Joe Root has been soft and looks like a little boy: Ricky Ponting

[jnaveen1980]

England captain Joe Root looks like a "little boy" and has been a "bit soft" during the Ashes defeat, says former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting.

The hosts take a unassailable 3-0 lead into the fourth Test in Melbourne starting on Boxing Day.

Root, 26, averages 29.33 with the bat, while off-field incidents have been a feature of England's tour.

"Those things show a complete lack of respect for him as captain," said 43-year-old Ponting.

England wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow "headbutted" Australia's Cameron Bancroft in a bar in October, while this month England Lions batsman Ben Duckett was suspended for pouring a drink over England bowler James Anderson.

Ponting said England need Root to "step up big time" and criticised him for being "too shy" in his post-match news conferences.

"The way he answered a lot of the questions after the game last week seemed almost like a little boy," said Ponting, who captained Australia in 77 of his 168 Tests between 1995 and 2012.

"You need to be more than that as a leader, especially when things aren't going well. It just looks like it has been a little bit soft."

England wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow defended his captain Root, responding to Ponting's criticism on Saturday.

"Let's not forget that he hasn't been in the job for a year yet," he told BBC Sport.

"It's a learning process. He hasn't gone quiet, or anything like that. He's still the normal, cheeky, chirpy Rooty and that is what makes him the fantastic batsman that he is."


'They've been completely blown away'

Australia won by 10 wickets in Brisbane, 120 runs in Adelaide and an innings and 41 runs in Perth, after which Root said England "haven't been completely outplayed".

England opener Mark Stoneman said this week there was no gulf between the sides.

Ponting said he was "not seeing that at all" as England seek to avoid a second consecutive whitewash in Australia.

"It doesn't add up with a team that has been ultra-competitive and just not taken the little opportunities," he said.

"They have been completely blown away. Unless you can find some drastic ways to get better, I'm not sure how they are going to improve."

Root, ranked the fifth best batsman in the world, has scored only 176 runs compared to Australia captain Steve Smith's 426, which includes a double century in Perth.

Root, who was caught down the leg side for 20 in the first innings at the Waca and edged a loose drive to slip to fall for 14 in the second, said captaincy is not affecting his batting.

But Ponting said: "Look at some of the shots he's played. It looks as though something is playing on his mind a little bit.

"They are not the shots you would expect from one of the best players in the world, and certainly not someone trying to lead from the front."

http://www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/42462760

 

[finalfantasy7]

Root interviews when he losses he does look like a scared boy.

Also applies when he knows are are going to lose- on the field

 

[Robert]

Ponting is used to tough skippers like Border.

English skippers tend to be less obviously aggressive. The exemplar was probably Mike Brearley. But behind the politeness and intellect he had that inner steel too. Root may find it hard to crack the whip when needed.

He could do a few quick fixes like toughen up his body language on the field.

 

[finalfantasy7]

He doesn't have a personality it seems - I question the fire in his belly

 

[DeadlyVenom]

England seem to select gentleman type characters for the test captaincy at least in my days of watching cricket.

These are generally guys who have come through the system, are well spoken and generally seem like we'll behaved and collected individuals.

Nasser seemed to be the only one with a bit of steel in him.

So far I've seen athers Nasser vaughan Strauss and then Cook. Barring Nasser they all seem to posses the same qualities. A quiet calmness on the field, toe the ECB line and slightly aloof from the rest of the squad. I think Misbah was a typical English style captain perhaps why he was admired so much by the English press?

Players with some 'personality' have generally failed - kp and Flintoff for example.

England don't really have the tradition of a captain taking the team by the scruff of the neck and dragging them to the greater heights, nor have the captains been the best players in the side. They are more quiet middle manager types.

Root is neither a loud captain nor does he have the poise of previous captains on the field. He just seems like one of the lads (perhaps he is happy to be) and I don't think he had the authority to demand more from senior players such as Broad or Anderson however there is presently no other option. Perhaps if YJB gave up the gloves?

 

[Ab Fan]

Root is a softie. Nowhere near Smith and Kohli.

 

[Savak]

Ponting is being disrespectful and is rubbing it in. Root has a personality of his own and not everyone can be buzzing with Alpha male leadership qualities. I remember how Ponting was exposed as captain after 2007 onwards when his all time star players left him. He has looked like a clueless school boy himself against the likes of Michael Vaughan in 2005, Graeme Smith in 2008 and Andrew Strauss in 2010.

That being said, Joe Root looks out of his depth, he doesn't look captaincy material at all and doesn't look like someone who wants it badly to be honest, England would have been better off letting him focus on his own game and letting someone else with more natural leadership qualities to do the job, i think Anderson or Broad look like better choices.

 

[James]

Ponting is clearly enjoying this, which is fine and he is entitled to do so, however just whisper his own Ashes record as captain if you will.

Ponting only led Australia to one Ashes series win (at home, with all of those great players); he actually lost the Ashes in England twice - not many Australian captains have managed to do that - and his suicidal decision to bowl first at Edgbaston in 2005 remains infamous in the history of the game.

Of course, he saved his worst capitulation of all for the 2010 series in Australia, when England won 3 Tests by an innings and Ponting himself could not hit a barn door with a banjo when he came out to bat.

Truth is Ricky, these things go in swings and roundabouts! Enjoy your victory, but we will be back another time.

 

[Abdul]

Good stuff from Ponting.

 

[wrongun]

England seem to select gentleman type characters for the test captaincy at least in my days of watching cricket.

These are generally guys who have come through the system, are well spoken and generally seem like we'll behaved and collected individuals.

Nasser seemed to be the only one with a bit of steel in him.

So far I've seen athers Nasser vaughan Strauss and then Cook. Barring Nasser they all seem to posses the same qualities. A quiet calmness on the field, toe the ECB line and slightly aloof from the rest of the squad. I think Misbah was a typical English style captain perhaps why he was admired so much by the English press?

Players with some 'personality' have generally failed - kp and Flintoff for example.

England don't really have the tradition of a captain taking the team by the scruff of the neck and dragging them to the greater heights, nor have the captains been the best players in the side. They are more quiet middle manager types.

Root is neither a loud captain nor does he have the poise of previous captains on the field. He just seems like one of the lads (perhaps he is happy to be) and I don't think he had the authority to demand more from senior players such as Broad or Anderson however there is presently no other option. Perhaps if YJB gave up the gloves?

Good analysis. I think Malan will be captain in 18 months- 2 years though. YJB is not captaincy material.

Broad could be a left field option for them if he regains his zip. Might be the boost he needs late in his career & refocus his batting a bit.

 

[Rayyman]

Ponting has a big mouth. I remember last time he said India were a much better team of higher class etc. and Pakistan suck after June 4th. Well we went on to destroy them exactly two weeks later.

Maybe sometimes he talks too much. Like a lot of Aussies.

 

[kingusama92]

Ponting is right whether you like it or not.

Joe Fifty comes across exactly as described here. But the real questions will only come if he fails again in 2019.

 

[HuzaifaE]

He does come across as weak, but perhaps it's a case of being poor in front of the media more than at the crease. I personally also find Smith to be quite poor at speaking to the media, doesn't strike me as the sort of Aussie leaders of old that would fill the team with confidence, although perhaps it was more to do with those squads than just the sole figureheads themselves.

 

[Convict]

Ponting is used to tough skippers like Border.

English skippers tend to be less obviously aggressive. The exemplar was probably Mike Brearley. But behind the politeness and intellect he had that inner steel too. Root may find it hard to crack the whip when needed.

He could do a few quick fixes like toughen up his body language on the field.

I do wonder if this is why English Captains all seem to find the Captaincy a burden on their personal performance.

 

[Proactive_]

Ponting doing the job that English Pundits, the coaches and the ECB should be doing. Remember when Starc was going nowhere as a Test bowler and Warne called him soft? It turned around his whole career. Suddenly his body language changed, he started appearing as a lot more confident in his abilities and is an established test bowler now. Sometimes you just need a kick up the back side and Root needs one badly. He indeed looks like a boy amongst men when surrounded by the Australians.

 

[Robert]

Ponting is right whether you like it or not.

Can’t remember him being all that after his Warne and his McGrath retired.

 

[Robert]

I do wonder if this is why English Captains all seem to find the Captaincy a burden on their personal performance.

