Collision at the Crease: Gatting vs Rana

Well, the, the, the England-Pakistan, uh, tours have always had a little bit of, of controversy about them, but the backdrop to this is, so 1986, '87, Mike Gatting is captain of an extremely successful England tour of Australia, and England win it 2-1.

I was there for quite a lot of it 'cause I was a 19-year-old.

I was working in hotels, working in bars, cleaning swimming pools, watching quite a lot of this either on television or actually at the SCG.

I was, uh, I was behind the bar.

Were you indeed?

In fact, actually, yes, I actually served Mike...

Uh, not Mi- I didn't serve Mike Gatting.

[laughs]

I served Geoffrey Boycott a cup of tea every day in the Sydney test match in the New South Wales Cricket Association dining room.

So Mike Gatting's captain of '86, '87.

A great tour of Australia.

England win the Ashes 2-1.

They win two one-day competitions as well.

Back to England, the summer of 1987, they lose to Pakistan 1-0, and it's quite tetchy because the Pakistan team are not happy with the umpire.

We're in the days where it's not neutral umpires.

It does actually hasten the introduction of neutral umpires.

In 1982, England had beaten Pakistan 2-1 in a three test series, but Pakistan were very unhappy with an umpire called David Constance, who was a very good umpire, and they requested that he did not stand in '87.

And the, they were then called the Test and County Cricket Board, the TCCB, turned them down.

So they were unhappy about that, but they still won 1-0 in '87.

But then England go to Pakistan in the, in the autumn and winter of '87, and that is the backdrop of it.

So the Pakistanis are like, "Well, you know, y- y- we, we didn't th- we thought that David Constance gave us a really bad decision actually in 1982.

You kept him in '87.

We're not happy about that." But this is what happens.

We have, you have home umpires still, and one of the home umpires in, in '87 is Shakur Rana.

Yes.