Allan Lamb looks back at England's 1990-91 tour There was just a bad vibe about the whole tour. We didn't start off well, and we had a lot of injuries: Goochie had a poisoned hand and missed the first Test, David Gower had a problem with his wrist - although it didn't stop him scoring a wonderful hundred at Melbourne - and I did a calf muscle and missed the second and third Tests.

I was really cheesed off. We were playing Victoria in Ballarat and I wanted us to play around with the batting order. I'd been in really good form, scoring loads of runs [in the previous four-day match, Lamb became the first Englishman for 32 years to score two hundreds in a match in Australia], and I thought we should try and play some of the other batsmen into form. But Goochie was having none of it, and I ended up batting all bloody day [Lamb smashed 143 off 129 balls]. So I was really pissed off, and I jogged back to the hotel in a huff ... and did my calf muscle.

By then we were already one down after losing at Brisbane. The first Test is so important, as it sets the tone for the whole series. I lost an important toss and we got put in a on a juicy wicket - it always seams around at the Gabba - but we bowled and fielded really well to get them out for 152 and take a first-innings lead. Then, when the pitch was absolutely flat, we batted really badly and got bowled out for 114. They knocked off the runs without losing a wicket.

Of course the whole casino business came out after the match, but people got their facts wrong - David and I went out for dinner with Kerry Packer, and to say we got back at six in the morning was nonsense. It's the same old story - if we'd won nobody would have said anything. Apparently we all stumbled out of the casino drunk, but if people had bothered to check they'd have realised that Kerry doesn't drink. If we had been drunk we might have done a bit better.

The team spirit just wasn't right on the tour, it was nothing like in the West Indies a year earlier. It was okay to start with, but as soon as we started losing things deteriorated. I was on the management team, but I didn't like the way we were treated. I felt we were overworked, and needed to be more flexible. Goochie was far too hard on us.

There was a real clash of characters. Athers didn't like the way Goochie was holding court, and David, who was a senior player, wasn't even on the management committee. Something was said when David was out off the last ball before lunch at Adelaide [Gower was suckered into a leg-side trap by Craig McDermott] and then there was the Tiger Moth business. It's not a tour I remember too fondly.

Allan Lamb was talking to Rob Smyth.

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