After Sunrisers Hyderabad’s IPL triumph, questions are hanging in the air whether its talismanic skipper David Warner will ever get to lead the national side. Currently, the vice-captain of the side, Warner has found support in his ODI opening partner Aaron Finch, who said the left-hander will make a brilliant captain if given the chance. But whether Cricket Australia pays heed to his IPL heroics and Finch’s word, only time will tell.
However, Warner’s captaincy future looks bleak especially in the presence of the baby-faced Steven Smith who hasn’t put a foot wrong in his last two years of international cricket. Also, the middle order batsman is two years younger to Warner. In such a scenario, apart from a few games here and there, Warner’s dreams of leading the Australian side may just remain unfulfilled.
Here are some other perennial vice captains of the game, who, if given the chance to lead the team could well have lifted their teams to amazing heights. But some didn’t have the inclination for the coveted job, while some spent their cricket careers in the shadow of more charismatic figures.
1. Shane Warne
The leg spinner had everything one could ask for. Apart from the god gifted wizardry with the ball, Shane Keith Warne finished with 708 wickets, 195 of them coming in Ashes and an ODI World Cup to his name. What more, he even went on to add the glittering Indian Premier League trophy to his kitty. But one thing that eluded Warne throughout his 145 Tests long career was the captaincy of the Australian team.
Given his magnet like pull towards controversies, Cricket Australia trusted more sensible and controversy free cricketers for the job. Plus, Warne didn’t help his cause by maintaining acrimonious relations with both his coach John Buchanan and Steve Waugh. Ian Chappell had this to write on his leadership abilities after he won the Indian Premier League for Rajasthan Royals:
“Leadership was a big part of Warne's success as a captain. He made players feel wanted and they in turn produced every effort to give more for the team. Warne believed the time he spent with players after hours reaped great rewards on the field. He also gave players something they crave: honesty.”
2. Jacques Kallis
Unlike Shane Warne, the burly all rounder did have his brush with captaincy. He led his team whenver skipper Graeme Smith got injured but otherwise, the quiet all rounder showed a mysterious reluctance for the top job throughout his 19-year long career. Having played under the successful but controversy ridden captainship of Hansie Cronje and also Shaun Pollock, it is quite possible that Kallis lost the stomach for the job at an early stage of his career.
Or maybe, after shouldering both the batting and bowling of the side over a long period of time, Kallis didn’t want any distraction. However, with his amazing knowledge of the game and outstanding abilities with the bat and ball, one can only wonder what Kallis, the skipper would have brought to the table. Kallis, didn't even raise his hand for captaincy of his IPL franchise despite being a senior player as well as a consistent fixture. King Kallis, as he was called, has now settled into the role of a coach with IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders.
3. Adam Gilchrist
The explosive wicketkeeper succeeded in doing what Allan Border, Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh failed to do. Leading Australia in the absence of regular skipper Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist won Australia a series in India, a task which Steve Waugh called the final frontier for Australia’s perennial poor performance in India despite being world beaters.
However, those two riveting Tests made one-third of Gilchrist’s captaincy career as he led the team in a total of 6 Tests, winning 4 of them. But the fact that those two victories were crafted against Indians whose batting order boasted of names like Tendulkar, Sehwag, Dravid, Ganguly and Laxman in Indian conditions tell a lot about Gilchrist’s leadership abilities.
He was the perfect deputy to Ricky Ponting and had it not been for Ponting, he might have led Australia in more Tests and more victories. He gave an able demonstration of his captaincy once again when he won the Indian Premier League at the fag end of his career in 2009 in South Africa.
4. Chris Cairns
Long before he became a prime accused in match-fixing controversy, Chris Cairns was the blue-eyed boy of New Zealand cricket who could do anything with both the ball and the bat. After all, he had got it in his genes. But one thing Chris Cairns never dabbled with was captaincy. Cairns represented the Black Caps in 62 Tests from 1989 to 2004 and was at one point the most reliable player in the side with both the bat and the ball.
But he was never trusted with the captaincy of the Test side and one can only wonder why. He spent a long time as vice-captain of the side as Stephen Fleming handled the leadership duties in 80 Test matches but all he managed was an opportunity to lead the team in 7 ODIs at the fag end of his career. Could Cairns, who had 87 sixes in 62 Tests, be as attacking as captain as he was with bat and ball. Well, we would never know.
5. Mark Boucher
Another South African on the list is wicket-keeper batsman Mark Boucher. Not many realised that Mark Boucher had turned out for South Africa 147 times in Test cricket when the wicketkeeper was forced to retire agonisingly short of 1000 dismissals in International cricket after an eye injury. And out of those 147 matches, Boucher was given captaincy duty only four times. Just like Kallis, Mark Boucher was also left handling vice-captaincy duties under Shaun Pollock.
When asked about captaincy in post-2003 World Cup scenario, Boucher had said "I would have said no to the offer. It would have put a lot of additional pressure on me because I have to keep the wickets also.”
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