Gower speaks of matters cricketing

Former England captain David Gower delivered the K.S. Narayanan Oration on January 30, 2016, KSN’s birth anniversary, as part of the ongoing celebrations to mark the 50th year of the Sanmar family’s association with Jolly Rovers Cricket Club. Some excerpts are reproduced here.

On Test cricket

We must keep Test cricket alive.

We have to do something to reinvent Test cricket. To make it more broadly appealing, one of the things we need to do now is ask our superstars such as MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli to talk about the importance of Test cricket. If MS says that it’s important, then the country will believe it. The previous generation, for example Sunil Gavaskar, was a strong advocate of Test Cricket. And now, it’s the responsibility of the current generation to pass it on.
Those who love it will say a lot of things can happen in Test cricket. You will see swing and seam, you will have periods of play where the batsmen are engaged in good stroke-making. Basically, you get to see all facets of the game.

On the DRS

I think the Decision Review System (DRS) is good. Even if it’s not foolproof, the statistics that ICC gives us suggest that there is an improvement in decision making. An improvement is good, but I would want umpires to be fully involved. I don’t want them to be reduced to spectators within the field. I accept that DRS is not 100 per cent, but people are working on it.

Helmets and cricket

Someone like Ricky Ponting would not have played the way he wanted if he wasn’t using a helmet. People became brave with headgear. From my experience, I can tell you it’s not a good feeling to get hit on the head. Without a helmet, I can’t imagine someone going on one knee and playing a scoop or a ramp shot. It’s like suicide, without a helmet. In my days, I think I played the reverse-sweep just once. Now, if you can’t play reverse, you are not a cricketer.

Issues of fixing

Let’s be truthful; even with the highest standard of social behaviour, there is crime in every part of the world. We all think we understand right and wrong. There is always temptation and it comes from circumstances that are unique. We have moved from match fixing to spot fixing, it means a tougher problem to kill. For those found guilty, penalties have to be severe. Having said that, I have some sympathy for someone like Mohammad Aamir. Yes, he should have been briefed, but you have to remember that he was being influenced by the captain of the national side (Salman Butt). For an 18 or 19-year-old, the captain is always a superior being. Yes, he admitted to crime and was punished, but those were extraordinary circumstances. Education is a must and players need to be briefed.

Easily manipulated

It was a failure of leadership. Mike Brearley, Illingworth or Ian Chappell would have taken KP by the neck a little earlier. And tried to suppress his anger. There was a chance to keep him under control. There is no denying the fact that KP is an extraordinary talent. With the T20 World Cup coming up, a lot of English fans are prepared to adopt him as proper English and would want to see him play. Maybe a strong leader could have grounded him five-six years ago. I don’t want to be rude, but the thing with Kevin is that he is not very bright. He can easily be manipulated. People who are making more money than him say to him that he can easily make more money. Even though he is not playing for England any more, he is not doing badly financially. He is a privileged individual. He has to separate himself from the temptation. Kevin was misled. Sadly for him, whatever he did with those infamous text messages about Andrew Strauss and whatever he did subsequently when they went to Australia… there’s never been a proper smoking gun. There was no major incident. At the end of the tour, had Cook as a captain told ECB that ‘KP was needed in the team because he was good,’ he would have got his way. And the 800-page resignation letter which is the book he wrote nine months later, there was not much coming from that. – (Courtesy: Matrix – the journal of the Sanmar Group.)

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