Start the Car: The World According to Bumble. David Lloyd
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politics of captaincy, they just need to get on and play. I am not sure Kevin was suited to hot-footing from nets to press conferences, to meetings with umpires, or talks with the ECB and the ICC. He probably didn’t see it that way when he lost the position in January 2009, he may not see it that way for the rest of his days, but some things are for the best. If you look at this historically, the elite players do not make good captains. Ian Botham captained England twelve times in Test cricket and didn’t win a match. There were always questions about Brian Lara when he was in charge of West Indies, while Sachin Tendulkar also had a go at it for India, without much success. They just don’t fit the role.
The best cricketer in the team often wants to take charge, and it’s a natural career goal, but it is not necessarily natural from a cricket perspective. Part of captaincy is to understand the strengths, weaknesses and limitations of your team. One of the best captains England ever had, some will argue the very best, is Mike Brearley, and he still receives unbelievable respect for what he did. He would never in a million years say he was the best player in England. He wasn’t, but he was the most astute.
Andrew Strauss has shown that his performances are not affected by the responsibility, in fact his return with the bat actually improves with it. He should have been appointed long before January 2009, in my opinion. For example, when the captaincy for the 2006–7 Ashes became a big issue owing to Michael Vaughan’s injury absence, I thought they should have just let Andrew Flintoff be Freddie. Let him be the people’s man. It was a dangerous move to burden him with the leadership, because he had enough on his plate already with bat and ball. People inevitably blame captains when things go wrong and I worried that a poor series would undermine Freddie as the darling of the crowd.
I also have to declare a liking for Jeremy Clarkson while I am on the warpath, particularly for giving that bloke Piers a slap. Sadly, it was not a seeing-to, but I am sure others will willingly follow his lead when the opportunity presents itself. Clarkson is very comfortable in his own skin and I like that. There is none of this starry-eyed crap or cooing over ‘celebrities’ and he is definitely no-holds-barred when it comes to politicians. In fact, if you read his newspaper column, you will discover he is one of life’s great ranters. There have been some great ones over the years, and although a bloke called Adolf from Germany, who was not properly wired up, is numero uno, Clarkson would be up there. Our Jez doesn’t mind getting stuck in and thinks most sportsmen are complete pricks … he certainly has a point.
In sport, we are well served for ranters, with Sir Alex Ferguson undoubtedly the doyen. The way he keeps these young, impressionable multi-millionaires in their place with a good clout around the lugs with a teacup or stray boot impresses me. To hell with political correctness for Sir Alex; giving the upstarts a good clogging has been his mantra. Reminds me of the discipline meted out by my mum with my uncle Harry’s belt when I was a nipper. Uncle Harry was ex-Navy and had the thickest trouser belt worn by man. He lived five doors down from us in Accrington and was secretary of Sydney Street Working Men’s Club. Whenever I got on the wrong side of Mum for such grave misdemeanours as talking to a Catholic girl, coming back from the butcher’s with stewing steak instead of shin beef or climbing on to the backyard wall to see if I could get a glimpse of my cousin Kathleen in the bath, she would send me down to Uncle Harry’s for his belt. Uncle Harry had no sympathy either and routinely declared: ‘Tell your mum to be quick. I have to open club up.’ Never did me any harm, though. To me the equation is simple: do wrong = thwacking. None of this behavioural profiling in front of a computer, in a centrally heated room, or assessment during a trip to an outward-bound centre. Call me old-fashioned, but there was nowt wrong with the birch.
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