Touching wood (a couple of times too!) here ......

Jimmy Pattinson

fair enough ....well I'll pull out my "smokey gun" then ....

Mitchell "little swampy" Marsh

This kid is the new Ian Botham/Kapil Dev/Imran Khan , he IS that good.

Geez Simondo don't get me started....... too late. Bowlers are rarely captains in modern Aus. cricket. Warne should have been, but wasn't so there's no bowler in current cricket that could be captain. Batters? well theres alot of people that think young Warner could be a future skipper but Warner follows in a long tradition of promoting "eye" players to the teams and "eye" players often have little or no technique. So players like Clarke,Ponting,Haddin,Steve Smith(remember him?)Hodge,Hughes and to some extent Warner are /were "eye" players, see it hit it players. And the trouble with those players is when they have a bad streak of form they can't rely on the basis of a good technique to get them out of it. So guys like Ponting who had no Technique to start with now have nothing to get them through the tough time of getting older and a bit slower. I think what tends to happen in the selection room is selectors get captured by shield players run scoring and not the quality of their runs. Phil Hughes and Steve Smith are perfect examples of selectors falling in love with players. It's interesting when you see players of technique batting at the same time as the Clarkes and Haddins. They stand out and make the game look simple. Cowan, Watson, Mike Hussey, Forrest, Fergusson,Bailey,Paine, khawajer all have techniques. My bet for a long term skipper would be Tim Paine.

Gestalt said...

for me it should be watson.

it is such a pity he's injured, he's quality through and through and everytime cricket australia has thrown him in the deep end he's smashed it.

he can bat, field and bowl. all the making of a good skipper.

saying that, clarke has done better than i thought he would.

Watson is a good call. and Clarke has surprised me in his captaincy and his batting.

I would on ability and aptitude say Watson, but heres the but, it is very unlikely he will ever be fit enough for long enough to do the job effectively.

Then I would have said Paine, but heres the but, will he come back from his finger injury, jury still out.

Warner, hmmm theres still a but, as someone else said in the absence of a solid technique he does rely on his eye and that may fail him at some stage.

It just might be we rely on Clarke for a while longer (I agree he is doing great job) and it will pan out in the future.