Not all - Gooch got better - but most. It’s the culture, the England skipper has to combine more roles that the skippers of other international sides. That’s why they all burn out.

 

[Robert]

Sometimes you just need a kick up the back side and Root needs one badly. He indeed looks like a boy amongst men when surrounded by the Australians.

0-3 down in the Ashes with two to play is a kick up the backside.

But what can Root do? The selectors picked the wrong attack, and half a batting line. Cook’s eyes have gone, Stokes is dropped pending possible charges, Broad is exhausted, Bairstow should be a specialist bat and Moeen is carrying an injury.

 

[Romali_rotti]

Ponting went from invincible to horrible record as captain once Mcgrath and Warne retired, so he shouldn't be pointing fingers.. Its all good when you winning with the help of hall of fame players, where those guys make you look like match winners but when they are not there, is no longer fun as you become a match loser.. Cricket is a team game, need more than one man to get the job done.

 

[kingusama92]

Can’t remember him being all that after his Warne and his McGrath retired.

Ponting was 33/34 when they retired.

AND he still averaged 48.12 in the 2009 ashes.

That fading version of Ponting took his team to a 2-1 defeat in England. Joe Root is on track for a 5-0 pummeling in his prime.

 

[Convict]

Can’t remember him being all that after his Warne and his McGrath retired.

Ponting was still a good leader after that. His team was rubbish but he was always a good leader.

 

[Robert]

Ponting was still a good leader after that. His team was rubbish but he was always a good leader.

Depends what you mean by good leader. He was not a tactically astute skipper like Taylor Clarke. I suppose he was someone who inspired his team through sheer weight of runs.

 

[Robert]

Ponting was 33/34 when they retired.

AND he still averaged 48.12 in the 2009 ashes.

That fading version of Ponting took his team to a 2-1 defeat in England.

You are praising him for losing? Against a weak England bowling attack. Anderson had not developed into the post-2011 reverse swinger, Flintoff was finished as a serious wicket taker while Broad and Swann were rookies feeling their way.

 

[Robert]

Depends what you mean by good leader. He was not a tactically astute skipper like Taylor Clarke. I suppose he was someone who inspired his team through sheer weight of runs.

I mean Taylor and Clarke obvo.

 

[Markhor]

I said it at the time - Joe Root has a cheeky boy personality and doesn't strike me as someone who as leader can stamp his authority on a team. Bairstow should've been appointed captain.

 

[Smbhayi]

England seem to select gentleman type characters for the test captaincy at least in my days of watching cricket.

then why too many off field problems?

 

[Hasan123]

Root seems to be struggling with the pressure of captaincy. He doesn't seem very confident when dealing with the media.

Ponting is rubbing it in with these comments. He was always confident of an Australian win whist before the series England pundits were saying how weak the Australian team was without looking at there own team. So for me England deserve all the critiscm.

 

[Chrish]

This current tour for Root and Cook isn’t any less disappointing than Kohli in England so far.

He will have to work hard to wash away the black mark.

 

[kingusama92]

You are praising him for losing? Against a weak England bowling attack. Anderson had not developed into the post-2011 reverse swinger, Flintoff was finished as a serious wicket taker while Broad and Swann were rookies feeling their way.

If England had a weak attack, can you imagine how weak Australia was?

That's the team Ponting was working with and he still managed to drag them to a somewhat reasonable 2-1 defeat.

Joe Root in his prime while staring at a 5-0 beatdown and averaging poorly with the bat.

 

[James]

Ponting was 33/34 when they retired.

AND he still averaged 48.12 in the 2009 ashes.

That fading version of Ponting took his team to a 2-1 defeat in England. Joe Root is on track for a 5-0 pummeling in his prime.

LOL yes what a great series that was for Australia. Could not bowl out Jimmy Anderson or Monty Panesar for the last wicket to win the game at Cardiff, lost their long prestigious unbeaten record at Lord’s, then lost at the Oval, then lost the Ashes. Great work from Ponting to “take his team” to that one )

 

[James]

Root seems to be struggling with the pressure of captaincy. He doesn't seem very confident when dealing with the media.

Ponting is rubbing it in with these comments. He was always confident of an Australian win whist before the series England pundits were saying how weak the Australian team was without looking at there own team. So for me England deserve all the critiscm.

I didn’t see a single serious England pundit predict anything but an Australian win before the series. (Swann is not a serious England pundit.) TMS, Sky and BT teams all went for Australia to win. No serious England fans expected even a draw out of this series either, let alone a win.

 

[kingusama92]

LOL yes what a great series that was for Australia. Could not bowl out Jimmy Anderson or Monty Panesar for the last wicket to win the game at Cardiff, lost their long prestigious unbeaten record at Lord’s, then lost at the Oval, then lost the Ashes. Great work from Ponting to “take his team” to that one )

@ being proud of getting pushed to the brink in a Test match and surviving as a home team.

Guess English fans have to remember old matches to feel good about themselves. Come back when England beats Australia 5-0 at home.

Australia is on track to go 10-0 in the past two Ashes at home.

Hell, England has never won an Ashes series 5-0 in its history. Australia is about to do it for a fourth time.

 

[Hasan123]

I didn’t see a single serious England pundit predict anything but an Australian win before the series. (Swann is not a serious England pundit.) TMS, Sky and BT teams all went for Australia to win. No serious England fans expected even a draw out of this series either, let alone a win.

I think bottham predicted an England win and also a lot of the pundits predicted England would win a game.

 

[James]

I think bottham predicted an England win and also a lot of the pundits predicted England would win a game.

Botham is not every English pundit, he is one guy. That is, if he did predict an England win. Surely even the Beef was not optimistic enough for that one.

Your second point is confusing. England might win a game, sure. There are still two games to go. That is not an exaggerated prediction of anyone to make, either before the series, or even 60% of the way through it and the scoreboard reading 0-3. Most English pundits and fans expected a 1-3 or 1-4 loss on this tour, with a few predicting 0-4 and 0-5. So yes, not sure why you are so peeved that many English people thought their team might win one whole game in a long series.

 

[Hasan123]

Matt prior predicted an England win.
Tufnell predicted a drawn series .
Nas predicted an England win.
Rob Key predicted an England win.
Bob Willis predicted a drawn series.

There were more pundits than you think lol. Also some predicted England to win 2 games.

Wait you just said no serious England fan predicted a draw so I'm making a point that most predicted England to win at least 1 game .

Just type in ashes prediction and you will see how many went for England at least winning a game.

 

[Haz95]

I find it hard to support a batsman like Root. I really want to since he's an Englishman but damn he is frustrating with this Misbah Ul haq, Angelo Mathews level conversion rate. I laugh at people who believe he's superior to even Williamson lol.

ATM it's like Smith>>>Kohli>Williamson>>>Root.

 

[Lefthanded]

Even Steve Smith couldn't have beaten Australia if he was captaining this England side instead of Root. It's not his fault that Cook couldn't score, Stoneman is struggling at the Test level, Vince is county version of Test Ian Bell, and he doesn't have spin, all rounder-seamer or pace.

Ponting has acted like a badly behaved boy throughout his career. Easy to be a microphone king with a smug smile.

Just because Root isn't full of bravado and acts like a man who's interested in swagger and swinging his ___, doesn't mean he's 'soft.'

 

[Convict]

Even Steve Smith couldn't have beaten Australia if he was captaining this England side instead of Root. It's not his fault that Cook couldn't score, Stoneman is struggling at the Test level, Vince is county version of Test Ian Bell, and he doesn't have spin, all rounder-seamer or pace.

Ponting has acted like a badly behaved boy throughout his career. Easy to be a microphone king with a smug smile.

Just because Root isn't full of bravado and acts like a man who's interested in swagger and swinging his ___, doesn't mean he's 'soft.'

Steve Smith would crush this Aus side if he was playing for England.

 

[wrongun]

Steve Smith would crush this Aus side if he was playing for England.

I don't reckon he'd avg 100 vs Starc, Hazlewood, Cummins & Lyon. To paraphrase Bradman, he'd still score more than the next bloke, but he wouldn't average 100. Maybe 50 tops. And who knows, one of them just might have his measure. It's really hard to face extreme pace when there is also a water torture challenge with extreme bounce (Hazlewood) at the other end & a spinner very suited to his home conditions as a whole extra challenge.

