Hollow Crown

Mark Peel

Description

Award-winning cricket writer Mark Peel charts the development of the England captaincy - from the autocratic captains of the post-war years to the dual captaincy of the present, where power is shared between captain and coach. Peel examines the huge demands the England captaincy imposes on the occupant and why few leave office with their reputation enhanced. You'll learn about the long-lasting legacy of the Hutton captaincy of the mid-1950s, the downfall of mavericks such as Brian Close, Tony Greig and Mike Gatting, the success of the Illingworth and Brearley eras and the chaos of the 1980s, when captains came and went with regular abandon, and finally the glory years of Michael Vaughan and Andrew Strauss. The Hollow Crown contains individual portraits of the 43 England captains, exploring their background, philosophy, strengths, weaknesses and the legacy they left, with special attention given to the likes of Hutton, May, Illingworth, Brearley, Atherton, Hussain, Vaughan and Strauss.

Sujets

• Críquet
• Inglaterra
• England
• Cricket

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 03 août 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785317040
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2020
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Mark Peel, 2020
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781785316630
eBook ISBN 9781785317040
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
The Twilight of the Amateur: 1945-52
Walter Hammond
Norman Yardley
Gubby Allen
Kenneth Cranston
George Mann
Freddie Brown
Nigel Howard
Donald Carr
The Victorious Fifties: Hutton and May in Charge
Len Hutton
David Sheppard
Peter May
The Age of Attrition: 1961-80
Ted Dexter
Colin Cowdrey
Mike Smith
Brian Close
Tom Graveney
Ray Illingworth
Tony Lewis
Mike Denness
John Edrich
Tony Greig
Mike Brearley
Geoff Boycott
The Age of Instability: 1980-89
Ian Botham
Keith Fletcher
Bob Willis
David Gower
Mike Gatting
John Emburey
Christopher Cowdrey
The Hour Before Dawn: Captaincy in the 1990s
Graham Gooch
Allan Lamb
Michael Atherton
Alec Stewart
The Modern Captaincy: 1999 to the Present
Nasser Hussain
Mark Butcher
Michael Vaughan
Marcus Trescothick
Andrew Flintoff
Kevin Pietersen
Andrew Strauss
Alastair Cook
Joe Root
Conclusion
Endnotes
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
In this study of England cricket captains since 1945, I don t include the captains or the fortunes of the one-day side, which is a separate story in itself.
I would like to thank the following for their help with my research: Johnny Barclay, Simon Barnes, Mike Brearley, Matthew Engel, David Frith, Vic Marks, Peter Parfitt, Pat Pocock, Ivo Tennant and John Woodcock.
I d also like to thank the staff of the National Library of Edinburgh for all their efficiency on many an occasion; to Neil Robinson, the Curator of Collections at Lord s, for all his help over many visits and for permission to quote from the MCC Archives; and to Robert Curphey, the Archive and Library Manager at Lord s, for his unfailing efforts on my behalf.
I am most indebted to my agent Andrew Lownie; to Andrea Dunn and Michelle Grainger for their editing and proofreading; and to Jane Camillin, Alex Daley and Derek Hammond of Pitch Publishing, along with Duncan Olner and Graham Hales for all their work in bringing the project to fruition.
Mark Peel
Introduction
WHEN LEN HUTTON stood before the cheering crowds on the balcony at the Oval on 19 August 1953 to celebrate the return of the Ashes after 19 long years, it was his proudest moment as England captain and very probably the most fulfilling of his whole career.
Fifty-two years later, another Yorkshireman, Michael Vaughan, attracted similar scenes of jubilation at the Oval when he too reclaimed the sacred urn after England had lost eight consecutive series against Australia. Compared to the austerity of the 1950s, the celebrations proved rather more excessive, so that after a night of non-stop carousing Vaughan s bleary-eyed team paraded on an open-top bus through London before attending a reception at Number 10 Downing Street, hosted by the prime minister Tony Blair.
Given the mystique that the English have always attached to leadership, their cricket captain enjoys greater prestige than any other position outside royalty, apart from the prime minister and the England football manager. When people ask me what my favourite moment in cricket is, I always say it was when I was asked to captain my country for the first time, recalled Graham Gooch, captain in 1988 and again between 1989 and 1993. [1] When he became England captain, people told Nasser Hussain he was taking on a poisoned chalice, but they turned out to be the greatest years of his life. He absolutely loved the job and considered leading the England side one of his greatest-ever thrills. There is no bigger honour, declared Mike Gatting, captain between 1986 and 1988. It s a wonderful feeling. And, yes, when it s taken away, it s a big part of your life. It s almost like giving up a family. [2]
