CAN Darren Sammy become one of the handful of West Indians who have stepped up their game as captain?

As skipper, Chris Gayle had a 15 per cent win record in Test cricket, but the Jamaican upped his batting average from 38.28 to 47.75.

Like Gayle, Brian Lara did not have the quality team to boast a good record in Tests. Despite the Trinidadian 21.28 per cent win record as head of the Caribbean team, he lifted his batting average from 50.12 to 57.84.

Guyanese Clive Lloyd was a man transformed as captain, boosted no doubt by the super players he had. Before taking over the helm, Lloyd's batting average stood at 38.68. He shored that up to 51.30, with a captaincy win record of 48.65 per cent.

Even Carl Hooper lifted his mediocre batting average of 33.76 as a regular player to 45.97 as captain, although he won only four of the 22 Tests he skippered.

For Sir Garry Sobers, he improved on his high standards from a batting average of 57.01 to 58.80 as head of the Caribbean men.

The batting and bowling performances of almost all other West Indies skippers suffered, even while they were successful in their captaincy.

Sir Frank Worrell won nine of his 15 Test matches as captain (60 per cent win record), but his batting average dipped from 52.82 to 40.43.

Sir Viv Richards, with a 54 per cent win record as captain, fell in his batting average from 53.65 to 45.12 as leader of the Caribbean side.

Before he was appointed captain in 1973, Rohan Kanhai had a batting average of 48.58. As captain it dropped to 41.00.

But it's not just a West Indian problem.

Australian Ricky Ponting, one of the most successful Test captains and players in history, saw his batting average drop from 55.97 as non-captain to 53.58 as captain.

Surely, a Test captain comes with challenges and averages of 19.4 in Test, 24.19 in ODI, and 15.55 in Twenty20 Internationals do not help Sammy. But as an all-rounder, the newly appointed West Indies captain will also contribute with the ball, snatching 27 (27.74), 31 (43.06), and 24 (14.95) wickets, respectively, in the three formats of the game.

In fact, Sammy is higher placed in the bowling than the batting in the ICC rankings: 98 in batting and 48 in bowling for Tests; and 97 in batting and 29 in bowling for ODIs.

Some sports have non-playing captains, such as tennis, and the West Indies Cricket Board must have wished they could have done the same.