Can Anyone Hear Me? (14 page)

One other matter intruded into the preparations for this first Test. Just before I had left home, the papers had been full of a court case in France, where Geoff Boycott had been convicted of an assault on his girlfriend. Boycott was due to be part of the
Test Match Special
team in the West Indies and looking at the lurid headlines, I thought we might have a problem. I rang the head of sport and was advised that he would consult others and get back to me.

A fortnight after this, three days before the first Test, I received a call from London instructing me to drop Boycott from our team. The matter had gone as high as the Director General of the BBC. It took me half a day to track down Geoffrey and break the bad news to him. It is possible that at that moment the seeds were sown for the future tours when Talk Sport secured the broadcasting rights, with Geoffrey at the heart of their team.

With that and the lengthy technical set up, it was a relief when the action started and, with everything apparently working, I could concentrate on the cricket.

England had chosen to bat and it soon became apparent that this was not an easy surface on which to do that. Stewart was hit on the shoulder in the second over and in the third
Atherton and Butcher – to his first ball of the tour – were caught at gully and third slip.

The physio started coming on frequently as the ball reared unexpectedly. Then Hussain was caught at second slip and it was 9 for three.

After an hour – and six visits from the physio, Wayne Morton – the drinks were called on and Atherton and the referee, Barry Jarman, came out to talk to the umpires and to Brian Lara.

After ten minutes, both teams left the field and three-quarters of an hour later came the announcement that the Test had been abandoned because the pitch was too dangerous.

Now the work really did start, with reports for every BBC network and, even a call from Radio New Zealand, wanting a live contribution to their breakfast programme.

Reports continued on the phone from the hotel way into the night, by which time we had a press handout with a new schedule, which would include an extra Test in Trinidad, but with so many people to move, I noted in my diary:

Now, how to get to Trinidad?

I was woken at 6.30 by the phone and John Snow (our travel agent) saying, ‘I can get you on a flight to Trinidad at midday. The flight's full, so don't be late.'

Aggers is staying to fly with the team tomorrow, but I rushed off
to be charged huge sums of money for excess baggage and then we had a three-hour delay because of an electrical fault with the aircraft.

Eventually we were hurried onto the plane, which was to do the usual round of the islands en route to Trinidad. On the first leg of this, the pilot announced himself on the intercom. ‘Good news and bad news,' he said. ‘The electrical fault has returned. If we land in Antigua or Barbados, they won't let me take off again, so my head office in Trinidad has told me to go straight to Port-of-Spain.' There were groans from those in the plane who were bound for the other islands, but it was a great result for me!

The hastily arranged extra Test match – officially the second – turned out to be a gripping, comparatively low-scoring affair. The West Indies had to make the highest total of the match in the fourth innings to win, which they did – by three wickets.

The new arrangements gave us two Test matches on the same ground back to back and on the first day of the second of these we made a bit of broadcasting history.

In the afternoon I asked Donna Symmonds to do a session of commentary. I have seen and heard her operating on a few Tests on previous tours. She is very experienced and Victor and Selve have both been working with her on Radio 610 here and reckon she's very good. I await the response from England with interest.

Thus did
Test Match Special
launch its first female commentator. And on her home island of Barbados she was with us again
on that tour, and also joined us in England for the World Cup the following year.

That second Trinidad Test match also had a three-wicket winning margin – but this time to England. The batting of Chanderpaul and Lara made the difference in Guyana and the Barbados Test was largely washed out.

In Antigua, too, the weather took a hand. A lot of time was lost over the first two days, when England were batting – and only making 127. With better conditions, the West Indies ran up 500 and left England five and a half sessions of play to save the game. At the end of the fourth day they were 173 for three.

There was obviously rain around and it began in earnest just before the start of this last day's play, so that there was no play before lunch. However it was fine to start at 12.45, with two sessions to go.

