SPECTATOR SPORT
The captain departs
Simon Barnes
NAIVETY is a wasting asset; it takes a great deal of it to believe that you can per- form the impossible, and still more to believe that other people can perform the impossible at your command. So passes Michael Atherton, a captain who ran out of naivety.
Atherton resigned as England cricket captain last week after coming within a toucher of winning in the Caribbean. Even then, he might have salvaged a draw from the disappointment but some bloody fool dropped a crucial chance. The name of the bloody fool was Atherton.
So it goes, chances and matches and cap- tains all. And, as the captaincy seems likely to pass to Alec Stewart on the John XXIII principle, so we look back and wonder what Atherton has managed. Well, he has man- aged to remain a good egg despite pres- sures that would have had most people behaving like bad ones, and perhaps that is triumph enough.
He has presided over a cricket team that has been declining for a good ten years, although he has, I suppose, slowed down the rate of decline.
Take all the credit when there is any being offered, advised Richie Benaud, the former Australian captain, and do so in the sure knowledge that you will cop all the blame on less happy occasions. Perhaps another aspect of Atherton's triumph was that despite the dreadful results and the routine humiliations he has never quite copped all the blame. Not that he ever weaseled out of anything, still less blamed anybody; that is an aspect of his good- eggery. But time after time bowlers bowled badly and batters got out, and it has been perfectly obvious that there was nothing that any captain could do. Atherton will always be remembered for his innings in Johannesburg, a monumental 11-hour defi- ance, a triumph as batsman and leader.
But England still lost the series by con- ceding the final Test in humiliating circum- stances. That is the keynote of Atherton's reign: courageous but ultimately futile effort. Throughout it all, Atherton has somehow maintained a reputation for moral uprightness. This is a remarkable achievement, at odds with what actually happened. Remember the dirt-in-the-pock- et controversy? Atherton was caught rub- bing the ball with dirt he had placed in his pocket. This was, we were told, a totally innocent business, nothing to do with ball- tampering, but all the same he lied to the match referee about it, and was later rum- bled and fined. But he survived, to lead his men into mar...7 mot: futile struggles. There have been some. riveting series and some wonderful matcht.s, but Englari:.! have never quite become once again a power in the cricketing world.
In the end this failure killed off that nec- essary spark of naivety. Atherton stopped believing that he could save his team by his batting alone; and because he stopped believing, he stopped doing it. The last series was nearly a triumph for him as cap- tain, but it was always a disaster for him as batsman. Worse, Atherton, weighed down by let-down after let-down, stopped believ- ing that his players could be saved from the dire situations they got themselves into. And so the players, less believed in, played with less belief.
In each match, Atherton foresuffered all. He knew that in the end the worst would come as a matter of routine. The final day of his captaincy, when it seemed that Eng- land could still bat out a heroic draw, said it all. A ghastly and futile run-out — a run- out when batting for a draw — and the side fell like the House of Usher. Atherton in the end was the captain who knew too much. He had to go.
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