Top Five Test Captains Right Now

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futureblackcap

futureblackcap

Well-Known Member
What's your list of the top five Test captains in the world right now?

This is mine. Feel free to disagree and debate.

1) Michael Clarke (sorry Nairbie but I still believe he's a great skipper)
2) Brendon McCullum (no this is not because he's Kiwi haha)
3) Graeme Smith (because he's retired I'm giving this spot to Alistair Cook)
4) Misbah Ul-Haq
5) MS Dhoni

Thoughts?
 
Wow really tough, considering the way the game has moved it is interesting. Right at this moment i would think with the great win over India you could give McCullum the nod at one. This is taking into consideration the cattle at his disposal (no offence FBC) but this makes the achievements even that much better. We could consider the current win by Australia as good being they were up against the top team and on the whole it was good to see the batting order share the load. And yes with the last year and the last eight test behind us i will concede that Clarke is finding his feet. Still not convinced that it has been his influence but rather Boof that has pulled the team together. Don't be surprised if the first sign of trouble brings the old rivalries back to the surface.

1. McCullum ( amazing results from not the greatest lineup. Shows what teamwork and determination can achieve)
2. Misbah Ul-Haq (another team performing well above expectation especially when you consider they never get a home game)
3. Graeme Smith (might be retiring but has done great things for a team stricken with politics and at times meddling from outside)
4. MS Dhoni (the politics he has to deal with, really with a billion people India should be the undisputed champs for the last 20 years)
5. Clarke (he does work hard tactically but still not convinced the team is following him)

Funny same five people just different order. Just can not see any others that are winning it. Mathews has only started, Cook was woefull last summer, Sammy and Rahim toil away but really none of them show the potential to step up with their team.
 
Well said Nairbie. But I think you'll find that New Zealand has a lot more depth now than we've probably ever had which is amazing because 12 months ago, most of those players were un-knowns in domestic cricket. What is exciting is almost all the young guys who've been brought into international cricket in the India and West Indies series performed well almost instantly. Jimmy Neesham has taken wickets regularly and shown his power while also scoring an impressive century on Test debut (overshadowed my McCullum's 302), Corey Anderson doesn't need much highlight as you'll all be aware of his hitting power but he's also bowled well at times and has already shown he has the right temperament for Test cricket and also has a Test century to his name. In the bowling, Henry, McClenaghan, Milne (very pacey and finnally seems to have found some consistency) and Bennett have all impressed when they got their opportunities. As far as wicket-keepers, Watling has secured his spot in the Test side for years to come and Ronchi is starting to find some real consistency in the shorter-formats. The only position we don't have depth in at the moment is we don't have enough quality spin bowlers. Nathan McCullum is a solid short form bowler but doesn't take enough wickets consistently and Ish Sodhi hasn't found his game yet at the international level.

Sorry about the long splurge that went off topic. :p

As far as captains go. I agree, Misbah should be higher up. I think he does an incredible job for a team that has a pretty crappy Test batting line-up. Always leading from the front and making them push above their weight really. MS Dhoni also does a great job considering the longevity of the national pressure he's endured. His captaincy does seem to go stale through-out Test matches though which might be because he gets seems to get bored haha.
 
Yeah this is the strongest NZ side I've seen since watching from around 1990, other sides have had a quite few quality players and even stars in them but have always invariably carried about 2-3 spuds. Finally there seems to be actually some depth over there atm.

Off topic, maybe you should start a thread FBC ;)
 
I'd probably go:

1. Misbah (only complete captain at the moment)
2. McCullum (still don't think he's done anything that Taylor wouldn't of done)
3. Clarke (not a good man manager though)
...
1000. Cook
 
leftie600 said:
2. McCullum (still don't think he's done anything that Taylor wouldn't of done)
Click to expand...

So you are still saying that Taylor was the better captain? Interesting..

Edit: Taylor wasn't bad but he was nowhere near as creative or as aggressive as McCullum's captaincy. Also, McCullum is the better talker out of the two which helps.

