New Labour, new result against Australia (24 May 1997)

Saturday 24 May 1997

New Labour, new result against Australia

By Rory Bremner

NEW Labour, New England. I wonder if next week`s new improved, less confrontational Prime Minister`s Questions will see John Major rise to his feet to congratulate Tony Blair`s Government on adding to a remarkable victory in the Eurovision Song Contest, a memorable one-day triumph over Australia; one which will be celebrated all the more by our cricket-loving former premier for the fact that it was his beloved Surrey wot won it, in the shape of Graham Thorpe and Adam Hollioake.

Ironic, though, that just as the Government threatens to take action against tobacco sponsorship in sport, the first major sporting event of the summer will be . . . the Ashes.

I remember muttering this time last year in this very column about the disappearance of the Texaco one-day internationals to Sky. This year - another irony - I find myself grateful that, thanks to the satellite channel, I can watch the cricket and write this article as the full moon rises over Glandore Harbour deep in the West of Ireland.

The Irish had only just been celebrating their own Benson and Hedges Cup triumph over Middlesex thanks to that legendary man of Erin, Hans O`Cronje. England`s star, too, seems once more in the ascendant, with a team performance fizzing with energy and commitment: whippy bowling, stunning fielding and courageous batting. Let us hope that this one-day wonder at least doesn`t live up to its name.

The new season, with its new hopes, means the perennial struggle for fitness. I know this because I`ve seen Graham Cowdrey in a muck sweat after yet another jog. Even when he isn`t trying to get fit, he is one of the funniest men I have ever been lucky enough to meet.

This was apparent during our first game of lawn cricket when he disappeared into the house with a tennis ball, climbed two flights of stairs, appeared at a first-floor window and announced: "Change of bowling. Curtly Ambrose is coming on. Might just get a bit of lift off a length . . . "

Having inquired of David Coulthard`s manager how much weight grand prix drivers lose in a race, Cowdrey pondered for a while before venturing: "So, if I drove to Edinburgh and back in my Vectra, with the heater on, do you think I`d make the cut at Canterbury?"

His wife Maxine - herself a champion jockey and a shining personality - despairs that their downstairs bathroom, now full of signed prints, bats, golf umbrellas, benefit ties and other paraphernalia, has been turned into the Graham Cowdrey Benefit Office. "That`s right hon," he says without a pause. "I`m auctioning off the shower at the Porter Tun next week."

After a round of golf, he takes me once again to meet Sir Colin. "Dad, I`ve brought Tom Kite to see you . . ." Sir Colin reminisces. A gentle genius, without a hint of bitterness. This is great, feet-of-the-master stuff. He rates this season`s Kent side very highly. "I think they`d have given our lot a game . .

A highlight of Graham`s Benefit Year so far has been the Rosemary Hawthorne Knicker Talk, where the quite marvellous Miss Hawthorne displayed the contents of two large suitcases of knickers of varying history and design to much amusement at a ladies` lunch at Canterbury. Cardigan Connor`s Dodgy Dinner at Hampshire seems a tame gig by comparison.

It is the characters as much as anything that make cricket such a wonderful game. And they don`t come much better than Jack Russell, whose book was launched this week. It`s one of God`s little jokes that most adjectives applied to Jack Russell have canine overtones: dogged, loyal, tenacious and, perhaps above all, barking.

I shared a room with him on a West Indies tour one night and awoke with a fearful hangover. Not, it must be said, from drink, but from the heady fumes of white spirit and turpentine wafting from his collection of rags, brushes and canvasses. I always knew he was a superb artist - on and off the field.

While we were in St Vincent he was distraught because an attempt to starch the sunhat he has worn for 16 years - with those years etched into every stitch, rip and ragged line of thread - ended with smoke coming from the oven and Jack desperately trying to repair the scorch marks with yet more white material.

But I only knew the half of it. This is a man who, on Christmas Day, had his wife play him the Queen`s Message down the phone while he stood proudly to attention in a Harare hotel room.

So concerned is he for his privacy that if he ever invites team-mates round to his house he`ll have them blindfolded and drive them there in a van himself. He carries a tumble-drier around in his car throughout the cricket season.

All this and more is in his book, which he launched at the Imperial War Museum ("because I like it here") with a dog (for the cameras) and at a lunch where the main course was jaffa cakes and homewheat digestives (his favourite food).

He is utterly mad and utterly brilliant, I love him. Such has been his misfortune at the hands of selectors that he could well have called the book "Retired Hurt". I only hope that in the grim age of total professionalism (new labour, indeed) the next generation does not lose such characters.

Jack`s book is ghosted by Pat Murphy, who at last has found a subject rich in character, anecdote and opinion. It was not ever thus. Commissioned in 1979 to write a book with Graham Gooch, Murphy looked forward to his first interview with the future Essex and England captain. What light might the young man shed?

Gooch reflected, then delivered his wisdom: "If it`s in my half of the wicket, I hit it to ****. Oh, and you`ve got to have confidence in your own ability. (Pause). D`you think you can get 60,000 words out of that?"

The great Viv Richards was similarly enlightening. "If I see de cherry, I keep my eye on de cherry, an` it disappears." It says much for Murphy`s abilities that he managed the other 59,985 words. But then, Russell and Richards don`t work with words. They entertain with skill, hand-eye co-ordination and talent. And Jack paints great pictures.

Today, for England, that picture looks like another new dawn.

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