Mike Gatting says still regrets going on 1990 South African rebel tour

Mike Gatting will take up his role as president of the Marylebone Cricket Club on Tuesday and has said that he still regrets the South Africa tour 23 years ago that led him to serve a three-year ban from Test cricket.

According to the Guardian, Gatting expressed that to have a club like MCC, which is so revered around the world and to be a figurehead of some sort is a huge honour, adding that when he first went there in 1974, it was more like a gentleman's club.

The former cricketer said that now there were women and girls in the pavilion and people who are much more user friendly on the gates, adding that he would help enormously to make the club even better.

As part of his brief, Gatting plans to put in place a programme, taking cricket into local schools, and forging a fresh developmental connection between the MCC and ECB, the report said.

The former player also said that he wished he had not gone to that rebel South Africa tour in 1990 because he missed three years of playing for England.