Is Ricky Ponting a good captain?

Well?

Depends if you think Captaincy = performing well and inspiring others by your performaces way, or being cerebral and tactical.

He is not an especially good sportsman.

And not massively astute.

But he is at the top of a very competitive squad.


RTP = MAT < SRW < AB < SKW (could have been)

And is of course an excellent batsman (but that was not the question).

Not for my money. He seems to make all the right moves when Australia are on top, but allows his team to fall very flat during quiet spells. I noticed after the Ashes (2005) that he started to set unorthodox fields purely for the sake of unorthodoxy in an effort to emulate Michael Vaughan's moments of inspiration; few of which worked. Worst for me is his attitude towards the follow-on, where he seems to have made sure that the inexplicable Australian superstition shall continue into another generation in consistently refusing to enforce it.

I wouldn't say he's a bad captain. He's okay, but then he has had the best tools. I haven't seen anything spectacular from him in this series, and in many cases he seems to have allowed the Windies to get on top of Australia. With blunted tools, he looks a little blunt himself.

He's not great, but not as bad as many on here like to make out either. In the post TGM-era we've only lost one Test out of eight so far, I don't think Tugga fared any better when he was without them.

Warney would have been better though ...

That goes without saying

PeterCS wrote:Warney would have been better though ...

Would he have been as good leading a group of players that saw him as a peer rather than someone to look up to like the no marks at Hampshire and Rajasthan...?

Check out his record as ODI skipper.

Warne would have been a better skipper than Ponting, but he's hardly Robinson Crusoe there.

Ponting could skipper this team (or its most recent obsolete version) to wins over most opposition it plays. Just like anybody who knows which end they should be facing when they climb on could ride Makybe Diva up the home straight at Flemington faster than Oliver or Boss could ride a Clydesdale. Which is fine while we're only racing against Clydesdales.

I think his record will end up better than K snr who captained a far stronger team

As predictable as the sunrise (and the next WC turkeys loss).....

horrie, go take your Alzheimer's medicine. It's in the bottle labeled 'cyanide'.

Punter's no Tubby when it comes to astute captaincy but at least he has the players' respect. If you couple sh!t captaincy with a lack of respect from the players, you get...well...Kim Hughes or Graham Yallop.

skully wrote:Punter's no Tubby when it comes to astute captaincy but at least he has the players' respect. If you couple sh!t captaincy with a lack of respect from the players, you get...well...Kim Hughes or Graham Yallop.

or Cassius Koala who certainly lacked the respect of some fellow team mates inc TGM

He makes very curious (and dumbfounding) decisions.

horace wrote:

skully wrote:Punter's no Tubby when it comes to astute captaincy but at least he has the players' respect. If you couple sh!t captaincy with a lack of respect from the players, you get...well...Kim Hughes or Graham Yallop.

or Cassius Koala who certainly lacked the respect of some fellow team mates inc TGM

Last time I looked, "some" does not equal "one", h.

i am aware there are a number of others who lost respect for the redinkus maximus

horace wrote:i am aware there are a number of others who lost respect for the redinkus maximus

Now you're just making stuff up, h.

you could start by putting some direct questions to Kjnr...then you might ask a sozzie or two, a tozzie, tubby (who experienced the Casca side of Ksnr)

Now you're just making stuff up, h.

Laughing at the thought that this forum would vote for RP as a good captain.

But this forum has voted 3 to 1 that he is NOT a good captain.

Fred Nerk wrote:As predictable as the sunrise (and the next WC turkeys loss).....

PMSL...all mouthy (but still are bitter as shit) with a win