First published in the 2018 edition of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, Simon Wilde runs through England’s long and unique Test history in the year they played their 1,000th.
On August 1, against India at Edgbaston, England will notch up one of cricket’s worthier endurance records. Barring mishap, it will be their 1,000th Test, homage to a nation’s commitment to one of sport’s more ambitious ideas: a game that spans several days and, in the age of timeless matches, spanned many. Whether the contest was done and dusted before lunch on the second (Old Trafford in 1888, England’s Test No. 30), or stretched over ten (Durban 1938-39, No. 240), they have remained true to a concept that would surely have died without their devotion. Next in the list is Australia, who by the end of the 2017-18 Ashes had played 808 (including 346 against England alone), followed by West Indies, far behind on 530.
By August 1947, when Test cricket was almost precisely halfway through its 141 years so far, 257 of its 289 matches – or 89% – had involved England. Even today, the percentage stands at around 43. A game that has always been too long for Americans, and increasingly appears too long for many of us, has not yet been abandoned by the English administrators. Far from it. Other countries may not be that interested in playing Test cricket against each other, but they still queue up to play England – and preferably beat them, though only Australia and West Indies, who will have accounted for exactly half of England’s 1,000 Tests, have beaten them more often than they have lost.
For much of those first 70 years, England Tests did not have significant radio or television coverage, which meant the fact they were captained by an amateur – as it almost always was – escaped the scrutiny it merited. The first live radio commentary of a home Test came at Lord’s in 1934 (No. 208), and the first TV broadcast, also at Lord’s, four years later (No. 233). The first time every Test of a summer was shown on television, even if only in parts, was when India toured in 1952, and Len Hutton became the first professional to lead them at home. Alec Bedser and Fred Trueman marked England’s 300th Test, at The Oval, by reducing the tourists to six for five.
England players didn’t begin gathering two full days before a Test until Micky Stewart, their first cricket manager, found himself being interrogated by journalists ahead of the Old Trafford Test in 1989 (No. 655) as to why Ian Botham had not taken a full part in Wednesday practice; Botham had driven from Hove, having bowled 40 overs on the Monday and 25 on the Tuesday. An extra day of preparation, free of county cricket, paved the way for England to fall into line with a trend for playing five-day Tests straight through, without a rest. The first time they had done this was at Old Trafford in 1981 (No. 571); their last Test with a rest day was at Nottingham in 1996 (No. 726). The change demanded greater fitness and resilience, especially from fast bowlers.
Stewart was appointed in 1986 after it became clear over a number of losing tours that players needed closer management, and that only some were capable of providing pastoral care. “Micky was very much ahead of his time,” says Medha Laud, who was brought by Stewart to the TCCB from The Oval, and remains involved in the planning and preparation of England sides. “What were later regarded as new ideas originated with him. They were claimed as novel, but I remember typing them up as things being discussed years earlier. The frustration was that the finance wasn’t there to put them in place. I sometimes wonder just what Micky would have done if he’d had the money the game is awash with now.”
Thanks to enhanced broadcast deals, the delisting of home Tests – a crucial but controversial move, allowing wealthy satellite channels to enter the bidding – plus sponsorships by the likes of Whittingdale, Tetley and Vodafone, that money gradually became available. Central contracts, long an ambition, became a reality under Lord MacLaurin, the first chairman of the ECB, the TCCB’s successor body. “Simon Pack came on board as international teams director because the team needed a defined management structure,” says Laud. “David Lloyd [head coach 1996–99] pushed for a larger support staff, more specialist coaches and various other positions. The TV rights deals created the finance to put things on a professional footing. When people say the team weren’t professionally run, I’d disagree. It was just that the money wasn’t there.”
Mindsets did have to change, though. Duncan Fletcher, who took over from Lloyd, recounted how he felt he had to educate some ECB officials “to think only of making decisions which would help England win cricket matches”. And when Vaughan became captain four years later, his first ambition was to make the team fitter. “I realised the standard in international cricket was rising, and also I believed fitness drives an ethic of hard work,” he says. “It worked, though I had to fight to get a masseuse. The ECB didn’t want to pay for one, so I said, ‘Not a problem, we’ll pay for it ourselves.’ The ECB realised this would come out. All of a sudden they paid for it.”
Finding the funds for support staff and players had long been a problem. Only in 1954-55 did MCC agree to pay for a physio to accompany an Ashes tour. Essex’s Harold Dalton immediately proved his worth by keeping Frank Tyson and Brian Statham strong enough in the heat to rout the Aussies. Previously, local Australian masseurs had been recruited to rub away hours spent on overnight trains. Today, England’s top players, nurtured through national age-group sides, have their every need met by technical advisers, strength and conditioning coaches, physios, psychologists and data analysts. They are handsomely rewarded too, but for long periods the players’ remuneration was derisory, highlighted when two went on strike at The Oval in 1896 (No. 52) and the defections to Kerry Packer hatched in Melbourne during the Centenary Test in 1977 (No. 525). The match fee for professionals rose from £10 to £20 as a result of that 1896 protest, but had gone up to only £210 by the time of Packer’s intervention. Today, the figure is around £12,500.
The poser is how many more Tests England will play in a world obsessed with Twenty20. The next broadcast deal covering the English seasons 2020– 2024 has built into it only a modest reduction, nothing to suggest imminent Armageddon. One suspects that if anywhere has the will to keep the Test flag flying, it is here.
By the end of the 2017-18 Ashes, Simon Wilde had reported on 245 of England’s Tests as cricket correspondent of The Sunday Times. His history of the England team was published in the summer.
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