From: vigneswa@ecs.umass.edu
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket
Subject: Fletcher:  Who is he.....  
Date: 5 Jan 93 11:22:50 GMT

Leadership with a quiet word

Scyld Berry , The Independent, Jan 03, Sport Page , Page 26 

	As a countryman himself, Keith Fletcher must know the pros and cons
of the plant  belladonna.  In the  right quantity  it can be beneficial, in
medicine or cosmetics. Too much of it, and belladonna lives up to its other
name: deadly nightshade.

	As  the new manager  of England's cricket team, Fletcher finds him-
self in an analogous position.  When his first match in charge starts today
at Faridabad, outside  New Delhi, Fletcher  will be there to offer his team
those insights into  opponents, conditions and  techniques which  make this
game  the most  cerebral of physical sports.  But if  he is to  justify the
remarkable  length of his  contract - a full five  years - he will  have to
assist the England captain in the right quantity, and no further.

	The reasons that make this constraint essential are twofold. One is
that any  cricket manager, off  the field, is  bound to fail if he attempts
the hands-on  control of a captain.  The second is a matter of personality.
Fletcher, although  born in  Worcester in  1944, has  always been  a  rural
Essex man, from  his receding  hairline down to the feet that  wore winkle-
pickers when he went straight from school into the county side aged 17, and
led to  his nickname of "The Gnome".  In  county cricket  his portfolio  of
achievements, as  batsman and  captain, illustrates how effective he can be
when he feels at ease, at home. But on the wider, England  stage he has not
been - until now at any rate - the same secure man.

	When asked by the  TCCB for their recommendation, the  England Test
committee put forward no candidate except Fletcher to succeed Micky Stewart
(a name like  Bob Woolmer, Warwickshire's  coach, could at least  have been
considered, even if Ray Illingworth and Geoff Boycott are too busy with the
media).  Such was the  committee's  confidence that their man could  do for
England what he has done for Essex.  And Fletcher may, with luck, make Eng-
land into the world champions: but the appointment was an act of faith, not
guaranteed to succeed, because of the  major qualification  that has  to be
made.

	At a  domestic  level, not  even the  sternest  critic  would  deny
Fletcher credit for his part in making Essex the happiest and most success-
ful of the 18 first-class counties. The foundations were in place- a ground
of their own at Chelmsford, a slimmed-down  management structure - but  the
club had still not won a thing before 1979.  Since then, while Fletcher has
captained the 1st XI and then the 2nd, they have  won six championships and
five one-day trophies.

	To win the county championship every other year has been an astound
ing feat, demanding as it  did the will to win  six days a week through the
summer. It is in Essex's favour that they have played six games a season on
the park grounds at  Ilford, Colchester and  Southend, where they reckon to
win four or  five of them on  their "result" pitches, leaving  only half-a-
dozen  victories to be gained  elsewhere.  But they have still  developed a
formula which is beyond the capability of any other county, although Middle
sex might share it if  the pitches at  Lord's were not so easy. Essex - and
really Essex alone - have made three-day cricket work in the last decade.

	Everything  about the  club is  marked with  Fletcher's shrewdness.
Some  counties  fly off on  pre-season tours  to Spain or the  West Indies,
achieving a morale which flakes like a tan on returning to an English April.
Essex prepare  at home for the reality of cold days and soft, slow pitches;
and  Fletcher appreciates  that it is  the only  time  when 1st and  2nd XI
players  can get to  know each other.  When the  season begins  he is to be
found  sitting beside a  player in the dressing-room  before play  or at an
interval, confiding in squeaky tones, not lecturing publicly.  According to
the club's oldest pro, John Childs, "Fletch is a great judge of character -
he knows exactly how to motivate each player." A few need stirring up; most
need encouragement. One of The Gnome's ways is to bet  a tailender a couple
of quid that he cannot score 15 or 20 ''for him''.

	Yet Fletcher does not make the mistake of so many county cricketers
in setting personal  targets for  a season, like  1,500 runs or 60 wickets.
Instead,  Essex's cricketers  are set  the target  of winning  each game, a
vital distinction.  It should be said  that Essex under Fletcher did intro-
duce one or two tactics  into county cricket  which were not  then accepted
practice.  And Fletcher was also  renowned for  pressurising  some opposing
skippers in the hope that they would declare and set a tempting target. But
it could all be put down to keenness.

