England shrug off inferiority complex (14 April 1999)

14 April 1999

England shrug off inferiority complex

Martin Johnson

You have only to look back over the last decade of Ashes series to realise that there has never been a more dangerous cricket team than England when it comes to winning matches that don't mean anything. And it would be a surprise if their Emirates Airline sponsorship deal did not include a clause insisting that there is always a plane fuelled and waiting for an early flight home.

It was pretty hot here on Monday, but after checking with the offical scorers it was reassuring to discover that England's victory against Pakistan wasn't a mirage.

Four defeats out of four would have made Napoleon's retreat from Moscow look like a May Day parade next to England's journey to Heathrow, and though it is stretching the imagination to believe that a single victory, in a passionless and virtually spectator-less match, is a positive sign for the World Cup, another defeat might have left the last shreds of morale lying out here in the desert.

Even though the World Cup itself will be played out under vastly different conditions - global warming or not, no one's going to be running in to bowl at Canterbury in a breeze that hits you like an oxy-acetylene torch - defeatism infects a dressing-room like a flu virus if it keeps on happening.

Giving a batsman the withering stare, and snarling: "Just wait till we get you back to Edgbaston, pal" rings a bit hollow even in the bowler's head when you keep getting pinged over extra cover for six.

So while England's victory over the probable World Cup favourites is nothing to write home about (even if it had been, the team would have got home before the letter) all credit to them for shrugging off what must have been a growing inferiority complex, and reminding themselves that they can actually play a bit, after all.

Previously, it was difficult not to shrug off a growing suspicion that the England and Wales Cricket Board had deliberately drawn up the players' World Cup contracts in the hope that no one would sign, thereby allowing them to pick a decent 15 instead.

However, these are, by and large, the best players England have at their disposal, which, Monday's result notwithstanding, is a trifle worrying.

This is far more true of the batting than the bowling, in that there is a disturbing tendency to make the wrong decision at crucial moments. This is partly because countries such as India and Pakistan play so much of this type of cricket - Salim Malik's 278th one-day international on Monday very nearly adds up to the total number England have played - that they instinctively know how to react to situations they have seen so many times before.

More perturbing is the collective tendency to melt under pressure, as we saw more than once in this competition, which may be partly because the players themselves spend as much time being confused about what it is they are supposed to be doing as those watching them.

When Mark Ealham was used, unsuccessfully, as a pinch-hitter in Australia last winter, the experiment was officially binned by the tour management. So when England played India on Sunday, needing to win to retain any further interest in the competition, where did Ealham bat? Number four.

The piece de resistance, however, was to find a place for Neil Fairbrother so low down the batting order that you imagined England must have been operating a system of sending in drinks watchmen.

When Fairbrother, who is comfortably England's most inventive one-day batsman, left the pavilion on Sunday, he looked behind to see who was padded up and saw Ian Austin, Darren Gough, and Angus Fraser.

It's like a rugby captain going for a last-minute push-over try with a front row comprising of the Beverley Sisters.

Invited to explain how Fairbrother had come in at No 8, England captain Alec Stewart said:"Well, the fact that we got so close [to winning] suggests that we got it right."

If any further proof were needed that the skipper is in urgent need of a long rest, this was it. It's like the captain of the Titanic putting a blind man on deck watch and saying "a few more yards to the left, and we'd have shaved off enough ice for a gin and tonic."

The biggest positive to come out of this tournament, other than the remarkable fact that Fairbrother ran about 80 breakneck singles without tweaking a set of hamstrings that have a more permanent hum than a beehive, was Andrew Flintoff. He is, potentially, a hugely destructive one-day batsman, his bowling is coming along nicely, and, above all, he appears to have the temperament for high-altitude cricket.

Lastly, it was interesting to observe the deportment of the coach, David Lloyd, who normally reacts to a crisis by impersonating one of those old-fashioned steam kettles with a whistle on it. On this trip, however, he has been calm and detached to the point of being Gower-esque, which may or may not have something to do with his imminent departure to a television job with twice the money and half the stress.

Lloyd's greatest strength (and weakness) has been his blind passion for the job, which one half of him regrets is coming to an end and the other half tells him that a man can only spend so much of his life piddling into a Force 10. His players adore him, but nothing like as much as he dotes on them. They have constantly let him down, and yet he is like a dog owner whose only response for the wretched pooch being incontinent on the carpet is a stroke of the head, and a "who's a good boy, then?".

If they can win him the World Cup, it would be a lovely going-away present, but if they can just see him through without a peptic ulcer, he would probably regard it as reward enough.

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