Interview with England opening batsman

 

Hello to those reading my blog. I have been away for a while arranging more interviews for you to read. Here is the first one of many, hopefully. It is with Chris Tavare, former Kent and England opening batsman!

On the 19^th of September this year I found myself traveling down to Sevenoaks school to interview one of their biology teachers, who just happens to have played 31 tests for the England cricket team, beginning in 1980 v the West Indies and finishing against Australia in 1989. Chris is now a biology teacher at Sevenoaks school, and when we met it was hard to imagine that this softly spoken and modest man could have played 31 high intensity and high pressure Test Matches for England. His best score was 149 vs India .

As well as teaching biology Chris also leads on all the sporting activities, including netball. Chris has been teaching at Sevenoaks for well over a decade, and, in my opinion, sees it as a natural progression from his playing days, as he says himself.

The only things that really interest him are sport and biology!

…so our chat started with sport, and how he first got interested in the game.

 

Owen – How did you first become interested in cricket?

Probably because my father was a keen club cricketer, he played for a club called Bickley Park Cricket Club, which is near Bromley. He was very sporty, he supported Arsenal Football Club – loved his sport! – so when we were young we always had a football or a cricket bat in our hands, and I had an older brother, so we used to play in the garden a lot, and that’s how I got interested, at a very young age.

Owen – So who do you support?

 

When I was younger I used to support Tottenham…

 

Owen – Whoa!! Bet that must have upset your dad?

..I suppose it was really, but Tottenham were successful in the early ‘60’s, so, like all kids, you support whoever was successful at the time.

 

Owen – Gilzean, Greaves and Bobby Smith?

Yes, Alan Gilzean, Bobby Smith and Alan Mullery, all those players, Steve Perryman, he was exciting. But I now support Charlton, because they’re the local team.

 

Owen – Well, Gillinghams local!

Yes, Gillinghams not far away, but I go to Charlton. I went about three times last year and watched them play.

 

Owen – You’re doing quite well under Chris Powell aren’t you?

They did well last year, not had a good start this year. They’re in the bottom three at the moment, which isn’t good.

 

Owen – When did your father first spot you were talented?

Probably when I was about fourteen, or fifteen. When I came to this school (Sevenoaks) and got into the first eleven, that’s probably when he got more of an idea that I was going to be a good cricketer, but he probably didn’t know how far I’d go at that stage. He always thought I should just go to school and university.

 

Owen – So he didn’t want you to be a cricketer?

Well, he didn’t push me. I think he was happy that I did, but I think he felt I should always go to university first, and then, after that, do what I wanted. But he would have been upset if I hadn’t been to university first.

 

Owen – What other support did you have?

Well I had a lot of coaching, I had coaching here at Sevenoaks School, from a chap called Alan Hurd, who used to play for Essex, and there is an in door cricket school in town, and chap called Colin Page, who was an ex Kent cricketer, and was running Kents second team, he did a lot of coaching in the winter, in the indoor cricket school, and then I just learnt from people around me: people at the (Sevenoaks) Vine Club.

 

Owen – So it was a casual thing to start off with?

It was in those days. You didn’t have academies like you do now. These days you get lots of individual coaching if you’re a good player, in those days it was very much done through schools and clubs, and then in the winter the specialist coaching with some of the Kent players, like Ray Dovey and Norman Graham.

 

Owen – This is a bit cheeky but what was you’re average at school?

One season I got up into the 90’s, but I don’t know what it was overall

 

Owen – Not a bad player then!

Hopefully not! In my last year at school I got a 1000 runs – that was the start of things to come!

 

Owen – Do you have any particular memories of playing at school?

Oh lots! Particularly from here at Sevenoaks, and, because I am up here coaching in the summer, it all comes back to me very fresh. Even at primary school I played a lot. I had two male teachers who were very keen on sport.

 

Owen – So, then you went to Oxford?

I always thought I would like to go to university because I have always enjoyed biology, and that’s the subject I studied!

 

Owen – So what started your interest in biology?

I had a very good teacher, a chap called David Briggs, and he taught me for about five years. I just enjoyed being in the lessons and I enjoyed the subject. Then I remember reading a book on behaviour and I thought ‘that’s what I’d like to study at university!’ and I choose to study zoology.

 

Owen – Well if you’ve got a teacher that keeps you interested…

… they inspire you don’t they!

Owen – Well (with your interest in biology) Can you tell me why is the  study of insects so important and what are some of the practical applications of their study, in the fields of agriculture and forensics, for example?

 

Well if you weighed all the insects that are around it would be an enormous mass. They’re everywhere. Why are they interesting? Because they live in so many different ways. Wherever there is a habitat they’ll find a way of living. Why are they important? Because a lot of them are involved as decomposers, breaking down dead matter. Others cause disease, or transfer disease. So, for example, mosquitoes, what do they do?

 

Owen – Cause malaria.

Correct! Most people know that flys will spread disease. They attack our crops, so we have to learn how to keep their numbers down, so they don’t cause too much damage, but, if we can do it in a way that doesn’t use chemicals, even better.

