Mixed emotions as Atherton sits out the World Cup (8 May 1999)

8 May 1999

Mixed emotions as Atherton sits out the World Cup

Sybil Ruscoe

Ahead of a cricket World Cup, you wouldn't expect to be talking to Mike Atherton about corsetry. And certainly not in The Groucho Club, the temple of worship for modern media types - not exactly Mike's favourite sort of company.

But there he is, unshaven, clutching a copy of the Racing Post, leaning on the bar. If ever there is a fish out of water, Atherton is it, a once-graceful salmon swimming about in the murky waters of Soho.

The former England captain is sidelined at one of the most exciting moments in cricket. Sent home early from Lahore with a recurring back injury, he is undergoing intensive rehabilitation in London.

"I was asked to undergo a series of fitness tests at Lilleshall less than a week after what was a minor operation and a series of injections which totally knackered me. I was less than happy about that - the tests came too soon. I don't believe I should have had any special treatment - for a World Cup you have to be absolutely fit, because in the field it's a highly mobile and explosive game. But these fitness tests were for public consumption, rather than in the best interest of players," he says, with a rub of the stubble that so irritated Ted Dexter.

"It's disappointing to be missing the World Cup, but you have to get over these things very quickly. There's no point being bitter or harping on about it, you have to accept what went on and learn something from it and get on and get fit."

Atherton's route back to fitness may raise eyebrows. He is putting his faith in 'pilates', a regime which targets the deep muscle tissue - and this is where the talk of corsetry comes in: "You're trying to strengthen your stomach muscles to take the strain off your back, creating an internal corset by making your stomach muscles strong enough to take the strain."

Atherton is spending two hours a day with Gordon Thompson, a pilates practitioner in Kensington, and he is well aware that after Glenn Hoddle's involvement with Eileen Drewery, there will be those who will doubt whether alternative therapy is a wise approach. I wonder whether some people think he is dabbling in a bit of mumbo-jumbo.

Atherton laughs and shifts just a little uneasily: "Yes, they do. In England we're a little bit behind the times in injury care. Pilates is probably seen as being a bit trendy, but it's important in my position to put your faith in something, and this is something I believe in and hope will work."

When will the internal corset be laced tightly enough to see Atherton in action again? "I don't know when I'll be playing again. I'm not in any rush. I want to be right before I play, but I don't think I'll play in the next month."

And when pressed as to whether that rules him out of this summer's Test series against New Zealand, Atherton puts on a brave face. He knows that to be picked he has to score a stack of runs for Lancashire. "I'm not ruling anything out, but it's difficult to put a time scale on it. First of all, I've got to prove myself by playing over a period of time without breaking down.

"It's very difficult to score runs every day of the week and if there's been a pattern of my play for Lancashire over the last few years it's been that I've got runs in the early season, then in late season, after the Test matches, I've played below par, particularly when England captain because I found captaining in a Test match so exhausting."

Atherton maintains he still has the will and the motivation to do well. He is perhaps three good Test series away from challenging England's heaviest run-scorers, Gooch, Gower and Boycott. "I know I'm not going to last for another 10 years, but I've got plenty of cricket left in me and I want to finish on my own terms rather than have my career finished for me by injury."

It is easy to forget that Atherton is still only 31 but he knows time is against him: "Graham Gooch was an exception. People who play professional sport will tell you there are very few who can do it without that aptitude and attitude being dimmed. At 42 or 43 he still had an appetite that was unbelievable, most people are not like that, over a period of time your enthusiasm wanes a bit."

Although he protests that he is not referring to his own lack of appetite, I get the impression that Atherton's thirst for runs does not match that of Gooch. If he has a motivation at all it is not for numbers on a scoresheet. Rather, he has a score to settle with those who are calling for him to retire gracefully. "In terms of my ability to play the game, I have nothing to prove. But plenty of people are writing me off and saying that I won't play again, so there's plenty to prove there and that's a nice challenge to have," he said with all the cussedness we witnessed in his duel with Allan Donald at Trent Bridge last summer.

So to Atherton's future. Sitting opposite him with his chinos, khaki shirt and lop-sided grin, I occasionally feel like an impatient parent trying to press for answers from a wayward teenager undecided about his plans after sixth form.

It's an age-old dilemma for the professional - what to do with life after cricket. Atherton has flirted with TV and will be working for the BBC during the World Cup, but he doesn't seem to have the required ego for small-screen stardom. It is difficult to imagine him taking the Gower or Lineker route.

And neither can I see him slogging his way up and down the country, eating and drinking his way to middle age on the after-dinner speaking circuit. Indeed, he says: "I'm a crap speaker. I've got to do one this summer for Warren Hegg's benefit and it's already putting the willies up me just thinking about it. I hate it. My problem is that I don't have any experience of anything other than playing cricket."

That statement probably gives the best hint as to what might command the abilities of Atherton when he retires for he only truly becomes animated and opinionated when discussing cricket's administration.

"I'm very interested in the way the game will go in the future, I really believe that cricket has got to grasp the nettle and make some fundamental changes to its structure in this country."

While not exactly setting out his stall as a successor to Tim Lamb or Lord MacLaurin, you sense Atherton would relish a seat in power: "They're in a position to change things. Whether they'll grasp the nettle and make the changes that are needed to be made, I just don't know, but they're in a position to do it and that's a nice position to be in."

So what about Atherton's 'blueprint for change'? He believes that there are too many professional players and too many clubs, that the England captain should choose the coach and that the captain and coach should have sole responsibility for selection.

He explains the points in turn: "I don't necessarily believe in professionalism for cricket other than for the elite England players. The ECB are pouring a lot of money into some clubs and not getting a hell of a lot of return and that seems like a waste of money.

"It's the England captain who has to work with the coach and the choice shouldn't just rest with the administrators.

"In my experience, choosing the team by committee doesn't work, especially when you have people too far from the game, like Fred Titmus, or, on the other hand, people too closely associated with the players."

The coach most linked with Atherton is David Lloyd, who bows out after the World Cup: "He's been good news for England, but sometimes his strengths have been his weakness, he's upbeat and positive, but sometimes he's been perhaps too emotional or too intense.

"But, you know, in my life I can count on the fingers of one hand the people I would absolutely trust and he is one of them. I have always trusted him 100 per cent."

Atherton claims not to have any thoughts on a successor, but argues that the new coach is another opportunity for change: "It's a nice chance to go for someone outside the game. Bob Woolmer seems to have ruled himself out, but I wouldn't be averse to appointing someone from abroad who's had experience of working with top class teams."

So where will the former captain, the finest England opener of his generation, be if England make the World Cup final?

"I'll either be at the final because I've been invited, but more likely I hope to be playing golf in Ireland with a few mates from university. I'd always prefer to be playing something than watching - I'm more of a participant than a voyeur.

"If England get to the final, which obviously I hope they do, it would be a very, very difficult one for me to watch without thinking I could have been there - like the old song: It Should I Have Been Me!"

With that, he paid for my drink, hailed a cab and disappeared into the London sunshine in search of a fishing tackle shop.

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