The Replacement: Steve James
Third Man to Fatty's Leg
Steve James (2005) – Third Man to Fatty’s Leg, Lydney: First Stone
Prolific county form isn’t exactly discounted when it comes to England selection in the modern era, but it doesn’t quite have the same weight it did back in the 90s, when a good season would soon have pundits and press asking what else a particular player had to do to earn a call-up.
More often than not, that player would get the nod eventually, ahead of whichever unfortunate had endured the most recent bad run of form at Test level and found their neck on the chopping block, or as a replacement for an injured regular.
Although one-cap wonders and those discarded too soon were prevalent in the 90s, their stories are rarely part of the overall tale of England during the decade, which is mainly relayed via the biographies of the hallowed few who managed to stick around in the team long enough to sustain an international career.
Glamorgan’s Steve James enjoyed the season of his life in 1997 as he helped his team to the County Championship for only the third time in their history. At that time, however, there was no vacancy at the top of the order, with Mark Butcher given an opportunity to become Mike Atherton’s latest opening partner during that summer’s Ashes, before Alec Stewart relinquished the gloves and started opening again on the following winter tour of the West Indies.
Instead, James earned the consolation of a trip with England ‘A’ to Kenya, where he acted as vice-captain to Warwickshire’s Nick Knight, Butcher’s predecessor in the senior team who faded from contention after a promising start and remained on the fringes thereafter, despite strong performances in one-day cricket.
James considered that was his chance gone, admitting that he found the cricket dull, the vice-captaincy a ‘sop’, and the abilities of Mike Gatting as ‘A’ team coach rather lacking. However, after Stewart succeeded Atherton as captain and returned to wicketkeeping duties, and Butcher suffered an injury, James’s county form the following year remained good enough to earn him a call-up for the Lord’s Test against South Africa.
After England suffered a heavy defeat, with James contributing two low scores, he was immediately dropped and Knight recalled in his place, with with chairman of selectors David Graveney rather weakly offering the need for a left-hand/right-hand combination at the top of the order – apparently not a concern a few days previously – as justification.
In the introduction to Third Man to Fatty’s Leg (the title referencing the author’s self-described origins as an ugly batsman with a tendency to score a lot of runs behind the wicket on the off-side, and a line from the Welsh film Twin Town that accurately described the state of his troublesome knee by the end of his career), James promises to tell the story of what it is really like to be a cricketer, a fundamental quality sadly lacking in many sporting autobiographies, and he is true to his word, front-loading the tale with details of his greatest achievements – the moment of triumph in the County Championship, and his first England cap.
On the latter experience, James was hardly helped by the last-minute nature of his call-up following an injury to Butcher, which meant that he missed the chance to spend much pre-match time with the squad and any opportunity to bond with his new team-mates.
Whether this would have made much difference in those days, it’s difficult to tell, but James notes limited interaction with a taciturn Graham Thorpe, mild discomfort at having to play alongside Dominic Cork, whose behaviour in county cricket irritated him, and something approaching panic as he watched Dean Headley employ short-ball tactics against South African pace spearhead Allan Donald, shortly before James, on debut, would be emerging to face the latter with ball in hand.
Similarly disconcerting was the feeling that he had no idea whether captain Stewart, coach David Lloyd or opening partner Atherton actually wanted him in the team. Although Atherton was a friend and team-mate during their years together at Cambridge, James frets that his early ‘ugly’ reputation had preceded him,(1) while his instinct regarding Lloyd and others – even chairman of selectors Graveney – is to recall their harsh appraisals of his batting abilities during earlier encounters in county cricket.
Recalling small details like this in a book may seem slightly petty, but readers will perhaps sympathise with James’s assertion that he found it difficult to separate opposition players from their on-field behaviour.(2)
He is also honest about his own misjudgements and shortcomings: unloading on tailenders in the dressing room for an apparent lack of fortitude, winning a ‘duck’ trophy awarded for the most scores of 0 in a season (and smashing it into the bin shortly afterwards), and looking up unflattering comments about his performances on a Glamorgan chat forum in a pre-social media age. These reactions all feel much more human than bland statements from greats about brushing off criticism.
