GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 52
April 2007
World Cup Matters
The BBC website provides an over by over narrative of certain matches. When overseas I am restricted to this as the long wave commentary is only available in the UK. However, it is possible to extract some interesting material. This is just a flavour of some of the stuff:
Samuels breaks off his chains and slaps Iftikhar straight over long on for six. It didn't look there was much effort in that. It was an Andrex shot - soft, strong and very, very long.
Samuels trots down the pitch and slaps Kaneria over his head for four. Kaneria then wears a couple of savage bump ball before Samuels gives it some serious hammer, skipping down the track and dumping him over long-on for six. Not entirely sure, but I think that's gone straight into the confectionary stall...and out again. Samuels gets another four for a wild swipe before umpire Bowden goes upstairs after a stumping appeal. The third umpire, however, says Samuels got his back foot back in time. A wild, wild over of cricket.
Cute shot from Bravo, feathering Naved to the fine-leg boundary for four. Bravo digs out a Naved yorker before Naved strays on to Smith's pads and is whipped away for another boundary. Inzamam not happy. He looks like a man who has just padded into the kitchen in his bare feet to get late night drink and trodden on a slug. Where do slugs come from? I must have checked for holes a thousand times.
Smith is wheeled into the attack, looking to add to his tally of 39 wickets in 60 one-day internationals. He serves up a long-hop first up and Inzy's eyes light up, as if Smith's sending down Mars Bars. Inzy misses out, however, and Smith concedes just two from the over.
Blain, a one-time footballer with Falkirk, is hooked for four by Gilchrist, but it wasn't totally convincing by the Aussie wicket-keeper. That's 50 up for Australia though. Simon Mann is moaning about Damien Fleming's bit of splash, apparently the TMS commentary box smells like a tart's handbag. What does your office smell like? Mine is a mixture of cat's musk and Ginsters.
The crowd's not much cop in St Kitts. I'm not going to pretend it's party, party, party in the Warner Ground, it's got all the atmosphere of a junior school swimming gala. Haydos rips off his shirt and larrups Hoffmann over mid-wicket for the first maximum of the day. Very manly. Hoffmann hits back well, getting Hayden hopping with a decent in-swinging yorker. But Bully Boy has the last laugh, easing the last ball of the over through the covers for a dreamy four.
If you painted Symonds green he'd bear more than a passing resemblance to Shrek.
The two batsmen are getting medieval on the Scottish bowling, Hogg swinging Brown over long on for six. He swings the third delivery of the over over wide long on for four. More brutality from Hogg, landing another blistering off-drive on the boundary rope for six before crashing the final ball away to wide third man for four. Twenty four from the last over, and the Scots have been brought to their knees in the final five overs - Hogg 40 from 15 balls, Watson 18 from 11. Beasts.
Maybe the white ball should be called a 'nappy' because it is white and has to be changed so often."
Scotland off the mark, Haq twirling his bat at a Tait delivery and the ball flying away over backward point for four. Tait serves up a wide. Haq thrashes at a wide one and misses. Gilchrist and his two slips are almost sat in the stand they're so far back. Haq is late on a couple outside off-stump - Tait is rapid, getting up to 95mph.
Hogg will still be running around like Road Runner when he's 70. Coach John Buchanan must say to him, no lollies, no fizzy drinks..."
A single apiece to the batsmen, and Bond finishes with 2-19 off his 10 overs. Super effort. On the England balcony, Michael Vaughan is shovelling tagliatelle into his mouth. As a clump slides off his fork before he can get it to his mouth, he looks at his plate angrily and then licks the sauce reflectively off his knife.
Plunkett opens his shoulders to Styro and cracks him straight for a sweetly-timed four. Nixon is twitching and jerking like some sort of maniacal sparrow.
Two singles off Patel to Nixon, who has his mouth wide open like a plankton-feeding whale. KP is now also tucking in on the England balcony. He's got the same dish, but he's focusing his attention on a decent-sized slab of grilled chicken.
It's the Paul Nixon show - he finally connects with one of his swiping reverse-sweeps and gets a four - and then drives a fullish one from Vettori for another. His mouth hangs open like the bow door on a cross-channel ferry.
Bopara is in for the naughty Flintoff and Canada have won the toss and put England in. A further statement on Flintoff "will be issued in due course". I was just wondering what an irate Duncan Fletcher would look like. Funnily enough, Nasser Hussain thinks England have done the right thing in dropping Freddie, Ian Botham thinks it's an "over-reaction". I wonder what Both thinks would have been unacceptable? Slaughtering some junior members of the team, making ear necklaces out of them and indulging in some exotic fungi until the early hours? Hussain has also suggested Flintoff was warned "three or four times" about his late-night sessions in Australia and "bringing back a drinking culture" into the England team. The plot thickens.
A Joyce single brings up England's 150 and there are just three from the over. It's all very flat out there. I once wheeled my nan over to a village cricket match and parked her up. After 20 minutes or so, she goes: "Innit a disgrace, all this wasted space, you'd think they'd stick some flats up".
George’s World Cup Competition
I invited various Googlies regulars to participate in George’s World Cup Competition. They had to select the successful sides at each stage of the competition and were awarded points accordingly. All twelve of the entrants went for the same safe qualifiers from the group stage and so at this stage all competitors have dropped two points each since no one predicted Ireland and Bangladesh to qualify. Alvin Nienow, Allen Bruton and I had India as our eventual winners and so we have only an academic interest in the final outcome from now on. The remaining nine were split between Australia and South Africa. We shall see how they get on as things unfurl in April.