McCullum also wants the captaincy more. :p It was stated in the media by Taylor that while he didn't mind being captain...he was more upset by how he was dropped from the captaincy than actually losing the job itself. McCullum has always had the captaincy ambition.
 
futureblackcap said:
So you are still saying that Taylor was the better captain? Interesting..

Edit: Taylor wasn't bad but he was nowhere near as creative or as aggressive as McCullum's captaincy. Also, McCullum is the better talker out of the two which helps.

McCullum also wants the captaincy more. :p
Click to expand...
We've only seen McCullum's creative and aggressive captaincy when the opposition have put on a massive score (see England at Eden Park where he went by the numbers until it was too late). In fact the reasons that we are starting to look good is the consistency of Taylor and Williamson in the middle order and the improvement of Southee and Boult with the new ball, this is exactly what we had when Taylor was captain (and were winning tests). People seem to be forgetting that McCullum was the captain in Bangladesh, where we drew the test series and got nil in the ODIs, and was captain when SAf destroyed us.
 
leftie600 said:
We've only seen McCullum's creative and aggressive captaincy when the opposition have put on a massive score (see England at Eden Park where he went by the numbers until it was too late). In fact the reasons that we are starting to look good is the consistency of Taylor and Williamson in the middle order and the improvement of Southee and Boult with the new ball, this is exactly what we had when Taylor was captain (and were winning tests). People seem to be forgetting that McCullum was the captain in Bangladesh, where we drew the test series and got nil in the ODIs, and was captain when SAf destroyed us.
Click to expand...

We are winning Tests now... No offense to Sri Lanka but India is a step above and although we didn't beat England at home. You can't take McCullum out of the equation and expect the same results we got. Sure, Williamson, Taylor, Southee and Boult are four big reasons why we've been succeeding at the Test level but McCullum's captaincy and runs are two other BIG reasons. His fifties in every Test match in that home series against England took the opposition's confidence away and drove them into the ground. And if we take McCullum out of the recent Test series against India then we'd have what? We would have lost in Auckland and would have had a huge loss/series loss in Wellington...

Can I ask you this? Why do you think, almost every young player who's come into the New Zealand set-up in the last twelve months has performed on the international stage? (Sodhi, Rutherford and Latham as yet are the only real exceptions) Neesham, Anderson, Bennett, Milne, Henry and McClenaghan have all performed exceptionally almost immediately upon their call-up to their debuts. Then there's Taylor and Williamson, Boult and Southee, Wagner also, who have continued to thrive under McCullum's captaincy... Why do you think they are all performing so impressively? I think you are missing a key ingredient to our success. McCullum and Hesson deserve a lot of credit.
 
futureblackcap said:
Can I ask you this? Why do you think, almost every young player who's come into the New Zealand set-up in the last twelve months has performed on the international stage? (Sodhi, Rutherford and Latham as yet are the only real exceptions) Neesham, Anderson, Bennett, Milne, Henry and McClenaghan have all performed exceptionally almost immediately upon their call-up to their debuts. Then there's Taylor and Williamson, Boult and Southee, Wagner also, who have continued to thrive under McCullum's captaincy... Why do you think they are all performing so impressively? I think you are missing a key ingredient to our success. McCullum and Hesson deserve a lot of credit.
Click to expand...
I'm not saying give the current setup no credit I'm saying take the recent results against India with a grain of salt, everyone is falling over themselves to say how wonderful everything is after 2 series, one against an awful WI side and another against an Indian side on the decline. Nor take what I've stated as asking for them to fail so they can be replaced, hell no, I want things to keep improving so we can have a shot at winning the WC and quite frankly seeing McCullum get his batting mojo back is wonderful thing. Great to have a stable environment (finally) and have young players performing but we can't lose sight that this is still a developing side and a short time ago we couldn't even beat Bangladesh.

