of Confessions of a Window Cleaner.
Keen student of the acting business that I am, I was only too glad to watch the master at work on the small screen – to see if I could pick up any tips for my own dramatic presence in pantomime, of course. But those films have aged so quickly, and the music sounds so tinny, that they just appear barmy now: within 10 minutes, Squiffy and I were laughing so much we could barely breathe.
Living these days on the tiny Mediterranean island of Gozo, next door to Malta, Squiffy has a private yacht which is his pride and joy. Whether I would set sail with him further than crossing the Serpentine in Hyde Park is another matter!
I’ve never met a man who cared less about his public image than Mike Atherton. Some cricketers can never get enough of being in the spotlight; whether it be in print, on radio or television, beaming out from advertising hoardings or at the front of the players’ balcony whenever the champagne corks are popping. Others even love the glare of notoriety. Mike always gave the impression he would rather have his teeth pulled out with rusty pliers as his extraordinarily low-key farewell to English cricket at the end of the 2001 Ashes series underlined.
Athers made an art form of being his own man. From the moment he took over the captaincy of England from Graham Gooch halfway through the 1993 Ashes series, to the emotional farewell to his defeated troops at the end of the 1997–98 series against West Indies in the dressing room at St John’s in Antigua, the main feature of his leadership was that, in pursuit of his ambition to succeed, he didn’t give a monkey’s who he upset. When he gave the order that wives and girlfriends were not welcome on the England tour to Zimbabwe and New Zealand in 1996–97, his action proved conclusively that, if and when he felt it necessary, this approach even extended to his team-mates. I didn’t agree with his decision to declare with Graeme Hick on 98 not out on the Ashes tour of 1994–95, but I admire his courage in making it.
As a senior player when Athers made his first steps in 1989, I couldn’t help feeling that he didn’t want us around much longer, and later, reading between the lines of his first utterances as skipper before he picked the squad for the following winter tour to West Indies, the message was clear: ‘Bog off, you old gits.’ I had retired by then, so that didn’t matter to me personally. But I do remember thinking such an attitude was either extraordinarily brave or extraordinarily naïve.
Regarding that tour to the Caribbean, although Gooch had decided to make himself unavailable, at the time David Gower was still musing over the pros and cons of retirement. I’m sure a call to Gower to give the team the benefit of his class and experience out there might have persuaded the outstanding left-handed England batsman of his generation to delay his exit. And even when Athers was prevailed upon to recall Gooch, then later Mike Gatting, it was pretty clear it was against his better judgement.
I know Mike himself believes that had he been allowed to pursue a new-broom policy without interruption, England might have made more progress more quickly. Then again, he never counted on the dirt-in-the-pocket affair during the Lord’s Test against South Africa in 1994 that effectively handed over the final say in selection to Raymond Illingworth, with whom he was subsequently to fight and lose too many battles over personnel.
I do think that one of the reasons the captaincy got to him in the end was that he didn’t feel able to communicate with or confide in guys like myself from a slightly older generation who might have been able to offer advice in certain situations. But whether he was right or wrong, his attempt to put his own mark on things from the start, whatever the fall-out, offered an insight into the single-mindedness that is at the core of his character.
In certain situations, of course, for single-mindedness read bull-headed obstinacy. First, consider events at Lord’s in ‘94, when he was spotted on television seeming to apply dust to the ball in what could only be described as suspicious circumstances, then copped a fine after he admitted to not telling the match referee Peter Burge exactly what he was carrying in his pockets at the time. The cricketing public were split right down the middle over whether he should quit the job, and even some of his closest friends thought he would. It took a certain kind of dog-with-a-bone stubbornness to hold on to the captaincy and his sanity while the debate raged around him. In the end he felt that carrying on was the right thing to do for the good of the side. Understanding what kind of scrutiny he was bound to be under from then on, that was an extremely courageous call.
A little more than a year later, as we went head-to-head in the Cane rum & Coke challenge to celebrate his marathon 185 not out to save the Wanderers Test against South Africa, one of the things Athers revealed to me was how much he regretted bring economical with the truth when interviewed by Burge. He genuinely panicked, I believe, and no matter how hard he tried to rationalize his actions subsequently, I don’t believe he will ever be able to rid himself of the feeling that he let himself down badly that day.
Courage, stubbornness, obstinacy, bravery. They say that a cricketer’s batting gives the clearest insight into his character; has there been a more transparent case of someone whose batting was so obviously what made them tick? Athers loved a fight; the tougher the opponent, the more he relished the challenge and, no matter what personal differences might have arisen, the longer he carried on the more his players respected him for it.
Take a look through memories of some of his most defiant innings, such as the aforementioned epic at The Wanderers to snatch the most unlikely draw. And later, to his great delight, painstaking hundreds against West Indies at the Oval and Pakistan in Karachi in 2000 to secure historic wins for his side. The vision of the full face of the bat comes inexorably towards you time and again, only occasionally barged out of the way by a full-on glare at Allan Donald, Curtly Ambrose, Glenn McGrath or Wasim Akram, or the exquisite execution of the off-side drives he unleashed with drop-dead timing when at the very top of his game.
As if the mere statistics of these and other achievements were not enough, remember this: for almost all of his career, Athers suffered from back pain that could only be kept at a tolerable level by a constant diet of painkillers which occasionally made him nauseous and cortisone injections that carried a significant health risk. He rarely mentioned his back, never made a fuss about it, and was rightly proud of the fact that he was fit enough to captain England in 52 successive Tests. A lesser character would never have come close.
Away from the fray, and for some reason I suspect we shall never fully understand, Athers put up barriers to people which he would only raise when he was absolutely sure he could trust someone. You could see why sometimes that would alienate, antagonize and offend people, and there is no doubt that at times he suffered because of it. I admit that at first I just didn’t know how to take him. But, as I came to know him better later in his Test career, I realized that the stern-faced exterior that made many misread him as aloof was probably only the defence mechanism of a paralyzingly shy person.
What I do know is that, during the second half of the 1990s, no side in world cricket relied so much upon the efforts of one man as did England. The rule of thumb during that period was that once the captain got out it was ‘man the lifeboats’. How richly deserved were the rewards that finally came the way of unquestionably the most complete England batsman of his generation.
One of the most enthralling
