All Wickets Are Equal But Some Are More Equal Than Others

Virat Kohli’s latest master class against England during the fourth test prompted some mental perambulations. The Indian captain arrived at the crease with his team in excess of two hundred and fifty runs adrift of their guests. Another quick wicket and England would have sensed the opportunity for a sizeable first innings lead.

Kohli produced a near faultless display though and the match turned irrevocably in favour of the hosts. One particular question floated around my mind: how important was Kohli’s contribution from his position as skipper as opposed to middle-order batsman?

The term ‘captain’s innings’ has been bandied around cricketing circles for some time now but how important is such a concept? The travails of Alastair Cook and England’s batsmen appear to highlight how Kohli’s consistent contributions possess great value. Not with regard to the currency of runs but a different, less tangible commodity.

Compare how Cook and his chums appear twitchy and nervous at the crease, apt to being dismissed cheaply or cowed into frittering their wickets away. In contrast, do some of India’s batsmen (Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara for instance) bat with more confidence safe in the knowledge that the skipper will produce?

Admittedly, home conditions play a large part in their confidence but Kohli’s consistent brilliance as skipper surely imbibes extra assurance amongst the rest of the team. In contrast, Cook’s struggle for form and runs is unlikely to breed said confidence amongst his charges.

In an era when the role of the captain arguably does not possess the same input as generations past (would Mike Brearley survive in the modern era with his brilliant knowledge of people but limited skills with the bat?) due to hyper-analysis and various performance coaches, is the overall on-field performance of the skipper now evermore crucial?

Cast one’s mind back and think of some of the great innings played in the last quarter of a century. Amongst those performances discussed in hushed tones is Graham Gooch’s belligerence versus the West Indies at Headingly in 1991 when carrying his bat to an unbeaten 154 (nobody else scored higher than 73 in the match) against the lustrous attack of Ambrose, Patterson, Marshall and Walsh. Or Mike Atherton’s ten hour tour de force against South Africa at the Wanderers in 1995.

For non-English performances, how about Brian Lara’s astonishing and savage unbeaten 153 to deny Australia by a single wicket at Barbados four years later? All three innings are examples of stellar batting brilliance but how much more import is attached because they were performed by the team’s captain?

As captain of a team for a number of years, many of which have included either opening the batting or batting at 3 or 4, I have personally felt the weight of captaincy upon my personal innings. Does my performance matter that little bit more? On at least one occasion I have heard the opposition fielders, upon my arrival at the crease, chirp to each other: “Right, this is the captain. This is the big one.” Or words to such an effect.

The opposition audibly voiced their belief that dismissing the opposition skipper as cheaply as possible possessed a little more gravitas and would provide them with an extra fillip toward winning the contest. The standard of the contest was of course many light years away from test match level but aren’t psychological aspects of the game (scoreboard pressure and momentum for instance) relevant for all formats of the sport?

Intriguingly, a similar point was made about erstwhile England captain Mike Atherton. Memories of the particular details escape my forgettory but the mental matter informs me that the South African bowling attack once highlighted that if they dismissed Atherton cheaply then they felt like they could remove the remainder of the England batsmen fairly comfortably.

Atherton’s role as the team’s skipper and its vanguard focused that particular opposition into a mindset that underlined his import, akin to taking the Queen in a game of Chess. Such an attitude provokes intriguing thoughts regarding whether Atherton’s run scoring performances inspired his team-mates? Or whether they had an adverse effect on the opposition bowlers? And are such factors still important in the modern day game?

Ultimately, all the wickets are equal but is one more cherished? Does dismissing the skipper cheaply produce an intangible surge in the fielding team? The term ‘captain’s innings’ isn’t part of the cricket lexicon for no good reason.

Hector Cappelletti

Yahoo Over Cow Corner @yahoooverCC

14 comments

  • Interesting thought but, speaking as a (retired) bowler, getting the best batsman, captain or not, meant most to me.

    • In my team I find that the opposition get especially downcast if they cannot get me and my (59 year old) opening partner early. I am 61 and the opposition bowlers are usually 18-40 so it hits them nicely when you can point out that they won’t have much joy with the rest of the team if they can’t get a couple of pensioners out.

      • Surely any fielding captain with half a clue would simply put on a couple of accurate medium pacers and bowl dry to you, letting your frustrated team-mates become more and more agitated and vocal in the pavilion, and then when finally one of you did get out, having dug a massive hole for the team, the REAL opening bowlers would come on and clear up the now stressed out and over aggressive middle order.

        Nothing a fielding side likes better than seeing a couple of old-timers walk out to bat.

        • Except that I still run half marathons, go in the gym 4 times a week (the benefits of retirement!) and can outsprint half our (rather unfit) colts – so can happily rotate the strike. But your strategy would be a good one as it is so much easier to score with pace on the ball.

  • Excellent article. A failing captain, esp a top order batsman, can have a negative psychological effect on the rest of the batsmen. There’s a tendency to think “Oh, if the skipper got out for a low score, I won’t be blamed if I fail”. Invariably, all eyes are on the skipper.

  • Targeting the opposition captain became a oft-repeated tactic after the great West Indies’ side were said to have done it. However the time before last that England won in India, in 1984/85, David Gower had a very poor tour with the bat and it didn’t stop England winning.

  • There’s an interesting interview with Kohli that possibly suggests otherwise:
    http://www.espncricinfo.com/india-v-england-2016-17/content/story/1072172.html

    Of course it’s also hard to disassociate the captain’s performance from that of the team when the captain is as clearly outstanding as is Kohli – and conversely a captain struggling for runs is also going to struggle to justify his place in the side (see the recent mini campaign against Morgan… :-) ).

  • We already know that James does not rate this innings because it was against the English spinners, since Anderson did not want to spoil his average. Stokes’s Double hundred against the south African fourth team bowlers was one of the greatest of all time, however.

    • I think that comes from the age old question of how would the best perform against the best.
      I.e Richards against Marshall & Garner, Ponting against Warne & McGrath etc.
      Of course you’d never know, but I guess Ashwin would have a greater chance of getting Kohli out than Ali.

  • I agree that if the captain is the premier batsman somewhere in the top 4 then his performance can have a positive or negative impact as described. However we do occasionally have captains who are bowlers, all rounders or even wicket keepers so the captains runs issue is not a universal factor in every team.

  • Whose wicket do we think was most valuable? That of Tendulkar or his captain Ganguly et al ??
    It happens that the wicket of the captain is the most desired by opposition teams as usually the captain is the best player

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