Читать книгу Thanks, Johnners: An Affectionate Tribute to a Broadcasting Legend - Jonathan Agnew, Jonathan Agnew - Страница 8
ОглавлениеChapter Two
A Radio Man
Brian Johnston was a major influence on my career. Sitting and watching him communicate with his listeners with such ease and warmth was an object lesson in broadcasting. Most of what I learned from Johnners came purely from example – he was the most natural broadcaster I have ever met. He only ever directly gave me one firm piece of advice.
We were sitting together in the commentary box high in the left-hand turret of the Lord’s Pavilion before the start of a day’s play in a Test match. Bill Frindall settled down beside us as we relaxed with a cup of tea at the commentators’ desk, while Peter Baxter, the producer, was constantly on the move preparing for Test Match Special to go on air. Backwards and forwards he rushed between the commentary box and the engineers’ room, which was little more than a small glory hole to our left, full of tangled wires and electronic equipment. There was no direct communication between the two. Beyond the engineers was an even smaller booth, at the end of the run of three semi-permanent boxes which was where the BBC reporting position used to be located before the arrival of the spectacular Media Centre which now dominates the Nursery End. Its shape has been compared variously to a spaceship, a gherkin and even Cherie Blair’s smile. The old reporters’ box was barely wide enough for two people to sit and watch the game. I remember interviewing the actor, comedian and my fellow Old Uppinghamian Stephen Fry and the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, in there, but not at the same time. Shame: it would have made a great combination.
That old commentary box at Lord’s, which has since been torn down, was Brian’s favourite. Shortly before he died, when he was very poorly indeed following a serious heart attack, his wife Pauline took him to Lord’s in the hope that it might spark some memories. Slowly they walked around the ground, arm in arm. Brian clearly did not recognise his surroundings until he gazed up at the commentary box at the top of the Pavilion and said, ‘Test Match Special.’
It was not merely the spectacular view directly down the pitch that made that commentary position so special. To get to it one had to go through the Pavilion, which is strictly the domain of the MCC members, who before the start of play would be rushing about trying to grab the best vantage point. We retraced the steps of all the greatest cricketers the game has known as we walked through the Long Room, with its musty smell of stale cigar smoke, its wonderful collection of paintings of revered figures from the past, and cricketing memorabilia from a bygone age. How could one not feel thoroughly excited about the day ahead? It still gives me goosebumps just thinking about it now. We passed the umpires’ dressing room on the way up the creaking old wooden staircase, and I would often pop my head through the door and say good luck to David Shepherd, Dickie Bird or whoever was on duty. Another staircase, which was decorated by framed scorecards of memorable Test matches, and we were at the very top of the Pavilion, where after turning left and squeezing past the members who had already taken their seats, a couple of steps took us to an unpromising wooden door that was probably once white. It was rather battered and badly in need of a coat of paint, but this was home to Test Match Special.
The box was far from luxurious. Running its entire length was a purpose-built shelf at which the broadcasters and scorer perched on tall stools. There were a few chairs at the back of the box for visit -ors and off-duty commentators, and, bizarrely, an ugly metal pillar almost directly in the middle, which always got in the way but presumably stopped the roof from falling in on us. The large wooden-framed windows could only be opened by using some force to slide them down, but the effort was worth it, because the box would then come alive with the unique sound of Lord’s – a satisfied murmur of contentment made by 29,000 people enjoying themselves. One could not help but be lifted when one sat at the open window and started commentating.
These days our old turret is home to an MCC members-only champagne bar, and very nice it is too. One day, when I am firmly retired, that is where I have every intention of watching my cricket from, while I fondly remember our old box and all those friends who worked in it.
On that particular morning, in the television studio, BBC TV was also preparing for another day. This involved setting up the in-vision studio, and particularly getting the presenter, Tony Lewis, and his guests into position. Rather than having televisions tuned in to BBC 1, which was prone to breaking off from the cricket for the news or a horse race, our radio commentary boxes are kitted out with monitors which constantly relay everything that is being filmed within the ground by the TV rights holders. This includes the setup shots at the start of the day, which invariably includes the front man meticulously sorting out his hair. (That may sound mundane, but believe me, it makes for great television. Mark Nicholas, formerly of Channel 4 and now of Channel 5 fame, is indisputably the current world champion. Countless little flicks and minute adjustments while staring with increasing approval at his monitor in the studio create hours of entertainment for the rest of us, who are invariably a little ‘dressed down’ in radio land. Richie Benaud was more of a gentle hair-teaser, carefully manoeuvring a grey curl over his right ear to conceal his earpiece. David Gower, on Sky, does not have to bother much these days, but Tony Lewis, who was always meticulously groomed, liked to ensure that he had a neat and crisp parting in his jet-black hair.)
On this day, as he and I were watching Tony preparing himself for the nation’s viewers, Johnners announced: ‘Aggers, whatever you do, don’t go to telly.’ I assumed the reason for this observation was the amount of time and effort required just to get one’s hair ready, and I nodded in a non-committal sort of a way. ‘No, Aggers, I mean it,’ Johnners said. ‘For a start, you are a radio man. But also because television doesn’t treat you nearly so kindly.’ This was the prelude to him telling me about the time he was dropped as a television commentator in 1970, after twenty-four years, without so much as a letter or telephone call of explanation. It was unusual to see Brian anything other than jovial and light-hearted, but although this had happened over twenty years previously, it was clear that the bitterness still ran surprisingly deep. Not only does the episode seem to have been rudely and thoughtlessly handled by the corporation, but for Brian, who remained the BBC cricket correspondent, it was a public humiliation. For a man who until then had led a largely charmed life, rejection was a new and unpleasant experience.
I heeded Brian’s advice when, in 1998, Channel 4 surprised everybody by securing the rights to televise cricket ahead of the BBC, starting the following season. I was approached by Channel 4 and Sunset + Vine, the production company that would revolutionise the coverage of cricket in this country, and asked if I would resign as the BBC’s correspondent and join them for the 1999 season. This was a huge decision, and one to which I gave serious and considerable thought. Financially, it was no contest: television pays much better than radio, and even before they had broadcast a ball, this promised to be an exciting and groundbreaking venture. That had huge appeal, besides which, the move might set my family up for life. My wife Emma, who works in television news, felt that I should take the plunge. But I was not convinced. Radio felt like home to me; not in an easy, unchallenging, job-for-life sort of way, but because I felt much more comfortable on the radio than I had when I had covered one-day matches on television in previous years for the BBC. Television commentary was fine, but it was more restrictive than radio, and offered less opportunity for my style of banter. I also found the work ‘to camera’ quite awkward. For me, the whole television thing lacked the fun and spontaneity of radio.
