How to choose an England captain

During Tuesday's one-day international, an alien spacecraft landed outside the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. The intergalactic visitors, a little dazed from their journey, wandered into the England dressing room, where they bumped into Ravi Bopara.

"Greetings Earthling!" declared Ambassador Zarg of the seventh dimension.

"All right mate," said Ravi.

"I do not understand what you are saying."

"I believe it is an earthling greeting," explained Vice Ambassador Zog.

"Ah. All right earthling mate, " said Ambassador Zarg.

"What do you want?"

"Ask the question, Sir, ask the question!" said Vice Ambassador Zog.

"Ah, yes, the question." Ambassador Zarg cleared his throat. "Earthling! Take me to your natural leader!"

"Oh right. It's that bloke in the corner."

"What, him? Still? But he hasn't scored a half-century in at least 19 completed innings!" exclaimed Ambassador Zarg.

"Twenty-three, actually," replied Ravi.

Yes, it seems that nothing short of retirement, incapacitation or a prison sentence can keep Alastair Cook from being captain of England's World Cup team. But no matter how much Paul Downton insists that Alastair is the team's natural leader, the nation is not convinced and all over the shires, English cricket folk are shaking their heads, filling their pipes, leaning back in their armchairs and debating the day's big issue, namely:

How do you choose a captain?

The Australian approach is to pick their best team, then scrutinise the characters of the 11 blokes in question to see which is the least ill-suited to being captain. It isn't a very imaginative policy, although it does have one advantage: it seems to work quite well.

But I'm English, so I have always subscribed to the King Arthur principle of picking your leader. Once in a generation, or perhaps once in every two generations, a humble cricketer is chosen by supernatural means to lead a nation out of (yet another) dodgy period. Perhaps he is walking past the Grace Gates when the ghost of WG leaps out and points his finger at the chosen one, Lord Kitchener style. Maybe he is sloshing through the outfield at Old Trafford when the Lady of the Puddle extends an arm and hands him the bat Excalibur. Perhaps he is discovered floating in a wicker basket along the Thames.

However the candidate is chosen, English selectors generally like to pen in a genius next to the word captain. Once you've lined up a Brearley, or possibly an Illingworth, or if you're feeling adventurous, a Jardine, you can get on with picking the team.

This all works swimmingly apart from on those occasions when you don't have a genius bestowed with intuitive tactical nous and otherworldly psychological gifts to hand. Then you end up having to comb through a list of non-geniuses looking for leadership potential, asking questions such as, "Did he go to the right school?", "Can he motivate the chaps in a tight spot?" and "What school did he go to again?".

Having got their man, the selectors next have to establish whether or not he'll get on with the coach, whether he knows which spoon to use for soup and which for dessert, and which players he absolutely can't share a dressing room with. And then they pick the team.

This is more or less the process the ECB went through earlier this year. Downton has this week admitted that he made mistakes at that time, but went on to say that these mistakes were in the past, so there wasn't any point talking about them, which is a useful argument should you ever find yourself up in front of a judge.

So the upshot of all this is that in a couple of months time, England will head to a World Cup with a squad of one-day international failure veterans, a handful of younger players who might turn out to be quite good at the 50-over stuff, but probably won't, and a captain who much prefers Test matches. Same as usual, then.