1996 was heralded as another new dawn! There was a degree of excitement as the controlling and overbearing figure of Illingworth was removed and the affable ‘Bumble’ was appointed head coach.
David Graveny arrived as the head of selectors, but Bumble was the beacon of hope for the players. He was seen as an alley to captain Atherton and to the players in general, more carrot and less stick etc.
The 1996 summer started with three tests against India and a further three against Pakistan. Coming into the series Atherton, Hick, Malcolm, Gough, Cork, Fraser and Stewart had all made significant contributions whilst Thorpe was also a likely starter.
This era brought an end to the test career of Robin Smith and recalls for Nasser Hussain and Chris Lewis. Jack Russell kept wicket for the first 5 tests of the era and Warren Hegg for the last 2 (with Stewie doing most of the the rest).
Bumble brought passion and positively, although he was mad as a box of frogs and prone to occasionally losing the plot. He coaxed more out of Hussain, Ramprakash and Caddick than anyone before had manged, although Hick strangely fell away during this time.
1996 saw first test hundreds for Hussain and Nick Knight batting at no6. John Crawley also scored a test 100 but Dom Cork regressed a little.
The nuts and bolts of a good team were there, but the perennial struggle for balance (allrounders/keepers etc.) continued and the spin bowling cupboard was bare. Tufnell, Croft, Such and Salisbury all had a go … none took wickets with any regularity.
The allrounder hunt included Irani, Ealham, A Hollioke, B Hollioke, White and Flintoff – at times Cork batted as high as no7.
This is also the era that brought Mark Butcher and the outstanding Dean Headley to our test team. Both debuted in 1997, and whilst it was a few years before Butch really settled in, he did score centuries against South Africa and Australia. Deano Headley was the star of the A tour captained by Nasser in 95/96 and he was a class act.
The 96/97 winter saw us “flippin murder” Zimbabwe 😉 … and play New Zealand. We started 1997 with a resounding win in the first ashes test. There were a number of good performances but 200 from Nass and 100 from Thorpe were a cut above. They played very well and optimism was high after winning the preceding ODI series, unfortunately Glenn McGrath did not step on a ball prior to the second test and the status quo was resumed.
A tiring tour to the Windies saw the end of the Mike Atherton reign and the appointment of Alec Stewart as captain ahead of the 1998 home series V South Africa followed by the away Ashes trip. One notable aspect of the tour was Mark Ramprakash scoring his first test 100 and going big.
Stewie was a long serving vice captain and widely regarded as a top team man who absolutely deserved this honour. He went on to lead England to their first 5 test series victory for a number of years. This was a real ding dong test series and is an absolute case study for the benefits of 5 test series. Atherton and Hussain in particular were very good against a fired up Donald and Pollock.
This was also the series that gave us our first brief glimpse of Freddie Flintoff … the following winter we had a first sighting of Alex Tudor. I often wonder how good it would have been to harness these two at no6 and no8 over a good period of time.
The winter in Australia was fascinating, we set off with a lot of confidence although that quickly evaporated with some strange warm up performances and a clash of heads between Butch and Peter Such.
However Butch bounced back from his head injury and abysmal form to hit his second test century. Ramprakash was excellent throughout the series with bat and in the field. Stewie finally promoted himself to open at the end of the series and cracked his first century V Australia (cricket is always about the team, but I Ioved that he got this one ticked off).
The key difference maker in this series was the bowling, in particular Gough and Headley, who were world class with new and old ball.
The record books will show this as a series loss, but for a very poor umpiring decision in Sydney (the Slater run out) it would have finished 2-2. That would’ve seen Stewie with a record of a home win V South Africa and an away ashes draw.
The series was followed by a World Cup and that saw both Stewart and Lloyd lose their jobs. The next era was Hussain and Fletcher who really turned England around. That said, it was Stewart and Lloyd who set the platform for central contracts.
Viewed in isolation as a test team they were treated very harshly, but life is never that simple. This was an era of test cricket I loved watching. There was a lot of talent. One of the sad things is the test career of Dean Headley being cut short by injury.
A number of the players involved did go on to experience success in the 2000’s but that team of the late1990’s will always be one I look back on fondly.
The reality is that they never quite managed to get the set up on the pitch time and time again, a number of the allrounders and spinners that were tried were simply not good enough. With the benefit of hindsight they could’ve played to their strengths and had the best 6 batmen and best 4 bowlers with a Nixon or Hegg as the keeper.
- Atherton
- Stewart
- Hussain
- Thorpe
- Ramprakash
- Knight / Crawley
- Nixon +
- Gough
- Headley
- Fraser / Caddick
- Tufnell