Mike Brearley

Brearley was an ordinary Test batter selected largely for his captaincy, and he justified it. In the 1981 Ashes he returned mid-series, persuaded a struggling Ian Botham to play freely, and switched Bob Willis to bowl downhill at Headingley, where Willis took 8 for 43. His book The Art of Captaincy is still the classic study of handling people as much as fields.