IT ISN’T OVER UNTIL IT’S OVER
We played Gloucestershire on a lively pitch at Cheltenham in late July 1992. We were largely on the wrong end of the game and, with an inexperienced batting line-up, fought courageously through the last afternoon against Courtney Walsh, among others, to save the game. In those days, if the captains and umpires agreed there was no chance of a result, the plug could be pulled on first-class matches with half an hour’s play remaining. Well, with half an hour left in this match our score was 274 for 8, 102 ahead of Gloucestershire. The umpires saw me waving my arms around, beckoning the players off the field. The Gloucestershire captain, Tony Wright, agreed the game was up and the umpires pulled the stumps from the ground. I went to the middle and explained that far from calling a halt to proceedings I was, in fact, declaring our innings. A sense of confusion was immediately evident, which I admit I enjoyed. The umpires put the stumps back into the ground, at which point Wright said there were only nine available overs left in the match. I agreed and pointed out that he required 103 runs from them to secure a famous victory. He studied me like I should be consigned. The younger players in the Hampshire team were excited. The older ones less so.
Richard Scott, a former Hampshire player and everyone’s friend, thought the whole thing hysterically funny and came out to open the Gloucestershire innings with exactly the right approach. He could see nothing to lose; Wright could see the loss of everything. Scott immediately picked up Marshall for a couple of sixes over square leg. I switched to spin and he hit a couple more. At the other end, wickets were tumbling. Bill Athey was stumped and Walsh, promoted up the order for a slog, holed out on the boundary off Udal. Then Scotty nicked one to me at slip. Gloucestershire were 70 for 5. Wright himself, with Jack Russell, steadied the ship—as far as they could in a couple of overs—but Wright fell to the excellent Udal and Justin Vaughan followed as the game returned to its previous breathless state. Russell invented shots that are commonplace today until we all surrendered to the ticking of the clock with the home team 95 for 7, just 8 short!
The friendly Cheltenham spectators were on their feet. Wright warmly shook my hand and said, ‘You’re mad,’ by which I suppose he meant, ‘Good declaration, you clown.’ To me, that 45 minutes, or whatever it turned out to be, well illustrated the spirit of cricket. It was also a useful reminder not to take the game too seriously.
A CONVERSATION WITH MICKY STEWART
We were playing Surrey at Guildford in mid-July 1988. I came off the field at tea and Micky Stewart, who was the first full time England manager–coach, asked to see me privately. Odd, I thought. We sat in a small room in the old pavilion.
‘I wanted you to know that this morning you lost a three–two vote to captain England in the next test.’
That got my attention.
England were being thumped by the West Indies. Gatting had been sacked after the First Test on the premise of something embarrassing with a barmaid in a Nottingham hotel but really it was a retrospective punishment for his on-field spat with Shakoor Rana in Pakistan the previous winter. Then, after two Tests in charge, John Emburey was sacked too. The Headingley Test was next, a difficult place to play but where competent English seam bowling could, conceivably, match the West Indian attack. When I heard Emburey had been removed, I assumed Graham Gooch would get the job. At least, I thought he should.
‘Oh, right, that’s a pity,’ I said to Micky. ‘Very good of you to come and tell me, though. What cost me?’
‘I voted against you,’ he replied.
‘Whoa, that’s full-on. Why?’
‘I just don’t think you can play your first Test against this side as captain. It’s too hard. To bat against them is a job in itself but to captain as well, with all that goes with it and for the first time, the press would be all over you. It’s not the right time.’
‘Yes, I see that.’
‘We want you to know that you’re in the forefront of our minds for the tour to India this winter. You play spin well, it’s a tough tour to lead. You’re a real candidate. The chairman [Peter May] is a supporter. Keep making runs, and having Hampshire in contention for trophies helps too.’
‘Great, thanks, much appreciate the line of communication.’
I was a fan of Micky: there was no bullshit with him. Hampshire had won the Benson & Hedges Cup a week or two earlier and we were rolling around mid-table in the championship, which Kent were leading. I was hugely encouraged by his honesty and realism. I remember thinking the England team were in good hands and that it would be interesting to work with him. I also remember thinking that besides Mr and Mrs Gooch, Micky was Gooch’s greatest fan.
Before heading back to the dressing room, I said: ‘Presumably, if Goochie goes well, he’ll get the job in India.’
‘It’s not Goochie,’ he said.
‘What! Not Gooch?’
‘Chris Cowdrey.’
Chris was Peter May’s godson. The press made a lot of that. I didn’t. The selectors decided they wanted a specialist captain—the Brearley theory—to lift the team in the face of an all-conquering opponent. Chris and I were the candidates, neither of us quite justifiable selections on playing ability alone but add in captaincy skills and a case could be made. They chose Chris who, as Micky pointed out, had played a few Tests in India under David Gower on the successful 1984–85 tour. Fair enough.
