WE RELIVE THE HORRORS OF 1993
Sorry England whitewashed on Tour of Hell
England were a team in transition in the early 1990s, but there was at least one consistent theme – a scattergun approach to selection that meant players were always looking over their shoulder.
Despite missing two of England’s previous three overseas tours, David Gower had, for most of the past 14 years, been largely immune to the chopping and changing pioneered by a succession of selection committees intent on finding a winning combination by any means necessary.
Even when he was cleaned up by Waqar Younis for a single in the final Test of the 1992 season at the Oval, there were few murmurings that his Test career was about to be cut abruptly short. He had, after all, just averaged 50 against one of the strongest bowling attacks in world cricket after a 16-month hiatus from the England side.
Keith Fletcher’s arrival as coach in place of Mickey Stewart heralded the arrival of yet another new broom – but while Gower was about to be swept aside, there were more old faces than new as England named one of the most controversial touring parties in history.
“Mickey Stewart, his old bete noir, may have stood aside for Keith Fletcher but the ambivalence to Gower’s charm, flair and record is as strong as ever,” wrote Alan Lee in The Times, after the then Hampshire batsman was overlooked for a tour of India that would soon descend into predictable chaos. Meanwhile, as stark as Gower’s omission was the inclusion of Mike Gatting, John Emburey and Paul Jarvis – three cricketers who had been banned for the previous three years as a result of touring South Africa as rebels in 1989/90.
The announcement of the squad was perhaps the most shambolic ever witnessed, with its make-up leaked before it had been made public – and Gower was understandably furious.
“I would have hoped the team would have been selected on quality and experience,” he said.“But it seems these things are not important anymore.”
It was a stinging rebuke for Fletcher and effectively consigned Gower to the international scrapheap at the age of 35. It was a far-from-fitting way for England to say thank you and goodbye to one of their finest performers of the era.
If Gower could look forward to a winter of relaxation, though, those selected were about to be subjected to an examination that proved well beyond them. Jarvis’ selection was widely criticised, with many questioning why a bowler who hadn’t taken a five-wicket haul for three years and recently been dropped by Yorkshire for disciplinary reasons had been given the opportunity to add to his six pre-Rebel tour Test caps. Now a hotelier in the Cotswolds, Jarvis argues that the same accusation could be levelled at any number of England cricketers picked during that turbulent period.
“It was a bit of a revolving door at that time,” he says.“Obviously, David didn’t go but there were a whole load of players who could have gone on that tour and some who might have been lucky to be on the plane.
“Allan Lamb was another one maybe, but I suppose England brought Gatting in along with (Graham) Gooch as the captain and really thought that they needed to balance the team a bit more. It seems like they thought Gower was probably one older player too many.”
As it was, Jarvis was one of the few players to emerge with any credit from a tour that seemed destined to end in failure from the moment the touring party was announced. Gooch captained that side and revealed shortly before the end of the season that he had been inundated with hate mail since the decision to axe Gower from the side. The then 39-year-old, though, was sanguine over Gower’s absence.
“The decision was a hard one and it was always going to be an unpopular one but, in time, it will be forgotten,” he said.“If we win the Test series and Graeme Hick goes and scores three hundreds then everyone will say we are wonderful again.”
The word wonderful hadn’t been one readily associated with the national team for some time – and this tour provided scant evidence of it being used again any time soon. The first Test in Kolkata gave a perfect illustration of England’s muddled thinking.
“We went into that Test with four seamers – myself, Devon Malcolm, Paul Taylor and Chris Lewis – which was a pretty good and varied attack,” says Jarvis.“The spin bowler was Ian Salisbury, who had been on all the training camps during the winter prior to us going out to India. He was then meant to be going out to Australia on the England A tour. Because he had bowled really well, they thought they would take him to India for a couple of weeks prior to the first Test to bowl in the nets. He ended up being selected for the Test in front of John Emburey and Phil Tufnell.
“Whether that was the right decision or not, it sent out the wrong message to the other two spin bowlers. The ultimate problem, of course, was that their spin bowlers were better than ours, and their batsmen were better at playing spin than we were. That was the crux of it.”
A crushing defeat by eight wickets in that match was primarily because of a sensational 182 off just 197 balls by Indian captain Mohammad Azharuddin and the nagging brilliance of Anil Kumble, who took six wickets in the match.
Gatting’s second innings 81 apart, England’s batting was dismal with the tourists being dismissed for 163 and 286 in front of a jubilant Kolkata crowd scenting blood. It was hardly the finish Gooch had hoped for in what was his 100th appearance for his country.
The skipper had dragged himself from his sickbed to play for England in the opening match, but as the second game approached, the tourists looked a pale imitation of the unit Gooch and Fletcher had hoped for when they picked their mishmash squad.
“Personally I loved the tour and I loved the country,” says Jarvis.“I really threw myself into it. There were a few players who weren’t having such a good time, though.”
If things were bad in Kolkata, then they were about to hit a new low in Chennai as Sachin Tendulkar made hay while the sun shone, and England wilted.With Gooch missing the Test as a result of food poisoning from some dodgy prawns in the team hotel, Tendulkar smashed 165 as India compiled a mammoth 560-6 declared. The combined figures of England’s three spinners, Salisbury, Tufnell and Hick were 3-351 off 99 overs.
“At 19, Tendulkar reveals the remorseless determination of a great batsman in the making,” were the prescient words of Peter Ball in The Times.
That total was always going to be far too many for this England side, with only a second-innings century from Chris Lewis providing any solace. With physio Dave Roberts and Andrew Wingfield-Digby, the team chaplain, thrust into emergency roles as chefs in a bid to avoid any more bouts of food poisoning, there were precious few crumbs of comfort as the team prepared to head to Mumbai for the final rites to be administered.
“I had probably been our best bowler in the series, but I was dropped for the last Test,” says Jarvis.
“They brought in Phil DeFreitas, who hadn’t taken a first-class wicket all tour, and picked Chris Lewis, who had been struggling with injury for most of the second Test.”
I would have hoped the squad was selected on quality and experience. But it seems these things are not important anymore David Gower
Go figure. Although, in reality, no-one could have stopped an Indian juggernaut approaching full speed. A first Test hundred for Hick in the first innings – a majestic knock of 178 that gave everyone hope that the golden boy had turned a corner in his England career – at least offered England a fighting chance of being competitive... But then Vinod Kambli walked to the crease.
By the time he was out, some 224 runs later, India were 563 for eight and on the brink of achieving their first ever Test series whitewash. The Indian public, understandably, were loving it.
“The crowds were huge for that series,” says Jarvis.“In the first Test over 20,000 came on the final day when India only needed about 50 to win.
“I remember standing in the outfield in Chennai and trying to shout a message to Neil Fairbrother who was only 10 yards away. He didn’t have a clue what I was saying because the din was so great.”
When DeFreitas was dismissed, with England still 15 runs short of making India bat again, the clean sweep was theirs.
It was the final insult for Fletcher’s new broom...