Clarke's Captaincy

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Clarke is a perfectly fine captain. Yes I will argue he has been guilty of being too aggressive in this series, but in terms of craftiness/tactics he is the best captain in the game generally. It's not his fault that he's had weaker lineups than past Australian captains. IMO he's a better captain than Waugh and Ponting (I'm gonna get lynched here for saying that).
 
Underarm said:
have we lost any after declaring?
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Not AFAIK. IIRC the only Test we lost where he declared was the 2nd Test in India 2012/13, but that was 9 down and he wanted a bite at India before the end of the day's play. The Oval was close, but the circumstances there were completely different.
 

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danger_to_walker said:
Next question?
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Yes this morning a little innocent fart of mine went viral in the lift at work. The office hottie used it straight after and didn't share my appreciation of the effort, but I've since managed to plant some seeds among the rest of the staff that she in fact was the offender. I have delighted in this all day.

Am I a bad person?
 
Chaisa said:
Clarke is a perfectly fine captain. Yes I will argue he has been guilty of being too aggressive in this series, but in terms of craftiness/tactics he is the best captain in the game generally. It's not his fault that he's had weaker lineups than past Australian captains. IMO he's a better captain than Waugh and Ponting (I'm gonna get lynched here for saying that).
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Ponting and Clarke couldn't be more opposites when it comes to captaincy.

Clarke is tactically very good, but seems to have communication issues.

I remember Langer said 'if Punter told you to walk over hot coals you'd do it, because you knew he'd do it for you'. Ponting was a leader of men, and was very 'meh' tactically.
 
The concept of tactics in the modern game has been replaced by the concept of preparation. Clarke has certainly been better than Ponting tactically, but has still been found wanting e.g. some of the fields set in the second test against SA, the previous summer against SA and against India. It's not just Clarke. Graeme Smith has been left scratching his head when their plans made in preparation fail, and lets not forget Alistair Cook.

Ponting IMO was poor tactically, but also a poorly prepared captain. Compare that to Steve Waugh who had the team extremely well drilled on how to dismiss each batsman, and the team was ruthless at training. Just consider how horribly our fielding declined during Ponting's captaincy. We clearly weren't practicing as much as we are now or we did under Waugh. Clarke is much closer to Waugh than Ponting.

IMO Waugh > Clarke > Ponting.
 
I think you will find the team under Taylor lost far more dead rubbers, and Waugh went a long way towards stamping that out.

The "team full of champions" criticism is also pretty lame, and fails to acknowledge the work done to make them that way. They weren't all champions when he took over.
 
I'd have it

Tubby > Ponting > Clarke > Waugh

Ponting gets so much heat for the end of his career when he had a shit bowling attack and a brittle batting order.

this is a guy who managed to keep a team with guys like Hayden and Warne in it. Someone without his character would have ended up how Cook is now.
 
Yeah, so Ponting is good at managing personalities. That's a tick for him. That's also the only thing he has over those other captains.

Ponting may not have had the cattle the others guys had, but that doesn't excuse the ad hoc field placings or the reactive field placings (how often he would move a player to exactly where a four had just been hit), and doesn't excuse the decline of the team's training standards.

Even if you don't have the players, you still go about it the right way.

Yes, Waugh had a great side, but they weren't all greats when he took over. Stacks of the guys who played under Waugh became better under his leadership. Hayden wasn't a prolific opener when he came into the side. Langer was a battler. Gilchrist was promoted to opener in the ODI team by Waugh, an inspired move if ever there was one. Then you've got a guy like Ponting who went from being a very good batsman to being an all time great. It's no coincidence all this happened under Waugh's leadership.
 
Clarke on field is astute a captain as anyone we have ever had, because he's a cricketer first and foremost and cricketers will always have an advantage over any other type they come up against. Off field he has been lacking, but things have improved markedly. I have it on pretty good authority that some of the moves in the last test were a veiled protest at Doolan being dropped for Maxwell, including Maxwell keeping wicket, which is as big a slap in the face as you can get. I'm far from a fan of Clarke as a bloke, but as a bat and on field Captain he's A1.
 

