Crikey Sports is honoured to have a guess post by Crikey’s own Greg Barns.
The contrast between the two couldn’t be greater. Andrew Strauss galvanises, inspires and leads. Ricky Ponting, when put under pressure, crumbles and fails to inspire. This is the reality of the 2009 Ashes series.
We should have seen it coming. Ponting’s leadership of the Australian team has rarely been much above ordinary, and on some occasions it has been dismal. One startling example from the last Australian summer tells the story.
In the Boxing Day Test match against South Africa at the MCG the latter’s JP Duminy, Paul Harris and Dale Steyn hammered the Australian bowling. South Africa went from reeling at 7/198 to 459, overtaking Australia’s formidable first innings total of 394. Ponting’s plight wasn’t helped by the absence of an injured Brett Lee but his tactics that day were bewildering. He set a defensive field virtually from the start of play, rotated his bowlers like a fast moving windmill, and he and his teammates put down catches and misfielded on more than a handful of occasions. As Fairfax commentator Peter Roebuck wrote at the time, Ponting’s “team began without the required urgency and, before long, looked nonplussed.”
In short, what happened on December 28 last year was that the Australian captain showed to the cricketing world his severe tactical limitations. He seems to let games drift, and not be clever enough to try something lateral when things are tough.
Strauss is by contrast, a man who’s mind appears always to be on the move. There is a touch of the legendary Brearley about him in the way he has nurtured Graeme Swann and Stuart Broad in this series to the point where they can now turn a match on its head. And Strauss’s batting is classic captain courageous stuff. He opens the batting and more often than not gets his team off to a reasonable start, sometimes while wickets fall around him.
That Andrew Strauss has some special leadership qualities is made more apparent by the virtue of the circumstances in which he came to the England captaincy only eight months ago. His predecessor the mercurial Kevin Pietersen spat the dummy in January this summer and resigned the captaincy after only five months in the job because of his strained relationship with coach Peter Moores. Former England captain Graham Gooch described the state of the English team at that time as an ‘unholy mess.’ It takes genuine leadership to heal dressing room rifts, but Strauss has done it.
*Listen to Crikey’s Leigh Josey and Jarrod Kimber’s “I can’t believe England won the Ashes” podcast
7 Comments
Totally agree, Ponting always looks at sea when things aren’t going to plan.
There is no doubting his own personal resolve and his batting skills, but his captaincy has been well short of the mark.
Still, could he countenance being in the side, if no longer the captain? It would be hard to drop him as a batsman.
Greg, go back and watch Strauss’ captaincy on the 4th day at Cardiff, 5th day at Edgbaston, or the 4th afternoon at Lord’s. It is Ponting at Melbourne. Strauss is no Brearley, and I wouldn’t say he got the best out of Swann, he was worse than Hauritz. I think Strauss and Ponting were as bad as each other in this series.
Not convinced Strauss is anything particularly special, but Ponting is now, and always has been, atrocious.
Mein Gott!, the man can bat, but he is woeful as a captain, and in all forms of the game too. He seems to be bewildered when his bowlers aren’t winning the match for him, and rarely has any answers.
Ponting is the best batsman and worst captain since Bradman
Oh, for Heaven’s sake. He did lead Australia to a 5-0 drubbing of the Poms in Australia just 2 and a half years ago, in the midst of a world record-equalling 16 consecutive test wins. People have short memories when they’re looking for scapegoats. Why don’t you blame Tim Nielsen, for not being John Buchanan? – That would make just as much sense…
And as for Andrew Strauss’s captaincy being Brearley-like – that would have to be the most ludicrous statement on cricket I have heard in decades. His captaincy is in my view on a par with Ponting’s – good, without being great; competent, without being inspired.
The real story of the Ashes was that the Poms batted further down the order than we did, they won the critical sessions with the ball, and mostly, we for the second consecutive English series didn’t pick a bowling attack for the conditions. It’s no secret why Terry Alderman and Bob Massey blitzed in England, why Ben Hilfenhaus led the ‘09 averages, and why an attack led by Brett Lee gave away 400 runs before tea on the first day of a test in 2005.
At the end of the day, it was a great series between 2 evenly matched sides and the home team won the close result. The fact of the matter is we’re not as good as we were when Gilchrist, Warne & McGrath were around, but in fact it was a good and fair reflection of the relative strengths of the teams. Ponting was not to blame.
I couldn’t said it any better, hope they get things straighten up to get things done.
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Let’s see how Strauss captains against South Africa. Don’t think he’s as good as is described above and he was somewhat lucky against a new Aus team finding their feet. He’ll be all at sea against SA. Can’t wait to tackle the Poms in Aus. next time round.