Darren Sammy: The Mike Brearley of Peshawar Zalmi

Captain is normally regarded as the person who leads the team from the front by his courageous and wise decision and by his own individual performance.  Even today, world renowned teams have captains like Virat Kohli, Joe Root and Kane Williamson, who also are leading the world rankings with their individual performance as well.

But still there are few examples in the history, where a captain led the team to victory by just his leading capability. Mike Brearley was, undoubtedly, one of the great captains of England Cricket Team. Under his captaincy in the span of four years England played 31 Test matches. Out of which England managed to gather 18 victories, they lost 4 matches and 9 matches ended without result.

MIKE BREARLEY AS A CAPTAIN

Matches                              Won                      Lost                        Drawn

31                                           18                           4                              9

Here the interesting fact is his performance as a player. In his career he played 39 Test matches and scored just 1442 runs at a dismal average of 22.88. In his entire Test career he never scored a century and there were only 9 occasions when he succeeded in reaching or crossing the mark of 50 runs. When he was made captain of the great English Team his average further dropped down. He managed to maintain a batting average of just 22.48 runs as a captain.

Interestingly, this was the era when English team was a cluster of greats. Graham Gooch, Geoff Boycott, David Gower, Mike Gatting, Ian Botham, John Emburey, Bob Willis and Allen Knott were playing under his captaincy. Except Allen Knott, all of them later had the opportunity to lead that great English Team. This was the richest era of English cricket, as far as talent and performance is concerned. 

This English team won Ashes, defeated India in India and created a great impact on the whole cricketing world. This was the time when ECB preferred continuity. They did not disturb the winning combination and sticked with the captaincy of Mike Brearley, though his own performance was not justifying his position in that star studded team. This is how ECB proved that a great captain with weak individual performance could still lead the team to success.

Darren Sammy can easily be regarded as the Mike Brearley of Peshawar Zalmi . Darren Sammy is regarded as the best captain of the PSL as under his captaincy Peshawar Zalmi qualified for three finals and managed to win one title out of it. Quetta Gladiator have also qualified for three finals with one title win under Sarfraz Ahmed’s captaincy.

Darren Sammy started his career as a bowling all-rounder and attracted the attention of the world in his very first Test match by getting eight wickets in the year 2007. He continued to lead the West Indian Team from the front and gathered many victories by his great captaincy and individual all round performances. Under his captaincy, West Indies managed to win two T20 World Cups in the year 2012 and 2016. He is the only captain in the world to reach this milestone.

Later in his career, due to some conflicts with the Caribbean Cricket Board he had to leave international cricket and he restricted himself to just international T20 Leagues. During this period, he also faced serious fitness problems which, definitely, affected his performance as a player. As far as PSL is concerned, he has been part of all the five editions. In the first edition he participated as a Peshawar Zalmi player under the captaincy of great Shahid Afridi. In eight matches he scored 148 runs and managed to get 4 wickets. This was a satisfactory performance but after that as a player he never could justify his place in the team. In the second edition of the PSL he was made captain and under his great leadership Peshawar Zalmi lifted the winner trophy in the final. In the coming edition his fitness further deteriorated and he contended himself to just limping in the field just as a fielder. He dropped himself in the batting order and tried to refrain from bowling.

On some occasions he had to go in the field as a batsman at lower down the order but still he managed to give some performances on just his will power. Still in the current Edition of the PSL, Darren Sammy is keeping himself away from the bowling and batting very low down the order. But still his presence is phenomenal and very important for his team. His franchise owners are well aware of his abilities as a captain as he is the only captain the world who has two T20 world Cup final victories under his belt. He has the capability as a player but his fitness is the main hindrance.