Out and About with the Professor The Professor sent me these notes Last Saturday morning I found myself in Slough talking to a group of worthy souls from the local education community. My route home didn't naturally take in East Acton, but having left that delightful Berkshire town I resolved to go on a sentimental detour and see what I could of Shepherds Bush CC. I don't know how many thousands of times I have driven along Bromyard Avenue (the "avenue" designation always seemed a little aspirational) but I haven't done so recently - and so to find the forbidding presence of the Ministry of Pensions building converted into more than a hundred "Luxury Executive Apartments" came as something of a surprise. A more pleasant one, was to find the gates of the new Bush ground open and someone with a familiar slightly rolling gate pottering about outside. David Perrin (for it was he) is the President and saviour of SBCC (David would point to many other contributors to the salvation process, but they in turn would, I suspect, point you back to David). We had an interesting chat on a pleasant spring morning and it was my first look at the new ground. The square had been cut and while, as David says, it was not wonderful in its first season, it was its first season. The outfield is flat and level and while you might be hard pressed to say that the pavilion has "character", the whole ground will, I'm sure, look very good in a year or so.
David filled me in on the ups and downs of the Middlesex League - especially the difficulty that newly promoted teams have in staying up. It seems to be the case that any team good enough to win promotion almost by definition needs strengthening if they are to survive. If they don't or can't do that, they come straight down after a season of defeats... and with a much-demoralised team. This is very much the story in our league and may be a pattern round the country. Moreover, David was suggesting, that sides like High Wycombe pay a high price for having a semi-professional First XI in the disaffection it causes among the "ordinary" members. The Yorkshire League avoids this problem by not having promotion/relegation and so Harrogate who won it in 2005 but had a very poor season in 2006 nevertheless can look forward to the new season with some enthusiasm.
I left David, and went on to have a peak at the "old" Bush. Sadly, John Hatfield is no longer with us, but if he were, the sight of the ground now being used for two 5-a-side football pitches would probably have proved to be fatal. The pavilion appears to be awaiting demolition although another year or so of neglect should take care of that process naturally. It would all be very sad if it were not for the splendid job that David et al have done. Too many cricket clubs are disappearing and its great to see one (and especially this one) survive.
Positive Matters
In the last edition it was Steve Thompson’s daughter, Katie, who gave us the heads up that Freddie was drinking his way around Australia during the winter. It now transpires that he was formally warned on four occasions about his drinking habits during that tour. This was the same Freddie who was proud to be captain of England, was never fully fit and who failed to score runs or take significant wickets during the series. Sky’s resident alcoholic, Ian Botham, thought that there was nothing wrong with the Pedalo incident; but then, as they say, he would wouldn’t he. It was our old friend Nass who got it completely right. If highly paid cricketers, representing their country sign up to a code of conduct in the interests of the whole party then there is no excuse for failing to abide by it, particularly if you are the vice captain.
After the press conference at which Freddie made his half hearted and insincere apologies he was cheered by the barmy army alcoholics in the hotel foyer. He should spend some time in the stands with them if he wants to know where his alcoholic pursuits will lead him. Exposure to the fried brains of these morons should act as a serious deterrent.
However, out of this sad and sorry episode we are able, like Freddie, to take some Positives:
1. We now know exactly what the requirement is to earn a one-match ban from Duncan Fletcher.
2. We know that Freddie has been more or less pissed continually since the Trafalgar Square sighting of his infamous Ashes hangover.
3. We know that Duncan Fletcher will meet out a ban to his key and only all rounder if the match is against Canada but probably would have treated him differently if the opponents represented a stronger threat.
4. We know what Freddie’s face looks like thirty-six hours after consuming fourteen pints of lager.
5. We know that Peg Leg can give an entire press conference through gritted teeth without opening his mouth.
6. We, yet again, have confirmed that highly paid and sponsored sportsmen couldn’t give a shit about being role models to the fans that idolise them.
Freddie should of course have been sent home on the next plane. Everyone would have then known that Team England are serious about themselves and are prepared to earn the respect of those who support and finance their expensive lifestyles.
On Being Positive (…ly Pissed)
The Professor reflects on Freddie’s escapade
One of the outcomes of Pedalo-gate or the Fredalo incident is of course that Freddie has “learned some lessons” wants to “be positive” and, inevitably, “move forward”. Given that these lessons are in addition to those learned from the shambles in Australia, the defeat by New Zealand, and on and on, it must line Freddie up as one of the great auto-didacts of all time. Up there with Descartes or Emanuel Kant.
What Freddie never tells us, however, is exactly what is the nature of the lesson and the extent to which he has indeed learnt it…if at all. Presumably the most important lesson from this latest caper is DON’T GET CAUGHT (together perhaps with the short damp seminar in nautical manoeuvres in the dark). The problem of not getting caught these days is of course the tabloid news(sic)papers…so it’s not so easy.
Most of the commentators I heard or read were a little diffident about striking a high moral tone (always excepting Alec Stewart who thought it was “unprofessional” – the rudest word in Alec’s lexicon) and were a bit stuck at having winked at the all-night binge after the Ashes win. Atherton made the nice point that the WAGS got the blame in Australia but if they had been around this time there might at least have been a chance of keeping Freddie in at night.
There must be a million stories of cricket and drinking. I trust there is no Googlies reader who has not been the worse for wear on more than one occasion and we all know the lesson to be learned – NEVER AGAIN. And we all know we have as much intention as Freddie of learning it. Fraser wrote in his piece that Emburey once sent for a lager shandy during a game that was delivered onto the pitch in a coloured bottle. Harmless enough I should have thought, although these days they all drink so much and so often during the game that even a mild shandy would have everyone on their backs by tea-time.
