M Nicholas: Fascination in Atherton still growing (3 Aug 1998)

3 August 1998

Fascination in Atherton still growing

By Mark Nicholas

This was written yesterday morning on a kitchen table covered by newsprint and, in particular, by reference to Michael Atherton to whom The Sunday Telegraph devoted column inches galore. The drama with Donald dominated the sports section and a lengthy profile took over page three of the Review.

Atherton is the most un-glamorous of chaps but he has been everywhere this week, on everyone's lips, a hero for his spirit and for the strength of his character rather than for any extravagance or flair. As has always been the case with Atherton, the adulation is for his deeds rather than the trappings, and the more he plays them down, the more fascination with him grows. "All we do is smack a little red ball and chase it around. You do your best and that's that." Up to a point Michael.

Monday: Alec Stewart's supreme assault on the South African bowling gives lavish entertainment to the gratifyingly large crowd. Atherton shrugs aside the hundred thing: "I told Stewie to get the runs asap", which Stewart took rather literally.

Tuesday. Lara, Lewis and Lord's: Brian Lara loses the toss on the morning of the quarter-final of the NatWest Trophy at Leicestershire and within an hour of the start of play has lost the match. Warwickshire appear uncharacteristically short of confidence and bat without technique or much application. Lara's batting looked caged by something, responsibility without success, perhaps. Unsurprisingly, he is abused by unhappy Bears supporters.

Meanwhile Leicestershire's victorious leader is simmering in the dressing-room. Livid at not being among the 37 best one-day cricketers in England, Chris Lewis pronounces the selectors to be "full of ****" which is a bit rich and an unnecessarily obscene choice of words. I've always been rather a fan of Lewis but . . .

The match is so one-sided that a sprint down the motorway to Lord's allows me to see Hampshire polish off Middlesex with memorable efficiency and watch their players summoned for curtain calls by Hampshire's delirious faithful. Essex and Middlesex brushed aside, not bad for a team of whom it was recently written: "Hampshire are a poor side, that much is axiomatic."

Wednesday: The newspapers say Atherton played well for his 70-odd in Lancashire's win over Nottinghamshire which, this week, is absolutely axiomatic. He'll be at Southampton for the semi-final where the tickets have sold out before the close of office hours. Headingley's are selling fast, too, so for the minute at least cricket is back in the people's hearts.

Thursday. Southampton: Graham Gooch is here, incongruous in a Durham tracksuit - he is their batting coach after a lifetime's allegiance to Essex - and so is David Boon, the Australian who has given Durham so much realistic, as opposed to star struck, hope.

Also down south are Lord MacLaurin and Tim Lamb, who are visiting Hampshire's new ground on the outskirts of the city. It is already a breathtaking development, with a playing field the size of Lord's designed like an amphitheatre and a nursery ground virtually the size of the present one at Northlands Road. The golf course is all but finished, the bowls greens are laid and the structural work for the buildings begins next April. Still £3.5 million needed, however, from a total of £18.5 million. Anyone got any ideas?

Friday. Southampton: Robin Smith makes a blistering hundred, the sort of innings that brought his fame. At the start of the summer, captaincy seemed to dull his strokeplay but no more. He is a popular man doing a good job at a popular county and everyone is pleased for him. That much is axiomatic.

Saturday: Apparently the England selectors will announce an unchanged team tonight and the talk is that, unless conditions demand otherwise, Alan Mullally will play instead of Ian Salisbury. Certainly, England must be able to trust four front-line bowlers, but an attack without variety of pace rarely upset international batsmen. Remember Headingley '89? No spinner, and Australia scored 600.

Robert Croft was at his best when Mullally was in the team and Croft was able to use the left-armer's footmarks to bowl to but Croft is not even in this party. If England are to play five specialist bowlers, which they ought, then Andrew Flintoff may have to go back on ice.

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