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variety of copy for the press to get hot in the word-processor over. There have been a few up-country matches, one in Bundaberg against a Queensland Country XI where the odd bottle of the notorious local rum was dutifully downed, one in Lawes against SE Queensland Country, and another against a South Australia XI at Wudinna which was rather more colourful. The tiny plane chartered for the flight from Adelaide hit a storm, and pavement pizzas of the ongoing variety were in fairly generalised production throughout the England camp. The manager, Peter Lush, was even fined by the team’s social committee for succumbing like the rest. At the back of the plane, not entirely unamused by their faint-hearted Pommie teammates’ gastroenterological turmoil, sat the non-pukers, Zambian Edmonds and South African Allan Lamb – iron constitutions, these colonials.
    It would be hard work not to like Allan Lamb, and he certainly rates as one of most people’s favourite tourists. I have never met anyone with quite as much energy, merriment and good-humoured mischief in him.
    At the very beginning of the tour, five of the team – John Emburey, Ian Botham, David Gower, Phil and Allan Lamb – took a seaplane excursion off the coast of Queensland. Thus confined, there was not a lot anybody could do when ‘Beefy’ Botham took the controls, other than stare hopefully at the aquatic environment and say a few earnest prayers. Starboard, they noticed a pelican, following them with interest. Suddenly the bird started to hover, its beady eye focused meaningfully. Finally, with an unerring sense of direction, it swooped on its unsuspecting prey, engulfing the unfortunate creature in its capacious mouth. ‘Henri!’ shouted Lamby to my husband. ‘Looks like Frances has arrived!’
    Lamby and David Gower seem closer than ever on this trip. In bygone days, Botham and former England captain, ‘una tantum’ assistant manager, Bob Willis comprised the Gang of Four. Willis, after England’s last disastrous tour to the West Indies, is no longer administratively with us, whilst Botham seems to be keeping very much to himself and his Australian promotions agent. This leaves the Allan and David duo together, as tour veterans of many years’ standing.
    David, whom Lamb has nicknamed ‘Shaggy’, a not entirely inappropriate sobriquet, designed to convey the deep-pile carpet effect of David’s unruly, blond curls, seems lost. It is received wisdom that I have all the maternal instincts of a funnel-web spider, but I do have an extremely soft spot for David.
    Last year had been such a traumatic year for him. An only child, whose father died many years ago, it came as a body-blow when his mother died weeks before the England team set off to the West Indies. That uncompromisingly dreadful tour ensued, and David, as captain, was inevitably first in the media firing line when it came to handing out the brickbats: no team discipline; want of application; lack of leadership; failure to implement anything even vaguely analogous to a strategy; and so on. He took it all with that indefatigable good humour and charm which uninformed pundits often perceive as indifference. It must be difficult for captains in adversity to know quite how to react to the cricket world’s vultures in the face of unremitting criticism. Some, such as ex-Australian captain, Kim Hughes, break down and cry. Some, such as current Australian captain, Allan Border, become uncommunicative, refuse to field press questions, threaten to resign and earn the nickname ‘Grumpy’. Throughout the press onslaught David remained his own laid-back, superficially insouciant self. However, absence of overt, aggressive histrionics drove the bloodlusters even wilder. Any layperson, picking up a British newspaper during that period, would have been forgiven for believing that David had done something rather ill-defined, but nevertheless deeply reprehensible. What in truth he had done was to lose to the best