Can Anyone Hear Me? Read online

  ‘Any relation?’

  ‘Hansie was my first cousin,’ he said and was then able to point to the mountainside where the former South African captain had died in a plane crash. The question of his disgrace I did not go into with his obviously devoted cousin.

  I think it is fair to say that I like all the Test grounds of South Africa, which each have their own character. Generally, even for the two tours I did there when we were not allowed to bid for the commentary rights, we managed to sort out reasonable positions to operate from. My first arrival at the Wanderers in Johannesburg, though, brought me up against one of those press liaison men who can be the bane of a broadcaster’s life.

  These are the men who have come to the job after a career in newspapers. That might not necessarily be a bad thing, but you occasionally meet newspaper men who have a chip on their shoulder about the broadcast media. Television is usually too big and self-contained for them to cause much disruption, so they turn their attentions to making life difficult for radio, oblivious to the fact that, unlike the writers, the broadcasters have paid for rights. The difficulties usually start with seating allocations, moving on to press conference access.

  On my first arrival at the Wanderers I discovered that our Radio 5 reporting position, from which Pat Murphy was to operate, had been put in the back row. I pointed out to the intransigent official how impractical this was for a number of reasons. However, it was not until I pointed out how annoying his buddies in the press, who he thought he was trying to favour, would find Murphy’s voice booming from the back every quarter of an hour, that he finally relented.

  The lofty Wanderers media area, if too high to be ideal for covering the game, does give a fine view across the golf course towards the northern suburbs. But the view most people celebrate is the one from Newlands in Cape Town, with its backdrop of Table Mountain. That is certainly spectacular, but it is difficult to ignore the rather less magnificent Castle Brewery – all pipes and steam – in the foreground. Even if it produced decent beer, it would detract from the view.

  The legacy of South Africa’s history – its complex racial mix and the politics which attend that – is obvious to anyone working there. They have come a long way, but I cannot help feeling that it will take at least a generation, and possibly more, for attitudes to change completely.

  The Cricket Highlights (v)

  Johannesburg 1995

  It’s one of those questions that all of us in this business get asked regularly. ‘What’s the greatest Test match you’ve ever seen?’

  It is never easy to answer that. But I could start with probably the greatest Test innings I saw. It was played by Mike Atherton at the Wanderers in Johannesburg over 3 and 4 December 1995.

  England were in a deal of trouble when it began. They had put South Africa in and bowled them out on the second morning for 332. When South Africa passed 200 with only two wickets down, they would probably have settled for that. With no specialist spinner in the side, they had to rely on Graeme Hick’s occasional off-spin to break a third-wicket stand of 137 between Cullinan and Kirsten. Though Kirsten went on to his century, five wickets after tea brought England back into the game on the first evening, which ended with South Africa 278 for seven.

  Cork and Malcolm finished the innings off on the second day after some lively batting from Shaun Pollock, in his second Test. Dominic Cork’s fifth wicket gave Jack Russell his sixth catch of the innings. But by the close of that second day they’d been bundled out themselves for 200, with the rot starting in the third over, when Atherton left a ball from Allan Donald alone and lost his off stump, to be out for nine.

  Three more wickets fell between lunch and tea, but at 116 for four, England did at least have Hick – who had made a century in the last Test – and Robin Smith together. However, the early loss of Hick to Clive Eksteen’s left-arm spin left Smith batting with the lower order. He was last out shortly before the close.

  So, South Africa batted through the third day, taking their lead past 400, with Brian McMillan 76 not out.

  Sunday 3 December 1995

  It was quite conceivable that England could lose the match within this fourth day, so my main practical concern was to have the magnum of Veuve Clicquot ready for the Champagne Moment presentation. But South Africa delayed their declaration until McMillan had reached his hundred. He then removed Stewart and Ramprakash and England were in trouble. At the end of the day they were only four wickets down, but nobody is in any doubt that it will take rain for them to save the game.

  Still, Mike Atherton is still there with 82 and among my post-match interviews Allan Donald paid effusive compliments to him.

  The delaying of the declaration for Brian McMillan’s hundred was a small tactical triumph for England. His last 24 runs to the landmark took him an hour and a half, during which time England captured three more wickets, Eksteen giving Russell a record eleventh catch of the match. It meant that South Africa had only four overs to bowl at the England openers before lunch. No one expected that to make much difference.

  Robin Smith started the final day in partnership with Atherton. They had already been together for an hour on the fourth evening. They were nine overs from the new ball, which, particularly in the hands of Allan Donald, might just be decisive.

  When it was taken, in its fourth over Atherton on 99 was missed from what seemed like a relatively straightforward chance to short leg. He hooked Donald’s next ball for four to bring up his hundred.

  That ball was eight overs old when Smith top-edged a cut off Donald to third man. Was this the end of the brave resistance? As it turned out that was the only wicket South Africa were to take all day. Atherton found a new partner as obdurate and stubborn as himself in Jack Russell.

