Botham’s Century: My 100 great cricketing characters. Ian Botham
and the series 1–0. Mind you, according to Colin, leading the side, though a tremendous honour, was by no means a driving ambition. Later in his life when he reviewed the circumstances that led to him being given the captaincy, after Brian Close had been sacked following a time-wasting controversy in county cricket, he admitted, ‘I felt as if I had come third in an egg-and-spoon race at school and been awarded the prize because the first two had been disqualified.’
Cowdrey was enormously proud in 1988 when Chris, the eldest of his three sons, completed only the second father-and-son captaincy double for England, after Frank and George Mann. But he showed just as much compassion towards others who held the post, and I remember getting a phone call from him when things weren’t going so well for me as England skipper. He told me to keep my chin up and, coming from a man of his stature in the game, that meant a lot to me. Pats on the back and complimentary headlines are par for the course when results are good on the pitch, but it’s at the lowest points when you find out who your real friends are in cricket – and Kipper showed his true colours with that phone call. I know Mike Atherton, for one, also used to receive supportive messages from Cowdrey during the more troubled phases of his reign as England captain, and that’s a measure of the man.
Somehow it was appropriate that in the week English cricket lost one of its most celebrated characters, Atherton should score a match-winning century in Karachi, and England should mark Cowdrey’s passing with one of their best victories of modern times.
As anyone who has listened to or read the thoughts of Colin Croft as a commentator on radio or for the cricket website ‘Cricinfo’ will surely agree, the least celebrated of the great West Indies ‘fearsome foursome’ is never short of an opinion or five. Try this, about Angus Fraser after the West Indies polished off England in the Guyana Test of 1994: ‘His bowling is like firing at F-16 fighters with slingshots. Even if they hit, no damage would be done. Like an old horse, he should be put out to pasture.’ Say what you mean, Croftie.
I rarely argue with the big man now. During our playing days, such a tactic was definitely straight out of the manual entitled: ‘Test cricket for idiots, Vol. 3: How to get your head knocked off.’ For me, the story that best summed up exactly why I back off concerns an incident that took place during England’s 1980 Test tour of the Caribbean. Clive Lloyd and I, as captains, were very keen on our players going into the other team’s dressing room after close of play – not all the time, but from time to time, to relax and unwind with the opposition over a beer. We both felt this was an excellent way of defusing any conflicts that might be developing, and showing that no matter how hard we were trying to beat each other, we didn’t have to be at war off the field as well.
After one particularly sticky day during which the atmosphere on the field had became a little overheated, Clive thought the time was right to bring his guys in, and in they all came. All, except Croft, that is. Clive noticed he was absent and called back across the corridor separating the two changing rooms: ‘Come on, Croftie! There’s a beer for you here.’ Still he wouldn’t budge so, after a while, Clive left our room to find out what was the matter. When he returned he looked a little shaken.
‘Croftie isn’t coming,’ he said.
‘Why not?’ I asked.
‘Well,’ said Clive, ‘he told me he couldn’t bring himself to drink with fellahs he was trying to kill.’
‘Come off it, Hubert,’ I smiled, ‘He’s only having a laugh.’
‘I don’t think you quite understand,’ explained Clive, ‘Croftie doesn’t have a sense of humour.’
If any of our blokes asked me where Croft was that evening, which otherwise went very well by the way, I told them he was having treatment.
Kiwi umpire Fred Goodall found out what happens when you upset the big man, big time. It was on the notorious West Indies tour of New Zealand in 1980, when Clive’s men lot their rag with the officials and at one stage, during the second Test in Christchurch, threatened not to take the field unless Goodall was removed from the action. The incident involving Croft happened after Goodall decided, in his wisdom, to no-ball the fast bowler. Croft’s response was nothing if not straightforward. On his way to the wicket to deliver the next ball, the giant paceman sent Goodall flying with a shoulder-charge that would have made Roy Keane proud.
Croftie’s mum knew what kind of demon she’d produced. ‘When I hear Colin bowl de bounces, I get vexed,’ she explained. ‘Two bounces an over okay, but when he bowl five I get vexed bad. I tell him, what happen if he hit batsman and he fall dead on de spot?’ Sadly for batsmen the world over, Mrs Croft’s protestations had no effect.
I found batting against Croft one of the more challenging experiences of my career. Bowling from wide of the crease with an awkward, gangling action he was always at you, it was extremely difficult to pick up the length of the ball – which varied from short to very short – and he never seemed to give you any width to work with. He absolutely detested getting hit, which only happened once in his career, to my knowledge, when Viv took him on and destroyed him, playing for Somerset against Lancashire on a real flyer at Southport. And he was one of those rare athletes who actually seemed to get stronger the more he bowled.
After packing up the game, Croft took it upon himself to learn to fly, put in the work, got his pilot’s licence and now flies commercially. Normally, when I hear the words, ‘This is your captain speaking’, deep sleep follows imminently. I think in his case it would be a good idea to make an exception and take notice.
If I bumped into Hansie Cronje tomorrow, there is only one word I can think of saying to him – apart from the obvious smattering of Anglo-Saxon vernacular – after his conversion from a sporting statesman who led South Africa out of apartheid’s shadows to become a two-faced, two-bob cheat: ‘Why?’ We may never know what possessed Cronje to fall into the clutches of bookmakers and become a willing stooge for match-fixers. Nor am I convinced that the full story of his duplicity, deceit and double standards came out at Judge Edwin King’s commission of inquiry in South Africa. But one thing is certain: Cronje will go down in history as a devious charlatan who sold cricket’s reputation for sportsmanship and fair play down the river.
Why did you do it, Hansie? Why, why, why?
I was as shocked as everyone else when he was sacked as South African captain on 11 April 2000 because he was just about the last person on earth you would suspect of making squalid pacts with the underworld.
Everyone young enough to remember the autumn of 1963 recalls where they were and what they were doing when US President John F. Kennedy was assassinated; and I will always remember being on my way to a Pride of Britain awards lunch in Park Lane when news of Cronje’s downfall broke. I was gobsmacked, absolutely dumbstruck.
The previous weekend, Indian police had announced they had tapes of Cronje’s mobile-phone conversations with a bookmaker – which they stumbled across pursuing an unconnected murder inquiry – and most people had treated their revelations with a cellar, never mind a pinch, of salt. The allegations seemed to lose credibility when a respected South African journalist, Trevor Chesterfield, claimed he had heard the ‘incriminating’ tapes – and that neither of the voices was Cronje’s. Little did he know that the tapes were merely re-enactments of the transcripts, and the voices he heard were those of Indian actors.
Four days later, the dreadful truth was out. Cronje, having lied to his employers about any involvement in dodgy deals with bookmakers, spilled the beans to a clergyman before telephoning Dr Ali Bacher, managing director of the United Cricket Board, at three in the morning.
You have