Is being named captain of your country’s cricket team a blessing or a curse? Scientists have discovered that it depends on whether you prefer to play with a ball or a bat in your hand.
A study has found that in one shot, bowlers benefit from being named captain, scoring an average of 16 per cent more runs than their teammates. On the other hand, there is no such jump for bowlers who have become captains, as they appear to take 18 per cent fewer wickets than their peers.
The study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, noted: “Batsmen typically improve their performance with captaincy, while bowlers show a decline.”
After the loss of the captain, the batsmen see their performance “going down even further their levels before the captain”, while the footballers see an even more significant drop.
Researchers from the Central European University in Vienna and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research analyzed 4,418 men’s one-day internationals (ODIs) and 2,863 players who played between 1971 and this year.
Batsmen were classified as those who had played at least 25 matches and played at number seven or higher in at least half of them, with 580 included in the study. Bowlers were classified as having played at least 25 matches and bowled in at least half of them, with 551 included for analysis.
The researchers looked at whether these players had been named captain of their country’s ODI team for at least 15 matches and whether their performances improved or worsened after becoming captain and after stepping down. They identified 172 captains, 71 percent of whom were batsmen and 29 percent bowlers.
The study said it was also possible that captain-bowlers, such as Australia’s Pat Cummins, had a tendency to put themselves in “to play at the wrong time to relieve the pressure of the team”.
PATRICK HAMILTON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
The study concluded: “The performance of captain-batsmen improves during captaincy, while it declines for captain-bowlers.”
Batsmen are often chosen to be captains because of their high-scoring performances, while bowlers are not necessarily chosen to be wicket-keepers, the study said, noting: “Batsmen may need to consistently outperform peers [to be selected as captain]while the captain of the bowlers seems less dependent on individual performance.”
Batsmen may see captaincy as an opportunity to “lead by example” by increasing their run-rate at the crease. Bowlers, however, “may experience the captaincy as a burden”.
It is also possible that captain-bowlers have a tendency to put themselves in “to bowl at the wrong time to relieve team pressure”, taking a spell of bowling when another team-mate might have been better suited to that stage of a match or under those conditions.
• The return of Ben Stokes, the all-rounder key to England’s mini-resurgence
The findings suggest that there is a “differential impact of captaincy on different types of players”, implying that batsmen may be better suited to the role than bowlers.
In one particular aspect of the study, the researchers found that players who were removed from the team for a period saw a large increase in their performance when they returned. He noted that there was a strong “bounceback” effect for returning players “with batsmen recording an approximate 36 per cent improvement and bowlers showing a 30 per cent improvement compared to their final pre-removal performance”.
These levels then remained high for an extended period, suggesting that the performance of a poor performer can often be enhanced by temporarily removing them from the team.