NEVER ANY GOOD
Leo McKinstry discloses the
gloriously abject tradition of British cricket
`ENGLAND the lowest of the low,' cried the Daily Telegraph after the defeat at Lord's. 'Sack the lot,' demanded Frank Keating of the Guardian; and these were only some of the groans and bellows which accompanied the Test series between Eng- land and New Zealand, ending this week at the Oval. Bewailing the state of English cricket has become our most keenly fol- lowed national summer sport.
And yet the odd thing about this howling is that dismal performances by the national side are nothing new. It was ever thus. Cri- sis plays as central a role in English cricket as it does in Boris Yeltsin's Kremlin. Since international cricket began in 1877, Eng- land has adopted the losing habit with a vengeance. Indeed, the very term 'The Ashes' dates back to 1882, when England were beaten by Australia at the Oval. The Sporting Times magazine was so horrified by this defeat that it published a mock obitu- ary of England, which concluded, 'The body will be cremated and the Ashes taken to Australia.' And that sorry event has set the pattern for the history of English Test crick- et, a history that has seen more lows than a Scottish weather-map in mid-January.
The problem is that the darkness of Eng- land's cricketing past is all too often obscured by nostalgia. Comparisons are continually made between the supposed inadequates of today and the great England players of yesterday, ignoring the fact that these giants often did just as badly in their own time. After England's defeat in the win- ter tour of Australia (nothing new there), I watched an interview on Sky News with the former England and Middlesex batsman Mike Gatting (sacked this month as a Test selector) who was introduced by the Sky sports correspondent as a member of 'the great England side of the Eighties'. What side, precisely, did this reporter have in mind? The one that was bowled out for 82 and 93 at Christchurch against New Zeal- and, losing by an innings and 132 runs? Or was it the side that lost two successive series to the West Indies 5-0?
Between the end of the 1985 season and the beginning of the 1990 one, England did not win a Test match at home, apart from a solitary victory over Sri Lanka, a far worse record than anything experienced in the 1990s. Gatting himself hardly deserves the epithet, 'great', with which he is now regu- larly garlanded. Over his career, he aver- aged only 35.5, took seven years to score his first century, and was notoriously uninter- ested in physical fitness. 'Do you want Gat- ting a foot wider?' a Test captain once asked his bowler when setting the field. `No, he'll burst,' was the reply.
The same ill-conceived nostalgia can be seen in every period. Only last month, that grandest of the game's observers, E.W. Swanton, opined that the standard of English batting is now at its 'most abject this century'. I presume this is the same E.W. Swanton who wrote in the Cricketer in April 1973 that the 'general standard of English batting is worse than it has ever been this century'. Such a statement now seems ludi- crous, given he was writing in the era of Geoff Boycott, Dennis Amiss, John Edrich, Tony Greig and Alan Knott, but it is pre- cisely the sort of refrain that is heard in every decade.
In 1976 the late John Junor, in typically robust fashion, was denouncing the Eng- land team, comparing them to the crick- eters of a mythical past: 'Even today, with his artificial hips and at the age of 70, wouldn't Bill Edrich still be more of a suc- cess against the West Indies than some of those snivelling, long-haired, money-con- scious yobbos that now represent England?' Yet turn to Edrich's own post-war career and we find him being denounced for his feebleness against the Australian pace of 1948. Watching Edrich and his famous team-mate Denis Compton playing for the MCC, the Australian journalist Jack Fingle- ton wrote: 'There is something fundamen- tally wrong at the moment with English cricket. This was clearly shown at Lord's where so pitifully did Compton and Edrich struggle against the Australian attack that one 15egan to think they were being repre- sented not by their own selves but by their second cousins.'
The late 1940s expose the emptiness of claims about England's glorious past. We now look at the age of Hutton and Comp- ton, Bedser and Laker, Evans and Wash- brook through rose-tinted glasses, but contemporary reports show that the feel- ings of crisis were just as deep then as today. It should be remembered that Eng- land were bowled out for 52 at the Oval in 1948, their lowest Test score at home this century, while even Len Hutton was dropped during that series. England's wretchedness that summer was symbolised by the inclusion in the Test side of the unfortunately but perhaps appropriately named Jack Crapp. Things were no better three years later. Terence Prittie in the Guardian moaned, 'Why is English cricket in the doldrums and why does it show no signs of recovery? Since 1945 England has competed on barely equal terms with India, South Africa and even New Zealand, made a poor showing against the West Indies and had little chance against Australia' — words that could have been written today.
Go to any period and you will find the same complaints about weak batting and purblind selectors. In 1921, for instance, England lost a record eight Tests in a row to Australia, prompting E.H.D. Sewell to remark, 'Our cricket is much weaker than it was 15 years ago. The selection of the Test side was fundamentally wrong from the start. It was as though Sir W.S. Gilbert, with the help of Mr George Bernard Shaw, was choosing the England team.' We now talk of the pre-war period, 1890 to 1914, as the Golden Age of cricket, but few thought it so at the time. In August 1909, after Eng- land had badly lost successive series to Australia, a former county cricketer comp- lained to the press, 'Our cricket is not of the same quality now as it used to be some years ago. I do not think the batting or bowling is as good.'
It was the captain of 1902, Archie Maclaren, who famously remarked when he saw the names in his Test side, 'My God, look at what they have sent me.' What they had sent him were some of the all-time greats: men like Bobby Abel, Stanley Jack- son, the Indian Prince Ranjitsinhji and Len Braund. No doubt in about 15 years' time some commentator will be asking, 'Where are the Thorpes and the Athertons of today, the Goughs and the Stewarts?'
Yes, of course, English cricket is in a. mess. It always has been. Stretching back over 122 years, our record is woeful. Aus- tralia have won 117 times against us, com- pared to our 93 victories in Ashes Tests. The West Indies have beaten us 51 times, while we have enjoyed only 28 triumphs against them. As early as 1954, we were losing a Test to Pakistan in their first ever series year. All this is too often ignored by the nostalgia brigade. What they have not recognised is that batting collapses and massive defeats are part of the natural con- dition of English cricket. Throughout the history of the game, it has been our func- tion to cheer up other nations with our sometimes comical failings. That is what we are best at, and, honed by years of experi- ence, it is a role to which we should cling with pride.
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