WHEN Coggeshall’s Alan Butcher takes his seat for the Cross Sports Book Awards on Wednesday evening, he might find himself reflecting on a telephone call that took his life in a different direction.

For had his friend David Houghton not rung him out of the blue, he would not have had the definitive and memorable time he experienced as the coach of Zimbabwe’s national cricket team.

Nor would the former England Test batsman and county cricketer ultimately have crafted the illuminating ‘The Good Murungu – A Cricket Tale of the Unexpected’, which is shortlisted for the Cricket Book of the Year award at the prestigious event at Lord’s.

“The book wasn’t something that I thought was possible - or probable - when I set out,” said former Essex coach Butcher, who spent an unforgettable three years as Zimbabwe coach before leaving the role in 2013.

“It’s nice to know that people have enjoyed reading it.

“I’m proud, pleased, surprised in some ways; had I written a straight cricket book, I’m sure it would have bored me to write it.

“I feel like I lived through a story that would be interesting.

“Before I had gone there, I had heard lots of negative things about Zimbabwe and not too many positives so I tried to show what a fantastic country it can be and how much I enjoyed it.

“There are issues of power if you’re talking about the political situation in Zimbabwe and that filters down into the cricket – that’s transferable to anywhere in the world.

“I enjoyed the writing bit – I always enjoyed writing essays like I did at school.

“The Good Murungu was something that interested me; I was able to move around the subject with other thoughts and ideas that fitted in with that narrative.”

Butcher admits his cricket coaching career was at a crossroads when he was first told of the Zimbabwe role.

The 63-year-old former Surrey and Glamorgan player was on the lookout for his next role, having narrowly missed out on the West Indies academy and Kenyan national team coaching jobs in the previous month.

He had spent more than four decades in professional cricket as a player and coach but nothing he had achieved previously could compare with the time he was to have with Zimbabwe.

“When I received David Houghton’s phone call, it came completely out of the blue,” said Butcher, who is the father of former Surrey and England batsman, Mark Butcher and ex-Glamorgan player, Gary Butcher.

“I’d just come back from a period with the ECB in South Africa and no real prospects of a job in English cricket.

“It was a bit leftfield but I felt that it would be a good opportunity for me and knew that if I did a good job with an international team, it might lead to things.”

During his eventful time as the national team’s head coach, Butcher was credited for turning Zimbabwe cricket around.

Inheriting a dispirited and disillusioned group of players, he afforded them more responsibility and trust, in the midst of testing political times off the field.

“I don’t believe that any team of coaches or support staff in world cricket could have more or better with the Zimbabwe team than we did,” said Butcher, who worked alongside the likes of Heath Streak and Grant Flower at Zimbabwe.

“The thing that was most obvious was that the players weren’t expected to think for themselves.

“They were conditioned to listen to what they were told and implement that; I didn’t see how the players could evolve in that situation.

“I felt that they had to be tested a bit more and made to think and I had to give them a safe environment to see what was on their mind.

“It had been hard for the players to feel comfortable and express opinions about how they felt about things.

“Once they knew I was backing them and were comfortable and happy, then we started to go places.

“For a period of time, we started to play some decent cricket and with a lot of hard work from the coaches, the players started to improve without a doubt.

“For a period, we all felt that we were getting somewhere.”

Butcher led Zimbabwe to victory over Australia in the warm-up to the 2010 ICC World Twenty20; they also defeated Sri Lanka and India (twice) in the Tri-Nations Series tournament.

But his landmark moment during his time in charge of the Zimbabwe team was guiding them to their first Test match victory in six years after they beat Bangladesh in Harare in August, 2011.

It was a historic achievement for the country, who had been starved of cricketing success on the international stage and had historically been beset by off-the-field problems.

“I don’t think anyone gave us a prayer of beating Bangladesh but I was pretty confident,” said Butcher.

“We’d competed well and played well in the games going into that and people recognised that it was a very important moment in Zimbabwe history, coming back into world cricket.

“We had to work for it and our preparation was very good.”

Zimbabwe followed that up with a One Day International Series win over Bangladesh, their first against a Test-playing nation since 2006.

And the good times continued when they ended a long losing streak by recording a record win over New Zealand in October, 2011, before winning the Twenty20 Tri Nations competition, the following year.

Butcher said: “We were ‘successful’ in relative terms and I look back on it as a positive experience.

“For 99 per cent of the time, the players were a joy to work with.

“You’ll always get moments when it’s not quite as good but that’s life and professional sport and they put in as much as they could.

“Against their initial inclinations, they came over to my side but ultimately, the team is what the players want it to be and it’s down to the coaches to try and facilitate the means to make the team work.

“The most important thing was to make sure that they had responsibility for their performances.

“In the Twenty20 Tri Nations competition in 2012, we beat South Africa and Bangladesh in the lead up to the final and then beat South Africa in the final.

“We never had our best side because there was always around half a dozen players in exile playing county cricket in England.

“It was a great learning curve for players and coaches alike but unfortunately, it was hard to keep that going.

“We hit a brick wall, in terms of finances.

“From February 2012 to February 2013, which was my final tour, we didn’t play a Test Match in the whole of that time.

“We got players to a certain level but the only way they can improve is by playing and the edge falls away if they don’t do that.”

After his three-year role with Zimbabwe ended and he returned to England, Butcher admits he was not sure what his next move would be.

“I needed a bit of a break from cricket, mentally more than anything else,” admits the 1991 Wisden Cricketer of the Year.

“The three years that I’d had with Zimbabwe were enjoyable but they were also quite a fight, particularly the last 18 months.

“There was a lot of madness going on and trying to make sure that it didn’t affect the players was a real challenge.

“I’m not sure if what I did while I was there became a legacy.

“As soon as I left, players stopped getting paid for six months and it was a real shame that it wasn’t allowed to be carried on.”

Butcher says he has a deep fondness for the Zimbabwe players he worked with and the country, following his eventful time there.

“I feel a great affinity with Zimbabwe,” said Butcher, who is a long-time coach at Coggeshall Cricket Club who play in the Two Counties League.

“The Zimbabwe Sport, Education and Arts Minister David Coltart said to me more than once that Zimbabwe gets under your skin and I would definitely say that.

“I would go back there tomorrow and I hope I do go out there again.

“You have to have hope that there are better times ahead for the Zimbabwean people.

“There have been online protests recently and although the instigator was detained by the government, he was freed.

“Protests are starting to happen now, which is something that hasn’t happened for some time.

“It might take a while before they get into a position where life will be easier but I certainly hope it will come; they still have the infrastructure, the minerals, the climate and the soil to produce what is needed.”

Now Butcher is looking forward to attending this week’s awards following the success of “The Good Murungu” – murungu means “white man” in Shona, the most widely spoken African language in Zimbabwe.

Butcher added: “I’m looking forward to the awards immensely – I’m very proud and pleased to be involved in it.”

“The Good Murungu – A Cricket Tale of the Unexpected” by Alan Butcher is published by Pitch Publishing.