Michael says Hi to Society
April 30 2008 - Michael at the Cricket Society
Reprinted with kind permission of the Cricket Society and Norman Rogers - www.cricketsociety.com
The original guest speaker for the last meeting at Edgbaston in the 2007-8 programme was Norman McVicar who played for Warwickshire and Leicestershire in the late 60’s and 70’s. Unfortunately, Norman had to cry off due to illness and we were fortunate that Michael Powell, this season’s Warwickshire Beneficiary agreed to step in at the eleventh hour. Norman has since been in touch and happily he is on the mend and hopes to be with us for an evening in the 2008-9 programme.
Between 50-60 members attended on the evening of Tuesday March 18th. Michael’s talk was preceded by the 2008 AGM which went off fairly smoothly. A change on the Committee will see Roger Cunningham taking over as Secretary of the Branch from David Whittingham, whose job has taken him to Yorkshire.
Michael Powell joined the Warwickshire staff in 1994 and is now by far the senior playing member in terms of appearances and runs for the county, (122 matches and 6,293 runs), and was captain in the 3 seasons 2001-03, the highlight of his term in off ice being the winning of the last B&H Cup Final in 2002.
For the first half of the evening, Chairman Mike Williams interviewed Michael, who came over as an accomplished and entertaining speaker. Born in Bolton in 1975, his parents moved to Rugby in 1988 when he was twelve and since then he has regarded himself as a Warwickshire lad through and through. He spent plenty of time in the Edgbaston nets in his early years, coached by Neil Abberley and Co., among his contempories being Mark Wagh and Anurag Singh, who both exuded talent at an early age. Michael recalled that he was being appointed as the captain of teams from a very early age. He captained England Under 18’s on a tour of South Africa and went with the Under 19’s to Sri Lanka under Michael Vaughan in the early 90’s with players like Marcus Trescothic, Vikram Solanki, and Chris Schofield. He explained that his nickname “Showers” came about in those early days when he timidly entered the Warwickshire dressing room as twelfth man for the first time, and the senior players told him to change in the corner. Unbeknown to him this was skipper Andy Lloyd’s peg, who on turning up gave Michael an earful and told him to move in no uncertain terms, much to the merriment of the senior players. Finding nowhere obvious to change he took himself off to the shower room, where he automatically went to change for quite a time thereafter. He eventually joined the playing staff in 1994, the season of “the treble” and a near miss in the NatWest Final and the aura of success that hung around Edgbaston at the time was infectious to an up and comer like him. He recalled watching Brian Lara bat in that incredible season and described Lara as playing on a totally different level to any other batsman he has seen before or since. Unfortunately Lara’s season as captain in 1998, soured his memory with many Warwickshire supporters; Michael thought Lara never really had his heart in it that season and he was burdened with far too much baggage at the time from outside the game. However in one innings towards the end of that season Michael witnessed Lara’s brilliance from the other end. Lara came in to join him at the wicket in the second innings after a first innings failure determined to “show them” and he proceded to score 80 off 97 balls in a stand of 116 on a bad wicket while Michael watched and marvelled at the other end. He personally always found Lara to be a pleasant man who went out of his way to offer advice to less talented members of the team. Another Warwickshire captain around this time was Dermot Reeve whom Michael thought to be a terrific motivator and man manager, who by his infectious personality got the best out of his teams. What he got up to off the field was something else however!
After scoring a lot of runs for the Second X1 in ’94 and ’95 he finally made his debut in ’96, but after spending the entire season in the Seconds in ’97 and constantly being told by Coach Phil Neale to be patient, for the first time Michael considered a move to another county. He thought about going to Sussex, mainly because they had a good wicket at Hove, (another talented batsman stuck in the Seconds,Wasim Khan did go to Sussex), but he admits he is a Warwickshire lad and couldn’t imagine playing for anyone else. The following season he got a regular place and a highlight came in the winter of 2000-1. When playing in South Africa Bob Woolmer suddenly told him to pack his bags and get to the West Indies to replace David Sales who had injured himself in a freak beach volleyball accident on the England “A” Tour. Once there he struck up a successful opening partnership with Ian Ward, who was in tremendous form and they put on some huge opening stands together. This was the closest Michael came to full International honours.
The captaincy came totally out of the blue, he wasn’t consulted at all, he was simply told that the Committee opted for him after a meeting. In retrospect he now thinks it came too early and admits it had a detrimental effect on his batting form. Asked for his views on the Coaches he worked with, he said that he always had a special rapport with Woolmer who was a great student of the game and was constantly coming up with theories and strategies. John Inverarity was quite different, very scholarly but a great motivator and speaker. He spent the first year just watching, sometimes not bothering to change into his track suit, but he won the Championship in his second year after implementing the changes he thought necessary. Both men were very good coaches, stable personalities who knew their own minds. This was unlike Mark Greatbach who was in Michael’s eyes totally insecure as a man and lacked any depth of knowledge of the game. He pulled no punches in his criticism of Greatbach; they hadn’t seen eye to eye and he was not the only one; Greatbach had clashed with a lot of people at Edgbaston during his time.
Michael had lost his place when Nick Knight took over as captain, Knight choosing Mark Wagh as opening partner. Michael’s attitude has been to go back to the Seconds, regain batting form and try and force his way back into the team; this is his short term aim. Long term he has ambitions to go into coaching, something he enjoys very much.
The second half of the evening consisted of Michael fielding questions from the floor. His views were sought on various subjects ranging from modern sporting diets (he thought diet more important the older he got), the standard of play in the Birmingham League, (not as good as ten years ago), to what Dougie Brown said at Scarborough, but more of that later. Kolpak players he thought were simply in it for the money, especially the South Africans,(after spending several winters there he thought he was well placed to make a comment), and if the Rand/Sterling rate was different most would be back to South Africa like a shot. He had no problem with high quality imports of the sort that were around when he started, but lately average foreign players were hampering the development of home grown talent.
He was looking forward to the new season, the pressure would be on to regain Division 1 status at the first attempt. To do this without Bell and probably Ambrose meant some of the batsmen really had to take on more responsibility. A lot would depend on Ian Westwood having a big season and Jonathon Trott hitting form again after a poor season in ’97. Michael rates Trott highly and with his talent there was no reason why he shouldn’t make lots of runs. He thought Ian Salisbury was a good signing who had been bowling well in the nets and he is a believer in the old chestnut that spinners improve with age, something facts don’t always bear out however.One heartfelt criticism from the floor was that of batsmen showing poor body language when dismissed and not acknowledging applause on their way back to the pavilion and not taking their helmets off. Michael deplored this and excused some players last season saying they had become de-motivated and badly led (not by the captain though he hastily added). He said he would take our comments back to the dressing room on this issue.
The Dougie Brown incident at Scarborough in 2006 previously referred to caused some amusement. When asked if he knew what happened, he said he wasn’t there and didn’t know what was said and if he did he wouldn’t tell! The questioner persisted good naturedly however and at the third time of prompting he admitted that he did know what was said, but felt unable to betray dressing room confidentialities. He did say that the facts are that the coach had entered the dresssing room, asked a question, was answered by silence until Dougie had his say, and Dougie Brown has not played for Warwickshire since!
Roger Cunningham, in his vote of thanks, said it was refreshing to get
an insight into contemporary cricket for a change. He praised Michael as
a prime example of an honest and faithful county cricketer and wished him
well in his Benefit season.
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