Red carpet despite rude remarks (21 August 1999)

21 August 1999

Red carpet despite rude remarks

Ted Dexter

Time was, not so long ago, that ex-England captains and their wives were invited for every day of every Test with full VIP hospitality. There was also an Old England room in each of the pavilions where a healthy supply of beer and sandwiches sustained players from different generations as they made new and old acquaintances and compared notes on the current cricketing scene.

Then the accountants had their say and these delightful perks were quietly suspended. Only captains remained on the invitation list, and for a single day only.

My invitation to the Oval Test duly arrived at the beginning of the month - for Sunday - but no mention of Mrs Dexter, who enjoys her day at the cricket about one hundred times more than me or indeed anyone else I know.

A tentative inquiry about these matters took a little time to resolve but in due course we were both invited to join the committee for the day. Then the full might of the considerable Surrey hospitality swung into action.

"This is Mickey Stewart speaking," was the formal start of a phone call which first alerted me to the fact that an old team-mate and subsequently co-Test selector was Surrey president for the year and keen to make sure that we were getting what we wanted. Were we happy with Sunday? Would we prefer another day? Talk about rolling out the red carpet - and for someone like me who had been passing rude comments about his son's batting at Lord's!

So, we saw the first day among an amazingly varied gathering of the great and the good. John Major, Kate Hoey, Simon Hughes and Clement Freud provided a nicely-balanced political mix with the former Prime Minister rising first from the lunch table to watch the game.

Having just finished 300,000 words of autobiography, personally written in long hand, he had the air of a boy just let out of school, but responsibility will return with a vengeance when he becomes the Surrey president for the Millennium.

The Bedser twins, Alec and Eric, loomed only slightly less large in their early eighties than they did in their playing days and if there are minor signs of physical frailty, there is no change whatsoever in their trenchant views on the modern game.

At the end of a peculiar first hour, when England bowled too short and too wide to two strokeless New Zealanders, the play was condemned as "fourth-form stuff - see better than that on Mitcham Common." But the point I liked was that they still really care about England and the game itself.

It was a real pleasure to see 91-year-old Alf Gover, one of the greatest Surrey fast bowlers, making the effort to attend. I was coached by Alf at his school in Wandsworth more than 40 years ago and remember his kindness and encouragement to this day. He has lost little of his bonhomie, even if there are a few less of his staple interjections where everyone was referred to as "old boy" whether they were a 15-year-old schoolboy or a 65-year-old pensioner. When I asked what he thought of the Test match he reflected a moment and said simply "Alright." I waited for the "old boy" but sadly it was missing.

Test cricket's senior administrators were there in force with the ECB chairman, Lord MacLaurin, and the England Cricket Forum chairman, Brian Bolus, on parade. I was asked my views on the disparity between our successful Under-19 and A team cricket and our less successful Test team and as usual the answers were anything but clear and constructive.

There is little doubt that players seem to hit a brick wall in their development when they become full-time county professionals, which suggests that the system itself is to blame. But how do you reconcile that with overseas players who mostly prosper and consider the county game a crucial part of their cricketing education?

Bolus is nothing if not a character and, without knowing him extremely well, it is not always clear when he is being serious and when he is playing the fool.

He described my recent opinions on the game as "some way to the right of Ghengis Khan" which I do not deny. If we are talking in a years time of Ghengis Hussain, it will surely be all to the good. But he revealed some strong Thatcherite leanings himself.

We found ourselves in agreement about the qualities of individual responsibility, which are essential in the personality of a Test cricketer.

We talked about less democracy and more elitism. There was no harm in a streak of selfishness, as we all know that the best batsmen farm the strike when the going is easy and get themselves up the other end when it is necessary to do so.

All this is totally at odds with what seems to be the current England dressing-room philosophy of one for all and all for one. It seems that The Management cart has run away with the committee horse.

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