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‘English cricket is in crisis, of that there is no doubt’

On Saturday 28 December 1996, the third day of England’s second Test against Zimbabwe in Harare, English cricket celebrated a bittersweet tenth anniversary.

It was ten years to the day when, on the 1986–87 tour of Australia, under captain Mike Gatting, England last won the Ashes; ten years to the day when England’s descent to the bottom rung of international cricket began.

I remember the moment we achieved what Englishmen regard as the ultimate cricketing goal as though it was yesterday. One-nil up in the series with two matches to play, we arrived at Melbourne for the Christmas Test, confident that we would achieve the result that would give us the series. Our confidence was not misplaced. We won in three days and we were that good. Gladstone Small and I both took five wickets to dismiss the Australians for fewer than 150, then Chris Broad hit a century to set up victory by an innings. How sweet a moment it was when Merv Hughes swung a delivery from Phil Edmonds, our left-arm spinner, into Gladstone’s hands on the square leg boundary to bring the match to an end and signal the start of our celebrations.

Ten years later, on that fateful day in Harare, England were being bowled out by a team representing a country that wasn’t even playing Test cricket when we last won the Ashes, dismissed for 156 in less than a full day’s play. It was one of the most pathetic batting performances I’ve seen from an England team, but the fact that the overwhelming public reaction to it was one of resignation rather than shock underlined just how far English cricket had fallen during a decade in the doldrums.

Then Zimbabwe’s young fighters completed England’s indignity by winning the two final one-day games of the three-match series to secure a 3–0 whitewash.

David Lloyd, the England coach, on his first senior overseas tour, had already suffered ridicule back home for his comments after the tied first Test in Bulawayo, when, after a fracas with an official of the Zimbabwean Cricket Union he claimed, ‘We murdered them. We hammered them. They know it, and we know it.’ The team had also earned a reputation, unfair or not, for surliness.

For the armchair critics back home, England’s final one-day defeat by 131 runs was meat and drink. Conservative MP Terry Dicks tucked in with the greatest relish. He said, ‘I think the tour should be abandoned now. They should not be allowed to go out to the sun in New Zealand. They should be brought home in disgrace.’ Now really gorging himself, he carried on, ‘I would sack the management and half the team. I have never been so ashamed to be English.’ Another Tory MP, Bill Cash, said English cricket had reached a new low. ‘We have got to shake the whole thing up and produce some new talent,’ he said. It wasn’t just the rent-a-quote politicians who climbed into England. The former England captain Brian Close, my mentor as a young player at Somerset and a man whose opinions on cricket are usually direct and to the point said simply, ‘The players want their arses kicking.’

Despite occasional upturns in form and the undoubted enthusiasm of new coach Lloyd, the underlying theme running through England’s performances during 1996 was that as a cricketing nation we were going nowhere fast. The statistics said it all: nine Test matches were played in the twelve-month period, one against South Africa, three against India, three against Pakistan and two against Zimbabwe. England managed one solitary victory, the first Test of the summer against India at Edgbaston. They lost three, the first against South Africa to surrender the five-Test series, two to Pakistan in the 2–0 defeat in the second half of the summer, and drew the other five matches – two against India, one against Pakistan and, most unforgivably in the eyes of politicians, players and punters alike, two Test matches in Zimbabwe.

In one-day international cricket, they did reach the quarter-finals of the 1996 World Cup – but after losing to every Test playing nation, and only because they managed to defeat Holland and the United Arab Emirates. In total, of the twenty-one matches completed, England won just six, losing fifteen. In all international cricket they played thirty-one matches, won seven, and lost eighteen. Whichever way you care to look at it, that record simply wasn’t good enough. Certainly the sponsors of England’s Test team, Tetley Bitter, thought so as well.

When in the autumn of 1996 Tetley announced that their sponsorship would finish at the end of the 1997 Ashes series, they insisted it was because of ‘changes in the brewing industry and changes in marketing strategy’. Those changes may well have had something to do with it. But it was the lack of change in the fortunes of the England team which persuaded them to make their decision.

