CMJ: England experiences climate of change (27 May 1997)

Tuesday 27 May 1997

England experiences climate of change

writes Christopher Martin-Jenkins.

NOT for a long time has the shop window of cricket in Britain looked so full of good things as it does this morning. An England side capable of winning the World Cup in two years` time has defeated Australia three times in four days. Hollioake has become a household name. The new England selection committee have made a triumphant start. The administrators are basking in a glow of prosperity.

On and off the field, however, it is as well that all concerned should keep their feet on the ground. Australia, mentally bruised, underprepared and unusually vulnerable though they will be when the first Test starts at Edgbaston next Thursday, will be a different proposition, especially with the ball. If there was a transformation when England won the last two Tests in New Zealand, it was only a beginning.

The work of the England and Wales Cricket Board has only just started too; and they are on the verge of difficult and farreaching decisions. Whilst their debate about the future structure of professional cricket continues, a reorganisation of their own administrative structure is imminent. Within two weeks they will not only appoint a media relations officer but also announce their intention to coordinate all the work of those involved with the England team in the person of a new executive director.

The new controller of England cricket will be head- hunted and will not necessarily be a former first-class cricketer. He will oversee the work of Bob Bennett`s England Management Committee, the selection committee, the captain, the coach and the back-up staff of coaches, fitness experts, physiotherapists and psychologists. He will act as a personnel manager of all England players from the under-19 team upwards, dealing with such matters as their contracts, travel, insurance and public relations.

In all probability he will be the administrative head of a group of 15 to 20 players who will in future be directly contracted to England and paid by the ECB rather than their counties. He will not manage England teams abroad, but he will oversee The Management and control the budget. If David Lloyd wants an extra bowling coach, he will decide if it is necessary. If the team are getting a bad press, he will want to know why.

The proposed appointment will send out a clear signal to everyone that the England cricket team is the absolute priority. Whether this is just another level of an expensive bureaucracy perhaps only time will tell. It is part of Lord MacLaurin`s value to the game, however, that he understands how business should be run and how valuable people should be managed, so he should surely be given the benefit of any doubt when it comes to his own particular field of expertise. By taking some of the detailed duties of England affairs out of the hands of Tim Lamb, he will clear the way for the ECB`s chief executive to take on a more strategic role, giving him more time to communicate freely with people at all levels of the game, not least those who are tending the crucial grass roots.

Lamb was at pains yesterday to deflect criticism from old England players that ECB staff are now to be seen walking about in blazers and ties looking very like those which were once, quite rightly, the exclusive preserve of those who had played for England. The new corporate image has a commercial edge to it, so much so that the logo is three lions and a coronet, not a crown, which, for heraldic reasons, could not have been sold to the public.

Lamb made no apology for the plan to sell replica England shirts, ties and hats, but promised that old-fashioned England caps, with a crown not a coronet, would be presented to the players and that their own ties and blazers would not have the initials ECB. Incidentally new England Test players will receive their cap from the captain on the field of play: another lesson learned from Australia.

There could be no better tonic, of course, for the game at all levels than beating Australia. The much harder campaign for the Ashes now becomes the priority for both sides. When they choose the side this weekend England`s selectors will revert to at least nine of the players who defeated New Zealand in Wellington and Christchurch, well aware that bowlers like Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath will be different propositions when they have close fielders in support. McGrath could not resist making that point by bowling a bouncer at Ben Hollioake, illegal in the one-day game, after the whippersnapper had driven him for four with all the airy enjoyment of a boy dispatching a tennis ball into the sea on a beach in Barbados.

That was a symbolic moment (not that the bouncer bothered the boy much). There has been a hint here and there these last few days as to how the coming Test series might go; but no more. Again and again it must be stressed that these were one-day matches and that the Tests are still to come; that Australia were, entirely through the fault of their own administrators, foolishly under-prepared for matches of this intensity; and that England have always tended to be at their best in early-season limited-overs games on their own soil.

All the same, they have handed out a rare old pasting to their opponents and with only two first-class matches to prepare for the first Test, the Australians are looking every bit as vulnerable as English optimists hoped they would. After years of domination - they won this series 3-0 themselves in 1993 - the boot is on the other foot and it gives every appearance of fitting England rather snugly.

There was no mistaking the relative disarray of the Australians and they need to put many things right quickly, starting with the batting form of their captain, Mark Taylor, who will be praying for better luck against Gloucestershire at Bristol today. Their fielding also needs urgent attention. Nothing was more obvious in the Texaco games than the discrepancy in this area. England throws were hitting the stumps as Australian ones used to; the catches were sticking; the ball was running their way.

A FINAL word on the internationals. I have for some time argued in favour of five such games, and five Tests, when a single side is touring. A triangular tournament when there are two makes sense too. But why in heaven`s name must we play in future in those hideous coloured shirts for daylight matches? Would a garish football shirt have added anything to the spectacle of Ben Hollioake driving Glenn McGrath in the sunshine before a full house at Lord`s?

Those who understand why, for all their instant attractions, these 50-over games will never have the depth of Test cricket should savour the last few days. The matches were fun; all-action entertainment provided by cricketers who were fresh and eager. There were full houses for all three games. But the pudding is about to be over-egged. In 1999 Britain stages the World Cup and there is a clear danger that here, as elsewhere, 50-over matches will mushroom, assume a status they do not merit and devalue, rather than enhance Test cricket. Everyone would be poorer for that.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/)