With the Australian cricket team winning the Ashes series, there has been a few things said about the England captain Alistair Cook and he has come under some pressure.
In all team sports, captains are leaders on the pitch just as a general who leads an army in battle. There are certain attributes that these leader should possess. Looking at what some of the great cricket captains of the past state about the important attributes of a captain gives an insight that transcends right across most team sports:
"You must get respect," says Clive Lloyd, 110 Tests for the West Indies, skipper for 11 years, the dominant Test leader of his generation. "And you must give respect back to the game, to the people who put you there, to the fans.
"To get players from different island cultures to work as one was not easy. I got that because they respected me. They knew what I was about. They realised that I wanted to bring West Indian cricket to a level it had never been to before, so I got their support.
"They realised what was expected of them: training hard, winning, becoming the best team in the world. Any new player that came in knew exactly what was expected."
In Lloyd's time in charge, the West Indies would become one of the most feared sides the game has seen, a relentless pace attack and remorseless batting line-up taking them to a record 27 matches without defeat, consecutive series whitewashes of England home and away and one-sided triumphs in the first two World Cup finals.
In all that time, Lloyd - still a big, affable bear of a man at 69 - understood he could never consider himself unblemished, that leadership does not have to mean dictatorship.
"You can't be arrogant. You have to understand that you will have players with alternative views," he added.
"You need your thinkers. Your wicketkeeper can help you. For me, someone like Malcolm Marshall was a great thinker; you can't get 346 Test wickets, in a team with three other guys who are just as good as you, without using your nut."
If Lloyd's success in unifying a disparate group of players into such a unit was something that would haunt some of his successors, Arjuna Ranatunga had an even more testing task: take Test cricket's newest nation from the fringes of the elite game to its very heart.
He may not have shared Lloyd's imposing physique - squat and chunky as a player, Ranatunga has relaxed still further in retirement - but his achievements in 11 years as Sri Lanka's captain, culminating in their shock World Cup win of 1996, stand tall to this day.
"Discipline is a key aspect," he says.
"Pick the right team, even if it means you won't be the most popular man in the dressing room. You may have to leave out senior players. But you are doing it for your country. And when you do the right thing, people will respect you.
"You need to understand men. I used to study all my players, not only the cricket part but also their personality. And according to that, I used to handle each in their own particular way.
"Treat different players in different ways. Some need shouting at. Some need treating very nicely. Know where you stand."
"As a batsman you still have to do your stuff," says Ranatunga, 49. "Every aspect of your game has to be at 100%. As a batsman I'd want to be out there showing the rest what to do - in a tough situation, tough it out.
"I look back now, aged 40, and think, I know I could have done a better job if I'd known what I do now," admits Shaun Pollock, 108 Tests for South Africa, skipper of the Proteas from 2000 to 2003. Shaun Pollock retired from Test cricket in 2008 with 421 wickets and 3,781 runs
"I would have done some things differently. You take over, and you have guys six or seven years older than you. It's not easy putting them in their place if things are going wrong, while also encouraging the younger guys.
"In a touring team of 15, you'll find that eight of them are feeling comfortable with their form. Three will be struggling. And four are pushing hard to play. You need to know where each one is at, at all times."
Pollock, much like Cook and Clarke, was the outstanding player in his side, promoted to the leadership role as much for his on-field performances as anything else. It required him to be as ruthless in his private life as he was with his tactical decisions.
"You do need to separate yourself from your team-mates at times, because you've been given responsibilities. Friendships in sport, unfortunately, can't get in the way of achieving the team's goals, and you have to be aware of that. "And yet you can't lose the common touch, because the guys know you for who you are, and if you pretend to be someone else, they won't trust you.
"I called it first floor management: looking down on the ground floor and understanding where everyone is, and where everyone is moving. And how you can channel that energy.
"It's vital to get a good rapport with the individuals you're dealing with - what their strengths and weaknesses are, where you can push them, where you can't - and also your strengths and limits as a team unit.
"Identify the points in the game where you can use those strengths to work an advantage. Identify what team you work with. It's no good being aggressive if you don't have the aggression to back it up. Sometimes you have your hands tied. We didn't have a Shane Warne we could just throw the ball to."
Then there is the need to be brave, to know when to go on the defensive and when to gamble.
"Don't be scared of failure," shrugs Sir Viv Richards, 121 Tests for the West Indies, 50 as skipper when Lloyd finally stepped down. "It teaches you how to win."
You might expect such bellicose talk from a man like King Viv, who even aged 61 swaggers in the same grinning way that he did in his bowler-flaying pomp. But equally important to him was something few would associate with the stereotype of Caribbean cricket.
"Punctuality starts it all. You have a team all on a coach, ready to go to practice, and two guys are late - that's the start of the end of the battle.
