Wednesday, Febrauary 13, 2002 The international captain of the 21st century is a man of many talents. He may not have to sort out lifts and laundry for his players any more, as Australia's Graham Yallop did during their disastrous 1978-79 Ashes. But he no longer flies into a rage when his duties extend beyond setting the field and changing the bowlers. The days of Douglas Jardine punching a journalist in the face for asking an apparently impertinent question are behind us.

Today's ideal captain is tactically astute, worth his place (even Mike Brearley might have struggled to get into the current England team), articulate, and – an optional extra, this – well-versed in the wisdom of Chinese warlords. Above all, he must indulge the media. Mike Atherton didn't, which makes his decision to swap cricket whites for cricket writing a delicious irony. But Nasser Hussain, who knows the importance of having the English press on side, does. What's more, he balances the demands of quote-hungry journalists and the sensitivities of his team-mates like an old-school diplomat.

Not everyone is so adept. Steve Waugh consistently provides the juiciest quotes, but recently it's been for the wrong reasons: first he was overheard making a tasteless gag when it was revealed that South Africa's Steve Elworthy would be undergoing a brain scan; then he lost his rag at a press conference and – heaven forbid – swore at the assembled hacks. Yes, the iceman has lost his cool. Waqar Younis is too busy bashing egos together, although he still found time a few weeks ago to claim that Pakistan, who were eighth in the ICC Test Championship, should in fact have been in the top three. And Sourav Ganguly is a walking PR disaster. Foot-in-mouth disease is spreading out of control.

At the other end of the spectrum, Stephen Fleming is like an opening batsman from Victorian times: courteous, but with the straightest of blades; even the most inoffensive half-volleys are treated like hand-grenades. And almost every time Shaun Pollock talks to the media, he has to make sure he doesn't make some gaffe about South Africa's quota system. Zimbabwe, meanwhile, change their captain so regularly that you never know whether the man in charge on the field will still be in the job by the time it comes to the press conference.

Nasser isn't perfect – he sometimes drifts into Duncan Fletcher-inspired psychobabble and tends to overuse his stock of set phrases – but he knows how to keep the press happy without upsetting his team-mates. Take this observation, which he made on Monday: "Young fast bowlers bring vibrancy to the game – the Brett Lees, the Shoaib Akhtars, the Shane Bonds … the Darren Goughs, the Andrew Flintoffs." Whats starts out as a quotable snippet becomes a way of slapping his players on the back. At 31, Gough hardly qualifies as a young fast bowler, while Flintoff would be flattered to make the cut at all, but Hussain likes to back his team in public.

Neither is he unrealistic – the Gough/Flintoff allusion is about as far-fetched as he becomes. He knows his side has still got a lot to learn ("There will be times, possibly even in this series, when the wheels will come off"). And he's happy to pay quite ingenuous compliments to the opposition. Fleming, on the other hand, takes the more traditional approach to pre-match kidology: "Aw, I'm not in the situation of evaluating other sides." Sound thinking, perhaps, but oh so dull for the journalists.

Of course, the players aren't there to serve the media. But communication is a part of the modern game: if you can talk easily with the press, chances are you feel comfortable chatting with your team-mates. No wonder Nasser's such a popular captain.

Lawrence Booth is assistant editor of Wisden.com. You can read his reports here throughout England's tour of New Zealand.

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