Far From The MCC

~ Est. in 1998 ~

 

“Captaincy Inspector’s Report”

 

 

Friday 13th August 2010

Result:  Lost by 3 Runs

Venue:  Honiton

40 overs

Honiton CC

187 ao

I. Howarth  4 - 30,  J. Hoskins  2 - 20

FFTMCC

184 ao

J. Hoskins  50,  N. Hebbes  45,  S. Dobner  25

 

 

 

As a trusted and Certified Captaincy Inspector it has been my privilege over the years to bear witness to the art of cricketing captaincy in the many arenas around the world. I have seen some skipper’s perplexed, some in fits of anger and frustration, some exultant in jubilation, and some paralytic at the bar knowing they’ve really fucked things up.

 

Most of you will be aware of the two basic types of captaincy blunders:

 

i) Overly Cautious and Overrating the Opposition. The most recent example of this was in the 3rd test at St. John’s, Antigua against the West Indies in 2009, where England Captain Andrew Strauss elected to continue batting well into the final session of the 2nd day, despite being one down in the series and knowing it was almost futile trying to bowl a team out twice (on the soft feather-bed wickets). It was ridiculously negative tactics and the Windies went on save the test by 1 wicket when overs ran out.

 

ii) Blindly Ignorant of Team’s Strengths. Pakistan skipper Salman Butt was guilty of this in the 2nd test of their series in England in 2010. Winning the toss on a humid and overcast day, and despite boasting a world class seam attack, he opted to bat first against a buoyant England swing-bowling unit and capitulated to 72 all out. A one nil deficit in the series quickly became 2-0.

 

      

 

Another trio of skippering bell-ends.

 

These incidents are well known to cricket historians and enthusiasts alike, but not many of you will be aware of another quite common type of captaincy mistake:

 

iii) Being Completely Fucking Useless. I was lucky enough to see an instructive example of this at Honiton on the 13th of August, 2010, when the home team took on Oxford touring side Far From The MCC. As what seems a touring bylaw these days, the tourists elected to blood a new captain for the day, and in Dave Emerson they found a real cock in a barrel of fannies. Quickly losing the toss, Dave watched on agog as Honiton piled up 187 off their allotted overs as clueless bowling changes were backed up by some clueless field settings. In keeping, Dave got himself humped for the buffet award and dived out the way of anything head high. In reply, a contorted batting line-up folded like a deck of cards with the skipper registering a duck. Dave was last seen asleep in a pool of his own piss.

 

 

‘Captaincy Inspector’

 

 

 

 

 

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