Simon Hughes: Memories of past triumphs (15 Aug 1998)

15 August 1998

Memories of past triumphs

Simon Hughes

AT LAST I can bin the dog-earred old cuttings in my "England's Last Triumph" file. At the moment it contains faded profiles of Bill Athey, Jack Richards and Geoff Lawson, and an account of an Australian Rules football match I attended at the Sydney Cricket Ground after the fifth Test in 1986-87.

Lionel Richie and Elton John both had sell-out concerts in Sydney that week, which was quite surprising in the case of Elton as he'd just had a throat operation and couldn't sing. He was staying in the England players' hotel at the time and one evening approached John Emburey and me eating in the restaurant. He wanted to speak but remembered he wasn't allowed to, so instead presented Emburey with a bottle of champagne and a serviette. On it he'd scribbled, "To JE, Congratulations, Love EJ".

Elton managed to get to some of the match, most of which I watched from the England dressing-room. During (non-calorie controlled) lunch on the final day, the team, having already clinched the series, were a happy mix of good-humoured jibes and match discussion. "Is it turning Ath?" says Emburey to Athey (there's always an "Ath" in reputable England sides). "Yep, and Sleep's hardly bowled a stray one." "How's Taylor bowling Lubo?" "Loosely," David Gower replies, having sent for more Stilton, "I reckon we can get after him." Botham: "What's the steak like Gatt?" "Two were underdone but I enjoyed the third."

As England's second innings crumbled in the last hour of the match, Mike Gatting watched impatiently, pacing anxiously up and down the dressing-room. "Well tried Gladstone. . ." he sympathised. ". . . Great effort Embers. . . Bad luck chaps. We deserve a drink tonight." The celebrations carried on well into the following afternoon. Little could they imagine England would have to wait 4,220 days to imbibe the next true victory.

Gatting and Alec Stewart are quite similar in many ways. Neither is what you'd call an inspirational captain, they lead more by a mixture of judicious logic and earthy competitiveness. Their approach is based more on graft than craft. Imagination may be limited, but their energy is boundless. Just as Gatting would relax after a four-hour innings with a vigorous game of squash, Stewart thinks nothing of keeping wicket all of one day, and batting for most of the next. After that he's still prepared to give interviews to five different TV crews and 30 journalists, then trail round Leeds finding a decent restaurant in which to have dinner with his wife.

This year has been a triumph for Stewart. He's made more Test-match runs in 1998 than anyone else in the world (917 so far), and yet has also kept wicket all summer through 768 overs, taking 22 catches in the five Tests (missing just one tricky chance that I can remember) and conceding only 15 byes. As captain he has already equalled Gatting's record of two Test-match victories but we all know what happened to Gatting after that. Surely we won't have to wait until the Spice Girls are grandmothers to win again?

DID you notice some significant absentees from the presentation ceremony at Headingley? The umpires. They were handed their commemorative medals in the sanctity of their poky dressing-room. But while the overseas officials can sidle off back to their own country without further risk of persecution, their English counterparts remain in vision.

Messrs Shephard, Willey and Kitchen have suffered some unfair criticism this summer, when it is their overseas colleagues who have made most of the glaring errors. It was the New Zealander Steve Dunn, for instance, who wrongly spared Mike Atherton at Trent Bridge and not Merv Kitchen.

The ICC could have predicted this, knowing that overseas umpires generally just do not have the same playing background or umpiring experience of the English ones. To take one example, Russell Tiffin, the Zimbabwean who stood in the first Test at Edgbaston, was just a coach driver for visiting teams when the idea of an international umpires panel was acted upon in 1992. It was politically correct to introduce the panel, but though the bias has been solved, the incompetence has increased.

The use of technology must be widened, and soon. Those who argue that this removes the 'human element' from umpiring need to think again. It is still a human pointing the camera lens, and a human looking at the television replay and assessing what has happened. And there are a whole BBC truck-load of highly qualified humans sitting in front of monitors selecting the best replays to show. The process will get quicker too, you watch.

One other intriguing advantage of the television eye is that it is bound to encourage a trend back to batsmen "walking". A dozen replays of a clearly gloved catch will just makes those who linger look plain dishonest.

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