I said no, even though my passport was with my kit in the boot of the car.
‘Have you got any other ID?’ he said.
I gave him my international driver’s licence.
‘What are you doing over here?’ he asked, and I told him that I was playing cricket. He thought for a moment or two, while he wrote out a speeding ticket, and then said:
‘Hey, you’re not here playing for England, are you?’
‘Yep, I sure am,’ I lied again.
The policeman paused for thought again, then started smiling. ‘Oh, I don’t think you need to worry about that ticket, then. You can tear it up, on one condition.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You give me your autograph.’
So I gave him my autograph, shook his hand and got back in the car. I just counted myself lucky that he didn’t know enough about the England team—or the Free State team, come to think of it—to realise that I was telling him a fib. I hate to think of him sitting down to watch the Test match, telling his mates he’d got one of the England players’ signatures, then discovering that he’d actually been diddled and the bloke whose autograph he had was playing a game in front of two men and a baboon down in Cape Town.
I imagine he’d have been pretty peeved, but I hope he didn’t rip the ticket up and throw it straight in the bin, because a few months later I made my Test debut. My autograph might actually have been worth having then…
†HOGFACT: There are more atoms in a teaspoon of water than there are teaspoons of water in the Atlantic Ocean. I know, I’ve counted them.
†HOGFACT: In Minnesota it is illegal to cross state lines with a duck on your head. Well, why wouldn’t it be?
TOP 5 ANGRIEST
BATSMEN
I have a morbid fascination for watching an angry batsman when he gets back to the dressing-room, throwing his bat and gloves and having a paddy. I suppose it’s a bit like watching car-crash television, only very close up. At Yorkshire we used to have spread bets about how many times Michael Bevan would say ‘f***’ in his first minute back in the dressing-room. The spread was normally between 40 and 50. Here are five of the angriest:
MICHAEL BEVAN
I once saw him come into the changing-room after a bad decision and sit underneath a shower fully clothed, still wearing all his batting gear, pads and all.
MARK RAMPRAKASH
In India in 2001 there looked to be a serious danger that Ramps might punch a dressing-room attendant who was a bit too attentive shortly after he had been given out.
NASSER HUSSAIN
Once gave me a bollocking for not getting him a drink out of the fridge in Pakistan. He was sitting right next to the fridge, I was at the other side of the room.
DARREN LEHMANN
Boof had just been run out by a bad call from Gavin Hamilton at Scarborough. I was at the other side of the ground and I could hear Boof in the dressing-room shouting: ‘Stupid f***ing Scottish prick!’ If I could hear it, Gav, still out in the middle, would certainly have been aware of Boof’s feelings.
ANTHONY McGRATH
When we were playing in the Yorkshire second team, I was sitting in the dressing-room when Mags came back after playing a stupid shot. He started throwing his kit around, f-ing and blinding, and everyone else cleared out of the dressing-room. When everybody had cleared off, and there was only me and him left, he smiled at me and said: ‘I thought I should do that to make it look as though I’m bothered.’
I had just got out of the shower and was brushing my teeth when the call came through from David Graveney. It was June 2000 and we were living in our first house together at the time, on Moorland Avenue in Baildon, and Sarah came rushing into our little en-suite bathroom from the bedroom. She had a look of shock on her face and her eyes were about to pop out of her head. She was holding the phone out to me with one hand, pointing to it with her other and mouthing the words:
‘OH…MY…GOD…IT’S… DAVID…GRAVENEY!’
This came completely out of the blue for me. I’d been bowling quite well for Yorkshire, but I really hadn’t thought yet about playing for England. I was 23 (and a half), not long back from my second season with Free State in Bloemfontein, but I still hadn’t really played a full season of county cricket. We had a load of talented bowlers at Yorkshire at the time and, to my mind, I had my hands full just hanging onto my place at the club.
But who was I to argue with David Graveney, the chairman of selectors? I took the phone from Sarah and Grav said: ‘You’re coming down to Lord’s for the second Test against West Indies. It’s not just one of those things where we’ve picked you for the experience, so be prepared to play.’
‘Erm, right, OK. Thanks very much. Thanks for letting me know. Much appreciated.’ I don’t think I’ve ever been so polite to anyone in my life. I went back into the bedroom, told Sarah and she started jumping around the room. Then we rang our parents and everyone else we could think of to tell them. Ringing my dad was particularly special. Playing at Lord’s for England was a long way from our games messing about at Post Hill with a big tree for wickets.
As far as I knew, the stumps in Test cricket would not be a sapling six feet high and three feet wide and you wouldn’t be given out for hitting Curtly Ambrose for a six over some trees (wishful thinking, I know).
I think the game that had probably put me into the selectors’ minds was a televised Benson & Hedges Cup one-day game a few weeks earlier against Surrey at Headingley. I had a shaved, bald bonce at the time, which probably helped to get me noticed, as it would have been the first time a lot of people had seen me in action. But I didn’t bowl too badly either. The ball was swinging round corners and I got out Mark Butcher, Graham Thorpe, Ali Brown and Adam Hollioake. Not a bad haul.
When it came to the morning of the game itself, we didn’t know until shortly before the toss whether I was playing or whether they’d go for Robert Croft, the spin option. I was hoping for clouds, Crofty was hoping for blue skies, and there was actually a bit of both. It was an agonising wait. Crofty kept coming up to me and saying: ‘Do you know who’s playing yet?’
‘No,’ I’d say. ‘Do you know.’
‘No bloody idea yet.’
‘How about we say that the first one to get their whites on gets to play?’
In those situations, as your stomach churns with nerves, there’s probably a tiny part of you that thinks: ‘God, maybe my life would be a lot easier if they went for Crofty. I might get smashed everywhere if I play and never get picked again.’ But it was only about one per cent of my brain that was thinking that. The rest was praying that I would get the nod. And about fifteen minutes before the toss, Alec Stewart, who was captain for that game, came up and told me that I was in.
I vividly remember turning up in the dressing-room for that game as the new boy, never an easy experience. I was quite lucky, because there was Craig White, Darren Gough and Michael Vaughan,