 

Owen – So why don’t you also tell me about your zoology degree Chris?

Well that’s the one subject I enjoyed at school. I didn’t much enjoy anything else, and couldn’t wait to give up everything else. It’s a three year degree, and you study a lot more than just animals, in those days ecology was a very exciting field as was animal behaviour. When I was at college Richard Dawkins, who’s written a lot about behaviour, was lecturing at my university. He was a very young man then – so you can tell how long ago that was! Obviously when I finished and went into cricket I didn’t go back to that for a very long time.

 

Owen – So what brought you back?

Well when I stopped playing I realized the two things that really interested me were sport and biology, and teaching was the obvious place to go to continue to enjoy those interests, which I still do and I am involved in teaching all of the sports here at Sevenoaks as well.

 

Owen – I have read that you get the same enjoyment out of teaching that you used to get from batting.

Yes, I enjoy it, but in a different way. I enjoy teaching the subjects and talking about them, but you don’t get the real highs and lows – because when you get nought you’re miserable, and when you get a hundred you’re happy!

*** Yes, sport and biology – that’s all I’m interested in, certainly at that age. I liked playing other sports as well: football, tennis and squash.

 

Owen – Is the ability to become utterly absorbed in something an advantage in cricket and entomology?

 

It’s a different sort of absorption. The absorption in cricket involves being totally focused and concentrated for very long periods, whereas absorption in biology is just being really excited and interested in something that just grabs your attention. In cricket you really have to work on maintaining a much higher level of concentration. Does it help? I’m not so sure it does because they’re different sorts of attention. But you’ve got to love what you’re doing, in both cases.

 

Owen – Back to cricket – what do you remember of your county debut?

My first championship match was against Nottinghamshire, at Trent Bridge, and, apart from being very nervous I remember Garfield Sobers fielding at short leg just round the corner to a leg spinner called Harry Latchman, and I got bowled by a googly, which I’d hardly ever seen before. As I walked off Sobers said “bad luck!” and it made my day!

 

Owen – Well it would do! At least he didn’t catch you in the slips, because he was a master at that.

Yes, he was a great cricketer, I watched him growing up and he was one of my heroes.

 

Owen – Do you wish you sometimes had the freedom to bat further down the batting order?

No, I liked batting at the top – and I was too impatient! – I liked to bat early! I found it difficult if I had to watch for several hours before you went in – I didn’t like that!

 

Owen – Did you like to get it over with?

I did like to get in early, because I felt my mind was fresh if I got in fairly early.

 

Owen – So do you think mental strength was a big part of your game?

I think so. I could certainly concentrate for long periods, and be very patient. Wasn’t always a strength though. What was difficult was that sometimes you need to change up, and suddenly accelerate.

 

Owen – So you could concentrate for long periods, but not as long as  Trevor Bailey did, in 1953! (or whenever it was…)

He batted for days, against Australia I think it was. I could do that, but not coming in at the end, I could do it at the beginning – people likened me to him.

 

Owen – What was it like playing with Geoff Boycott?

Well again I watched him play as a youngster, and its very odd playing in a team with people you revered when you were younger, watching cricket on television, as you did in those days. When you played with someone like that – just as I did when I started playing at Kent, with Underwood, Knott etc.. – you’re in awe of them, even though you’re in the same team.

 

Owen – Did they welcome you to the side?

Yes, they did, but you weren’t quite aware of that because you were so in awe of them and the occasion.

 

Owen – So we will go to your test debut then, it wasn’t the easiest of debuts was it?

No! It was against the West Indies: Holding, Roberts, Marshall and Colin Croft, possibly.

 

Owen – Oh, just as quick then!

Yes, they had lots of very quick bowlers, so waiting to bat in your first innings got the adrenaline flowing.

 

Owen – how quick were they?

Very quick! Holding in particular, he bowled me one of the fastest balls I’d ever faced, as did Malcolm Marshall. He bowled one at Geoff Boycott that went past his head, over the wicket keeper, and then hit the boundary board after about two bounces – because he was so angry about something he just bowled really quick.

 

Owen – Yes, but it went for byes so at least you got some runs from it.

 

Yes, but they were very quick. You had to have really good reactions.

 

Owen – So, have bowlers slowed down?

There are still one or two, Brett Lee was up there, Shoaib Akhtar, but talking to the players now there aren’t so many, but I think during the eighties there were a lot of very quick bowlers, because Pakistan had Imran, who was very quick, but, particularly in county cricket, you don’t see so many.

 

Owen – So what do you make of the standard in county cricket then?

I think it’s very good. I think it’s different but I still think the standard is very high. They put in far more practice than we ever did. The big difference is probably more in the one day cricket, they’re far better at one day cricket than we were. The batsman play a bigger variety of shots, and the bowlers bowl a greater variety of deliveries.

 

Owen – Do you think you would have adapted to twenty20 cricket?

