Your country's best - and worst - Test captains?

Taipan - how do you and those you know rate Peter Thundermurder (van der Merwe)?.

PeterCS wrote:Taipan - how do you and those you know rate Peter Thundermurder (van der Merwe)?.

Interesting question. My initial thought was a bit lucky to be in the team and a touch short of test quality, and then the Afrikaans background, so then looked him up. His high school is/was as bastion of English speakers, ditto his university. Obviously had leadership qualities but still not sure of his test class.

Bacher was similar. Probably not test class but an extremely astute captain. Hence his preference to Eddie Barlow.

By all accounts Cheetham was excellent.

I asked because of the broadly similar features to Brearley. That is, certainly not worth his place with the bat alone, but an extremely shrewd skipper (and it seems, popular without being too matey with his players).

Also, it seems, very useful as a fielder, which offsets the batting limitations a bit.

In my time


worst cap best cap
Oz K Hughes R Benaud
Poms Athers Illingworth
SA Cronje Smith
WI Sammy Lloyd
Stans Spud Imran
Bannies Tendy donut
lankans fatarjuna jaya


unfair to judge lower performing teams like snoozies, zimboids and bangle

Fat Arjuna the worst? He was a fine captain (and a fat ****). More likely the worst Lankan skipper is Hashan Tillekaratne who was terribly negative or maybe Dilshan who only seemed to get the job because every other senior player in the team had already resigned due to board interference.

fatarjuna brought the game into disrepute Gary...this why I had hansie in there for the saffies ...should have had azza in for tendy on the same basis

Snoozies have had better captains than players in general. Fleming certainly got results out of a pretty ordinary group of players.

Big Mac has been pretty decent too, so far.

horace wrote:fatarjuna brought the game into disrepute Gary...this why I had hansie in there for the saffies ...should have had azza in for tendy on the same basis

What's this about? When he threatened to walk off after Murali was no-balled or is there something else i've forgotten about?

the walk off...the insistence on the rule change...the feigning of injuries when he could not be bothered running while batting and the beating of several boys who were waiting outside his gated house for autographs...he and a brother beat the children with cricket bats

Surely worst captain is about tactical craptitude, destruction of team spirit and bad results, as opposed to whether they were corrupt, poor sportsmen or just generally qunts? That's a whole other thread, or several...

I rate bringing the game into disrepute as the worst...

What about the spliff twins, Ganga and Reifer for WI? Surely worse than Sammy, although that strike series barely qualifies as Test cricket.

WIndies have had a few duds since CHL/Viv.

I don't really blame Sammy for the more than occasional awfulness of the WIndies side. He is not a great player, but he is wholehearted, applies himself mightily, and tries his hardest to get the best out of too many indifferent players. Not sure about his tactical acumen, but that only really comes into play if the players turned to pull their weight in any case.

If he does bowl deliberate beamers in the nets at their best young batsman who dares to criticise his bowling abilities, that is a different matter though...

Cook's a sorry state of affairs as a tactical captain. He's as bad as Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

he is up there with Athers

The captain wins toss and bowls.

First session of the match.

Grass on the pitch - presumably that is why you bowled first.

The opposition is 80 odd for 3 down.

Opposition has just lost its most important batsman.

Your premier pace bowler is bowling

The batsman edges straight to the 3rd slip.

There is no 3rd slip.

I've seen some lousy ones, but truly and verily, Cook belongs among the worst of them. He is simply not a cricket captain.

Anthony_Gonzales wrote:I've seen some lousy ones, but truly and verily, Cook belongs among the worst of them. He is simply not a cricket captain.

What sort of captain is he then? Football? Rugby? Maybe he should try something like the Ryder Cup, where he wouldn't actually have to play...

Just had a thought, maybe Prior's "extended" dropping from the side is setting him up for a glorious recall as captain at some point this summer? Free from associations with recent failure - i.e. the last two of the Aussie whitewash and the two innings defeats at home to Sri Lanka where Herath rolls us for 50 on a green top specially prepared for Jimmy... (of course the two touring FTBs both made triples on it against England's six-man seam attack).

There haven't been a lot of (good) Test keeper-captains.

Too many calls to make.

Not saying it's a good idea. But it's going to be pretty much drawing names out of a hat if the job does come up!

I nominate Jason Dellorean.

Best (ever) - Dougie Jardine, followed closely by Brears.

Worst (ever) - Allie Cook, followed closely by Fred Flintoff.

Merlo - Gatt and Strausser @ 3 & 4?

Hussain comes close to the top of the pile, or should do. Possibly only bettered in my lifetime by Brearley. Illingworth should get an honourable mention too.