Recently I read a article about Graeme Smith. It was a very insightful and meaningful article, however one statement made near the end made my toes curl. I am a South African and I love my country but is Smith the best captain currently playing?

I thought I would do some research into recent captaining greats. There are 3 criteria I am going to be looking at.

1.) Captaining record.
    weight: max 10 points.
    reason: obviously how well you do is very important.
2.) Impact of star players, and their contribution whilst captain led team.
    weight: max 10 points.
    reason: having great players in your team doesn't prove your skill as a captain.
3.) Personal Record.
    weight: max 8 points.
    reason: as captain, you still have to perform well.

The captains I have decided to analyse are:

Graeme Smith (South Africa), Ricky Ponting(Australia), Stephen Fleming(New Zealand), Sourav Ganguly(India), Mahela Jayawardene(Sri Lanka) & Michael Vaughan(England).

Captaincy Records *(See formula 1.1)

Graeme Smith- Score: 6.4/10
Captained 61 games of which he has won 29, lost 16 and drawn 15.

Ricky Ponting- Score: 8.9/10
Has Captained in 44 tests. Of which 33 were won, 4 lost & 7 drawn. He is the benchmark for performance.

Stephen Fleming- Score: 5.1/10
Fleming has led New Zealand 80 times, of which he has: 28 wins, 27 Losses & 25 Draws.

Sourav Ganguly- Score: 6.2/10
Led India to 21 wins, 13 losses and 15 draws in 49 Test Matches.

Mahela Jayawardene- Score: 6.3/10
Led Sri Lanka in 23 test matches: 12 wins, 7 losses & 4 drawn test matches.

Michael Vaughan- Score: 7.0/10
In the 51 games Vaughan has captained England, they have won 26 lost 11 and drawn 14.

Star Players

Graeme Smith- Score: 7.5/10
In my belief Smith has always had 3 Star Players. Kallis, Pollock & Dale Steyn(of late). I dont think he relies heavily on his impact players apart from Kallis & Pollock.


Ricky Ponting- Score: 3.3/10
Ricky has been fortunate enough to have led, perhaps, the most star-studded side in all of cricketing history. Warne, Mcgrath, Hayden, Brett Lee, Andrew Symonds. The list goes on. Unfortunately for him, it doesn't help prove his captaincy skills.

Stephen Fleming- Score: 9.5/10
Apart from Shane Bond, it is of my belief that no player who played under Fleming had the record to prove himself as a regular match winner.

Sourav Ganguly- Score: 3.5/10
India have the blessing of the most talented team in world cricket. Tendulkar, Kumble, Harbhajan, Sehwag, Dhoni, Dravid, etc. However this pushes down Sourav's Score.

Mahela Jawardene- Score: 6.8/10
Relatively balanced side that does not rely on too many players too heavily. However there are a few. Sangakkara, Muralitharan, Jayasuriya. Not too bad though.

Michael Vaughan- Score: 7.9/10
Suprisingly enough, Vaughan hasn't really had a vast array of amazing players to rely on. Flintoff & Pieterson are ones that come immediately to mind.

Personal Records:

G Smith- Score: 7.3/8
5153 runs @ 49.54.

R Ponting- Score: 7.6
4278 runs @ 62.00

S Fleming- Score: 6.4/8
5156 runs @ 40.59

S Ganguly- Score: 5.6/8
2561 runs @ 37.66

M Jayawardene- Score: 7.7/8
2399 runs @ 66.63

Michael Vaughan- Score: 5.2
3170 runs @ 36.02

Conclusion

Before I continue, please realise that there are thousands of things I didn't take into account. There are so many things that define a great captain. It doesn't take into account the difficulties the teams have had to face as there is no statistical way of defining it.

Results:
    Smith: 21.2
    Ponting: 19.8
    Fleming: 21.0
    Ganguly: 15.3
    Jayawardene: 20.8
    Vaughan: 20.1

*Formula 1.1:
w/(w + l) * 10.
(draws are discounted as they do not sway statistics one way or another.)