I have captained quite a few teams in my time: Boys Brigade, School, Club and College and being honest it had very little to do with being a good captain more due to being one of the better players, age, next in line and nobody else would!
I was pretty good at it, but hindsight highlights this was more because of my general (natural) leadership abilities than because I was ever taught/mentored on how to be a captain.
You just sort of picked it up along the way, and did what the previous captain did.
Appears that no much has changed with the main criteria today being: the incumbent, seniority, next in turn, prepared to do it usually with the far reaching caveat of being “worth their place in the team”, unless there was nobody else to do it in which case the Mike Brearley example is trotted out. For those that don’t know Brearley was an average player who wouldn’t have got into most England Teams but having tried every traditional means of picking a captain they went all funky and picked one who was a proven captain and a useful player, and it worked exceptionally well.
I write this as part of the Development Cricket posts on the site, and prompted by a number of discussions recently about selecting new captains, and would I be interested.
To take the second part of that sentence first: no/not yet have been the replies. In general I feel that at 60 I am not really the future of any team (other than the Over 60s by definition) and I have have not played for any of the teams I will be playing for in 2024 long enough to have established my role and got to know the players, with the exception of those that I have been coaching.
I can see the argument that I could do a job with a Development Team, but as I am trying to play a higher standard than that at the weekends to improve my performances for Staffordshire Seniors I am not quite ready for that. In a couple of years I could see myself captaining the club Development Team and Staffordshire Seniors, but I will be equally content to be just playing and contributing as a (senior) player and mentor as I am can’t say I would welcome all the off field hassle that goes with being a captain.
Which starts to get to the point: the view I regularly share when discussing this is that while being “worth their place in the team” is still the main criteria (you need to be respected) the definition of that criteria has evolved and you have to be respected on and off the field, as a player and a mentor, as a leader and a teammate, and more than ever given the focus on development, diversity and inclusivity both in the clubhouse and on the training ground i.e. nets.
I accept that it is tough to be tough on volunteers, but that said the areas I would look at when looking at a captain* would be:
- Have they previous experience,
- Have they been mentored/prepared,
- Are they available to play 90% of the games,
- Will they attend nets weekly,
- Are they good communicators,
- Do they have a track record of developing players.
Number 4 gets as close to being a red line than any of the others, and is an issue I have picked up on regularly since my return: the lack of respect for a captain that isn’t at nets regularly with the main issues being 1) how do they know how well a player is doing/trying if they aren’t there to see, 2) how do I talk to the captain about what I need to do if they aren’t there and 3) why aren’t they helping developing the players and the team?
A rather blunt Yorkshire Man put it along the lines of: if they can only be bothered to turn up and play then that’s what I will do. If it’s good enough for them then it’s good enough for me!
One approach I have grown to like is for Clubs to have a Club Captain, as well as Team Captains so that maybe an older more experienced captain can be at the nets, work alongside the coaches, be an ear to the players who are not confident enough to ‘talk to the skipper’ (even if they were there). The Club Captain needs to be playing still to have credibility with the players and to see first hand how the games are played, although I suggest not at all necessary to be a First Team player, as in most clubs the first team players are pretty well sorted with their own games. With luck this person will have a good track record/experience of selecting captains* or maybe leaders at work, which brings me to the second point.
Having recently declined a invitation to put my name forward I was impressed with the follow up invitation: would I be prepared to help the club find a suitable new captain, and if they were amenable to mentor them.
A great example of how clubs can and have changed since my day!