In the end, after much soul-searching, I stuck with my instincts. These were endorsed by Brian’s view of me as a radio man, and I also felt a deep-seated sense of loyalty to Test Match Special. Many people in the industry told me during the course of that summer that I was mad, but I knew I had made the right decision. So too did Ian Botham, who still takes great delight in telling me that I have the perfect face for radio.
The sudden appearance of Channel 4 caught the BBC on the hop, and started quite a stampede of commentators who now found themselves having to find work either with Channel 4 or Sky, which were both simultaneously broadcasting cricket live. To complicate matters further, England was due to stage the 1999 cricket World Cup, which was to be televised on the BBC. It really was quite a mess.
Eventually, and presumably because there was nobody else, I was asked to present the BBC television coverage of the World Cup. Richie Benaud was still available to work alongside me, but everyone else had flown the nest. I really had no option but to agree to do it, despite my reservations about working in television. Coming so quickly after my decision to stay on the radio, this was quite an irony.
I was given one day of training in some BBC studios at Elstree. My tutor was Peter Purves, a dapper and kindly man who with Valerie Singleton and John Noakes had been a member of the best-known trio of presenters on Blue Peter when I religiously watched the programme in the late 1960s. Peter taught me the basics of tele vision presentation, in particular handling the talkback from the director, the producer and the myriad other voices that television front men have to deal with while maintaining an expressionless face to camera. Although I can happily talk to the precise second on the radio by using a stopwatch, it is a different thing altogether to have a robotic voice in your ear counting the seconds down from one minute to zero, at which point you have to say goodbye.
I did not find that easy at all, and when the tournament got underway the end of the programme was always a terribly tense time for me. Richie and I would be sitting together in the studio, and we would talk about the match we had just watched until it was time for me to close the programme. But I made a real hash of it after one of the early games in Cardiff, and it was clear that I needed some help. In Richie, I had the coolest, most experienced and professional cricket presenter there has ever been on our television screens, and I asked him to give me a hand. Very kindly, he suggested a plan which we then employed for the rest of the World Cup: as soon as the count started in our earpieces I would ask him a question, and he would talk until the count reached eight seconds to go. I would then thank him, turn to the camera and tell the audience briefly about the next game to be televised. Miraculously, for the rest of the tournament I always heard ‘zero’ in my ear at the moment I said goodbye. Richie is seriously good, but the whole experience served to confirm my belief that my decision to stick with Test Match Special was the right one.
Brian had become the BBC’s first cricket correspondent in 1963, and while this inevitably reduced his appearances in the world of general entertainment, and therefore his public profile, it did establish him as the country’s leading voice on cricket. He commentated mostly on the television during home Test matches, and on radio during England’s winter tours and also on Saturday afternoons, when BBC Radio Sport spent considerably more time covering county cricket than it does now. It was, apart from anything else, how new commentators used to cut their teeth.
The demands placed upon the BBC cricket correspondent have changed enormously in recent years, particularly with the arrival of twenty-four-hour rolling news channels and Radio 5 Live. There were also fewer tours in those days. Although Brian did tour Pakistan briefly, where he appeared to spend more time commentating on rioting students than on cricket, the only time he ever went to India was for three weeks as a spectator in 1993, when he lived exclusively on eggs. This, and a shot of whisky every evening, was necessary, he claimed, to stave off what he called Delhi-belly. He was an old man by that time – in fact he was eighty, and he died less than a year later – but he and Pauline had a colourful holiday, of which a trip to the Taj Mahal was clearly the highlight.
‘Six hours in the car each way, Aggers,’ he told me, ‘and I still don’t know what side of the road they drive on over here.’
He popped into the commentary box in Bombay to say hello at the end of a particularly hot day’s play, just at the time that I was rattling off my reports, interviews and two-way conversations with the studio in London. Brian, whose commitments in his time would have been little more than one close-of-play report, sat quietly behind me until I had finished. ‘Goodness me, this job has changed,’ he said.
Because Brian was never told why he was removed from television commentary, different theories have emerged over the years. One was that the authorities, in other words the Test and County Cricket Board, wanted a more serious image of its product than that which was being presented by Brian’s jokey style and brand of humour, and the BBC, keen to protect its position as rights holders, complied. This was vehemently denied by Brian Cowgill, who had recently arrived as the new head of television sport, and was believed by some to be the man who was determined to get Brian off the nation’s screens.
A more likely reason was the desire to introduce more former cricketers, with their expert knowledge and insight, to the microphone. Jim Laker, the England off-spinner who still has the best-ever match analysis in Test history, was introduced to the team in 1970. However, that theory is complicated by the fact that Denis Compton, one of the all-time great batsmen and a regular television commentator at the time, was shown the door with Johnners, while Peter West, who had never played first-class cricket in his life, was promoted to present the programme. But if this really is the true version of events, Brian was the first casualty in what has since become a procession of retired Test cricketers into television commentary boxes the world over, to the point that Test experience is now seen as a necessary requirement for a commentator. It helps, of course, but television also needs colourful and interesting commentary, just as radio does.
A third theory, and perhaps the least plausible, was nevertheless the one favoured by Compton. Both Brian and Denis, who could be outspoken and who had much stronger right-wing views than Brian, were of the belief that sport and politics should not mix. In the late 1960s the question of apartheid South Africa continuing to compete in international sport was the biggest off-field issue Brian had to deal with in his time as BBC cricket correspondent. While mass protests forced the abandonment of the proposed tour of England by South Africa in 1970, Brian and Denis were not alone in supporting the view that a sporting boycott of South Africa was not the answer to the political problems there. Peter Dimmock, the general manager of BBC Outside Broadcasts at the time, denied that their stance on South Africa had anything to do with their being fired.
Whatever the reason, it was a huge blow to Johnners. At the time, his disappointment prevented him from appreciating quite what a godsend it would turn out to be, because he was immediately approached by Robert Hudson, the head of BBC Outside Broadcasts, to join Test Match Special full time. Two years later, aged sixty, he was forced by BBC regulations to retire from his position as cricket correspondent. Now a freelance, he took over as the presenter of Down Your Way, a weekly interview-based radio programme that he fronted for the next fifteen years.