 

[Sam99]

I don't reckon he'd avg 100 vs Starc, Hazlewood, Cummins & Lyon. To paraphrase Bradman, he'd still score more than the next bloke, but he wouldn't average 100. Maybe 50 tops. And who knows, one of them just might have his measure. It's really hard to face extreme pace when there is also a water torture challenge with extreme bounce (Hazlewood) at the other end & a spinner very suited to his home conditions as a whole extra challenge.

Steve smith if bats for any other team will win as much matches as he wins for aus. Infact if he plays for some teams like south africa then africa can be invincible test side as 2000 - 2007

 

[James]

Steve Smith would crush this Aus side if he was playing for England.

Really? England may have the world’s top-ranked Test bowler in Anderson (and he deserves his spot), but all four of Australia’s bowlers including the spinner are arguably world-class.

 

[Convict]

Really? England may have the world’s top-ranked Test bowler in Anderson (and he deserves his spot), but all four of Australia’s bowlers including the spinner are arguably world-class.

Yeah but imagine the Australian batting with Steve Smith playing for England instead.

 

[Robert]

I think bottham predicted an England win and also a lot of the pundits predicted England would win a game.

I thought they would win one game if Stokes was there.

 

[Hasan123]

I thought they would win one game if Stokes was there.

Stokes was a big miss no doubt. Messed the balance of the team.

 

[Lefthanded]

Steve Smith would crush this Aus side if he was playing for England.

Captaining a bowling attack comprised of Stuart Broad, Craig Overton/Jake Ball/Tom Curran, and Moeen Ali?

Would Smith take 20 wickets himself?

 

[Last Monetarist]

I don't reckon he'd avg 100 vs Starc, Hazlewood, Cummins & Lyon. To paraphrase Bradman, he'd still score more than the next bloke, but he wouldn't average 100. Maybe 50 tops. And who knows, one of them just might have his measure. It's really hard to face extreme pace when there is also a water torture challenge with extreme bounce (Hazlewood) at the other end & a spinner very suited to his home conditions as a whole extra challenge.

Fully on board with this. This Australian bowling attack is being slightly underrated. Switch Root and Smith around and I reckon Australia would still comfortably win the Ashes.

 

[Mamoon]

Smith beating Australia with this English side is a gross overstatement. He would certainly score more runs than Root, but not enough to change the complexion of the series. He has been imperious, but England have not challenged him with their lack of pace.

Starc, Hazlewood and Cummins would certainly cause him serious problems. On the contrary, Root would still struggle to convert 50s into 100s, but he would undoubtedly score much more against the current English attack.

 

[English August]

Not all - Gooch got better - but most. It’s the culture, the England skipper has to combine more roles that the skippers of other international sides. That’s why they all burn out.

Have to call rubbish to that. Playing India's cricket captain is probably the toughest job in the game. 1.3 billion people are expecting you to perform and win for India. The media is hounding you all the time. There is nowhere to hide and there is no privacy at all. Now that's real pressure.

Compared to that, being England's captain is a walk in the park. Cricket is not even #1 sport in England, in India it is.

 

[English August]

Ponting was still a good leader after that. His team was rubbish but he was always a good leader.

Nonsense. Ponting was a terrible captain. The only reason he won was because he was leading a super talented side. Once the superstars retired, he "leadership" fell apart. His on-field tactics were terrible too.

On top of that, he was a sook and a cheat. Whined endlessly when things didn't go his way.

 

[Ab Fan]

If Root was in Australian side and Smith was in England side, Root won't have been able to change the complexion of the game the way Smith did. Australia would have lost the first test match in Brisbane if Root and Smith swapped each other's place.

In the third test, again without Smith's 200, there won't have been a Marsh 180 which came mostly because all the dirty work was done by Smith and the match might not have won by Australia the way they did it in that test.

Root if played for Australia, would have averaged 50 but failed to change the complexion of any game.

There is no comparison between the two. Smith is miles ahead. He is on his way to become a GOAT in tests.

If someone could change the complexion with that Australian team, then it is Kohli but that will depend on his form too.

 

[Robert]

Have to call rubbish to that. Playing India's cricket captain is probably the toughest job in the game. 1.3 billion people are expecting you to perform and win for India. The media is hounding you all the time. There is nowhere to hide and there is no privacy at all. Now that's real pressure.

Compared to that, being England's captain is a walk in the park. Cricket is not even #1 sport in England, in India it is.

Curious that the Indian skippers do not appear to burn out, then.

Why do you think the England skippers nearly all start to underperform?

 

[Robert]

If Root was in Australian side and Smith was in England side, Root won't have been able to change the complexion of the game the way Smith did. Australia would have lost the first test match in Brisbane if Root and Smith swapped each other's place.

In the third test, again without Smith's 200, there won't have been a Marsh 180 which came mostly because all the dirty work was done by Smith and the match might not have won by Australia the way they did it in that test.

Root if played for Australia, would have averaged 50 but failed to change the complexion of any game.

There is no comparison between the two. Smith is miles ahead. He is on his way to become a GOAT in tests.

If someone could change the complexion with that Australian team, then it is Kohli but that will depend on his form too.

Maybe not, if Smith had to try to take wickets with an ineffective attack he might have lost batting form.

 

[Smudger]

Root and Smith both played in india. And Smith was comfortably the best batsman in the series and scored 2 100s .
Root only managed 1 100 on absolute roads

 

[Ab Fan]

Maybe not, if Smith had to try to take wickets with an ineffective attack he might have lost batting form.

I think England struggled to take the wicket of only one guy named Steven Smith. I dont think bowlers struggled much to get Australia all out but it was just that Smith was ensuring that the job gets done till he is there with the bat.

Someone like Khwaja who is a massive HTB was a walking wicket in this series while Warner came into his own after the series was done. Marsh brothers did well but then that inning of Mitchell Marsh came mostly because all the tough and dirty work was done by the captain himself.

Australian batting lineup isn't all that great to be honest and if pitches has some assistance like it was in first two tests and a bit even in Perth, English bowlers are more than good enough to take 20 wickets.

It is true that Root didnt had luxury of Starc, Hazlewood and Cummins all together but even one big inning from Root when mattered could have changed the scenario of atleast one match easily.

 

[English August]

Curious that the Indian skippers do not appear to burn out, then.

Why do you think the England skippers nearly all start to underperform?

Some Indian skippers are in fact unable to handle the pressure. Best example over the past three decades is Tendulkar. Was a great player, but was unable to handle the captaincy. He was humble enough however to acknowledge it, and refused to take on the role when they offered it to him one more time.

Sourav, despite being a successful captain, underperformed towards the end of his tenure and was relieved of the role in the face of a rather public spat with the coach Greg Chappell.

On England captains, my own view is that it's less about captaincy affecting their performance, more about them being not that good to start with. Over the past 25 years, except for Alastair Cook and Kevin Petersen, I'd say rest of the English captains have been average players at best. Botham and Flintoff were good all rounders, but lacked the temperament to lead the side. I know this sounds harsh to an English fan, but it's the truth. For example, in India and Australia, middle-of-the-road / average players like Strauss, Vaughan, Hussain, Stewart, Atherton wouldn't be hyped the way they were in England. I'd go so far as to say that Hussain wouldn't be selected in the team by most other major Test teams. Think about it, even a good player like David Gower (whom I really liked for his sheer elegance) wasn't that good in terms of batting average (he was in early 40s IIRC). Even Alastair Cook, who I'll grant you has been a good opener for you, isn't that good vis-a-vis other batsmen who have scored 10000 runs. If my memory serves me right, I think he has the worst batting average among those who have scored 10000+ runs. And he plays in the era of highly inflated averages.

That leaves KP and Gooch, who I think were really good batsmen. Gooch I think performed better as a skipper, so he's an exception to your rule. KP's case is well documented. You guys couldn't handle his personality. I'm not suggesting that he was faultless, but in other countries the administrations would have found a way to make things work instead of throwing out the best batsmen in your country in a generation.

English media and fans tend to hype up their mediocre / average players after one good performance. People used to call Vaughan a once in a generation player after one good series in Australia, forgetting that he scored his runs when McGrath / Warne didn't play or when it was a dead rubber (just the way Cook scored a double hundred now in the dead rubber after failing miserably in pressure games). Flintoff was called the second coming of Botham after one good Ashes. Your team was given a ticker-tape parade in London (and I think offered awards by the Queen) after winning one Ashes series. India beat the same strong Aussie side before you did in 2000-01 and was given no such treatment.

