THERE’S NO SKIPPING THE ISSUE FOR THE CAPTAIN...

There must have been times during the Adelaide Test match when Joe Root and Steve Smith must have wished they’d taken up soccer rather than cricket. Captaining a footie team doesn’t put quite as much strain on the old grey matter, and you’re hardly likely to get savaged by the media when the biggest decision you ever have to make is what to reply when the ref says: “heads or tails?”

However, when the coin falls your way as captain of the England cricket team you immediately have to make another decision. And it’s a good bit more complex than whether to take choice of ends or the kick-off. Hence, when Joe Root opted to bowl first in Adelaide, he knew he was risking the opprobrium of an entire nation. Or even worse. A full blown harrumph from the wisest cricketing brain on the planet (just ask him) of Geoffrey Boycott.

Whether or not Root’s inclination was to bat when he walked out to toss, but suffered the same sudden change of mind as Nasser Hussain in Brisbane in 2002, we probably won’t know until Joe writes a book, but it may well have been the same kind of involuntary urge experienced by that Indian umpire who apologised to Mike Brearley for giving him out lbw. “I am sorry, Mr Brearley. I know it was not out, but I felt my finger going up, and I just couldn’t stop it.”

Smith, though, came pretty close himself to facing some unpleasant music. The Australian press might be like an old Pathe News wartime bulletin when it comes to propaganda (one newspaper described Root’s decision to bowl as “cowardly”) but they can turn pretty nasty when they lose, and watching Smith twitch, fret and fidget in the slips when England were initially declining to come quietly was the body language of a man making a mental note to cancel the papers.

Smith’s decision to bat again against a swinging pink ball under lights, rather than enforce the follow on, was generally regarded – to use the Australian vernacular – as the action of a man who’s got a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock. But he got away with it, not to mention squandering two reviews when his bowlers were under the cosh, because he won.

Yes, it’s a tough business this cricket captaincy, and he’s the bloke who has to front up when the fertiliser hits the fan. In football, it’s the manager who has to explain why his clever tactical formation ended up in a 7-0 defeat, but in cricket it’s the skipper who’s pushed out to explain where it all went wrong.

And when it goes wrong in an Ashes series, the questioning is more hostile than usual, as David Gower found out in 1989 at Lord’s when his tormentor in chief was none other than a former team-mate. In the opinion of Philippe Edmonds, Gower had bowled Neil Foster from the wrong end all day, and after half an hour of this Gower decided to remember that he had a taxi waiting to take him to the theatre and bade the assembled hacks good night.

And it was at this point that the coach was forced to field the questions for once. Although Gower might have decided to skip the first act had he known that Micky Stewart was not about to share any blame.

“As for the tactics on the field,” he said, “I can’t answer for that.”

Not everyone can be a Douglas Jardine, a Raymond Illingworth, or a Mike Brearley – who would be most people’s idea of England’s best Ashes captains.

And in all three cases, their particular gift was in getting the best

Not everyone can be a Douglas Jardine, Ray Illingworth or Mike Brearley – most people’s idea of England’s finest Ashes captains

out of the player that would effectively decide the series.

In Jardine’s case, it was Harold Larwood, who executed the captain’s plan to neuter Bradman to such perfection that the Australians complained to the MCC about unsportsmanlike conduct. Ever since when they’ve had the nerve to call us “whingeing Poms”.

With Illy, it was John Snow, a bowler who blew hot and cold as the mood took him. Illingworth, though, whose name rarely appeared in a sentence that didn’t contain the word “wily”, took his number one fast bowler to one side, made him feel like the most important cog in the team, and Snow won him the series.

And with Brearley, it was actually two men. After Ian Botham’s heroics at Headingley, England pulled off an even more improbable win at Edgbaston after Brearley – despite having hardly any runs to defend – told Bob Willis to forget about no-balls and bowl as fast as he could.

Another thing that all three had in common was that, as fielding captains, they never had to worry about whether or not to refer not out decisions to some bloke sitting in front of a television monitor. It’s hard to think of anything quite so time consuming – apart from the Brexit negotiations maybe, or the Ben Stokes investigation – and there are times when you wonder whether it’s you that needs to get down to Specsavers or the machine.

There were times in Adelaide when if Hawkeye had been driving a car (as machines doubtless will one day) it would have been pulled over by ‘Plod’ and invited to blow into a bag.

It’s the predictive element which raises eyebrows, not least in this Test match when it was concluding that balls hitting the pad would have gone on to clear the stumps: “Righto Mr Hawkeye, sir. I’m afraid that’s a positive reading. So if you’d be so kind as to hand me your keys, I must ask you to accompany me to the station.”

It might have been a bigger talking point had the ECB not sold out to BT Sport, but it’s hard to get an argument going down at the pub with, “did you see that Hawkeye on the radio this morning?”. Followed by the reply: “No, I was listening to, ‘Yesterday In Parliament’ at the time. Or was it ‘The Shipping Forecast?’.”

Mind you, given Perth’s reputation for pace and bounce, middle of the night radio experience might be a bit less scary if we get the occasional change of bowling.

From Starc, Hazlewood and Cummins to Viking, Forties and Cromarty.