Page:Jubilee Book of Cricket (Second edition, 1897).djvu/257

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CAPTAINCY.
235

managers, are associated with the captain, what departments they are deputed to look after, and how far they carry out what they are supposed to do. Circumstances differ considerably. In some cases a captain finds that he need not trouble his head about anything but the management of his eleven during matches; in others, that unless he is continually supervising all matters connected with the ground, pavilion, and players, much that ought to be done is left undone. In either case, the captain should have a working knowledge of all that is going on, so that he may be always in a position to observe and correct what is not as it should be. Strictly speaking, a captain ought to have nothing to do except lead the eleven in the match; but at the same time it is quite impossible to lead an eleven satisfactorily unless the many matters outside matches, but distinctly accessory to them, are properly arranged and adequately carried out. If other people manage such things properly, well and good; otherwise the captain must see that they are done, because they affect the side that plays under him and for which he is responsible. The attendance and care of dressing-rooms and the pavilion generally, the luncheon arrangements, the press accommodation, the scoring-boxes, the roping off the ground, the placing of screens, the preparation of match- and practice-wickets, the fixing of nets, the marking out of creases, and numerous other details, must be looked after by some central authority. Such matters are rarely properly attended to unless the subordinates who have the care of them are fully aware that there is some one who knows how and when each thing ought to be done, and who will notice if anything is not done as it ought to be. Now, whether some other official actually sees to such things or not, the captain ought to be in a position to deal with them if need be, because he is the representative both of the eleven which takes part in matches and of the committee or club management, which is the general executive and administrative power of the club as a club. He is somewhat in the position of a general commanding in the field between the army and the War Office.

However, it is time to consider the duties of a captain purely as a leader of ten cricketers in a cricket-match. But before treating this in detail there is one point to mention. It is absolutely essential that in whatever way his eleven are chosen, whether by a deputy committee or by a separate selection committee or otherwise, the captain should have a very large share—in fact, the chief share—in the selection of men to play under