What I am saying in a long-winded way is that you have a culture of prematurely rewarding and hyping up mediocrity -- and not just in cricket, I see the same thing in football and tennis. You believe your own false hype. And then you're disappointed when these average players don't perform like champions. In India, you need to be a Tendulkar or a Dravid or a Kumble or a Dhoni or a Kohli before people put you on the pedestal. Similarly, the Australian culture is very demanding of its players. I don't see the same high bar in England.

 

[Robert]

On England captains, my own view is that it's less about captaincy affecting their performance, more about them being not that good to start with. Over the past 25 years, except for Alastair Cook and Kevin Petersen, I'd say rest of the English captains have been average players at best. Botham and Flintoff were good all rounders, but lacked the temperament to lead the side. I know this sounds harsh to an English fan, but it's the truth. For example, in India and Australia, middle-of-the-road / average players like Strauss, Vaughan, Hussain, Stewart, Atherton wouldn't be hyped the way they were in England. I'd go so far as to say that Hussain wouldn't be selected in the team by most other major Test teams. Think about it, even a good player like David Gower (whom I really liked for his sheer elegance) wasn't that good in terms of batting average (he was in early 40s IIRC). Even Alastair Cook, who I'll grant you has been a good opener for you, isn't that good vis-a-vis other batsmen who have scored 10000 runs. If my memory serves me right, I think he has the worst batting average among those who have scored 10000+ runs. And he plays in the era of highly inflated averages.

That leaves KP and Gooch, who I think were really good batsmen. Gooch I think performed better as a skipper, so he's an exception to your rule. KP's case is well documented. You guys couldn't handle his personality. I'm not suggesting that he was faultless, but in other countries the administrations would have found a way to make things work instead of throwing out the best batsmen in your country in a generation.

English media and fans tend to hype up their mediocre / average players after one good performance. People used to call Vaughan a once in a generation player after one good series in Australia, forgetting that he scored his runs when McGrath / Warne didn't play or when it was a dead rubber (just the way Cook scored a double hundred now in the dead rubber after failing miserably in pressure games). Flintoff was called the second coming of Botham after one good Ashes. Your team was given a ticker-tape parade in London (and I think offered awards by the Queen) after winning one Ashes series.

With respect, you haven’t answered the question.

A couple of misconceptions: firstly, Vaughan looked like a world-beater for over year, not just one series, and he got three tons in that series you refer to, including 177 in the second test against McG and Warne. Yet as soon as he became skipper his run-production dropped precipitously against everyone.

Secondly, Stewart the opening batsman was excellent, he made Wasim and Waqar look ordinary, he got two centuries in a match against Walsh and Ambrose, but England messed him up by making him keep wicket, bat in the middle order and skipper the side all at once.

Atherton and Hussain were competent test players. Atherton was the better of the two, but hampered by chronic back problems.

The parade was after getting the Ashes back after sixteen years in the tightest series ever. You have to be English or Australian to understand this.

Anyway we are talking about skipper burnout, not the skill level of the players. The significant ones lasted about five years each before breaking down into tears or getting that thousand yard stare. Any idea why?

 

[chacha kashmiri]

Shadow of how good he is with the bat as the skipper

Really needs to get Vince and Malan into good nick

With the history behind him especially with the likes of Hussain and Flintoff , he needs to bring out his inner demons more and channel it

 

[English August]

With respect, you haven’t answered the question.

A couple of misconceptions: firstly, Vaughan looked like a world-beater for over year, not just one series, and he got three tons in that series you refer to, including 177 in the second test against McG and Warne. Yet as soon as he became skipper his run-production dropped precipitously against everyone.

Secondly, Stewart the opening batsman was excellent, he made Wasim and Waqar look ordinary, he got two centuries in a match against Walsh and Ambrose, but England messed him up by making him keep wicket, bat in the middle order and skipper the side all at once.

Atherton and Hussain were competent test players. Atherton was the better of the two, but hampered by chronic back problems.

The parade was after getting the Ashes back after sixteen years in the tightest series ever. You have to be English or Australian to understand this.

Anyway we are talking about skipper burnout, not the skill level of the players. The significant ones lasted about five years each before breaking down into tears or getting that thousand yard stare. Any idea why?

I'm afraid I can not answer your question if you're still trying to convince me that Vaughan and Alec Stewart were anything more than average batmen. We clearly have different expectations from our players and that's the broader point I was trying to make. I can not explain why certain captains settled into the rhythm of delivering average batting performances (the kind I expect from players like Ganguly, Azhar, Vengsarkar) instead of stellar performances (the kind I expect from Tendulkar, Gavaskar, Dravid) when they were never outstanding performers to begin with, and that this expectation of outstanding performance was unfairly thrust upon them by the media and fans who simply didn't judge the players accurately.

Stewart may have played well against W&W once or twice, but hey even Ajay Jadeja once hammered Waqar Younis into every part of Chinnaswamy Stadium in a high-pressure India-Pak quarterfinal in 1996 WC. That *does not* make him a Tendulkar, and it would be completely unfair on my part to later bemoan the fact that Jadeja turned out to be nowhere as good as Tendulkar. Similarly, once Azhar scored an absolutely brilliant Test hundred (the kind Vaughan and Stewart never did in their whole careers) on a lightening fast South African pitch against rampaging Donald, Pollock and the rest of the SA bowling lineup. So much so that he even outshone Tendulkar on that day who was batting alongside him. But that does not make him a Tendulkar.

The monster year you are crediting Vaughan with included the millions of runs he scored at home against a rather toothless Indian attack playing on flat pitches. The only pitch that wasn't batman-friendly in that series was at Leeds where he failed. Tendulkar and Dravid (and ironically Ganguly too!) scored magnificent hundreds to set up the Indian win. Vaughan scored hundreds in all other three Test matches, 2 of them almost double-hundreds in fact. To me, that series provides an excellent contrast of good vs. great and how cricket cultures in two countries look at it differently. In my mind, Vaughan scored the soft runs, Dravid scored the hard ones. Your takeaway from the series is that Vaughan was setting himself to be the great of the game but couldn't deliver because of the burden of captaincy and you'd like to understand why. My takeaway is that Vaughan was never that good to begin with. English media and fans hyped him up to Bradmansque levels based on the soft runs he scored against India. He failed to continue to deliver at that level after becoming the captain. In my mind it was a tad unfair to have that expectation. He basically settled down to an "average" level, which is what his intrinsic capability was -- with or without the burden of captaincy.

Anyway, my 2c.

PS: It always amuses when the English tell me that "it's Ashes, you won't understand." Let me tell you as an avid cricket fan for more than 30 years who grew up in a cricket-crazy country: I understand. And I still smirk whenever I think about that ticker-tape parade.

 

[Last Monetarist]

I'm afraid I can not answer your question if you're still trying to convince me that Vaughan and Alec Stewart were anything more than average batmen. We clearly have different expectations from our players and that's the broader point I was trying to make. I can not explain why certain captains settled into the rhythm of delivering average batting performances (the kind I expect from players like Ganguly, Azhar, Vengsarkar) instead of stellar performances (the kind I expect from Tendulkar, Gavaskar, Dravid) when they were never outstanding performers to begin with, and that this expectation of outstanding performance was unfairly thrust upon them by the media and fans who simply didn't judge the players accurately.

Stewart may have played well against W&W once or twice, but hey even Ajay Jadeja once hammered Waqar Younis into every part of Chinnaswamy Stadium in a high-pressure India-Pak quarterfinal in 1996 WC. That *does not* make him a Tendulkar, and it would be completely unfair on my part to later bemoan the fact that Jadeja turned out to be nowhere as good as Tendulkar. Similarly, once Azhar scored an absolutely brilliant Test hundred (the kind Vaughan and Stewart never did in their whole careers) on a lightening fast South African pitch against rampaging Donald, Pollock and the rest of the SA bowling lineup. So much so that he even outshone Tendulkar on that day who was batting alongside him. But that does not make him a Tendulkar.

