There are plenty of factual measures when it comes to deciding the value of a captain. The number of matches won. Win percentage. Trophies. General longevity.
Then there is the less tangible barometer of personality, the charisma with which they have led, the way people have responded to their style, and the foundations laid.
If the measure of a good captain is whether, when he hands on the role, the team is in a better place than where he found it, then Misbah-ul-Haq will have a fair claim to greatness when he departs after Pakistan's series in the West Indies.
Few can have started from a lower position – few will have wanted to – and then ascended to such heights.
When he assumed the role in 2010, aged 36, Pakistan cricket was a wreck. Which is, of course, something that periodically happens in Pakistan cricket.
But, even by its own tumultuous standards, this was bad. Three players not just banned for corruption, but jailed. One of them, his predecessor as captain.
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The office had been sullied by Salman Butt. And all that, so soon after the tragedy of the Sri Lanka team bus attack in 2009. Pakistan cricket was a basket case.
The fact it was not irrecoverably so was in large part down to Misbah.
For all of his nearly seven years in charge, he has felt like a caretaker. A solid citizen, there at the end, clearing up everyone else’s mess without complaint.
Never the star, not like Shahid Afridi, nor even Younis Khan, who led Pakistan to the World Twenty20 in 2009, and is likely to survive Misbah in the team.
He was forever being put upon. He was deprived all the good things that might have made his job easier.
That supremely gifted youngster Mohammed Amir: not available. Saeed Ajmal rose, then fell. Misbah had to look elsewhere, and found Yasir Shah.
Then he, too, went missing for three months because of a doping charge.
The course to true greatness never did run smooth. And yet he earned it, guiding Pakistan to No 1 in the world last year in the Test rankings, despite all the factors weighing on them, most appreciably the fact the were never able to play at home.
Of the 273 matches Misbah has played for Pakistan to date, only 33 have been in his homeland. Perhaps, when he reflects on his time in the role, it will be his biggest regret that he has not been able to see the job through to a day when he can lead them in a Test on home soil again.
Just lately he has been increasingly cranky at the end of series in the UAE, even though Pakistan have routinely dominated on his watch here. He never lost a Test series in this country.
That is just one of many statistics that supports his claim to greatness. He has 24 wins in 53 Test matches to date.
That comfortably trumps the other two captains who are often cited as Pakistan’s great cricket leaders.
AH Kardar, Pakistan’s first, won six times in 23 Tests. Imran Khan, who lifted the World Cup in 1992, had 14 wins in 48 Tests.
More wins than Imran. A Test century as fast as Sir Viv Richards. Hands, albeit briefly, on the Test mace. And the Press Up celebration. It has been a fine body of work.
When he hands over the armband after he signs off the Caribbean, Pakistan will have a side in decent working order, one of which to be proud. They should cherish it while they can.
pradley@thenational.ae
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