The art of captaining in Australia
I wrote recently about overseas captains who struggled to come to grips with the tactical side of leading in Australia. However, there have been some very successful visiting skippers.
Leading the pack would be England’s Douglas Jardine with his highly successful 1932-33 Bodyline strategy. It wasn’t Jardine’s fault that the laws of cricket allowed a gap in field placement that he fully exploited. He invoked the first principle of good captaincy—reduce the effectiveness of the opposition’s best player—and in doing so exploited the law perfectly.
Jardine made his dislike of Australians obvious and went out of his way to annoy the increasingly volatile crowds. However, he wasn’t devoid of humour.
In 1953 after the tumult and shouting had died down, Jardine attended a London gathering in honour of the touring Australians. Someone with an evil sense of humour sat him next to former Bodyline foe, Australian leg-spinner Bill ‘Tiger’ O’reilly.
The guest speaker was Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies. During his speech Menzies referred to being unpopular in his own country; “My nickname at home is Pig Iron Bob,” acknowledged Menzies. “In fact,” he continued; “I must be the most hated man in Australia.”
O’reilly received a tap on the leg and turned to Jardine, who whispered; “Bill, I fear the man is misinformed. He can only be the second most hated man in Australia.” Jardine was clever in realising the importance of good pace bowling in Australia and two other English captains followed his example.
In 1954-55, Yorkshireman Len Hutton brought a strong contingent of fast bowlers but it was Frank ‘Typhoon’ Tyson who emulated Harold Larwood’s 1932-33 success and was England’s wrecking ball.
It took another canny Yorkshireman in Ray Illingworth in 1970-71 to replicate the fast bowling formula and his spearhead was the feisty John Snow. I learned a lot from witnessing Illingworth’s imaginative captaincy up close. The other really good England captain in Australia was Mike Gatting. In 1986-87, he led his team to a trifecta; winning the Test series, the triangular ODI tournament and a specially arranged Perth Challenge that also featured Pakistan and West Indies. The Test triumph was based on an all-round team effort to support Gatting’s tactical nous rather than any devastating fast bowling.
PATAUDI, KOHLI SHINE
India’s best captaincy in Australia was produced by their first and most recent skippers I’ve seen tour this country.
In 1967-68, the Nawab of Pataudi ensured an out-manned Indian side remained competitive in the three Tests he led. He inspired the team with his aggressive stroke-play despite being hindered by blindness in one eye and a hamstring injury and his judicious use of the spinners, especially the teasing Erapalli Prasanna.
In 2018-19, Virat Kohli masterminded India’s first series win in Australia. He achieved this difficult feat by coaxing the best out of his fast bowling trio and providing some useful innings to complement the heavy scoring of Cheteshwar Pujara.
West Indies had a lot of success in Australia during the late seventies and eighties. Their convincing victories were more the result of a succession of fast bowling greats and a strong batting line-up rather than any imaginative captaincy.
South Africa under first Graeme Smith and then Faf du Plessis enjoyed success in Australia, but this was achieved through talent and a typically attritional style leadership. England produced an upset in 2010-11 with Andrew Strauss utilising a similar formula.
And just to prove you don’t necessarily have to win to impress as a captain, Arjuna Ranatunga’s pro-active leadership kept an out-gunned Sri Lankan side competitive for longer than seemed possible in 1989-90.
He then built on that foundation to engineer Sri Lanka’s eventual success over Australia in the 1996 World Cup final. Good captaincy is hard to define but you know it when you witness it. The outstanding feature of good captains is the ability to coax the best out of their players.