Who is Steve Borthwick and why is he England captain? The question has been asked in the bars and car parks of Twickenham for two Saturdays in succession and doubtless will be posed again today.

Borthwick does not match the popular image of the role, that much is clear. He does not rage like a bull, he does not glower and dominate by sheer presence, he does not dazzle on the pitch. He appears cackhanded in his dealings with the referee and he does not appear to be able to rally the troops when they are on the slide. To cap it all, straight after a record Twickenham defeat against South Africa seven days ago, he tells his television interviewer that he is “proud of the effort”.

“What does Martin Johnson see in him?” is the question. And here we have some answers, because the England team manager sees the same in Borthwick that others have witnessed throughout his career. Indeed, Borthwick is a man with impeccable credentials.

This is what Eddie Jones, the former Australia coach who is now director of rugby at Saracens, discovered on arriving in England. His immediate priority, he said, was to bring in strong leaders to his new club, so he started quizzing those in, or recently in, the English game, asking them who they rated. “And Steve's name just kept coming up,” Jones said.

Jones contacted Borthwick, the Bath captain at the time, and they arranged to meet at an hotel in Reading, an encounter that Jones remembers particularly well because, he said, he had “never met a more meticulously prepared player”. Jones said: “That early impression of him was very good, very strong.” And now? “My estimation of him has only risen.”

Yet Jones was only learning what many others had already discovered. Go as far back as Hutton Grammar School in Preston, Lancashire, where Borthwick was a grade-A student, besides being “dedicated and exceptionally focused on what he wanted to do”, and you find the same.

These are the words of Ian Rawsthorne, the rugby master and assistant head, who recalls with fondness how the young Borthwick, on first deciding to tape his head, played an entire match with his ears folded over. He also recalls the impact on Borthwick of the England Under-18 team of the time, a squad of some renown that included Jonny Wilkinson, Mike Tindall, Iain Balshaw, Andrew Sheridan and Lee Mears and who, in 1997, returned unbeaten from an eight-match tour to Australia.

“That tour was the making of him,” Rawsthorne said. “I saw a massive change in how he played and how he captained the school the following season.”

That touring team were coached by Geoff Wappett, who remembers Borthwick as “quite quiet” but also “a serious student of the game, building an immense reservoir of knowledge” and the kind of forward who inspired respect by “never taking a backward step”. Wappett also recalls the one international match those under-18s played - they won 38-20 - and how Borthwick's ear was so badly torn in a ruck that it required 30 stitches. “He had a lot of bottle, too, because after those stitches he was back in the dugout next to me, scrum cap back on,” Wappett said. “It was, ‘Let me back on'. That was a brave thing to do.”

These qualities were clearly nurtured as he found his way in the professional game. As well as playing, he completed a degree in economics and politics at the University of Bath and found himself a magnet for captaincy. He led the England A team from his debut in 2001, then Bath and Saracens, and Johnson is not the only man in charge of the England team to have backed him, because Brian Ashton did, too. So, though history suggests he is right for the job, was Johnson wrong to give it to him?

The team manager dismisses such talk as “nonsense”, a bandwagon gaining passengers too fast. John Wells, the England forwards coach, agrees - as, of course, he would do - though Wells was coach of Borthwick's England A side, so he knows even better the calibre of their man.

“I see a very professional, very intense, very strong leader,” Wells said. “A guy that is demanding that the younger players around support him. He plays like I played - I just used to get my head down and work my a*** off. People respected me for my work ethic, not for the flashy things. Steve is a no-nonsense, hard-nosed, grafting individual. A bit like Johnno. Johnno sees a lot of his qualities in Steve.”

The difference, which Wells acknowledges and which Jones points out, too, is that in his World Cup- winning team of 2005, Johnson was surrounded by leaders - club and former England captains. As Wells said: “We don't have a lot of those guys. Steve's got to do a lot of those jobs himself.”

Thus the question put to Borthwick this week: “Is it a lonely job?” To which he replied, thoughtfully, that the squad had “become very tight”.

On the subject of captaincy, Jones is particularly good. He has had three outstanding team leaders - John Eales and George Gregan with Australia, and John Smit when Jones was briefly technical adviser to South Africa. When Eales started in the job, Jones said, “he was criticised for being too soft, yet he turned into one of the best captains of all time”. Jones believes that Borthwick “has the potential to turn into a very good England captain” and likens him to Gregan - “outstanding on the field, a fierce competitor”.

But while Borthwick may be outstanding for Saracens, he has not been so for England. He has been in and out since 2001; even at last year's World Cup he was not a first-choice pick. Leading from the front is tough when you have yet to establish yourself there. And while he is trying to get there, he is being mired in his team's inadequacies.

These are not easy days. The England management tends to leap to his defence, saying that he does a lot that we do not see, that he needs time. Certainly, he has the credentials; we just have not seen the evidence yet.

And there is one other point: Borthwick may not come over as the greatest of England leaders, but, right now, who else is there to do the job?

Captains who went from criticism to acclaim

Will Carling (England captain, 1988-1996)

Surprise choice at 22 to be England's youngest captain,

Carling led a revival in fortunes that would last a decade and a half, but the calibre of his leadership was criticised initially after defeats in the grand-slam decider against Scotland at Murrayfield in 1990 and the World Cup final in 1991. However, leading England to three grand slams (1991, 1992 and 1995) is an awesome record.

Sean Fitzpatrick (New Zealand captain, 1992-1997)

Was at the wrong end of a record-breaking defeat by the Lions in Wellington in 1993 and though his team rescued that series, they lost 2-0 at home to France the next year. However, his team of 1995 were beaten in the final of the World Cup and his 1996 team were one of the best of all time. Fitzpatrick is widely regarded as one of the best captains of all time, too.

John Eales (Australia captain, 1996-2001)

Like Steve Borthwick, Eales was unfailingly polite and respectful and this struck some as being too soft an approach for a captain. Early heavy defeats by the All Blacks and South Africa did not help, but he was revered as a captain long before lifting the 1999 World Cup.

John Smit (South Africa captain, below, 2004-present)

Also like Borthwick, Smit was never fully established in the Springboks team until he became captain in 2004. Appointed by Jake White, the new coach, Smit was criticised initially for not being worth his place in the side. Lifting the World Cup last year all but ended the debate.