And that was the last I heard of it. Chris captained the Headingley Test and tells a very funny story of the toss with Viv. As was the tradition back then, each captain recited his team to his opposite number. The home captain went first and halfway through Chris reciting the English team Viv interrupted and said: ‘Don’t worry, man, you play who you want. Now, we got Greenidge, Haynes, Richards . . .’ To which Chris said: ‘That’s fine, you play who you want as well!’ And he could feel himself turning white. It was the first and, sadly, last time for Chris, who had a toe broken by Walsh and could not play at the Oval, where Gooch did captain the side. The tour to India was cancelled. ‘My father and I,’ says Chris, ‘captained England 28 times between us.’
Gower was brought back to the job in the summer of 1989 against the Australians and then immediately fired after the 4–0 humiliation. Ted Dexter had taken over from May as chairman of selectors. Gooch finally got the England captaincy he deserved for the tour to the West Indies in early 1990. I was appointed captain of the England A tour to Zimbabwe. Michael Atherton was my vice-captain. Such are the lines of succession.
We had an excellent trip to Zimbabwe, beating a good side led by the formidable David Houghton—one of the finest batsmen against whom I played. Atherton made plenty of runs and displayed an uncompromising approach to the game, allied with a notable level of self-confidence. At a team meeting before the first one-day international, he remarked that we needed to start fielding better and, ‘Captain,’ he said, ‘we better start putting key fielders in the key positions.’ ‘Expand on that, if you will,’ I said. ‘Well, backward point is imperative against these guys who love to cut the quicker bowlers, so we need our best catcher there.’ Yup, I agreed, but before I could complete the sentence he added: ‘And that’s me.’ In the first over of the match, he took off high to his right and held on to a blinder. When he came up with the ball, he looked at me and said, ‘Told you.’
That tour, and the England B tour I led to Sri Lanka in 1986, was the closest I came to international cricket as a player. The new generation included Atherton, of course, and another who was with us in Zimbabwe, Graham Thorpe. Both showed all the signs of high-class batsmen, which included poise and an encouraging ruthlessness. I thought it a pity Atherton was made captain of England so young and a greater pity that some of the wrong people were in management alongside him. Through the 1990s, England’s team became increasingly guilty of a siege mentality that distracted from the job at hand. Had Atherton been left to observe a while longer, I suspect he would have unravelled many of the problems that were to halt the progress of his side.
I could not persuade the Hampshire committee to invest in bowlers but the most beautiful batsman of this or pretty much any era was an easy sell. David was out of favour with the England selectors and kicking his heels at Leicestershire, the club at which he had forged his career. He chose Hampshire ahead of Kent, primarily because of his admiration for Marshall.
There was much excitement about his arrival, not least from the players, who saw him as a proper star. He made a hundred at Southampton against Sussex in his first home game, putting on 256 with Robin Smith. Their partnership gave us a near-perfect canvas of batting—David with his neat elegance and exquisite timing, Robin with his intimidating presence and rugged power. We made 600 for 8 declared and romped home.
David was so gifted it was a joke. Some days it was as if he didn’t know what to do with all the time he had to play and the myriad options at his disposal. When in the mood, he made even the very best bowlers look pedestrian. To see him up close was both a joy and a revelation. He saw the ball early, played it late and hit it surprisingly hard. He also manoeuvred it beautifully, creating angles that accelerated the game whatever the obstacles set before him.
As long as net practices didn’t happen too often, he took them more seriously than generally perceived and appeared to enjoy catching and fielding drills. We all marvelled at the way he could turn his back to the coach hitting the ball at him and then spin on command to pluck just about everything out of thin air at the last possible moment.
As with many of those who are so outrageously gifted, there are risks and occasional complications. After a couple of weeks of preseason training, he asked for a quiet word. There was a car in the bottom of the lake at St Moritz, he said, which he had left there. The problem was the Swiss police and the insurance company, he said, half amused, who wanted the car out of the lake pronto. He was looking to schedule a couple of meetings in London. Would it be all right to miss practice for a day and get the thing sorted?
The nuts and bolts of the story were these: Gower and Lamb had been with a bunch of mates in St Moritz for the Cresta Run, a joyride on a bloody dangerous British-built toboggan track. After a night on the piss, a couple of them—one of whom was David—had driven their hire car across the lake for a bet, only to hear the alarming sound of ice breaking beneath them at the halfway stage of their journey. It was well past midnight and, unable to see much, they abandoned the car and made it to safety themselves. On their return the next morning, broad and chilling daylight revealed no sign of the offending vehicle. It, and they, were sunk. Now, a month on, the ice had melted and the authorities and environmentalists were on his case.
How splendid, I thought, and immediately my mind went back to Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie in the late 1960s. Ingleby-Mackenzie and Denis Compton had a hard winter’s afternoon on the gin at the Cricketers Club in London until, in some panic, Compo suddenly said: ‘Christ, it’s 6.30 and I’m due to introduce the guest speaker at the Denham Golf Club dinner at half past seven. I’ll never make it to the station for the next train.’ To which Colin said: ‘Borrow my car, old boy, it’s parked outside. I’ll get a cab home.’ ‘Marvellous,’ said Compo, who left in a flurry of coats and hats and tie-straightening. As he shot out of the door, Ingleby shouted: ‘It’s rather a wreck, master. Write it off for me, will you, and I’ll talk the Admiral into something a bit more fancy for you next time!’
