Cricket: Warning signs for Atherton: Derek Pringle says that Australia can be a hostile environment for a captain under pressure

BY THE time Michael Atherton leads his side out at the Gabba for the first Test against Australia in late November, he will be thankful that the serious cricket has at last got under way. Until then he will have to relive the turmoil of the past English summer in all its grubby detail. The West Indies bowlers may have targeted him for some special treatment on the pitch last winter, but the Australian media love a tainted pom, particularly a captain soiled in the way Atherton is.

His resolve will be tested to the limit, and England's prospects rest on how well their skipper can cope with the regurgitated tripe and hype. Atherton knows that the best approach will be to keep his tongue in his cheek and his eye on the ball. In the land of Oz, nothing succeeds at diverting attention like humiliating the home side, and England must rally round their captain. It will not be easy. The early opponents are never easy meat, and anything less than a crushing victory usually provokes the question: 'Mike, tell me, what's it like to captain the worst side to have visited Australia this century?'

When that other Cambridge man, Mike Brearley, captained England in Australia in the late Seventies, he got so much stick that he grew a beard in the vain hope of winning the crowd's respect by appearing more masculine. Atherton shaves only occasionally as it is.

Australia can be a fine place, but life can be difficult both on and off the field. On the 1982-83 tour, when England lost the Ashes 2-1, Geoff Cook, the former Northamptonshire captain, was having a quiet drink in a Sydney bar, when he was approached by a typically loud local. 'Are you that pommie cricketer Geoff Cook?' was the

enquiry. 'Aye, that I am, sir,' replied Cook. 'In that case, mate,' said the stranger. 'you're only bloody ordinary with the willow.' Cue uproarious laughter.

Touring Australia has never been a relaxing experience, and the travelling can make it even more tiresome. The itinerary, particularly the to-ing and fro-ing during the one-day series, will take a heavy toll on a player's stamina. It can also niggle away at team spirit. Constant flying is particularly difficult for those who, like Phil Tufnell, find it difficult to relax on aeroplanes. He is often to be seen eyes screwed shut, clutching his St Christoper charm as yet another jet trundles down the runway.

It is the ambition of most cricketers to play for the Ashes in Australia, but what used to be one of the more popular tours is now one of the most draining. Television schedules are all-powerful, and no amount of pleading on the players' behalf seems to lighten their burden.

This winter's tour flicks back and forth between the all-white formats of the Tests to the coloured carnage of the one-dayers. The gap between the first and second Tests is more than three weeks, which means that even if Atherton wanted to rest some of his key players during the one-day games, he could not do so for fear of their being woefully short of match practice by the time the Tests restarted.

This is far from ideal. England have not held the Ashes for three successive series, the last time being when Mike Gatting retained them in Australia during the 1986- 87 season. Then, that comprehensive victory was the highlight of a miraculous winter for England, where everything they touched turned to gold.

It was a bizarre series, however. Not only were Australia rebuilding following a mass defection to South Africa, but England's two Test victories were largely down to Ian Botham who, apart from a century in Brisbane and five wickets in Melbourne, contributed little else. Chris Broad, Gladstone Small and Graham Dilley all had good tours, but it was Botham's well-timed contributions that were crucial in setting up the victories.

Timing is everything at Test level, and Atherton will do well to remind his players that more winning positions are achieved with adrenalin and instinct on the field than by carefully laid plans off it. The Ashes evoke far more passion than other Test series, and for that reason alone seem to inspire more one-off performances.

Who can forget the way Bob Massie swung his way into folklore at Lord's in 1972 only to sink without trace a year later? Likewise Richard Ellison, who routed the Aussies at Edgbaston in 1985. Nobody should be surprised if either side finds unlikely heroes before the series has been decided.

Like Gooch before him, Atherton is a realist when it comes to running his ship. Unlike last winter in the West Indies, when he got the players he wanted, he has had to compromise with the chairman over selections this time. He should not feel too aggrieved; Australia have long excluded their captains from the selection process, preferring to pick a team long before choosing a captain.