	However, the hallmark of Essex, and a key to Fletcher's personality,
is that  their players  can afford to play  selflessly  because  they  feel
secure. Contracts are not  decided by amateur  committee men who have never
played themselves and go by the averages.  Their financial provision is not
quite the  highest, but it  does its best to  minimise the uncertainties of
the professional  cricketer.  Whether or not  their  marriages  work, Essex
players  become men of  substance, like Fletcher  himself, with his country
home and leisure pursuits of shooting and fishing.

	IN AN international context, though, Fletcher has not been the same
self-confident batsman or captain. He made a duck on his Test debut in 1968,
missed three  chances in the  slips, and  was booed by the Headingley crowd
which  wanted Phil Sharpe.  It took him  20 Tests, almost  as long  as Mike
Gatting, to settle down and make his  first Test century. Only when he went
to India "as a last chance", as the selectors put it, did he, like Gatting,
start to make the most of his exceptional talent and technique.

	But even  then he seldom  batted as forthrightly for England as he
did for Essex.  He appeared  careworn  at best - at worst misanthropic, or
just plain miserable - and was always able to make batting look impossible
against bowling he would have  smacked around Colchester or Chelmsford. He
was more of a  saver than a winner  of Test matches.  At the Oval in 1974,
after Pakistan had totalled 600, Fletcher  scored the slowest century ever
made in England, in seven hours and 38 minutes.

	As captain of  England, too, he tended  to retreat into his  shell
under pressure.  Discarded after the Melbourne Centenary Test in favour of
more  exciting and  carefree bloods  like Derek  Randall and  David  Gower
(Fletcher's average against Australia was only 25), he was brought back to
succeed Mike Brearley as leader of the 1981-82 tour to India and SriLanka.
Much has been made of his tapping off the bails with his bat in Bangalore,
but he did it so  self-effacingly on his return towards the  pavilion that
it was not a major embarrassment.  More disturbing  was his reluctance  to
admit that he had done wrong and to write a letter of apology.

	More embarrassing was the protest he led in the Calcutta Test when
the umpires took the players off for bad light: Fletcher, who wanted to go
on bowling, sat down in the middle  with four of his team to make his dis-
agreement obvious. More saddening was the negative state of mind which led
England, 1-0  down in  the series, to  bowl 9.2 overs  in one hour  of the
Madras Test.  On returning  home Fletcher  was stripped  of the  captaincy
because he had shown no capacity to stand back and above the battle.

	The jury  judging his  effectiveness  as the England A  manager is
still out.  Again the  defensiveness was  apparent on his  three tours, as
England scored at 2.10 runs per over during their series in Zimbabwe, 2.11
in  Sri Lanka  and 2.4 in the West Indies;  but then young  county players
had to learn how to bat all day.  No England  batsman can be  said to have
come through yet from his A tours (one "Test" won, two lost, seven drawn),
since Mike Atherton was a full Test cap before he went on his one tour. Of
the bowlers, Ian  Salisbury has come through, Dominic Cork gone  backwards
and Keith Medlycott disappeared.  It was perhaps wise of Fletcher to bring
in Geoff Arnold as a specialist coach.

	Where the new manager will  undoubtedly score is in his  strategic
planning.  Whereas Stewart  was a very  good county  player of eight  Test
appearances, Fletcher has played against every Test country except the two
in southern Africa; and not only did he play more Test cricket-59 matches,
and 3,272 runs at an average of 39.90 - but also more recently. Given this
record he will not have to exert his authority  overtly as his predecessor
felt obliged to do, which  will allow him greater respect.  In addition to
his effect on strategy, Fletcher will analyse the opposition, while Graham
Gooch focuses on his own players.

	Come  August  next summer  and it  will be no surprise  if a self-
effacing, track-suited figure stands  towards the back of the Oval balcony
while Gooch acknowledges the applause.  The question is what  happens when
Gooch retires.  It is essential that the next captain should be a man whom
Fletcher  can advise but  cannot dominate.  For England's new team manager
will be beneficial - provided that he never again attains a position where,
if he should  retreat into his  shell, he dictates  the mood  of the whole
party.

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Vicky:
UMass, Jan 05
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket