Alastair Cook and Nick Clegg

There are three types of captain: those with tactical nous, those with great man-management skills, & those who lead from the front.
— Samuel Honywill (@SDHoneymonster) June 23, 2014

This tweet was discussed on the Geek & Wilde podcast on the evening of the fourth day of the Headingley test. They argue that the great captains have all three qualities and that quite good ones can survive on only one. Coming to the conclusion that Alastair Cook at present offers none of these three qualities, they call on him to resign.

I have been interested in the parallels between cricket captaincy and political leadership ever since I reviewed Mike Brearley's The Art of Cricket Captaincy at the time of the election for the election of the first Liberal Democrat leader in 1988.

Drawing parallels between politicians and cricket captains in that review - David Steel was Colin Cowdrey, Paddy Ashdown was Brian Close and I forget who Alan Beith was - helped me develop the idea of Lord Bonkers a couple of years later.

But what I am worrying about this evening are the parallels between Nick Clegg and Alastair Cook.