The Botham Report. Ian Botham

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ as the veto was the discovery that Dexter should have wanted Gatting as captain in the first place.

      ‘In the three weeks before the new committee met to choose the captain, Gower was generally thought to be Dexter’s favourite for the job; he was the one the new chairman singled out for mention. However, no decision was made at that meeting, which was said to have contained “detailed discussion”. Five days elapsed before Gower was accorded a press conference at which Dexter announced that he was “the committee’s choice” to captain England for the series.

      ‘There was just a hint that he might not have been everyone’s choice.

      ‘The trouble, when things are kept secret, is that people start to look around for explanations other than the authorised version. I have always been one for conspiracy theories. For example if Dexter wanted Gower, and knew that his number two, Stewart, wanted Gatting, the veto could not have been more in Dexter’s favour. It gave him the captain he wanted and prevented an initial disagreement with Stewart. The existence of the veto was known from the outset to the four men on the committee, and Dexter looked the sort who was at home walking the corridors of power. Of course it is equally possible that, sometime in March, Stewart persuaded Dexter that Gatting was the man for the job.’

      As Wright suggests, it is equally possible that Dexter enlisted the help of Wheatley, his old Cambridge colleague, to do his dirty work for him.

      Whatever the truth, all this was to remain secret, particularly to Gower, until the end of the summer, although the curly-haired one did get an inkling that all might not be well at the press conference to announce his appointment. Micky Stewart sat there quietly, with thunder in his face, barely uttering a word. Then when Dexter was asked whether the decision to appoint him had been unanimous, he answered somewhat mysteriously, ‘After a long discussion, David was the committee’s choice.’

      At first the Gower-Dexter dream ticket did engender a certain amount of optimism and hope. And at that stage Allan Border’s Australians offered little cause for alarm for the forthcoming 1989 summer Ashes series. Although the tourists made hay against the Duchess of Norfolk’s XI in the traditional curtain raiser to the international season at Arundel, then against MCC at Lord’s, they lost against Sussex in a one-day match and then lost their opening first-class match of the tour to Worcestershire by three wickets. They then got into their stride against Middlesex and Yorkshire, winning both matches easily, but with a Texaco trophy shared 1–1 and one game tied, the stage was set for a close and competitive Test series.

      It turned out to be anything but.

      England were not helped that summer by an extraordinary catalogue of injuries to key players, myself included, and the distractions caused by the recruitment of the South African rebel tourists. But the selectors did not help their cause by making the extraordinary decision to ditch Chris Broad after only two Test matches. Broad, who had scored four hundreds against Australia in the last five Tests including three during the 1986–87 Ashes series at the end of which he was named the Man of the Series and International Cricketer of the Year, was certain to be Graham Gooch’s opening partner for the first Test at Headingley but, although he performed adequately there he was out on his ear by the time England contested the third match at Edgbaston. As he later signed up for the South African rebel tour, the second Test at Lord’s was the last time he played for England.

      By then, however, with Australia 2–0 up after two Tests, it was obvious that Border’s team was a vastly different proposition to the one we had faced in 1986–87. Player for player there didn’t seem to be all that much difference between the two squads. The greatest single factor in their supremacy, however, was an almost obsessive hunger for success brought to the Australian side by their captain.

      It became clear quickly that Border and his coach Bobby Simpson had left nothing to chance in their preparation for this series. They had been on the wrong end of hammerings in 1985 and 1986–87 and they had spent the intervening two years developing a side full of players whose commitment and dedication to the cause was unquestioned. Furthermore, Border himself had undergone a transformation of character and approach.

      Border had made himself unpopular with some of his team-mates by insisting that their wives would not be able to join them in the team hotels at any stage on tour, and each player was made fully aware of what was required on and off the field. Border himself set the tone for how he wanted his team to play and it was an inspiration to them.

      I was not the only one of the England players who had forged a reasonably close friendship with AB over the years and it was his approach to me that led to my decision to sign up for his state Queensland during the winter of 1988. Throughout the 1985 summer series in England Border had been a frequent and welcome visitor to the England dressing room at the close of play, so often, in fact that his closeness to myself, Gower and Allan Lamb caused some ill-feeling inside the Aussie camp – fraternising with the enemy and all that nonsense.

      After the 1986–87 series ended in another England victory Border was again criticised for what the Aussies back home perceived as an over-friendly relationship with the old enemy. The criticism stung this intensely patriotic Australian and this time round he had made a definite decision to become Captain Grumpy of a collection of players prepared to snarl, sledge and play dirty if necessary. His approach was not necessarily one I would have adopted, but the results spoke for themselves.

      While Gower was displaying all the politeness and good manners that Dexter had wanted his team to show, Border just got on with the job of stuffing the Poms. Robin Smith, the Hampshire batsman who had come into the side the previous summer against the West Indies, was clearly shocked by Border’s ruthlessness on the field. It was not just the sledging he encouraged from bowlers like Merv Hughes and Geoff Lawson but the fact that Border went out of his way to be positively unpleasant to Smith and all the other batsmen at all times. No one minds a spot of sledging or winding up the opposition, but in my book they went too far and AB took them there.

      Smith recounts the tale when, during a particularly hot and tense period of play during one of the Test matches, more out of courtesy than anything else he asked Border if it would be okay for our twelfth man to bring on a glass of water for him. Border’s reply shocked Smith. ‘What do you think this is, a f * * *ing tea party? No, you can’t have a glass of water. You can f* * *ing wait like all the rest of us.’

      When Gower quizzed his opposite number over the change in approach, Border told him, ‘David, the last time we came here I was a nice guy who came last. I’ve been through all sorts of downs with my team, but this time I thought we had a bloody good chance to win and I was prepared to be as ruthless as it takes to stuff you. I didn’t mind upsetting anyone, my own team-mates included, as long as we got the right result.’

      In the face of such open hostility England needed to be at the top of their game. Planning and preparation and tactics needed to be spot on and the players all needed to be focused and pulling for each other. Above all we needed clear leadership and direction from the top.

      What we got, from the first Test at Headingley to the last at The Oval was none of the above and the result was chaos.

      At Headingley we were treated to the first example of Dexter’s knack of making eccentric decisions when it really mattered. Quite apart from leaving out off-spinner John Emburey thus sending England into the match with an all-seam attack, Dexter persuaded Gower that if he won the toss he should send Australia in to bat first. The decision to field first was apparently based on Dexter’s belief that an approaching build-up of cloud might allow movement through the air. No cloud came but there was movement through the air all right, generally from the middle of the bat to the boundary.

      Furthermore, the decision to bat first came from the fact that while watching the weather forecast on breakfast television on the first СКАЧАТЬ