From: sidi@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Sadiq Yusuf)
Subject: Article by Robin Marlar (England team)
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois.
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 05:20:36 GMT

	Well, I dont know why I didnt send this in the past after doing the
scanning. Its a little dated now, it was written soon after the selection
of the Engalnd team. Very critical, almost vitriolic at times, dont always
agree with it (tho no one was more upset than me at Gowers omission ).
Anyway, its probably interesting to compare some of the views of the
players and their actual performance so far on tour. 

		Sadiq [ the scanner ] Yusuf


More than a sniff of moral bankruptcy

THERE have been occasions in the past where the selection of England teams
for winter tours has been downright wicked. The omission of Basil
d'Oliveira just after he had scored a face-saving century in a Test against
Australia for the following winter's trip to South Africa in 1968 was one
such. The selectors had had a terrible summer and it was their face he
saved, with the innings that drew the series. It was racially convenient to
leave him out, and so, devoid of cricketing reasons, the selectors chose
the easy option. They reaped the whirlwind of a divided cricketing world.

Beside that tragedy, suffered with impressive dignity by D' Oliveira
himself, the dropping of David Gower from the team to tour India is merely
nasty. Like Dolly, Gower saved the selectors blushes with his match-winning
innings at Leeds against the Pakistanis. He has notably knuckled down to a
regime which places muscular fitness on a par with flair. He is above all a
quality player, with a record to match as England's highest scorer in Test
cricket. He is also left-handed, and the best teams usually have two of
them.       

  Instead, the England Committee chose Mike Gatting, leader of the last
South African rebel tour, coincidentally on the day of the latest massacre
in that country. Some of us have been saying that South Africa's
readmission to international cricket could have been premature. So too was
the immediate rescinding of the five-year ban on Gatting, and two others
who have also been selected John Emburey and Paul Jarvis.      

 Defending what is clearly his choice, Keith Fletcher, the new manager,
said that he did not want to have three senior players all retiring at the
same time, Graham Gooch the 39-year-old captain and Gower and Gatting who
are 35. Is Fletcher suddenly so clever at predicting when the careers of
players will end. That is a random matter, depending on fitness, form,
application and several other variable factors. Fletcher's answer will
demonstrate to those who remember him tapping down his wicket after being
given out in a Test match in Bangalore, that his essential slyness has not
deserted him.        

  Had he had the courage to face up to the one cricketing reason which he
could cite in defence of an appalling decision, he would have told Gower
and the rest of us that Gower's inability to throw was regarded as a
potential liability on a tour where there are more one-day matches,
requiring immaculate fielding, than there are Tests. With the TCCB
pooh-poohing the rising significance of one-day cricket in all its official
announcements, that line would not have been acceptable at Lord's. So the
forked tongue prevailed.       

  Even so, what price loyalty? Gower never turned his back on English
cricket, as Gatting did, even though he had more reason to do so than
Gatting. Gatting developed a chip on his shoulder and went off in a sulk
because someone, belatedly, tried to persuade him that his pursuit of the
opposite sex might get him into trouble. It will be very interesting to see
if he has learned that lesson on the coming tour of India.      

 Much more infuriating has been Gower's penchant for playing stupid strokes
on the Test arena, in a manner that Gooch, for instance, never would.
Gatting, however, was for many years the master of the raise-the-bat-high
and-shove-the-pad-at-it stroke which earned him several leg before
decisions in Tests. Nothing is more stupid than that. Latterly, Gatting was
not making runs at the highest level, reverting to the kind of performances
which made him a passenger for so long in his early years in England's
middle order. Now the selectors are extending the same inappropriate
patience to Graham Hick and Neil Fairbrother. Both these players seem more
at home in one-day cricket.        

 It is being said that Gooch wanted Gower to tour, but it was the captain
rather than the manager who telephoned Gower with the news just as he was
about to go to Winchester Cathedral to choose the hymns for his wedding.
The timing of the call was rather less happy than the timing of one of
Gower's cover drives. His emotions, he said, were of "anger,
disillusionment and complete deflation."     

 He also said that he thought the way in which his book had filtered
prematurely into the bookshops was not a factor. In it there were
criticisms of the current England set-up. The England Committee has, in my
opinion, reached the level of a national disgrace, a suddenly
self-perpetuating clique of misguided second raters, who resent suggestions
that their methods may not be soundly based on vision and intelligence.
Such people are sensitive, especially to potential arguments from within.
They echo the favourite saying of the execrable Mrs. Thatcher "Is he one of
us?" As far as tours go, Gower is not. This is the third he has missed in
four years of his prime.         