From the names you've given: Taylor, Williamson, Boult, Southee and Wagner performed well before and after McCullum took over so no change there.
Anderson was always earmarked for big things, it was just a matter of him not being injured long enough.
Henry is no bolter as he's being performing exceptionally well at FC level.
Bennett was picked before McCullum's tenure, performed well and then got injured, he's come back and performed well at FC to be picked again. The only surprise being he hasn't injured himself again.
Milne has been a NZC project for years, the consistency he found is more due to working with Shane Bond at CD and then with NZ not because anything Hesson or McCullum did.
Latham has been tagged as a potential NZ captain a while ago and has earned his spot via lots of runs, nothing to do with Hesson or McCullum.
Sodhi is the last spinner standing after the rest have been tried

Out of all of these Rutherford, Neesham and McClenaghan are the only things close to being bolters in terms of selections with Neesham being the only one I found surprising at the time.
 
Kram81 said:
Number 5 eh? Slowly but very surely the man is coming around ;)
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Very slow, if you look around the threads you will see i have always thought Clarke has some good tactics, but this is not what makes a captain and if you look at the way of things you could say that it is Boof that the team has pulled together for or you could say it was Arthur that was dividing it. Either way it does not show strong leadership from the Captain.
 
futureblackcap said:
What's your list of the top five Test captains in the world right now?

This is mine. Feel free to disagree and debate.

1) Michael Clarke (sorry Nairbie but I still believe he's a great skipper)
2) Brendon McCullum (no this is not because he's Kiwi haha)
3) Graeme Smith (because he's retired I'm giving this spot to Alistair Cook)
4) Misbah Ul-Haq
5) MS Dhoni

Thoughts?
Click to expand...


I would have favoured Misbah move up and Brendon moves down a point each....
 
futureblackcap said:
Well said Nairbie. But I think you'll find that New Zealand has a lot more depth now than we've probably ever had which is amazing because 12 months ago, most of those players were un-knowns in domestic cricket. What is exciting is almost all the young guys who've been brought into international cricket in the India and West Indies series performed well almost instantly. Jimmy Neesham has taken wickets regularly and shown his power while also scoring an impressive century on Test debut (overshadowed my McCullum's 302), Corey Anderson doesn't need much highlight as you'll all be aware of his hitting power but he's also bowled well at times and has already shown he has the right temperament for Test cricket and also has a Test century to his name. In the bowling, Henry, McClenaghan, Milne (very pacey and finnally seems to have found some consistency) and Bennett have all impressed when they got their opportunities. As far as wicket-keepers, Watling has secured his spot in the Test side for years to come and Ronchi is starting to find some real consistency in the shorter-formats. The only position we don't have depth in at the moment is we don't have enough quality spin bowlers. Nathan McCullum is a solid short form bowler but doesn't take enough wickets consistently and Ish Sodhi hasn't found his game yet at the international level.

Sorry about the long splurge that went off topic. :p

As far as captains go. I agree, Misbah should be higher up. I think he does an incredible job for a team that has a pretty crappy Test batting line-up. Always leading from the front and making them push above their weight really. MS Dhoni also does a great job considering the longevity of the national pressure he's endured. His captaincy does seem to go stale through-out Test matches though which might be because he gets seems to get bored haha.
Click to expand...
off topic: new zealand has probably the best left arm pace attack atm in world cricket.

on topic:
1.Ms Dhoni
2.Clarke
3.Misbah
4.Brendon
5.Smith
 
completely agree, will be good for the run in the long term though the aussies might have won in Melbourne with Clarke

Kholi has done well in terms of talking an attacking game - don't know hhow cook gets a look in with some of the lists #aussie #nopoms
 
Yeah Cook is very ordinary so defensive..

Kholi may be a bit of a knob but his captaincy has been very good to see for India and the game.
 
took the words right out of my mouth haha

he says a few silly things but i reckon he emulates the aussies so much it's not funny. he will hopefully get the indian test team up and going which can only be good for test cricket as a whole (hopefully he decides to embrace the drs whilst we're at it haha)
 
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