The Botham Report. Ian Botham
pitch. The new strip, laid five years previously and used for only one first-class match, was an unknown quantity. Having selected the appropriate squad for a seamers’ paradise, namely one exclusively reliant on seam, Gooch was dismayed when, having left out the off-spinner Peter Such, he lost the toss and watched while Australia built a huge 653 for four declared.
England were not helped when Martin McCague of Kent was forced to pull out of the attack on the second day with an injury later diagnosed as a stress fracture of the back. But in an innings lasting nearly fourteen hours, the Australian batsmen helped themselves. In response, England simply shrank. They made just 200 in their first innings, and although they made a better fist of things in the second, scoring 305, when the final day of the match dawned Gooch realised it was to be his last as England captain.
He telephoned Dexter, who was not present on that final day, and told him of his intention to resign that evening at the press conference after the match. Dexter then tried to persuade Gooch to delay his announcement for a day. Not because of any reasons of PR or that he felt the timing of the announcement would be detrimental. But because he was stuck on the golf course with clients. Gooch tried hard to persuade Dexter to cancel his game of golf. Dexter claimed the engagement was one he simply could not get out of. At this point Gooch, unsure of the effect of making his announcement in Dexter’s absence, telephoned his friend David Norrie, the News of the World cricket correspondent. Gooch explained the situation to Norrie, who told him that if Gooch delayed the announcement he would look ridiculous. He had made clear repeatedly that if England’s performances did not improve he would resign the moment Australia’s grip on the old urn was confirmed. That moment had arrived and Norrie told him that if Gooch left Leeds that night without having resigned, he would be hammered, and rightly so.
Gooch decided to go ahead with the announcement. In an emotional press conference he explained, ‘It is the best way forward … The team might benefit from fresh ideas, a fresh approach, someone else to look up to.’
Gooch’s departure was inevitable, as this was England’s eighth defeat in their last nine matches. But this was a sad end to his period in charge. Despite largely critical reaction to his treatment of David Gower since he took over the captaincy from him in 1989, Gooch had enjoyed success, notably by leading his team to the final of the World Cup competition in 1992. Had he obeyed his instincts, and not allowed himself to be persuaded by Keith Fletcher to captain the side in India on the following winter, Gooch could have stepped down with good grace and with a creditable record.
This way, due to the prevarication of those in charge, lack of clear thinking and direction from Dexter at the top, Gooch’s reign as captain ended in sour disappointment.
Within a fortnight, Dexter had gone as well, in similarly sad circumstances.
Just before midday on Monday 9 August 1993, the final day of the fifth Test at Edgbaston, an announcement on behalf of the Test and County Cricket Board was made by their media relations officer Ken Lawrence. He delivered a brief statement to the press and broadcasting boxes at the ground, and a few minutes later Jonathan Agnew revealed its contents on BBC Radio’s ‘Test Match Special’.
As he did so, a spontaneous outburst of applause echoed round the ground. The reaction of those listening to the commentary through earpieces told its own story. The resignation of Ted Dexter as Chairman of Selectors was greeted with almost unanimous approval. Six months before his five-year term officially ended, Dexter had decided enough was enough.
The Lord’s spin-doctors soon got to work, claiming that Dexter had intended to resign at the end of the summer anyway, but there is no doubt that he brought forward the timing of his resignation so that he could jump before he was pushed by the county chairmen.
A group of them, led by the Derbyshire chairman Chris Middleton, had become increasingly disgruntled as the summer wore on. Middleton and his supporters believed that the mess over Gower’s omission from the party to tour India, and later his increasingly bizarre public utterances had made the chairman and the Board a laughing stock. Perhaps the final nail in his coffin was the reaction to his botched announcement of Mike Atherton as Gooch’s successor as England captain.
This should have been a straightforward affair. Once Gooch had carried out his intention to resign on the final day of the Headingley Test, the England committee comprising Dexter, Ossie Wheatley, Micky Stewart, Keith Fletcher and A C Smith, took little time in deciding that of the available candidates, Atherton, Mike Gatting and Alec Stewart, the Lancashire batsman was their man.
On the Wednesday of that week a press conference was called at the Hilton Hotel opposite the Lord’s ground where the reporters were informed as to how the decision was made.
‘We were unanimous,’ said Dexter, ‘except for Dad.’
Micky Stewart, whose son Alec had been passed over, was not present at the press conference, but when he was informed of Dexter’s remarks, he went apoplectic.
The former England coach had gone to extraordinary lengths during his time in charge to outlaw the word ‘Dad’ along with the words ‘son’ and ‘nepotism’ inside and outside the England dressing room ever since Alec was first selected for England for the West Indies tour in 1989. He was, quite rightly, livid at the suggestion that his loyalty to his son might have affected his judgement over whether Alec or Atherton should be elevated to the position of England captain.
Dexter later apologised, but the damage had been done. He claimed later that this was an off the cuff, jokey remark intended to demonstrate Micky’s entirely natural loyalty to Alec. Stewart was forced to ring Atherton and explain himself. Atherton took the phone call and Stewart’s explanation in good spirit.
But once again Dexter had opened his mouth and jumped in. And, for some, this for some was the last straw.
Middleton was the instrumental figure in the removal of Dexter. For some time he had been losing patience with Dexter and had taken soundings from his fellow county chairmen. He met, spoke to or telephoned all of them for their views.
According to Middleton: ‘With the possible exception of M J K Smith of Warwickshire, the chairmen were, to a greater or lesser degree, universally hacked off with Dexter. All summer long I heard the same things: he’s out of touch and he makes too many gaffes. I had had first hand knowledge of one in particular. Quite early on in his reign as chairman, he was interviewed on a Midlands radio programme and asked where our next fast bowlers were coming from. He referred to a recent Derbyshire match, saying: “What chance do we have of producing new pace talent when a county like Derbyshire go into a match with an attack comprising a West Indian, a South African and a Dutchman?”
‘It was bad enough that he had given a new nationality to Ole Mortensen from Denmark, but Alan Warner and Simon Base were flabbergasted. The next day I went into the dressing room to discover that the players, who had read Dexter’s comments reprinted in a national newspaper, were going loopy. Our “West Indian”, Warner was born in Birmingham and our “South African” was Base from Maidstone in Kent.
‘Simon was understandably upset. He said: “What chance have I got when the Chairman of the England Selectors thinks I’m a Springbok?”
‘Whenever I spoke to one of my fellow county chairman about Dexter the main complaint was that none of them ever saw him. The general feeling was that he had no interest in county cricket whatsoever. My message to them was that instead of moaning about him we should take action and, if the general consensus was that he should go, we should get rid of him. It seemed clear that he was intending to stay on until the winter tour to West Indies. But with the normal August board meeting coming up I wrote to all the county chairmen suggesting that we had to take the opportunity to remove him there and then.’
Halfway through the Edgbaston Test, Dexter got wind of what was to happen at the Board meeting, made his excuses and left.
Atherton, who was captaining England for the first time, was not the only one who was surprised that Dexter had not informed him of his decision beforehand. Several members of the TCCB’s own executive committee only found out when they heard about it on radio or television or through increasingly frantic telephone calls.