The one-captain theory

Ohh dear, cant believe Ian Chappel is saying all this; I didn't realize it was him until I saw one of the comments. It almost sounded like one of those over stretched scenes in one of the tv serials. firstly, it is 100% speculation and fluff as Ian didnt give us any insights into what his source of information was and in his own words, he was just guessing what the conversation would have been. All that fluff from Ian after we already got the info from the captains themselves, Warne ("I thought about myself & Yusuf as spin options and decided on Kamran as he just bowled a great last over") & McCullum ("Mendis was raring to have a go and I didn't have to look for someone else" ). Very disappointing and unfortunate that an article like this was even published; Hope the editors does some sort of review next time they receive similar articles...

Anybody knows who the 'Why me?' guy was?

Chappell has made a valid point against the multiple captains theory citing a recent example to support it. Rules of cricket do not support it since the penalties for slow over rate are to be borne by the nominated single captain (captain going for the toss?). Anyway, multiple captain theory has been in practice till now when the captain solicited opinion from other team members. Buchanan should have taken the responsibility of gathering opinions of so called special captains and conveyed the final decision to nominated captain as part of coach's responsibility. Too many cooks spoil the broth!!!

Since we are talking about captaincy and leadership, I want to add my take on what makes Shane Warne a great captain and why KP is not able to display great leadership capabilities at this stage. By the looks of it, i.e on TV, I tend to think Shane Warne genuinely want to help the domestic cricketers to become great. We all know how much he has helped YK pathan, Jadeja. He genuinely wants to give them his expertise and has raised their confidence to new levels. In the case of KP, I feel he is not there personally, emotionally where he is secure with his ego to be able to whole heartedly be able to play mentor or coach role to younger players of RCB. There are many ingredients that goes to a successful captain, if they are younger players with not much experience captain has to play the coach or mentor role, for experienced internationals you have to able to listen, delegate. Also in the case of Mccullum he just does not have authority (given and taken) to be successful.

I do not agree with this example that Ian Chappell has chosen to blow holes in the Multiple Captain theory. But I agree that Multiple captaincy theory does not work. One man should have complete leadership responsibility and authority. Even in the case of Shane Warne, Ian Chappell should not forget that he consulted with Graeme Smith, YK Pathan and many team members before taking the decisions that was taken. It depends on the style of leadership that works for your team. In the IPL where the team members are from various countries and are quite good at what they do, generally the captain should be strong with good charisma, knowledge of the game and shrewd and also be able be consultative and make decisions on his own and also take responsibilities on this own. In some cases, leadership can be delegated example may be bowling captain and fielding captain to those experts to share responsibility. But still ultimately captain is the main man.

What we are talking about here is the difference between "Who wants to bowl the SuperOver and try to win it?" and "I believe you are the man to bowl this over and win it!" Not sure it has much to do with a captain or a committee. Ultimately the captain wears the decision, regardless of how it was made. It is up to the captain to decide the process: inclusive, exclusive, committee, or whatever. When the coach gets sacked because of the captain's decision, then they can tell the captain what to do and how to do it.

I do not entirely agree with Mr. Chappell. What happened was a simple mistake in decision making for that one match and has nothing to with one captain or multiple captains. All that had to be realized by the Knight Riders was that one of the batsmen would be YK Pathan and he's an excellent player of spin and the over should have been given to Ishant or someone else. Doing all this over analysis just to post an article is ridiculous and plain exaggeration. All this "reading between the lines" makes me roll my eyes.

Another typical Ian Chappell article - forthright and relevant. I agree with the main theme of the article that cricket is a one-man-in-charge game. However, I am not convinced that the super over really drives home the point of the article. Shane Warne announced Kamran Khan as a bowler to reckon with, even before he had bowled a ball. The KKR team management made Ajantha Mendis warm the benches the entire first season of the IPL. He then famously went on to dismantle the Indian top order in the test series in Sri Lanka. And therein lies the difference. On the day, prior to the super over being bowled, both Kamran and Mendis did a fantastic job. So the decision to ask them to bowl was almost the default. Anyone with a sensible head would have asked Kamran to bowl, given that he had just prevailed over one of the game's veterans in Saurav Ganguly. The fact that Kamran was able to keep his chin up despite being carted in the super over, speaks volumes of Warne's influence as a captain.

It all depends on the situation. You cannot conclude that one captain theory was successful just by looking at one single match and one single over. That's just poor way to come to conclusions and a great example of people jumping on to conclusions based on their biases. Tendulkar is best because he proved that in over 300-400 matches not just from one single match.

One-captain or many co-captains? The short, simple, elementary answer is the much cliched response: It depends. It depends upon the captain. It depends upon the talent/capabilities available in the team that you are leading. It depends upon the followership quotient in the team. It depends upon what you want to achieve. "Success is not an option" - is that the clear message coming from the owners? Pose those perspectives to the situation at hand and it becomes obvious: One captain theory is what will maximize results for Shane Warne/Royals. Many-captain theory is what will maximize results for Buchanan/McCullum/KKR. How such elementary common sense is lost on people like Gavaskar and Chappell beats me. But then, if they make us belief that this is so elementary they obviate the very need for an article such as this. So is the case for 20,000+ management/leadership books that get published every year. So we will live and let them live as well. QED.