Donald Trelfrod: English cricket`s sagging fortunes (9 September 1997)

Tuesday 9 September 1997

English cricket`s sagging fortunes

Donald Trelford on Tuesday

IT may not have the thoroughness of the MacLaurin Report, but the McWilliam Report on the state of English cricket, unveiled to Telegraph readers yesterday, at least has the advantage of pungency. The game, said Andrew C McWilliam, from Kirkudbright, is "immature in attitude, adolescent in response, indolent in fitness, badly led, uninspired and psychologically disabled".

It was a pity, I thought, that Mr McWilliam didn`t tell us what he really thinks. His letter then introduced a new sporting test: "You can tell if a man is fit by the hang of his bottom. There are too many saggers among the English bums."

Applying the McWilliam test to England`s cricketers, footballers, rugby players and other sportsmen will be a diverting parlour game. Readers` nominations are wel- comed for "Sagger of the Year", an award presumably divided into male and female categories.

There is another test, though perhaps less reliable, for judging the state of our cricket. How many automatic choices are there for the touring party to the West Indies, to be announced this morning? It must be a long time since three-quarters of the squad could be safely written in.

These are: Michael Atherton, Alec Stewart, Nasser Hus- sain, Graham Thorpe, Mark Ramprakash, John Crawley, Jack Russell, Robert Croft, Phil Tufnell, Darren Gough, Andy Caddick and Dean Headley.

Then choose one opener from Nick Knight, Mark Butcher and Steve James, an all-rounder from Adam Hollioake or Mark Ealham, and two quick bowlers from Dominic Cork, Angus Fraser, Ashley Cowan, Peter Martin and Chris Silverwood.

While in selectorial mode, here is my World XI: Saeed Anwar, Sanath Jayasuriya, Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar, Steve Waugh, Brian McMillan, Ian Healy, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Curtly Ambrose and Allan Donald. No English player is even close to selection - another significant test of the state of our game.

MANY readers have written to point out that the Robert Frost poem that persuaded Michael Atherton to continue as England captain was The Road Not Taken, which contains these lines:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference.

Dr Michael Thompson, from Dungannon, points out that one of the paths was grassy and wanted wear - "ideal conditions", he suggests, "for an English seamer".

Betty Dickinson, from St Leonards-on-Sea, muses on Atherton`s decision: "We must all realise how seemingly insignificant, even random, choices can lead to momentous consequences, whose origins become apparent only in retrospect."

Bob Ainsley, from Westcliff-on-Sea, offers another verse in the same vein:

I have always known That at last I would Take this road, but yesterday I did not know that it would be today.

Quite. Margaret Stanton, from Bournemouth, adds more prosaically: "I have always assumed that the poet was regretting his choice - I hope Mr Atherton will not do the same."

When Atherton used the phrase, "the untravelled road", I thought he might be referring to a book of that title by M Scott Peck about "spiritual growth in an age of anxiety". At the end of the book Dr peck, an American, bursts into verse, some lines of which might have appealed to the England captain at the and of the Ashes series.

Like the old we look back, Facing failures and enjoying The successes of our past. We can account for the failures. The successes seem the more mysterious.

PROPPED up in my study is an evocative picture of three great English batsmen of the 1950s - David Sheppard, Colin Cowdrey and Peter May. It appears to have been taken at Cowdrey`s wedding in 1956, for he and May are in tails and Sheppard is in a surplice.

Two of them, Sheppard and Cowdrey, are now in the House of Lords, while May, arguably the best batsman of the three and one of the most successful England captains, died a commoner in 1994.

A week today, at Christie`s in London, there will be a chance to honour May`s memory at a sports auction, where cricket, football, boxing, rugby and tennis memorabilia will go under the hammer.

The aim is to raise the Peter May Memorial Appeal, of which I am a vice-patron, to -L2.5 million to complement an expected Lottery award of -L6.7 million. The money will be used to develop four vast playing fields owned by the London Playing Fields Society, of which May was vice-chairman, at Walthamstow, Morden, Hainault and Raynes Park.

Fittingly, the man organising the evening auction at King Street, St James`s, is Peter Nathan, chairman of LPFS and a lifelong friend of May`s, who played with him in the Charterhouse XI after the war. They had a famous victory over Eton in 1947 when May scored 183 not out and Nathan took five wickets with his leg-breaks.

A catalogue and admission tickets are available from: The Peter May Memorial Appeal Office at Abbot House, 1-2 Hanover Street, London W1R 9WB (Tel: 0171 629 7459, fax: 7460).

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