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Journalism of Courage
For someone born in Kanpur but educated in England, Bob Woolmer, you’d have thought, had all the right credentials. After all, he was good enough to play for England, was a member of the Kerry Packer rebellion and also part of the Ali Bacher rebel enterprise, the pirate tour era of the 1980s that enmeshed South Africa in a decade running row with the old International Cricket Conference.
Educated at Tonbridge, whose alumni includes Lord Cowdrey, lionised for his coaching habits and his laptop charts, he has also displayed the singular ability to attract criticism, incite controversy. The latest question doing the rounds is, have Pakistan lost the flamboyance and individuality that made Waqar Younis, Wasim Akram and Javed Miandad the players they were?
There were those in South Africa who didn’t have a comfortable relationship with Woolmer. In the early years when he was a coach, Ali Bacher would bypass him and go direct to the captain. Bacher, of course had his own reasons for doing this: the skipper was the man in charge, the man making all the decisions.
Yet Bacher was the man who negotiated the deal by mobile telephone with Warwickshire in 1994 to sign the former Kent all-rounder for the South African job when Mike Procter was about to be fired.
Bacher’s reasons for evading Woolmer are nebulous as here was someone who knew his game and, as coach, would help offer insight. It was obviously not quite the insight Bacher wanted. indeed, such was the relationship between Woolmer and Bacher towards the end of the coach’s tenure that they were barely on speaking terms.
There was, however, the other side of the Woolmer character when at Chelmsford in 1999 he had to front up to the media after South Africa’s defeat to Zimbabwe in the World Cup and Cronje was known to be sulking in the shower after the match. Not a great image at all, but that was Cronje for you.
| When told that Allan Donald regarded Woolmer as ‘the best technical coach’, Gauteng boss Nyoka laughed. ‘‘Who is Woolmer to tell us what to do? He knows nothing of our struggle.’’ |
It was Woolmer and Bacher, seated next to one another, who also met the media after the 1996 World Cup exit when losing the quarter-final to West Indies. There was some contradiction here as well; Bacher was saying one thing and Woolmer another.
Woolmer was one for getting involved in the development programme and helping the disadvantaged youngsters. In this he was critical of the narrow base of the club structure in the Soweto area of Johannesburg and the growth areas in the north. One club was not going to be enough to fill the needs of a thousand or more kids eager to take up the game.
Some UCB and Gauteng Cricket Board officials saw this as typical interference from an outside white and non-South African — worse, from a British public school. Few knew of his background.
When told of Woolmer’s pedigree the senior Gauteng development officer and later Gauteng CB chairman Dr Mtutuzeli Nyoka, noted for his Pan Africanist activism, bluntly asked, ‘Is this important?’
When told that South African fast bowler Allan Donald regarded Woolmer as ‘simply the best technical coach around’ Dr Nyoka laughed. ‘‘Who is Allan Donald to tell us anything? Who is Woolmer to tell us what to do? We have our own way of doing things. People like Woolmer and Donald know nothing of our struggle.’
Rushdie Magiet was another who felt uncomfortable with Woolmer. Magiet was a disaster as convener of the national selection committee when taking over from Peter Pollock after CWC99 and felt that Woolmer’s background was a little too ‘highbrow’ and too much to stomach.
That may be the popular perception of the coach. But Woolmer is a genial sort with a quick eye to spot technique flaws and sort out problems. He is also media friendly — but not the sort to tolerate fools.
This has nothing at all to do with public school upbringing but from the harder school you find in the county game.
