The most successful Test cricket captains who were bowlers

The debate over whether bowlers can make successful captains in Test cricket has returned with Australia's decision to appoint Pat Cummins as their captain in the wake of the shock resignation of Tim Paine.

The role of captain in Test cricket has historically been dominated by batsmen and a quick look at the all time appearances in Tests as a skipper quickly confirms this with all the leading names being players who have wielded the willow rather than let fly with the leather.

In fact, you have to go down to equal 20th on the list of most Tests as captain before you get to a bowler and no cricketer predominately selected as a bowler has ever captained a side on more than 50 occasions while to date 19 batsmen have passed that landmark.

Before we go on to look at a few more of the stats and consider some of the bowlers who have lead their sides, it's worth pausing to consider what we mean by a "bowler" because of course most cricketers over an extended career will have a bowl. So for the purposes of this blog, I am going to consider a bowler to be someone who has bowled more balls than they have faced as a batsmen in Test cricket.

This method is somewhat complicated by the fact that until the 1970s stats for the number of balls faced by a batsmen weren't kept! Therefore, I've chosen to exclude the likes of Sir Garfield Sobers and New Zealand's John Reid who played prior to that era and therefore have incomplete data sets but who in my opinion were batting all-rounders.

Most Test matches as captain by a bowler

Player	Team	Matches as captain
Imran Khan	Pakistan	48
Jason Holder	West Indies	37
Kapil Dev	India	34
Daniel Vettori	New Zealand	32
Ray Illingworth	England	31
Darren Sammy	West Indies	30
Richie Benaud	Australia	28
Shaun Pollock	South Africa	26
Wasim Akram	Pakistan	25

Bowlers who have captained their side on 25 or more occassions in Test Matches

Being a bowler didn't hold back Imran Khan as a leader on the cricket pitch or for Pakistan full stop

Straight away, the most obvious thing that you spot with this list is these these players are all bowling all-rounders. Each cricketer was primarily selected for their bowling skills but was a handy option lower down the order to the extent that every player on the list has struck at least 1 Test Match hundred during their career.

There is then a fairly compelling argument that these men had more extended runs as captain largely because they could lead from the front in multiple disciplines as opposed to just a single one, bowling.

To a certain extent that makes sense, why wouldn't you want a captain who could directly influence the game whether you were batting or fielding but at the same time that doesn't explain why so many out and out batsmen have captained teams for long periods and yet so few specialist bolwers have had a look in.

You have to dig a little further down to find players as Test captain who you can certainly say weren't in the team for any other reason that their skill with ball in hand. The most notable examples include

Player	Team	Matches as captain
Bishan Bedi	India	22
Waqar Younis	Pakistan	17
Ian Johnson	Australia	17

Which camp Pat Cummins falls into is very much up for debate. Generally coming in at number 8 he is certainly no mug with the bat but with just 2 fifties and an average of 16.46 in the 34 games he played before becoming skipper he is certainly not in the same league as some of the names on our initial list when it comes to all around skills.

Most Test match wins by a captain who was a bowler

Perhaps the fact is that there just haven't been that many successful Test match captains who were bowlers over the years and certainly if you consider the records listed below and compare them to the list of the most successful captains of all time, the bowlers' records don't stand out.

Player	Wins as captain	Win %
Shaun Pollock	14	53.84%
Imran Khan	14	29.16%
Wasim Akram	12	48.00%
Richie Benaud	12	42.85%
Ray Illingworth	12	38.70%
Jason Holder	11	29.72%
Waqar Younis	10	58.82%
Darren Sammy	8	26.66%
Ian Johnson	7	41.17%
Bishan Bedi	6	27.27%
Daniel Vettori	6	18.75%
Kapil Dev	4	11.76%

There are of course mitigating factors to some of the stats and as a top line number they don't tell the whole story. For example, Richie Benaud and Ray Illingworth are both regarded by cricketing historians as 2 of the finest captains that their respective nations have produced.