The following morning, Colin came down to breakfast, where his father, the Admiral, was at the head of the table reading The Times. ‘Rum old business with your chum Compton last night, dear boy,’ said the Admiral. ‘He was speeding up the A40, swerved off the road and drove his car into a tree. Wrote it off, apparently.’ ‘Marvellous!’ exclaimed Ingleby-Mackenzie. ‘Followed my instructions to the letter.’ And the Admiral’s scrambled eggs shot across the table.
I’m no Ingleby-Mackenzie but I did think Gower’s story rather entertaining. I said he could have as long as needed. Unfortunately, this little sojourn coincided with a friendly against Sussex. One or two of the boys, less than impressed, asked why he wasn’t there. I said he was attending to important business in London. ‘One rule for one, one for the others,’ said somebody. ‘Absolutely,’ I replied. David got the car out. It cost a small fortune.
Later in the summer, Ted Dexter rang me to ask about him. I said he was in tremendous nick and that no one in England could touch him. David was picked against India at the Oval and made a beautiful, unbeaten 157. Then he toured Australia, where he infuriated Gooch, the captain, and the management by slipping away during the England innings with John Morris for a ride in a Tiger Moth—a journey that included flying low over the match England were playing against Queensland. Was that a laugh or was he a liability? Gooch and Gower were different animals. I greatly admired them both and could see how the contrasting soundtrack of their lives made for an awkward relationship.
David often slept before he batted, literally. At the fall of the wicket we would shake him awake, upon which he would splash his face, pick up his gloves, bat and helmet and head off. He figured that watching every ball made him tense and his best batting came when he was relaxed, so he might just as well switch off. I figured if it worked for him, it might work for me and, by heck, it did. Sleeping offered the advantage of a clear mind with no preconception of what lay ahead. It meant you watched and played the ball, not the expectation of it.
On balance, David was a terrific signing. We had the odd row over the fact that I insisted he turn out in the Sunday League, which he hated, but in general he was a good influence in the dressing room, using a lifetime of experience at the highest level to encourage, delight, defuse, calm and simplify. Very occasionally, his own explosive temper would clear the dressing room but he was hardly the Lone Ranger there. It is why dressing rooms must be private places, because only those inside can fully appreciate the highly charged and emotional nature of what happens outside.
MALARIA
At the end of the 1990 England A tour to Zimbabwe, I flew back to London, stayed the night with my girlfriend and was up early to head back to Heathrow, where I was meeting the Hampshire team for our preseason tour to Barbados. I told her I felt achy, like I was about to come down with flu. She whacked a couple of Panadol into me and suggested drinking less wine. On the plane, Chris Smith suggested vodka, so I gave that a go too. By the midpoint of the flight a doctor was called. Fifteen minutes later I was on oxygen. I was wheel-chaired off the aircraft and transferred to hospital. In casualty, I told them I had malaria. There is no history of malaria in Barbados so they thought I was delirious and simply did all they could to keep my temperature down.
I was in a large ward, too weak to take any initiative of my own and, frankly, frightened. The England team had just arrived in Barbados from Trinidad. The first people to come and see me were Gooch and Lamb, along with the parents of the Smith brothers, Joy and John. Lamby wanted me moved to a private ward and made a lot of noise about it. He sensed I was worse than just running a high fever and he was right.
The next morning a consultant arrived who had studied all the tests and told me I had falciparum, or cerebral malaria. Later, we traced this back to the England A visit to the Victoria Falls. He said that effective drugs had been ordered from the tropical diseases hospital in London but in the meantime they would treat me with quinine, and a lot of it.
My mother, stepfather, sister and brother were on holiday in France and read about it on page three of the London Daily Telegraph while having breakfast in Paris. Mum, in understandable panic, eventually got through to me but I wasn’t for talking. I stayed in hospital for a week, bloody ill and living through the four-part cycle of a potentially fatal strain of malaria. Goochie, who had his thumb broken by Ezra Moseley in Trinidad and was therefore unable to play in Barbados, visited most days, as did Lamby, who was leading the side in Graham’s place. The Smith parents and Ted Dexter were regular visitors too. David turned up and said, ‘I signed up to play w
ith you, not visit you in hospital!’ The Hampshire guys visited once or twice but were otherwise busy playing and partying without having to worry about me bossing them around.
I then spent another week being nursed by the wonderfully generous Tyrwhitt-Drake family, who had a house on the polo field at St James. I am forever in their debt. The England team welcomed me into the dressing room for the Test, which I watched for a few hours each day from the balcony. I recall Alec Stewart being especially supportive. A fine family, those Stewarts. I was hopelessly weak when I flew home, having lost a stone and a half, and therefore missed the first couple of games of the season. Paul captained typically well and I should have left him to it more than I did. My first game back was the one in which David and the Judge added 256 together. They said they would turn it on for me, and how!
A Beautiful Game Page 10