It all starts, in my experience, at the Club’s Annual General Meeting. As well as a forum for dissatisfied members and providing a opportunity to review the past season, the A.G.M. also sees the election of Club Officials, including the captains, for the next season.
With the advent of the internet and specifically the darker side of the web, grooming has become a term to be avoided, except in the case of the junior cricket team captaincy.
The current captain will have spent a good part of the early season looking around at the alternatives for the next year. It is the captains escape clause, whereby the best way to dispense with the responsibilities is to ensure that someone else will do the job next season. This allows the current captain to see a light at the end of the tunnel and gives him hope. He will find one or two potential captains and will groom them into the position. This grooming can take a number of forms. The first is flattery. “You’d do a great job”. “It needs someone like you”. Of course someone like you often translates to someone/anyone willing to take it on. The sooner the next victim/captain is onside, the easier this season becomes. You have an ally, a friend, an accomplice. His assistance this season is in return for your help next year. It is worth it.
The second method is a bit more treacherous. This involves using fear amongst the other players. It runs along the lines of telling the team that one of their teammates, who perhaps is not the most popular or most suitable, is thinking of running for the role and the only way to stop them, is for someone else to stand for election against them. Of course the initial statement might not be true and in any case I can not remember the last time there was an election for captain of any side. However, I have seen this approach work on a number of occasions over the years.
The riskiest method is to leave it to the Club members at the AGM, to appoint someone to the role. The team risk getting a captain they did not want, they do not respect, or do not wish to play for. This can cause problems throughout the entire club as players try to move up or down the starring list to avoid this unfortunate captain.
Depending on the team and its composition between youth and experience, the right captain can make or break a season. A summer with the wrong captain will cause endless problems. Selection becomes a matter of finding 11 players willing to play rather than the right 11 players. Availability becomes a problem as holidays, exams; other events are allowed to creep into a player’s summer. The dressing room breaks down into factions, moaning not quite silently about everything. Batting orders, bowlers, fields set, transport arrangements, teas; it doesn’t matter that most things are out of a captain’s control, he will shoulder the blame nevertheless.
It is a thankless position. Even if the side manages to win games, the captain rarely garners the plaudits. Players win games, captains lose them. Even if a team wins a cup, which is usually the scene of most celebration during a season, even more so than winning a league, the captains job is not to wait as thanks, and congratulations wash over him. No, his job is to fill the cup and pat everyone else on the shoulder.
So what are the tasks that do confront a captain? Wikipedia has a page on captaincy which you may wish to view, but do remember that, like Wikipedia itself, it is not complete and it is not infallible.
The captain of a cricket team, often referred to as the skipper (Author - to his face, what he is called behind his back is totally different), is the appointed leader, having several additional roles and responsibilities over and above those of a regular player. As in other sports, the captain is usually experienced and has good communication skills, who are likely to be one of the most regular members of the team; indeed the captain often has a say in team selection.
Wikipedia then goes on to list the tasks facing captains, including the incomplete section on Miscellaneous. According to this all-encompassing website, here are some of the responsibilities that may face our captain.
· Selection
· The Toss
· The Batting Order
· The Bowlers and changes in bowlers
· Setting the field
Sadly, Wikipedia do miss the most important task of a captain. A captain is responsible for upholding the Spirit of the Game. He is accountable for the behaviour of his team on and off the field. He is the voice of the team in discussions with officials. He is the guardian of the game. That’s a big responsibility, the biggest.
Selection. Selection for junior teams in a club usually depends, not as you would assume, the starring list, but initially on which players are selected for the higher teams, who is on holiday, who is attending the latest music festival and who is injured. It is nearly a case of last man standing.
The inverse only happens once a team reaches a cup final or semi-final, when suddenly everyone wants to be in the team with the chance of glory. The selection actually becomes what it is meant to be; selecting the best team, the best 11 players or selecting the right 11 players.
The Toss. This is probably the easiest task, once that is, you have remembered to carry a coin. Some captains take this opportunity to collect enough coins from their team to pay for his first post-game pint. Next time your captain looks for a coin, offer him 20c and see him frantically look around to see if anyone else has a Euro or even better, a €2 coin. Do note that Euro coins are not symmetrical in their weight and will land with bias. By bias I do not mean the coin has a personal preference, but rather that tossed 100 times it will land not 50:50, but more like 60:40. However there are no shortcuts here and I will not be passing on which side it is. I look forward to hearing about captains testing this theory, standing in their own back garden repeatedly tossing a coin and noting the result.
For home games your role is to toss the coin and wait to see if the other captain gets it right. For away games you actually have to make the choice and the call is put in with the coin in the air. Be sure you have agreed what constitutes a head and a tail, know what each side of the coin is and even more importantly, that you see the result on the ground.
Sometimes the toss is comparable to a game of Three-card Monte on a street corner. You think you see, you think you know, you make your choice and yet your team always seems to be fielding first. Beware.
I have often asked opposition captains their plans before the toss. I am always surprised by those who think it is a state secret and refuse to divulge their choice prior to the toss. I have also been pleasantly surprised when captains have told me their choice on the way to the middle. Frequently it is the same choice for both teams, so the coin must decide who gets their way. Less frequently one captains wants to field and one to bat and no toss is required, hands are shook and both are saved the long walk out to the middle, to often stare incomprehensively at a mat.
What you do having won the toss, or the opposition having called incorrectly, is entirely up to you. My own method down the years has been to bat first in 99% of games. Sometimes I will consult with either the experienced (aka older) members of the team and occasionally with the entire team, and then bat first.
The Batting Order. Some batsmen like to open an innings and get on with the batting straight away. Others are definitely tail-enders, perhaps with an ability to smite a ball a long way if any contact can be made. However, at the junior levels it is not unusual to find one opener, one tail-ender and 9 middle order batsmen.