In bygone days it was pretty much compulsory. I have, I think, heard Peter Parfitt’s tale of his first Twelfth Man appearance for Middlesex not more than five times but it rather makes the point. In the unlikely event of any of your readers not having heard it, it goes like this: Parfitt arrives immaculately kitted out at 9.30 for an 11.30 start. He then sits on his own for about an hour and a quarter until the first Middlesex player arrives. At 11.30 two of the by now ten Middlesex players stride out to open the batting. Shortly after mid-day the dressing room door opens and in walks the most famous cricketer in England …in full evening dress. He gets changed, puts his pads on, lies down on a bench, handkerchief over his face and says : “Twealfthers – wake me up when I’m in”. The rest of the tale -Compton gets a hundred on a green top against Hampshire- is doubtless apocryphal (and I don’t have the energy or desire to trawl though Wisden to try to track it down). It joins similar tales of drunken cricketing exploits - and I believe James, we could add one of our own, in the shape of the now Dr Phillip Matthews who spent one night of our schoolboy cricket tour staring down a toilet bowl and batted the following day with more fluency than anyone had seen before or (for all I know) since.
It may be objected that things are more serious now than in Compton’s day…more “professional”, and anyway it was only a county game. But Compton DCS was, as I recall, a professional, and in those days county cricket was still something of importance in the sporting calendar, which sadly it no longer is.
The only opprobrium I can think of expressing is for the coaching staff – two of whom were there. It’s hard to see how a 4a.m. piss-up could be part of the strict coaching regime we are told that modern cricketers undergo. It will be typical of the England set-up if Shine gets the sack for this, rather than his bowling “coaching” of Harmison prior to the Brisbane test. Then again, perhaps it is these support staff who are the ones who tell Freddie et al to say they have “learned lessons”, “moved forward” etc, etc. There is, I suppose, another explanation – perhaps Freddie wasn’t listening, perhaps when they taught him the importance of being positive he confused it with testing positive.
The only thing I care about is how well he plays cricket.
Middlesex Matters
Several of us have been puzzled by Ernie Emburey’s promotion at Middlesex to Director of Cricket following his side’s double relegation last season. We then saw the advert in the Wisden Cricketer for a new Coach for 2007. It seemed a plum job since however badly you performed precedent suggested that you would get personal promotion at the end of the season. Middlesex Committee man Bob Peach was unable to shed any light on things and was equally puzzled since there are apparently no Job Descriptions attached to the two new posts. However, our Man in the Compton Stand, the Great Jack Morgan, has tried to clarify matters for us:
“I was quite pleased with the appointment of Richard Pybus. The problem with people like Gatt and Ernie is that we never know if they have been appointed because they are good coaches or if it is just because they were great players who played for Middlesex. With Pybus, there is no confusion at all. His reputation as a player is zero (and he didn’t even play for Middlesex), so he must have risen to the top in Pakistan and South Africa purely on coaching ability, mustn’t he? And the Titans have just won the South African provincial competition, so it cannot just be that he is brilliant at interviews.
I was thinking about the coach and director of cricket situation and I decided that there are probably five main areas of responsibility for the coach (there could be more):
i) general supervision of the squad at practice and during matches;
ii) improvement of individuals in specific areas (spotting weaknesses, suggesting changes of technique etc);
iii) improvement of the squad collectively (strategy, tactics, motivation, teamwork etc);
iv) scouting and recruiting reinforcements; and
v) spying on opponents and plotting their downfall.
It struck me that the coach would be so involved in tasks i, ii and iii for almost the whole season that he would have little or no time for tasks iv and v and I wondered if this might have been behind the split of the job between coach and director, with Pybus looking after coaching while Embers swans around watching other matches. At international level, Dunc deals with task iv by sending out Grav and Dusty (and probably Moores, Maynard, Shine and Parsons as well) and handles task v by video. At Middlesex, they do not really have the manpower to follow this alternative for task iv (though I know that the likes of Don Bennett and Gunner Gould have been used for this purpose in the past) and videos of opponents in Championship matches are likely to be in short supply. I do not know what position Keith Fletcher holds at Essex, but I have several times spotted him studying form intently at non-Essex matches and wondered if he was performing tasks iv and v, though I know that he is not director cricket because A Lilley holds that post. I even wondered if Ernie might have got the idea from Essex as he is close friends with Graham Gooch in particular. In fact, I even saw Keith Fletcher, Gooch and Embers together at a Berkshire against Ireland match about three years ago.”
Perhaps I should copy this to the Middlesex Committee to help them determine who is going to do what next season.
Match Reports I returned to the UK on the first weekend of the World Cup and two coaches were in the spotlight for quite different reasons. Dav Whatmore’s Bangladesh side beat India in a tactical masterpiece that saw them subdue the competition’s strongest batting side and then cruise to victory with teenage batsmen scoring the runs. At the other end of the spectrum Bob Woolmer’s Pakistan were eliminated from the competition by Ireland and later he tragically died. It got me thinking about the two occasions when I played against these individuals.
In the mid sixties South Hampstead started playing Tunbridge Wells on a Sunday in August at the Nevill Ground in Kent. It was arranged as an all day fixture and was a very long way to go. Being in the holiday season availability was also a problem for the Team Secretary. In 1967 our side included Mike John, Russell Bowes, Bob Cozens and George alongside those who would feature more regularly in the first eleven of the day.
We batted first on this occasion and I opened the batting with Terry Cordaroy. Bob Woolmer took the new ball for Tunbridge Wells. Terry and I made steady, if unspectacular, progress on a warm sunny morning. After ninety minutes I was the first to be dismissed when I was bowled by their third change bowler Flynn. I had scored exactly half of our opening stand of 82. I was replaced by Harold Stubbs who was out after lunch, also for 41, and this brought our skipper, the Legendary Len Stubbs to the crease. On this occasion he found progress hard work and managed only 15 from 31 balls. However, this was a sort of net for his assault the following year, which has already been referred to in these pages by John Bowerman. Len was out at 181 for 3 but Terry was still at the crease and he had five more partners in the quick pursuit of runs for the declaration and his own hundred, which came after 202 minutes. Our final score of 214 for 7 was scored from sixty-six overs. Woolmer bowler twelve of these economically but without taking a wicket.
