from beginning to end, I was under no illusions about how hard it would be for me to regain my place. I got the impression after the 1992 World Cup in Australia, where in controversial circumstances which I will expand on later I ended up a two-time loser in the final against Pakistan, that my critics would have been quite happy for me to have disappeared from international cricket there and then. There are people in the game who would have thrown me out years ago after the troubles I went through in the mid-1980s, people who were jealous of my success and who simply could not live with the fact that, through no fault of my own, I was perceived to be bigger than the game. In fact, I really don’t believe that the selectors had wanted to pick me for the tournament in the first place, but they were forced to because they couldn’t find anyone capable of replacing me as a genuine international-class all-rounder.
Despite losing my place during the following summer against Pakistan, I was still enthusiastic about the possibility of a comeback against Allan Border’s 1993 Australians. On the evidence of what had happened in India, I was even more convinced that I could do a job at Test level. I certainly hadn’t seen any performance to make me think that the players being picked were so good that there was no way back. If the team had been playing well that would have been fair enough, I would have said ‘Thank you very much’ and looked back on happy memories. But to see an England team floundering with me as a helpless bystander was unbelievably irritating. I had a lot to offer and it was being wasted.
I was hoping that the selectors would learn from their mistakes and give me one last chance. My record against Australia was second to none. Allan Border knew that, the Australian management knew it and so did most of their players who had played against me at some time or another. The minute my name was down on the scoresheet the team automatically got a psychological boost, and for that reason alone had the selectors decided to pick me, morale would have been lifted and the Aussies would have been on edge from the word go.
So when I enjoyed some success in the traditional opening fixture of the Australian tour, for the Duchess of Norfolk’s XI at Arundel in May, I felt confident that the message must get through, particularly as one of my victims was Border himself, the Australian captain and my great mate and rival. In addition, Ted Dexter, the chairman of the selectors, was there to see what I could still do. Judging by what happened later that day, he must have had his eyes closed.
I had been genuinely keyed-up for the match. A party of us had travelled down from Durham: Kath, my wife, my youngest daughter Becky, and county colleagues Wayne Larkins, David Graveney and Paul Parker. The night before the game we enjoyed a meal at a bistro where all the talk was of producing a vintage performance to stake my claim to the all-rounder’s position. There was an enormous amount of interest in the match, as there always is when the Aussies are in town. When morning came it took us about an hour to travel the half mile to the ground because of the traffic. I like to think that many of the 16,000 capacity crowd were there to see me put on a show against the old enemy. Certainly the level of commitment shown by the Australians and the seriousness with which they approached the match were not in doubt. When I was hit for four in my first over some visiting Antipodean shouted out: ‘It’s ‘93 now mate, not ‘81’; I had the greatest delight in silencing him a few minutes later when I removed Damien Martyn cheaply.
However, unbeknown to me, Dexter was at that moment in the process of pulling the rug from under me. When I heard of the content of a radio interview he had given after I had bowled that day, during which he appeared to pour scorn on my performance, I hit the roof.
I was in the bar relaxing after the match when a couple of journalists came up to me and told me what had happened. Apparently Dexter had been asked what he thought of my bowling. ‘Are the Australians trying to play him into the side?’ he muttered, as if they were purposely trying to make me look good. When the interviewer, Mark Saggers, who was understandably taken aback by what Dexter had said and thought he must have been joking, invited him to say something serious, Ted declined. In fact, he simply said nothing at all, leaving his remarks open to the only interpretation possible – that he thought my efforts weren’t worthy of real consideration or comment.
Naturally, I was fuming. But when I got wind that the press, scenting a story, wanted to interview me about what Ted had said – or not said – I decided the best thing to do was to leave, go back to the hotel and try and put the whole matter out of my mind. That evening those of us who had travelled down together went to the disco across the road for an impromptu night out, by the end of which I had more or less forgotten all about Ted Dexter.
Then when I read the newspaper reports of the incident the following morning, that set me off again. Kath said it sounded very much as though Dexter did not want me in the England set-up at all. How dare he imply that the Aussies were trying to con the selectors into picking me by throwing their wickets away? Anyone who knows the slightest thing about them also knows that getting out to me is the last thing an Aussie wants to do, especially Border, for whom the events at Headingley in 1981 still hurt badly. The ball that bowled him at Arundel went through the gate between bat and pad as he tried to push it through the off-side. That was a weakness of Border’s which I had probed successfully in the World Cup match in Sydney where I managed to take four wickets in seven deliveries without conceding a run and scored 53. We went on to win the match comfortably, and that was probably the moment when the Australians lost their chance of qualifying for the final stages. Wisden wrote: ‘The combination of the old enemy, the bright lights and the noisily enthusiastic crowd demanded a show-stopper from Botham, and he provided it’. Did Border give me his wicket that night as well?
By this time I had worked myself up into such a fury that I was determined not to let the matter drop. I demanded an apology from Dexter. Two days later the phone rang at home at nine in the morning. It was Ted.
He mumbled something about what he had said being a throw-away line which he had come up with because he wanted to avoid the interview being all about Ian Botham. It didn’t wash. After all, I had just bowled the Australian captain and under the circumstances the first thing any interviewer was going to ask him about was my England prospects. It was the time of year when everyone is speculating on who is, or is not, going to make the team. Dexter went on to offer, by way of some bizarre justification: ‘You’re the master of the one-liner, Ian – look at what you said about Pakistan being the kind of place you would send your mother-in-law for a paid holiday’.
‘Yes, Ted,’ I replied, ‘and the board fined me £1000 for that one.’
I told him I was not happy about what had been said and I was not going to back down. If someone in Ted’s position behaves like that then it is for him to explain, not for me to sit back and let it wash over me. In the end he did apologize and the matter was finished – that was all I wanted. What did amaze me was that the TCCB let the whole episode rest without further comment. If it had been a player who had opened his mouth and said what Dexter had said, there would have been an almighty stink and an apology would not have been enough to calm things down.
In absolute honesty, I never expected to get picked for the first Test that summer. I felt I should have been because, although over the years my all-rounder’s mantle had fallen to a succession of pretenders, none of them had really looked up to the job. Players like Chris Cowdrey, David Capel and Phil DeFreitas had all been tried and found wanting. Chris was never in my class as a bowler or batsman, although he was a great trier. Capel was never really fit for long enough to be considered a front-line bowler, while DeFreitas flattered to deceive. According to most observers, the latest one to try his hand, Chris Lewis, had shown an alarming lack of what used to be known as ‘moral fibre’. In my opinion, I could still contribute more to the team than he did. Lewis has an enormous amount of talent, but he has a tendency to bale out when the pressure is on, and I don’t think anyone who watched the first Test of the ’93 series against the Aussies would disagree.
But if instinct told me I was not in the frame and Dexter’s performance at Arundel did nothing to ease my fears, the writing was on the