Just as In Town Tonight had encouraged Johnners to show his extrovert side, so Down Your Way tapped perfectly into his ability as a communicator. He would visit a different town, village or community every week, and talk to some of the more interesting locals he encountered along the way. Since he always had a very kindly and welcoming manner with people, this helped make members of the public who had never appeared on the radio before feel at ease when faced by a microphone – brandished by an im -posingly tall man – for the first time. It was his warm, fun and friendly presence on those classic radio programmes that firmly established Brian Johnston as a national institution, and those were the qualities he brought to freshen up Test Match Special. Now, with cricket in the summers and Down Your Way to occupy him in the winters, Brian really was in his heaven.
This was the time many Test Match Special stalwarts consider to have been the programme’s golden age. After John Arlott retired in 1980, Johnners was indisputably the leading character, but I rather lost contact with the programme when I left Uppingham School and joined Leicestershire County Cricket Club as a young fast bowler. From the age of sixteen I had been playing second-XI cricket at Surrey CCC, and my dream of becoming a professional cricketer was finally realised when Leicestershire offered me a contract while I was still at school. For an eighteen-year-old bowler I was unusually fast, and enjoyed terrorising our opponents, be they schoolboys (8 wickets for 2 runs and 7 for 11 stick in the memory) or, better still, the teachers in the annual staff match. This, I gather, used to be a friendly affair until I turned up, and I relished the chance to settle a few scores on behalf of my friends – for whom I was the equivalent of a hired assassin – as well as for myself.
Within only a few weeks of leaving school, a sudden injury crisis at Leicestershire propelled me into the first team for a county championship match against Lancashire at Grace Road – something for which I was not very well prepared. For a start, I had been a dedicated Lancashire fanatic ever since Dad had taken me to Lord’s for that Gillette Cup final when I was eleven, and suddenly I found myself playing against my heroes. Merely watching them walk out to practise in the nets before play began felt quite bewildering. I remember Ray Illingworth, who I had met only once, briefly, when I was signed by the club, and who was now my captain, laughing as I produced my plastic-soled bowling boots from my bag in the dressing room. Illy had played with, and led, some of the best fast bowlers England has ever produced, and clearly he did not rate the equipment which up to now had served me perfectly well at school. He was right, of course. We had to field for 130 overs in that match, and I could barely walk at the end.
Another problem was the serious lack of protective equipment I possessed, and this was brought sharply into focus when I saw Lancashire’s giant West Indian fast bowler Colin Croft mark out his run-up and proceed to bowl at a speed and hostility I had never imagined to be humanly possible. I noticed that even my experienced colleagues were rather subdued by the prospect of facing him, but they produced thigh guards and carefully moulded foam padding which they meticulously strapped all over their bodies. I had none of these, and very few batsmen wore helmets in 1978. While my pads had provided sufficient protection against schoolboy bowling at Uppingham, they were hopelessly inadequate for the missiles Croft was now hurling down, increasingly angrily, it seemed, at our batsmen. Thankfully, in that year the rule in county cricket was that all first innings had to close after a hundred overs, and although things looked very ugly indeed for us at 126 for 5, a fighting innings by Jack Birkenshaw, for which I will always be grateful, spared me from my date with Croft. ‘Crofty’ has since reinvented himself as a surprisingly genial, entertaining and hospitable colleague on the radio, but he was anything but friendly that day.
So, with plastic boots firmly strapped on, I walked out into the late-afternoon sunshine to bowl my first over in first-class cricket. Illy set the field for Lancashire’s opening batsmen, David Lloyd and Andy Kennedy, both wearing the slightly faded blue caps bearing the red rose of Lancashire that I had so coveted as a child; at one point I had written cheekily to Lancashire CCC while I was at Taverham Hall to ask if they could post me one. I was sent a sheet of the players’ autographs instead.
Nervously I paced out my run-up, and down the hill I rushed, with my head swimming. Because of the massive adrenalin surge, the first delivery was a huge no-ball, called by a startled umpire David Constant, who I know wanted to be kind to an eighteen-year-old lad in his first match, but simply could not ignore the fact that I had overstepped by at least two feet. It was not the most auspicious of starts, but the fourth ball swung sharply from a full length and shattered Lloyd’s stumps. I remember leaping about all over the place in sheer delight, and Illy trotting up with his hand outstretched to offer his congratu -lations while Bumble turned and plodded forlornly towards the pavilion.
Since that initial, brief encounter when he was such a senior cricketing figure and I was a complete novice, Bumble has become a very good friend. Exactly twenty-five years later to the day, on 19 August 2003, my telephone rang at home. I picked up the receiver:
‘Hello?’
‘What were you doing twenty-five years ago?’
‘Er, I’m not sure. Is that you, Bumble?’
‘Yes, and twenty-five years ago today you got me out, you bastard.’ Bang: the telephone went dead.
By then Bumble and I had enjoyed several summers together on Test Match Special, and he was my partner in crime in many a wind-up of Johnners. Henry Blofeld also suffered cruelly before Bumble left us to become England coach, and finally moved to Sky television.
I quickly learned that Illy was right about most things. There were some amusing stories doing the rounds about him never accepting that he was out when he was batting. Like the time he was facing the Glamorgan fast bowler Alan Jones, who always released an explosive grunt to rival Maria Sharapova’s when he let the ball go. On one occasion Jones beat Illingworth all ends up and demolished his stumps, only for Illy to claim, when he returned in high dudgeon to the dressing room, that he had mistaken Jones’s grunt for the umpire calling ‘No-ball,’ and naturally changed his shot.
It was a great shame that he and Mike Atherton never hit it off when Illy was the England manager in 1994. Illy’s tough and uncompromising style of management was hopelessly out of date by then, but he remains the best reader of a cricket match I have ever met. I remember one match against Lancashire when he brought himself on to bowl to the towering and massively destructive figure of Clive Lloyd. Illy was concerned about the position of Chris Balderstone at deep square leg. ‘Come on, Baldy!’ he scolded. ‘I’m bowling uphill and into t’wind on a slow pitch. You should be ten yards squarer.’ Balderstone duly moved ten yards to his right as directed, Lloyd played the sweep shot and the ball went absolutely straight to him: he took the catch without moving a muscle. A fluke? I do not know, but boy, was I mighty impressed.
Illingworth was a blunt character, brought up in the old-fashioned way and as canny in his regular bridge school whenever rain stopped play as he was on the field. Thanks to him, I was sent to Australia that first winter on what was called a Whitbread Scholarship. My dad and I went down to London to be given the good news by one of his great heroes, Colin Cowdrey, and before I knew it I was on my way to Melbourne. I was picked up by the legendary fast bowler Frank ‘Typhoon’ Tyson.
