No. 5: John Crawley (Part Two)

The final instalment of our conversation. We discuss the weight of expectation, running England's selection gauntlet of the 90s, the genius of Shane Warne, family and that century at Lord's.

As I suggested in Part One last week, John Crawley was a prodigy. I remembered when we played England under 19s, he towered above his team-mates and while they included Mark Butcher, Aftab Habib and Ben Smith, we felt Crawley’s was the only wicket to take. Most who played John at that time would have believed they were playing a future star. I asked him about the weight of expectation?

I think there was certainly an expectation. But some of the Test sides you played against [during the 90s], and the bowlers in particular, were phenomenally good, a privilege to play when you look back. There weren’t many gimmes. Yes, there was expectation but I didn’t feel it was too high or created too much pressure on me. However, I do think a lot of international careers depend on a good start. If you can make a decent score early then it relieves the pressure and you can move on. Initially, I played against Allan Donald, Fanie de Villiers, Brian McMillan and Craig Matthews on a juicy pitch at Lord’s. I made nine and seven on debut. From there, you’re trying to claw it back.

After that Test match, I was a bit despondent. I didn't play well and we'd lost but then Ray Illingworth [England coach] - for the only time in my career, I remember - put his arm around me and said, “It’s alright, kid, you'll be going to Australia” [the upcoming tour]. That was the only time I was ever given any kind of guarantee that I might play more than two games, let alone a tour. That made a lot of difference and in the next game, I batted quite well at Headingley and scored a few, before giving it away needlessly, trying to set up a chase. You can never really give a guarantee because you might lose form or you might get injured, but that one line, that one word of encouragement makes a massive difference with young players. It really does.

Did you ever feel as if you belonged?

I don't think I ever really felt as if I belonged - and at the time, there were several of us. In the 90s, you were seconded to the England team. You still had a county contract, so you felt that that was your bread and butter. Playing for England was the goal but it was a bonus. We were slated on occasions, but actually that England team of the 90s was competitive with every other team in the world apart from Australia. There were great series against every single team we played. It was very close and we won as many as we lost. It's just the fact that we came up against a phenomenal Australian side that made the public hate the English team of the 90s.

But no, I never felt at home. The management was poor. The captaincy was fine. Athers was great - he did as good a job as he could have done. Ray Illingworth was great in my opinion when he was in charge early on, but some of the coaching and the chairmen of selectors were less than effective. We used to find out selection for teams by Ceefax [the BBC’s Teletext service]. We would ring each other and say, ‘Do you realise you're in the team?’ … or not, if you’d been dropped. It was crazily bad. There was a lack of courage, I think, from those in charge to back the players they had selected in the first place.

I vividly remember Mark Ramprakash going to the West Indies in 1993 and being berated for apparently scoring too slowly. From memory, he made 30-something in a session twice, but little did the press realize that once you got in against the West Indies in those days, they didn't really try and get you out. They just stopped you scoring, but when they took a wicket, they charged in at the new batsman and tried to go bang bang bang and take a series of wickets. Now the West Indies at that stage would bowl about 13 overs an hour, and once you weather the initial storm, at least half of those balls are over your head. If he's facing half the balls, that's 39 balls per hour, 78 balls per session and half of those are over your head. Therefore, he's making 30 off 39 ‘legitimate’ scoring opportunities. I couldn't understand why people wouldn't give him a pat on the back, but he was criticised for not progressing the game. Ramprakash was a great example of someone who had immense talent but I'm sure if you asked him, he would say he never really felt at home.

Cricket can be a very lonely game - touring in particular. As a batsman, I equate it to the golfer, the rugby kicker, the football goalkeeper or tennis players. They're supremely individual pursuits and very isolating when they don’t go well. I'm sure there were times when I was touring where you were clinically depressed - if it was ever diagnosable - at periods of time and even for entire tours, but in those days you just got on with it. Once we were away for four and a half months [the winter of ‘96-’97 in Zimbabwe and New Zealand], and there was a ban on families. It was ludicrous. I wrote a column at the time for the Telegraph and I was berated for being outspoken. You can’t even imagine that now. These days, with the proliferation of backroom staff who travel with international sides, there is always somebody there who can give you a bit of time. Our teams used to have a manager, a coach and a physio - that was it! You knew whether you were going to be selected for the next game if the coach gave you any throwdowns or focused on other people. It was all pretty transparent [John laughs].