Tetley had been sponsoring England’s Test cricketers for four years. In September 1994 they announced a renewal of the sponsorship, which was intended to last until the end of the summer of 1999, during which they had intended to try and capitalise on the global exposure created by the Cricket World Cup being played in England.

But when Tetley informed the Test and County Cricket Board they would be exercising their contractual right to opt out of the deal two years early, it was a wake-up call that could be heard the length and breadth of the country. For the key element in their decision was their dissatisfaction with the continued lack of success at the top level. They simply didn’t want to be associated with a losing team anymore.

When Tetley took up the sponsorship in 1992, they struck gold. Immediately after putting the Tetley logo on their shirts, England won their first Test series for eighteen months. Their 2–0 success on the 1992 tour to New Zealand was their first Test series victory away from home since England retained the Ashes in 1986–87. Following that, Graham Gooch’s side finished runners-up to Pakistan in the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Tetley were rubbing their hands together in satisfaction at the success of their marketing ploy.

From that high point, however, England’s record went from bad to worse. They lost eight of their next twelve series, beating only India and New Zealand and when that sequence culminated in 2–0 defeat by Pakistan in the summer of 1996, not surprisingly Tetley decided the time had come to stop backing a losing horse. It wasn’t just the way the team played that persuaded Tetley to turn off the tap; the sponsors were also unhappy with the way England looked and the way they behaved. Market research had told them that although brand awareness had increased during the sponsorship with more people learning about their product, they were not necessarily drinking it – not even when England’s latest abject performance drove them screaming to the bar.

By the time England played the final two one-day internationals in Zimbabwe in 1996, they had been joined by Lord MacLaurin, the new chairman of the English Cricket Board, and Tim Lamb, the chief executive. Perhaps for the future benefit of English cricket, it was as well they were there to watch England’s surrender.

Tim Lamb spoke for himself and his boss when, on England’s return from the second leg of the tour to New Zealand, at the annual general meeting of The Council of Cricket Societies, he said: ‘The England team’s performances over recent years have been extremely disappointing, and I think the way in which the England team have conducted themselves recently is also disappointing.

‘Ian MacLaurin and I were absolutely horrified by what we saw in Zimbabwe. We were very very disturbed by some of the things we came across.

‘We thought David Lloyd’s comments in Bulawayo were completely inappropriate. We were not happy with the way the England team presented themselves. We understand their demeanour was fairly negative and not particularly attractive.

‘I think the way they presented themselves in terms of their dress left a lot to be desired. That was a factor in Tetley Bitter not renewing their sponsorship. Things improved in New Zealand, but there is a long way to go.’ A long way to go? Tim Lamb can say that again.

England did improve in New Zealand. It was almost impossible for them not to do so. But no one was getting carried away by the 2–0 score in the Test series, nor the 2–2 draw in the one-day international matches against New Zealand, who were, without doubt, one of the poorest international sides I’ve ever seen.

Mike Atherton’s team could and should have won the series 3–0. The fact is, however, that the resilience of Danny Morrison and Nathan Astle in the first Test in Auckland and New Zealand’s improved bowling in the third Test in Christchurch meant that without the captain’s batting in that final Test, England may well have finished the Test series having drawn 1 –1. Against a team comfortably the worst-rated in world cricket, that would have been a disaster. As Atherton explained after the series was over, had England not won that three-Test series in New Zealand, he would have resigned, and rightly so.

I say that not because I think Atherton was a poor captain or an unworthy leader. He’s an exceptional player and his batting performances have dug England out of holes of their own creation more often than he, or they, would care to recall. No one who witnessed his magnificent 185 not out to save the second Test against South Africa at the Wanderers Ground in Johannesburg will ever have reason to doubt Atherton’s commitment, determination, professionalism and sheer batting skill, nor his courage. But there comes a time in the career of a captain when no matter what he does, what plan he puts into operation, what words he imparts to his team, nothing works.