Despite earning his international stripes through strength of performance in county cricket, James is, like many cricketers of the era, disparaging about the domestic four-day game and the kind of players it produces: those who make excuses, those who let bitterness overtake them, and those who don’t even really want to be there.(3) The county pro obsessed with a sponsored car, a stereotype dating back to Boycott on Cricket at the start of the decade, is also referenced here.
James’s experience of working with future England coaches Duncan Fletcher, who guided Glamorgan to that famous Championship win in 1997 (and returned in 1999 only to be distracted by the recruitment process for the national coaching role) and Andy Flower, with whom he spent many winters playing cricket in Zimbabwe, informed his future writing work, including ghosting Fletcher’s autobiography Behind the Glasses and writing The Plan, an excellent overview of how their successful England teams that finally beat Australia were assembled.
James’s close relationship with Fletcher never earned him another opportunity with England, however, and the description of his final two contributions during the defeat to Sri Lanka in 1998 is slightly heart-wrenching: despite spending some time at the crease and making reasonable scores in both innings, James already knew, as he walked off the field, that he was likely to be dropped.
Ultimately his suspicions were confirmed by a slip of the tongue from fitness trainer Dean Riddle before anyone higher up had the chance to do so. In this, too, there is some insight into the 90s dressing room from the point of view of the outsider: even characters who established names liked, admired and made use of, such as team psychologist Dr Steve Bull, appear able to offer little more to a newcomer than brief motivational soundbites.(4)
With James on the outside, and Fletcher about to take up the England role, accompanied by considerable public and media pressure for change, the two dance around the possibility of a further call-up. As the net is cast across county cricket for potential players to blood on the 1999/2000 tour of South Africa, Fletcher reveals that Michael Vaughan is among those under consideration. Piqued by a sense of rivalry and Vaughan’s dreadful county form, James responds that to pick him would be ‘a disgrace’.
While, as he admits here, James was wrong in that particular case, the general strategy that informed selection for that tour was ultimately one that failed. He contrasts his England experience with another debutant selected for the South Africa trip, the Derbyshire batsman Chris Adams, who remained in the team for all five Tests, despite struggling: ‘A whole series in the side is sufficient for an individual to know whether or not he is good enough to cut it at Test level. Adams knows. I am not sure. Never will be.’
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Young Lions Sometimes Roar: Watching Bad Cricket (And Playing Cricket Badly) in the 90s by Ben Richards is out now.
Notes:
(1) James also writes about Atherton’s decision to give debutant openers the choice of whether to take first ball or not, as a kind of test, with Marcus Trescothick’s lack of preference offered up as evidence of a temperament suitable for Test cricket, and Darren Maddy’s last-minute change of heart indicating the opposite. By insisting on taking the first ball at Lord’s, James suggests he failed his old friend’s little test, although he notes here that in the second innings Atherton, on a pair, asked to take strike first, suggesting that even established players can remain susceptible to nerves and superstition.
(2) While acknowledging Andy Caddick as a ‘fundamentally decent bloke… who tries a little too hard’ off the field, James also notes an ongoing irritation with Caddick as an opponent, and on one occasion in particular: ‘On a bouncy Taunton wicket he had stood at the end of his run and announced in the most belittling matter to everyone in the ground: “Come on, Stevo [nobody else has ever called me that], get yourself out now before you make a complete arse of yourself.”’
(3) Upon recording his own uncertainty following his England call-up: ‘I am not sure if everyone who plays county cricket aspires to the highest level. They might trot out the familiar clichés when asked, but what about when it came to the crunch? County cricket can be a comfortable existence, with some publicity but not too much. Test cricket is completely different… the exposure can be frightening and the media glare baleful.’
(4) Remarked Bull: ‘Your first Test is for acclimatisation, the second is for performing.’ I imagine he offers more than this if hired for £4,000-£6,000 to speak at your office work event.
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© Ben Richards 2026