The Brisbane Test

[laj]

I think Border, Ponting, Hughes and Yallop were under-rated, and I think Clarke, Waugh, Gilchrist and Greg Chappell were over-rated, but they are all clearly better than Smith.

In fairness it's hard to get a clear handle on Waugh, Ponting and Gilchrist, because if not for his issues and feck-ups Warne would clearly have been captain from a pure cricketing perspective.

It's too easy to judge captaincy based on individual performance, Waugh, Gilchrist and Smith are examples of the positive influence great individual performances have on the assessment of their captaincy. While Yallop and Hughes are perfect examples of how bad individual form can cruel your reputation, not matter what sort of cake you make form the crap around you!

Ponting, Hughes and Yallop a better captain than Smith? Are you kidding? They we awful. Smith's a solid captain, not poor but not going to be one of the great ones either. Better than those 3 though.

Waugh was never a great on-field captain, always too rigid and narrow in his thinking and could never think outside the box. His fault we lost in India in a series that should've been well won in 2001. Captained the greatest team we had and did lead by example and really was able to get the players behind him.

Gilchrist only filled-in as captain but won the series in India in 2004 in Ponting absence.

Clarke was a great captain. Given a very ordinary team well down the rankings but got them back to world no.1 eventually. Very smart on-field.