When Tunbridge Wells batted Bill Hart opened the bowling with Don Wallis. The latter soon had Rudd caught by Len Stubbs and this brought Woolmer to the crease. He scored 30 in just over an hour before Bob Cozens caught him again off the bowling off Wallis. Russell Bowes bowled three relatively expensive overs that gave our captain all the excuses he needed for a protracted spell himself with the ball. In harness with Wallis they worked their way through the rest of the home side’s batting. In a spell of seventeen overs Don returned figures of 5 for 25 and Len took a flattering 5 for 12 from thirteen overs. Unfortunately I am unable to recall which of his many bowling styles were adopted to achieve this. Tunbridge Wells were dismissed for 81in forty three overs. We were pretty pleased with our performance which made the long journey home all the more palatable.
I asked Len if he could remember anything about this outing. He replied: “I don't remember this particular match but I do remember the following year when I got a hundred the day after the Tunbridge Wells bowler Steve Tucker had taken all 10 against Bromley. I think if I took 5 for 12 it was definitely my Career best for South Hampstead – as to which style I bowled I haven't got the vaguest!”
The ground at Wembley CC was small but it was not a high scoring ground because the wickets were invariably slow with a fair covering of grass. However, in 1975 South Hampstead played a high scoring tied match there. The outstanding feature of the match was a magnificent hundred scored by Dav Whatmore. When I checked with the scoresheet for the game I was surprised to see that Peter Ray had not been part of the Wembley side and so I took the opportunity to email him and ask if he had been dropped. He replied:
“I was never dropped from the First XI but I did withdraw my labour once or twice. However, it may be that I was down with a near relation of 'flu or whatever, because this was the year that began with a deceptively balmy spring and then, as soon as we began cricket, turned into a season in Siberia. Week after week the cold went on and on the 1st June, in a game up at Scarborough, play was abandoned due to snow. You can look it up in Wisden.
Why did I catch 'flu? Well, Leigh Hardham and Dav came over together form Oz and could not believe the weather we were having. They kept their underwear on, wore two shirts and as many sweaters as they could borrow, and stood together at slip praying that the ball would not come. I look back now with some shame on my reaction to this. I had some cricket shirts at the time that buttoned all the way down like a jacket. I made a point of taking the field sweaterless and with the shirt unbuttoned almost to the navel and, standing next to Leigh and Dav in the slips, would push my chest out and whenever they said things like, "Christ, is it always like this?" I would say "No, sometimes it gets quite cool, but this is super, it is so bracing" and stuff like that. I put the fear of the English into them but after three or four weeks paid the price. So that may be why I was missing that week.
Leigh was the lesser cricketer of the two, obviously, but strangely made more runs than Dav that year. Dav did far better on a second visit. Leigh was a useful quick bowler. He was lean and rangy and had an extraordinary run-up in which the limbs seemed to be about to fly off in different directions, but when he got to the crease he often produced something pretty handy.
I heard from him years later when I got a telex - remember them? - from one of our offices in the Sydney area - we were insurance brokers and I was the Group Secretary - asking if I was by any chance someone who had once played cricket, and if so, had I played for Wembley? I replied and told him I was and had but was now with Richmond where, coincidentally I had shared a 150 partnership with Dav one fine day and managed to get enough of the strike not to be totally out-distanced.” Peter went on to give details about many of the Wembley players on that day and I will include them next month.
The half day match took place on Saturday 2nd of August 1975 and so was a league match. I must have been persuaded by Ian Jerman to help out as once again I found myself keeping wicket in cricket that I didn’t approve of. Wembley batted first and Leigh Hardham opened with Clive Robinson against our new ball attack of Ossie Burton and Ian Jerman. Hardham was bowled by Ossie in the eleventh over which brought Dav Whatmore to the crease. Even by first eleven standards he seemed a very well organised batsman and soon stamped his authority on our attack. Robinson was caught by Steve Doughty off Ian Jerman’s bowling soon after. John Haskell joined Whatmore at the crease and they took the score to 78 before he was caught by Allen Bruton from Keith Hardie’s bowling. Clem Williams then accompanied Whatmore through to the declaration as they added 139 to take the score to 217 for 3. Whatmore went to his hundred with a four in Ossie’s last over and in all hit 26 from the last eight balls he faced from Burton and Jerman.
We bowled 54 overs and the innings was declared closed at 4.55pm which was about par for a 2pm start. But the score wasn’t at Wembley and 218 to win looked a tall order. Perhaps I should have agreed to play for Ian Jerman more often as I not only got to keep wicket but he would often also ask me to open the batting as he did on this occasion. I can recall recognising that a quick start was imperative and found myself most uncharacteristically hitting the opening attack over mid on, but not for long. Steve Doughty replaced me and he hit a quick fire 30 including a couple of sixes. Keith Hardie replaced him but couldn’t make much headway against accurate bowling. When he was stumped John Evans had taken all three wickets to fall. Steve Thompson moved the score along but he was run out with fifty minutes to play at 118 for four. David Harrison was bowled by Whatmore cheaply and Ian Jerman, after a big six, was also run out. Ossie Burton then dominated a partnership of 35 with Cordaroy before he was caught off Clive Robinson’s bowling for 25 including a couple of sixes. Allen Bruton joined Terry but the latter was bowled for 70 by the first ball of the last over which was bowled by Robinson leaving the score 210 for 8. David Simpson was run out without scoring and although Allen Bruton slog pulled a six into the tennis courts John Courtney was unable to score and was caught by Whatmore from the last ball of the match leaving the scores level.
I asked Steve Thompson if he could recall anything about these events. He replied:
“This is just further confirmation of my complete amnesia when it comes to match details. I do remember Whatmore making full use of the short leg -side boundary. Can't remember the run out and certainly can't remember the last over but given its nature I would have thought my memory would have been triggered by Cords' inevitable anxieties. If there's any certainty in my recollections I believe it to be that Peter Ray had been dropped for disciplinary reasons. The whole thing appears bizarre! You can just see Cords' face at the end of it having batted for the entire innings only for us to cock it up at the end!”
Red Mist Matters The Caribbean may be used to Red Stripe but has been assaulted by an outbreak of Red Mist over the last month. Any shortfall in the quality of the wickets in the World Cup has been more than compensated by the shortness of the boundaries. On most of these even the Great Jack Morgan would have cleared the ropes, or perhaps not. Over two hundred sixes were hit in the Group Stages and there was no shortage of candidates to feature in this column. Here are the sluggers from this stage:
Imran Nazir 8 sixes in 160 from 121 balls against Zimbabwe
Herschelle Gibbs 7 sixes in 72 from 40 balls against Netherlands
Brad Hodge 7 sixes in 123 from 89 balls against Netherlands
Yuvraj Singh 7 sixes in 83 from 46 balls against Bermuda
Sanath Jayasuriya 7 sixes in 109 from 87 balls against Bangladesh
Ricky Ponting 5 sixes in 113 from 93 balls against Scotland
Jacques Kallis 5 sixes in 128* from 109 balls against Netherlands
Craig McMillan 5 sixes in 71 from 48 balls against Kenya
Brendan McCullum 5 sixes in 52* from 21 balls against Canada
Mark Boucher 4 sixes in 75* from 31 balls against Netherlands
Sachin Tendulkar 4 sixes in 57* from 29 balls against Bermuda
E Chigumbura 4 sixes in 27 from 11 balls against Sri Lanka
Matthew Hayden 4 sixes in 101 from 68 balls against South Africa
Michael Clarke 4 sixes in 92* from 75 balls against South Africa
Brad Hogg 3 sixes in 40* from 15 balls against Scotland
Gibbs innings included six sixes in one over. Hayden’s hundred was the fastest in World Cup history. Boucher beat the World Cup record for the fastest fifty but McCullum beat it again within days. Hogg was on track to beat both but the innings ended.
Old Danes Matters The Professor sent me this recently: “My son is getting married in September and last week Judith and I went for drinks with his intended in-laws. The father has just retired as Principal of the College of Estate Management in Reading. He talked at some length about one of his former colleagues - the richest and meanest man he had ever met. Name? Jack Harvey... of course.”
Bill Groombridge passed on the following note from Jim Batson:
“I have had some contact with Old Danes over recent years. I am still in contact with Ken Spink and more regularly Tony Bennett. I have met with Richard Crawshay when I was once in Sydney and I have spoken to and exchanged e-mails with Douglas Oatway, Alan Russell, Alan Fox and a couple of others who's names allude me. Incredibly there is an Old Dane from a later year living near to me in Nelson. I spoke to him once by phone. I have been keen to contact Joe Banbury whom I regarded as a special mate and people like Brian Hugenet and Robin Pither. These three appear to be below my radar at present. Any help with contacting them would be appreciated- [email protected].”
Strange Elevens The Strange Eleven in last month’s edition were all born in Cornwall. The Great Jack Morgan who had selected the side in the first place was the only one to respond this time. He reminded me that since compiling the side he had had second thoughts and updated his selection. Since nobody got the first side I doubt whether anybody is interested in his second one. But that doesn’t mean that you get off that easily. I have delved into the archive once again and found another of his previously unpublished sides:
Barry Dudleston Leics/ Gloucs
Mike Harris Middx/ Notts
John Steele Leics/ Glam
Trevor Jesty Hants/ Surrey/ Lancs
Nigel Llong Kent
Graham Burgess Somerset
Nigel Cowley Hants/ Glam
Ian Gould (w/k) Middx/ Sussex
Peter Hartley Warks/ Yorks/ Hants
Vanburn Holder Worcs
Allan Jones Sussex/ Somerset/ Middx/ Glam
As usual all you have to do is find out which Jazz Hat fits them all.
Football Matters It turns out that Andrew Baker’s Ladies side are not just pretty faces, but they have a sense of humour as well. Visitors to the Gents toilets adjacent to the changing rooms at Gunnersbury Park will see that they have installed a mural on the wall behind the urinal. I am indebted to Kelvin West for sending me this photo although he declined to tell me which stall he used himself.
The Great Jack Morgan is Innocent
Outraged at suggestions in certain sections of the media The Professor has started a campaign proclaiming that the Great Jack Morgan is Innocent. This organ is throwing its puny weight behind this initiative.
Googlies and Chinamen
is
produced by
James Sharp
Broad Lee House
Combs
High Peak
SK23 9XA
Tel & fax: 01298 70237
Email: [email protected]
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 52
April 2007
World Cup Matters
The BBC website provides an over by over narrative of certain matches. When overseas I am restricted to this as the long wave commentary is only available in the UK. However, it is possible to extract some interesting material. This is just a flavour of some of the stuff:
Samuels breaks off his chains and slaps Iftikhar straight over long on for six. It didn't look there was much effort in that. It was an Andrex shot - soft, strong and very, very long.
Samuels trots down the pitch and slaps Kaneria over his head for four. Kaneria then wears a couple of savage bump ball before Samuels gives it some serious hammer, skipping down the track and dumping him over long-on for six. Not entirely sure, but I think that's gone straight into the confectionary stall...and out again. Samuels gets another four for a wild swipe before umpire Bowden goes upstairs after a stumping appeal. The third umpire, however, says Samuels got his back foot back in time. A wild, wild over of cricket.
Cute shot from Bravo, feathering Naved to the fine-leg boundary for four. Bravo digs out a Naved yorker before Naved strays on to Smith's pads and is whipped away for another boundary. Inzamam not happy. He looks like a man who has just padded into the kitchen in his bare feet to get late night drink and trodden on a slug. Where do slugs come from? I must have checked for holes a thousand times.
