It was 25 years ago that Mark Butcher scored a monumental 173 not out in England’s successful chase against Australia in the Headingley Test. He scored seven other Test hundreds, some of them against the most fearsome attacks. He is now a popular commentator and sharp analyst of the game. Excerpts from Butcher’s exclusive interview with The Hindu at Lord’s:

Your comparison of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi with Garry Sobers earlier this year got a lot of attention. It was fascinating, how you proved, through the help of visuals, the similarities in the bat swing, hand speed…

I watched him make that 175 [off 80 balls] in the Under-19 World Cup final [against England at Harare]. I was struck by that incredible, long, high backlift, the huge follow-through, the complete circle almost where the bat finishes around, tapping him on the spine. You know, Sobers used to hit a lot of shots with his feet together. He would play full balls almost off the back foot. And Sooryavanshi can hit them like that too.

Even if his career ends up not reaching the expectations that other people have, which I think is very unlikely, he has still in the IPL done something that all of the greatest players up until now have never, ever done: none of them have managed to score at a strike-rate of 230, hit that many sixes, be that consistent in the entirety of the IPL. It is still one of the most remarkable things I have ever seen.

Today’s youngsters are exposed to T20 from the beginning, whereas when I was very young, it was Test matches. They grow up thinking about batting very much in a hyper aggressive mode. These younger guys can do things at their age that we wouldn’t have dreamt of at ours.

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Yes, even Sachin Tendulkar didn’t hit as many sixes, for all his genius. Sooryavanshi is a product of the T20 era of cricket.

Correct. So he will have to learn the game the other way around. He will have to learn how to bat time, to defend. In our generation, it was the opposite. We would have to spend a lot of time learning how to hit the ball.

How do you recall your masterpiece — 173 not out in 2001?

My main memory is about that summer, really. I wasn’t expecting to play Test cricket again. I got an opportunity and I played 42 Tests in a row. I had completely changed my game.

Your father helped, didn’t he?

That is right. The biggest thing I remember is the relationship I had with my dad in the winter of 2001. I called him and said, ‘Dad, I am hating playing cricket.’ Something that I had always loved. Now I was hating it. And I said to him — ‘Treat me as though I have never played the game before.’ So we went right back to the beginning. He really taught me how to hold the bat, how to stand, the whole thing. We changed my grip. We changed my stance. We changed my backlift. Everything. We went back to zero. Like I was five years old. And we worked like that for about three months. And then I luckily got back into the team. I had made a few runs playing for Surrey. A few injuries in the England camp before the Ashes started, and I got in.

How much does that knock, which came against Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie, mean to you?

Ah, it was huge. You wouldn’t be talking to me if it hadn’t been for that. And I wouldn’t be working in TV either. So that innings changed everything. It was the greatest day.

And how was the coach’s reaction?

I know my dad was in tears when [BBC] Test Match Special called him up.

The players you like to watch these days?

I actually love watching K.L. Rahul. I think he is a sensational player. Really classy. Harry Brook is fabulous to watch when he is in. Joe Root, too. And Travis Head — you can’t take your eyes off the screen when he is batting.

You have played against some of the greatest bowlers in history. Who were the most challenging among them?

Blimey! Curtly Ambrose. Him and Courtney Walsh. And then you had, obviously, Shane Warne. Glenn McGrath. Murali [Muttiah Muralitharan].

Among the Indians?

Harbhajan [Singh] and [Anil] Kumble, on those tracks.

And the batters you admired?

[Brian] Lara was sort of the king around about those times. Fellow left-hander, so I greatly admired him. Then the guys like [Ricky] Ponting, Sachin [Tendulkar], obviously. I remember applauding Ricky from second slip at the WACA, much to the annoyance of Nasser Hussain, who was standing next to me at slip. He glared at me. I was just standing there going, ‘Oh man, that’s good’. There were a lot of great players around, like the South Africans, Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith.

An aesthete’s eye: A batting stylist in his time, Butcher appreciates elegant strokeplay. Brian Lara, K.L. Rahul and Smriti Mandhana are some of his favourites.
| Photo Credit:
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Is there cause for concern about the future of Test cricket?

Yeah, of course, there is. What you would like is to have eight to ten teams who are competing on a level playing field. If only England, Australia and India are playing each other, the game is starting to eat itself, you know.

Eventually, one of the great things about all of the series that go around is that you are anticipating and you are excited about the idea about playing this team at this venue. But if it is the same three teams the whole time, it is not that exciting.

What has happened in the modern era is that the gap between the countries that have plenty of finances and the rest has got wider. The competition has perhaps thinned out a little bit in recent times. And that is a huge shame, that finances have meant that a lot of countries, the West Indies, being the most obvious example simply because of their dominance [in the past], have suffered.

South Africa are kind of hanging in there. They are still producing a lot of players and they still manage just about to keep enough of their most talented players to play Tests. But in places like Sri Lanka and the West Indies, they find it very difficult to keep their best players who disappear off to earn more money playing T20. And that is a problem for the world game.

The First Class game and the structures that produce Test Match cricketers are strong in some places and not very strong at all in others.

Your thoughts on Bazball?

I have been critical of it at times. In the game of cricket, the Test match is the game. And they tried to do something that was going to take the game to a different place. But Test match cricket kind of fought against it a little bit. Because when it came down to it, in the big games against the likes of India and Australia, it didn’t work. And so, Test match cricket is kind of greater than any idea that people might have around how you play it.

And Test cricket is the greatest form of sport.

It is. The sport itself dictates to you what is necessary. And if you push too hard, the game will bite you back. And that is what happened. There is as much pleasure to be taken from a really hard-fought draw sometimes as there is from smashing it all over the park.

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The women got to play a Test at Lord’s, finally.

This has come about because the world has decided, well, you know, this is a great game of cricket, right? Why would we want to stop 50% of the world’s population from enjoying and playing the sport that we think is a great sport? And so that opportunity is now there and what you are seeing is a product of that.

Players in the women’s game that you enjoy watching?

I like Smriti Mandhana’s batting. She is just an incredibly graceful player. So easy on the eye. Very, very lovely to watch. She plays pace and spin equally well. She reminds me of David Gower, in fact. Harmanpreet Kaur is very good to watch, too. And Jemimah Rodrigues is a fine technician.

Besides cricket, music is your other passion. And you had the opportunity of performing with Sarah Brightman, one of the greatest voices of our time.

It was good fun, singing some of Sarah’s favourite songs on live television. It was kind of nerve-racking, but it was good.

PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi has cleared the air on Jason Gillespie’s resignation.© AFP

Jason Gillespie has revealed he had no clear communication with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on the playing eleven before a matchday and added his role as their red-ball coach had reduced to him hitting catches. Gillespie, the former Australia fast bowler, took over as Pakistan’s red-ball coach in April for a two-year deal and led the side to a 2-1 series victory at home over England in October. But Gillespie resigned from his role last week ahead of Pakistan’s Test series in South Africa. Aqib Javed has now been named as the interim Test coach of Pakistan and also handles white-ball duties after Gary Kirsten exited from the role in October.

“I felt I was basically hitting catches, and that was about it on the morning of a game.”

“You want to be able to have clear communication with all stakeholders, with selectors, for instance, knowing what the team is as head coach well before the game, or at least the day before the game,” said Gillespie on ABC Grandstand show during the third Test between India and Australia at the Gabba.

He also said the communication between him and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) was not clear, while the sacking of high-performance coach Tim Neilsen and his reduced role, including not having a say in the selection committee, ultimately led to him stepping down from his role.

“I went into the job eyes wide open, I want to make that really clear. I knew that Pakistan had cycled through a number of coaches in a pretty short space of time, but I put my case forward and explained how I felt I could help.”

“You want to create an environment where players are relaxed but focused and get out and do the job and give them the freedom to go out and play the game. I felt that in the red ball, in the Test side, we were very much on track doing that, which culminated in that series win against England.

“So a lot of good stuff happened from when I took the job on to where things have finished up (now), I didn’t get on the plane on Friday. The straw that broke the camel’s back, I suppose, was, as a head coach, you like to have clear communication with your employer. I was completely and utterly blindsided by a decision to not have a high-performance coach.

“Tim Nielsen was told that his services were no longer required and I had absolutely zero communication from anyone about that, and I just thought after a number of other things that had gone on in the previous few months, that was probably the moment where I thought, ‘Well, I’m not really sure if they actually really want me to do this job or not’,” he said.

Gillespie also elaborated on the great relationship he had with skipper Shan Masood and that the feedback about Nielsen’s work had been positive. “I developed a really close relationship with the test captain, Shan Masood, and felt we were certainly going in the right direction and things were going really well.

“All the feedback that I’d got or the feedback the PCB got was just how effective Tim had been in his role as well and the players were getting a lot out of him. They called him grandpa and there was some good banter between the boys.”

“Shan and I spoke a lot about that and the players about whether you play one Test match or 100, it’s irrelevant. If you’ve got something of value to contribute to the team you can do that in a safe space and we felt we were making so many gains in that space,” he concluded.

Basit Ali has taken a dig at Jason Gillespie after he resigned as head coach of Pakistan.© Pakistan Cricket

File photo of Jason Gillespie© AFP

File photo of Pakistan cricket team© AFP

File photo of Pakistan cricket team© AFP

Jason Gillespie gave his insights on Pat Cummins and Jasprit Bumrah’s biggest strength.© AFP

File image of Pakistan Cricket Team.© AFP

Current senior selector Aaqib Javed and former spinner Saqlain Mushtaq are in fray to replace Gary Kirsten as Pakistan’s new white ball coach after the former Proteas batter stepped down due to his differences with country’s cricket board. The PCB, on Monday, officially confirmed that Kirsten had resigned and as an interim arrangement it has asked the red ball coach, Jason Gillespie to manage the team for the white ball series in Australia from November 4. But Gillespie has intimated that he would look at it as a one-off arrangement.

“The problem is both Kirsten and Gillespie were not happy with their sudden demotion in powers with the selectors given powers to call all the shots,” one source said.

He said since Gillespie was in the middle of the England series he reluctantly accepted the changes but has publicly made it clear he is no happy at not being involved in the selection process.

“The situation now is that the PCB has to appoint a new white ball coach given the number of white ball commitments of the national team coming up and leading up to the Champions Trophy early next year,” the source said.

“One option is to let assistant coach Azhar Mahmood continue as interim head coach but Aaqib or Saqlain could also land the job.” Saqlain has remained head coach of the Pakistan team before but was replaced by Mickey Arthur early last year when Najam Sethi was in power in the board.

The source did say they are some other candidates under consideration and the board chairman, Mohsin Naqvi would soon have talks with shortlisted candidates.

The PCB has made no official comment on why Kirsten resigned nor has the former South African player said anything but board insiders say the dispute arose over several issues between Kirsten and the PCB.

“Look we had high hopes from Kirsten when we entered into a two-year contract with him. The idea was he could help the PCB to revolutionize the white ball team,” one source aware of the happenings said.

He said the PCB got the feeling that Kirsten never seemed fully committed to his job.

“He did not have a single camp in Pakistan for any of the white ball teams. He was not present at the white ball camps of the Shaheens throughout the summer. And it all culminated with him missing the majority of the Champions Cup.” Another complaint against Kirsten is that although his contract stated clearly he would just take 30 days vacation in a year, he didn’t even spend 30 days in Pakistan after joining.

The PCB was also put off with Kirsten’s insistence on having more foreign coaches on his team and the dispute between them blew up once the board decided to strip the coaches of selection powers.

The PCB had also sidelined and pushed foreign coaches, Mickey Arthur, Grant Bradburn etc to resign after last year’s WC.