why captain?
I ask myself this question again and again, why does cricket still need captains?
Pietersen quits as England captain, coach fired
By Martyn Herman | LONDON (Reuters) | Thu Jan 8, 2009 8:11am IST
After a day of media frenzy, Pietersen issued a statement signalling the end of his six-month reign as skipper.
“In light of recent communications with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), and the unfortunate media stories and speculation that have subsequently appeared, I now consider that it would be extremely difficult for me to continue in my current position with the England cricket team,” Pietersen said.
He added: “I am extremely sad and disappointed to have to relinquish the captaincy at such an early stage, especially in a crucial year for English cricket, in such circumstances and particularly when I feel that I have much more to offer England as captain.”
to captain or coach
Long gone are the days when the success of the cricket team was the captain’s responsibility
to create, select, plan and execute. Every one else in the support staff were just that. To support.
The game of cricket has changed, the importance of the role has diminished with it. Its No Comfort Zones cricket now, only the ‘best’ XI will play. Every player aware of their purpose and well capable of carrying out their roles to perfection
Cricket is no longer about the game, it is about money, politics and power; strategies are discussed in boardrooms and not the dressing rooms, softwares used to pick up and analyse players strengths and the weaknesses of oppositions
So why have the stooge at all?
Surely anyone can flip a coin it needs no special skill, and the chances of calling it wrong at worst is only 50-50
Now every team fights to put a name on top of their player list as the “coach”; mostly players once been but yet unable to retire from cricket. Payed handsomely if only to add some weight to a teams’ possibilities – simply to fool the stuffed shirts in the boardroom of the team sponsors – to squeeze a few extra million.
I am not a pundit to decide if Vaughan should or should not have been selected.
But I see it this way, if coach Moores could say no, then captain KP had more than equal right to say yes – and for the ECB to decide who should have the say.
I say it was the captain’s
captaincy as an art
In matters cricket, I am an extremist traditionalist.
For me a team of ten players and a good captain is superior to eleven brilliant individualists. My beliefs have remained unchanged since Mike Brearley showed us that captaincy can be an art. And if practiced with honesty and skill, can achieve miracles.
the aussie way?
Teams have been apeing the Aussie system.
The Aussies were invincible for more than a decade through the sheer brilliance of too many players, not because of their ‘coach is king’ doctrine – their present deepening slump in fortunes proves it by exception.
a spatus magnus
The world doesn’t learn by watching others’ mistakes.
The spatus magnus between Greg Chappell – the self-professed don quixote of cricket, the obsessive compulsive experimenter, who ousted one good captain to designated a spineless individual to be his Sancho Panza; only to be able to win the power struggle and to rule unquestioned, leaving our Team India dressing room fragmented in his wake.
a status stupidus
KP may have been becoming too powerful, too popular to handle.
ECB should have anticipated it, realised that he would never settle for the role of just a “tosser”.
Six month’s ago they gave him the responsibility to revive Team England, but did not give him the full support; creating an invariable split between captain and coach which as it always is, opportunists with selfish motives will utilise.
Sorry KP, it was stupid of you, to believe your back would be protected.
carry on cowboys…
And the ECB has pulled the trigger,
forgot to first draw the gun out of its holster -
now Team England has been left to hobble on crushed metatarsals – and with no one else to blame.
©hinaman
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