Work goes on as Hussain plans ahead (26 July 1999)

26 July 1999

Work goes on as Hussain plans ahead

Charles Randall

Nasser Hussain knew the job would be an education process when he took on the England captaincy. The rousing win in the first Test was followed by a calamitous defeat in the second at Lord's yesterday, which mocked all the hard work the team were supposed to have been putting in.

Hussain assessed his chances of recovering from his broken finger in time for the next Test in Manchester as "50-50", though he added he would be "heavily involved" in selection and would be with his team at Old Trafford next week whether playing or not. The hard work, he said, would continue.

Not surprisingly, he blamed the feckless first day's batting and the upper order failure in the second innings for England's demise. The knock-on effect meant the batsmen were unsure how much to attack or defend.

"After our first innings," he said, "we were playing catch-up. Pressure and momentum do funny things to you. When you're always looking up at the board and seeing there's a long time left in the game and you're behind, you don't know whether to stick or twist. That's the only reason I can give.

"It might sound weird now, but I don't think the loss at this early stage of my captaincy will do any harm at all, because all it shows is that we've got a lot of hard work to do. There are areas we must improve.

"It was a poor performance. It's one thing Nasser going in there and saying things. All it is is words. It just comes down to individuals and individuals' responsibility and batting for long periods of time. I know that our upper-order batsmen are good players and that they can do it."

Judging from Hussain's mood, this defeat would be unlikely to force sweeping changes, though he added that the next selection meeting would be longer than the previous one. Balancing the general cry for new faces in the side with realism would be tricky. Often, he said, assessing young players in a Test environment came down to a "gut feeling".

Stephen Fleming, New Zealand's captain, said his team's win was an emotional experience. "History is important to us and we've used it for motivation," he said.

"New Zealand have achieved only one series win in 68 years and never a Test win at Lord's. We've seen a lot of great players go through history and not achieve that. For us to take that opportunity was quite emotional."

The series has proved to be more intriguing than generally expected. Did he think England underestimated New Zealand? Fleming's reply contained a sideways dig: "It is probably hard not to, to be honest. We all read the papers throughout the tour. We've got no 'personalities' and we also lack 'flair'. If I was England reading that about us, I would be confident as well."

The New Zealanders barely kept their emotions under control yesterday as victory came closer and closer in front of a 20,000 crowd. Fleming thought the bowling became over-anxious, and he would not have liked to chase a total of around 200.

He was lucky to escape punishment from Peter van der Merwe, the referee, for leading the team halfway towards the pavilion while the third umpire assessed, and ultimately ruled out, Nathan Astle's low slip 'catch', which would have ended the England innings. "I was convinced it was a fair catch," said Fleming.

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