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AND REVIEWING

      The press box is probably my favourite place to visit at a cricket ground. I have valued a good newspaper since I was a nipper – in the outside lavatory in Water Street where I grew up, the Daily Sketch or Daily Record cut into squares was a useful substitute for toilet paper, which was seen as a luxury we could not afford – and I believe they should play an increasing rather than a decreasing role in our everyday lives. I am fully aware of the modern-day influence of the Internet and other electronic media news outlets, but there should always be a newspaper industry.

      We are extremely fortunate in cricket that we are served by so many top journalists. When I look at the travelling band that follow the England team around, I am genuinely gobsmacked at just how good some of them are. They are a pretty diverse group as well, united by one thing: a real passion for what they do and a real passion for the sport. You have to be good in your field to rise to international level, and that is what they have done, established or new, in their journalistic careers. I love mingling among these pretty opinionated so-and-so’s. They’ve all got something to say and love a good debate on the topic of the day.

      It is a real hive of industry, and one thing I would love to counsel contemporary players on is the role these writers play in our game. Contrary to opinion that has become cliché in dressing-rooms over the years, these newspaper reporters are not their enemy. Through the ages there has always been this convenient defence that the press have a certain agenda, and I certainly thought it at times throughout my career. When I was England coach I naturally wanted to fight my corner, and if someone wanted a joust I was up for it. I had some real ding-dongs with certain individuals, but there is not an ounce of ill feeling towards them now. In fact, I would like to think I have made some pretty good mates among the press, ones with whom I share many an evening supping ale, engaged in bar talk.

      Such is the make-up of our national press that we become a real travelling circus for major tours. For the Ashes trips, for example, the broadsheets will have their correspondent and in some cases the number two, in addition to the dukes of their trade, the chief sports writers – you know there is an event in town when Patrick Collins, Martin Samuel, Oliver Holt and Paul Hayward turn up. These guys are terrific writers, but those at the coal face of cricket, reporting on it every day, are a wonderfully dedicated bunch of characters. Stephen Brenkley, of the Independent, is known as the Ombudsman because he believes no group decision can be passed without him; John Etheridge, of the Sun, barely missed a day of England cricket in twenty years, and the same can be said of Colin Bateman, a real dyed-in-the-wool reporter, with the Daily Express. That pair are no fuss but extremely good journalists. David Hopps, of the Guardian, is plenty of fuss but a real hoot, nonetheless. Then there are the former-cricketers-turned-journalists who get accepted after a qualification period of scorn. They don’t get an easy ride to start with; nor should they. People like Steve James, Derek Pringle, Michael Atherton and Angus Fraser have followed another former England international, the Guardian correspondent Mike Selvey.

      There is a fantastic cross-section of folk peering at matches from over their laptop screens. Between them they can write in any style you like. They are passionate about English cricket and during the course of their jobs they sometimes have to give it a bit of rattle, which more often than not actually amounts to little more than telling it exactly as it is. When I was coach I would not necessarily see it that way, but now I am on the other side it is blindingly obvious. As a player and a coach I always wanted to believe journalists had the game at heart, but sometimes I didn’t understand why they always had to be so critical. I confess that I may have been too sensitive because, in actual fact, they aren’t very often. They are only critical by and large when you deserve it. If you are not playing well you are going to get a lot of it. That goes with the territory.

      In my short column for the Daily Mail, I try to be as honest as possible on the pressing issues and always try to have a bit of fun as well. Paul Newman, the Mail’s cricket correspondent, rounds up the week and I have my say on what made me smile and what made me frown over the previous seven days. Paul is another with a great enthusiasm for cricket – a lifelong friendship with Nasser Hussain failing to drum it out of him, surprisingly – and latterly for greyhound racing.

      One night in South Africa, I met up with Paul and Wisden editor Scyld Berry for a curry. I was early, and so, as it happened, was Paul, phone in hand and looking agitated. He was waiting for his mother to ring with news of his dog Droopys Kelda’s race at Romford. ‘It’s bang on,’ he said, excitedly. ‘Couldn’t be better prepared. She’ll absolutely fly in tonight.’ Right on cue the phone rang. ‘How’s it gone, Mum?’ Last.

      It reminded me of another of my pals back home, Irish Tony, who had a dog which was running at a flapping track at Bolton. For those not au fait with flapping tracks, they are not registered venues and therefore the owners of the mutts bet against each other. Well, Tony, just like Paul, was feeling very good about his chances one evening and so had a bob or two more than usual on it and went and stood on the first bend to offer encouragement. The hare started running, the traps went up and the dogs burst forth. ‘Come on, come on!’ yells Irish Tony. Well, the silly four-legged beggar only ran straight to his master and licked him from shin to chin.

      There are some pretty astute thinkers among our band, although if you had seen Berry running the wrong way up an escalator in Sandton shopping mall in a panic, attempting to get to the curry house on this particular night, you might contest that. They have seen some cricket over the years, understand the environment in which international teams operate, and are known to the England set-up in a professional capacity. They are pretty well qualified to make judgements on issues arising within our sport – they might not always be correct, but they have earned the right to observe and criticise.

      All this brings me on to Piers Morgan. For those of you not familiar, isn’t he the chap off Come Dancing? Now I am not sure what qualifications he has to assess the goings-on of the England cricket team, so I was astounded when he waded in over the treatment of his ‘good friend’ Kevin Pietersen in losing the captaincy. In Piers’s Mail on Sunday column, poor old Peter Moores – still uncertain what he did wrong in the whole fiasco, by the way – got both barrels, as did Andrew Strauss. He reasoned that the ‘buffoons at Lord’s’ wanted a steady hand in charge and not a rough, tough customer in the mould of Ricky Ponting or Graeme Smith.

      Now, leaving KP out of this, I can give you a pretty decent character assessment of Andrew Strauss. Piers revealed that he had once had a round of golf with Strauss and found him ‘funny and charming’ and could imagine him ‘in a plummy voice’ remarking: ‘I say, old chap, hope we have a fine game of cricket today.’ Well, I was on hand, Piers, pal, to witness Strauss’s twin hundreds in Chennai, innings which came in dramatic, morbid and emotional circumstances, so soon after the Mumbai attacks. Situations don’t come much tougher than that, I can assure you. Captaining in an Ashes series brings its own pressure, but you would never have guessed it from the way Strauss batted in 2009. He has got real nerve but just happens to be eloquent too. That was not a crime last time I checked.

      I have only been around professional cricket for forty-odd years, so what would I know? A little bit, I would hope. Now I am not saying you cannot have an opinion from outside, but when a TV personality with absolutely no knowledge of the work of the individual or coach in the team environment wades in with hearsay as evidence it gets my goat. Peter Moores was lambasted by a bloke famous in his own lunchtime. He did not know Moores from Adam, nor had he first-hand knowledge of his work as a coach. All this was disgraceful in my estimation. In his piece, he asked: ‘Would you not rather have a Pietersen saying: “I am going to smash you lot up, Ricky lad, just like in 2005”?’ For what it’s worth, no. My feeling is that Pietersen is far better placed to do just that as the gunslinger, not the sheriff.

      I love KP, let me make that clear. You will not find anyone who practises harder or is more dedicated to playing for England. And if there was an award for politeness in international cricket, he would monopolise it. However, he was never captaincy material for me. The star player in a team never is, and you cannot argue against Pietersen being England’s star player. I have a military friend, Richard Hakes, who insists that the great, the maverick, the ego is never the leader because when the shit hits the fan they cannot empathise with others of lesser

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