You'd have to go far to find a player as suited to captaincy as Faf du Plessis. As far as 7,988km, or even 12,200km.
The first figure is what separates Pretoria, where Du Plessis was born, from Delhi, home to Virat Kohli. The second is the distance between Pretoria and Tauranga, which gave cricket Kane Williamson.
Du Plessis listens as well as he talks and plays as hard as he looks. Kohli was born for the madness of marshalling India.
Williamson has the flinty thoughtfulness to make the most of New Zealand's limited resources. Du Plessis, Kohli, Williamson; different from each other but all fine leaders. Another common trait: all three captain their national teams in all three formats.
The same can be said, currently, of half the 10 teams who have played tests. But Sarfraz Ahmed has yet to lead over five days - the magnificently understated, now retired Misbah-ul-Haq was still in charge when Pakistan last played in whites - and while Graeme Cremer knows what he's doing he's not going to get it done with the likes of Zimbabwe.
Like Sarfraz, Du Plessis is missing a piece from his captaincy puzzle having taken over the one-day reins from AB de Villiers not quite two weeks ago. But he has been in charge, here and there, for nine ODIs of which South Africa won eight.
Du Plessis's halo as a test captain, polished to a blinding shine during South Africa's series in Australia last November, "Mintgate" and all, slipped in England this winter. His absence on parental leave for the first test at Lord's was widely blamed for the disappointing cricket South Africa played there.
So much so that their resurgence at Nottingham, where Du Plessis returned to the helm, was all but expected.
But few would have thought South Africa would play so far below themselves in the last two matches at The Oval and Old Trafford - and even fewer that Du Plessis wasn't able to kick their backsides into gear.
He's human after all, we were left thinking. And we should hold that thought, because even Kohli and Williamson have been less successful after they have been given a full house of captaincies.
Kohli has won 3.41% fewer matches since he added the leadership of the Twenty20 side to his load in January. Williamson has lost 8.19% more games after becoming a test skipper last July.
Those are not conclusive margins, Kohli's in particular. But tell that to the batsman who has feathered a catch to the wicketkeeper, or the slip fielder who has failed by a fraction of a millimetre to get his fingers under a dipping catch.
Cricket is a game of outrageously small differences, and those around Du Plessis will have to watch carefully for signs that his triple-decker leadership responsibilities are becoming too much for him to handle.
Between the start of Bangladesh's tour on Thursday and April 3, the scheduled end of Australia's test series in South Africa, Du Plessis will be the point man in 10 tests - including the proposed four-dayer against Zimbabwe starting on Boxing Day - nine ODIs and five T20s.
There are 185 days between Thursday and April 3, and for more than a third of them the buck will stop with Du Plessis.
Add the minimum number of press conferences he is likely to give this summer and his days in the spotlight increase to almost half of those on the calendar.
Du Plessis is a fine captain. Ensuring he still is by April is the challenge.
