The Art of c(r)aptaincy by Mike Brearley Dan Forman
Streatham and Marlborough Sunday 2nd
XI 189 all out
Sunday 11 August 2019
Prove your credentials
Modest as he may be, it had been drawn to your
correspondent’s attention (albeit by himself) that he had won three games out
of three as Mandarins captain this season (albeit having had a 100% losing
record in every other game he had skippered in previous years). So I was
challenged by my ever-supportive teammates to put this record to the test once
more and take the reins for the second Ashes test at Lord’s this week
our game against the SMCC Sunday 2nd XI.
Selection...
...Is made much easier when you only
have 10 Mandarins available and two of them are your own kids. No
knife-edged decisions about whether to go with that second spinner or the extra
batting here. Just pick who you’ve got and see who else you can find on
Facebook. Ed Smith wouldn’t need his Cambridge education or six-figure salary
for that. Forman, Forman, Forman, Tunbridge, Baker, Manian, Wilmot, Mckeon and
Plahe it is, with local ringer Andrew Ryan helpfully answering the call to make
up the numbers.
Communication, communication, communication
What do you mean that that’s still
only 10? That couldn’t have happened under my watch. Early, regular and
consistent communication with your team is absolutely central to my captaincy
philosophy. It’s simply not possible that I might have omitted to confirm with
Sam Cook that he was selected and was still desperately trying to get hold of
him from the field as the first innings got underway.
Win the toss and read the
pitch
Captaincy is 90% luck and 10% skill
but don’t try it without that 10%, said Richie Benaud. I would add that it is
also not worth trying it without the 90% bit either. So winning the toss was a
bonus, as was the fact that the oppo helpfully had 12 players and were happy to
lend one (debutant Alex Proctor who later became the latest Mandarin to take a
wicket with his first ever ball for the club) to take us back to 11 (even more
useful to have a full complement in the field when you choose to bowl first on a
green and damp-looking surface that turns out to actually play quite well).
Justify your own place
It’s all very well being the
shrewdest mind since Keith Fletcher last set foot on a cricket field or the
most innovative tactician since bodyline, but what do you actually contribute
in runs or wickets? Just about enough to justify selection in a team of nine in
my case. One wicket for 31 runs from eight overs was the very definition of
respectable without being spectacular and marginally kept the wolves of my
teammates from the door of demanding I be dropped.
Invest in youth
Other than the most effective field
settings since Michael Vaughan placed Gary Pratt at extra cover, the main thing
I bring to the party is two sons who can run, bowl and catch. Harry (8-1-31-4
and more of whom later) had their 1 and 3 batsmen within a couple of overs,
while Stan got rid of their best bat for 70, sprinting in from long on and
diving forwards just as the game was starting to get away from us, for the
first of three excellent catches.
Take the tough decisions
While one would never want to induce
the kind of meltdown that a certain skipper prompted from another member of his
slow bowlers’ union at Mickleham last month, sometimes you have to put
friendships aside in the interests of the team and make the big calls, even
when Chris Baker has just bowled a wicket maiden but you have also already
promised Arvind the next over from that end. It is in the swirling cauldron of
such pressure that captaincy reputations are won or lost, literally placed in
the hands of a man who you thought was about to bowl his new brand of off-spin
with the wind in his favour but… turns out to have reverted to his old seam-up
style which you didn’t think was what you were bringing on at all. Obviously I
knew what I was doing all along though as Arvind then produced a very tidy
three-wicket spell, Harry came back for a couple more to mop up the tail and
what had threatened to be a 200+ chase off our 40 overs became a still tricky
but much more manageable target of 190.
Man(ian) management
Motivating his star all-rounder was
probably Mike Brearly’s greatest gift to English cricket and mine to the
Mandarins turns out to be the same. It seems that the key to unlocking the
secrets of Arvind’s success is ripping into him on the field for failing to
walk in, keeping his hands in his pockets and dropping the simplest of dolly
catches. It is true the words ‘f***ing’ and ‘disgrace’ may have passed my lips
but that was purely for the purpose of firing him up and giving him a point to
prove. The idea that I in any way lost my composure throughout any of this is a
scurrilous rumour being put about by Graeme’s friends in the press who think he
would do a better job as captain than me because he went to the right kind of
school.
Sit back, enjoy the show and give
the appearance of being relaxed…
...even as your carefully
constructed (‘sort it out among yourselves while I enjoy more of this delicious
chicken at tea’) top order fails to fire. Fear not, as I have artfully placed
some more power in the lower middle order (‘oh that didn’t last very long, I
haven’t even started, let alone finished, my beer and now I’ve got to pad up’).
Solution: put an immense amount of faith in a 14-year-old to stay with Arvind
for most of the 100 runs still required rather than leaving that beer undrunk
and taking the responsibility to do the job yourself with only three wickets in
hand.
And after a while the appearance of
being relaxed became actually being relaxed, so much so that number 11 Stan
took his pads off with a few overs to go (I wish I’d thought of that way of
showing confidence in my batsmen from the boundary, the talented bloody
youngster will make a better captain than me too at this rate). Arvind was
chanceless and utterly in the zone for his unbeaten 53, working the singles
while waiting for the bad ball to put away. Harry was equally majestic for his
45*, with shots all around the ground, including his signature back over the
bowler’s head drive and one shuffle down the crease and cream through the
covers for three that was so good that Jonathan delayed his departure for
dinner for to see more. Both made their Mandarins top scores but the match
situation and the style of it made it a partnership that mere statistics could
never do justice to, turning the seemingly impossible into a cake-walk to the
target with nine balls to spare.
Celebrate success
Which left just enough time to laud
our heroes and enjoy our success in the bar (an important part of any winning
team culture in case anyone has read this far and is still actually after any
captaincy advice). And as if this whole expertly conceived plan wasn’t already
perfect enough, it then started to bucket with rain. As I was saying, don’t try
doing it without the 90% luck.
Dan Forman
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