 

Yes I would have loved it, it just gives you an excuse to play in a different way, in a much freer way. The equivalent, when I was playing, was the 40 over The John Player League. I enjoyed that because you could throw off the shackles and play in a very different way and learn different shots. All the players of my generation who liked one day cricket would have liked twenty20, because it’s really exciting and you get big crowds. When I first started in the ‘70’s the big crowds came on a Sunday, and twenty20 is the equivalent, the big crowds come in the evening to watch a twenty20 match.

 

Owen – Beefy would have loved it!

 

Beefy? Ian Botham? He would have loved it – he liked giving the ball a big bash, but he wouldn’t have liked being hit around!

 

Owen – Its something he would have had to get used to!

Yes, we would have had to have learnt some more shots,  because we didn’t play the sort of shots they play now. On the other hand they’ve got bigger bats haven’t they? So they can hit the ball much further than we did.

 

Owen –  So talking about Sir Ian, can I take you back to Old Trafford, circa. 1981.

Yes..

 

Owen – So the question is: what do you remember about the innings, and what was your contribution to it?

 

If anyone asked me what was my favourite days cricket, it was that day. On the Saturday, in the morning, Boycott and I bored everyone to death and then, just after lunch, we had a collapse and Ian Botham walked to the wicket, and he scored 118 in just about two hours, I think. It was  just amazing just to be at the other end, watching him take apart Dennis Lillee was amazing.

 

Owen – Did he have to say anything to you? Or was it ‘don’t worry, I’ll deal with this lot.’

We used to chat, but he didn’t say much about cricket. He was just – once he got in, particularly when he started hooking Lillee – he was just in an amazing period of form throughout that series.

 

Owen – Did you  think ‘I’ve got to stay in here to support Ian’ ??

That was my job, yes, that’s how I was playing that game – just batting for as long as possible, so I only got twenty odd runs at the other end, while he got his hundred, but my role was not to get out.

 

Owen – What was Ian like as a team mate?

He was a good team mate. I found him very encouraging – and very amusing! – he was very central to the atmosphere in the dressing room, and he liked to play practical jokes, with Alan Lamb. He was great fun

 

Owen – You have been known as a slow batsman, do you think that’s fair?

It was. In the context of English cricket it was fair, and that’s the way I felt it was my role to bat, because there were lots of stroke makers at the other end: Lamb, Gower, Gooch, Gatting – I mean I felt my role was to be there and not give my wicket away and I didn’t have the ability to take on the really top bowlers in the way that they could. So in the England context that was really very fair, but in the county context I was a very different cricketer.

 

Owen – You see I don’t understand that because you played at the best time for county cricket.  Because people weren’t going off for international series you got  to play against top bowlers every week, that must have improved your game.

 

Yes, it did. In county cricket, in the ‘80’s, we played against Marshall, Richards, Garner, Richard Hadley & Imran Khan. If you wanted to develop as a batsman county cricket was a great place, but the only thing was I rarely took on those bowlers, I’d always get my runs off the other bowlers because you could do that in county cricket.

 

Owen – but your highest score was 149 in Delhi.

..that’s right, on Christmas Eve..

 

Owen – I take it that was on a slow turner was it?

No, it was on a fairly slow flattish wicket, and I actually scored the runs fairly quickly that day.

 

Owen – England are going out to India in the winter, how do you play on Indian wickets?

 

Well, of the ones we played on during that tour, there weren’t many wickets that turned a lot, because they’d lost all their main spinners: Bedi, Chandrashekar, Prasana had all finished in the late ‘70’s, so they tended to prepare flatter wickets, particularly after the first test we played there was actually a seamers wicket, and we lost that. Then we played on very flat dull wickets, so there was no chance of getting any results in any of the other matches, so we had really, apart from one or two games in the provinces, no play on any turning wickets, apart from a game we played against Sri Lanka.

 

Owen – So, returning to county cricket, why was Alan Knott such a good team mate?

Well he was a really nice guy, and, again, he was very good in the dressing room, very humorous, liked practical jokes and the banter. He liked to have fun with people but also he was a very interesting man. We used to go and eat dinner together, and he was just interesting to talk to, but he was also a supreme professional. Very well prepared, very methodical, was always at the ground early. As a young player he was someone you could talk to about how to improve. He was just a thoroughly decent nice chap.

 

Owen – You played with  a lot of good players at the start of your career. Who did you learn most from?

..the best coach there, of the players, was Bob Woolmer ..

 

Owen – Ah! I’m glad we got onto that because he was the best technical coach I’ve ever seen..

… He was in his day, there are very good technical coaches now..

 

Owen – But what he did with South Africa…

…was very good. He got people to do things that they hadn’t thought about doing, and he could analyse cricket before computers were around. I found if ever you were in a poor run of form whenever he was around you could ask him ‘what did I do wrong?’ and he’d tell you.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed getting Chris’s thoughts on the modern game, and his memories of the past. I would once again like to thank him for spending such an enlightening morning with me, which I now pass on to you!