Smith is wheeled into the attack, looking to add to his tally of 39 wickets in 60 one-day internationals. He serves up a long-hop first up and Inzy's eyes light up, as if Smith's sending down Mars Bars. Inzy misses out, however, and Smith concedes just two from the over.
Blain, a one-time footballer with Falkirk, is hooked for four by Gilchrist, but it wasn't totally convincing by the Aussie wicket-keeper. That's 50 up for Australia though. Simon Mann is moaning about Damien Fleming's bit of splash, apparently the TMS commentary box smells like a tart's handbag. What does your office smell like? Mine is a mixture of cat's musk and Ginsters.
The crowd's not much cop in St Kitts. I'm not going to pretend it's party, party, party in the Warner Ground, it's got all the atmosphere of a junior school swimming gala. Haydos rips off his shirt and larrups Hoffmann over mid-wicket for the first maximum of the day. Very manly. Hoffmann hits back well, getting Hayden hopping with a decent in-swinging yorker. But Bully Boy has the last laugh, easing the last ball of the over through the covers for a dreamy four.
If you painted Symonds green he'd bear more than a passing resemblance to Shrek.
The two batsmen are getting medieval on the Scottish bowling, Hogg swinging Brown over long on for six. He swings the third delivery of the over over wide long on for four. More brutality from Hogg, landing another blistering off-drive on the boundary rope for six before crashing the final ball away to wide third man for four. Twenty four from the last over, and the Scots have been brought to their knees in the final five overs - Hogg 40 from 15 balls, Watson 18 from 11. Beasts.
Maybe the white ball should be called a 'nappy' because it is white and has to be changed so often."
Scotland off the mark, Haq twirling his bat at a Tait delivery and the ball flying away over backward point for four. Tait serves up a wide. Haq thrashes at a wide one and misses. Gilchrist and his two slips are almost sat in the stand they're so far back. Haq is late on a couple outside off-stump - Tait is rapid, getting up to 95mph.
Hogg will still be running around like Road Runner when he's 70. Coach John Buchanan must say to him, no lollies, no fizzy drinks..."
A single apiece to the batsmen, and Bond finishes with 2-19 off his 10 overs. Super effort. On the England balcony, Michael Vaughan is shovelling tagliatelle into his mouth. As a clump slides off his fork before he can get it to his mouth, he looks at his plate angrily and then licks the sauce reflectively off his knife.
Plunkett opens his shoulders to Styro and cracks him straight for a sweetly-timed four. Nixon is twitching and jerking like some sort of maniacal sparrow.
Two singles off Patel to Nixon, who has his mouth wide open like a plankton-feeding whale. KP is now also tucking in on the England balcony. He's got the same dish, but he's focusing his attention on a decent-sized slab of grilled chicken.
It's the Paul Nixon show - he finally connects with one of his swiping reverse-sweeps and gets a four - and then drives a fullish one from Vettori for another. His mouth hangs open like the bow door on a cross-channel ferry.
Bopara is in for the naughty Flintoff and Canada have won the toss and put England in. A further statement on Flintoff "will be issued in due course". I was just wondering what an irate Duncan Fletcher would look like. Funnily enough, Nasser Hussain thinks England have done the right thing in dropping Freddie, Ian Botham thinks it's an "over-reaction". I wonder what Both thinks would have been unacceptable? Slaughtering some junior members of the team, making ear necklaces out of them and indulging in some exotic fungi until the early hours? Hussain has also suggested Flintoff was warned "three or four times" about his late-night sessions in Australia and "bringing back a drinking culture" into the England team. The plot thickens.
A Joyce single brings up England's 150 and there are just three from the over. It's all very flat out there. I once wheeled my nan over to a village cricket match and parked her up. After 20 minutes or so, she goes: "Innit a disgrace, all this wasted space, you'd think they'd stick some flats up".
George’s World Cup Competition
I invited various Googlies regulars to participate in George’s World Cup Competition. They had to select the successful sides at each stage of the competition and were awarded points accordingly. All twelve of the entrants went for the same safe qualifiers from the group stage and so at this stage all competitors have dropped two points each since no one predicted Ireland and Bangladesh to qualify. Alvin Nienow, Allen Bruton and I had India as our eventual winners and so we have only an academic interest in the final outcome from now on. The remaining nine were split between Australia and South Africa. We shall see how they get on as things unfurl in April.
Out and About with the Professor The Professor sent me these notes Last Saturday morning I found myself in Slough talking to a group of worthy souls from the local education community. My route home didn't naturally take in East Acton, but having left that delightful Berkshire town I resolved to go on a sentimental detour and see what I could of Shepherds Bush CC. I don't know how many thousands of times I have driven along Bromyard Avenue (the "avenue" designation always seemed a little aspirational) but I haven't done so recently - and so to find the forbidding presence of the Ministry of Pensions building converted into more than a hundred "Luxury Executive Apartments" came as something of a surprise. A more pleasant one, was to find the gates of the new Bush ground open and someone with a familiar slightly rolling gate pottering about outside. David Perrin (for it was he) is the President and saviour of SBCC (David would point to many other contributors to the salvation process, but they in turn would, I suspect, point you back to David). We had an interesting chat on a pleasant spring morning and it was my first look at the new ground. The square had been cut and while, as David says, it was not wonderful in its first season, it was its first season. The outfield is flat and level and while you might be hard pressed to say that the pavilion has "character", the whole ground will, I'm sure, look very good in a year or so.
