Cricket Focus (25 July 1999)

25 July 1999

Cricket Focus

The Electronic Telegraph

It could only happen to Angus Fraser. Of all England's cricketers, it was somehow appropriate that it was Fraser who was summoned to Lord's late on Wednesday from a restaurant in Taunton to act as standby for the second Test only to have to turn round at Chiswick on Thursday morning to return west and resume playing for Middlesex against Somerset.

"I was on the phone to David Graveney [chairman of selectors] for much of the journey," said Fraser, "but then I didn't hear anything from him for a while. It made me wonder if I really might be needed to play after all. Then I took a call at 10.18 and Grav asked me where I was. 'Hogarth roundabout,' I told him. 'You might as well keep going round it and go back to Taunton,' he replied. So I did."

It was hugely frustrating for Fraser, written off by many as an England player for the umpteenth time after the World Cup, but also pleasing in that it confirmed he was still in the selectors' thoughts.

"You'd drive 170 miles to play for England any day," said Fraser. "But when it all proved in vain I couldn't help feeling low. The down side to it all is that it disrupted Middlesex during a pretty important match, but they understood."

Fraser, the not-out batsman overnight, was back in Taunton by lunchtime but, not for the first time, was left to ponder on cricket's ups and downs. He failed to add to his 12 when he eventually resumed his innings and then went wicketless as Somerset made hay.

Fraser was not the only person to go missing from Taunton. It was also noticeable that, while Somerset and Middlesex met in a championship game crucial to their top division aspirations, both coaches were absent from their posts. Mike Gatting, Middlesex's director of cricket, missed his first senior game of the season to be with the second team at Warwickshire before travelling to Lord's yesterday in his capacity as an England selector.

It was always felt that Gatting would spend time with other Middlesex teams this year but his England duties dictate that he should be watching first-class cricket.

Dermot Reeve, meanwhile, caused a few eyebrows to be raised in Taunton when the Somerset coach took up a position with the Channel 4 commentary team and could be seen, between analytical TV stints, in the new Lord's media centre scanning Teletext to check on his side's progress.

Channel 4 admit to "a fair few complaints" - as did The Telegraph - about their decision to leave yesterday's play at Lord's for 45 minutes to cover horseracing instead from Newcastle and Market Rasen. Play switched to the 4 Extra cable service and a spokesman, while refusing to put a figure on the number of callers, said: "We always expected a number of complaints but we said from the start that we had a commitment to racing and that we would try to keep the disruption to a minimum.

"It's not ideal, but most people should be able to get 4 Extra free and it's something we will have to continue doing."

Daniel Vettori and his New Zealand colleagues are likely to escape punishment for their animated reaction to umpire Rudi Koertzen's turning down of their appeal when Aftab Habib, on 11, clearly appeared to edge a catch behind.

Vettori denied that his side's reaction was in any way over the top and said: "We were pretty disappointed but that's the way it goes. I just told him I thought he was lucky."

Nasser Hussain's fractured finger came at a particularly bad time for his watching family. Hussain's brother, Abbas, arrived in London from his home in Turkey, where he works for a pharmaceutical company, late on Friday for a holiday planned to coincide with the Lord's Test. Within half an hour of Abbas watching his younger brother lead England for the first time, Nasser was in hospital.

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