3. The bowling captains suffer from the very opposite of the
feebleness which affects the last class; over-keenness is their bane.
They are generally moderate bowlers, who at times enjoy a fair amount
of success, and who are often very valuable to their side as changes.
But the power of bowling wherever and for as long as they please is too
much for them. Over after over hit to all parts of the field, without
the slightest suspicion of a chance of a wicket, only convinces the
self-confident captain that something must happen sooner or later--and
something generally does after the match has been bowled away. The
fascination that bowling has for captains and the danger it often leads
to is a good reason for pausing before selecting as captain anyone
who has any pretensions in this branch of the game. It is sometimes,
however, impossible for a side to recognise anyone as captain except
a bowler. He may be the oldest and most experienced member of the
team, or perhaps from his position as a cricketer it may be out of
the question to pass him over, and then, of course, the best of a bad
job must be made. But a captain who is also a bowler has much heavier
responsibilities in the field than one who is not. Even if he happens
not to be over-anxious about trundling all day himself, he is apt from
shyness and diffidence of his own merits not to put himself on at
all--another extreme into which some captains before now have fallen.
The duties of a captain are of two kinds: those out of the field and
those in it, and it is proposed to discuss them in the order named.
The first duty of a captain is the choice of his team; but as it so
frequently happens, nowadays, that the team is chosen for him by the
committee of his county or his club, this topic may be passed over till
we discuss the duties of the captains at the Universities and Public
Schools.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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