The benefits of a back-seat driver

In the first of a new regular feature, John Stern, the editor of The Wisden Cricketer, takes a look at the captain-coach dynamic that is unique to cricket, and questions whether New Zealand's John Bracewell and Stephen Fleming are really compatible:

Stephen Fleming and John Bracewell: lacking the captain-coach dynamic © Getty Images Enlarge

Shane Warne's comments about John Bracewell, the New Zealand coach, might just be pot-shots in the phoney war. Or maybe they highlight a burning issue for all international sides: the captain-coach relationship.

When football managers Jose Mourinho or Sir Alex Ferguson sound off, you can either love 'em or hate 'em. But you know for sure who's in charge and you know who cops the flak if those words come back to haunt their author. In cricket, accountability is a moot point.

Who runs the New Zealand team? In the years BB (Before Bracewell), Stephen Fleming was indubitably in charge. He was the public face of the team, even the whole game in New Zealand. Bracewell's predecessors Denis Aberhart and David Trist were household names only in their own households. They let Fleming get on with calling the shots - essentially picking the team and firing off the phoney-war fusillades.

Nasser Hussain remarked to me recently that Fleming was untypically undynamic last year when New Zealand toured England. His side arrived in England full of hope, but left whitewashed and woebegone. Most things that could go wrong, did go wrong, but Fleming was a shadow of his former self. He stood moodily at slip but that was about it.

Hussain's point, and I agree with him, is that the captain has to be the boss-man. At Gloucestershire, Bracewell worked miracles, but that is a completely different environment. His captain there was Mark Alleyne, a fiercely determined and very able leader but a quiet man, not one of life's showoffs.

Fleming and Bracewell seemed like a dream ticket, but if you look at international cricket's other leadership combos you can see why things have not worked out. The ones that endure have the coach as back-seat driver and the captain as face and voice of the team.

John Bracewell: too forceful a personality? © Getty Images Enlarge

Take Duncan Fletcher. To supporters and media alike he is a frustratingly aloof sourpuss. To the England players, he is the Delphic Oracle: invisible yet all-seeing, unknown but omniscient, trusting and trustworthy. As far as Fletcher is concerned, the captain - whether it's Nasser Hussain or Michael Vaughan - runs the show and carries the can. He is the éminence grise. He watches the tapes, does the maths, tickles and tweaks. But he doesn't shout the odds or make the big statements. He is England's rock, absorbing the media shockwaves without ever responding or kowtowing to them, allowing the players to get on with their job.

Australia's John Buchanan is the analyst and facilitator. He does not coach in the purest sense. How could he? What could he tell Shane Warne about his flipper? Or Ricky Ponting about his on-drive? But there he is in the background, looking for all the world like the Simpsons' Ned Flanders, watching and listening and preparing.

Buchanan does have a public profile, but his pronouncements tend to be more general and global than Aussie-specific. His relationship with this great Australian team sometimes seems precarious. Boffin versus Bondi. But Adam Gilchrist says: "It's an interesting summation that he's scientific or new-age. He has some amazing ideas and he's got some absolutely rubbish ones as well, which we tell him. He never forces anything on you."

And that seems to be the key with cricket coaches. May the lack of force be with them.

John Stern is editor of The Wisden Cricketer. Click here for more details about the magazine.