Cricket: Atherton's future is in his own hands

It is that silly season again, when following another sporting defeat, the nation's favourite blood sport turns not from potting pheasants and flushing out foxes, but to rounding up scapegoats. Indeed it appears so popular and necessary over the years that it is a wonder that Damien Hirst has not put them all in a tank of formaldehyde and called it "Victims of an over-expectant nation in the throes of mass self-denial".

The title is probably a little too poignant for Damien, but then the only rule to remember about sacrificing scapegoats is that the more important the victim, the greater the public appeasement. Which is why, after losing the Ashes, the call for the resignation of Michael Atherton, the England captain, has suddenly gathered pace again, despite yesterday's vote of confidence from the chairman of selectors, David Graveney.

Speaking in the aftermath of England's fifth successive defeat in an Ashes series, Graveney said: "I think he does a great job for the team and I would be happy for him to be captain this winter."

If this does not quite square with the "Atherton offers to quit" rumours that surfaced midway through the Trent Bridge Test, it is still a ringing endorsement and one that suggests that if Atherton is to go he will have to fall rather than be pushed.

However, with both the Ashes - Atherton's number one quest as captain - and the series definitely gone he will spend the next few days, probably with his fishing rod for company, thinking long and hard about seeing his Test career out in the ranks.

Cricket has given him a lot and many will want him to stay on simply for the dearth of obvious successors. Yet he has given just as much to cricket - a record 45 tests as England captain for one - and should feel no obligation on that front. He has long been his own man and that should not change now.

If a cool head and not a warm heart are applied then Atherton should step down after The Oval, though he may choose to do so beforehand. Not because of his captaincy, which has always been considered and thorough, but for his own wellbeing, which is beginning to suffer. The grey hairs and worry lines may be absent, but his four-year stint as captain probably seems like 10.

As a game, cricket should only assume any kind of importance when it is being played. Before he became captain Atherton realised that. It was only afterwards, as Graham Gooch's successor, that the distinction became blurred.

Leaders, even ones as natural as Atherton (and he is a natural, though not aggressively so), can only soak up so much before the pressure, expectation and blame - especially the blame - wear them down. Every man has a saturation point and tough though his Lancastrian skin has been since he took over the job, it is not bulletproof.

It is a curious vocation and nowhere is a sporting leader more exposed than on a cricket field; which makes captaining England the toughest, most thankless job going - unless you happen to win.

In a game riven with flaws and faults is it not patently unfair that one man should carry the can to such an extent? Cricket may be a team game, but most of the important decisions during play are taken by individual players, with the captain playing only the broadest of roles.

Power inevitably changes a man, a fact lost on many of the job's previous incumbents, such as David Gower and Ian Botham, though not on Gooch. But while Atherton's batting blossomed with the captaincy, the perpetual undergraduate in him probably does not like the person he has had to become. Resolutely one of the lads, he abhorred telling a player he was dropped, which is why he recently asked for his vote over team selection to be withdrawn.

Unflinching against the world's fastest bowlers, a reputation that earned him the moniker "Iron Mike", he retains a soft centre for those he plays with. That may explain why he was not always able to get the best out of them. People say he cannot inspire players unless by deed. But, as Steve Waugh pointed out when England met up for their motivational weekend, playing for your country should be motivation enough and it should come from within.

His fierce loyalty towards his team has made him a popular captain, albeit one with an almost anonymous public profile. He has never courted the limelight, wanting little more than the respect and friendship of those he plays with and against.

Obvious successors are thin on the ground. If he does go before the next Test, Nasser Hussain, his vice-captain last winter, should be offered the job. He may be prone to the odd bout of hot bloodedness, but as England's most successful batsman this summer he is guaranteed a place in the side, which Adam Hollioake is not.

As England's most technically adept batsman - though one increasingly compromised by a chronically bad back - Atherton has much still to offer, not least courage under fire which, with a West Indies tour imminent, will be crucial to England's chances of success.

After Australia, the West Indies are the team he would most like to win a series against. Which is why, particularly following Graveney's endorsement, he may be tempted into having one last fling at the controls.

If he is, he should not stay to fulfil a debt of gratitude or because the selectors want him to, but only if he feels he and his team can move forward with optimism and confidence. After another Ashes drubbing, it is surely too much to ask even of "Iron Mike".

More cricket, page 25