David filled me in on the ups and downs of the Middlesex League - especially the difficulty that newly promoted teams have in staying up. It seems to be the case that any team good enough to win promotion almost by definition needs strengthening if they are to survive. If they don't or can't do that, they come straight down after a season of defeats... and with a much-demoralised team. This is very much the story in our league and may be a pattern round the country. Moreover, David was suggesting, that sides like High Wycombe pay a high price for having a semi-professional First XI in the disaffection it causes among the "ordinary" members. The Yorkshire League avoids this problem by not having promotion/relegation and so Harrogate who won it in 2005 but had a very poor season in 2006 nevertheless can look forward to the new season with some enthusiasm.
I left David, and went on to have a peak at the "old" Bush. Sadly, John Hatfield is no longer with us, but if he were, the sight of the ground now being used for two 5-a-side football pitches would probably have proved to be fatal. The pavilion appears to be awaiting demolition although another year or so of neglect should take care of that process naturally. It would all be very sad if it were not for the splendid job that David et al have done. Too many cricket clubs are disappearing and its great to see one (and especially this one) survive.
Positive Matters
In the last edition it was Steve Thompson’s daughter, Katie, who gave us the heads up that Freddie was drinking his way around Australia during the winter. It now transpires that he was formally warned on four occasions about his drinking habits during that tour. This was the same Freddie who was proud to be captain of England, was never fully fit and who failed to score runs or take significant wickets during the series. Sky’s resident alcoholic, Ian Botham, thought that there was nothing wrong with the Pedalo incident; but then, as they say, he would wouldn’t he. It was our old friend Nass who got it completely right. If highly paid cricketers, representing their country sign up to a code of conduct in the interests of the whole party then there is no excuse for failing to abide by it, particularly if you are the vice captain.
After the press conference at which Freddie made his half hearted and insincere apologies he was cheered by the barmy army alcoholics in the hotel foyer. He should spend some time in the stands with them if he wants to know where his alcoholic pursuits will lead him. Exposure to the fried brains of these morons should act as a serious deterrent.
However, out of this sad and sorry episode we are able, like Freddie, to take some Positives:
1. We now know exactly what the requirement is to earn a one-match ban from Duncan Fletcher.
2. We know that Freddie has been more or less pissed continually since the Trafalgar Square sighting of his infamous Ashes hangover.
3. We know that Duncan Fletcher will meet out a ban to his key and only all rounder if the match is against Canada but probably would have treated him differently if the opponents represented a stronger threat.
4. We know what Freddie’s face looks like thirty-six hours after consuming fourteen pints of lager.
5. We know that Peg Leg can give an entire press conference through gritted teeth without opening his mouth.
6. We, yet again, have confirmed that highly paid and sponsored sportsmen couldn’t give a shit about being role models to the fans that idolise them.
Freddie should of course have been sent home on the next plane. Everyone would have then known that Team England are serious about themselves and are prepared to earn the respect of those who support and finance their expensive lifestyles.
On Being Positive (…ly Pissed)
The Professor reflects on Freddie’s escapade
One of the outcomes of Pedalo-gate or the Fredalo incident is of course that Freddie has “learned some lessons” wants to “be positive” and, inevitably, “move forward”. Given that these lessons are in addition to those learned from the shambles in Australia, the defeat by New Zealand, and on and on, it must line Freddie up as one of the great auto-didacts of all time. Up there with Descartes or Emanuel Kant.
What Freddie never tells us, however, is exactly what is the nature of the lesson and the extent to which he has indeed learnt it…if at all. Presumably the most important lesson from this latest caper is DON’T GET CAUGHT (together perhaps with the short damp seminar in nautical manoeuvres in the dark). The problem of not getting caught these days is of course the tabloid news(sic)papers…so it’s not so easy.
Most of the commentators I heard or read were a little diffident about striking a high moral tone (always excepting Alec Stewart who thought it was “unprofessional” – the rudest word in Alec’s lexicon) and were a bit stuck at having winked at the all-night binge after the Ashes win. Atherton made the nice point that the WAGS got the blame in Australia but if they had been around this time there might at least have been a chance of keeping Freddie in at night.
There must be a million stories of cricket and drinking. I trust there is no Googlies reader who has not been the worse for wear on more than one occasion and we all know the lesson to be learned – NEVER AGAIN. And we all know we have as much intention as Freddie of learning it. Fraser wrote in his piece that Emburey once sent for a lager shandy during a game that was delivered onto the pitch in a coloured bottle. Harmless enough I should have thought, although these days they all drink so much and so often during the game that even a mild shandy would have everyone on their backs by tea-time.
In bygone days it was pretty much compulsory. I have, I think, heard Peter Parfitt’s tale of his first Twelfth Man appearance for Middlesex not more than five times but it rather makes the point. In the unlikely event of any of your readers not having heard it, it goes like this: Parfitt arrives immaculately kitted out at 9.30 for an 11.30 start. He then sits on his own for about an hour and a quarter until the first Middlesex player arrives. At 11.30 two of the by now ten Middlesex players stride out to open the batting. Shortly after mid-day the dressing room door opens and in walks the most famous cricketer in England …in full evening dress. He gets changed, puts his pads on, lies down on a bench, handkerchief over his face and says : “Twealfthers – wake me up when I’m in”. The rest of the tale -Compton gets a hundred on a green top against Hampshire- is doubtless apocryphal (and I don’t have the energy or desire to trawl though Wisden to try to track it down). It joins similar tales of drunken cricketing exploits - and I believe James, we could add one of our own, in the shape of the now Dr Phillip Matthews who spent one night of our schoolboy cricket tour staring down a toilet bowl and batted the following day with more fluency than anyone had seen before or (for all I know) since.
It may be objected that things are more serious now than in Compton’s day…more “professional”, and anyway it was only a county game. But Compton DCS was, as I recall, a professional, and in those days county cricket was still something of importance in the sporting calendar, which sadly it no longer is.