There has to be balance, of course. You can't have what they've had recently - too much the other way - where players are kept in the team for too long. I never quite got my head around the idea of central contracts being offered to just twelve players when they were introduced in the early 2000s. If you're paying these guys £200,000, you’re almost forced to play them. It creates a barrier. I know they've changed that slightly with incremental contracts and development contracts - but a balance is necessary. You need to feel at home enough so that you can be yourself and play your way but not so at home that you become complacent.

I had read somewhere that John had felt that he was at his best, late in his career, from 2003 to 2005.

I think I was a better player for a number of reasons. I think my conversion rate - from 50 to 100 - was better. I had expanded my game a little so I had gone back to being more expressive, rather than one-dimensional. I had been lucky [playing regularly] at Old Trafford because it was a brilliant pitch. It was rock hard, pacy, but with even bounce. It could turn square but it turned and bounced predictably. Then I went to the Rose Bowl [Southampton] when I joined Hampshire. In its early stages, the pitch was hard work. There was variable bounce, sometimes quite lethal, and you had to find a way to score on these types of surfaces.

I think I also benefited from the freedom and the worldview on cricket that Shane Warne brought to Hampshire and his captaincy. I played under many very good captains, but he was easily the best - by a mile - with his tactical knowledge, but also his ability to man-manage and get the best out of people. I remember one of the first games we played under him. It had rained a bit, as it does in an English summer. I think it was 2004 and we were playing Glamorgan - Matt Elliott was their captain. It was the fourth day and we were maybe 30 ahead.

Warney said, ‘We’re going to get 200 runs by lunch.’

We said, ‘200 in a session?’

‘That's what we're going to do, and then we’ll have a game.’

I just remember going out with Michael Brown. He was a young ex-Lancashire lad as well and we were similar types of players - didn't give it away, quite gutsy. I recall running down the pitch and smashing sixes left, right and centre … because you've been given the freedom. In the end we won the game easily. We realised then that there are different ways to play - the normal English way of thinking would have been, ‘Let’s guts it out here, hope for a draw and then move on to the next game.’

Further, my Mum died in 2001, we had our first child in 2002 and our second in 2004. I also realised that the game could have been taken away from me with that legal wrangling of 2001. You realise you can just go out and play the game. It's not the end of the world, and by then you've got some history, you've got some savings. It doesn't need to be cut-throat, and contracts become less important. You can play your best cricket when it is not the most important thing in life.

As I said, my mum died in the summer of 2001. I had a couple of weeks off for the funeral. It was a real shock because she was quite young. I remember coming back to play in the Roses match [Lancashire] against Yorkshire at Headingley, and even though there's a fierce rivalry, as a set of lads we always used to get on really well. It was obviously emotional, but the support that both sides gave me was wonderful. In that game, I think I got 70 in the first innings and a hundred in the second. You come to understand that there are far more important things than cricket. Once you have your own family, you have much more perspective. Playing cricket and getting out to a bad shot - it's hardly the end of the world, is it? You don't do it deliberately - it just wasn’t your day.

John Crawley’s day came against India in the summer of 2002. In the twelve months prior, he had lost his mother and nearly lost his career, but the move to Hampshire reinvigorated his game and after just three months at the club, John’s name was on the honours board at Lord’s.

Yes, it was a remarkable experience. I had had a great start to 2002 with Hampshire. Again, until you realise it can all be taken away … it also makes you take your opportunities if they come. I was able to get 100 and watch some sublime batting by Michael Vaughan at the same time. I looked up to the heavens on reaching my century, smiled and I swore I could see my Mum up there with a cigarette in one hand and a gin and tonic in the other. She just nodded her approval and I punched the air in delight. Mind you, it was 30 degrees in London and I may have been a bit delirious!