Hussain and Thorpe batted until they were almost safe. Then Thorpe set off for a suicidal single and Hussain was run out by three-quarters of the length of the pitch.

And with that the collapse started. They were all out in the ninth over of the last fifteen and the West Indies had won by an innings and 52 runs, to take the series three-one.

Instead of going into the usual intolerably noisy corridor outside the dressing room for the post match interviews we were led up the stairs to a VIP lounge, which had been set up for a press conference. As television cameras arrived, I had an inkling that this was going to be more than just end-of-series remarks.
Mike Atherton came in with a piece of paper in his hand.

Ready to lead off the press conference as I was, I asked quietly, ‘Are you reading a statement?'

‘Yes,' he said. It could only be the resignation of the captaincy. And it was.

Jonathan Agnew had booked his flight home for that evening and in fact had his suitcase at the ground ready to go straight to the airport, so his reports on this momentous announcement had to be fairly swiftly delivered. I heard later that he had to do more when he disembarked at Gatwick the next morning.

On the previous tour to the West Indies, the final Test in Antigua had belonged to one man – Brian Lara. On the flattest of pitches, he was 164 at the end of the first day and 320 at the end of the second day. I wanted a word with him early on the third morning, but was told he had gone for a round of golf. Clearly Sobers' 365 record was in danger of falling and duly at 11.45 on the morning of 18 April 1994 Lara pulled a ball from Lewis for four to set up a new record. The game stopped for several minutes while well-wishers, including Sir Garry himself, came out to shake his hand. To be honest, after the first day it had just seemed inevitable.

Lara's record innings of 375 stood for nine and a half years. Matthew Hayden was the man who broke it – by five runs against Zimbabwe. Brian Lara's recapture of the title six months later seemed almost more inevitable than his 375 had. This time he made it to 400 not out, before he declared at 751 for five. Antiguans were just as keen, though, to celebrate the unbeaten hundred made by their man, Ridley Jacobs.

Just after the close of play, our phone rang and a voice announced himself as Matthew Hayden. He was after a number for Brian Lara. There was a moment when I thought it might be a leg-pull, but he convinced me he was genuine, so I gave him Simon Mann's mobile number, as Simon was at the other end of the round, covering the Lara press conference.

I discovered later that it had worked and Simon had handed the phone to Lara in the West Indies dressing room. It was a pity we had no way of getting Hayden on the air.

While the laid-back attitude that pervades the Caribbean can infuriate a producer trying to get his show on the air, it is, of course, the essence of the charm of the region. On one tour the press contingent were invited to drinks at the residence of the prime minister of St Vincent. It was a fairly ordinary house in a nice hilltop location and we found the PM with his shoes off in an armchair in front of his television. I thought maybe we had made a mistake and got the wrong evening, but, no, he was expecting us.

As the only Test-playing area to the west of Britain, the pressures of the time difference are not the same as the rest of the cricket world. Here, instead of getting most of the day's work done before the office at home is functioning, they are liable to be champing at the bit to talk to you first thing, but have lost interest by the close of play. It does, though, make for very good audience figures.

And then there is the music of a West Indies tour. Trinidad is the most musical island, particularly in the run-up to Carnival, but whatever song is popular at the time will be in your
ears throughout the tour. David Rudder or maybe Destra and always the evocative sounds of Bob Marley will be belted out through the public address systems at the grounds or just heard in the streets.

Tours seemed to come to a crescendo with the final Test at the old ground in Antigua – the Recreation Ground in St John's, with the prison on one side and the cathedral on the other – which used to rock with the sounds of Chickie's disco and rejoice at the antics of Gravy, the extravagant cross-dresser who would cavort on a platform at the front of the stand.

Now, that really wouldn't happen at Lord's.

For a remarkable and unexpected change of fortune, it is hard to think of better than 1990 in Jamaica. England started that tour having failed to win a single Test match against the West Indies for sixteen years. Their previous Jamaica Test, four years earlier, had seen them annihilated by fast bowling on an uneven pitch, which had given Patrick Patterson seven wickets on his debut. If the team expected any very different outcome from the first Test this time, they were probably the only people in the world who did.

