Phil Neale: England’s loyal Mr Fix-it has seen it all during 200 Tests as operations manager

Over the last 16 years, Neale has seen 60 players, five coaches and a multitude of backroom staff come and go

No rough edges: Operations manager Phil Neale during training in Sharjah (Getty)

To win in Asia is difficult. To win coming from behind seems to be bordering on the impossible. England have done it four times – twice in India, twice in Sri Lanka but never against Pakistan – and even if they can win the third Test here, they will still only draw this series.

When they have gone behind against Pakistan they have stayed there. One solitary away series victory, in Karachi in 2000, followed two attritional draws when a glimpse of victory opened up and England seized their chance of glory.

One man has seen all this at first hand over the last 16 years when 60 players, five coaches and a multitude of backroom staff have come and gone. This is Phil Neale’s 200th Test since he began as the team’s operations manager, a role which not only involves the squad getting from A to B and then C and D with their kit but also hands-on coaching.

He has missed only four Tests in that time, although he might have been forgiven for thinking there was no chance of it enduring when on his first morning at a Test, England crashed to 2 for 4 against South Africa at the Wanderers. Neale stuck with it and he has continued to.

“It’s a great milestone but I just want us to win this Test. It would be brilliant to win this game,” he said gazing at the Sharjah pitch that everybody but everybody knows will turn prodigiously. “It depends what the wicket is like but we’ve got to be relentless with our pressure because that’s how you win games here.”

Neale, like many of us, has been revived by the new England side that has emerged since the despondency created earlier this year by the ill-fated World Cup campaign, which seemed at the time to provoke a seismic shift in the relationship between the England team and the public (ie no one cared any longer).

“It’s been invigorating since the down of the World Cup to see new young players come through,” said Neale. “That gives you a boost as well.”

England dropped one of their young lions, Jos Buttler, for Sunday’s match. Jonny Bairstow will keep wicket and James Taylor will bat in the middle order.

The 61-year-old Neale, a graduate in Russian, has enjoyed a career in professional sport spanning four decades. He was among the last of the old-time footballer-cricketers, who finished one season before starting with another. They were almost identical: he played 358 matches for Lincoln City, and 354 first-class matches for Worcestershire, where he was captain for 10 seasons.

Cricket coaching beckoned and he was at Northants, Warwickshire and England A. But when he left Warwickshire at the end of 1999 he took a side road, which brings us to now. “I took a conscious decision to step away from that and go in to the managerial side where I felt I was more in control of my destiny. I could still be helpful on the cricket side but there was more longevity.”

Neale is the man these days who still marshals some batting practice and provides England’s slip cordon with their catching practice. He is a master of the nicks as Ian Botham, whom he captained at Worcestershire, is prone to observe. “He says that I’m just doing what I did when I was playing,” he said. “He’ll walk past and observe that nothing’s changed then. I enjoy working with the slip fielders and when it goes well during the game you feel you have contributed.”

It went as well as it could have done against Australia in the summer, it has been less smooth on this trip and it was noticeable that Ian Bell, who has put down several chances at second slip, was not in Neale’s cordon.

It has fascinated Neale to watch England change under coaches and captains as the years have passed.

“They all bring different things and I was at different stages of my career. You saw the progression. Under Nasser Hussain we needed to be harder to beat. He and Duncan Fletcher set about doing that, it was fantastic we started nicking series, we went on to win more games. Michael Vaughan capitalised on that, then came Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook is growing in stature all the time.”

Pressed, he picks out the 2005 and 2010-11 wins and the too often overlooked World Twenty20 win in 2010 as the outstanding triumphs. Part of Neale’s job has been to be involved yet detached. He was still the most accomplished footballer in the pre-match kickabouts until his hamstring ripped last summer.

It has been a lovely career, not yet at an end. There is, however, one but. “I would have traded my time as England operations manager for being an England player,” he adds. “I would have loved to have been an England player.”