  The two of them stayed together for seventy-five overs, occupying over four and a half hours. They added 119 for the unbeaten sixth wicket and, as the stand went on, the usually vocal South African close fielders were largely silenced.

  Monday 4 December 1995

  I think I have just seen one of the great Test innings. Mike Atherton, having come in before lunch on Sunday, was still there at the end – 187 not out. England only lost one wicket in the day and the match was saved.

  It was an amazing escape and much more nerve-wracking for us onlookers after tea, when we realised that there was a chance of getting away with it.

  I have pasted in my notebook a South African newspaper cartoon of Atherton standing in front of his wicket, with a union flag flying from his bat handle, resisting shot and shell in the form of cricket balls, saying, ‘Is that all you’ve got?’

  I see from my diary that I didn’t forget to present the traditional TMS award for the champagne moment of the match – funnily enough, not to Atherton, but to Jack Russell, whose eleven catches in the match passed Bob Taylor’s world record – though it might have been earned just as much for the way he encouraged and cajoled his captain in his finest hour.

  6. The East Revisited

  My third arrival in India was for the cricket World Cup in 1987. That tournament also took me to Pakistan for the first time. And then, after the Calcutta final, we went back to Pakistan for a Test series which became notorious for the conflict between the England captain, Mike Gatting, and an umpire called Shakoor Rana.

  I was extremely apprehensive about Pakistan, because previous travellers’ tales on the cricket circuit did not paint a very rosy picture. Later in my experience of touring, however, I was to find it rather easier to work there than in India. But it did not seem that way when I first put Test Match Special on the air from Lahore. After a comparatively efficient operation during the recently completed World Cup, things were considerably less organised.

  Wednesday 25 November 1987

  As the match started, we still had not got our circuits to London, though the engineers were talking, I gathered, to Karachi. I went to the t
elegraph office in the corridor behind the commentary boxes, where they were only just starting to install the telephones.

  I tried to get a call through to London – eventually successfully – and I was plunged straight into ball-by-ball commentary, with a very restricted view of the ground and an even more restricted one of the scoreboard, through four sheets of wonky glass.

  After half an hour, Jack Bannister relieved me and I retreated to the commentary position I had selected on the balcony. Miraculously, ten minutes later the broadcast circuit appeared. It seemed that it had been booked via Karachi from this end and via Islamabad from London.

  One other minor crisis that had struck me that morning was that the scorer promised by Radio Pakistan had failed to turn up. One of the journalists, Ted Corbett, aware of this, mentioned that his girlfriend was a capable scorer, so between chasing communications I hired Jo King for her first broadcast engagement.

  In the days leading up to the first Test, England had won the one-day series three-nil. Now they were reaping the whirlwind.

  As I made my way back to the hotel in Peshawar after the third Pakistani defeat, I saw their team heading out of town on the road to Islamabad, crammed into two minibuses. The story was told later that they had been carpeted by the President, General Zia ul Haq, along with officials of the cricket board. They had been told, we heard, that they had to win the Test series, whatever it took.

  Now the Lahore pitch was very clearly roughed up for the spinners, notably Abdul Qadir, and even on that first morning it became clear that the umpires felt they ought to lend a hand, too. These were the days before neutral country umpires were introduced, and this series was to go some way towards their adoption.

  Wednesday 25 November 1987

  Abdul Qadir, the first of Pakistan’s three spinners, was on after half an hour and got his first wicket – Gooch – in his third over. By lunch he had four, with the addition of Robinson, Gatting and Athey, though at least two looked rather dubious decisions.

  England were 50 for four and they lost another four wickets in the afternoon session.

  They were all out half an hour before the close for 175. The umpiring looks likely to become a sensitive issue.

  Well, I got that one right. Two days later, when Pakistan had taken a first innings lead of 217, Chris Broad refused to leave the field for some time after being given out caught behind off the left-arm spinner, Iqbal Qasim. He was persuaded to go by the non-striker, Graham Gooch, who then suffered a similar fate.

  Friday 27 November 1987

  In the evening a grim faced pair, the manager, Peter Lush, and coach, Micky Stewart, came to our hotel to give a statement to us, first about Chris Broad, who had been reprimanded for his conduct, and also a general comment about umpiring. They protested that a visiting side needed to be allowed to compete on equal terms.

  It was a clear accusation of sharp practice, which seemed an astonishing declaration from a touring manager.

  Next day Pakistan wrapped up the match by an innings and 87 runs, with a day and a half to spare.

  Saturday 28 November 1987

  Afterwards I interviewed a desperate Mike Gatting, who talked about ‘blatant’ conduct by Pakistan in the preparation of the pitch and in the umpiring. It had been a very sad match for cricket.

  And at that stage I did not know what was to come next, though I did also interview the Pakistan captain, Javed Minadad, who affected astonishment that there was any suggestion of controversy about the match.

  Immediately, there was a three-day game to be played a hundred miles away in Sahiwal. We had been warned of a shortage of hotel accommodation and difficult communications, so only seven of the press party set off in the minibus.

