‘English cricket is in crisis, of that there is no doubt’
On Saturday 28 December 1996, the third day of England’s second Test against Zimbabwe in Harare, English cricket celebrated a bittersweet tenth anniversary.
It was ten years to the day when, on the 1986–87 tour of Australia, under captain Mike Gatting, England last won the Ashes; ten years to the day when England’s descent to the bottom rung of international cricket began.
I remember the moment we achieved what Englishmen regard as the ultimate cricketing goal as though it was yesterday. One-nil up in the series with two matches to play, we arrived at Melbourne for the Christmas Test, confident that we would achieve the result that would give us the series. Our confidence was not misplaced. We won in three days and we were that good. Gladstone Small and I both took five wickets to dismiss the Australians for fewer than 150, then Chris Broad hit a century to set up victory by an innings. How sweet a moment it was when Merv Hughes swung a delivery from Phil Edmonds, our left-arm spinner, into Gladstone’s hands on the square leg boundary to bring the match to an end and signal the start of our celebrations.
Ten years later, on that fateful day in Harare, England were being bowled out by a team representing a country that wasn’t even playing Test cricket when we last won the Ashes, dismissed for 156 in less than a full day’s play. It was one of the most pathetic batting performances I’ve seen from an England team, but the fact that the overwhelming public reaction to it was one of resignation rather than shock underlined just how far English cricket had fallen during a decade in the doldrums.
Then Zimbabwe’s young fighters completed England’s indignity by winning the two final one-day games of the three-match series to secure a 3–0 whitewash.
David Lloyd, the England coach, on his first senior overseas tour, had already suffered ridicule back home for his comments after the tied first Test in Bulawayo, when, after a fracas with an official of the Zimbabwean Cricket Union he claimed, ‘We murdered them. We hammered them. They know it, and we know it.’ The team had also earned a reputation, unfair or not, for surliness.
For the armchair critics back home, England’s final one-day defeat by 131 runs was meat and drink. Conservative MP Terry Dicks tucked in with the greatest relish. He said, ‘I think the tour should be abandoned now. They should not be allowed to go out to the sun in New Zealand. They should be brought home in disgrace.’ Now really gorging himself, he carried on, ‘I would sack the management and half the team. I have never been so ashamed to be English.’ Another Tory MP, Bill Cash, said English cricket had reached a new low. ‘We have got to shake the whole thing up and produce some new talent,’ he said. It wasn’t just the rent-a-quote politicians who climbed into England. The former England captain Brian Close, my mentor as a young player at Somerset and a man whose opinions on cricket are usually direct and to the point said simply, ‘The players want their arses kicking.’
Despite occasional upturns in form and the undoubted enthusiasm of new coach Lloyd, the underlying theme running through England’s performances during 1996 was that as a cricketing nation we were going nowhere fast. The statistics said it all: nine Test matches were played in the twelve-month period, one against South Africa, three against India, three against Pakistan and two against Zimbabwe. England managed one solitary victory, the first Test of the summer against India at Edgbaston. They lost three, the first against South Africa to surrender the five-Test series, two to Pakistan in the 2–0 defeat in the second half of the summer, and drew the other five matches – two against India, one against Pakistan and, most unforgivably in the eyes of politicians, players and punters alike, two Test matches in Zimbabwe.
In one-day international cricket, they did reach the quarter-finals of the 1996 World Cup – but after losing to every Test playing nation, and only because they managed to defeat Holland and the United Arab Emirates. In total, of the twenty-one matches completed, England won just six, losing fifteen. In all international cricket they played thirty-one matches, won seven, and lost eighteen. Whichever way you care to look at it, that record simply wasn’t good enough. Certainly the sponsors of England’s Test team, Tetley Bitter, thought so as well.
When in the autumn of 1996 Tetley announced that their sponsorship would finish at the end of the 1997 Ashes series, they insisted it was because of ‘changes in the brewing industry and changes in marketing strategy’. Those changes may well have had something to do with it. But it was the lack of change in the fortunes of the England team which persuaded them to make their decision.
Tetley had been sponsoring England’s Test cricketers for four years. In September 1994 they announced a renewal of the sponsorship, which was intended to last until the end of the summer of 1999, during which they had intended to try and capitalise on the global exposure created by the Cricket World Cup being played in England.
But when Tetley informed the Test and County Cricket Board they would be exercising their contractual right to opt out of the deal two years early, it was a wake-up call that could be heard the length and breadth of the country. For the key element in their decision was their dissatisfaction with the continued lack of success at the top level. They simply didn’t want to be associated with a losing team anymore.
When Tetley took up the sponsorship in 1992, they struck gold. Immediately after putting the Tetley logo on their shirts, England won their first Test series for eighteen months. Their 2–0 success on the 1992 tour to New Zealand was their first Test series victory away from home since England retained the Ashes in 1986–87. Following that, Graham Gooch’s side finished runners-up to Pakistan in the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Tetley were rubbing their hands together in satisfaction at the success of their marketing ploy.
From that high point, however, England’s record went from bad to worse. They lost eight of their next twelve series, beating only India and New Zealand and when that sequence culminated in 2–0 defeat by Pakistan in the summer of 1996, not surprisingly Tetley decided the time had come to stop backing a losing horse. It wasn’t just the way the team played that persuaded Tetley to turn off the tap; the sponsors were also unhappy with the way England looked and the way they behaved. Market research had told them that although brand awareness had increased during the sponsorship with more people learning about their product, they were not necessarily drinking it – not even when England’s latest abject performance drove them screaming to the bar.
By the time England played the final two one-day internationals in Zimbabwe in 1996, they had been joined by Lord MacLaurin, the new chairman of the English Cricket Board, and Tim Lamb, the chief executive. Perhaps for the future benefit of English cricket, it was as well they were there to watch England’s surrender.
Tim Lamb spoke for himself and his boss when, on England’s return from the second leg of the tour to New Zealand, at the annual general meeting of The Council of Cricket Societies, he said: ‘The England team’s performances over recent years have been extremely disappointing, and I think the way in which the England team have conducted themselves recently is also disappointing.
‘Ian MacLaurin and I were absolutely horrified by what we saw in Zimbabwe. We were very very disturbed by some of the things we came across.
‘We thought David Lloyd’s comments in Bulawayo were completely inappropriate. We were not happy with the way the England team presented themselves. We understand their demeanour was fairly negative and not particularly attractive.
‘I think the way they presented themselves in terms of their dress left a lot to be desired. That was a factor in Tetley Bitter not renewing their sponsorship. Things improved in New Zealand, but there is a long way to go.’ A long way to go? Tim Lamb can say that again.
England did improve in New Zealand. It was almost impossible for them not to do
