The Cricket Captains of England
ACS Book of the Week
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Each week we spotlight a fascinating title from the vast collection catalogued in the Cricket Bibliography project, drawing on insightful (but not necessarily positive!) reviews from the archives of our journal. Today we bring you The Cricket Captains of England 1979-2025 (2016) by Vic Marks, reviewed for us by Douglas Miller.
Alan Gibson’s book, The Cricket Captains of England, first published in 1979, has long been regarded as one of the classics of post-war cricket literature. Now Vic Marks has picked up the baton and followed the Gibson formula from the days of Brearley to those of Stokes – but not including the latest home series against India. The book opens with a significant foreword by Alan Gibson’s son Anthony, himself a prize-winning author, who makes clear how warmly his father would have endorsed Marks as the man to pen a follow-up book.
The result is a book that is above all enjoyable. The world’s troubles can be put to one side as one wallows in happy reminiscence. For any keen follower of England cricket now in his fifties or older there may be little new to learn as the stories unfold. We have probably watched all of the 23 men who have led an England Test team into the field from 1979. The broad brush strokes of many series with different captains at the helm may be retained with highlights etched for ever in the mind, though precise chronology and other details are easily confused.
The book puts one in mind of old college and similar reunions, thriving on the familiar: ‘Do you remember when…?’ in paving the way to merry recollection. So we are now reminded of the highs and lows, the moments of triumph and joy and those of frustration as wrong tactics were pursued or luck turned its back on the national team. It is all brought to life by a man almost uniquely qualified to do it. Alan Gibson saw fewer than half his captains in action. By contrast Vic Marks toured under Willis and Gower, played also under the captaincy of Botham and Gooch and has taken the field with or against many others, some of whom have joined him in the press or TMS box, from which he will have seen the rest in action.
Bob Willis is the only captain no longer with us. The others can now read Marks’ judgement on their performance. He has been admiring or critical as he has seen fit, but it is done with warmth and human understanding and never a hint of malice or retribution. Moreover he has a keen eye for the difficulties so many faced. Botham was saddled with an unrelenting diet of West Indies at the peak of their powers. Atherton had to cope with Illingworth as an unsympathetic supremo and took the field with opening attacks unprotected by central contracts.
Hussain and Vaughan worked well with Duncan Fletcher, never one to hog the limelight, but Flintoff never had a workable relationship as his Ashes tour fell apart. Strauss and Flower proved a powerful combination as have Stokes and McCullum, while earlier captains had to put up with quixotic chairmen of selectors and meddling by the TCCB hierarchy. When Gatting was chosen to lead against Australia in 1989, Ossie Wheatley and Raman Subba Row soon put paid to such thoughts. Poor Gower led throughout the summer believing he had been first choice when this was not so. Micky Stewart’s philosophy as team manager/coach worked well with Gatting and Gooch, not so with Gower, whom Marks refuses to condemn as the unfocussed pleasure-seeker he is easily painted. Gower cared passionately about doing his best for England, Marks avers.
Marks shares insights that could only be possible for one close to the dressing room. His urge to be fair keeps resurfacing. Gower’s spin in the Tiger Moth he prefers to dismiss as a harmless prank, but a few pages later he is asking another question of himself: ‘I am wondering if I have been too harsh on Gooch.’ He, too, had a good sense of fun, Marks would like us to know. The determination to be kind does not extend to one leader. ‘It was very stupid to make Pietersen captain,’ is the verdict on the man who brought down Peter Moores with him. The appointment stemmed, we are reminded, from a questionable decision to have the same captain across all three formats and in its aftermath ‘the vitriol would flow like water.’
The book includes those who have stood in for a Test or two – Lamb, Butcher, Trescothick, Pope – as well as Emburey and Chris Cowdrey, the choices of Peter May, a chairman of selectors no-one really seemed to know. Those who have led England most often in Tests – Cook (59) and Root (64) – have served to emphasise that, like bishops, head teachers and prime ministers, even the very best of men eventually run out of steam. When these two resigned the way was open for Stokes to show that a job that had proved too much for Botham and Flintoff can still be handled by a key all-rounder, enabling the author to conclude: ‘I would be hard-pressed to name anyone in the last few decades who has done more than Ben Stokes to keep a format, still beloved by so many, alive.’
A beautiful book with worthy appendices, pictures and index, is marred by just one surprising slip in which the wanderlust Matt Coles, who helped lead Stokes astray on a Lions tour, has suddenly morphed into James Coles of Sussex, 14 years his junior and on track for a far more distinguished career.
Fairfield Books have also reprinted Alan Gibson’s original, The Cricket Captains of England 1877-1979 (pp304, £22, ebook £4.99, ISBN 978-1915237576). As an aside it is worth mentioning that for those whose bookcases may be running short of space, Fairfield price their electronic books lower than most other publishers.