Richie Benaud was not only a successful captain but is credited with revolutionising the way Australia played the game. His passion for attacking and entertaining cricket lives on

Kapil Dev may only have won 4 Tests as India captain but he also lead his team to a maiden World Cup victory that would lay the foundations for Indian cricket to go from strength to strength in the decades to follow.

By contrast, Shaun Pollock who to date has won more Tests as captain than any other bowler lost his job largely on the basis of South Africa's poor showing in a World Cup played on home soil despite having a better win % in Tests than either his predecessor Hansie Cronje or successor Graeme Smith who went onto lead the Proteas on a world record 109 occassions.

In fact, looking back through the history books it seems that on many occassions bowlers have only been appointed as captain when there haven't been other credible candidates and even then they are often replaced fairly quickly when one emerges particularly when that alternaitive option is a batsman. So why are bowlers not usually perceived as captain material?

Why aren't bowlers used as captains in cricket?

Finally then we'll consider the main reasons that bowlers aren't given the job of captain in cricket.

Workload

It's tough being a bowler! Quick bowlers in particular have to put their bodies on the line and so do need some downtime even in between spells. In the modern game that often involves them leaving the action for a "comfort break" therefore leaving the team without an on-field leader during that period. Even if a bowler doesn't leave the field, they'll often find themselves stationed out at third man or fine leg in order to have a breather but of course in doing so they are further from the action which is less than ideal for a captain.

Injuries / Rotation

Linked to workload comes the the fact that bowlers are more likely to sustain injuries that see them miss matches or they may be left out of games in a proactive manner because the management wants them to avoid injury. Either way, most teams would favour appointing a captain who they believe is going to be available for most of the matches that they play.

Focus on individual performance

Appointing a specialist batsmen as a captain means that they can focus on their primary skill (scoring runs) and then at the change of innings they can switch to thinking abut captaincy. While of course it's not that simple in reality it is certainly more easily achieved than for bowlers who need to give greater thought to their own performance while in the field and at the same time think about the match situation and tactics for the team as a whole.

It's a batsmens' game!

On a slightly more cynical note, it's long been the case that the achievements of batsmen generally seem to warrant more attention and praise than those of bowlers both within the game and the media. Is it any surprise then that when it comes to deciding who gets the top job it's given to the players who are perceived to be "the best" in the team?

Final thoughts

There are elements of truth to the reasons stated above as to why bowlers aren't usually used as captains in cricket. At the same time some the bias is unwarranted, particularly in the modern game where the role of the captain has changed.

From a tactical point of view, so much of the planning and thinking is now carried out by teams of analysts and statisticians both before and during the game. In that sense, nothing is ever missed. No techncial flaw can go unnoticed and no pattern undiscovered regardless of whether one man (the captain) notices it or not. The idea that the captain needs to be stood at first slip in order to oversee such things seems outdated to say the least.

The true value of a captain in a tactical sense has always been to have good instincts for the game of cricket and particularly on how to take wickets! In that regards then surely a bowler whose job it is to get batsmen out can be seen as a good choice for this role. That is to say that the best bowlers understand the data presented by the analysts but also follow their gut on when the perfect time is to put that plan into action.

The argument that rotation or absence from the team might impact the effectiveness of a captain also loses credibility in the modern era. We regularly see captains such as Virat Kohli or Kane Williamson missing Tests because they are multi-format players and feel the need to rest and break up what is otherwise a full 12 month cycle of cricket.

Finally lets not forget that being a successful captain has always been as much about a good relationship with the media and the cricketing public as it has about results on the pitch and with the advent of social media having a good public image has never been so important. As much as anything, I think Australia's appointment of Pat Cummins as their skipper shows that they understand this. Cummins is a clean cut professional who was already the poster boy of Australian cricket and so offering him the job even if he is a bowler was a no-brainer on their part.