Yet whatever the honour attached to the job, it is almost the most demanding and thankless in sport because of the dependence on one person s decision-making. The best cricketers the country can produce, and the best cricket captains, have only to take on the mantle of the England captaincy to tumble headlong into self-parody, wrote The Times s chief sports writer Simon Barnes. The job reduces every cricketer that takes it on. [3] The only way a captain could avoid ridicule, he averred, was to win Tests, be a good ambassador and play magnificently. This level of expectation heaped upon the England captaincy was a legacy of imperial days when the country expected to beat all comers. I was 25 years old, blissfully na ve and totally unaware of the roller-coaster ride to come, recalled Michael Atherton, on taking over the captaincy in 1993. [4] You need to be an English graduate to choose your words carefully, wrote David Gower, captain between 1984 and 1986 and again in 1989. You need to be a psychologist to deal with the people around you. And, eventually, you need to be a cricket captain. [5] He must combine tactical finesse, man-management, sound political sense and a sense of moral cohesion while playing at the very top of his game, concurred Barnes. [6]
England s self-proclaimed mission to forge harmony within the British Empire and promote the spirit of cricket placed a premium on the captain s ambassadorial role. At the farewell dinner at Lord s for the MCC team heading to Australia in 1946/47, the prime minister Clement Attlee reminded them that they were embarking on more than a cricket tour: it was a goodwill mission. It was a message reiterated by other bigwigs before the beginning of subsequent tours. Yet those ethical principles sometimes clashed with the visceral desire to win. In 1953/54 MCC toured the West Indies at a time when the movement for national independence in the islands was gathering pace, giving an added frisson to the cricket. The situation called for tact and sensitivity, but under the uncompromising leadership of Hutton these qualities were often lacking. Numerous incidents of condescension towards their hosts off the field were matched with displays of petulance on it, especially towards the umpires. Whether the unpopularity of the tourists contributed towards the riot in the third Test at Georgetown is a moot point, but, determined to press home his side s advantage at that stage in the game, Hutton displayed commendable composure by not overreacting and England went on to win the match. More controversial umpiring followed in the fourth Test at Port of Spain and in the final Test at Kingston, Hutton himself became embroiled in a major kerfuffle. Returning to the pavilion exhausted at teatime on the third day, having batted for the previous two days, he failed to note the presence of Jamaica s chief minister Alexander Bustamante and to hear his words of congratulations. When Hutton was made aware of his oversight, he immediately apologised to Bustamante, who was fully understanding of his explanation, but the local press treated it as a major insult, only adding to the tension of an already turbulent tour. Hutton s batting went a long way towards establishing England s revival coming back from 2-0 down to level the series, but the burden of captaincy had weighed heavily upon him and he was never the same player again.
Touring the Caribbean remained something of a minefield, and both Peter May and Colin Cowdrey, respective captains on MCC s next two tours there, had to tread carefully, not least when England s on-the-field supremacy precipitated further riots - in the Trinidad Test of 1959/60 and in the Kingston Test of 1967/68. Noting the raw antagonism of the crowds on that latter tour, Cowdrey saw it as his self-proclaimed task to try and keep his cool when everyone else was losing theirs.
The following winter Cowdrey had to negotiate a full-blown political crisis in Pakistan, where opposition to the repressive regime of president Ayub Khan had reached fever pitch. After student disturbances had marred the first Test at Lahore, Cowdrey and manager Les Ames, much against the wishes of their team, felt obliged to travel to Dacca for the second Test, despite the sense of lawlessness that had gripped the city. Their fate was placed in the hands of the all-powerful students who provided the security for the match, and in the circumstances they did it pretty effectively, more than could be said for the final Test at Karachi. Two days of constant disruption gave way to a full-scale pitch invasion on the third day, forcing the abandonment of the match and a rapid escape from Pakistan by the tourists that evening.
Political instability in the developing world continued to call for British self-restraint. Ian Botham, leading England in the West Indies in 1980/81, was confronted with a diplomatic crisis in Guyana caused by the decision of its left-wing government to expel fast bowler Robin Jackman because of his association with South Africa, a situation that led to the cancellation of the Test there. At the beginning of England s tour to India in 1984/85, David Gower faced not only the assassination of their prime minister Indira Gandhi, which threw the country into turmoil, but also the subsequent assassination of the British deputy high