THE ART OF CAPTAINCY | BREARLEY

Everything changes, everything stays the same

Mike Brearley reflects on his seminal book The Art of Captaincy 40 years on, and what he’d do differently had he written it in today’s franchise era

Mike Brearley writes exclusively for The Cricketer

C oming back to this book with a fresh eye, reading it almost as if it was written by someone else, I find myself enjoying it. I’m reminded of the first time I saw myself batting on video in 1975. A Middlesex supporter had filmed me batting against Mike Hendrick at Chesterfield, which he switched on without any introduction as I entered his house. Without knowing that it was me, I remember saying, after a couple of balls: “That bloke can bat!” (At least at some levels!) The Art of Captaincy was published 40 years ago, on June 1 1985, half my lifetime ago. Three years after retiring, I had then enough but not too much distance from direct involvement on the field. During that time, I’d had practice and a lot of help in getting my ideas into shape. One source was Humphrey Walters, who organised business seminars and talks on leadership, groups and motivation. He got me to speak directly and naturally to audiences, without a script, rather than reading an academic-style paper in an academic way. Another crucial teacher was Dudley Doust, who had co-written my first two Ashes series books; he showed me how to tell a story, how to fill out the picture of a day as cricketer (and as captain).

And my first editor, Richard Cohen, himself an Olympic fencer, challenged me to really think about my thinking. All this was good advice for a writer, much of it equally relevant for a captain (eg ‘respect your hunches, but be careful’, ‘listen to advice, but don’t follow it blindly’). My eye was on the ball of cricket, but it flickered also from and into many wider issues – of leadership, discipline and freedom: of inter-personal relations, of confidence and self-doubt. Psychoanalytic training was broadening my understanding of myself and others, though the reverse influence had also occurred: getting into psychoanalysis was helped by the experience of cricket – a process I trace in my recent book Turning over the Pebbles (2023).