In the run-up to the Test there was a big dinner at the hotel to celebrate the approaching fortieth anniversary of the famous 1950 Test at Lord's, when the ‘little pals of mine', Ramadhin and Valentine, had bowled the West Indies to their first ever win in England. Twelve of the players who had taken part in the game were there, including Sir Len Hutton, who was one of the speakers and who had a delightfully understated dry wit.

Two
days later I was interviewing the coach Micky Stewart about the team selection, which included for the first time Nasser Hussain and Micky's own son, Alec. As usual, Micky would only refer to him as ‘Stewart', but when I really pushed for some sort of personal feeling, he at last conceded, ‘His mother will be very pleased.'

The amount of the cricket that I wrote up in my diary at the time emphasises what a big game this was.

I can't remember being so tense on the morning of a Test Match for a long time. And, judging by a very distracted ‘good morning' from the normally effusive Allan Lamb, I was not alone. This was a very big day.

We rather groaned when the West Indies won the toss and, despite some hesitation from Richards, decided to bat. The feeling of déjà vu was greater still, when Greenidge and Haynes had reached 60 quickly, even though England had not bowled badly, after deciding on a four-man seam attack and an extra batsman, rather than a spinner.

The breakthrough came when Greenidge misjudged the power of Malcolm's throw, after he had fumbled a stop in the outfield, and was run out. That was the only wicket of the morning, but four more in the afternoon put England right on top, particularly as one of them was Richards.

Then after tea, Fraser took the last five, conceding six runs in six overs and the West Indies were all out for 164.

It left England 24 overs to go in the day and they lost first Gooch and then Stewart, after getting a four from his first ball
in Test cricket, out for 13 to an unplayable lifter from Bishop. It's going to be a tense day tomorrow.

England had ended the day at 80 for two.

Next day Allan Lamb, first with Wayne Larkins and then with Robin Smith consolidated England's position and they took the lead with only three wickets down.

Lamb's century was celebrated twice. The main scoreboard of the three was alone in having him on 96, when he hit a four and raised his bat to the applause. But hasty checking showed that the boundary had taken him to 99, so in the next over, when he hooked Bishop for another four, he raised both arms in triumph. It was his first overseas Test hundred and he certainly deserved the chance to celebrate it twice and the applause that even Viv Richards gave him.

He was out an hour from the eventual close of play for 132 and England subsided a bit to 342 for eight by the time the inevitable bad light ended the day.

Still, that was a lead of 178 and on the third morning they took it to 200 exactly.

Now, could the bowlers do it again? After half an hour Haynes saw his leg stump uprooted by a yorker from Malcolm. But that was the only wicket before lunch.

Three more in the afternoon brought in Richards to join Best just before tea and after that interval we started to worry that
these two might just make things very different, as they took command in a stand of 80. Richards was determined to attack Malcolm and it proved his downfall. Just as it seemed the West Indies would take the lead with only four wickets down, Malcolm bowled him with a yorker for 37.

Just after five o'clock they did pass the 200, but double nelson struck twice and Bishop was eighth out at 227. At the close they were only 29 ahead. I went across the ground to ask the manager, Peter Lush, if I could interview any of the England fast bowlers, but he said, ‘Not until the job is done.'

I see from the diary that I woke the next morning – the rest day – to the news that Les Ames, the great Kent and England wicket-keeper/batsman and manager of quite a few England tours, had died. I remembered him telling me about batting with Andrew Sandham here in Jamaica in 1930, when Sandham made 325. The young Ames joined him when he was past 200 and started calling sharp singles and twos. The 39-year-old Sandham called him down the wicket to indicate the scoreboard and the fact that, at his time of life and in that heat, he was not inclined to do so much scampering up and down.