The Lord’s century seems like a climax to John’s test career. In fact, he would play only six more Tests. I asked him if there had been turning points earlier in his career.

Going back to that first tour of Australia in the winter of ‘94-’95, even though we lost 3-1, I think that was the closest of all the Ashes series that I played in. I remember missing out on the first two test matches and then I was selected for the third at Sydney. We were 20-3 - the ball was swinging and seaming everywhere, with Fleming and McDermott doing a lot of damage. I made 70-odd in very tricky conditions and put on 170 with Athers. I got out just before the close of play to the second new ball. I batted in a very disciplined fashion - a lot of runs on the leg side, a lot of leaves on the off - because it was swinging and moving around so much. That was a turning point - it made me think that I could play at that level. It wasn't a hundred, but it was enough. I followed that up with another 70 at Adelaide in that very famous game that we won. And unfortunately capped off that tour with 0 and 0 at Perth [laughs], which brought you right back down to Earth straight away. That's the nature of the game, isn't it?

The first Test century was important, too, against Wasim and Waqar at the Oval in ‘96. That was a big thing. You can see how it works - the 70 in Australia followed by another score - then a bad game, yes - but the 100 at the Oval against Pakistan was followed by another hundred in Zimbabwe. You can see how confidence can build. Unfortunately, you can have one or two bad games after that and suddenly, the way the system was, that would be it. ‘Go back to the county circuit, regain some confidence and we'll see you later.’ ... If you're lucky [laughs again].

What advice would you give a young player?

I would definitely say that they should trust themselves and their own natural ability, more than perhaps I did on occasions. Don’t listen to too many people. There are lots of voices and there are people who have been paid for many years to be critical of others. You look at some of the greats that I've played with and against - they don't listen to it, they just get on with it. They know what they can do. They might tinker, they might have a technical coach who helps if they're in a spot of trouble, but they make the game their own rather than dwelling on what other people might think. Obviously you want to improve and expand, but don’t lose the essence of what helped you reach the highest level in the first place. I think this is the most important advice I could give.

A lot of the very best players are instinctive and reactive, and that's why many of them were hotheaded on the cricket field - fiercely competitive. But I remember going on my final tour of Australia [in 2002-03]. Again, I was in and out of the starting eleven and I went to see Noddy Holder in Perth. I'd worked with him many years before, but I went to see him to try and reinvigorate the cross-bat shot that I knew I could play. We worked for ages on it and then I was finally selected in Melbourne. I had made about 15, and I thought, ‘Right, I'm going to play the pull shot here.’ When you think like that, you’re in trouble because you're pre-empting where the ball is going to be rather than playing the shot instinctively. I'd lost that instinct basically - and inevitably Jason Gillespie knocked one in back of a length, I went for my pull shot … it went straight up in the air, got caught and I walked off [laughs]. I had lost trust in myself in the process of trying to become more robotic, when in fact, my game was more about timing and touch.

What lessons does cricket teach us?

I think cricket teaches you to be super resilient and also accepting of what life can throw at you. Sport can mirror life - there's no doubt about that. There are ups and downs, and life's not always easy. But cricket can show you that bad days do happen … and bad days can be really, really bad. But in cricket as in life, the next good day is only around the corner and it can turn that quickly.

Some of the best cricketers I've played against never allowed the ups and downs to affect them overly. Some of the greatest coaches are that way inclined, too, because they realise that no matter what is bubbling away under the surface, good times are never far away. Take Kevin Pietersen - standing at the other end, he made it look as if he was playing a different game. People would say he was blasé or criticise David Gower when he got caught at cover. Critics would say, ‘He doesn't really care.’ But in fact, those players realise those shots make them runs. On a good day, that shot will miss the fielder, and they'll score a hundred.

There’s also the resilience to keep going. There have been times in my career when I just wanted to give up. You feel you can’t score another run and then suddenly you make 50 or even 30 and you’re hitting the middle of the bat again. But it's the speed with which you forget the bad times that I think is one of the enduring legacies of playing as a batsman in particular. The fact that you can forget bad times quickly because something around the corner will go your way if you keep going. If you work hard and believe in yourself, the rest will take care of itself.