Dear Skipper

I started writing an email to our new 1st XI skip to pass on some of my questionable wisdom, but then realised as it got longer and longer that I probably send something like this every season to every new captain. On re-reading it, it occurred to me it probably applies quite well to our other new skippers too. So I hastily set about deleting some of the names from the less flattering anecdotes and post it now on our esteemed website for the perusal and belittlement of all and sundry. In future I can just send all new captains a link to this soon to be seminal piece, on cricket captaincy. Happy hacking, hackers!!!

New 3rd XI regime, Nostradamus gives it until May

Skip!!!

Congratulations again, I'm looking forward to seeing how you do. I'm usually ambushed in at the AGM as VC for new skippers, as my psuedo-philosphical approach to leadership seems to be seen as having been half decent when I was captain. Personally I think it was just because the boy before me was a health conscious non-smoker with authoritarian tendencies.

Stating what I hope is obvious, I'll be available for as much or as little advice as you feel you need (if selected of course).

Hopefully some of the following bletherings will help prepare you for the ordeal to come.

I loved the on-field stuff like field placings & bowling changes etc, but other things (availability, weather, incompetent umpires, cheats (perceived or otherwise) etc) tend to be less enjoyable aspects. I think you need a degree of confidence in your abilities/decision making and I suspect you will be reasonably sure of yourself. But I don't think you can judge how good/bad someone will be until they actually do it and even then, I suppose their 'performance' is only a matter of differing opinions really.

I remember starting off with great, fresh expectations, but I can guarantee this team/club will frustrate the heck out of you at times. For some reason, like the rest of us you will somehow see this as charming. You inherit everything rather than starting from scratch and some of this may ultimately stifle some of your good intentions.

Also, absolutely do not forget, the views of the 2's and 3's must be taken into account (i.e. there might only be 15 bowlers available one Saturday so each team needs 5 and in the balancing you aren't necessarily always picking a best club XI in the 1's so you can ensure each team has enough bowling. That sort of thing. As 1st XI skipper you're also club skipper really, so have to try to see it from 2's and 3's perspectives (which can, sometimes, to their total annoyance, be pretty tough to empathise with).

Availability will do your head in!!!

On-field-wise, my approach, as I alluded to earlier, I like to think is quite philosophical. You will make some unbelievably inspired decisions and you will totally cock up as well. Make sure you take the credit for the former and blame the bowlers for the latter. Just got to try to do more of the former. But even then, firstly, there is nobody who knows what the right thing to do is every time and secondly, even if there was, you can do everything right but at some point their number 11 hits a Shanton wonderball for 6 to win the game with your best catcher tipping it over the boundary exactly where you put him. You won't have all the answers, you won't get it right a lot of the time, but you've got to take what you already have and know, apply it as best you can, and hope that more often than not it works. And obviously learn from any mistakes.

Some other random general rules I bore in mind or realised during my incumbency:

• Seldom listen to bowlers. In all seriousness. They are usually only seeing it from their 6 balls perspective. You are in charge of the whole game. They might think bowling 6 snorters at a rabbit has some worth and it's the rabbit's fault for not being good enough, whereas if you get Dougie to bowl a half tracker that the bunny can sky to the keeper, I'll take that every time. The smarter chuckers certainly know more about actually bowling than I do and what's best for them in the context of their own tactical approach at removing a batsman. Its a lot about knowing what you know and judging if its better or worse/more or less applicable, than what they know. Mostly the non-bowler will know best!!! There is nothing worse than someone who bowls one long hop an over refusing to let you put a man on the square leg boundary. In their head they're Glenn McGrath. I definitely experienced reluctance, or in one amusing instance outright hostility (from Worsnop) to the skipper changing 'their' field settings. In their defence, I think this is mostly because they had rarely if ever played under what they would see as a decent captain. Once they saw I wasn't just blindly fiddling, I think the mutual trust grew to the point I could tinker with fields as I saw fit. Of course its a democracy, but you are still the ultimate decider. Saying all this, my first question before a bowlers spell would usually be 'what do you want?'. Greatest ever bowler to walk onto the field, answered correctly the first time I ever asked him, "I don't mind, it's up to you" - Gaz T v Watsons 2011. His wisdom made him 6-39 as I built a keeper-point slip cordon with our 10 men while our absent skipper snoozed off a hangover. Case closed methinks.

• Decide what you are best at, where you should field/bat/bowl and stick to it. Too many captains start slipping themselves down the order.

• Be patient. I recall in a game v Heriots, they were something like 120-2 of 25 overs with a top bat at the crease chasing our 220. I was quite confident that if we just kept going as we were, we'd get a chance or two with the good batter and they had a long tail even although on paper they were coasting. When we were switching ends between overs, I remember Bonnie Prince Charlie sort of pleading/berating with me to do something and gesturing with outstretched arms. I replied something like 's'cool man, keep the faith, all under control' and in the end I think they were about 205 all out. Whose to say we mightn't have skittled them for 150 if I'd done things differently or if they'd have won by 8 wickets instead. All you can do is back yourself and hope you are right more often than not. This game was also notable in the career of El Presidente as he bowled the first and last over of the innings.

• All your best players will instantly become unavailable, indeed, some seem to go missing altogether, however they will all be replaced almost immediately by a new raft of talent who you will view with suspicion for opting for Arbo over the various majestic clubs and grounds that surround us.

That's all for now,

May the farce be with you.

Was this really only 18 months ago???

They don't write them like this anymore.

And was this really only 9 months ago?