  Tuesday 1 December 1987

  The team were to be accommodated in the local biscuit factory and we had to report there to find out where we had been billeted. It turned out to be in the government rest house – no frills, but comfortable enough. However I totally failed to find a telephone to do a piece for the Radio 2 Sports Desk.

  The lack of any outgoing telephone at the ground made me enquire about a central telegraph office in the town. I was given some Urdu scrawled on a scrap of paper to show to a rickshaw driver, who deposited me at a busy crossroads, where I found a man peering out of a ragged hole in the wall at a queue of people. This, apparently, was the telegraph office. The man gestured me to get into it round the back of the building.

  I picked my way down a dusty alley, with chickens running wild, washing drying and rickshaw drivers resting on their charpoys to find the way into what looked like a Victorian coal-hole. The man who had peered though the aperture at the front was perched on a tall stool like a Dickensian clerk. I gave him the studio number and my name and settled down for a long wait. But he was through to London almost before I had got my tape recorder and notebook out of my briefcase and he did not turn a hair when I dismantled his precious antique telephone to connect my wires.

  The match was notable for the appearance of a seventeen-year-old leg spinner called Mushtaq Ahmed. He took six wickets on the first day, but after a visit from the Pakistan selectors, no doubt not keen for England to practice too much against such bowling, he took less of a part.

  Don Mosey had never had a good word to say about Pakistan and his two tours there had reached their lowest ebb in Faisalabad, our next destination, where he had stayed in Ray’s Hotel. Apparently the choice there lay between a room with no window at the back and a room with a window at the front opening onto the main road. Having made the mistake of choosing the latter, Don recorded the noise outside his window at three in the morning – a cacophony of lorry engines, blaring horns and loudly complaining animals and people. This, he insisted, continued at the same decibel level 24 hours a day.

  Out of curiosity, I went to see Ray’s Hotel just before the second Test match and found a visitors’ book, in which generations of unhappy foreign journalists had recorded messages like ‘Unforgettable’, ‘A remarkable experience’ and ‘Execrable’. The proprietor felt these were favourable endorsements of his establishment and was particularly proud of the praise he felt lay in the last word.

  After a quick look round I was very glad that one of the Aga Khan’s Serena Hotels had been built in the city by that time – it was a comfortable oasis.

  It was also very handy for the Iqbal Stadium, which was about to stage one of the most notorious Test matches of all time. On first inspection, the pitch there looked as cracked and crumbling as had the one in Lahore, but the afternoon before the Test – remarkably coinciding with news that Abdul Qadir might not be fit because of a bad back – it changed in character completely, with a good dousing of water.

  In the early stages of the match, England were doing well. Broad made a splendidly patient century, but losing their last eight wickets for 51 was a big disappointment for England. Nonetheless, their 292 was looking good when Pakistan were 77 for five on the second afternoon.

  Criticism of umpiring decisions from the press had led to television monitors being removed, including from the Test Match Special box. That certainly hampered us from appreciating fully what happened at the end of the day. In a strong position, England were pushing through Eddie Hemmings’ over, in the hope of getting one more in before the close. We then became aware of an argument between the square leg umpire and the captain, Mike Gatting, though we had no idea of its cause.

  With the players leaving the ground quickly at the end of play for the comfort of the hotel, and reports and interviews keeping us busy at the ground for an hour or so, it was some time after our return that the story started to unfold. The catalyst was the arrival of the television news pictures in London. There was then no live TV coverage back home and the news reporters had been forced to send the shots they gleaned from Pakistan television from Lahore, as no suitable facilities existed in Faisalabad.

 
Tuesday 8 December 1987

  As the evening went on, the reasons for the row gradually came out. Umpire Shakoor Rana had objected to Gatting moving his field late and had shouted at him. Gatting had apparently felt that it was none of the umpire’s business. I re-did my reports on my return to the hotel, as the impact of the row became clearer.

  Later I had to do them again, because the crisis seemed to have deepened, with Shakoor Rana’s statement that, unless he received a full apology from Gatting, he would not stand in the Test tomorrow.

  Wednesday 9 December 1987

  We all arrived early at the ground to see what the morning would bring. There was no sign of the umpires at the starting time of ten o’clock, when Mike Gatting led his side out onto the field. The ground staff were still in the middle with the roller and the mower both immobile beside the pitch and the stumps lying in a heap at one end. No Pakistani batsmen emerged.

  It transpired that Gatting had said he would apologise, but only if the umpire apologised to him for what, we gathered, had been the first abusive part of the exchange. There was a great deal of coming and going amongst the offices two floors below us, but it seemed that the Pakistan Board themselves were not pushing too hard for a settlement, even though that had seemed a possibility in mid morning.

  The crisis deepened. Peter Lush could make no contact with the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in Pakistan, General Safdar Butt, in Lahore. When he and Micky Stewart returned from the hotel where they had gone to talk to Lord’s, they found that Ijaz Butt, the Board secretary, had left for Lahore without a word. So Peter decided to go there too.