Like his predecessor Harold Larwood, Frank had been welcomed to Australia when he moved there after his playing days were over, despite having blown away the Aussie batsmen in a spell of fast bowling at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1954–55 that is still talked about in reverential terms. Frank took 7 for 27 in a furious spell to skittle Australia, and now he was the coach of Victoria. He was also, as I discovered when I moved into his house, still very competitive, especially after a surprisingly small amount of beer. ‘Reckon you’re fast, then?’ he would suddenly announce, putting down his can and grabbing a tennis ball, which he would then proceed to hurl quickly and comically all around his back garden until it vanished into the hedge.
Frank was great. He despatched me all over Victoria to coach in small towns and rural communities. I was only eighteen, and this was a whole new world to me. On the weekends I played for Essendon, a top-grade club in north Melbourne, and experienced at first hand the strength and competitiveness of club cricket in Australia. Three years later I played in Sydney for Cumberland Cricket Club, where John Benaud, Richie’s brother, was captain. If Richie is quiet, measured and immaculately turned out, then John – fourteen years Richie’s junior – is a veritable party animal. He was a highly successful journalist in his own right, becoming editor-in-chief of the now defunct Sydney Sun, and his colourful nature is best illustrated by the ban from cricket that he received in 1970, when he was captain of New South Wales, for insisting on wearing a certain type of ripple-soled cricket shoe that had been outlawed by the authorities. He played the first of his three Tests two years later, his top score being 142 against Pakistan. The twenty-year gap between John and Richie’s Test debuts is surpassed by only one pair of brothers, Johnny and Ernest Tyldesley, whose great-great-nephew is one Michael Vaughan.
It was hardly surprising that Ray Illingworth was infuriated, albeit affectionately, by the distinctly laid-back approach of the youthful, curly-haired David Gower, who would also captain Leicestershire and England. There is an argument that had Gower had the dedication to fitness and practice of, say, Graham Gooch, he might have scored more than his eighteen hundreds for England. But he would not have batted with the carefree elegance that made him one of cricket’s greatest attractions, and the criticism he so often received for perishing to apparently casual shots was born of onlookers’ frustration at knowing his innings was over long before they wanted it to be. It is fair to say that I was also from the Gower school of training and invariably he and I would be some distance behind the rest of the pack, chatting as we jogged along the canal towpath from Grace Road to what used to be Leicester Polytechnic for pre-season training every April.
Although there was always keen competition for places in the Leicestershire first team, the dressing room was usually a friendly place. There would always be a disgruntled player or two who was not in the side, and who would sit chuntering on the fringes, but if you were playing well, and scoring runs or taking wickets, county cricket was about as pleasant an occupation as you could possibly find. My career could be divided up into two sections: the first being when I was an out-and-out fast bowler and played for England when I probably should not have done; and the second being when I slowed down a bit, learned how to swing the ball and did not play for England when I probably should have done.
My first Test, against the West Indies in 1984, was the final game of a five-match series of which the Windies had already won the first four. Let us say that when I joined the England camp, morale was a little on the low side. There was humour all right, but it was of the death-row variety, with everyone apparently bowing to the inevitable before a ball was bowled. Graeme Fowler and Chris Broad, the opening batsmen, who had every right to be shell-shocked after the ferocious and downright dangerous bowling they had faced that summer, went about their preparations cheerfully, if resignedly. The pride in playing for one’s country burned strongly, and the effort put in would be absolute, but despite that, it seemed everyone knew realistically that we would not win.
I did not know many of the other players very well, including Ian Botham, who was a massive presence in the dressing room. I found him very intimidating – not physically or in an unpleasant way, but because he was a superstar, and totally out of my league. It helped me that David Gower was captain, and that I knew him well. But I felt rather sorry for Richard Ellison, who made his debut alongside me, as he not only had the Botham factor to deal with, but also Gower, whose status was every bit as lofty as Beefy’s, if a little more understated. It must be easier these days, with the England team having a much more settled look to it – too much so, some would argue. In fact, there cannot be many players in the current England set-up who do not know their international team-mates better than they know their colleagues back at their counties. This must help enormously. By contrast, at the time I made my debut, England players reported for duty on the morning before the Test, and had a quick net and fielding practice in the afternoon. The selectors, wearing suits, would watch knowingly from a distance, and then it was back to the hotel to prepare for the evening team get-together.
I was curious to experience the eve-of-Test dinner, for this really was entering the inner sanctum. Ever since those days of the blacked-out sitting room at the farm I had dreamed of playing for my country, and although I had not been told that I would definitely fulfil my ambition the following morning, I was at least sitting at the table. To my right was Alec Bedser, the former great Surrey and England seam bowler and a previous chairman of selectors. To my left was Peter May, another legend of the game and the current chairman. How I wished Dad could see me now.
Bedser and I had an interesting, if unusual, eve-of-Test-debut conversation, not about bowling, but about the potatoes he had recently planted in his allotment. He spoke at length about the variety involved, although I cannot now remember what they were. May was polite but very reserved. It dawned on me all too late that the experienced old hands – Botham, Gower, Allan Lamb and co. – had all dashed for the other end of the table. Down there, there was much laughter and banter. Finally, after May had said a few words of welcome, the select -ors left the room. It was now Gower’s turn to give the captain’s team talk. This was taken very seriously, with the players chipping in with their thoughts on how to dismiss each opposition batsman. After a short debate amongst the bowlers about the batsman’s weaknesses, Botham would announce that he would bounce him out. It became apparent that he would finish with all ten wickets in each innings, and the West Indies batsmen would be lucky to make double figures between them. It was funny, of course, but just like Fred Trueman, Ian had absolute, unswerving conviction in his own ability: he meant it.
Ian did actually feature in both of the wickets I claimed in the match. First, he caught Gordon Greenidge at third slip. Then, as his great friend Viv Richards sauntered to the crease, Botham said: ‘Right. Don’t pitch a single ball up at him. Have two men back for the hook, and bowl short every ball.’ This I did for three overs or so, by which time Viv was looking a little exasperated, but was definitely on the back foot. Finally I pitched one up, the great man missed it and umpire David Constant ruled that Richards was LBW for 15. If I am honest, had the umpires’ Decision Review System been in place at The Oval that day, Viv might have had the decision overturned by technology: it looked a little on the high side.
