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Q: Jim Robson - my best captain
The best captain I played under was John Rogers at UNSW Cricket Club in the 1970s.
John was such a good captain, and it was because he had these attributes.
1. Good captains need to be good man managers. If they have this skill, they can be very successful, Mike Brearley for example. Talented players who weren’t good man managers have often not been successful captains.
2. Good captains have total control of the team and they “run the show”. The coach and teammates might offer a view off the field, but the captain has total charge on the field. They may occasionally ask for some advice from his vice-captain on the field. Nothing looks worse than the captain talking to two or three other players and his bowler as they talk about field placements at the start of a new over. I’ll never forget seeing Bill Lawry in conference with Froggy Thomson, Geoff Dymock and Tony Dell in 1971. My head was spinning.
3. Good captains respect and communicate with all players in a positive manner.
4. Good captains realise every player has their own idiosyncrasies and supports all of them. Now I am old and cynical, but I still marvel at the outstanding job Mark Taylor did with so many high maintenance players in his team.
5. Good captains… just like good players… do everything they need to do to win. Sometimes they need to be very attacking, sometimes very defensive. You should always play according to the teams needs for success.
John Rogers had all these attributes and was incredibly inspiring and caring at the same time. He turned 80 this year and at his birthday party were two other outstanding captains John Benaud and Mick Pawley. Listening to these three in conversation was like listening to Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin in discussion in 1945.
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Q: I was not good enough to be a first class player but in November 1979 I was fortunate to be chosen as captain of the Australian Universities team to play the England Test team at Adelaide Oval. It was a serious 4 day match as England were due to play Australia in the First Test a week later.
We were very weak “on paper” and I got a call from the Australian Cricket Board that the toss with Mike Brearley should be a “pretend “ toss and that England had to bat first no matter what. I assume they thought we would be dismissed for a very low score if I decided to bat first.
As captain I had a “secret weapon” in leg spinner Geoff Kirkwood. I knew him v well as he came from my club, University of NSW. He was a colourful personality. Kirky was outstanding at drinking, smoking and playing the piano. Whilst he had trouble holding down a first grade spot due to our NSW squad spinners Mark Ray, Paddy Grattan-Smith and Steve Campbell I knew he had the X factor. Yes he had a great top spinner and England were known to be very poor against leggies in that era.
Being aware of these factors I brought Kirkwood onto bowl very early. Our opening bowler Peter Clough had set it up by bowling quickly at Boycott and Brearley and I was confident when Kirky came on. My big decision as captain was to get him to bowl without anyone in the deep on the leg side.
Sure enough with no one in the deep batsmen such as Botham, Gooch and Randall attempted to slog him when he bowled too short. But they could not pick his top spinner….it skidded onto them too quickly and they just mishit his short ones to midwicket or square leg
Kirky finished with 5 wickets off 16 overs and we dismissed England for 179. In response Dirk Wellham batted superbly for us and we took a first innings lead. This was deservedly Kirky’s match and he was the lead story on the back page of every Australian newspaper. Brearley and I batted poorly in this match but I felt I “out captained” him due to my successful tactics with Kirky.