Having said that, Atherton has been on a hiding to nothing ever since he took over the captaincy from Graham Gooch in 1993. So was Gooch before him, so was David Gower before him, so was Mike Gatting before him. The reason? – the lack of world class talent produced by a domestic system that belongs in ancient history.

And I believe that fact was borne out by events during the summer of 1997. After starting in such breathtaking style, winning the Texaco Trophy series and the first Ashes Test England were finally exposed and outclassed against the unofficial world champions. Their efforts were laudable and brave and all the rest, but in the end they were just not good enough to win. By the time the Ashes were surrendered Atherton was looking and playing as though he had had a gutful.

In the end, after having reached a decision to quit, Atherton was persuaded to carry on by the selectors against his better judgement. Victory in the final Test at The Oval and the prospect of better things in the Caribbean would have been his motivation – fear over the alternative choices would have been in the minds of the selectors. And when he returned from the 1998 winter tour attached to a scoreline that read West Indies 3 England 1, the man who established a record for the highest number of Tests as captain – 52 – had finally decided enough was enough. And this time the selectors left it at that.

The new enthusiasm originally injected into proceedings by MacLaurin and Lamb at the start of the summer of 1997 had had an immediate affect. Glory be, England thrashed Australia in the Texaco Trophy series and then won handsomely in the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston. ‘Crisis, what crisis?’ came the cry from the counties once more.

As England slumped to yet another Test series defeat at the hands of Brian Lara’s eminently beatable Windies, then the sense of well-being surrounding Adam Holliaoke’s one-day wonder in the Champions Cup in Sharjah was unceremoniously burst by their defeat in the one-day series thereafter. The crisis was still there staring in the face of blind men.

There are those who will react to the question ‘What’s wrong with English cricket’ by saying ‘nothing’. They will claim that fortunes in Test cricket are cyclical, and things will come right if we just wait long enough and leave them well enough alone. That is dangerous nonsense. I am not the only one who believes that either. Just ask MacLaurin.

MacLaurin, to whom the counties turned at the end of 1996 as Chairman of the TCCB, soon to become the England and Wales Cricket Board, is the man who turned Tesco from a family-run business making £12 million worth of profits in 1976 into Britain’s premier food retailer with a profit of £750 million for the financial year to April 1997. In 1976, by now managing director of the company he’d joined as a trainee in 1959, he took on and won a boardroom battle that changed the course of British retailing history. His principal opponent was no Tom, Dick or Harry, but Sir Jack Cohen, the chairman of Tesco, the business he had co-founded in 1926. And the bone of contention just happened to be the brainchild of Cohen and the cornerstone of Tesco’s success for many years, Green Shield Stamps.

MacLaurin had done his homework and discovered that the stamps had become an unwanted anachronism. As he said, ‘Stamps had been an integral part of Tesco’s success, but it was very apparent to me visiting the stores, that the customers didn’t want them anymore. They were costing us, Tesco’s, £20 million per year to produce, and the customers were handing them back.’ Certain that he was right and that the company needed to shed its ‘pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap’ image and be repositioned upmarket, MacLaurin would not be shaken off. It took five bitter recounts for him to win the boardroom vote 5–4 and earn the right to pursue his plans to transform the company.

He said, ‘Before I attempted to turn Tesco around and into a world class act, people told me I was crazy. They said it simply couldn’t be done. I heard the same things about taking on English cricket. But there is an awful lot to be done.

‘I don’t want to criticise what has gone on in the past, but we cannot shy away from the fact that England’s Test team have not been in the top echelon of international cricket for some time.

‘There are those who persist in claiming that success in cricket is cyclical, that if you wait long enough it’ll all come right of its own accord. I simply don’t believe that is true.

