Malinda Words: A degree in people

Mike Brearley's stats (66 innings, 39 tests, 1442 runs, average of 22.88, strike rate of 29.79 with a highest score of 91) wouldn’t turn any heads in these Bazball days of English cricket. Weren’t startling during the time he played (1976-1981) either. Indeed, if Tony Greig’s surreptitious work for World Series Cricket had not come to light, Brearley may have had an even shorter test career, not least of all on account of his age (he was 34 when he played his first test, against the West Indies in 1976).

As it happened, Brearley had captaincy shoved on him, and that is how he came to be remembered as a legend of the game of cricket. He captained England in 31 of the 39 tests he played, winning 18 and losing just 4. That’s 58% and puts him ahead of Mark Vaughan (50.98%), Peter May (48.78%), Andrew Strauss (48%), Len Hutton (47.82%), Joe Root (42.18%) and Alistair Cook (40.67%).

It is not too useful to compare players from different eras. Of those mentioned above, Root (64) and Cook (59) captained a lot more tests than did Brearley. One could also factor in the personnel each skipper had at his disposal. Brearley himself had a fantastic duo of bowlers, Bob Willis and Ian Botham, taking 112 (at 24) and 150 (at 19) wickets under his leadership. The latter was of course a one-in-a-decade kind of player. Throw in the batsmen, the strengths of the opposition, levels of professionalism and it gets even murkier.

There is consensus, however, that Mike Brearley was ‘intuitive, resourceful, sympathetic and clear-thinking.’ In the famous Ashes series of 1981 he was pushed back into captaincy after Ian Botham was sacked. Botham recovered his confidence under Brearley and starred in the England turnaround that’s still spoken of in awe.

The Australian quick, Rodney Hogg, perhaps came up with the best explanation: ‘He (Brearley) has a degree in people.’ He does have a ‘real’ degree as well (in Classical and Moral Sciences from Cambridge University), served as the President of the British Psychoanalytical Society and has done the rounds as a motivational speaker. He knew people.

Well, all people know people. Some people know people better. Brearley, for example. Hogg thinks it mattered and few would argue with that contention.

All this was 40 years ago, but what made me think of Brearley is the flak that Sri Lanka’s white-ball captain, Dasun Shanaka, has been getting following a run of poor scores in the World Cup qualifying tournament in Zimbabwe.

Now Dasun has a lot of talent in his team and it can be argued that his ‘success’ is more a reflection of the contributions of his teammates, in particular the bowling unit. On the other hand, Dasun’s predecessors who have better batting stats weren’t exactly leading talent-poor teams.

Maybe in this day and age of increasingly aggressive cricket where a spate of dot balls could draw jeers every captain needs to earn his place in the team. If he is a specialised batter then the selectors should be able to defend his selection by pointing out that he is better than anyone else in the selection mix apart from the other batters selected. It’s a bit like the theory that any cricket has to meet a minimum standard as a fielder before he or she is considered as a batsman, bowler or wicket keeper. Not too many takers for this theory though, considering that all international teams carry ‘fielding passengers’ who are harder to hide now that we have field restrictions, the Dilscoop, reverse-sweep, switch-hit etc.

The argument about captaincy is a bit different though. Not every great batter or bowler is a leader. A team could theoretically be made of exceptionally gifted and accomplished batters, bowlers and a wicketkeeper, but there is no guarantee that one (or more of them) is endowed with the skills one expects a leader to have. None of them, theoretically, may have ‘a degree in people.’

Dasun Shanaka is no Mike Brearley. I would add, ‘yet,’ for he has time. But in victory, he talks about the main contributors and throws in the word ‘team’ and in defeat he shields all of them. So he gets nailed. And now that the team has made winning a habit, albeit against opposition less stiff than will be confronted in India at the World Cup, people seem to have forgotten captain and captaincy; they see a hole in the batting line up and think ‘out bowling unit is fine, the batting can be tweaked — conclusion: Dasun out.’

If it were just about batters and bowlers, then we don’t need to have a World Cup at all: we could just add up the batting averages of each team and figure out the winner, maybe after figuring out a way to throw in the bowling stats into the mix as well. It’s a bunch of things, obviously: batting, bowling, fielding, wicketkeeping, reading the wicket, the toss, targeting batters and bowlers, left-right combinations, pacing an innings, field-setting and innumerable bits and pieces of strategy. Much of this has to do with captaincy.

There’s the Dimuth Karunaratne option of course for the red-ball skipper’s leadership credentials are good. He’s ‘new’ to THIS team and that cannot be forgotten. Anyone else? Anyone else at this point in time with the biggest ODI tournament just a couple of months away?

If it was proven skills as a batter, Dasun Shanaka wouldn’t make this team. Not as a bowler and not as an allrounder. Brearley wouldn’t have been in the Ashes-winning team either. Brearley had a degree in people and I think Dasun Shanaka has one too. That’s ‘qualification’ that can make a difference in certain times. Like right now.

malindadocs@gmail.com

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]

14 July 2023

A degree in people

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