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western royboy said:
Clarke on field is astute a captain as anyone we have ever had, because he's a cricketer first and foremost and cricketers will always have an advantage over any other type they come up against. Off field he has been lacking, but things have improved markedly. I have it on pretty good authority that some of the moves in the last test were a veiled protest at Doolan being dropped for Maxwell, including Maxwell keeping wicket, which is as big a slap in the face as you can get. I'm far from a fan of Clarke as a bloke, but as a bat and on field Captain he's A1.
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Clarke and Boof butting heads?
 
western royboy said:
Clarke on field is astute a captain as anyone we have ever had, because he's a cricketer first and foremost and cricketers will always have an advantage over any other type they come up against. Off field he has been lacking, but things have improved markedly. I have it on pretty good authority that some of the moves in the last test were a veiled protest at Doolan being dropped for Maxwell, including Maxwell keeping wicket, which is as big a slap in the face as you can get. I'm far from a fan of Clarke as a bloke, but as a bat and on field Captain he's A1.
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You can't select a team on the basis of what happens if the keeper gets injured but that really did underline the ridiculous choice of selecting Maxwell to bat at 3 at the expense of Doolan and Hughes.

Was still less embarrassing than Maxwell's innings at 3 though
 
Clarke is just more attack minded that some other captains. If you got Harris + Johnson on a bouncy wicket ,chances are you're gonna win. You could put 'Coco the clown' in charge and still win in that situation. Then Clarke goes to India, England and UAE where he doesnt have those conditions and looks average at best. He never out-captained Cook in England or Dhoni in India. Both those captains are regularly derided as being clowns.
 
Nel Mangle said:
Clarke is just more attack minded that some other captains. If you got Harris + Johnson on a bouncy wicket ,chances are you're gonna win. You could put 'Coco the clown' in charge and still win in that situation. Then Clarke goes to India, England and UAE where he doesnt have those conditions and looks average at best. He never out-captained Cook in England or Dhoni in India. Both those captains are regularly derided as being clowns.
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You can't outcaptain anyone if you haven't got the players. Look at Stephen Fleming.
 
The_Reaper said:
You can't select a team on the basis of what happens if the keeper gets injured but that really did underline the ridiculous choice of selecting Maxwell to bat at 3 at the expense of Doolan and Hughes.

Was still less embarrassing than Maxwell's innings at 3 though
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It's utterly irrelevant. I can't believe people even link the things.
 
Doodlesweaver said:
You can't outcaptain anyone if you haven't got the players. Look at Stephen Fleming.
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Nobody would have given England a hope in hell of winning in India. Cook has that win on his resume and he is rated as being a joke captain.
If Clarke was such a tactical grandmaster he would have been able to manipulate some better results in India and UAE,
 
Nel Mangle said:
Nobody would have given England a hope in hell of winning in India. Cook has that win on his resume and he is rated as being a joke captain.
If Clarke was such a tactical grandmaster he would have been able to manipulate some better results in India and UAE,
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Doubt it. You can't polish the turds he has to use
 
Nel Mangle said:
Nobody would have given England a hope in hell of winning in India. Cook has that win on his resume and he is rated as being a joke captain.
If Clarke was such a tactical grandmaster he would have been able to manipulate some better results in India and UAE,
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India had their older line-up and Swann had bowled well there before, plus KP had a wonderful series. Nothing he ever does is down to the skipper.

As I said, Steven Fleming was highly rated as a skipper, how did the Black Caps go under his captaincy? Why wasn't he pulling out loads of wins if it wasn't about the players?
 
Doodlesweaver said:
India had their older line-up and Swann had bowled well there before, plus KP had a wonderful series. Nothing he ever does is down to the skipper.

As I said, Steven Fleming was highly rated as a skipper, how did the Black Caps go under his captaincy? Why wasn't he pulling out loads of wins if it wasn't about the players?
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I guess I will have to go back to my original post when I said..

Clarke is just more attack minded that some other captains. If you got Harris + Johnson on a bouncy wicket ,chances are you're gonna win. You could put 'Coco the clown' in charge and still win in that situation. Then Clarke goes to India, England and UAE where he doesnt have those conditions and looks average at best. He never out-captained Cook in England or Dhoni in India. Both those captains are regularly derided as being clowns.
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Surely Clarke had enough firepower in his squad to outclass Cook on the England tour? but on that tour he didnt captain well IMO.
as the thread starter said, Clarke was made to look good by what Johnson did . In the 3-0 series win for England the only time we were ever under pressure was at Old Trafford on the last day before the rain came in. yet we go down under and get blown away on the bouncy pitches and never compete.
 
Nel Mangle said:
Nobody would have given England a hope in hell of winning in India. Cook has that win on his resume and he is rated as being a joke captain.
If Clarke was such a tactical grandmaster he would have been able to manipulate some better results in India and UAE,
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Up until Prior fell out of form, Cook wasn't too bad, sans Prior he was found to be poor because he had no feel for the game. Clarke and SP Fleming clearly have/had it.
 

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Clarke's Captaincy

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