The monster year you are crediting Vaughan with included the millions of runs he scored at home against a rather toothless Indian attack playing on flat pitches. The only pitch that wasn't batman-friendly in that series was at Leeds where he failed. Tendulkar and Dravid (and ironically Ganguly too!) scored magnificent hundreds to set up the Indian win. Vaughan scored hundreds in all other three Test matches, 2 of them almost double-hundreds in fact. To me, that series provides an excellent contrast of good vs. great and how cricket cultures in two countries look at it differently. In my mind, Vaughan scored the soft runs, Dravid scored the hard ones. Your takeaway from the series is that Vaughan was setting himself to be the great of the game but couldn't deliver because of the burden of captaincy and you'd like to understand why. My takeaway is that Vaughan was never that good to begin with. English media and fans hyped him up to Bradmansque levels based on the soft runs he scored against India. He failed to continue to deliver at that level after becoming the captain. In my mind it was a tad unfair to have that expectation. He basically settled down to an "average" level, which is what his intrinsic capability was -- with or without the burden of captaincy.

Anyway, my 2c.

PS: It always amuses when the English tell me that "it's Ashes, you won't understand." Let me tell you as an avid cricket fan for more than 30 years who grew up in a cricket-crazy country: I understand. And I still smirk whenever I think about that ticker-tape parade.

I don't necessarily disagree with the overall hypothesis that the pressures of the England captaincy are somewhat overstated and that captains from Australia and India feel mentally drained by the job as well. However, I do think that nature of the England captaincy brings with it more off-field pressures than might be the case in other countries. Cricket may have lost its popularity among the general public in England, but there is still a highly influential subset of society, your stuffy club members and the rabid doyens of Fleet Street, that exerts a great deal of social pressure on individuals that front the important national sporting pastimes: football, rugby, cricket, formula one and tennis. I believe the closeted and reserved nature of English society does not set an ideal stage for individuals to express themselves freely and when sportsmen are thrust into the limelight it leaves a great toll psychologically and thus we have seen that so many English sportsmen, including cricket captains, buckle under pressure after a while. It is undeniable that England captains have a shorter shelf life than their contemporaries.

I take more issue with the flippant way in how some very good players who became England captain have been regarded in the quoted post. I think a lot of people seem to equate failure against Shane Warne, who was a once in a generation cricketer the likes of whom we will never see again, with being ordinary. Alec Stewart averaged 46 when he wasn't asked to keep wicket and 44 when he opened the batting in the era of McGrath, Wasim, Waqar, Donald, Pollock, Ambrose and Walsh. Anyone who claims to have been a cricket fan for more than 30 years would appreciate how difficult batting was during that era and anyone averaging 44 opening the batting against that lot cannot be ordinary. He was awful against Warne of course, but anyone watching him bat against the quick men would rate him as good as someone like Ricky Ponting. I saw him score 160 against a rampaging Donald to save a test match, something even Tendulkar failed to do, and yet there are ludicrous comparisons with a slogger like Ajay Jadeja. Likewise Nasser Hussain averaged mid-forties against South Africa and almost 40 against Australia, which were incidentally better averages than what a bonafide legend like Rahul Dravid managed against those two countries. So yes, the captaincy took its toll on these players. It's willfully disingenuous to claim otherwise.

 

[HitWicket]

English media and fans tend to hype up their mediocre / average players after one good performance. People used to call Vaughan a once in a generation player after one good series in Australia, forgetting that he scored his runs when McGrath / Warne didn't play or when it was a dead rubber (just the way Cook scored a double hundred now in the dead rubber after failing miserably in pressure games). Flintoff was called the second coming of Botham after one good Ashes. Your team was given a ticker-tape parade in London (and I think offered awards by the Queen) after winning one Ashes series. India beat the same strong Aussie side before you did in 2000-01 and was given no such treatment.

Didn't the Indian team get a bus parade after winning the world t20, an event that would generally be considered of a lower stature/level of interest to a large amount of the English public and media compared to the Ashes?

 

[Robert]

I'm afraid I can not answer your question if you're still trying to convince me that Vaughan and Alec Stewart were anything more than average batmen. We clearly have different expectations from our players and that's the broader point I was trying to make. I can not explain why certain captains settled into the rhythm of delivering average batting performances (the kind I expect from players like Ganguly, Azhar, Vengsarkar) instead of stellar performances (the kind I expect from Tendulkar, Gavaskar, Dravid) when they were never outstanding performers to begin with, and that this expectation of outstanding performance was unfairly thrust upon them by the media and fans who simply didn't judge the players accurately.

Stewart may have played well against W&W once or twice, but hey even Ajay Jadeja once hammered Waqar Younis into every part of Chinnaswamy Stadium in a high-pressure India-Pak quarterfinal in 1996 WC. That *does not* make him a Tendulkar, and it would be completely unfair on my part to later bemoan the fact that Jadeja turned out to be nowhere as good as Tendulkar. Similarly, once Azhar scored an absolutely brilliant Test hundred (the kind Vaughan and Stewart never did in their whole careers) on a lightening fast South African pitch against rampaging Donald, Pollock and the rest of the SA bowling lineup. So much so that he even outshone Tendulkar on that day who was batting alongside him. But that does not make him a Tendulkar.

The monster year you are crediting Vaughan with included the millions of runs he scored at home against a rather toothless Indian attack playing on flat pitches. The only pitch that wasn't batman-friendly in that series was at Leeds where he failed. Tendulkar and Dravid (and ironically Ganguly too!) scored magnificent hundreds to set up the Indian win. Vaughan scored hundreds in all other three Test matches, 2 of them almost double-hundreds in fact. To me, that series provides an excellent contrast of good vs. great and how cricket cultures in two countries look at it differently. In my mind, Vaughan scored the soft runs, Dravid scored the hard ones. Your takeaway from the series is that Vaughan was setting himself to be the great of the game but couldn't deliver because of the burden of captaincy and you'd like to understand why. My takeaway is that Vaughan was never that good to begin with. English media and fans hyped him up to Bradmansque levels based on the soft runs he scored against India. He failed to continue to deliver at that level after becoming the captain. In my mind it was a tad unfair to have that expectation. He basically settled down to an "average" level, which is what his intrinsic capability was -- with or without the burden of captaincy.

Anyway, my 2c.

PS: It always amuses when the English tell me that "it's Ashes, you won't understand." Let me tell you as an avid cricket fan for more than 30 years who grew up in a cricket-crazy country: I understand. And I still smirk whenever I think about that ticker-tape parade.

No, the question of why Vaughan suffered an immediate precipitous drop in run production on becoming skipper is not the same as the question of the psychological burnout that affected him years later.

If you think Stewart was not world class against excellent fast bowlers from three countries when not handicapped with the gloves, you missed something.

This generally sneering attitude ill-behooves you. I would not smirk if India or Pakistan held a tickertape parade if they won an extremely intense series after 16 years of painful losses against the greatest enemy. I am not that arrogant or petty. Rather, I would be happy for them.

You're still avoiding the question of burnout.

 

[Robert]

I don't necessarily disagree with the overall hypothesis that the pressures of the England captaincy are somewhat overstated and that captains from Australia and India feel mentally drained by the job as well. However, I do think that nature of the England captaincy brings with it more off-field pressures than might be the case in other countries. Cricket may have lost its popularity among the general public in England, but there is still a highly influential subset of society, your stuffy club members and the rabid doyens of Fleet Street, that exerts a great deal of social pressure on individuals that front the important national sporting pastimes: football, rugby, cricket, formula one and tennis. I believe the closeted and reserved nature of English society does not set an ideal stage for individuals to express themselves freely and when sportsmen are thrust into the limelight it leaves a great toll psychologically and thus we have seen that so many English sportsmen, including cricket captains, buckle under pressure after a while. It is undeniable that England captains have a shorter shelf life than their contemporaries.
.

This is the answer.

 

[English August]

I don't necessarily disagree with the overall hypothesis that the pressures of the England captaincy are somewhat overstated and that captains from Australia and India feel mentally drained by the job as well. However, I do think that nature of the England captaincy brings with it more off-field pressures than might be the case in other countries. Cricket may have lost its popularity among the general public in England, but there is still a highly influential subset of society, your stuffy club members and the rabid doyens of Fleet Street, that exerts a great deal of social pressure on individuals that front the important national sporting pastimes: football, rugby, cricket, formula one and tennis. I believe the closeted and reserved nature of English society does not set an ideal stage for individuals to express themselves freely and when sportsmen are thrust into the limelight it leaves a great toll psychologically and thus we have seen that so many English sportsmen, including cricket captains, buckle under pressure after a while. It is undeniable that England captains have a shorter shelf life than their contemporaries.