I remained in the team for the Test that followed; a one-off encounter with Sri Lanka at Lord’s which was a terribly disappointing match from an England perspective. Again, the team dinner was dominated by Botham’s plan to bounce out every batsman, but when he executed this theory against Sri Lanka’s captain, Duleep Mendis, the ball kept dis appearing several rows back into the Mound Stand. Mendis hammered 111 in the first innings, and 94 from only 97 balls in the second as his team dominated the match, and we all fared badly. The Test began in unusual fashion when, just as I was about to bowl the first ball, some demonstrators ran onto the field and Dickie Bird, the umpire, panicked. ‘Terrorists!’ he shouted, flapping his arms about. ‘They’re terrorists!’ In fact they were supporters of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, and after a few minutes they had made their point and quietly left the ground.
I took only a couple of wickets in Sri Lanka’s first innings of 491, and preparing to leave the dressing room to bowl in their second, I heard a discussion on the television between the commentators, who were agreed that this was make or break for me. I do not blame them – it was our fault for having the sound up, and besides, they were right. Unfortunately, I went out to bowl with my head full of negative thoughts, bowled a load of no-balls, and although I was called out as a replacement, I failed to make the original selection for the winter tour of India.
My final opportunity with England came the following summer, in the fourth Test against Australia at Old Trafford. I might have played in the previous game at Trent Bridge, but Arnie Sidebottom – father of Ryan – got the nod despite not being fit. Arnie knew he would probably not get through the Test, but such was his determination to win an England cap that he declared himself fit. He managed to bowl eighteen overs before hobbling off, and was never chosen again.
The Test was played in miserable weather, with a howling gale blowing straight down the ground throughout, and too much time was lost for either team to force a result. I failed to get a wicket in my twenty-three overs, finished with match figures of 0 for 99 and lost my place to Richard Ellison, who bowled magnificently in the next two Tests to win the Ashes.
I was surprised to receive, a few weeks later, an invitation from the Prime Minister’s office to attend a celebration at Number 10 Downing Street, but set off anyway full of curiosity. I suspected that the incumbent, Margaret Thatcher, was not much of a cricket fan when she shook my hand at the top of the famous staircase in Number 10 and warmly congratulated me on my performance. But she was a very generous hostess, and gave a small group of us a guided tour of the building.
That was it for me on the international front; just a taster, and it is hard to avoid the feeling that I should have done better. Still, my England cap remains one of my proudest possessions.
One thing my brief experience of Test cricket did teach me is that it cannot be easy to be England captain and then go straight back to one’s county and lead that team as well. But that is what David Gower had to do. It certainly would not happen today. Although there is now much more international cricket than there used to be, I refuse to accept that being captain of England against Australia in 1985 was any less stressful than it was in 2009. We knew in the Leicestershire dressing room that David would return from Test duty exhausted, and that taking us onto the field in a comparatively dull championship match was probably the last thing he felt like doing. It did lead to some amusing incidents, however, like the time he lost the toss and we found ourselves in the field against Surrey.
‘Bowl the first over then,’ he said to me rather wearily as we approached the middle. ‘And set your own field.’
David wandered off to second slip, while I did the rest: point, mid-off, short leg, fine leg, third man . . . Hang on. Third man? A quick headcount revealed that we had twelve players on the field: David had forgotten to tell one of our squad that he was not playing in that match. In the end my old sparring partner Les Taylor, who was profoundly deaf in one ear, was despatched from the field after a great deal of long-range shouting and arm-waving from the skipper in the slip cordon.
I loved playing under David’s captaincy, and he remains a regular dinner companion when we are commentating on England’s winter tours. He always allowed bowlers to think for themselves and work at their own plans. If he was not happy with the way things were going, he would suggest a change, but he was nothing like as pernickety as modern captains, who seem to make fielding changes after every delivery.
Peter Willey, who led Leicestershire when David was absent and for one complete season when David took a breather, also played a huge part in my development as a cricketer. Peter was as hard as nails, and his legendary bravery at the crease meant he was regularly pushed out to do battle with the terrifying West Indian fast bowlers of the late 1970s and 1980s. He could not tolerate anything other than total commitment, and hated what he called ‘namby pambies’, of whom I would certainly have been one. He would exact his revenge for my gentle dressing-room teasing by making me nightwatchman whenever possible. This has to be the worst job in cricket. Having bowled for most of the day, the victim is then ordered to go out and bat against opposition fast bowlers who have only a few overs in which to give it everything they have. The theory is that a tail-ender is more dispensable than a front-line batsman, but it is a no-win situation, the cricketing equivalent of being blindfolded, having your hands tied and being given a last drag on a cigarette.
The situation is far worse when one is also a complete coward, a weakness I cannot deny, and which Willey knew only too well. It always disappointed me that I was not braver as a batsman, but the sight of a huge West Indian fast bowler hurtling in to bowl at me turned my knees to jelly, while at the same time not rendering me incapable of retreating with an impressive turn of speed towards the square-leg umpire just as the bowler let the ball go. Jack Birkenshaw, who became an umpire after his playing days, once held up play when I was batting against Michael Holding. The problem was that I was stepping to leg to give Holding a good view of the stumps which, hopefully, he would then aim at and hit. But Holding, armed with a new ball, thought there was some sport to be had, and fired bouncer after bouncer at me as I moved further and further away from the pitch. In the end Birkenshaw had to inform the fielding captain that he was moving from square leg and would take up his position on the other side of the wicket, because he believed he was in danger of either being trampled on by me, or being struck on the head by a Holding thunderbolt. A cricket ball hurts, as is a recurring theme amongst the celebrity guests I interview on Saturday lunchtimes on Test Match Special; they all love the game, but many of them were put off playing it because they were hit as youngsters.
I remember Willey gleefully sending me out to bat as nightwatchman against Hampshire when only a few overs remained in the day, and the great West Indian fast bowler Malcolm Marshall was in full cry. It always took me by surprise, after my time came to pick up my bat and leave the sanctuary of the dressing room, to discover that, against my better judgement, I had actually managed to transport myself to the pitch. Rather like getting from the dentist’s waiting room to his surgery chair, you know you do not want to do it, but something overrides your anxiety and you make the walk. It is hardly surprising that I was particularly hesitant on this occasion, because Marshall bowling at full tilt gave you less than half a second to see the ball, let alone hit it or, more important still, stop it from hitting you.
