When a captain realises the wells of creativity have dried up

The most astute skipper bursting with tactical nous can still end up losing a match or series for events he has no control over

A captain doesn’t always get the credit when a team does well. But when it does badly, the focus is on him – or her, as Mithali Raj is discovering afresh, and England’s Joe Root is too, following the defeat in the West Indies.

When India returned with 0-4 defeats against both England and Australia in 2011, the guns were pointed at skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Thanks to the then cricket board president, Dhoni kept his job. So well has the team done since then that when South Africa beat them recently, the whispers against skipper Virat Kohli became more distinct.

Kohli led in 68 Tests, Root in 64. As former England captain Michael Atherton said, “there comes a time when a captain has nothing new to say…” Like with artists and novelists, the wells of creativity dry up, and all that remains is repetition and routine.

The consensus seems to be that Root is too decent to be an international captain. This raises the question: do only indecent players make good captains? And what does the term even mean? That captains ought to be humourless misanthropes? That is carrying it too far.

Recent captains from New Zealand — the current World Test champions — have shown that captains can be decent men who lose nothing because of their decency, and might even bring out the latent decency in their opponents. Think Brendon McCullum or Kane Williamson.

Captaincy is important in cricket, but judging it is difficult. The most astute captain, bursting with tactical nous can still end up losing a match or a series for events he has no control over. An injury to a key player, for instance, or unexpected rain or a surprise bowling spell from an opponent.

The reverse is equally true. An apparently weak captain can win because fortune favours him or a player on the verge of being dropped makes a century. If a captain is only as good as his team — one of the game’s cliches — then the elements that make for his success are out of his control anyway.