Tufnell Given Last Chance - Again (11 Sep 1996)

Tufnell given last chance - again

By Martin Johnson

SOMEWHERE at Lord`s, there is a dossier which takes two men to lift, and several weeks to read. It is labelled: "The Phil Tufnell Form Guide", and the form in question has less to do with the Middlesex bowling averages than a disciplinary record as long as his arm ball.

However, while England had long been thought to have thrown away the key, the reason for the cell door creaking open once again yesterday is pretty clear to see. Two of the selectors, Michael Atherton and Graham Gooch, have both submitted overseas tour reports on Tufnell intimating that they would only take him again if the TCCB appointed a full-time child minder, but when it came to totting up England`s spin bowling resources this week, they failed to make it past the fingers of one hand.

There has always been space for Tufnell on an England team sheet, but the space that has most concerned the selectors has been the one between his ears. A former England team-mate once described him thus: "A great cricketer - and a complete dickhead. Most people grow up, and some don`t. Sadly, he may be among the latter."

Tufnell has always cut an anti-Establishment figure, with his shuffling 10 to two walk, stubbly chin and rolled-up fag permanently dangling from his lip. His reluctance to embrace authority led to a premature departure from Highgate School, and he emerged from his studies with one O-Level, in art. He qualified as a silversmith, but his arrival at Middlesex was prefaced by previous employment as a taxi driver and a builder`s mate.

The first indication that his temperament might suffocate his talent came on his debut tour, to Australia in 1990-91. He had a row with an umpire in his first Test match, in Melbourne, and when he threw another wobbler in his second Test, in Sydney, Gooch publicly told him to stop behaving like a twerp.

Tufnell`s response was to refuse his captain`s proferred handshake when he finally took his first Test wicket, and he was in Gooch`s bad books again on the 1993 tour to India, when he was fined 500 after another umpiring contretemps. Neither did Tufnell find India`s shortage of creature comforts quite to his liking, claiming, fairly early on, that having "done the elephants, seen the beggars" he`d rather like to go home.

Then, two winters ago in Australia, his second Test captain, Michael Atherton, found that he was certainly the man to handle Tufnell - albeit only by fighting off an urge to place both sets of fingers around his throat. During a one-day international in Melbourne, Tufnell managed to get himself arraigned on a disrepute charge by not one, but both umpires, and once again returned home lighter in the wallet than he was in mood.

Given that Tufnell`s problems have all come on tour, it is ironic that England should have ignored him all summer - at times, when he was badly needed - and now recalled him for the winter. Over a five-day period, not even Tufnell can get into too much hot water, but three months in a confined space, and anything could happen. All in all, Tufnell has this one last opportunity to put his house in order, and the required remedial work is all upstairs.

His last match-winning performance in a Test match was in New Zealand, on the 1991-92 tour, when he took 11 for 147 in Christchurch, and his type of bowling, relying as it does as much on deception as extravagant spin, is ideally suited to a country where the pitches are apparently prepared with embalming fluid.

Alan Mullally and Dominic Cork should manage to embrace the conditions better than most, given that Test matches in New Zealand, like county matches in Leicester and Derby, attract crowds occasionally approaching (if you include the gatemen) double figures.

Zimbabwe, similarly, will have two flat, slow pitches for the Test matches, and the cricket is likely to be attritional rather than heart-stopping. England really ought to win both series, but even if they do, as a yardstick for next summer`s Ashes series, it will be a bit like taking a compass reading at the North Pole.