Gooch and Gatting purged as England chiefs turn ruthless (11 August 1999)

11 August 1999

Gooch and Gatting purged as England chiefs turn ruthless

Michael Henderson

The governors of English cricket, secretly appalled by the way the Test side have lurched from one wreck to another in this storm-tossed summer, acted publicly and decisively yesterday by sacking the two most high-profile selectors.

Graham Gooch and Mike Gatting were stood down without a comforting word to soften the blow. They will remain as advisers, but to advise who on what? Effectively, they have been sent packing.

It was a mess of their own making so, after tribute has been paid to both men for their long service as players in wonderful careers, they cannot expect too much sympathy.

They should never have been appointed as a pair in the first place, not least because they are both associated too closely with failures of the recent past. By making this decision, the England and Wales Cricket Board have belatedly acknowledged that plain fact.

The deposition of the pair represents a very clear victory for Lord MacLaurin. The chairman of the ECB has not always been able to get his way but, on this issue, he has seen the matter through to its resolution.

The decision, hatched at Sunday's 'council of war' at the England team's Manchester hotel, was executed after England left Old Trafford with a draw that owed as much to the weather as their own batting.

Besides MacLaurin, the five men who attended that meeting were: Brian Bolus, the chairman of the board's management advisory committee; Simon Pack, the international teams director; David Graveney, the chairman of selectors and the team's temporary manager; Nasser Hussain, and Duncan Fletcher, who takes up his post as England coach on Oct 1.

The meeting was not expected to bear fruit so quickly. That it did reveals the depth of feeling at the highest level about the performances of England at Lord's, where New Zealand won inside four days, and at Manchester, where the rain came to England's assistance on the fourth afternoon and finally banished New Zealand's chances of going 2-1 up in the series on the fifth day of the match.

MacLaurin had one important ally. Bolus supported the decision to dispense with the selectors and once those men had made up their minds it was easy to convince Hussain and Fletcher, who can now make plans for the immediate future without restraint.

Gooch, who will remain England's batting coach for the time being, was Hussain's county captain at Essex and achieved greatness in his Test career. As manager of the tour to Australia last winter, however, he overshadowed David Lloyd, the coach, and he has never cut an inspiring dressing-room figure despite the common sense he talks about the lack of "hunger" of modern players.

Gatting is one of those former players who find themselves in important positions after retirement without doing anything that suggests they can bring much to the table. In time, he may do so but his promotion was precipitate. Taken together they could never hope to prosper, being far too similar in background and temperament. In the end they could not even survive.

Gatting said last night: "I suppose in effect we haven't done very well and with a new management team coming in, they want to do things differently.

"My place was coming up in February next year, a new coach has come in, he wants to do it his way, bring in his own ideas and his job is on the line in that respect. If that's the way he wants to do it, I'm happy."

Bolus explained why the decision had been made. "I've discussed these changes with my colleagues on EMAC and we believe the input of the coach and the captain is crucial to the team and we need to plan long-term to build a strong side over a period of time," he said.

In effect, Hussain, overnight, becomes the most powerful England captain in recent history. He will lead the team out - when he regains full fitness - and he will be responsible, with Fletcher, for matters of selection and, for want of a better word, policy. That is as it should be. The captain is responsible for the team's performance and, as Hussain has indicated since he succeeded Alec Stewart into the job in June, he is not one to shirk a challenge.

He will need all his abrasion in this new dispensation, even though Fletcher will shoulder the burden. Although the new coach does not officially begin work until October he will help select the team for the final Test, which begins at the Oval tomorrow week. Never mind that he does not have a formal vote; he will have his say and may get his way.

This latest brouhaha brings down the curtain on a low comedy that has run all summer. The first act for the ECB was to dispatch Pack to Cape Town to try to persuade Bob Woolmer, the South Africa coach, to join England when his contract expired after the World Cup. It failed. Woolmer is going back to Warwickshire next summer.

The second act saw Fletcher on stage as coach-designate but his pants swiftly fell down when it was announced that he would not take up his post until the end of the season because Glamorgan would not release him.

Subsequently England have blundered through the New Zealand series with a freshman captain and no coach in sight. When, during the Lord's Test, Fletcher went to Scotland for a few days' break, the comedy became a broad farce.

Now the curtain has gone up on the final act with Gooch and Gatting hauled off by the shepherd's crook. MacLaurin and Bolus realised, after the appalling misjudgment before the last Test, and the woeful performance in Manchester, that "something had to be done", and something was.

They have acted decisively for once and though it does not disguise the many errors of a dismal summer, the news will be greeted with relief.

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