I take more issue with the flippant way in how some very good players who became England captain have been regarded in the quoted post. I think a lot of people seem to equate failure against Shane Warne, who was a once in a generation cricketer the likes of whom we will never see again, with being ordinary. Alec Stewart averaged 46 when he wasn't asked to keep wicket and 44 when he opened the batting in the era of McGrath, Wasim, Waqar, Donald, Pollock, Ambrose and Walsh. Anyone who claims to have been a cricket fan for more than 30 years would appreciate how difficult batting was during that era and anyone averaging 44 opening the batting against that lot cannot be ordinary. He was awful against Warne of course, but anyone watching him bat against the quick men would rate him as good as someone like Ricky Ponting. I saw him score 160 against a rampaging Donald to save a test match, something even Tendulkar failed to do, and yet there are ludicrous comparisons with a slogger like Ajay Jadeja. Likewise Nasser Hussain averaged mid-forties against South Africa and almost 40 against Australia, which were incidentally better averages than what a bonafide legend like Rahul Dravid managed against those two countries. So yes, the captaincy took its toll on these players. It's willfully disingenuous to claim otherwise.

I continue to be amused by this notion that we know our cricket more than you do because we have a few stuffy clubs where we go drinking and discuss our latest loss in the Ashes series. Let me tell you what you do not know. You do not know what it means to have 1.3 billion people expecting you to win every game and score a hundred every time you walk out to bat. If a Martian were to land in London, he wouldn't even know that there is something called cricket on earth. There are no visible signs of cricket anywhere in the UK (I lived there for a few years, so I know what I'm talking about). You have to specifically go looking for things related to cricket (TV channels, play grounds at the village / county etc.). In India these things are screaming at you from every corner. There are Tendulkar/Dhoni/Kohli billboards everywhere. You can keep switching channels on TV and you'll see an ad featuring these guys. Your girlfriend is targeted, your wife is asked a question every time you score a hundred, your mom is questioned why you failed. In Pakistan the topic is discussed in National Assembly when they lose to India! Your house might be pelted with stones if you lose (this has happened in both India and Pakistan). Pakistani cricketers had to change their travel plans after losing to India in a WC game. They had to escape from the back door at the airport after getting there. If you're trying to tell me that somehow a few old fogeys at your club are able to exert more pressure than what I described above, then fine, good luck to you. In which case, I have to conclude that your cricketers are even more ordinary and mentally fragile than I thought they were.

Re. the batsmen themselves, I see that you had nothing to say about Vaughan whom I described in more detail in my post (while the earlier correspondent was trying to big him up). In my post, I did differentiate between tier 1 (where I put Gavaskar, Tendulkar and Dravid) and tier 2 (where I put Azhar, Ganguly and Vengsarkar). I'm happy to put Stewart in tier 2. I do have to laugh however if you're trying to tell me that he belongs in tier 1. It's ludicrous to put Stewart or Hussain in the same league as a Dravid or a Ponting. You're welcome to do that, but then I have nothing more to say on this topic, I'll let you deal with your delusions!

My comparison with Ajay Jadeja was indeed far-fetched, but deliberately so. I was just trying to make the point that 1-2 good innings, however brilliant, don't make a career.

 

[English August]

Didn't the Indian team get a bus parade after winning the world t20, an event that would generally be considered of a lower stature/level of interest to a large amount of the English public and media compared to the Ashes?

It did, but that's completely different. It was a World Cup and the very first WC in a completely new format of the game. The board was trying to generate interest in that format (which eventually translated into IPL which was launched shortly afterwards).

A more appropriate comparison would be India's very first Test series win against Pak in Pak in 2004. India was visiting the sworn enemy after decades and won both Test and ODI series. India had never won anything before in Pak. No bus parade.

After the Ashes win (how many times has England won the Ashes in last 100 years?), the English team members were given awards by the Queen (MBE or some such -- I'm forgetting now).

 

[zn426]

Ponting is being disrespectful and is rubbing it in. Root has a personality of his own and not everyone can be buzzing with Alpha male leadership qualities. I remember how Ponting was exposed as captain after 2007 onwards when his all time star players left him. He has looked like a clueless school boy himself against the likes of Michael Vaughan in 2005, Graeme Smith in 2008 and Andrew Strauss in 2010.

That being said, Joe Root looks out of his depth, he doesn't look captaincy material at all and doesn't look like someone who wants it badly to be honest, England would have been better off letting him focus on his own game and letting someone else with more natural leadership qualities to do the job, i think Anderson or Broad look like better choices.

You're the captain of an international cricketing side-why SHOULDN'T you have alpha male qualities? The point of leading the side is to go out and lead your team to victory. Not 4-0 and 5-0 losses. Azhar didn't have those qualities, Sarfraz did-and it's no surprise that Sarfraz is leading a team that's won 9 straight ODIs and a champion's trophy when Azhar won a grand total of one important series (against a depleted SL). Grown men, particularly in athletics, don't respect anything other than an alpha male. That doesn't mean being brash or loud, it means having a will of steel and showing through no uncertain means that any man who plays under you will do so only to their best of the ability-as those are your terms.
Root is glaringly unfit to be captain. They need some intelligence and force of will in that side. His beta tendencies are preventing the team from achieving their full potential.

 

[HitWicket]

It did, but that's completely different. It was a World Cup and the very first WC in a completely new format of the game. The board was trying to generate interest in that format (which eventually translated into IPL which was launched shortly afterwards).

A more appropriate comparison would be India's very first Test series win against Pak in Pak in 2004. India was visiting the sworn enemy after decades and won both Test and ODI series. India had never won anything before in Pak. No bus parade.

After the Ashes win (how many times has England won the Ashes in last 100 years?), the English team members were given awards by the Queen (MBE or some such -- I'm forgetting now).

So India trying to capitalise on the WT20 win to generate interest in t20 by having a bus parade is fine but England trying to capitalise on some of the greatest interest ever seen (quote possibly the greatest) by the public and media in cricket in this country after an iconic series win isn't?

As for the comparison just a reminder that when England won the world t20 in 2010 there was no victory bus parade, as far as I remember there wasn't even any public celebration event of any kind at all. It's just a matter of what event captures the public and media more in each respective country.

 

[Last Monetarist]

I continue to be amused by this notion that we know our cricket more than you do because we have a few stuffy clubs where we go drinking and discuss our latest loss in the Ashes series. Let me tell you what you do not know. You do not know what it means to have 1.3 billion people expecting you to win every game and score a hundred every time you walk out to bat. If a Martian were to land in London, he wouldn't even know that there is something called cricket on earth. There are no visible signs of cricket anywhere in the UK (I lived there for a few years, so I know what I'm talking about). You have to specifically go looking for things related to cricket (TV channels, play grounds at the village / county etc.). In India these things are screaming at you from every corner. There are Tendulkar/Dhoni/Kohli billboards everywhere. You can keep switching channels on TV and you'll see an ad featuring these guys. Your girlfriend is targeted, your wife is asked a question every time you score a hundred, your mom is questioned why you failed. In Pakistan the topic is discussed in National Assembly when they lose to India! Your house might be pelted with stones if you lose (this has happened in both India and Pakistan). Pakistani cricketers had to change their travel plans after losing to India in a WC game. They had to escape from the back door at the airport after getting there. If you're trying to tell me that somehow a few old fogeys at your club are able to exert more pressure than what I described above, then fine, good luck to you. In which case, I have to conclude that your cricketers are even more ordinary and mentally fragile than I thought they were.

Re. the batsmen themselves, I see that you had nothing to say about Vaughan whom I described in more detail in my post (while the earlier correspondent was trying to big him up). In my post, I did differentiate between tier 1 (where I put Gavaskar, Tendulkar and Dravid) and tier 2 (where I put Azhar, Ganguly and Vengsarkar). I'm happy to put Stewart in tier 2. I do have to laugh however if you're trying to tell me that he belongs in tier 1. It's ludicrous to put Stewart or Hussain in the same league as a Dravid or a Ponting. You're welcome to do that, but then I have nothing more to say on this topic, I'll let you deal with your delusions!

