The day of the specialist captain

Being an international captain is a less perilous business than it used to be. Most of the current incumbents of the major nations have been there a while. Stephen Fleming is the daddy of them all, with 80 Tests in charge dating right back to February 1997: rare is the captain who gets to decide whether to have a 10th-anniversary party. Brian Lara gets sacked or resigns every so often, but never for long: he is now in his third stint, spread over nine years.

Ricky Ponting is wearing the crown easily again after holding it for three years in Tests and five in one-day internationals (though he should perhaps think about retiring from Twenty20: if you don't like the format, why play it?). Graeme Smith, still only 25, has already been South African captain for four years. After struggling at first, then slowly improving, he may yet break all records. Inzamam-ul-Haq has managed to bring some continuity to the Pakistan captaincy, the closest thing in cricket to the Italian prime ministership.

Rahul Dravid, who found captaincy comfortable at first, has hit a rocky patch two years in, but will surely be given another chance. Sri Lanka went through a spell of not knowing who to have as captain, but now Mahela Jayawardene, who took over a year ago, has made the job his own with three good series results in a row. Which leaves England.

When England changed their captain at the weekend, it was the seventh time they had done so in just over a year. Michael Vaughan handed over to Marcus Trescothick, who handed back to Vaughan, who handed back to Trescothick, who handed over to Andrew Flintoff, who handed over to Andrew Strauss, who handed back to Flintoff, who has now handed over to Vaughan. At first the changes were enforced, by injury or illness, but the last two have been the selectors' choice.

So far only one has resulted in a series win - when the buck passed to Strauss, who pulled off a good, if Hair-assisted, win over Pakistan. By definition, England have been without key players, and not just captains: Simon Jones may have been missed as much as any of the above. But the record is still a ropey one, which, since that dismal day in Adelaide, is now verging on the catastrophic.

The selectors' response has been highly unusual. In bringing Vaughan back at this stage, they have in effect picked a specialist captain. Vaughan is a fine, at times scintillating Test batsman, or was, but there is no way that he has proved his fitness yet after a year out with serious knee trouble. He has played three or four gentle warm-ups with a highest score of 27. The only time he made runs in the past year, with a score of 99 for Yorkshire, he ached so much that he realised he needed further surgery. The only time he played for England, his captain (Strauss, standing in for Flintoff in Perth last month; do try to keep up) didn't think it was worth giving him a bat. It's great to see him back in the frame, but there is no doubt about what he has been picked for: his captaincy.

This is something selectors around the world hardly ever do any more. Only two cases in point come to mind from the last decade, both of them batting captains who were allowed to carry on while severely out of form. One was Australia's Mark Taylor, who went through a nightmare run of 11 Tests without a fifty in 1996 and 1997. It cost him the one-day captaincy, but he clung on in Tests and made a career-saving hundred at Edgbaston, just in the nick of time. Something similar happened to England's Nasser Hussain in 2000-01. Both men were excellent captains: if they hadn't been, they would have been dropped.

On those occasions, the selectors concerned were letting a reigning captain be. This time, David Graveney and co. have brought one back after a year out, which is more of a stretch. Graveney has been consistent in saying that Vaughan is the England captain, and he is now cashing in on that investment. It allows him to replace Flintoff without sacking him. England seem anxious not to offend Flintoff (what do they think he will do? Join another country?). This little fiction has allowed them to bring off a bloodless coup.

The decision prompts mixed feelings. Graveney is in a certain amount of denial about the Ashes, refusing to accept that it was a mistake to appoint Flintoff ahead of Strauss. But it's to his credit that England have become a nation reluctant to sack Test captains: in Graveney's stint as chairman, nearly ten years now, only Alec Stewart has been pushed. It's a big improvement on the bad old days of heads-must-roll. And it's refreshing to find selectors prepared to treat captaincy as a specialist skill, which it clearly is. To play his primary role, Vaughan doesn't have to be fully fit. Darren Lehmann revealed recently that Steve Waugh had sometimes captained Australia while carrying injuries, by "hiding himself at gully"; and that worked out pretty well.

The problem is that, for the umpteenth time this winter, England are taking a risk on a half-fit player. Waugh, in his dotage, had less to lose than Vaughan. It would be a crying shame if Vaughan's chances of a Test renaissance were scuppered by rushing him into the form of the game he struggles at anyway. The second problem is that Vaughan himself said he wouldn't countenance a comeback until he was fully fit. And the third problem is that Graveney has refused to say who is now vice-captain, which presumably means it is Strauss: if it was Flintoff, there would be no awkwardness about saying so. The selectors have made a bold move, but they don't seem to have matched deeds with words. It is all a little too English for comfort.