‘You wouldn’t last very long in my business if you just said “everything is cyclical”. Just imagine if you went to the shareholders and told them, ‘I’m terribly sorry that we’ve lost all this money this year, but I’m sure if you hang on and keep investing your cash, perhaps in a few years time we might make a profit.’ We have to be realistic. If nothing is done to turn things round, the most pessimistic scenario is that the game will wither on the vine.’ MacLaurin has a clear view of the alternative to decisive action. It goes like this: ‘If we continue to do badly at international level and end up getting beaten by the Isle of Dogs, people will simply not pay to come and watch, and neither will the television companies whose money along with Test match receipts subsidises the first-class game. Then the counties will be in dire financial straits and the kids will ask, ‘what was cricket?’

When MacLaurin and Lamb set about preparing their blueprint for the future structure of English cricket the illusion of progress created by England’s victory in the 1997 Texaco Trophy series against Australia then the win in the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston enabled the more reactionary county chairmen to stick their heads back in the sand and say: “I told you so.”

Mindful of this MacLaurin and Lamb knew they had little or no chance of pushing through their preferred option for change – two divisions and promotion and relegation. Instead they fudged the issue, concocted a totally baffling alternative known as the three conference system and when that was laughed out of court, the barely-believable compromise of the radical status quo. Do me a very large favour.

Under this scheme the top eight sides in the 1998 county championship will go forward to play a one-day tournament known as the Super Cup in 1999. Quite what relevance such a competition will have to the business of making England better at Test cricket is anybody’s guess.

There are moves afoot to blow this out of the water. The Professional Cricketers Association came out heavily in favour of two divisions towards the end of the 1997 season. At their meeting on May 11, 1998 they warned that should their voice be ignored again steps might be taken to coerce certain clubs into seeing the error of their ways. Whisper them, but the words ‘strike action’ have been heard. To those who fear for the future of their own clubs should this scheme be implemented I say: shouldn’t the players be allowed to decide?

For those among the county chairmen who don’t believe things are as black as they are being painted, just consider these facts. Since retaining the Ashes in 1986–87 and prior to the start of the summer series of 1998 against South Africa and Sri Lanka, England had not won a full five-or six-Test series against anyone. Between the start of the 1987 home series against Pakistan and the final Test of the 1998 winter tour to West Indies, England played 113 Tests and won 23 of them. Out of eighteen series against the top-rated cricketing nations, Australia, Pakistan, West Indies and South Africa, they failed to win one, drew four (two versus West Indies in 1991 and 1995, one against South Africa in 1994 and a drawn one-off Test against Australia in 1988) and lost fifteen (five out of six versus Australia, four out of four against Pakistan, four out of six against West Indies and one out of two against South Africa).

They did win eight series, four against New Zealand, two each against India and Sri Lanka. In the period concerned they failed to win a Test series against Pakistan, Australia, South Africa, West Indies and later Zimbabwe, and both single Test match victories against the Aussies had come after the Ashes had already been decided in their favour. That record put them near the bottom of the unofficial ratings of world cricket, an assessment underlined when Benson & Hedges, the sponsors of the 50-over domestic one day competition, brought out their annual yearbook at the end of the 1997 season, and named their Benson & Hedges Cricket Year World XI. For the second year in succession not one place was filled by an Englishman. Their XI for 1997 was Saeed Anwar, Pakistan; Sanath Jayasuriya, Sri Lanka; Brian Lara, West Indies; Sachin Tendulkar, India; Aravinda de Silva, Sri Lanka; Steve Waugh, Australia; Ian Healy, Australia; Shane Warne, Australia; Curtly Ambrose, West Indies; Allan Donald, South Africa and Glenn McGrath, Australia. In that team there was no place for Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Mohammed Azharuddin, Anil Kumble, Courtney Walsh or Aamir Sohail.

Nor was there a place for any of the England side that played against Australia in the final Test of that summer series of 1997: Mike Atherton, Mark Butcher, Alec Stewart, Nasser Hussain, Graham Thorpe, Mark Ramprakash, Adam Hollioake, Andy Caddick, Peter Martin, Phil Tufnell and Devon Malcolm.

And nor, if the XI had been selected at the end of England’s series in West Indies would have the selectors been unduly taxed by the claims of Dean Headley, Jack Russell, and despite his excellent series, Angus Fraser. In other words, not one of the best eleven players that England could produce to contest a Test match in 1996 or 1997 was considered good enough to represent a World XI.