My comparison with Ajay Jadeja was indeed far-fetched, but deliberately so. I was just trying to make the point that 1-2 good innings, however brilliant, don't make a career.

I'm not crazy enough to put any of the English players in Tier 1, the whole point was that these players were more talented than their records show. Most were bogged down to a mixture of mismanagement and outside influences that shouldn't in the normal scheme of things deter a sportsman from focusing on representing his country. Selection incompetence merely compounded the issue. Hussain has on several occasions stated that England wasn't the priority for cricketers before central contracts came in as the players' livelihood depended on county cricket. I remember him saying that a day after the historic series win against South Africa in 1998, he was playing for Essex. That would never happen in India or Pakistan, well it would today given how franchise cricket has gazumped international cricket for many.

Regarding Vaughan, I agree with [MENTION=7774]Robert[/MENTION] that he would have had a much more impressive record had he not been handed the captaincy. I have not seen any visiting batsman play better in Australia than how he did in 02/03. You were being deliberately obtuse by merely linking that form to an Indian summer against Zaheer Khan and co. Once again, I emphasize that none of these players are Tier 1 batsmen. In fact, I don't think England have produced a Tier 1 batsman since Hammond and Hutton, but that's a different discussion.

By the way, I know all about the pressures that cricketers face in the sub-continent having grown up in Lahore. That pressure is in your face, aggressive, relentless and cacophonous. The pressure in England is more subtle, insidious and scornful even. I reckon the former can be shut out as being the by-product of an excessively eager culture, whereas the latter kind of pressure creeps up on you in a tantalizing fashion and grinds down mentally and makes one feel inadequate. It's tougher to ignore.

 

[Robert]

Actually I do think Stewart the top-order batsman was in Ponting’s league.

Compare their averages against the great bowlers who all finished around 2002. Ponting turned into a run machine only after they retired. Stewart would have had a similar impact if he had not been handed the gloves. I really do think we missed out on something special from the Surrey man.

 

[Last Monetarist]

Actually I do think Stewart the top-order batsman was in Ponting’s league.

Compare their averages against the great bowlers who all finished around 2002. Ponting turned into a run machine only after they retired. Stewart would have had a similar impact if he had not been handed the gloves. I really do think we missed out on something special from the Surrey man.

I loved Alec Stewart, perhaps more so than any Pakistani batsman, and he's still the batsman whose shots I try and mimic on the rare occasions I'm asked to have a hit for giggles or more often than not playing air cricket. But I wouldn't put him in Tier 1 because of his inability to play leg-spin: not just Warne but the likes of Mushtaq and Kumble too.

 

[Robert]

I loved Alec Stewart, perhaps more so than any Pakistani batsman, and he's still the batsman whose shots I try and mimic on the rare occasions I'm asked to have a hit for giggles or more often than not playing air cricket. But I wouldn't put him in Tier 1 because of his inability to play leg-spin: not just Warne but the likes of Mushtaq and Kumble too.

I like to think that given his very high work ethic, he would have become effective against those spinners had he not been encumbered with the gloves. And if he had stayed as opener. He would have had 30 on the board by the time the leggies got on which would have helped him.

 

[Last Monetarist]

I like to think that given his very high work ethic, he would have become effective against those spinners had he not been encumbered with the gloves. And if he had stayed as opener. He would have had 30 on the board by the time the leggies got on which would have helped him.

Incidentally, on the subject of needlessly encumbering a specialist batsman with gloves, I feel that history is repeating itself with Bairstow. England can help elevate Bairstow to a genuinely good batsman if they take the gloves off him and promote him to 4. It's almost as if Bayliss is scared of what Bairstow might achieve if he played him only as a batsman.

 

[English August]

I'm not crazy enough to put any of the English players in Tier 1, the whole point was that these players were more talented than their records show. Most were bogged down to a mixture of mismanagement and outside influences that shouldn't in the normal scheme of things deter a sportsman from focusing on representing his country. Selection incompetence merely compounded the issue. Hussain has on several occasions stated that England wasn't the priority for cricketers before central contracts came in as the players' livelihood depended on county cricket. I remember him saying that a day after the historic series win against South Africa in 1998, he was playing for Essex. That would never happen in India or Pakistan, well it would today given how franchise cricket has gazumped international cricket for many.

Regarding Vaughan, I agree with [MENTION=7774]Robert[/MENTION] that he would have had a much more impressive record had he not been handed the captaincy. I have not seen any visiting batsman play better in Australia than how he did in 02/03. You were being deliberately obtuse by merely linking that form to an Indian summer against Zaheer Khan and co. Once again, I emphasize that none of these players are Tier 1 batsmen. In fact, I don't think England have produced a Tier 1 batsman since Hammond and Hutton, but that's a different discussion.

By the way, I know all about the pressures that cricketers face in the sub-continent having grown up in Lahore. That pressure is in your face, aggressive, relentless and cacophonous. The pressure in England is more subtle, insidious and scornful even. I reckon the former can be shut out as being the by-product of an excessively eager culture, whereas the latter kind of pressure creeps up on you in a tantalizing fashion and grinds down mentally and makes one feel inadequate. It's tougher to ignore.

Gavaskar is known to have traveled directly from Mumbai international airport (where international fights usually land at 3am in the morning) to a domestic game (and scored a century -- he remained not out at the end of the day), so you'll have excuse me for not having too much sympathy for Hussain playing for Essex *the next day* after the Test series. That too in England where you can go anywhere in a bus or a train in a couple of hours (vs. having to deal with the complexity of air travel etc.). I'm sure there are other examples I can dig up. Cricket in India wasn't always as professional as it is today. Indian players had to deal with contracts issues with their own board. Just as an example, ahead of the very Test match I referenced earlier in Leeds in 2002 (the one where Tendulkar / Dravid / Ganguly scored hundereds and Vaughan failed), BCCI and the Indian cricket team were locked in an intense battle of nerves regarding the central contracts. What do they do? Win the Test by a huge margin in the most "un-Indian" conditions in England.

Re. Vaughan -- just because you didn't see a player perform better than him in Australia doesn't mean it that it didn't happen. Exhibit A: Laxman's 167 against them in Sydney 2000. He hammered McGrath, Warne and all other Aussie bowlers to every parts of SCG in what has be the most spectacular innings by a visiting batsman in Australia in years. Exhibit B: Sachin's hundred in the same series in Melbourne, a masterclass in batting in difficult conditions against a powerful bowling line-up. Exhibit C: Sachin's first hundred in Aus in 1992 when he was merely 19 years old. Exhibit D: Lara's multiple hundreds in Aus during his career. You don't have to take my word for it, just ask the Australian cricketers. You'll have to excuse me if I attach more credibility to what Warne, McGrath, Steve Waugh et. al. have to say vs. what you're saying. I actually watched every ball of Vaughan's home series against India and most part of his Australian performance later that winter. Good performance, but not great. So, no, I'm not being deliberately obtuse. I realize that you're not trying to push Vaughan into tier 1, but you're still trying to big-up his ability as a batmen, reading too much into that one year of good performance, and expecting him to be the next Tendulkar.

Unlike you, I do think that England has produced a world-class batsman in recent times in the form of KP. But he didn't fit into their conformist cricket culture, so was thrown out in disgrace and continues to be shunned by the establishment. It just reinforces my point that the English cricket establishment (board, fans, media, ...) is more comfortable dealing with conformists even if they happen to be less-than-world-class. Then they complain when their players are not able to deliver world-class performance or captains start falling apart after being appointed.

I see where you're coming from re. the societal pressure cricketers have to face in different cultures. Where I disagree is the idea that a few snarky comments you have to listen to at the Yorkshire County Cricket Club re. your ability to play Warne/McGrath/Gillespie are somehow more "pressure-inducing" than the fear that your house / family might be attacked by an angry mob, or that your life and limb might be in danger, or (in case of Pakistan specifically) you'd be accused of match-fixing every time you lose.

It feels like Robert is happy with the point-of-view you've presented, so looks like he has his answer. That's good. I disagree, but that's neither here nor there.

 

[James]

Alec Stewart, a good player no doubt, but in my view forever tarnished due to being one of the very few English Test cricketers to be caught match-fixing. He was “officially” found innocent due to lack of evidence, however I have read Nasser’s book and reading between the lines in that chapter it is obvious that Stewart did it.

