Amidst all the euphoria of England assuming the mantle of World No.1 Test team, it has occasionally been mentioned that back in 1999, they were officially the worst of the then nine Test-playing nations. Certainly they have come a long way, but what was so bad about the team twelve years ago?
Back in the late '90s, the official ICC rankings had yet to be launched but the first stab at establishing relative strengths and weaknesses in an objective way came with the unofficial Wisden World Championship in 1997. In those days, Australia were very strong but the South Africans were catching up, the West Indies still a power (albeit fading slightly) and both India and Pakistan were hard to beat at home. Meanwhile England were in a state of transition. Gooch, Gower, Gatting and Botham had retired, and Nasser Hussain had replaced Mike Atherton as captain. There were no superstars, no legends of the sport.
However, in players like Graham Thorpe, Alec Stewart and Andrew Caddick, there was a nucleus of a good side. However, a great team needs more than three foundation stones, and that is where England fell down. It's not like they were losing all their fixtures but with Zimbabwe, New Zealand and Sri Lanka picking up wins here and there, it was England's 2-1 home defeat to the Black Caps which condemned them to the position of ninth out of nine, and losing to South Africa in the winter didn't help.
In the four Tests played during the summer of 1999, England's highest score was a mere 229, and not even India in 2011 sank that low. Nobody scored a century; nightwatchman Alex Tudor's memorable match-winning 99 not out at Edgbaston was the closest, and ensured England got off to a winning start in a low-scoring encounter in which, incidentally, a very young Chris Read made his debut with the gloves.
At Lord's, as happened so often in those days, the visitors came good. Chris Cairns took 6-77 as England slumped to 186 all out, then a Matt Horne century helped New Zealand towards 358. With Hussain absent hurt, the tail started at six and, with no batsman reaching 50, Stephen Fleming's team won by nine wickets. That was the last we saw of Aftab Habib in Tests. They drew at Old Trafford, with Hick and Atherton recalled to play alongside Butcher, Ramprakash, Thorpe and Stewart. However, the Black Caps compiled almost 500, thanks to centuries by Nathan Astle and Craig McMillan, earning a lead of almost 300.
Finally, at The Oval, runs were painfully slow in coming for both sides. NZ's first innings total of a mere 236 was decisive, including a 234-ball 66 not out by Fleming and a much faster 51 by 20 year-old Daniel Vettori. Chris Cairns, Dion Nash and Vettori had the better of the England batsmen, whose second innings crashed from 123-2 to 162 all out, along with the series.
It was a pretty low point. England experimented with various new faces like Darren Maddy - still playing this week for Warwickshire - Habib, Read, Ronnie Irani and Ed Giddins, while perennial recall-and-drop merchants Ramprakash and Graeme Hick were also there. A pace attack of Caddick, Headley, Tudor, Mullally and Tufnell, with contributions from Irani, Such and Giddins was never likely to scare what was a useful New Zealand line-up boasting Fleming, Astle, McMillan, Cairns, Nash and Vettori. What's more, unlike the 2011 XI, England had a dreadfully long tail. After all, Tufnell, Mullally, Giddins and Such were all really number elevens so once Read was out, it was virtually innings over. How things have changed!
It's not that the aforementioned England players were rubbish; on their day they were very useful with bat or ball, and county performances deservedly propelled them onto the international scene. It's just that they were inconsistent and it was probably England's worst batting performance for years. Not even Walsh and Ambrose or McGrath and Warne could so easily bowl them out so frequently and cheaply. Of course, from there, the only was up and once the new decade began, Darren Gough returned from injury and new blood like Trescothick and Vaughan bolstered the batting troops, paving the way for the 2005-6 triumphs. However, the long march to the top of the tree would last twelve long years, but it was worth the wait!
