England take first step towards winning the 2011 World Cup

Barely two weeks after he'd emphatically declared that England were better off with him as the one-day captain, Michael Vaughan decided to quit before he was pushed. He was most certainly misquoted, if you read the ECB media release, for this is what he actually said.

Since Michael Vaughan's team's disappointing performances in the World Cup, Michael Vaughan has been giving careful consideration as to what is the best way forward for the England one-day team and Michael Vaughan's own role within the side.

The only basis on which he'd find a place in England's one-day side was because of his captaincy. One-day cricket is far too fast-moving for England to accomodate such a single-dimensional player (assuming that his fielding and batting count for little in comparison to his captaincy). Clearly, all that spin about how experiments with separate captains for tests and one-dayers weren't so successful had conveniently brushed aside the facts that Ponting won a World Cup while Hollioake led England to a surprise win in Sharjah a decade ago.

Better late than never! We've rambled far too often about Vaughan's hopeless batting record in one-dayers.

But what is also interesting is England's record when he was captain. A positive win-loss record (32-22 from 60 games) seems quite good, until the realization hits us that 43 out of those 60 games were played against half-decent sides (Australia, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka & West Indies) and England won 17 out of those games. Ergo, England've been quite poor even when he's been in charge. There're two implications here:

1. His team has always been pathetic. So there's no evidence of his captaincy skills having ever helped his team.
2. His captaincy skills in one-day cricket were a little over-rated, since his inability to adapt to one-day cricket also meant he used the same captaincy principles in test and one-day cricket.

Which obviously leads me to ask what he was doing in the side in the first place? Despite him claiming that he will continue to be eligible for selection as a ODI player, I'd find it bizarre if he was picked. At least now England can get in a significantly better one-day batsman and plan for the next 2011 World Cup.

Labels: 2011 world cup, captaincy, england, odi, vaughan