a certain extent my form deserted me during my period in charge, but as far as I am concerned that was pure coincidence. Until that time, my career had been more or less one continuous success story. I was bound to have a poor run of form somewhere along the line; it just happened to be while I was captain of my country.
Although I was an instinctive cricketer, relying more on practice than theory, most of the captains I have played under have thought enough of my tactical awareness to have used me as a sounding-board. That was certainly true of Mike Gatting, David Gower, and to a lesser extent Mike Brearley. During the winter of 1979/80, against an Australian side which had just welcomed back the Packer players, and then against India for the Golden Jubilee Test in Bombay, Brears co-opted me on to the England selection committee, which meant I was in a position of responsibility ahead of more senior players.
When he got back from that tour, Brears had already made up his mind that he did not want to go abroad in the winter with England again. His aim was to concentrate on his training in psychoanalysis, for which he was clearly ideally suited, so it was obvious that a new captain had to be found. I think his preference would have been to carry on as captain for the early part of that 1980 home series against the West Indies. He considered me as his natural successor, and by staying on as captain for the summer he could have helped ease me into the job and kept an eye on me at the same time.
In hindsight, I believe that if this had happened my career as captain would almost certainly have lasted far longer than it did. Brears could have taught me a lot about how to get the best out of players.
Brian Close, who was an England selector at the time, was the only one who saw the danger looming. He was violently opposed to the idea of making me captain: he was convinced that at the relatively youthful age of twenty-four, I was not ready for it yet. Not only would my own game suffer from the burden of responsibility, he reasoned, but I was also far too naive and inexperienced (not to mention headstrong) to be able to cope with the man-management side of the job.
I have to admit that as far as the last point is concerned, Closey was probably right. Terms like ‘man-management’ meant little to me. Another word I could never understand when it came to playing for England was ‘motivation’. Why should anyone ever need motivating when they are playing for their country? Basically, my approach to man-management amounted to little more than making sure nobody drank alone and everyone got their round in at the bar. In fact, that caused problems later when, during the tour to the Caribbean in 1980/81, I attempted to ban Graham Gooch from going on training runs during the day because he was always nodding off in the evenings. As far as I was concerned, the sound of Goochie snoring when I was trying to tell a joke was detrimental to team spirit. On a more serious note, I felt he was just doing too much and I wanted him fresh where it mattered, on the pitch.
Whatever my failings in that department, when I took on the job of captaincy I was absolutely convinced that I could do it. Whatever misgivings Closey had, there were no doubts in my mind. If you are offered the captaincy of England you don’t say ‘No’ or ‘Not yet, but come back and see me in six months time’. The only possible answer is ‘Yes … anytime, anyplace, anywhere’. There is no greater honour than to lead your country.
What I didn’t know at the time, and could never have guessed, was that I had just sustained an injury which, eight years later, very nearly brought my career to a close. During the periods when the severity of my back complaint increased, I often thought back to the moment on that shivering day in April 1980 when, playing for Somerset against Oxford University at The Parks, I felt a slight twinge in my back. I hadn’t taken the trouble to loosen up sufficiently before starting a bowling spell and, at first, I put the stiffness down to that. The pain was no bother to begin with in fact – I bowled 25 overs with it – but on the final day it was giving me so much trouble that I reverted to bowling off-breaks. During that summer it got progressively worse, particularly as having given up smoking I put on a little too much weight which exacerbated the problem. I even had to resort to wearing a corset in the first Test at Trent Bridge. When X-rays revealed that I had a deformity of the spine, an operation was considered but the idea was eventually shelved because the experts felt that it might put extra strain on the adjoining vertebrae.
I bowled through varying degrees of pain from that day on. I never knew when it was going to flare up again, and by and large I succeeded in putting it to the back of my mind until, in 1988, the operation became a necessity rather than an option.
My reign as England captain began with the two one-day Prudential matches against the West Indies at the end of May 1980. The first, a rain-affected game at Leeds which ran into a second day, we lost by 24 runs. The West Indies batted first and scored 198 all out in 55 overs. In reply, Chris Tavaré top scored in the match with 82 and I hit 30, but from a position of 38 for four we were always facing an uphill struggle, and we were eventually all out for 174.
The next match on 30 May was at Lord’s and I won the toss again, choosing to field. The West Indies made 235 for nine, mainly due to some fine bowling by Vic Marks. Geoff Boycott and Peter Willey laid solid foundations for our reply – 135 for the first wicket in 33 overs – but then we lost four wickets for 25 runs. It was not until I arrived at the crease that we managed to pull the game back our way. Supported by Vic Marks, I scored an unbeaten 42 and hit the winning boundary off Joel Garner with nine balls to spare. The series had ended 1-1 but the West Indies took the trophy on a higher scoring-rate over the two matches.
It was not a bad introduction to the England captaincy, but there is a world of difference between a one-day international and a Test match and I was yet to be appointed to the latter role. The following day, 31 May, Alec Bedser called to let me know that the job was mine. I was obviously thrilled. I had no misgivings, it was the job in cricket and I was supremely confident of making a success of it. I was the youngest England captain, since Ivo Bligh in 1882/83. (Incidentally, Ivo’s other claim to fame was to lead his side to the defeat that prompted those ladies of Melbourne to burn the bails and present the ashes to him in an urn.)
By a strange quirk of the fixture list, the day I was given the news coincided with Somerset’s game against Middlesex at Taunton, where the new captain of England was in opposition to the ex-captain, Mike Brearley. Mike had also been phoned and told the news by Bedser before play began, and he was first to come across and congratulate me.
I could not have been handed a harder introduction to Test cricket than back-to-back series with the West Indies and a Centenary Test against the Australians in between. Throw in the political problems in the Caribbean on the 1980/81 winter tour and you can see that I had my work cut out.
In fact, as a team we did pretty well. I seriously believe that if we had had a little bit of luck we might even have taken the first series. The single result came about in the first Test match at Trent Bridge, a game we came so close to winning, and after that we performed pretty creditably to draw the other four. Obviously the weather helped us in certain situations, but I personally believe it also helped the West Indies to survive at Old Trafford. It was a case of swings and roundabouts.
In those days, England were facing a mighty West Indies side. In the batting department, Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes were the openers, followed by Viv Richards, Alvin Kallicharran and Clive Lloyd. As for the bowling, Malcolm Marshall, Andy Roberts, Joel Garner and Michael Holding made up one of the most awesome attacks ever seen in Test cricket.
My first Test in charge against the West Indies at Trent Bridge was a tremendous match. The rift with the Packer brigade had been healed and both Bob Woolmer and Alan Knott were back in the side for the first time since 1977. I won the toss and decided we should bat. I went on to prove that I could captain the side without losing my natural aggression by top scoring in the first innings with 57 as we made 263.
The West Indies replied by making 308, with Viv Richards and Deryck Murray both hitting