I once had the sort of view that money cannot buy when I was at the other end when Marshall was bowling to Gower in a county championship match. From twenty-two yards away it was a wonderful contest, with Marshall’s naturally competitive nature making him strain every sinew to get Gower out. Only from that position – leaning on one’s bat and determined not to leave the non-striker’s crease – can you appreciate the extra time to see the ball that sets batsmen like Gower apart from lesser mortals. Sometimes, having played Marshall defensively off the front foot, Gower would smile up the pitch, nod his head and say, ‘Well bowled.’ Then a graceful flash of the bat would send the next ball flying through point for four, at which Marshall would acknowledge the stroke. It was high-octane stuff with no quarter given, but carried out in an atmosphere of absolute mutual respect. I was almost sorry when Marshall ruthlessly brushed me aside at his first opportunity, because it had been a very special experience.
To be fair, Marshall and I always got on very well. He apologised whenever he hit me, which I took to be a compliment. On this occasion, a couple of hostile deliveries flew past my nose at high speed, and I could see Willey, the next man to bat, sitting and laughing on the pavilion balcony. Marshall dug another ball in short which fizzed nastily towards my ribs and passed down the leg side to the wicketkeeper. Someone on the field uttered a stifled appeal for caught behind – not much of one, I accept, but enough for a sporting ‘walker’ like me to do the decent thing and give myself out. After all, there must have been a chance that the ball had flicked my glove on the way past.
There was some surprise amongst the Hampshire fielders when I tucked my bat under my arm and set off for the pavilion. Sam Cook, the umpire, certainly was not expecting it, while Marshall, who had turned and started to walk back to the start of his run-up, could not believe his eyes as I overtook him.
‘Where are you going, man?’
‘I’m out, Malcolm. A little glove. Well bowled.’
The mood had changed somewhat on our balcony, and I had not made it to the small gate by the sightscreen when a furious Willey appeared, pulling on his helmet.
‘I’ll have you for this,’ he hissed through clenched teeth.
After taking some nasty blows from Marshall, Willey settled the score in the next match, which was played in the peaceful setting of Chesterfield’s Queen’s Park. It is a beautiful cricket ground, surrounded by trees and with a duck pond at the far end, but it lost all its serenity and calm whenever Michael Holding was bowling for Derbyshire, when it quickly came to resemble a war zone. As it was a local derby there was a decent crowd gathered as I went out to bat, fully padded up from head to toe. The pavilion at Queen’s Park is a wonderful building, with a large balcony running virtually the entire length of its first floor, on which the redundant members of the batting team sit in the open air and watch the game.
Again, it was one of those surreal journeys to the middle, and I was halfway there when it was rudely interrupted by a recognisable voice shouting from the balcony:
‘Oi! You forgot something!’
I knew it was Willey, and decided to ignore him and stare deter-minedly at the ground, although the cheer from the crowd suggested that something was going on behind me. Thud! A large white and almost fully unravelled toilet roll landed at my feet: Willey had launched it like a streamer from the players’ balcony to create surely the most humiliating entrance by a batsman in the history of cricket.
County cricket was a hard slog around the country, with matches directly following each other, often with a long car journey in between. Andy Roberts, the wonderful West Indian fast bowler, was my regular chauffeur when he played for Leicestershire. As a cricketer he was the silent, moody type, preferring a glare to abusing – known as sledging – the batsman, but in the car we would have animated discussions about bowling. Andy was used to pottering around the quiet, potholed roads of Antigua, and our wide, open roads quickly encouraged him to drive as fast as he bowled, but a good deal less accurately. When he retired, I was promoted to one of the lucky five drivers on the car list. This was one of the benefits of being among the senior players in the team, because it meant you got to take your car on away trips, which was not only more convenient, but meant you received additional expenses for the cost of the journey. I often had Chris Lewis, as talented a cricketer as I have ever seen, as my rather erratic navigator. A wonderful athlete with a physique to die for, he was capable of bowling genuinely fast, and was a sensational fielder. He was also a good enough batsman to score a century for England.
Lewis was shy, gentle, definitely a loner, and a most unusual dresser with a particular fondness for strange hats, including one with a racoon’s tail that dangled down the back of his neck. He would devote hours to signing autographs for children, who he would strictly arrange into an orderly queue, yet he could also be exasperatingly disorganised, to the extent of turning up only half an hour before the scheduled start of a one-day international at The Oval in which he was due to play. He claimed to have had a puncture, but was dropped from the team.
I spent hours in the car with Chris, and reckoned to know him pretty well, so I was genuinely shocked when he was convicted of drug smuggling in 2009 and sentenced to thirteen years in prison. I cannot imagine the Chris Lewis I knew coping easily with that prospect, and it is a desperately sad episode to follow a cricket career that failed to fulfil its enormous potential.
With such a variety of characters in the dressing room, and the sheer joy of playing the game for a living, there cannot be many more enjoyable and satisfying careers than that of a professional cricketer. I think I was especially fortunate because – while acknowledging that this could sound like a Fred Trueman moment – I really believe that county cricket was at its strongest in the late 1970s and 1980s. Players of earlier generations will be horrified by that statement, and can make perfectly valid claims for their own eras if they like, but for me the clincher was the presence of so many talented overseas players in those years who returned summer after summer, and who really were proper full-time members of their county teams. There is so much coming and going these days, because of the increased international commitments, that it is impossible to remember who is playing for which county in any given week or competition. Most counties in my time had two world-class overseas professionals, and with England’s cricketers also appearing between Tests, the quality of county cricket can surely never have been higher. Richard Hadlee and Clive Rice at Nottinghamshire, Imran Khan and Garth Le Roux at Sussex, Malcolm Marshall and Gordon Greenidge at Hampshire, Viv Richards and Joel Garner at Somerset – the list goes on and on of the partnerships of top cricketers who were deeply committed to their counties, their colleagues and their supporters.
Some of them were very approachable, too. I remember Hadlee, the calculating and robotically accurate New Zealand fast bowler, wandering up to me as I marked out my run-up before a champion -ship match at Grace Road. He asked how the season was going, and I said it was OK, but that I had started to have a problem over-stepping the crease, and bowling no-balls. I explained how I kept lengthening my run by an inch or two to compensate, but the problem just would not go away.
‘That’s exactly what you’re doing wrong,’ Hadlee replied. ‘It sounds illogical, but you must always shorten your run-up by a foot. Your stride will be smaller, you won’t stretch and you’ll stop bowling no-balls. Works for me every time. Good luck.’ And with that Hadlee – a member of the opposing team – walked off, having volunteered an absolutely priceless tip.
