SPECTATOR SPORT
A close shave
Simon Barnes
LORD MacLaurin, former chairman of Tesco and present chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, summed up the qualities he requires from the next England captain: 'Conduct, discipline and image'. The job is about nice clothes, good hair, absence of chewing-gum and plenty of work with a razor. Greg Chappell was useless. True, he won thousands of Test matches for Australia, but he had a chin like coarse- grade sandpaper and required a surgical operation to remove the chewing-gum from his face.
Why is it that cricket's governors have this obsession with what they fastidiously call 'facial hair'? Mike Brearley, sainted leader of men, grew a Bhagwan's beard at one stage, so he was no good. W.G. Grace — well, he may have been the greatest cricketer of all time, but what has that got to do with modern marketing? Ah, but facial hair is the sign of what is deeply wrong — not with the bristled cricketers, but with the minds of those who run the game. MacLaurin's second sentence, in his blueprint for the ideal cap- tain in last weekend's Sunday Telegraph, contains the words 'open marketplace', good deal', 'sponsors' and 'significant boost'.
He goes on about the role of the captain and the media, how he will have 'expertise' to help him. 'The public relations dimen- sion of the role cannot be underestimated.' He must be good at sound-bites and shav- ing. It is absolutely clear what sort of man MacLaurin is looking for: a Tony Blair who can bat a bit.
I suspect MacLaurin is getting cricket confused with politics, and perhaps busi- ness as well. He wants his captain to have `many of the qualities we would associate with leaders in business and industry'. I think the message here is that a good lead- er is, on the whole, defined by his qualities of leadership.
But it is this harping on about 'image' that gets to me. Now it happens that you can base a political career on image. You can lead the country to disaster, and every- one will march behind you singing merry anthems in your praise, so long as you get yourself believed in.
But sport is a much more difficult world. In sport, you don't get far on image. No one says, 'Well, he is a wonderful cricketer, even though he never makes any runs.' No sportsman can persuade the world that a humiliating defeat is in fact a triumphant victory. In cricket, all captains are ridicu- lous in defeat, just as all captains are admirable in victory.
No, it is not image that a cricket captain needs, it is victory: plenty of runs or wickets against your name and, behind you, a team that wins things. David Gower was a PR man's dream when he won the Ashes in 1985; he was a PR disaster when he lost them four years later.
There was a famous graffito: 'Thatcher out,' to which was added the line, 'lbw Alderman'. This was a reference to the Australian bowler who had cut a swathe through the England batsmen in the sum- mer of 1989, taking 41 wickets. Gower was sacked at the end of a series which England had lost 4-0. Thatcher survived for years on the power of image, turning every defeat into a public relations victory. But she never had to bat against Alderman.
Do we shop at Tesco's because of the image of the place? We might try it for that reason, but regular customers go to their preferred shop largely because they think the food is good. When it comes to grub, we are not interested in image, we are interested in substance.
It is the same with our leading athletes. Tim Henman may have a better image than Greg Rusedski, but Greg can serve better. A victorious bristle-chinned captain looks better than a defeated smoothie. No, MacLaurin's captain does not need a razor or a spin-doctor. What he needs is a world- class fast bowler.
Previous page
