English Cricket Betting: A Vaughan leader

Profiles / Andrew Hughes / 07 May 2008 / Leave a Comment

As Michael Vaughan gears up to lead England out against the Black Caps in what will be his fifteenth Test series as captain, Andrew Hughes looks back at the Yorkshireman's career in the role.

On Thursday next, Michael Vaughan will participate in an international coin-toss for the forty-sixth time. In so doing, he will surpass his predecessor, Nasser Hussain. Barring injury, accident or selectoral insanity, by this time next year he will have deposed Michael Atherton as the longest serving England captain in Test history. Given his desire to have at least one more crack at the Aussies; by the time he hangs up his England cap, Vaughan might well have set a monumental record for captaincy to rival that of Alan Border's astonishing ninety-three Tests in charge.

And Vaughan has been no mere time-server. Statistically, his record is unimpeachable. He has won well over half of those forty-six matches, a figure that is only surpassed in the post-war era by Mike Brearley. It certainly dwarfs those of his immediate predecessors. Hussain, whose captaincy also overlapped with the reign of Duncan Fletcher has a relatively healthy thirty-seven per cent win rate. But Gooch and Atherton, who toiled long and hard in the dark days of English cricket won barely a quarter of their matches as captain and you have to go back as far as Len Hutton to find anyone with an even remotely comparable record.

Those with a mistrust of statistics might grumble that mere figures don't really tell us enough about his leadership. What sort of skipper has he been and how does he compare to other captains of the modern era?

Well, his calm determination and thorough professionalism were apparent long before he became captain. On his first Ashes tour, in 2002-03, he weathered the inevitable verbal barrage so well that the Aussies eventually stopped wasting their breath. In the midst of another debacle down under, he alone stood tall and played a series of defiant innings. Like Michael Atherton, he has demonstrated great reserves of physical and mental courage, often batting through the pain of various injuries that have at times threatened to end his career. And he has remained throughout a team player, frequently moving position in the batting order to accommodate others. Such unselfishness and professionalism is a good foundation for any captain.

On a personal level, though his laid back manner is reminiscent of David Gower's easy going approachability; it has been no Gower-style captaincy. He has stated his belief in the importance of getting his message across in the right way and encouraging a positive mental attitude, and his inclusive approach has ensured that no cliques or factions have developed in the dressing room. But he also has a mean streak that Gower did not posses and has been prepared to put players in their place if required. We had a flavour of this when he let slip a hint of his frustration with Andrew Flintoff's behaviour in the Caribbean.

In public, there has been none of the prickliness or defensiveness that characterised the captaincies of Gatting or Hussain. He has invariably played as straight a bat with the media as he wields on the field. To have been captain for so long without accumulating any enemies in the press is a remarkable achievement.

Perhaps most importantly of all, he is tactically the equal of any of his predecessors, even wily old Raymond Illingworth. On the field, he is not given to waving his arms around or barking out orders. He goes about his business from mid on with a calm authority that fills his team with confidence. An instinctive captain, he has a flair for sensing when the game is changing and predicting rather than reacting. There have been few better tactical performances than Vaughan's in 2005 when he outmanoeuvred and out-thought his counterpart, Ricky Ponting, to regain the Ashes. Tellingly, when Vaughan has been absent, England have looked like a rudderless ship.

Some might say that as a man-manager, he is not quite the equal of Mike Brearley. But then who is? Brearley had an insight into human nature and a gift for working out what made each of his players tick that is uncommon in any sport. But Vaughan's place as one of the finest captains ever to lead his country is secure. He will be a hard act to follow.