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A Gift For Christmas
28
wanted someone to get a partnership together
and edge us towards a win. My attitude
couldn’t have been more of a contrast, and
that had caused a seismic reaction.
The old changing rooms at Cardiff were
horrendous, housed as they were in a
1950s-style prefab building. Mick, frothing
at the mouth and looking as if he wanted to
punch me, frogmarched me downstairs to
the shower block – I thought I was off to the
gulag – and roared: ‘There are 10 blokes here
trying to win a Championship and you’re
messing around!What are you doing?’
‘Oooh, calm down, Mick, sorry,’ I protested.
Admittedly, it didn’t help that we had slipped
from 231 for two to 283 all out against
the bottom-placed side, but thankfully we
ended up winning comfortably to go three
and a half points clear at the top of the table,
with a game in hand.
Nevertheless, Mick told Darren Bicknell
to take me to one side afterwards and have
a quiet word. Darren explained that Mick
wanted the best for the club and that my
decision while batting was a poor one.
My defence was that he would love my
approach one day. I’m still waiting for him
to acknowledge that day has come, mind.
Two months earlier I’d crashed 62 from 25
balls in a Twenty20 game at Headingley, and
only got out when, confronted byYorkshire off-
spinner Richard Dawson, I became obsessed
with playing the reverse sweep. I connected
nicely with a couple before top-edging one, and
when I walked off we were 101 for one, well
on course for our 181-run target. I expected
rapturous applause but as I sat down with the
other guys, Mick rapped: ‘If you play one more
reverse sweep, I’m going to rip your head off !’
Later, after victory was completed and
he’d had time to chill out, I explained that
as I’d grown up on spinning pitches, the
reverse sweep was a bona fide tool for me
when batting. I was adamant I didn’t want
to give it up, and therefore we came to a
compromise that, as long as I practised it
regularly, I was allowed to play it in games.
As far as I am aware, I am the only member
of the Nottinghamshire playing staff who is
– because it drives Mick mad when other
people get out attempting it.
Typically, he was the sender of the first
derogatory text message when, after getting
20-odd in my first game back for England in
Sri Lanka in the autumn of 2007, I pulled it
out of the locker and failed to clear the inner
ring. But to me it is one of the best shots in
the game, so I will never stop playing it.
Mick desperately wants his team and his
players to do well and to win every game.
And he is very good at picking and preparing
teams to that end. His cricket brain is
terrific but perhaps his primary skill as a
coach is man-management.Yes, he kicks the
dustbin when things aren’t going well and
disappears into his office with a slam of the
door, but that just shows he cares. And he
was rewarded with silverware for identifying
and moulding that team of 2005.
He had begun that process a couple
of years earlier when Nottinghamshire
and Northamptonshire were not miles
apart in terms of talent. If anything,
Northamptonshire would have been
superior. But belief at Trent Bridge was key,
and the fact that they’d been fairly mediocre
for a few years was not dwelt upon. It was as
if they’d said: ‘To hell with it, from now on
we’re going to be winners.’
In terms of attitude it was the first time I’d been
in a team that believed they could actually win
the County Championship, and the fact I was
in new territory is why I retain such a fondness
for that summer: we set out at the start of the
year to do something and we did just that.
Our winning formula was based around
bowling first, dismissing the opposition – of
the eight matches at Trent Bridge that year,
we fielded first in all but our final one – and
trying to bat just the once. Our openers
Darren Bicknell and Jason Gallian both
had superb seasons and they ensured we
regularly got off to great starts. Then Flem
and Huss would weigh in with big scores at
rapid rates, which would buy us plenty of
time to bowl teams out again. It was Flem’s
idea of a perfect game of cricket.
Signed copies of ‘The Breaks Are Off ’ are available from
the Trent Bridge Shop and trentbridge.co.uk priced £20
beLIeF wAs KeY:
to HeLL wItH It,
FRoM now
on we’Re GoInG
to be wInneRs
graeMe swann
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