Your task is to sell the order to as many of your team as possible. Someone is going to have to open too and someone else is going to have to be number 10. This is one of those times when you can please all of the people some of the time, or you can please some of the people all the time, but never all of the people all of the time.
One method of keeping the peace is for the captain to bat himself lower in the order than would be expected. I have frequently batted at 11 just so that no-one else on the team can moan about their position. Well it does at least minimise the moaning.
The Bowlers. Captains often have to prise the ball from a bowler in a manner similar to pulling teeth and often with as many squeals. The captain must select who will bowl from which end. Any slope, any wind, any short boundaries, how much sleep the bowler got after last night’s session, in fact so many factors come into the options it is impossible to list them all here. However, given the choice of not bowling or bowling from the ‘wrong’ end all bowlers will take the latter. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, there is only one thing worse than bowling from the wrong end and that is not bowling at all.
Bowlers are temperamental, and need to be nursed, cajoled, teased and threatened regularly to get the best out of them. Some say even I bowl at my best with a feeling of indignation, usually due to an umpire calling a wide or turning down an appeal.
Setting the field. I can only offer you the best of luck here. My favourite phrase to a team was “Spread out in a bunch”. It can be similar to herding cats. The best you can hope for is a bowler who knows how to do this. The worst is commonly playing on a team with many ex-captains who will tinker with the field unbeknownst to you, moving fielders ten yards here, and squarer there or even just moving to where they think they should be. It is a constant job checking the field remains as it should and not changing every time a ball manages to get to the boundary.
In addition a captain of a junior side will also have additional duties that would be unknown to Michael Clarke or Alistair Cook.
Arrange transport to away games. This can change the composition of a team where ownership of a car trumps playing ability. Often youth players get to play more when their parents provide transport for more than their share of the team. A captain with a car or even better a mini-bus has a far better chance of gaining rather than losing players. Actually owning a car can improve your chances of moving up the teams or becoming the first name on the team-sheet.
Organisation of teas and drinks. Some captains and Clubs are fortunate that the back room support from the Club can take these tasks away and ease the load on the captain. However this can also work in the opposite fashion and it is not unknown for players to be selected on the strength of their partners’ abilities to make sandwiches or bake cakes. Clontarf for instance are running a “Bake-Off” competition which is delightful for the high quality cakes (Is Wendy still the front runner?) but mainly for the knowledge that tea is boxed off and does not need to be a concern.
Scheduling Umpires. In leagues where umpires are not supplied, players take this role whilst their batsmen are in. It is the only solution at present, but has over the years been the most contentious issue at many a game. Youth umpires are to be paired with experienced players. Some players can only take square leg and others have qualified but do not wish to umpire. This does not include those occasions when the opposition will object to an umpire, usually after a couple of non-decisions, and request he be changed. Sometimes after some debatable decisions one of your batsmen will request that so-and-so is not allowed to umpire whilst they bat. Ignore this or it will become the bane of your life.
The captain must also ensure that all of his players adhere to decisions made by any umpire, officially appointed or one of the players standing. Umpires, especially when it is a player standing, must be respected in their decision making, even when everyone knows it is not the correct decision. Batsmen must leave the crease without dissent when their dismissal is signalled by the umpire and bowlers must accept a not out call without comment. Umpiring is difficult at the best of times and without umpires we have no game.
Appointing scorers. This used to be a job for the youth players. Now no-one is taught how to score and the number of people avoiding the book has increased five-fold. It used to be a way of avoiding umpiring, but no more. Some players make a bee-line for the book, but even here the captain must ensure that all the information required for entering the score onto the cricketleinster website is recorded.
Entering scorecards. Years ago Michael Sharp would receive postcards with scores, now you have to be able to use a computer, download a programme, download a database, combine them all and enter the match details. Rarely does the scorecard add up between batting runs scored, bowling figures conceded and the running total. Extras have to be manipulated to ensure a balanced book which reflects the game is refers to.
I am personally favoured by the gods in that Emma chauffeurs my opening bat to each game and then compiles a perfect book for each game. Phew, thank you Emma, as it makes this task a pleasure rather than the chore it can be, having to enter a 200 run defeat in an unbalanced book.
There is nothing more guaranteed to become a chore than returning to a game the day after and re-living it through the scorebook as you try to provide the relevant information to the website. This can be enjoyable only in victory. In defeat the entire game with every decision, every choice has to be relived.
Equipment supplier. As a captain you will be expected to carry, as well as your own gear, a spare set of whites, pads, boxes (yes plural), wicket keeping gear, the book, the regulations, spare bails, pads to be borrowed, gloves, inners, in fact most captains could probably re-stock Ed Sports by the end of a season.
The list of tasks goes on and on and at no stage can the captain disappear. Players will panic about the batting order, whether they should go and relieve the umpires, can they go to the shops/toilets/playground. The captain must remain a beacon for his team, a totem to rally around.
However, always remember captaincy is an honour. You are a representative of your Club, of your team. A collection of people, old, young and some in-between will look to you for leadership, for guidance and sometimes for lotto numbers. Some will come to you for advice; many more will come to you with advice. You must decide which to take on board and which to, politely, ignore. You will also have to be a diplomat, the Wisdom of Solomon deciding on differences between players, between factions and must do so without visually taking sides. You will be a counsellor, listening to problems, injuries and whatever else your players wish to discuss, including on one occasion how many days a player should wait before contacting the girl he met last night (I got it very wrong and he ignored my advice. Thankfully too, for he married her and they now have three sons, far more talented than him, playing the game).
So, I would urge everyone to become a captain at least once. Discover all the joys of the job and remember once you’ve done it, you too now have the knowledge of just where the next captain is going wrong and you get to let him know, with gravitas.