The Skipper in the Ranks: Mike Gatting

Mike Gatting (1988) — Leading From the Front, London: Queen Anne Press

Leading From the Front was the first cricketing autobiography that I ever read. Of all the books passed down to me by my Great Uncle Jim, it stood out for two reasons: it was the only one written by a player that wasn’t from Yorkshire and also the only one by someone still playing Test cricket for England.

Based on my experiences, watching Gatting struggle — along with the rest of the team — to a heavy series defeat against India in 1993, there was little to suggest to my young eyes that he was anything other than another ageing and underperforming batsman who needed to be pensioned off at the next available opportunity.

The cheery grin proffered by the younger Gatting on the cover of Leading From the Front appeared to be a distant memory by the time it came into my possession, as the man on my TV screen prodded unhappily at the Indian spinners and encapsulated England’s toils in the field by managing to drop one of the simplest-looking catches of all time during the second Test in Chennai. (1)

What exactly was it about this smirking dandy from Middlesex (somewhere down south, apparently) that could have earned the grudging respect of my late Great Uncle, a Yorkshire die-hard otherwise preoccupied with tales of gritty northern greats like Brian Close, Geoffrey Boycott and Ray Illingworth?

First published in 1988, Leading From the Front was considered controversial due to the chapter about England’s tour of Pakistan the previous winter, on which tensions between the away team and the officials exploded when, as captain, Gatting became engaged in a spot of furious back-and-forth finger-wagging with umpire Shakoor Rana during the second Test at Faisalabad.

Despite the incident causing a delay to the match and a level of diplomatic uproar that overshadowed the rest of the series, Gatting retained the captaincy. However, the decision to publish the book, including an account of the tour — told using the voice of ghost writer Angela Patmore, as if that would somehow disclaim him of responsibility — increased the pressure on Gatting, and he was swiftly removed from his post following tabloid allegations of an inappropriate liaison during the first Test match at Trent Bridge against the West Indies the following summer.

Even if Leading From The Front had been published at that point, it still wouldn’t have captured the full range of further controversies involving its author and subject: the selectors wanted him back as captain for the 1989 Ashes, only for the MCC Chairman to veto his appointment, and he played in only one Test that summer before electing to lead a ‘rebel’ tour to apartheid South Africa, earning him a three-year ban from international cricket.

Back when I first read it, though, I was missing all of that context, and left to puzzle over what exactly had happened in the five-year gap between the events of the book and Gatting’s struggles on his return. Part of the justification for his recall was a reputation as a fine player of spin, and though he did make a couple of fifties in India, his returns were not stellar.

Retained the following summer, Gatting was then bamboozled — famously — by Shane Warne’s ‘ball of the century’ and after running Mike Atherton out on 99 at Lord’s, he was dropped before he could make any further impact on the series.

Reading and re-reading this book, in the way that teenagers sometimes get obsessed with quite odd things, at least helped me understand that Gatting had once been a middle-order powerhouse for England during the mid-80s, and as captain had even led England to victory in Australia in 1986/7.

The significance of that achievement was slightly lost on me at the time, particularly as victories against other Test sides during his tenure appeared to be rare, but it was probably the main reason for Leading From the Front earning a place in Jim’s collection alongside the efforts of several Yorkshire greats.

Sadly, that exact copy was either lost or given away many years ago and replaced, for these purposes, by a slightly tatty version acquired from Amazon. There’s a slight sadness that accompanies the purchase of second-hand sports books of a certain vintage, as they so often come with a handwritten message in the front inside cover wishing a friend or relative a happy birthday, Christmas or retirement. The cheery note here from Peter to Tony on the occasion of his 60th birthday (‘P.S. You don’t look it!’) made me wonder whether my misplaced copy had featured a similar personal greeting, or even an autograph from Gatting himself. (2)

Those slightly wobbly memories aside, my main feeling upon revisiting it was mild disbelief that I could ever have read this book more than once. Although he first played for England as a young man, Gatting only established himself in the team in the mid-80s, and so most of the chapters are mainly based on the ins and outs — including a rather detailed breakdown of matches, scores and dismissals — of Middlesex’s domestic campaigns.

It’s a reminder of the elevated status the county game held back then, and even when representing their country, players were required to return and fulfil their playing duties for their domestic teams at the earliest opportunity. It seems slightly inexplicable now that in the days before central contracts England’s premier players, particularly their bowlers, were expected to give their best to both county and country all summer long, and perhaps provides some explanation for the national side’s moderate results. (3)

Indeed, the only saving grace of the 80s team was that they managed to beat the Australians on a semi-regular basis, including the rare away victory achieved by Gatting’s tourists in 1986/7.

After defeat to the West Indies in 1988 — the infamous ‘summer of four captains’ — and the cancellation of the winter tour to India, the appeal of the triumphant Ashes-winning skipper’s return for the home leg in 1989 was significant. It was not to be, however, with the publication of this book being one of a series of events (and choices) that seemingly put paid to his future captaincy ambitions.

That said, up until the chapter on Pakistan, Leading from The Front isn’t especially packed with controversial takes: Gatting’s frankness on the decline of Ian Botham’s bowling — even before his back injury — is a minor surprise, and there’s an undercurrent of low-level dissatisfaction with the teams issued to him by the selectors during successive home summers, with chairman Peter May portrayed as a slightly distant and aloof figure.

There’s also some understandable chafing against a profile written by Peter Roebuck (‘supposedly an academic’) in the Sunday Times which describes him as ‘a man of pickle, chips and lager… at press conferences he can be outstandingly obtuse, rolling out clichés as if they were revelations’.

Despite everything, both Gatting and the TCCB flirted with the idea of a return as captain in the early 90s. As a dejected Graham Gooch attempted to resign after defeat to Australia in the 1993 Lord’s Test, Atherton later wrote that Gatting ‘had his eyes on the prize’.

Instead, he was dropped from the team, seemingly for good, only to earn one final recall for the next Ashes series in 1994/5, the allure of that previous win, and the prospect of a ready-made replacement for Atherton as skipper, seemingly too much for the selectors to resist.

Gatting — perhaps wisely — declined to publish any further volumes of autobiography that captured his early 90s career, although a paperback edition of Leading From The Front, taking in the events of the 1988 summer, did follow.

Tempting as it was to purchase this update, I was swayed by nostalgia for the original hardback that I had once owned, which ends with its author — still England captain — cheerily running through lists of his non-cricketing interests, oblivious of the future storm to follow.

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Notes:

(1) Footage of which is, at the time of writing, accessible via a YouTube clip entitled ‘Easiest ever catch drop in Test Cricket’. In fairness, Gatting was suffering from the dreaded ‘tummy trouble’ at the time, said to be as a result of eating prawns in the hotel’s Chinese restaurant.

(2) I am almost certainly imagining the latter, and my vivid memories of his signature are possibly derived from the photo inlay featuring a picture of the handwritten apology from Gatting to Shakoor Rana in 1987.

(3) An extremely basic and unscientific rundown of England’s 80s ‘big beasts’ — Gooch, Gower, Gatting, Botham, Lamb, Emburey — includes no specialist pace bowlers.

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© Ben Richards 2026