The Botham Report. Ian Botham
FOUR
‘It would amaze me if Dexter, even though in overall charge as Chairman of Selectors, ever selected a player off his own bat for England during his period in charge.’
There is no doubt in my mind that Gooch’s decision to leave Gower out of the 1993 winter tour to India and Sri Lanka was the biggest mistake of his career as England captain.
Since Gower’s return to the national side for that fourth Test against Pakistan at Old Trafford he had proved what England had been forced to miss for a year and a half due to Gooch’s intransigence. Now Gooch added the final insult. The junking of Gower and the way it was done were an absolute disgrace.
Perhaps the worst aspect of the whole affair was how Gower first heard of his fate, not via a phone call from Gooch, the new coach Fletcher, or indeed the Chairman of Selectors Dexter. He read it in a newspaper.
The final Test had been completed on 9 August. The squads for the winter tours were not due to be announced until 7 September. Although the selectors, who by this time comprised Dexter as chairman, Fletcher as coach, and Gooch, did not finalise their plans until 4 September, the day before the NatWest Final between Leicestershire and Northamptonshire at Lord’s, it was clear that Gooch had made his mind up some time in advance. He owed it to Gower to let him know, for he must have understood how his longtime team-mate and sometime friend would be devastated by the news.
Most observers were convinced that Gower would be selected. There was no reason to think otherwise. But as the date for the announcement of the squads approached a rumour started to develop that Gower’s place was not as secure as it might have been. What is more those rumours also suggested that his place in the squad would be taken by, of all people, Mike Gatting.
At first this was dismissed as absurd. But on Sunday 6 September, the day after the NatWest Final, the Mail on Sunday ran a story stating categorically that Gower would not be going to India. Gower read it, held his breath, and hoped the story was wrong. He also waited for a phone call from Gooch or one of the other selectors to clarify the situation.
The call finally came on the following day, Monday 7 September. Sadly for Gower, it confirmed his worst fears. Not surprisingly, Gower went ballistic. And so did the national press. At a press conference to announce the squad, question after question was fired at Fletcher and Dexter and no sensible answer was forthcoming over Gower’s omission. Fletcher tried to fob off the press with some excuse along the lines that Gower’s inclusion alongside that of Gooch himself and Gatting would have meant too many batsmen in the squad in their mid-thirties. This inflamed the public opinion even more.
Gatting, who had signed up for the rebel tourists in 1989, had only recently become available for England again, having had his ban cut in half after South Africa’s re-entry to the Test arena had encouraged a mood of reconciliation. What infuriated many was that Gower, who had refused any inducements to take the krugerrand and run during 1989 and had stayed loyal to England, was being ditched, while Gatting who had so obviously failed to put England first was being welcomed back with open arms to take Gower’s place. Furthermore Gooch had also made room for John Emburey, his oldest and closest friend in the game who, as a member of Geoff Boycott’s original rebel party in 1982, was the only cricketer to sign up for two rebel tours to South Africa.
Critics of the decision also highlighted Gooch’s record in this respect. Between 1978–79 and 1986–87 Gower had gone on nine successive winter tours. The following year he asked for a break, understandably. And since that time he had made no conditions on his availability for England. As Matthew Engel, editor of Wisden commented, ‘The contrast with Gooch – his decision to go to South Africa in 1981–82, his refusal, for family reasons, to tour Australia in 1986–87, his need to have Donald Carr fly out to Antigua in 1986 to persuade him to stay because some politician had criticised him, the fact that he planned to skip the abandoned India tour of 1988–89 until he was offered the captaincy, even his insistence on not going to Sri Lanka [Gooch had said in advance that although he was happy to captain in India, he would not do so in Sri Lanka] – is very stark.’ Gooch, Fletcher and Dexter might have gained a modicum of credit during the episode if only they had come up with a straight answer to the straight question: Why? They failed to do so.
I believe they were embarrassed by the decision because they had no logical or reasonable grounds to make it. And the harder they were pressed, the clearer their only option became. It was to shut up and hope that the noise and fuss would die down. It never did, and for that we must thank a group of dissident members of the MCC. Led by a gentleman named Dennis Oliver, and against the strong opposition of the MCC committee, these MCC ‘rebels’ proposed a vote of no confidence in the England Test selectors over the omission of Gower, Jack Russell and Ian Salisbury. When the members met, the rebels won by 715 to 412 votes on site. However, the postal vote went in favour of the selectors by 6,135 votes to 4,600. Never mind their defeat, the rebels had made their point.
By the end of the winter tour, which turned out to be an unmitigated disaster from England’s and Gooch’s point of view, the decision to omit Gower looked a sick joke. England became the first team ever to lose all their matches in a Test series in India, going down 3–0, each time by a huge margin. Then they lost to Sri Lanka in a Test match for the first time. And the anger that the MCC rebels had so eloquently displayed grew nationwide.
Gooch’s first error of judgement, in my opinion, was to carry on as captain at the end of that summer series against Pakistan. I believe he was reluctant to tour India at all, and this should have been the moment when he called it a day as captain. Instead, the ten-wicket defeat by Pakistan at the final Test at The Oval began a sequence of seven defeats against four different countries which ran up to and included the Lord’s Test against Australia in 1993 which was lost by an innings and 62 runs.
I believe Gooch would have gone, in fact, had Micky Stewart’s replacement as England coach been anyone other than Keith Fletcher, Gooch’s friend and mentor at Essex.
During that summer of 1992 Gooch had made various noises along the lines that he did not fancy touring the subcontinent in 1993, and although his annual procrastinations about touring were legendary, this time it appeared he was serious. Clearly, if he did not tour India in 1992–93, that would be the end of his captaincy. Fletcher had taken some prising away from his county job at Essex, and had negotiated a five-year contract with the Test and County Cricket Board executive committee, the length of which stunned and angered the county chairmen when they became aware of it later on.
Fletcher wanted Gooch alongside him for his first tour abroad as coach and persuaded him to change his mind.
Gooch later admitted that his decision to go was a grave error. On the day the England party arrived in India, it was announced that his marriage to his wife Brenda was over, which set the tone for his trip. On top of the criticism he was receiving back home over Gower’s omission, he was never at ease with himself or physically well, and he batted badly.
Dexter, whose hold over affairs had become increasingly tenuous, did not help much either. After England lost the first Test of that series against India in Calcutta, strangely electing to play only one spinner in an otherwise all-seam attack on a spinner’s wicket, Dexter announced that as a result of the continuing poor health of some of the England players, a study into air pollution levels in Indian cities had been commissioned. To this day we still await the results of that study.
And the offer of what was construed as a feeble excuse for dreadful performances produced predictable results in the national newspapers, one of whom suggested that, in future, any player fortunate enough to be selected for India should acclimatise by revving a car engine in a locked garage.
After the smog, came the prawn. According to Wisden, in the second Test match at Madras, ‘England were well beaten by eleven men and a plate of prawns as India won the match – and with it the series – by an innings and 22 runs. The night before the match Gooch and Gatting