Stewart and Gooch travelled parallel lines (26 June 1999)

26 June 1999

Stewart and Gooch travelled parallel lines

Ted Dexter

My admiration for Alec Stewart as a sportsman is undimmed by his relegation to the ranks after a shortish spell as England captain. What I question is his political nous, because he had good cards to play and simply missed the trick.

Like Graham Gooch before him, Stewart seems to have ignored the possibility of playing down his own role as a player while offering more as a genuine leader of men. How history repeats itself. Long before the current crisis, he should gracefully have dropped down the order to No 6 with all sorts of benefits to himself and the team.

Rather than explain in detail my reasoning in relation to Stewart, I feel that six years on it is acceptable to print my confidential memo to co-selectors written in May 1993 about Graham Gooch. I leave the reader to judge how much of it relates to Stewart, but to me there are a number of direct parallels.

Graham Gooch is selected as captain for the first three Tests. He is suffering from a weak run of form. He was pretty sick for a number of weeks in India. He is leading an England side in a losing run. Prior to the Texaco series I proposed that both he and the team would benefit from a change of role - batting down the order. This was not adopted and we lost 3-0. Graham himself argues against a change. All his success has been as opening batsman. Every team needs a good start. It will look like taking the easy option.

There are many precedents for the older, quality batsman/captain dropping down the order, thus to control his team better in the dressing-room, on the field and during the course of an innings, e.g., Allan Border at Edgbaston recently (not to speak of Frank Worrell, Gary Sobers and Clive Lloyd).

There would be an immediate reduction of stress/expectation in our key man. The team needs a boost in confidence and this can only come from the captain, who needs to be in the best possible frame of mind.

There would be a much more solid look about the middle/late order - often enough a weakness in recent times and this change removes the doubt about fitness/sharpness/legs/reflexes after a long stint in the field.

If, as seems logical, Michael Atherton is the replacement opener, it brings him in (a) when he is in form, (b) in his proper position,

(c) gives us a potential successor as captain playing in the side. It means that we only need to find one extra middle-order batsman rather than two.

This would be a positive change of emphasis. Looking at it from the Australian point of view, I doubt that they will see advantage to them. By making the change now, it avoids the position of being led by events. It will almost certainly release the pressure for a change of captain halfway through the series. This in itself will help to settle the side.

To ignore this alternative is simply to hope that there will be a change for the better, despite a less experienced attack, after successive defeats by Australia, 4-0 in England and 3-0 in Australia. We will establish with the media that this is a positive move, proposed by The Management team and definitely not an easy option or any softening of the Gooch resolve."

Subsequent events are far from proving my strategy correct. In fact, when Graham opened the innings at Old Trafford, scoring 65 and 133, you could say that the Dexter plan was a load of codswallop. The balancing factor sadly was that England lost this match and the next (Gooch 12 and 29) before he dropped to No 5 in the order, scoring 38 and 120 in a drawn match. The trouble was that we had indeed been led by events and the Gooch resignation came after losing the fourth Test at Headingley. He had batted at No 5, making 59 and 26.

After his series victory over South Africa in England less than 12 months ago, Stewart was certainly in a strong enough position to decide unilaterally where he should bat and he really should have looked ahead a little further to secure his position as captain for a longer period.

His weak personal form has been mentioned by chairman of selectors David Graveney as one of the reasons for change and Stewart left himself open to the charge by clinging too long to the macho, all-action role which was bound to end in tears sooner or later with advancing years taking their toll.

Obviously, we all wish the new incumbent, Nasser Hussain, the very best of luck, and he may or may not count himself lucky that he is cutting his Test captaincy teeth on relatively weak opposition. If he wins, it is no more than we expect. If he loses, then he will have a lot to do to satisfy the doubters who wonder whether he is the right man in the first place, having no great captaincy experience behind him at lower levels.

I can only encourage him to take charge of the whole England playing set-up, avoiding the trap of allowing the new team coach, Duncan Fletcher, too much say.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph