Headingley, June 7th 1989
As England Selector, I make it a rule never to talk to the players. This is not, contrary to popular belief, because they are yobs with no manners, no appreciation of the finer things in life and absolutely zero savoir faire. Rather, it is so I can make a full and fair judgement of their abilities without being swayed by personal feelings, be they negative or – theoretically – even positive.
However, I did chat to one extremely impressive young man today at Headingley, a shortish, rugged left-hander with a steely manner, and I am certain that he should be rushed into the England team ahead of the first Test.
Headingley, June 8th
Irritating. My left-hander from yesterday goes by the name of Border and is captaining the opposition. Rotten luck once again – I expect Pluto must be regressing in Saturn, very likely as a result of the horrid smog in that part of the solar system.
Trent Bridge, August 10th
Have dropped rather a brick. I arrived at Trent Bridge yesterday and immediately ran into Gower in the gents. Couldn’t quite face another soul-searching chat about the state of what passes for the England cricket team, and I fancied he was rather of the same mind. However, I can’t bear an awkward silence so I started telling him about an excellent weekend I’d had golfing down in the West Country, and recommended a very good hotel in the Torquay area. Pee finished, and I was hot-footing it out of the loo when I noticed a couple of the human rodents who constitute Her Majesty’s press loitering over by the washbasins looking very alert indeed.
I didn’t give it any thought until just now, when I opened up today’s papers to see a lot of rot along the lines of “England selection lottery – now Lord Ted sings Devon’s praises”. Flunky after flunky from the Board is now demanding to know why I’ve anointed this Malcolm Devon as England’s new fast-bowling spearhead, so I said I barely knew the chap and it was all a terrible mix-up.
However, what with the rebel tours and whatnot, apparently we can’t afford another “PR catastrophe” (not my words) so this Malcolm Devon will lead our attack tomorrow whether I like it or not. Well, I am not one to dampen a player’s confidence by letting him know that he’s only been selected due to an overheard misunder standing in the lav, so I went straight up to Mr Devon and shook his hand. And after the Belgian Minister for overseas Trade and Development had confirmed that he wasn’t a right-arm quickie, but in fact a visiting dignitary here as a guest of the City of Nottingham, we all got on terribly well and I’m sure we’ll give these Aussies a much better game in this Test.