the noise abated long enough for us to restart and we made it through to the close but were both out quickly the following morning. Though we finished with a lead of 148, Lara then took control with an impeccable hundred, punctuated by a net session during the lunchtime break on day four, and that, along with the damp weather, secured the draw.
My second innings 38 not out encouraged me to tell Caddy afterwards that I was thinking of quitting Test cricket straight away.
‘What the f**k for?’ he asked me.
‘Because I’m averaging 104, and that’s better than Don Brad-man.’
With ten days off before the fourth Test at Headingley, the first real break since I came into the squad, I took some time to reflect on events thus far. My overriding impression was this: at the time I arrived some of the senior players were undoubtedly feeling the pressure. I felt, particularly among the batsmen, guys like Hick, Ramprakash, Thorpe, Hussain, Stewart and Atherton, that they had become conditioned by years of inconsistency to a somewhat negative mindset. Losing to New Zealand the summer before and the absolute mauling they got in the media had obviously hurt them and by now they were so used to being hammered in print if things didn’t go their way that maybe they were not prepared to be bold and take too many risks when risk-taking might have turned out to be the best policy. In short, fear of failure was preventing them from truly expressing their talent and I think they were glad to see someone like me, and other young players like Vaughan and Fred, come in from outside and perhaps take some of the focus and the pressure away from them for a while.
And then we went and absolutely smashed West Indies in the last two Tests. The fourth was crazy, over within two days, and it might have been over even quicker if I had remembered to tell Nasser Hussain something quite important a little earlier than I did.
Batting was hard work from the start. From the Rugby Stand End, the bowlers were making the ball bounce alarmingly and there was plenty of swing and seam movement as well. In West Indies’ first innings, Craig White, who was now able to bowl at 90 mph regularly and was already a master of reverse swing, bowled brilliantly in tandem with Darren Gough and his swing from round the wicket into Lara made the best batsman in the world look like a novice. Craig finished with five for 57 as they struggled to 172, then Michael Vaughan made an excellent 76, and Hick, down the order at eight because Caddick had gone in as nightwatchman, a brave 59 to help us to 272 and a lead of exactly 100. When their second innings started we were determined to keep things tight because we knew chasing anything over 150 to win might be extremely tricky. But in the end we never did have to bat again. Gough got amongst them again, adding four wickets to the three he took in the first dig, then, for a while nothing much seemed to be happening. Something had been bugging me all match and suddenly I remembered what it was. ‘Why don’t you give Caddy a go from the Rugby Stand End?’ I suggested to Nasser. ‘He was unplayable from that end last time Somerset were here.’
And so he did, for the first time in the match, after tea on day two, and Caddy proceeded to bowl the over of his life. When it started West Indies were in deep trouble at 52 for five. When it ended, they were almost gone at 53 for nine. He took four wickets in six balls, one lbw and three clean bowled and, by the time he finished the innings eight balls later, he had taken five for 14 and they were all out for 61, the lowest Test score at Headingley. ‘Thanks for that tip about Caddy,’ Nasser said as we ran off in celebration of going 2–1 up. ‘But why didn’t you let me know earlier?’ I’m pretty sure this was the first time he had actually said anything to me at all. And I thought: ‘Isn’t this great?’
* * *
We were playing golf at Sunningdale in a sponsor’s event prior to the fifth Test at The Oval when I received the phone call telling me that Eddie was dead.
One of my greatest regrets in life is that I didn’t wear a black armband in that final Test match. Had Eddie Gregg died later in my career I would have done so without thinking twice, but, at the time, as the new kid in the dressing-room I felt a little embarrassed about the idea of making such a public show of my feelings. I also reasoned that if I did make this gesture I would then have to explain why and it all just seemed not quite right to me. I spoke to his dad, Alan, and told him that if I ever did manage to make a Test hundred I would dedicate it to Eddie, and, while it would not be true to say that was uppermost in my thoughts when the match began with Atherton first, then me, walking out to bat after winning the toss, it was in there somewhere.
Batting with Atherton always did help me keep focused. If ever I felt tempted to revert to instinct and try and bash the ball everywhere, one look at the bloke at the other end blocking the crap out of it soon put me back on the straight and narrow, and anyone could see how determined he was to make a big contribution here. There had already been rumours that, because of his dodgy back, he would probably retire after the following summer’s Ashes series, and Athers might even have been thinking this could be his last Test here. And he had another reason to do well. It wasn’t just that England hadn’t beaten West Indies in a Test series for 31 years, it was also that Ath had harrowing memories of one of those defeats in particular, when, in his first series as skipper, back in 1994, he had gone in to bat in the second innings of the Trinidad Test with his side needing 194 to win, got out for nought and watched from the dressing-room as Ambrose blew them away for 46 all out. Batting with him in this mood, relaxed but utterly determined, helped calm me down as well and we put on 159 for the first wicket, which, the way our bowlers were bowling and they were currently batting, should have gone a long way to securing a winning position. A measure of how fragile a side we still were, however, was that it took a second innings ton from him to make sure, because apart from us two, no one else managed to make fifty.
After lining up to pay tribute to Walsh and Ambrose, playing their final Tests before retirement, Caddick finished them off and we doused the place in champagne.
I was tired, but still looking forward to finishing off the season with Somerset, when Duncan told me he wanted me to stop right then. I was not convinced. After facing Ambrose and Walsh for the best part of two months I quite fancied making some runs against some less stingy bowling attacks at the County Ground. But Duncan insisted and, later that winter when I was dragging myself around Sri Lanka, I’m glad he did.
Winning the Professional Cricketers’ Association Player of the Year award at the Royal Albert Hall a few weeks after the end of the season gave me my first chance to make a public tribute to Eddie, and then all my thoughts for the time being were back on the winter tours to come. First up was a 12-day trip to Nairobi for the ICC Knockout Trophy and we were duly knocked out as soon as we played a major Test playing nation, South Africa. It was pretty dismal, but one thing did stick in my mind. The following day, back at the hotel for a debriefing, Duncan gave us a good shoeing, and even went so far as to ask us to consider the subject of our commitment. Some of the more experienced pros seemed unimpressed, but Duncan just nailed any dissent in the room by citing the example of Jacques Kallis.
Duncan’s point was all about just how dedicated he expected us to be while he was in charge. The day before, Kallis had been outstanding against us, taking two for 26 in his eight overs as we made just 182, then leading them to victory with the bat, making 78 not out. Yet when he got back to the hotel Duncan had seen him pounding away on the treadmill in the gym for half an hour as if he had done nothing all day, while we were all sitting around by the pool unwinding with a few beers. The point was well made and planted a seed in the minds of one or two of us.
There was very little time to do anything other than resolve to improve fitness at the very least before we were off to Pakistan for the next tour. By the time we came home, just before Christmas, we had been through an experience that had almost everything.
By now the pattern of early-tour blues I experienced every time I went abroad with England was well established but manageable. For the first week