There were others who were not so kind. Most of the West Indian fast bowlers fell into this category, despite my shameless attempts to befriend them. These efforts included attending a Benefit event one evening for Wayne Daniel, who was a particular bully when charging in for Middlesex. I even made sure he saw me buying a raffle ticket, but he still tried to kill me next day. And then there was a very special category reserved for those overseas players who commanded such respect for their achievements and their sheer presence that one felt like doffing one’s cap whenever they walked past.
In fact, there was only one man in this group: Vivian Richards, a batsman like no other in the way he ruthlessly dismembered bowling attacks, hitting the ball miles with apparent effortlessness. Others have come close to matching him in that department, but I have never seen such an intimidating figure as Richards at the crease. Mechanically chewing a piece of gum, he would swagger about, never the least bit hurriedly. He is massively built, more like a heavyweight boxer than a cricketer, with an enormous neck. Never helmeted, he always sweated profusely, and when focused on the serious business of batting, he smiled only very rarely.
My first conversation with Viv was brief, and rather hostile. As a young fast bowler and thus, in Viv’s eyes, an upstart to be dismissively swatted away, I made a delivery rear from just short of a length which struck the great man’s glove in front of his not inconsiderable nose. Disappointingly, the ball looped over the wicketkeeper’s head and landed safely, but it was a moral victory, and I felt fully justified in releasing a loud cry of exasperation after an extended follow-through.
‘You know what you are, man?’ Viv shouted from only a couple of yards away, stabbing a finger at me, his eyes blazing with rage. ‘You’re a turkey. A f—ing turkey!’
This was remarkably perceptive, since Dad had been a poultry farmer, but I suspect Viv was not aware of that. Instead it is an example of how Viv loved a fight, and how an incident like that would get him going after, quite possibly, a sluggish start, the legacy of a night out in the bars of Taunton with his great friend Ian Botham. We got off lightly this time – he scored only 75.
Very few batsmen are good enough to take on fast bowlers verbally like that. The most common form of sledging is the other way round, with a fast bowler abusing or mocking a batsman with the aim of unsettling his concentration in the hope that he will make an error and get himself out. Sometimes it can get nasty and personal, in which case the umpire intervenes to calm tempers, but a lot of sledging is nothing more than humorous banter which can be very entertaining.
Viv was involved in my favourite example of sledging, which was both funny and harmless, but shows him at his intimidating best. It occurred in 1981, when a law was introduced limiting bowlers to just one bouncer an over. This was designed to put a brake on the dangerous fast bowling perfected so ruthlessly by the West Indians rather than to emasculate young English quicks. But my Leicestershire colleague Gordon Parsons was very aggressive, and since he routinely bowled at least four bouncers every over, the new regulation had a serious impact on his repertoire.
Tearing in down the hill against Somerset, Parsons struck early on this occasion when Phil Slocombe edged to slip. Typically, Gordon celebrated wildly, but the rest of us, and the bowlers in particular, were not quite so thrilled, because this breakthrough merely brought in the visitors’ number 3.
We already knew that Viv was in a foul mood. He had been warming up that morning by hitting balls repeatedly against the fence, when Leicestershire’s chief executive, Mike Turner, made a public announcement over the Tannoy.
‘Will players please refrain from hitting balls into the advertising boards. And that includes you, Mr Richards.’
This was not a sensible tactic. Viv’s upper lip curled, and he stomped back to the dressing room. When he came out to bat, it was the first we had seen of him since then; and what an entrance it was. He was at his arrogant, strutting best, thumping the top of his bat handle menacingly with the palm of his gloved hand with every step he took, and staring the bowler straight in the eye before taking guard.
I was standing at mid-off, and could savour every moment from close range. I knew exactly what Gordon would bowl to Richards first ball. In fact, everyone knew – even dear old Dot, one of our most loyal supporters, who was knitting away as usual in the deckchair by the little gate through which Viv had just marched. Viv looked very deliberately towards the deep-square-leg boundary, where a man was standing hopeful of a catch from the hook shot.
When the great man was ready, and not a moment before, he settled slowly over his bat. Gordon came charging in like a wild thing. Barely a second after he released the ball, the ground reverberated to what sounded like both barrels of a shotgun being simultaneously discharged. In fact it was Viv’s bat making contact with the ball, which was now sailing high out of the ground. The next thing we heard was the shattering of the glass roof of a factory some distance along the adjoining street. It was a magnificent shot, and Dickie Bird relished the theatre of it all as he paused before turning and signalling the obvious to the scorebox. Then Dickie addressed Gordon, sufficiently loudly for Viv to hear.
‘That’s it, Gordy lad. That’s your one bouncer for t’over.’ At which point Viv rushed up the pitch, left arm raised, shouting, ‘No, no, Dickie man. Tell him he can bowl as many as he wants!’
I note that Richards was eventually bowled by Agnew for 196. It was the last ball before lunch, and it struck him on his pad, then his thigh, and then his ankle before somehow trickling into his stumps just hard enough to knock one bail to the ground. They all count, I suppose, but Viv could barely drag himself away from the crease.
For a professional cricketer the summers were wonderful; the winters less so, unless one was on tour with England. The problem was that the players were employed only for six months, from April until September. Then your P45 would arrive in the post with the scheduled reporting date for the following year, and sometimes a note wishing everyone a happy Christmas. And that was that.
An average cricketing salary paid pretty well over a six-month period – about £12,000 – but not well enough to stretch over the whole year, so it was crucial to find work in the winters. But who would employ a cricketer who possessed no other skills or experience, and who would be leaving at the end of March anyway? It was an issue that must have dissuaded many talented players, particularly those with university degrees or other qualifications, from taking up the game professionally. I remember interviewing the former England captain, Tony Greig, about this subject, and he strongly advocated the return of the amateur cricketer. By insisting that all of its first-class cricketers are professional, England cannot be selecting from all of the best players in the country.
I drove a lorry for a couple of winters, delivering asbestos amongst other things around the country. The vehicle was so decrepit that I needed to stand up, pressing the accelerator pedal flat to the floor, to get up to speed. Rather like Johnners rebuilding his tank engine, it often seemed that there was more in the back of the lorry when I returned to the depot at the end of a day than when I had set off that morning. One of Leicestershire’s benefactors kindly gave me a job in his window factory, and at least I managed to progress from the shop floor, where I was disastrous with a mallet, to the office. But none of this was really for me, and when I found myself with a young family, it started to become a worry.
