Cringeworthy to see defensive captains in modern day limited overs cricket...

[cricwiz]

Limited overs cricket (both T20I as well as ODIs) have become a run fest for batsmen nowadays. 300+ scores are a norm. Sometimes it's rubbish bowling by the bowlers in the middle/death overs that lets batsmen to dominate (and one cannot do anything about it), but sometimes its terrible defensive captaincy that let's the batsmen make things easy.

I am talking about defensive captains like Azhar Ali, Misbah, Morgan who give opportunity to the batsmen to dominate things by setting extremely defensive fields i.e. just keeping 2-3 fields inside the circle and having multiple boundary riders patrolling the boundaries. Good and sensible limited overs batsmen just love this field settings as they can keep rotating the strike all the time and taking calculated risks every now and than to clear the ropes.

The batsmen score 300+ providing alot of cushion for bowlers, but these field setting just take the cushion away. Captains in the mold of McCullum / Smith are always celebrated by the fans and critics as they never let the opposition batsmen to get these free singles inside the 30 yard circle and challenge the batsmen to keep clearing the inner ring to get runs.

May be it's effect of T20 cricket that majority of captains have become so defensive - as idea of patrolling the boundary using best fielders between overs 7-20 is predominant in T20 cricket. Probably these defensive captains think that ODI cricket is also just about protecting the boundary flow, while history has proven that sides who rotate the strike well are better in ODI cricket (whether it was old era or modern one)

 

[MenInG]

Dont understand why people seem to assume that captains are trying to lose deliberately! These are experienced people; they need to trust their bowlers etc

Once in a while we get a caution to the wind type and his hunches come off and we jump up and down about "aggressive captaincy"

 

[cricwiz]

Dont understand why people seem to assume that captains are trying to lose deliberately! These are experienced people; they need to trust their bowlers etc

Once in a while we get a caution to the wind type and his hunches come off and we jump up and down about "aggressive captaincy"

I am not saying that captains plan to lose deliberately. But what I am saying is that defensive mindset from captains makes it easy out there for good batsmen in limited overs cricket. And if the batsmen is someone like Kohli, Smith, Root etc who rely on classical hitting than power-hitting than this kind of field setting becomes a piece of cake for them.

For pouwerhitters like Buttler, Yuvraj, Stokes, Afridi etc. putting in extra fielder at the boundary makes sense as big shot is instinctive to them and they are bound to give a chance every now and then. Today there were 2 ODI matches played - in one match, the Pakistani captain successfully tied down Smith and he could not rotate the strike easily - while in the other match, Morgan did not do anything to stop Kohli from taking singles, and in the end it was all too easy for Kohli, especially when the partner with Kohli was also willing to rotate the strike all the time. In short, both Kohli n Smith played roughly same amount of balls today, but the difference in the end was rotation of strike.