The Botham Report. Ian Botham

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СКАЧАТЬ riled Imran in 1987 was that although the TCCB had agreed to a request by the Indians, in that same summer of 1982, to have Constant taken off the list for their three-Test series with England, when the Pakistan management made the same request now they flatly refused on the grounds of prejudice. To a certain extent I can understand Imran’s feelings. Although it may have been feeble of the Board to bow to India’s wishes in 1982, not to comply with the Pakistan request was at best inconsistent and illogical and at worst bound to inflame any perceived sense of injustice they may have harboured.

      The news of what had happened was leaked during the second Test at Lord’s, in which Constant was standing and he stood again in the final match at The Oval. Both times Haseeb Ahsan publicly criticised Constant over his umpiring and at one stage described him as ‘a disgraceful person’.

      But this was by no means the only spark of controversy in a series that left everyone with a nasty taste in the mouth. Off the field there was trouble at Edgbaston during the third one-day international when some idiots, fuelled by booze and racial prejudice, fought with Pakistani youths on the terraces. Then in the first Test at Old Trafford, a rain-ruined match going nowhere, Pakistan managed to bowl 11 overs in an hour after tea on the second day. When Micky Stewart, the manager, commented on this, Imran reacted by saying: ‘We get slagged off and called cheats and I object to that.’ Then came the incidents at Headingley that some might say seemed to support the description Imran objected to. Both involved the Pakistan wicket-keeper Salim Yousuf.

      After bowling us out for 136 in our first innings, Pakistan made 353 in reply. Chris Broad, whose batting in Australia the previous winter was a huge feature in our success, played at Imran’s second delivery and the ball brushed his left hand after he had removed it from the bat handle. The laws state that the hand has to be in contact with the bat for a catch to be given. Without the benefit of television replays the appeal from the bowler was probably made in good faith, but what made the dismissal so unsatisfactory from England’s point of view was that replays of the catch itself clearly showed that the ball bounced fractionally before arriving in Yousuf’s gloves. Still, no one was too put out at this stage. Sometimes keepers and slip fielders genuinely do not know whether or not the ball has arrived on the bounce and, when considering whether a guy has attempted to deliberately pull a fast one, most players will give the fielder or keeper the benefit of the doubt. There was no doubt at all, however, over Yousuf’s actions some time later. I edged a short delivery and instantly and instinctively looked around to follow the flight of the ball. I could see quite clearly that Yousuf dropped the ball, scooped it up again after it had hit the ground, then claimed the catch. I’m not proud of what I said to him, but it was a knee-jerk reaction in the heat of the moment. I called him, to his face, a cheat, although there might also have been a couple of adjectives thrown in for good measure. The umpire Ken Palmer intervened and had his say and I fully expected Imran to admonish his player for such a blatant offence which, after all, reflected no credit on him as captain. Nothing was forthcoming from Imran, although he did claim later that he would have reprimanded Yousuf had I not sworn at him!

      All in all we were more than happy when the series was brought to a close, though disappointed with the 1–0 defeat, and in hindsight it would have been better all around had there been a cooling-off period of a few seasons before we met up again.

      That was not to be, as almost immediately after the 1987 World Cup, in which we finished runners-up to Australia, Gatting led his men to Pakistan for a three-Test series, to be followed after Christmas by the Bicentennial Test with Australia and then a further three Tests in New Zealand.

      And here is where Gatting and England were badly let down by the Test and County Cricket Board and most particularly by its chairman Raman Subba Row and chief executive A C Smith. It didn’t take a genius to work out that there were likely to be repercussions over what had happened that summer. To me, the fact that the Board did not see fit to try and prevent trouble before it started smacks of complacency.

      Instead they dispatched the players with little more than a cheery wave and let them walk into a political minefield unprepared and unprotected, and when the explosions began they made a ridiculous hash of clearing up the mess. It was obvious that Pakistan were desperate to win, more so than usual because of their third successive defeat in a World Cup semi-final, this time to Australia and most importantly this time in Lahore, and by the time Gatting and company arrived rumours were rife that Haseeb Ahsan, by now a Board member and the chairman of the selectors, was intent on orchestrating revenge for having his request to remove Constant and Palmer ignored by the TCCB.

      Tit for tat ensued when the Pakistan board ignored England’s protests over the appointment of the controversial umpire Shakeel Khan to stand in the first Test in Lahore and it did not take long for their dissatisfaction to boil over. England were convinced that several decisions had gone against them in the first innings; then at the start of the second Chris Broad decided to take matters into his own hands. Given out caught at the wicket by Shakeel Khan, Broad simply refused to walk and told all and sundry why. ‘I didn’t hit it,’ he said. ‘You can like it or lump it, I’m not going. I didn’t hit it and I’m not out.’ In fact, more than a minute elapsed before Broad was eventually persuaded by his batting partner Graham Gooch that no matter how unfair he thought the decision, it wasn’t going to be overturned.

      That was bad enough, but after the game things really got out of hand. Quite clearly Broad’s actions were unpardonable and worth at least a heavy fine. But Peter Lush, the tour manager, driven no doubt by a sense of loyalty to his players, totally misread the situation. Instead of fining Broad he issued what he called a stern reprimand, then appeared tacitly to support the player’s actions by criticising the umpiring and calling for neutral officials. All of which gave Gatting the green light to stir things up even more after the match had ended in an Abdul Qadir-inspired defeat. ‘We knew what to expect,’ said Gatt, ‘but never imagined it would be so blatant. They were desperate to win, but if I was them I wouldn’t be very happy about the way they did it.’

      When the players arrived at the Montgomery Biscuit Factory at Sahiwal to play a three-day match against the Punjab Chief Minister’s XI the mood darkened. Several of the players had nights they will never forget, however hard they try – wrapped from head to toe in clothes in order to keep the bat-sized mosquitoes at bay, they sweated and sweltered and never got a moment’s kip. And by the end of the experience the entire party were convinced that they were the victims of plain sabotage. Instead of laughing at their situation, they got more and more stroppy, to such a point that the slightest provocation was bound to lead to an explosion.

      It came three deliveries from the end of play on the second day of the second Test in Faisalabad and involved Gatting and the umpire Shakoor Rana – a man whose reputation for upsetting visiting teams was established when Jeremy Coney, the New Zealand captain led his team from the field during the Karachi Test in 1984–85 in protest at his decisions – and the fall-out eventually led to Gatting’s removal from the position of England captain.

      Gatting was first accused by Shakoor of moving a fielder without letting the batsman know, an allegation flatly denied by Gatting himself. According to Gatting and several fielders close to the incident, Shakoor then called the England captain a cheat and swore at him repeatedly. Gatting, fuelled by all the real and perceived injustices that he felt he and his side had had to put up with, swore back. While this made for gripping television, the behaviour of both men was wholly out of order.

      By the following morning, the seriousness of the row became obvious when Shakoor refused to take the field unless and until he received a full apology from Gatting. Gatting, I understand, would have been happy to do so as long as Shakoor also apologised and plans were underway for a joint statement to be issued, until, wound up, it is believed, by the Pakistan captain Javed Miandad, who had taken over following Imran’s first official retirement, Shakoor changed his mind. Gatting would not apologise unilaterally so, with the two sides stuck in stalemate, a whole day’s play was lost.

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