Our team is also struggling badly with the captaincy issue.
Our captain is an old fellow (who many say has had his days under the sun decades back) who is extremely undiplomatic and very poor in man management. He is more keen on imposing his will over the team rather than trying to bring the best out of his players. At club level there will be a few weak fielders and batsmen or bowlers who are not perfect. Instead of accepting the reality and being accommodative and encouraging on the field, he will start complaining about the wides or no balls as early as in the first over of the day or about a slight mis-field. Another bad habit- instructing batsmen ball by ball from outside. People should be left in peace to do what they can. By the end of the innings he would have blamed all the other 10 in the team for one thing or the other. He believes that some of the old hands are the only good players and all the new comers are just useless idiots with no cricketing brain.
Even more funny is the fact that he won’t bother about correcting the mistakes of his players before or after the game. The team morale at the moment is very low which reflects our stand in the league point’s table. Since he has such a strong hold over the club, there is no chance for someone else to stake his claims for captaincy. Many good players are thinking about leaving the team or the game itself.
Your advice of waiting for a captaincy change does not work in these circumstances. However one may try to encourage a bowler or fielder, with such constant abuse from the captain, there is no chance of improvement. Any attempt to cooperate with him on fielding positions or anything even small will evoke a strong negative response from him. Anyone doing so is regarded as a threat by the captain.

John, I think it would be a good idea to have a team meeting. That way some of these concerns could be raised in a diplomatic/non-threatening way in an open forum. I think the theme at the meeting should be how to improve the team performance. You don't want to use the team meeting just as a chance to bash the captain, because he may feel even more threatened and stick to his guns. If you do it in a positive atmosphere with the emphasis on the team rather then at one individual it has more of a chance to succeed.

So for example, you may want to bring up how the team handles itself when the opposition is on top. You may want to point out that in the past we have been very quick to get down on ourselves and point fingers, creating a negative atmosphere and bringing a lot of negative energy. Then you may want to add that it is important that we all stay in the present in the field, that is, we focus solely on that delivery being bowled. That way your attention is not on what happened the previous ball, but on the present. With that approach, your mind is also on a positive frequency and you essentially block out any negative thoughts. You may want to also mention that it is important for the wicketkeeper and the captain to be drivers of this positive energy out in the field, because the rest of the team will feed of that so you have a snowball effect.

And even if thinks are looking down out in the field, take it upon yourself to bring in positive energy out there. Go up to the bowler after he has been hammered for a six and say ‘bad luck mate now focus on the next ball’ or talk tactics “this batsman has a gap between bat and pad when he plays forward, lets bowl straight to him’ or go to the guy that just dropped a catch and say ‘bad luck, now stay in the game with us’. If someone does something well, encourage them, show reinforcement and eventually the team will feed of these small things that event he captain himself may buy into it and see that it is working. Sometimes you need to take it upon yourself to be a leader out on the field, without having a C beside your name.

If you can point out some of the things that the team as a whole is not doing right, that you are one step on the way to fixing them.

And I also don't think that players should be using the captain as a scapegoat for their own individual bad form. When a batsman is out there in the middle, he should be there in his own bubble following his game plan. Imagine how many people were out there screaming their heads off from the sidelines when Ricky Ponting was batting in the last innings at the Oval, yet he was in his bubble and made a good 66. And if the batsman is paying attention to what the captain is screaming from the sidelines and not on the ball coming out of the hand, well he needs to remind himself of what he should be doing, and this is all part of the mental side of cricket.

Afcourse this all depends on whether you and your team are willing to be content with another disappointing season or actually do something to turn it around.

I play under 15s cricket and my captain is awful. Firstly, he doesn't know most members of the team well because he never comes to the winter nets to get to know how different individuals play what makes us tick and what we are like. Secondly, when we play a match he is very negative. If you bowl a bad ball, bat badly or mess up in the field he'll tell that person "That was awful", "You're terrible" or something along those lines and after messing something up you already feel bad that you've let the team down then the captain comes down on you for that making you feel even worse. As a bowler you try not to make a mistake but with the added pressure knowing that one or two mistakes wil mean you are taken out of the attack and you won't bowl again makes it harder to bowl freely. Thirdly, as you have said in the article, giving him suggestions is a waste of time because he always ignores it. The coach has only picked him based on his performances as a player there is no doubt in the team that he is a good player but myself and a few other including the vice captain, who is a better captain, believe that we should have another captain. What should we do?