  Incidentally, his mention of the incident at The Oval where Indian
players were televised whilst sculting the ball (there is a lot of it
about!) was included solely on his own initiative by Martin Jhonson, who
collaborated on the book, an ex-cricket correspondent for The Independent
newspaper. Gower's apology, therefore, was for words, he had neither
written and possible not even read. No wonder he was surprised by the
outcry in India.      

 Nor was Fletcher's comment about a possible need for Gower in next
summer's Tests against Australia an unbarbed pleasantry. Translated into
language we can all understand, Fletcher meant that if he could bring on
some other players nearly good enough then he would have no further need of
Gower. If he failed and the team got into trouble, as it did this summer,
then Gower might have to be recalled. The cynicism of it all makes one sick
to the stomach. Better to have kept quiet, to brazen out a decision based
on personality.       

 As for the other rebels it has been said that Emburey is still the best
offspinner in the country. He is still a non-spinner of the ball and at 40
it will come as a great surprise to me if he managed to take five wickets
in any of the Tests. With young players like Shaun Udal and Robert Croft
waiting for a chance, not to mention Peter Such from his own Essex, who
goes on the A team to Australia, how does Fletcher reconcile that selection
with his youth policy.       

 As for Jarvis, the England selectors, have made themselves a laughing
stock in Yorkshire where it has been hard to keep this once promising fast
bowler in the field never mind taking wickets. It is three seasons since he
last took five in an innings. Perhaps they believe that the management in
Yorkshire is so bad that they can bring out buried gifts in this bowler
whose pace was once more widely believed in than it is now.      

 They have also chosen a quick lefthander in his middle 20s, Paul Taylor of
Northamptonshire of whom no one in India will have heard. Tried by
Derbyshire, he disappeared into minor county cricket before his transfer at
the beginning of last season. In an early season game I saw him returned
with figures of nought for over a hundred but thought he had potential. As
for the others Defreitas seems unable to keep fit, Lewis cqn be good but is
unreliable, and Malcolm will sweat buckets bowling as fast as he can, but
hardly has the cricketing brain of a Kapil.        

 Dermot Reeve does have that quality and it is good to see that the
selectors have recognised the need to treat the wicket-keeping place as a
home for another all-rounder. Alec Stewart may not be pleased to be batting
down the order, and I should keep him at the top of it, disbelieving the
theory that keepers cannot be opening batsmen too. Richard Blakey is an
almost exact understudy. Mike Atherton has something to prove, and so does
Phil Tufnell, the left armer who does spin the ball. Finally there is Robin
Smith, a mighty player at this level, but one who is intermittently inept
against spin bowling, particularly out of the back of the hand.        

 Fletcher, of course, was promoted to the manager's position from the A
team, which is now under the care of Norman Gifford, not a success as
coach on previous England tours, and with a miserable record of failure at
Sussex. What conceivable purpose can be served by many of the selections
there is another question.    

 The team is to be skippered by a 33 year-old, Martyn Moxon of Yorkshire, a
pleasant enough fellow, but without the first requirement of anyone with
Test aspirations. His vice-captain is Jack Russell, another agreeable
character but a keeper whose flaws have belatedly been recognised this
season. Included also is David Capel, the Northants all-rounder whose Test
career can only be described as brief, not distinguished enough and already
extinguished. Paul Prichard is another in his 30s who is not going to make
the England team and another Essex player Mark Illot a lefthand quickie, has
not improved sufficiently.        

 Choices I do applaud are those of Mark Lathwel, at 20 the youngest of all
and Mike Roseberry who have been making dollops of runs for Somerset and
Middlesex. Andrew Caddick who has come to England from New Zealand is a
good choice, and Dominic Cork of Derbyshire would have been in my top
squad. David Millns the Leicestershire bowler has a fitness problem and it
will serve the England selectors fight for if Martin McCague, born in
Ulster but raised in Australia haunts them years after choosing to opt for
Australia dufing the coming season. Terry Middleton, the Hampshire grafter,
Graham Thorpe, the Surrey lefthander, Graham Lloyd who has not had his best
season at Lancashire and lan Salisbury the Sussex legspinner will start
with the party to Australia.           

 Strong cases could be made for others. However the whole concept of teams
seems to me to be open to question. They are expensive and so far only
Blakey has emerged from the last two such tours. Now rebel tours are a
different matter altogether. The England Committee have managed to find
three players from that quarter. They appear to be totally unashamed about
it. There is more than a sniff of moral bankruptcy in the air. It is hard
to wish them well.       

Robin Marlar





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