T Chesterfield: England Pay The Price For Poor Tour Planning (11 Jan 1997)

11 January 1997

England Pay the Price for Poor Tour Planning

Trevor Chesterfield.

One of the more entertaining new items to emerge from Zimbabwe during England`s sorry sojourn north of the Limpopo barely rated a mention amid the debris of yet another disastrous tour. While England`s habitual stumbling from one crisis to another when on tour reached new depths, the British journalists clubbed together in Harare over New Year to pay Heath Streak`s fine. Not a bad gesture considering it was his comments in the British Press in the first place that landed him in hot water with the ICC appointed match referee Hanumant Singh. The comments of how he managed to bowl leg - theory to stop Mike Atherton`s team from winning the first Test in Bulawayo earned him a fine of Zim$1 000. But translate that into British Pounds and its GBP87 or R624 ( give or take a few cents).

Easy to see why the travelling writers played Father Christmas. As their combined expense account is probably the total sum of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union`s yearly budget, they can afford to be magnanimous. Yet they all viewed the fine as being unfair and a "violation of Streak`s right to free speech". At least it shows some of the British sports Press have a conscience of sorts. I suspect you won`t find the South African writers being similarly generous to an Indian player should he be quoted about the current series and referee Barry Jarman take offence to his comments.

But 12 months after their thrashing at Newlands by South Africa, England have arrived in New Zealand looking for easier pickings. Yet the series in Zimbabwe: tests and one-dayers, were ones they needed to win to restore some credibility. I poses the question: why did the TCCB management not monitor more closely Zimbabwe`s progress? Form is not so static that a country can be judged on their recent World Cup performances. Into this seething cauldron of different batting displays steps Lord MacLaurin of Knedworth. Ah, you might ask .... Lord who? A business tycoon with the acumen of a man who is a millionaire several times over, Lord MacLaurin is not your posh Oxbridge type with all the right school tie connections but someone with a hard nose for a hard sell. And what does he see when he arrives in Harare? Why another miserable batting performance. "I might as well have stayed at home and enjoyed the winter by the fireside than fly all the way out here to watch this lot," he grumbled.

As England`s lacklustre side continue to their lacklustre way into 1997, threats of the TCCB, now the reconstituted England and Wales Cricket Board, losing several high profile sponsorships is becoming all to real. There are too few in the market failing to back a continually losing product. And going from bad to worse, on his first appearance in New Zealand, Atherton gets caught by a woman in a charity match. There is a clear enough message in this for other countries, including South Africa. As the test teams represent the public image of the game in their particular country, the coach and captain are the face of this particular image.

England`s problem is that their players are involved summer and winter in taxing programmes and also suffer because their test players are at the beck and call of the counties and that failing system.