Then, right on cue, came one of those life-changing moments. John Rawling, an old friend who was the sports producer at BBC Radio Leicester at the time, suggested that I give local radio a go for one winter, and see how it went. He warned me that I would be paid virtually nothing, which turned out to be true, and started me off producing short reports and colour pieces for the breakfast programme. One reason for local radio being such a brilliant starting point for wannabe broadcasters is that in no time you find yourself having to try your hand at everything. When youngsters ask me how to get into sports broadcasting, I always advise them to go and knock on the door of their local radio station. If no one hears you the first time, go and do it again.
Sure enough, it was not long before someone moved on to another post within the network, and I found myself preparing and presenting the early-morning sports desks with barely any experience what soever. But I loved the buzz of live broadcasting, and in the journalists at Radio Leicester I found like-minded people who worked hard and played hard in equal measure. The combination of working at Radio Leicester during the winter and playing for the county during the summer was absolutely ideal for me. It lasted for three happy years until I retired from professional cricket.
Part of the reason for the kick one gets out of live broadcasting is the knowledge that a cock-up is only just around the corner. With luck and skill, these minefields can be negotiated, but sometimes there is nothing one can do. One particularly disastrous opening to the Saturday-afternoon sports show, which I had only very recently been promoted to present, was described by the usually calm, polite and experienced Programme Organiser as ‘The worst piece of radio I have ever heard.’ That was a bit harsh, I thought: all I had done was failed to get on air for thirty seconds, and followed this with a sudden burst of music played at the wrong speed. Perhaps the fact that the song was Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Get it Right Next Time’ did not help.
My worst howler would have a happy ending, at least. One of the duties of the early-morning sports presenter was to record the news circuit from London. This was a series of tapes and interview clips which was sent automatically every hour to all the local BBC radio stations, and which the newsreaders would use for their bulletins. My job was to record each one onto its own individual blue plastic cartridge, which was basically a continuous loop of tape, label it and hand the whole lot to the newsreader, who on this occasion was a tall and pretty blonde girl in her late teens called Emma Norris.
There were two potential pitfalls: the first was that you had to remember to erase each cartridge meticulously before recording the desired clip. This was vital, because otherwise the new recording would not work, and you would be left with the original, whatever it might have been. The second was that there were literally hundreds of identical blue cartridges lying about in the cluttered and untidy studio.
As it happened, England’s cricketers were in Australia on Mike Gatting’s Ashes-winning tour of 1986–87, and I had to record Peter West’s live report on one of the Test matches from the Radio 4 Today programme, which I would then replay during my own bulletin. Unfortunately there was a breakdown in communications between the studio in London and Peter in Australia, so when I pressed the button with perfect timing, all I succeeded in recording was a harassed Radio 4 presenter calling out in increasing desperation, ‘Hello, Peter. Peter, can you hear me? Peter?’
Disappointed, I went to broadcast my sports report, and returned to record the next news circuit from London for Emma, after which I duly handed her the cartridges.
Settling down to read the newspaper, I was surprised to hear a familiar voice drifting across the newsroom from one of the loudspeakers which relayed the station’s output.
‘Hello, Peter. Peter, can you hear me? Peter?’ This was followed by Emma’s standard BBC apology: ‘I’m sorry. We don’t seem to be able to bring you that report.’
Miss Norris was not her usual cheery self when she returned from the studio. Flinging the cartridge at me, she told me to make sure they had all been properly erased in future.
Shortly before the nine o’clock news, the Tannoy sparked into life with an urgent announcement from London. Another tape was on its way: ‘Stand by to record in ten, nine, eight . . .’
Rushing into the studio, I grabbed a blue cartridge, shoved it into the slot and apparently recorded the item perfectly. It was an important soundbite, too: the Reverend Ian Paisley reacting angrily to a surprise visit to Northern Ireland by the Prime Minister.
With Emma already on her way to read the news, I triumphantly handed her what would now be her lead story. Moments later, the news jingle sounded. ‘Radio Leicester news at nine o’clock, I’m Emma Norris. We have just heard that the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, has made a surprise visit to Northern Ireland. This is the reaction of the Reverend Ian Paisley: “Hello, Peter. Peter, can you hear me? Peter?”’
That was the last time I was let loose on the early-morning circuit, but at least, in time, Emma managed to forgive me. We were married in 1995.
* * *
The realisation for the first time that there was life outside cricket was a great eye-opener. It had a profound impact on my game, too. Professional cricket is an uncertain career which can be ended at any time by injury or loss of form, and unless a county player is fortunate enough to enjoy a successful Benefit (a year of tax-free money-raising on his behalf), he will not earn nearly enough to set him up for the big wide world when his playing days are over. To know that all will be well at the end is enormously reassuring.
I took a hundred wickets for Leicestershire in the 1987 season, and the following year I came frustratingly close to the recall to the England team that I had set my heart on. David Gower was again the captain, but it was a disastrous Ashes campaign which, with just the final Test at The Oval to play, stood at 4–0 to Australia. Leicestershire was playing Surrey at Grace Road over the weekend before the Test, and England’s squad had been announced, but time and again the telephone rang in our dressing room with bad news from a succession of fast bowlers reporting to David that they were injured, and could not play against Australia.
By the end of the day David looked a broken man, slumped in his seat and with no idea who to choose for England.
‘What about Agnew?’ suggested Peter Willey from his chair in the corner. ‘He’s bowling pretty well at the moment.’
David’s face lit up. ‘Of course!’ he said. ‘Jonathan, you’re in. Go home, get your England stuff ready, and I’ll call first thing tomorrow to confirm everything.’
Even though I was approximately the seventeenth choice, this was still fantastic news. I called Dad when I arrived home, told him to keep the Saturday of the Test match clear, and dug out my England cap and sweaters which had remained folded in a drawer ever since they were last used, briefly, in 1985. After three dis appointing Test appearances, this was my second chance, and the opportunity to set the record straight that I had worked so hard for.
To be up early next morning to await the England captain’s call was clearly a schoolboy error. David Gower’s idea of ‘first thing’ is what most people would consider third thing, possibly even fourth. It seemed hours before the telephone finally rang.
‘Got some bad news, I’m afraid,’ David began. ‘I couldn’t persuade Ted Dexter or Mickey Stewart, so you’re not in any more. They’ve gone for Alan Igglesden. Know anything about him?’
With that, David must have known his influence as England captain was over – and indeed Graham Gooch succeeded him after that Test. I felt utterly devastated, and knew I would never play for England again, which had been my main motivating force. So when the Today newspaper offered me the post of cricket correspondent the following summer, it was an easy decision to make. I might have been only thirty, which was no age to retire from professional cricket, and I could easily have played for another five years. But it was definitely time to move on.
