Aussie Mr Nice Guys? No, It Never Works!

Cricket Australias appointment of two vice-captains, in the wake of the ball-tampering scandal, seems to be an official move towards leadership by committee.

Either that, or a bid to prevent the captain and his deputy from going rogue, as Steve Smith and David Warner did in South Africa six months ago to widespread condemnation.

Diluting the decision-making executive rarely results in sharper decision-making. True, the wilder excesses may be avoided but stasis can also result, and no team, cricket or otherwise, has ever benefited from that.

The choice of Australia’s two vice-captains beneath captain Tim Paine, Mitch Marsh and Josh Hazlewood, are claimed to have been made on leadership qualities already shown and on the pair interviewing well to a panel comprising, among others, cricket grandees Greg Chappell, Mark Taylor and current coach Justin Langer.

It is probably no coincidence, though, with image so important in the digitised world, that Marsh Jnr and Hazlewood are two of the cleanest cut and least demonstrative of Australia’s leading players. Not for them unseemly on-field spats with opponents and prolonged bouts of sledging.

Of course, Hazlewood, a fast bowler, has been known to have the odd hard word but generally he gives batsmen the eye, his look of quizzical disdain a throwback to the Eighties, an era when the great West Indies used to do likewise to those riding more than their fair share of luck.