Some will say that I cheated but I would argue that I was only pushing the laws to their limit just as others did in their own way. If the odd nail should happen to roughen up one side of the ball a little, is that any more reprehensible than the people who discovered that the ball would shine like never before if you sucked a pepermint when you spat on it? And what about those clubs who prepare a wicket that is so flat you could bowl on it all day and get no help at all? They are all cheating in a way, but to me they are just pushing their advantage as hard as they can.
At that time, umpires seemed unaware that a certain amount of ball-roughing was going on. They were only looking for old-style seam-picking, when bowlers used their fingernails to raise the seam, which increases grip and gets the ball to move. I recall toiling away on a flat pitch that was giving the bowlers no help at all in a game that was petering out into a high-scoring draw when the umpire at my end, a former fast bowler, said, ‘Come on, lad, get the seam up.’ I did and took three wickets.
I never felt uncomfortable giving the rough side of the ball a bit of a helping hand, despite the clear disapproval of Graham Gooch at Essex. He had a batsman’s natural hatred of reverse swing, and would make a point of ostentatiously showing the ball to the other slip fielders to demonstrate what I was doing. A few batsmen murmured, ‘Fucking cheat,’ when they trailed off having failed to deal with a great delivery, but that always seemed like sour grapes to me. I’ve been on the other end of reverse swing many times and never complained when it got me out. I was of the Hansie Cronje school on this. I knocked over his stumps with one that boomeranged. He was in his prime then, and he was a great batsman. He just looked down the wicket, nodded and said, ‘Well bowled, great skills.’
Hansie was caught up in the 2000 match-fixing scandal linked to gambling in the sub-continent. As a member of the England team at the time, I was given a briefing by Scotland Yard about how the system worked. I was gobsmacked by how simple it was. The police warned us that the bookies would ‘groom’ us by just being friendly at first and then giving presents. When the relationship was reasonably good, they would ask for simple information like news on an injured player or the weather conditions, all of which seemed quite innocent, although relevant if you were setting spread-betting odds. Finally, they would drag you in so deep that it would be difficult to claw your way out. Fortunately, I’ve never been approached – they probably knew they would get sent away with a flea in their ear – but like most cricketers I’ve seen some bizarre run-outs that have made me wonder what was going on.
The extra wickets I started to take thanks to Wasim and my continuing success with the bat meant Graham Saville was still picking me for England U19s, and in the summer of 1991 I enjoyed a memorable series against a very good Australian team. The first one-day match was my debut at Lord’s, where every cricketer in the world wants to play. I rang John Bird and told him I’d been picked and he said, ‘Great! I’ll see you there. We’ve got a box at Lord’s.’
The Aussies were a talented outfit – when are they not? – and their side included people like their captain Damien Martyn, Greg Blewett, Adam Gilchrist and Michael Kasprowicz. They made a big score and we were facing a tough ask. John Crawley got some runs and when I went in we needed to push on. I smashed 38 off around 20 balls, including a six into John’s Tesco box. He and his guests were out on the balcony waving their arms enthusiastically, which was a strange sight in a ground that was nearly empty and where his was the only executive box in use.
I had several good knocks in that series, including 56 at Chelmsford where John was also in attendance, and it culminated in my first international century, 106 not out, in front of my own members at Old Trafford. I was voted player of the series and Graham Saville went out of his way to congratulate me.
Everyone at Lancashire was very complimentary, but I still hardly got a sniff of the first team. Neil Fairbrother had taken over as captain from David Hughes and he was struggling in the role. He wasn’t my biggest fan and only picked me a couple of times. Funnily enough, we get on better now than we did then and I tend to pull his leg and thank him for not picking me because it helped to plant the seed that I should move elsewhere.
I didn’t have anything other than club cricket to compare my situation to, and I found life at Lancashire a long way from the spirit that existed at Heaton. I was starting to realise that, while cricket is a team game, at the top level it can also be very much an individual sport. Bowlers need others to take catches, batsmen need someone at the other end to take runs, and we all rely on our team-mates to do their bit in the field, but, when it comes down to it, everyone is looking after number one. I wasn’t alone in the second team of that era in feeling the frustration of not getting a chance no matter how well we performed. Driving back from a match, David Lloyd’s son Graham told me he was getting a hard time from one of the senior pros but added, ‘Don’t worry, Ronnie – I’ll have the bastard’s job one day.’
I realised he was right. From that moment on, every time one of my senior colleagues tried to put me down, I’d just smile and say to myself, ‘I know why you don’t want me to succeed – you’re scared I’m going to take your job. Well, that’s just what I’m going to do. You might think you’re snuffing out the flame, but you are just fanning it brighter and hotter.’
You need the hide of a rhinoceros in any dressing room or you won’t survive. People are not shy with their comments and criticisms and even the banter, which seems light-hearted, can have cruel barb in it. But at times Lancashire went beyond that. There was abuse that amounted to bullying and, if you didn’t stand up to it, you could easily go under. I vividly remember the day John Crawley decided he’d had enough. John is the most mild mannered of men and great company, so his outburst came as something of a shock to everyone. He’d been waiting some time for a game of snooker and, just as he was about to rack up the balls, a so-called senior player told him to move aside because he wanted to play. That was it. Frustration that had been bubbling up over the months erupted. John took his snooker cue and whacked the guy. No one messed with John after that.
My own reputation as someone to leave alone came after a night out in Bury with Nick Derbyshire and a couple of other guys from the ground staff. Nick, the brother of BBC 5 live’s Victoria Derbyshire, was always great company and we used to drive around the country to matches together. He was a great athlete and a fine fast bowler, and we became firm friends when we spent a winter playing club cricket in South Africa. We stayed with relatives of his, Geoffrey and Janet Bentham, in their magnificent house in Durban. When we weren’t playing cricket, we would go to the gym and then on to the beach to show off our finely honed bodies.
Although he was one of the lads, Nick suffered from reverse snobbery – some people took exception to the posh accent he’d picked up at school in Ampleforth. I could tell it might be a problem in that Bury pub when we started to get some dirty looks. It was my turn to drive so I wasn’t drinking and, as the evening wore on, I sensed the hostility growing, even though we were minding our own business and weren’t being loud. When the landlord called time, I suggested we drank up and got out sharpish.
We all climbed into the car we’d borrowed from one of the guys’ mothers and I started to ease out of the car park, only to find my way blocked by a gang of about 15 lads. I decided to keep going gently and hope they would part. One of them smacked his hand against the windscreen in front of me, then another took something harder to a rear-side window and smashed it. That pissed me off and I said, ‘That’s it.’
The other three echoed, ‘Yeah, that’s it,’ and we all climbed out, four fit young cricketers, facing odds of nearly four to one. In fact, they were worse than that because I was the only one who could fight.
My martial arts training had taught me to keep out of fights whenever I could, but this wasn’t one I could walk away from.
‘Who the fuck broke that window?’ I challenged.
A group of blokes came towards me. I took one of them down and smacked another.