BBC BREAKFAST WITH FROST
HOSTED BY SUE MACGREGOR
INTERVIEW:
MIKE ATHERTON
CRICKETER
SEPTEMBER 1ST, 2002
Please note "BBC Breakfast with Frost" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used

SUE MACGREGOR:
Now with a summer dominated by football's World Cup you might think England's cricketers would have a problem getting themselves noticed, but that hasn't been the case. There have been wins against Sri Lanka and a fairly gripping contest with India at the moment. Nasser Hussein's predecessor as captain, Mike Atherton, brings out his autobiography in a few days time and I'll be talking to Mike in a moment but first a brief look back at his career.

SUE MACGREGOR:
That was Mike Atherton and he's with us here in person, we heard a sort of oooohhh, I don't know whether that was you, as it were, at the time?

MIKE ATHERTON:
I think it was, yes.

SUE MACGREGOR:
Was it Alan Donald?

MIKE ATHERTON:
Yeah that was Alan Donald bowling at Trent Bridge in 1998, particularly ferocious fast bowler.

SUE MACGREGOR:
I'd imagine that a bit more than ooooohhhh was said on occasion. You retired at the comparatively young age of 33 from first class and international cricket, that was about a year ago or so, but you've got your place in the record books because you captained England more than any other player, I believe. You always though looked as if you never hugely enjoyed the captaincy, you looked a bit sort of dour sometimes, what was, what were the thoughts really in there when you were captain?

MIKE ATHERTON:
Well it was quite an interesting period in English cricket, there was a period where we had probably as many downs as ups and it wasn't an easy period to captain the side, we weren't consistently successful, we didn't have probably by English standards a great team and it was always a bit of a struggle and probably I reflected that.

SUE MACGREGOR:
Captaincy, people will say about it, you can't really concentrate on playing a good innings if you're thinking about the other guys and where they're placed and everything. You seemed to, you seemed to put that to one side because you often, as the commentary said, were the rock, but it did perhaps detract from what you were trying to do with a bat?

MIKE ATHERTON:
It did towards the end, actually when I first took over at the back end of 1993 for the first two or three years my performance was actually far better when I was captain, I think the added responsibility definitely helped my game. But by the end the fourth and fifth year maybe I went on slightly too long, I found the responsibility weighing quite heavily on me and I think that definitely affected my game towards the end, yeah.

SUE MACGREGOR:
You will, I suppose, always be remembered and written about it very honestly I think in the book for that so-called ball tampering incident when, on your own admission, you had something in your pocket and you roughened the surface of the ball and you actually told less than the truth to the umpire at the end of the game?

MIKE ATHERTON:
Well there was a match referee in place back in 1994 and I suppose the thing to say was that it was the issue of the time, ball tampering for some reason in that period was just the issue of the time, it's a bit like, for example, match fixing now and betting on cricket, gambling on cricket. And therefore back then it was probably blown out of all proportion, the interesting thing for me was the week afterwards when I experienced for the first, and thankfully the last time, the full blast of the media, it wasn't a particularly pleasant week but looking back you can kind of have a bit of wry humour about it.

SUE MACGREGOR:
If you'd said to the referee, yes I did actually take a bit of sand out of my pocket and roughen the ball, would you have in the end lost the captaincy do you think?

MIKE ATHERTON:
Oh I've no idea, the, the key issue was that both the umpires out in the middle said the condition of the ball hadn't been changed in any way. So fundamentally that was no problem. But Peter Burge who was the match referee back then was a pretty ferocious type and pretty scary.

SUE MACGREGOR:
But since then of course, as you say, the so-called match fixing scandals have absolutely over-shadowed that, Hansie Cronje now sadly no longer with us, lost his career as a result of what the revelations were about what had been done?

MIKE ATHERTON:
He did and in a way it involved a team I played with, the game at Centurion Park in 1999 was the first game when I think people realised that something untoward was going on. But it was the only time, largely because the England team didn't play in the sub-continent in my decade of playing for England, and that really is where I think match fixing takes place the most. We really didn't see it, you know, in the 12 or 13 years that I played I didn't speak to a bookmaker, nobody approached me, so unless I was burying my head completely in the sand I don't think the England team were involved.

SUE MACGREGOR:
Has it stopped do you think?

MIKE ATHERTON:
Well Paul Condon came in and led a unit to try and¿

SUE MACGREGOR:
The chap from the Metropolitan Police?

MIKE ATHERTON:
Yes absolutely and to try and end match fixing and anything untoward going on. He seems to think they're on top of it, who am I to say otherwise.

SUE MACGREGOR:
The crowds in this country have thinned down considerably haven't they for matches, not in other parts of the world?

MIKE ATHERTON:
Not for Test matches, not for international matches, you generally find in Test cricket and international cricket we'd have sell-out crowds, but certainly for domestic county cricket crowds are fewer than they used to be, yeah.

SUE MACGREGOR:
Can we, can we beat India at the Oval next week?

MIKE ATHERTON:
I think the momentum has shifted a little bit towards India, England have a lot of injuries, they're ravaged by injuries, the momentum is with India so I'd say India start the slight favourites for the game.

SUE MACGREGOR:
And what about the World Cup in South Africa, southern hemisphere countries are really at the top of the league now aren't they?

MIKE ATHERTON:
Well Australia are probably head and shoulders above everybody else in world cricket at the moment but I'm actually quite optimistic about the England team, I think it's well run and well led, Duncan Fletcher as coach, and Nasser Hussein are doing a good job. I think the team generally has a clear sense of direction, I think they're pretty consistently selected and I'm quite optimistic.

SUE MACGREGOR:
Mike Atherton, thanks very much indeed for joining us today.

END