Alistair Cook's (woeful) captaincy

[Owzat]

I think the criticism of cook is very harsh and systematic of some people never being happy.

Maybe his field placings and overall mentality lacks creativity. So what.

Considering there are only so many things the captain's input heavily influences, I'd think those are pretty bad for starters.

When he took over we'd just been embarrassed by South Africa and there were distinct factions in a fractious dressing room (see the whole KP debacle). Not to mention the 3-0 drubbing against Pakistan was still fresh in the memory with all the issues about playing in subcontinent

then he went and captained us to a series win in India. And despite his terrible captaincy this series we are 3-0 up.

Yes, being 3-0 up against an aussie side struggling to score runs in 3/5 of the Tests and which we, completely coincidentally, won by the fact they could barely score any runs.

1st Test - Australia 280 thanks to a cameo 98 from Agar and 296 thanks to an 84 run opening stand and 71 from Haddin late on

2nd Test - Australia 128 and 235, the latter thanks largely to 98 runs put on for the 4th wicket and some tail end action.

4th Test - Australia 270 thanks to 110 from Rogers and 224 thanks mainly to 109 for the 1st wicket


Not the most awesome of totals in those three Tests, those three being the ones making Cook/England 3-0 up which is what you're trying to credit him for.

England could easily have lost the 1st Test anyway, and have been lucky that the one previous Test the aussies dominated hasn't been costly otherwise this Test could be for 2-2. Where was his captaincy been when we need it? The time when we need it is when great captains step up, and when England captains go on the back foot and hope a fielder is picked out by the batsman so he can claim kudos.

His captaincy is not great in use of bowlers, placings, fields too defensive etc Or maybe you're trying to say when we win it is down to his captaincy, when we lose there's nothing he can do about it.......................?

because Warne rips into it all the time.

Rubbish, I've not heard or read a word from Warne on the subject so that's a crock. There's been a chain of negative captains, Vaughan the most over-rated, and I believe they learn the bad traits from the captain before without ever questioning if it was good or bad.

Of course he's rather stuck this Test, doesn't have a lot of choice but to try and nurse Kerrigan and Woakes through thanks to daft selections. Has he done that well? Not particularly

 

[ste_mc_efc]

Rubbish, I've not heard or read a word from Warne on the subject so that's a crock. There's been a chain of negative captains, Vaughan the most over-rated, and I believe they learn the bad traits from the captain before without ever questioning if it was good or bad.

Of course he's rather stuck this Test, doesn't have a lot of choice but to try and nurse Kerrigan and Woakes through thanks to daft selections. Has he done that well? Not particularly

Not rubbish at all. he goes on about it all the time

Alastair Cook rebuffs Shane Warne?s accusations of overly cautious captaincy | The Times

The times there, describing Warne as Cook's "most outspoken critic"

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Considering there are only so many things the captain's input heavily influences, I'd think those are pretty bad for starters.

you're missing the bigger picture. Captains do a lot of things that aren't really tangible.


On the whole i think captains get a bit of a bum deal. When it goes well and they win the bowlers who take wickets get the plaudits. When it goes poorly it's often the captains fault.

 

[Owzat]

Again terrible captaincy by Cook, England have been terribly negative way too much for a side 3-0 up

 

[Samuels]

I quite hate the concept of giving your best man (usually a batsman) the charge of the team when there are quite a few regulars in the team. That said, I don't think Cook has done anything criminal thus far. Not all are born leaders and Cook is one of them. One should give him time and with experience he can be a better leader. All said and done, those opposing Cook as the English skipper, anyone in the English side you think can be a long term skipper of the team, not just stop-gap one? It is not necessary to say KP is not on the cards for the job.

 

[Owzat]

I quite hate the concept of giving your best man (usually a batsman) the charge of the team when there are quite a few regulars in the team. That said, I don't think Cook has done anything criminal thus far. Not all are born leaders and Cook is one of them. One should give him time and with experience he can be a better leader. All said and done, those opposing Cook as the English skipper, anyone in the English side you think can be a long term skipper of the team, not just stop-gap one? It is not necessary to say KP is not on the cards for the job.

Whether you think Cook is the "best" man for the job or not, doesn't mean his captaincy isn't woeful. The whole line that you seem to be going down, the typical "well who's better.........?" question doesn't detract from him being poor.

Until tried who knows who is better, and it isn't about "doing anything criminal" although criminal time wasting arguably fits that description, but not being a good captain.

 

[Rayr27]

Not all are born leaders and Cook is one of them. One should give him time and with experience he can be a better leader.

You say that but of all the things Cook is guilty of by far the worst is that he's not learning from his mistakes, which is very much criminal in any part of life. Getting on for a year in the job now and he's becoming increasingly negative and his batting is now suffering too.

 

[Auwais]

It's just a rigid approach that has been "perfected" under Flower and used previously by Strauss.

I'm guessing Cook is just continuing that because that's what he played under and learned as vice-captain, so not sure how much we can blame Cook himself rather than the management.

 

[ste_mc_efc]

It's just a rigid approach that has been "perfected" under Flower and used previously by Strauss.

I'm guessing Cook is just continuing that because that's what he played under and learned as vice-captain, so not sure how much we can blame Cook himself rather than the management.

