Dubai seemed like an appropriate venue for England’s cricketers to nip off to and recharge their batteries. You could argue about the therapeutic properties of throwing open your hotel bedroom curtains to be greeted by a skyline full of cranes, but a visit to the construction capital of the Middle East would certainly have delivered the subliminal message that there was some rebuilding to be done when they got back to business.
The idea though, with the various wives and girlfriends flying over to be there with them, was to help clear the head of cricketing matters. Take the captain. If Alastair Cook was beginning to worry that he might have mislaid the whereabouts of his off-stump, then five days of nappy changing, or sleepless nights spent listening to his six-week-old daughter going off like a hotel fire alarm would definitely have taken his mind off Ravi Ashwin’s carrom ball.
I’m not entirely sure, though, why it was felt necessary to leave India to achieve that get-away-from-it-all feeling. Years ago perhaps, if only to enjoy a few nights at a decent hotel. There was a time when, if you ever found yourself in an Indian hotel room with a water bed, it had less to do with being the honeymoon suite than rising damp, and a sign saying ‘Pets Welcome’ meant you were almost certain to be sharing with a rodent of the non-cuddly variety.
Not any more though. Air conditioning, luxury bathrooms, TV sets on every wall, and a choice of about half a dozen restaurants in the hotel itself are pretty much standard. And as for the traditional explosion when European plumbing meets sub-continental gastronomy, the food is now so hygenic that the only remaining danger of incontinence is to fly by the seat of your pants with Indian Airlines. And if the seat of your pants survives the experience, you’ll have done very well.
Dubai was probably the wives and girlfriends choice of a suitable nearby venue, and the lure of an air-conditioned duty free arcade probably just shaded the Rat Temple in Rajasthan as somewhere for a family day out. Times certainly change. If Cook had been born 60 years earlier, he’d have been packing his tuxedo and dancing shoes back in October, pecking Mrs Cook on the cheek, and saying: “Bye darling. See you at Easter.”
And when, say, a 1950s cricketer got back from a tour and rang the bell there’d be a howling noise from the infant who answered it with a shout of “mummy, mummy, there’s a strange man at the door.” These days, though, the players are either flying home to help teach junior learn how to dip his soldiers into a boiled egg, or doing the same thing at the hotel breakfast buffet.
The list of England players who’ve combined business with family in recent times is not a short one. It was in India in 2012 that Ian Bell missed a Test match to be at the birth of his child, and Andrew Strauss also skipped a Test for similar reasons, in Pakistan in 2005.
Jimmy Anderson flew home between Tests on the 2010/11 Ashes tour for the birth of his daughter, Michael Vaughan darted off the field during a Test match at Headingley in 2004 when a message came out that his wife had gone into labour, and Kevin Pietersen left the West Indies during the 2010 World T20 for the birth of his son.
And then there was Nasser Hussain, who left his team in Hobart between the first and second Tests of the 2002-3 Ashes tour to fly to Perth for the birth of his son. And those who argue that the captain’s mind can’t have been fully on the day job can point to Hussain winning the toss at the first Test in Brisbane, and making the worst insertion in Ashes history. Day one: Australia 364 for 2.
Hussain had actually gone to the middle with the intention of batting, but who knows whether thoughts of “heads or tails?” had been replaced by “boy or a girl?” Hussain’s explanation to the dressing room when he got back must have been similar to that Indian umpire who apologised to Mike Brearley. “I knew it was not out Mr Brearley, but I felt my finger going up and I just couldn’t stop it.”
Contrast the modern way of allowing players compassionate leave with the late Bob Woolmer asking for time off during the summer of 1982 to attend the birth of his second son. Certainly not, came the reply. And this wasn’t for a Test match. It was for a county match with Kent.
At least on this winter the players kept the business of cricket and family separate, unlike the 2006-07 Ashes tour. The England squad that left for Australia consisted of the customary 16 players, but by the time they flew from Adelaide to Perth between the second and third Tests, no less than 95 boarding passes were issued to the England entourage, an expansion rate which could only have been matched by a colony of rabbits.
Even if England had been 2-0 up after two, as opposed to 2-0 down, it would have raised a few eyebrows. Wives, girlfriends, children, nannies, plus all the various ECB blazers you never see in places like India and Pakistan. It can’t have been easy getting wound up for the cricket when you’re playing ‘I Spy With My Little Eye’ and checking in pushchairs at the baggage counter. No wonder it was 5-0 whitewash.
On this tour, England have not only squeezed in a short family holiday, but for the first time in a five-Test series in India, the players will be home for Christmas. No such luxury in 1981, when Keith Fletcher’s players spent December 25 on their own in Delhi, and hotels had neither comfort nor culinary variety.
As the captain looked down on the familiar bowl of curry, he hailed a waiter and said: “Any chance of something a bit more Christmasy?” “Certainly sir” beamed the waiter, retreating to the kitchen with the plate, and returning in triumph five minutes later. When Fletch looked down the curry was still there, but sitting neatly on top was a sprig of holly.
This piece originally featured in The Cricket Paper, December 9 2016
Subscribe to the digital edition of The Cricket Paper here