Gone, too, is the emphasis on youth. Instead, the presence of Raymond Illingworth as chairman of selectors has injected a short- term pragmatism, with a view to winning the Ashes now and not in four years' time. This is based on a blend of youth and experience, bound together by the extremes of Gooch (113 caps) and Shaun Udal (none).

For the batsmen, the chief threat is Shane Warne, the leg- spinner who dominated the last series in England. On form, he is the perfect Test match bowler, whose unerring accuracy and long spells simply stifle the life out of a batting line-up. Without Warne, the sides look evenly matched, but so crucial is he to Australia's game plan that England can afford few lapses against him if they are to score enough runs to dictate the coming matches.

Batsmen will have to be bold against him, for the other bowlers, Craig McDermott, Tim May, Glenn McGrath are all good performers. Runs will have to come from both ends. It won't be easy, but England should take heart from South Africa's two recently drawn series against them: one at home and one abroad.

The key to the Proteas' success was dogged, first-innings occupation of the crease, with Jonty Rhodes and Hansie Cronje taking the game to Warne and May. This was followed by some highly disciplined seam and swing bowling, a method seemingly spurned by the England selectors when picking their bowlers for this tour.

Atherton believes that you cannot bore Aussie batsmen into submission; you have to bowl them out. Yet he may live to regret not having Angus Fraser at hand. Big Gus may lack some of his old potency, but he can still give a captain immeasurable control, something that may be lacking once temperatures and scoring rates start rising. All of Australia's frontline batsmen feast on wayward bowling, so it will be imperative for Devon Malcolm, Darren Gough and Martin McCague to be accurate as well as aggressive, though none should be asked wholly to compromise their methods.

He will rely on DeFreitas and Tufnell to do much of the thankless job of pegging the opposition back, a task for which bowlers are given little credit and get even fewer rewards. Gung-ho talk of bowling the opposition out will be of little consequence if Australian totals are large and are scored quickly. If this becomes the norm, it will allow Warne even more time to apply the screw.

To combat this, England will rely on a middle order comprising the left-handed Graham Thorpe at four, with the veteran pairing of Gooch and Gatting at five and six. But whereas Gatting returns to the scene of his greatest triumph as a Test captain, the trip will bring back bitter memories for Gooch of when England were humiliated under his captaincy here four years ago. Both have critics, but their experience will be valuable.

If England can still be considered to be rebuilding under a new captain, Australia are perhaps recovering from the loss of an old one. Allan Border's contribution to Australian cricket has been monumental and the game can have seen no finer or committed servant. Mark Taylor has a hard act to follow and the task already seems to be affecting his batting.

That is not all. Apart from McDermott, there is a new-look pace attack, which, although heavy with moustaches, has yet to assume the kind of bristling menace it had under Big Bad Merv. In fact, it would not be surprising if Hughes felt he only had to be semi-functional to wreak his usual havoc among the Poms. Unfortunately, he may be out of luck. Word has it that the selectors will probably go for a combination of those pacemen now being nursed along in Pakistan on a diet of flat pitches and fiery curries.

With little change to the batting bar Border's stabilising position at six, Australia still possess a strong line-up. Taylor and David Boon are both extremely accomplished old hands, while Michael Slater, Michael Bevan and the Waugh twins can add the dash once the salt has departed. England's bowlers will have to be on top of their form and much will rely on Malcolm's ability to shake the opposition with some well-directed pace.

It will be a hard-fought contest that could go to the wire. If this is the case, and the series is decided in Perth, it is worth remembering that two of England's more memorable Test victories in the past 12 months - at Bridgetown and The Oval - have been on bouncy pitches similar to the WACA.

Before that, Warne and one or two others will have to be mastered and both England and Atherton will have to win the key sessions of play. But if he can keep his pockets empty and his lips sealed while his team get enough runs on the board, there is no reason why the England captain should not forge a combative team capable of winning back the Ashes. If he does, then any lingering soil will soon become rich pay-dirt.

(Photograph omitted)