Agreed.

there are certainly reasons to criticise cook, but it's overblown

 

[ferg512]

His captaincy is not great in use of bowlers, placings, fields too defensive etc Or maybe you're trying to say when we win it is down to his captaincy, when we lose there's nothing he can do about it.......................?

Exactly this, every time someone has a go at Cooks captaincy all I hear is about how well the English team has done under him, lets be honest if he were the captain of Australia right now the result would be no different. Cooks results have been the product of having the overall better team in most series not because he is a good captain. Just look at Fleming, he didn't have a very good test record (because we never had a really good side under him) but you can't tell me Cook is a better captain just because he has a better record. Fleming was a far superior captain.

 

[invisibleman18]

Since he became captain we have won a series away in India, won an Ashes series 3-0, have gone a home summer unbeaten (5 wins and 2 draws from 7 tests) and are unbeaten in 13 tests. Oh and he's averaging over 50 as captain. What more is he supposed to have done? Wish we had captains this terrible in the 90s to be honest. Maybe I wouldn't have had to wait until my 20s to experience an Ashes win!

 

[ferg512]

Since he became captain we have won a series away in India, won an Ashes series 3-0, have gone a home summer unbeaten (5 wins and 2 draws from 7 tests) and are unbeaten in 13 tests. Oh and he's averaging over 50 as captain. What more is he supposed to have done? Wish we had captains this terrible in the 90s to be honest. Maybe I wouldn't have had to wait until my 20s to experience an Ashes win!

You're missing the point completely, it has nothing to do with his captaincy that you guys are winning, you have the better team in most series that is why you are winning. Its a shame we couldn't take that final wicket in Auckland as everyone is conveniently forgetting that series now, when we dominated England for 2 out of the three tests in that series.

 

[blockerdave]

I definitely agree that England have had a long line of negative captains. Vaughan was just as bad.

i'd definitely disagree with that. thought vaughan as at least inventive with some of his fielding placements.

cook reminds me of someone who's been given the job of captaining the school 1st xi because he's head boy and looks smart in a blazer when he meets the other school's master. he has absolutely no intuitive feel for the bigger picture of the game and when crucial moments arrive. if it's not in his "Cricket Captaincy 1895 Edition" Manual then forget it, he can;t imagine it. this is seen as the first post said most painfully in ODI.

strauss was also very quick to go on the defensive, but seemed to have a greater understanding of the sweep of a game, and (KP aside) appeared to be accepted by everyone as a natural leader.

the biggest problem though, really, is who else? because they play so little county cricket there nobody would have much captaincy experience. the only slight mitigation for cook's general awfulness as captain is he is learning on the job.

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lets be honest if he were the captain of Australia right now the result would be no different.

swap captains, leave everything else the same and England win 5-0

 

[Owzat]

You're missing the point completely, it has nothing to do with his captaincy that you guys are winning, you have the better team in most series that is why you are winning. Its a shame we couldn't take that final wicket in Auckland as everyone is conveniently forgetting that series now, when we dominated England for 2 out of the three tests in that series.

Precisely. Nothing much a good captain could have done in our weaker years, Gooch did all he could and pretty darned well all things considered. Take away some of the soft wins captain johnnies come lately get and you boil down to the same kind of win against sides worth beating.

Wasn't hard to win with what the aussies had, or the West Indies in their pomp.

i'd definitely disagree with that. thought vaughan as at least inventive with some of his fielding placements.

pft, you set the field to where the bowler is going to bowl. Inventing places for the ball to go doesn't make him a good captain, it leaves holes where fielders should be on the offchance the ball goes there in the air for a glorious catch so the captain can boast how he had a (cunning) plan..................

And how often have we seen the ball go through second or third slip when England captains have gone on the defensive WAY too early? The ball as often goes where the fielder was as it does where the "clever" captain puts him, if not more often.

A good captain will get the basics right, not defend way too early, not ponce about with field settings trying to magic a wicket. If a batsman has a weakness and hits it in the air in certain areas you put a fielder there, not if you're just hoping. And even then I'm not sure that makes them a good captain, just means they've done their homework - a merit or pass perhaps more than a distinction, whereas not doing your homework equals a fail.

But at least your trying to find things relating to captaincy rather than win = good captain. Vaughan stuffed the West Indies on a regular basis, that wasn't down to him, that was down to them being very poor and us having good players.

And we didn't win the 2005 Ashes because of Vaughan, we won because Flintoff scored 402 runs and took something like 24 wickets, Jones took lots of wickets, Hoggard and Harmison too, and we sneaked two narrow wins despite his captaincy.

In fact his decision to enforce the follow on was one of the silliest around. We then lost Jones, Vaughan being oblivious to the fact that bowlers need a rest (one of the benefits of not enforcing the follow on) and could have lost the match as he didn't really have enough runs or a clue how to bowl when it dawned on him it wasn't a walk in the park

And he was lucky to win the two run margin by a dubious catch, all in all the players carried him to a win, his captaincy in losing to India was poor, he just played at being captain and some things worked, but a lot of stuff he got wrong.

He talks a way more positive game on TMS than he put into practice.