O Captain! My Captain!

There are many gems when it comes to cricketing folklore, but one of the most legendary tales comes from a super-six play-off stage match in the 1999 World Cup, when South African Gibbs dropped Australian Captain Steve Waugh. While Waugh has denied making the exact comments, the quote, "Son, you just dropped the World Cup!" has since gained its own fandom, more so because Waugh went on to make a match-winning century. Days later, under Waugh, Australia won the World Cup.

Australians have always been competitive and have never shied away from mind games and on-field banter, to put it mildly. But does Pat Cummins, the now-Kangaroo captain, have that X factor? To be fair, he led the team to the ICC Test World Cup title and retained the Ashes by drawing the series against England, a bit of help from the weather not withstanding! A genuine bowler-led team lifting the World Cup will be history of sorts.

This brings us to a more interesting debate: How much does leadership matter in cricket? Is it so that a nonchalant Rohit Sharma or Kane Williamson can steer their men more effectively than a more animated Babar Azam or Jos Butler? Virat, someone who wears his heart on the sleeve, to his credit, backed and built India’s first genuine pace attack and brought about intensity and passion (call it "intent" if you must!) on the field.

In cricket, a captain's utility is not simply determined by his playing abilities. One real test of composure is when you have just 10 seconds to take that DRS review. Contrary to popular opinion, Captain Cool MS Dhoni doesn't find a place in the top five captains who mostly get their reviews right. As per an article in Wisden, it's Babar Azam who sits on the perch when it comes to calling it right.

Another data set points out that the most successful captains have been batsmen or all-rounders. So, can Temba Bavuma make the Proteas shed the choker tag, or can Dasun Shanaka emulate Ranatunga's 1999 feat?

Less known Mike Brearley (fun fact: highest test score of 91, average of 22.88, abysmal for a middle-order batsman) holds the record for being the most successful English captain when it comes to the Ashes. In 1996, Ranatunga also played second fiddle to the likes of De Silva and Jayasuriya. So, is an ideal captain one who, like Batman, lurks in the shadows and only emerges when there is a need to save the day?

Interestingly, in the 2019 World Cup, no player from the finalists team was among the top run-getters or highest wicket-takers. India's Rohit Sharma and Australia's Starc topped that list in their respective fields. The winning team captain, Eoin Morgan, scored just one century, that too against Afghanistan, and Kiwi skipper Kane Williamson, who won 'Player of the Tournament,' ended up on the losing side in the most exciting and closest Cricket World Cup final ever.

But sometimes statistics do not capture the real impact. For example, it was Clive Lloyd who steered the West Indies in the 1970s and 1980s. Lloyd is often regarded as the last of the great captains of the West Indies. Most people failed to recognise that putting together and leading a disparate team across many islands and countries is hard. After Lloyd, the West Indies team became a pale shadow of what it used to be until the 1980s.

While Imran Khan is considered to be the greatest Pakistani captain, the fact is that 'Burewala Express,' or Waqar Younis, has a better winning percentage at 61.7% in ODIs. While it is often debated whether captaincy hinders the career of a talented player, the other side of the coin is that a gifted player may be a bad choice as a captain. Brian Lara is among the top five losing captains in Test matches. Under his leadership, the West Indies lost around 55% of their matches. Back home, under SRT, India won only 27% of matches, and he is the only captain under whom the Men in Blue never won a test match abroad.

Hogg said of Mike Brearley "He has a degree in people". This World Cup, we will see who will graduate as a 'people manager,' and maybe we will get new heroes or the existing ones will get their redemption.