it’s definately worth steering clear of. Pietersen is outstanding; isn’t that good enough?
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