Is it controversial to say I don’t think Cummins is a good Captain?
Doesn't matter if it is, if it is correct. That's the TBR way.
To me the problem is there is no yang to balance the yin in the Australian team at the moment. I think great cricket teams have a balance of the reserved and thoughtful and the angry and confrontational.
You go back to AB and Bob Simpson and AB was the angry and Simpson, who although a brutal trainer of players was also old enough to take a fatherly role.
Then you had Mark Taylor who is more thoughtful but Simpson had the ability to take the angry role then.
Steve Waugh and the laid back, Geoff Marsh, then Professor Buchanan with Waugh and Ponting. Clarke was better with Lehmann than Neilson and Arthur for the same reasons, and then Longer with Smith/Cummins.
At the moment they are full of nice sweet characters and the hard edge is non-existent. I know it's old school but I'm with AB, I hate the laughing and joking with the other team, especially the Indians who hate to be challenged verbally.
I saw Siraj hit Wanrer in the head yesterday and Warner was grinning and laughing, when Steve Harmison hit Ponting in the head in 2005 and asked if he was ok Ponting told him to get *smile*.
Same problem on field, they look devoid of leadership on the DRS and just placid. Al Carey is a lovely bloke and I'd be happy to have him marry my daughter but he's not going to challenge you.
Gilchrist has a reputation as a golden boy but he would call you a *smile* as fast as anyone on the ground. When Michael Slater was having his first episode of going off the rails Warne and Darren Berry stood behind him for an hour in a shield game alternating 'Tick' and 'Tock' because he was that close to exploding. And Slater and Warne were mates!
I'm not condoning or encouraging personal abuse but that hard edge cricket sledging is an important part of a game that takes so long to play for mine. Teams gone by would have been letting Sharma have it about being an India only batsman, and Kohli's form slump and so on and they would have done it in a way that the Indians hated.
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