After the Pietersen affair was followed by a mixed West Indies tour under Andrew Strauss, John Mehaffey looks at the role of England captain.

Amid the sound and fury generated by Kevin Pietersen’s abrupt departure as England cricket captain, The Guardian newspaper offered an irreverent take on a national institution.

“Perhaps we should just return to the old method of the three brightest chaps at Cambridge tossing a coin for the big jobs — prime minister, head of the Bank of England, cricket captain — and see how we get on?”

Pietersen’s resignation in January after only three tests puzzles much of the cricketing world, who wonder why such mystique is attached to the England job.

Since Kim Hughes resigned in tears in 1984, Australia have fielded only four permanent captains (Adam Gilchrist was a stand-in for six games) and enjoyed considerable success. In 1988 England had four in one series alone against West Indies.

There is a serious subtext to an otherwise typical piece of Guardian drollery.

Until Len Hutton took charge in 1952, England were invariably captained by an amateur (”gentleman”) ahead of a professional (”player”). Amateurs had their own dressing rooms, entered the grounds from a different gate and their initials were placed before their names on the scoreboard while the professionals were listed with surnames first.

As the sprinkling of titles until World War Two indicates (Lord Hawke, the Honourable Lionel Tennyson) the England cricket captain was seen as very much a part of the ruling establishment.

A decade after Hutton’s appointment this anachronism was abolished and cricketers became simply players.

The position of England captain, though, still carries a disproportionate historical importance as Mike Gatting will acknowledge. Gatting, the last England captain to win a series in Australia, was sacked after the first test in 1988 for the crime of entertaining a barmaid in his hotel room.

Mike Brearley (a Cambridge graduate), is statistically the most successful England captain with a winning percentage of 58.06 in his 31 tests. Pietersen’s predecessor Michael Vaughan is second with 50.98 from 51 tests. Peter May (another Cambridge graduate) follows with 48.78 from 41.

Each was a fine leader and acknowledged as such by team mates and opponents. Brearley, in particular, has been elevated to almost mythical status by his many admirers and to watch him direct operations from first slip was to savour a masterclass in captaincy.

Yet in the end, how important were their unquestioned leadership skills to their team’s success? Nothing in an examination of their statistics refutes the old maxim that bowlers, and in particular fast bowlers, are the consistent matchwinners.

Under Brearley, England regained the Ashes at home against a distracted Australia side in 1977. Dennis Lillee, the best fast bowler of his time, did not tour and the team were split between those who had signed for Kerry Packer’s breakaway World Series and those who had not been invited.

A 5-1 series victory followed in Australia in 1978-9 against a virtual third XI while Australia’s elite took the Packer dollar. After peace was brokered between Packer and the establishment in 1979, a full-strength Australian side including Lillee and the Chappell brothers took on Brearley’s touring side. Australia won 3-0.

TRAIN PROPERLY

Brearley returned from a brief retirement in the famous 1981 series when England turned a 1-0 deficit into a 3-1 series win. He then quit for the final time after 18 victories, four losses and nine draws.

Opening bowlers Bob Willis and Ian Botham were instrumental in Brearley’ success.

Willis, finally persuaded that he needed to train properly to add stamina to his pace, was unrelentingly hostile against Australia in 1977. In the following year he and Botham, a skilful swing bowler at lively pace before a back injury and increasing girth reduced his effectiveness, blew away New Zealand and a Pakistan side whose best players had signed for Packer.

In 1981, Botham’s swashbuckling century rescued England in the Headingley test but it was Willis’s eight for 43 in a mesmerising spell of concentrated fury during Australia’s second innings which won the match and turned the series.

Brearley’s record is also flattered by his unavailability for two series against West Indies, who developed during the two seasons of World Series cricket into a ruthless outfit who were to rule the world for 15 years.

Vaughan had two golden years as skipper, winning nine matches in 2004 with one draw, and regaining the Ashes in the following year after a series the Wisden cricket almanac rates as the best of all time.

While Brearley benefited from a born-again Willis, Vaughan enjoyed the best seasons of the enigmatic Steve Harmison, who reached a peak of fitness at the start of 2004 he had never reached before or attained since after a training stint with Newcastle United soccer club.

Harmison, with his steepling lift and high pace, was for a time the number one bowler in the world. In 2005 he combined with Andrew Flintoff, Simon Jones and Matthew Hoggard to give England their most potent fast bowling attack since Frank Tyson and Brian Statham destroyed Australia in 1953-54.

Injuries to Flintoff and the unfortunate Jones and Harmison’s loss of form meant England under Vaughan did not reach their stated goal of overtaking Australia as the world’s top side. Overall, his winning percentage is unduly inflated by victories over the weaker nations.

Against Australia, South Africa, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, Vaughan’s teams won six matches and lost 10. Against the modest opposition of the modern West Indies side, New Zealand and Bangladesh, Vaughan had a record of 18 wins and one loss.

May is still regarded as England’s finest post-World War Two batsman. As an amateur captain, either with England or Surrey, he was every bit as ruthless as his professional precedessor Hutton. Yet, like Vaughan, his record is flattered by a series of wins against weak sides.

In the 1950s, Freddie Trueman had only to roll up his right sleeve and scowl down the pitch to prompt a succession of Indian and New Zealand batsmen to head for the pavilion. Tailenders were not expected to contribute and seldom did. In 10 tests against India and New Zealand, with Trueman at his peak, May’s teams won eight matches and drew two.

South Africa had a good side in the 1950s, capable of drawing a series in Australia at the start of the decade when they were still clearly the world’s top team. Against South Africa, May’s teams won five and lost four tests.

The ultimate contests, then as now, were against Australia.

In 1956, May had Tyson, Statham and Trueman at his disposal. His match-winners, though, on pitches the Australians complained had been especially prepared for spin bowling were Jim Laker and Tony Lock. The former took 19 wickets in the Manchester test, a figure unlikely to be surpassed.

Despite England’s overall superiority (with May averaging 90.60 on uncovered pitches), Keith Miller won the Lord’s test for Australia with his final great all-round performance and the overall margin was only 2-1 in the home side’s favour with two draws.

All May’s match-winners were selected for the 1958-9 series in Australia, members of a team heralded as the strongest to leave England’s shores. They were thrashed 4-0 by Richie Benaud’s vibrant and confident young side with one draw. May’s overall record against Australia after his final three tests in 1961 was two wins and five losses.

Two other England captains have won plaudits for winning series in Australia; Douglas Jardine, in the infamous 1932-33 bodyline series, and Ray Illingworth in 1970-1.

Jardine unleashed Harold Larwood, rated by Don Bradman alongside Tyson and the Australian Jeff Thomson as the three swiftest bowlers he had seen. Illingworth employed John Snow, who is grouped with Tyson, Trueman, Statham and Willis as England’s finest post-World War Two fast bowlers.

England are now captained by Andrew Strauss, a graduate of Radley college and Durham university. In 2005, Strauss watched from slip as Harmison and Flintoff blitzed the Australians in a dramatic opening hour at Lord’s. Similar, sustained ferocity in this year’s Ashes series will make the job of captaincy seem infinitely easier.