"If you prepare well, that sets the tone for everything else. It gives you the sense of what you can achieve. It sets the tone for everything else."
In all team sports, captains are leaders on the pitch just as a general who leads an army in battle. There are certain attributes that these leader should possess. Looking at what some of the great cricket captains of the past state about the important attributes of a captain gives an insight that transcends right across most team sports:
"You must get respect," says Clive Lloyd, 110 Tests for the West Indies, skipper for 11 years, the dominant Test leader of his generation. "And you must give respect back to the game, to the people who put you there, to the fans.
"To get players from different island cultures to work as one was not easy. I got that because they respected me. They knew what I was about. They realised that I wanted to bring West Indian cricket to a level it had never been to before, so I got their support.
"They realised what was expected of them: training hard, winning, becoming the best team in the world. Any new player that came in knew exactly what was expected."
In Lloyd's time in charge, the West Indies would become one of the most feared sides the game has seen, a relentless pace attack and remorseless batting line-up taking them to a record 27 matches without defeat, consecutive series whitewashes of England home and away and one-sided triumphs in the first two World Cup finals.
In all that time, Lloyd - still a big, affable bear of a man at 69 - understood he could never consider himself unblemished, that leadership does not have to mean dictatorship.
"You can't be arrogant. You have to understand that you will have players with alternative views," he added.
"You need your thinkers. Your wicketkeeper can help you. For me, someone like Malcolm Marshall was a great thinker; you can't get 346 Test wickets, in a team with three other guys who are just as good as you, without using your nut."
If Lloyd's success in unifying a disparate group of players into such a unit was something that would haunt some of his successors, Arjuna Ranatunga had an even more testing task: take Test cricket's newest nation from the fringes of the elite game to its very heart.
He may not have shared Lloyd's imposing physique - squat and chunky as a player, Ranatunga has relaxed still further in retirement - but his achievements in 11 years as Sri Lanka's captain, culminating in their shock World Cup win of 1996, stand tall to this day.
"Discipline is a key aspect," he says.
"Pick the right team, even if it means you won't be the most popular man in the dressing room. You may have to leave out senior players. But you are doing it for your country. And when you do the right thing, people will respect you.
"You need to understand men. I used to study all my players, not only the cricket part but also their personality. And according to that, I used to handle each in their own particular way.
"Treat different players in different ways. Some need shouting at. Some need treating very nicely. Know where you stand."
"As a batsman you still have to do your stuff," says Ranatunga, 49. "Every aspect of your game has to be at 100%. As a batsman I'd want to be out there showing the rest what to do - in a tough situation, tough it out.
"I look back now, aged 40, and think, I know I could have done a better job if I'd known what I do now," admits Shaun Pollock, 108 Tests for South Africa, skipper of the Proteas from 2000 to 2003. Shaun Pollock retired from Test cricket in 2008 with 421 wickets and 3,781 runs
"I would have done some things differently. You take over, and you have guys six or seven years older than you. It's not easy putting them in their place if things are going wrong, while also encouraging the younger guys.
"In a touring team of 15, you'll find that eight of them are feeling comfortable with their form. Three will be struggling. And four are pushing hard to play. You need to know where each one is at, at all times."
Pollock, much like Cook and Clarke, was the outstanding player in his side, promoted to the leadership role as much for his on-field performances as anything else. It required him to be as ruthless in his private life as he was with his tactical decisions.
"You do need to separate yourself from your team-mates at times, because you've been given responsibilities. Friendships in sport, unfortunately, can't get in the way of achieving the team's goals, and you have to be aware of that. "And yet you can't lose the common touch, because the guys know you for who you are, and if you pretend to be someone else, they won't trust you.
"I called it first floor management: looking down on the ground floor and understanding where everyone is, and where everyone is moving. And how you can channel that energy.
"It's vital to get a good rapport with the individuals you're dealing with - what their strengths and weaknesses are, where you can push them, where you can't - and also your strengths and limits as a team unit.
"Identify the points in the game where you can use those strengths to work an advantage. Identify what team you work with. It's no good being aggressive if you don't have the aggression to back it up. Sometimes you have your hands tied. We didn't have a Shane Warne we could just throw the ball to."
Then there is the need to be brave, to know when to go on the defensive and when to gamble.
"Don't be scared of failure," shrugs Sir Viv Richards, 121 Tests for the West Indies, 50 as skipper when Lloyd finally stepped down. "It teaches you how to win."
You might expect such bellicose talk from a man like King Viv, who even aged 61 swaggers in the same grinning way that he did in his bowler-flaying pomp. But equally important to him was something few would associate with the stereotype of Caribbean cricket.
"Punctuality starts it all. You have a team all on a coach, ready to go to practice, and two guys are late - that's the start of the end of the battle.
"If you prepare well, that sets the tone for everything else. It gives you the sense of what you can achieve. It sets the tone for everything else."
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