In fact, throughout the 1990s so far, only four England players have been picked for the Benson & Hedges teams.

Further evidence that, in terms of international standing England players are just not good enough came with the publication of the 1997 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. One of the most keenly-awaited features included in the cricketers’ bible is the annual nomination of their ‘Five Cricketers of the Year’. Their selection for 1996 was Sanath Jayasuriya, the man who turned ‘pinch-hitting’ into a new cricketing art form during Sri Lanka’s astonishing World Cup victory; Saeed Anwar, the Pakistan Test opener; Phil Simmons, the West Indies Test all-rounder who inspired his adopted county Leicestershire to the Championship; Mushtaq Ahmed, the Pakistan and Somerset leg-spinner; and Sachin Tendulkar, the Indian master. Sadly, England players were conspicuous by their absence.

According to Matthew Engel, the editor of Wisden: ‘The 1996 cricket season in England was in some respects the most depressing in memory.

‘The consistent failure of the England team is the biggest single cause of the crisis, but it is not the crisis itself. The blunt fact is that cricket in the UK has become unattractive to the overwhelming majority of the population.’

The statistics do not lie. England’s ten-year record shows that we cannot compete against the best Test playing nations in the world. When we win, we win against New Zealand and India. But we’re quite capable of losing to anyone.

English cricket is in crisis, of that there is no doubt. Not only are England’s performances on the field in international and Test cricket simply not good enough, but the county clubs are living in a fool’s paradise if they believe that they can exist through county cricket alone. During 1996, of the eighteen county cricket clubs, eleven received more than half their income from the Test and County Cricket Board from Test match receipts and television revenue. In the case of Derbyshire and Glamorgan, the figure they received was seventy per cent.

The counties depend for their survival on the England team performing properly, performing well and winning. If they continue to languish near the foot of the table of international cricket rankings, then it’s not only sponsors like Tetley who will switch off.

The new England and Wales Cricket Board was able to broker a deal with Vodafone, to fill the gap caused by Tetley’s withdrawal, but no one inside the Board was in any doubt that it was only the presence of MacLaurin at the head of the game that encouraged Vodafone, of which he was a non-executive director, that English cricket was worth the gamble. Nor should they be under any illusions that unless things change substantially for the better, this may be the last big-money payday of its kind.

By the start of the 1998 summer season no sponsors had been announced not only for the new national league and Super Cup tournaments in 1999, but also for the experimental triangular one-day tournament with South Africa and Sri Lanka for that very season. And perhaps most damagingly no sponsor to replace Texaco, the company who had poured vast sums into one-day internationals since 1984.

If the results of England’s national team do not start to improve hugely and quickly, it is not merely the sponsors who will start to switch off.

Indeed whether or not the ECB succeeds in its bid to have Test cricket de-listed and put on the open market, when the Sky TV contract worth £60m is up for renewal, unless English cricket proves that it is serious about wanting to take the professional support seriously and take it forward with real and innovative change, I can imagine the following conversation taking place between the man chosen to replace MacLaurin after he has walked out in despair at the intransigence of the counties.

***

ECB man to Sky negotiator: ‘Would you mind awfully if we had that £60 million again, please?’

Sky negotiator to ECB man: ‘Sixty million for that? You must be joking. Come back when you’ve got something to sell.’

And then the game will be bankrupt.

I intend to trace how England’s fortunes have dipped over the past ten years since that excellent victory under Mike Gatting’s captaincy was achieved in 1986–87. I will highlight the mistakes, the arrogance, and the misjudgements that have plagued English cricket over the past ten years. I will discuss how counties have done a great disservice to the English national game by putting their needs ahead of the requirements of the Test side at most, if not all times. I will discuss the short-sightedness of those in charge of the English game in the past ten years of hurt. And I will suggest measures which I believe can be put in place immediately so that the job of rebuilding English cricket can start in earnest.