M Johnson: Reeve Expert In The Art Of Getting Up People's Noses (16 Nov 1996)

16 November 1996

Reeve expert in the art of getting up people`s noses

By Martin Johnson

ALL those armchair critics who blithely suggest that there is virtually no aspect of international cricket in which England are not incurable duffers are hopelessly detached from reality. When it comes to public figures making derogatory remarks about each other, no other Test playing nation - Australia included - is remotely in the same league.

It you were to make a radio serial out of this everyday saga of cricketing folk, you could call it The Archers, but with real arrows, dipped in curare. And the latest episode involves Dermot Reeve, who has fired off in all directions in an autobiography recently serialised by a national newspaper.

Even allowing for the fact that the publication concerned inevitably pulled out all the juicy bits, this is not a book that you will find in the Mills and Boon section of W H Smith, or being ordered for Christmas by the likes of A C Smith.

Michael Atherton, the England captain, is portrayed as a lacklustre leader with indifferent body language, Brian Lara as a self-centred whinger, Raymond Illingworth as a negative griper locked in a time warp, and the entire England think-tank for the last World Cup as a shortsighted collection of dimwits barely capable of running a raffle.

Illingworth, in that typically shy and reserved Yorkshire way of his, responded by describing Reeve as "a liar and a two-bit cricketer". In which case, perhaps, when he pens his next newspaper column, the former chairman of selectors might enlighten us as to why he decided to pick a two-bit cricketer for his World Cup squad.

However, the fact that he has ruffled one or two feathers does not appear to concern Reeve too much. The former Warwickshire captain, forced into premature retirement by a chronic hip injury, has had his own share of criticism in the past, and professes not to be bothered by it.

"I`ve been described, by the same writer, as a `first class example of a second class cricketer` and `a living testimony that you can fool all the people all the time, especially if they`re England selectors`. But I still said `fine` when he phoned me up for a chat recently.

"Life`s too short to worry about what is simply someone`s opinion, and as long as the people I`ve criticised are happy with their own efforts, then they shouldn`t get over sensitive about it." As a player he admits he would probably have been made captain of the "Irritating XI", and once got so far up Curtly Ambrose`s nose that Ambrose let him have two consecutive beamers.

Warwickshire`s sudden avalanche of trophies had more than a little to do with Reeve`s appointment as captain in 1993, and it will surprise no one in the game if his new job as Somerset coach corresponds with an overdue upturn in fortunes at Taunton.

Leicestershire`s captain, James Whitaker, believes that winning the County Championship had a lot to do with a close study of Reeve`s motivational qualities, and Reeve himself says that his criticisms of the England set-up were only meant to try and improve things. "Whatever people think, there`s no end of talent in this country. It`s just got to be harnessed better."

"Do you know," he said, "that England asked for a video of their World Cup opponents four days before the competition started. Four days. Bob Woolmer [the South African coach] ordered a video compilation months before their winter tour there.

"Then, when I joined the World Cup squad, rusty, and badly in need of quality practice, I went into the nets at Cape Town and faced four bowlers. Graeme Hick and Neil Smith, despite the fact that our next opponents did not have an off-spinner in the team, Darren Gough bowling off a short run-up in plimsolls, and the physio, Wayne Morton. After 10 minutes that was my lot.

"Someone shouted, `Okay, back to the hotel`, and it was partly because people had their wives out there and had booked a table for dinner. I`m not saying that the ban on wives and girlfriends this winter is wholly the right thing, but I can certainly understand why Michael is giving it a try."

Reeve was not too happy with Atherton`s team meetings last winter either. "He`d start off by saying, `Right lads, I won`t keep you too long`, which to me meant that the meeting wasn`t very important. When I arrived in South Africa, John Barclay, the manager, said to me, `Dermot, the players don`t talk enough cricket. I want you to get them talking about the game`.

"The way I see it we didn`t give ourselves the best chance of winning. If you`ve done your best, and lost to a better side, fine. But doing your best isn`t just what happens on the field, it`s analysing, organising, and motivating. And I think, hopefully, that David Lloyd is getting to grips with that.

"Sometimes, you wonder about priorities in this country. My mum once overheard some Warwickshire committee men grumbling about the length of my hair, and she said, `Dermot, I really think it`s time you had it cut`. I ask you.

"I also wanted the committee to introduce a cash incentive scheme for players keeping themselves fit over the winter - when the club stops paying them - but Warwickshire suggested fining them instead. After we`d just won three trophies. So it never got done. And just one player, Dougie Brown, reported back with a higher fitness level. Within the first month we`d lost our first three Sunday games and were out of the Benson and Hedges. Two out of four trophies gone before the season had really started.

"Cricketers don`t save lives, or anything like that, they just chase a red ball around, but that doesn`t mean you shouldn`t give it your best."

Reeve never could sit still - he recalls a spectator at Guildford once shouting: "Have you got a ferret in your pants, Reeve?" - and whether or not Somerset win anything next summer, they will never be dull.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)