 

[English August]

Incidentally, on the subject of needlessly encumbering a specialist batsman with gloves, I feel that history is repeating itself with Bairstow. England can help elevate Bairstow to a genuinely good batsman if they take the gloves off him and promote him to 4. It's almost as if Bayliss is scared of what Bairstow might achieve if he played him only as a batsman.

On the same subject, and since Robert still believes that Stewart would have been as good as Ponting or better if he'd been spared the WK duties, here's an example of how a genuine tier 1 cricketer dealt with the same problem. Dravid was asked to keep wickets in the 2003 WC in the interest of balancing the side. He wasn't even as good a WK as Stewart was, but accepted the challenge nonetheless, did the job reasonably well (not outstanding, but okay) and India reached the finals.

Dravid mentioned later on that he was never thrilled with the WK job, but did it for the team.

I know ODIs are not the same as Tests, but anyway wanted to put it out there. Genuine world-class players find a way to deal with the situations they're thrown into.

 

[HitWicket]

Alec Stewart, a good player no doubt, but in my view forever tarnished due to being one of the very few English Test cricketers to be caught match-fixing. He was “officially” found innocent due to lack of evidence, however I have read Nasser’s book and reading between the lines in that chapter it is obvious that Stewart did it.

Any chance of a quick summary of what Nasser says in his book?

 

[English August]

So India trying to capitalise on the WT20 win to generate interest in t20 by having a bus parade is fine but England trying to capitalise on some of the greatest interest ever seen (quote possibly the greatest) by the public and media in cricket in this country after an iconic series win isn't?

As for the comparison just a reminder that when England won the world t20 in 2010 there was no victory bus parade, as far as I remember there wasn't even any public celebration event of any kind at all. It's just a matter of what event captures the public and media more in each respective country.

You (and Robert) are reading too much into my ticker-tape parade line, which was a throwaway comment anyway and definitely not intended to insult the English team or belittle their performance by any means. They can have as many bus parades as they like, and award knighthood to everyone, that's not really the point. To me, all this is just emblematic of people completely misreading the situation.

The broader point I was trying to make is that the English establishment has the habit of reading too much into 1-2 good performances and start building unrealistic expectations from their players. When those cricketers fail to deliver, they're disappointed. The examples I provided in this thread support the point.

After that Ashes win, they said Harmison would be the next Ambrose, Flintoff would be the next Botham, Simon Jones would be the next McGrath and that left-arm spinner (I'm forgetting his name, he even coached the English side for some time) would be the next Derek Underwood / Bishan Singh Bedi. Alas, they all failed to deliver on these unrealistic expectations. And for that, you can't really blame the players.

Root would be the next victim of this mindset.

 

[Last Monetarist]

On the same subject, and since Robert still believes that Stewart would have been as good as Ponting or better if he'd been spared the WK duties, here's an example of how a genuine tier 1 cricketer dealt with the same problem. Dravid was asked to keep wickets in the 2003 WC in the interest of balancing the side. He wasn't even as good a WK as Stewart was, but accepted the challenge nonetheless, did the job reasonably well (not outstanding, but okay) and India reached the finals.

Dravid mentioned later on that he was never thrilled with the WK job, but did it for the team.

I know ODIs are not the same as Tests, but anyway wanted to put it out there. Genuine world-class players find a way to deal with the situations they're thrown into.

I genuinely don't know what you're trying to imply here, Stewart never complained and got on with the job. I'd like to see the effect on Dravid's record if he was asked to keep wicket on and off for more than 12 years.

Re. Vaughan -- just because you didn't see a player perform better than him in Australia doesn't mean it that it didn't happen. Exhibit A: Laxman's 167 against them in Sydney 2000. He hammered McGrath, Warne and all other Aussie bowlers to every parts of SCG in what has be the most spectacular innings by a visiting batsman in Australia in years. Exhibit B: Sachin's hundred in the same series in Melbourne, a masterclass in batting in difficult conditions against a powerful bowling line-up. Exhibit C: Sachin's first hundred in Aus in 1992 when he was merely 19 years old. Exhibit D: Lara's multiple hundreds in Aus during his career. You don't have to take my word for it, just ask the Australian cricketers. You'll have to excuse me if I attach more credibility to what Warne, McGrath, Steve Waugh et. al. have to say vs. what you're saying. I actually watched every ball of Vaughan's home series against India and most part of his Australian performance later that winter. Good performance, but not great. So, no, I'm not being deliberately obtuse. I realize that you're not trying to push Vaughan into tier 1, but you're still trying to big-up his ability as a batmen, reading too much into that one year of good performance, and expecting him to be the next Tendulkar.

On Vaughan, it was more the continued excellence of that display by scoring more than 600 runs across 5 test matches against the best attack of that era. You're trying to conflate that with one or two excellent innings, which is essentially what you were arguing against earlier by stating that a single innings here or there doesn't make a difference to an overall career. It's your prerogative to judge whether other players have batted as well across a whole season as Vaughan did that winter, but in my opinion I haven't seen it in the past 25 years or so.

Gavaskar is known to have traveled directly from Mumbai international airport (where international fights usually land at 3am in the morning) to a domestic game (and scored a century -- he remained not out at the end of the day), so you'll have excuse me for not having too much sympathy for Hussain playing for Essex *the next day* after the Test series.

Sunil Gavaskar was different class and I hold him in higher regard than any other Indian cricketer. You won't find me ever arguing against his commitment for the game while he was a player.

Unlike you, I do think that England has produced a world-class batsman in recent times in the form of KP. But he didn't fit into their conformist cricket culture, so was thrown out in disgrace and continues to be shunned by the establishment. It just reinforces my point that the English cricket establishment (board, fans, media, ...) is more comfortable dealing with conformists even if they happen to be less-than-world-class. Then they complain when their players are not able to deliver world-class performance or captains start falling apart after being appointed.

Pietersen was great, but by no means a Tier 1 batsman. I'd rate him alongside Stewart, Thorpe, Smith, Gooch and Gower of the England players I have seen. I don't think he had to contend with the same calibre of bowlers that the aforementioned players had to face either.

Any chance of a quick summary of what Nasser says in his book?

I second this request. I recall that Stewart faced the same allegations that Mark Waugh and Shane Warne faced in Australia for providing information to bookmakers, and that it was brushed under the carpet by the ECB. There were rumours that that he skipped a tour to India in 01/02 for fear of being asked to provide evidence to police.

 

[Robert]

Incidentally, on the subject of needlessly encumbering a specialist batsman with gloves, I feel that history is repeating itself with Bairstow. England can help elevate Bairstow to a genuinely good batsman if they take the gloves off him and promote him to 4. It's almost as if Bayliss is scared of what Bairstow might achieve if he played him only as a batsman.

I fully agree.

 

[Robert]

Alec Stewart, a good player no doubt, but in my view forever tarnished due to being one of the very few English Test cricketers to be caught match-fixing. He was “officially” found innocent due to lack of evidence, however I have read Nasser’s book and reading between the lines in that chapter it is obvious that Stewart did it.

If there was no evidence then there was no case to answer. That’s how the law works. You are not found innocent, it is the default state.

There was a test match in SA where each team sacrificed an innings, which was unique I think. That seemed dubious in that Cronje was actually caught fixing later.

I remember in 1998 when England won the final test there were some howler lbw decisions given on the last day which looked very wrong, really bad, Faisalabad 1987 bad, but I don’t see how either side could have been fixing.

 

[Robert]

On the same subject, and since Robert still believes that Stewart would have been as good as Ponting or better if he'd been spared the WK duties, here's an example of how a genuine tier 1 cricketer dealt with the same problem. Dravid was asked to keep wickets in the 2003 WC in the interest of balancing the side. He wasn't even as good a WK as Stewart was, but accepted the challenge nonetheless, did the job reasonably well (not outstanding, but okay) and India reached the finals.

Dravid mentioned later on that he was never thrilled with the WK job, but did it for the team.

I know ODIs are not the same as Tests, but anyway wanted to put it out there. Genuine world-class players find a way to deal with the situations they're thrown into.

If you know that a handful of ODIs is not the same challenge as seventy test matches, why put it out there?

Did Dravid keep wicket for seventy tests? No he did not, so your comparison is spurious.