Hayward P: Bigchested father replaces eccentric uncle (26Apr94)

Big-chested father replaces eccentric uncle in hot seat

Ray Illingworth, 'as good a cricketing mind as there's ever been', inherits sport's most unenviable position billed both as a craggy-faced saviour and a bit of a bossy boots

By Paul Hayward

Sir Colin Cowdrey thinks Ray Illingworth has "as good a cricketing mind as there's ever been". All the new chairman of England selectors needs now is an asbestos skin to deal with unceasing criticism and, in Cowdrey's view, "a Trueman or a Laker or an Underwood to appear out of the woodwork". Not much to ask, is it? Depending on who you listen to, Illingworth is being cast as craggy-faced saviour, sagacious tactician, the last man shouting orders on the bridge of the Titanic and a bit of a bossy boots who will have Mike Atherton running around like a school milk monitor. Nobody doubts that Illingworth is obsessive, in the way of Lord Home's uncle-in-law, who "could never walk down the nave of his abbey without wondering whether it would take spin". One other conclusion is safe: Illingworth has just inherited sport's most unenviable post, and faces an almost biblical task in bridging the gap between a radiant past and dishevelled present in which some have argued that England are finished as a world cricketing power. And to think, at 61, he could have carried on knocking out newspaper articles and shooting the breeze on balconies with all the other old luminaries. Not the man's style. Consider what he said on Thursday about England's recent past. Illingworth declared that Hick, Ramprakash, Russell and Lewis are playing for their places, that Angus Fraser's fitness is questionable and that Keith Fletcher, the England manager, was right to criticise Robin Smith for chasing money rather than runs. That should have given the team plenty to mull over on the long flight back from the West Indies. If Ted Dexter was a faintly eccentric uncle to England's cricketers, Illingworth is more the bigchested father, gathering the family in the parlour and dispensing patriarchal instructions through the ranks. Harry Enfield's wonderful comic creation, the archetypal Yorkshireman, has a motto which runs: "I say what I like and I like what I bloody well say." But Illingworth, who is from Pudsey, is a bit too smart to allow himself to be stereotyped as the non-listening, blufftalking Tyke barging his way into southern committee rooms. Passing from forthright newspaper and television pundit to chairman of England selectors might not seem the easiest way to win the confidence of players. Indeed, Graham Gooch might raise an eyebrow when he learns that Illingworth is not obliged to attend all England's overseas Tests. On the general subject of past denunciations, though, Illingworth insists: "I've only ever offered constructive criticism, which every player is open to. I've never really slagged anybody off." Illingworth's pedigree is beyond question, as is the magnitude of his mission. He played in 61 Tests for England - 31 as captain - and was a gifted all-rounder (off-spin, middle-order bat) before successfully moving into county management. Ask him about the England selectors' job and he admits: "It was something I did want to do back in the Seventies, but it's taken me a bit longer to get there." Twenty years ago Illingworth might have swept into town in a sedan chair. Now he is gathering flotsam on the beach to rebuild the ruined house of English cricket. An overstatement? Illingworth has watched every home Test and international in the last 10 years, and is candid about the long-term decline of the game in these islands. "I think that's pretty true," he says to the suggestion that the malaise has deep roots. "We've been in decline since the 1960s." The statistics merit renewed scrutiny. Shafts of sunlight in the West Indies aside, England have won only 18 of their last 100 Test matches. They were walloped by India last winter, beaten by Sri Lanka and then flattened in the Ashes series by Australia, who won two of the six Tests by more than an innings. "There's a lot of work to be done," Illingworth said before departing for Lord's, and an extended conference on how he, Keith Fletcher and Mike Atherton would "fit together" in the new arrangement. Now that is a tricky subject. Surely old Fletch, who has survived the falls of Dexter and Gooch, will have his "responsibilities reviewed", his "agenda re-verbalised", as the Americans might say. Maybe not so tricky. "I will be working a lot closer with the team than Ted, who tended to pick the side and let them get on with it," Illingworth said. "I'm not going to trample on the captain's toes, but I will look to have a chat with him at lunch and tea."

But what will be the abiding topic of conversation? Where can England get some new personnel, probably. Again, Cowdrey, who scored 7,264 runs for his country, is a good witness. He says: "What Ray really needs is for some great players to emerge. Atherton and Stewart look set, but he needs a Maynard or Thorpe to suddenly flower, and perhaps Devon Malcolm to come good among the bowlers. "I remember for my first Test series I was able to select from Tyson, Trueman, Statham, Loader, Bailey, Laker, Lock, Appleyard, Wardle and McConnon. The embarrassment then was which combination to go for. It would certainly help Ray if he had an Ambrose and a Lara available. What is disappointing is when you have very gifted players like Graeme Hick not quite performing. I honestly believe that he could demolish bowlers just like Brian Lara's done." Illingworth has now abandoned diplomatic niceties in discussing the West Indies tour. "I think everybody realises that the bowlers didn't bowl as well as they should have, either in length and line, or with the same aggression that the West Indies have done," he said. "One or two of the batsmen probably haven't matured yet. I think we probably took one too many of them." Hardly Bugsy Siegel's vision of a glittering new city in the desert, but Illingworth wants to start with the simple stuff, like the "imbalance" in English teams he has been banging on about for months. Too many batsmen, in other words, and too many seam bowlers. "If you haven't got Malcolm Marshall and Michael Holding," he says, "you've got to find other ways of attacking over five days of Test cricket. Australia have come up with two quickies and two spinners." This really is a hot topic for Illingworth. For most of his generation, in fact. "We always picked balanced teams, so we didn't have to worry about the pitch," Cowdrey says. "These days they're always worrying about the pitch." Illingworth gives this theory mathematical expression. He says: "For far too long we've been playing with six batsmen in the hope of scoring 420, or saving the game if necessary. It would be better to play an extra bowler and confine the opposition to, say, 300. If you do that, and you've got five good batsmen, you've got a chance." It was easy, in the West Indies, to say that the home side won because cricket meant more to them than us. Among the old guard there is a suspicion that England players now are more concerned with money and endorsements than results.

Illingworth will not be drawn on this, but does say: "Put it this way. If they're not hungry and giving 100 per cent then they won't be playing for England while I'm around. I'll always be fair on players, but I won't stand for anyone not giving 100 per cent." On Thursday he said: "England have been running scared in the past. I want to be more aggressive." That's the stuff. Sabres out. "He's a very clear thinker about the game," said Mike Turner the former Leicestershire chief executive. "He knows what his objectives are." But it is tactical guile and consistency of selection that England need most, and here Illingworth's appointment has sent a rush of expectation through the shires. Turner, like Cowdrey, believes Illingworth possesses "the most analytical cricketing brain of anybody in the country" and talks almost tearfully of their decade together at Grace Road, when Leicestershire won their first County Championship. "I had the most harmonious and incredible working relationship with the bloke for 10 years," he says. "I think that, in Raymond, Keith and Mike Atherton, you've got the ingredients of a very good working partnership." Turner tells a story about the day he signed Illingworth as county captain. "A very dear friend of mine, Brian Sellars, was chairman of Yorkshire at that time," Turner says, "and he said to me when Raymond joined us: 'Thou'lt have trouble with that booger'." For England, as with Leicestershire, Illingworth brings the right kind of trouble.

(Thanks : The Daily Telegraph)