The only opprobrium I can think of expressing is for the coaching staff – two of whom were there. It’s hard to see how a 4a.m. piss-up could be part of the strict coaching regime we are told that modern cricketers undergo. It will be typical of the England set-up if Shine gets the sack for this, rather than his bowling “coaching” of Harmison prior to the Brisbane test. Then again, perhaps it is these support staff who are the ones who tell Freddie et al to say they have “learned lessons”, “moved forward” etc, etc. There is, I suppose, another explanation – perhaps Freddie wasn’t listening, perhaps when they taught him the importance of being positive he confused it with testing positive.
The only thing I care about is how well he plays cricket.
Middlesex Matters
Several of us have been puzzled by Ernie Emburey’s promotion at Middlesex to Director of Cricket following his side’s double relegation last season. We then saw the advert in the Wisden Cricketer for a new Coach for 2007. It seemed a plum job since however badly you performed precedent suggested that you would get personal promotion at the end of the season. Middlesex Committee man Bob Peach was unable to shed any light on things and was equally puzzled since there are apparently no Job Descriptions attached to the two new posts. However, our Man in the Compton Stand, the Great Jack Morgan, has tried to clarify matters for us:
“I was quite pleased with the appointment of Richard Pybus. The problem with people like Gatt and Ernie is that we never know if they have been appointed because they are good coaches or if it is just because they were great players who played for Middlesex. With Pybus, there is no confusion at all. His reputation as a player is zero (and he didn’t even play for Middlesex), so he must have risen to the top in Pakistan and South Africa purely on coaching ability, mustn’t he? And the Titans have just won the South African provincial competition, so it cannot just be that he is brilliant at interviews.
I was thinking about the coach and director of cricket situation and I decided that there are probably five main areas of responsibility for the coach (there could be more):
i) general supervision of the squad at practice and during matches;
ii) improvement of individuals in specific areas (spotting weaknesses, suggesting changes of technique etc);
iii) improvement of the squad collectively (strategy, tactics, motivation, teamwork etc);
iv) scouting and recruiting reinforcements; and
v) spying on opponents and plotting their downfall.
It struck me that the coach would be so involved in tasks i, ii and iii for almost the whole season that he would have little or no time for tasks iv and v and I wondered if this might have been behind the split of the job between coach and director, with Pybus looking after coaching while Embers swans around watching other matches. At international level, Dunc deals with task iv by sending out Grav and Dusty (and probably Moores, Maynard, Shine and Parsons as well) and handles task v by video. At Middlesex, they do not really have the manpower to follow this alternative for task iv (though I know that the likes of Don Bennett and Gunner Gould have been used for this purpose in the past) and videos of opponents in Championship matches are likely to be in short supply. I do not know what position Keith Fletcher holds at Essex, but I have several times spotted him studying form intently at non-Essex matches and wondered if he was performing tasks iv and v, though I know that he is not director cricket because A Lilley holds that post. I even wondered if Ernie might have got the idea from Essex as he is close friends with Graham Gooch in particular. In fact, I even saw Keith Fletcher, Gooch and Embers together at a Berkshire against Ireland match about three years ago.”
Perhaps I should copy this to the Middlesex Committee to help them determine who is going to do what next season.
Match Reports I returned to the UK on the first weekend of the World Cup and two coaches were in the spotlight for quite different reasons. Dav Whatmore’s Bangladesh side beat India in a tactical masterpiece that saw them subdue the competition’s strongest batting side and then cruise to victory with teenage batsmen scoring the runs. At the other end of the spectrum Bob Woolmer’s Pakistan were eliminated from the competition by Ireland and later he tragically died. It got me thinking about the two occasions when I played against these individuals.
In the mid sixties South Hampstead started playing Tunbridge Wells on a Sunday in August at the Nevill Ground in Kent. It was arranged as an all day fixture and was a very long way to go. Being in the holiday season availability was also a problem for the Team Secretary. In 1967 our side included Mike John, Russell Bowes, Bob Cozens and George alongside those who would feature more regularly in the first eleven of the day.
We batted first on this occasion and I opened the batting with Terry Cordaroy. Bob Woolmer took the new ball for Tunbridge Wells. Terry and I made steady, if unspectacular, progress on a warm sunny morning. After ninety minutes I was the first to be dismissed when I was bowled by their third change bowler Flynn. I had scored exactly half of our opening stand of 82. I was replaced by Harold Stubbs who was out after lunch, also for 41, and this brought our skipper, the Legendary Len Stubbs to the crease. On this occasion he found progress hard work and managed only 15 from 31 balls. However, this was a sort of net for his assault the following year, which has already been referred to in these pages by John Bowerman. Len was out at 181 for 3 but Terry was still at the crease and he had five more partners in the quick pursuit of runs for the declaration and his own hundred, which came after 202 minutes. Our final score of 214 for 7 was scored from sixty-six overs. Woolmer bowler twelve of these economically but without taking a wicket.
When Tunbridge Wells batted Bill Hart opened the bowling with Don Wallis. The latter soon had Rudd caught by Len Stubbs and this brought Woolmer to the crease. He scored 30 in just over an hour before Bob Cozens caught him again off the bowling off Wallis. Russell Bowes bowled three relatively expensive overs that gave our captain all the excuses he needed for a protracted spell himself with the ball. In harness with Wallis they worked their way through the rest of the home side’s batting. In a spell of seventeen overs Don returned figures of 5 for 25 and Len took a flattering 5 for 12 from thirteen overs. Unfortunately I am unable to recall which of his many bowling styles were adopted to achieve this. Tunbridge Wells were dismissed for 81in forty three overs. We were pretty pleased with our performance which made the long journey home all the more palatable.
I asked Len if he could remember anything about this outing. He replied: “I don't remember this particular match but I do remember the following year when I got a hundred the day after the Tunbridge Wells bowler Steve Tucker had taken all 10 against Bromley. I think if I took 5 for 12 it was definitely my Career best for South Hampstead – as to which style I bowled I haven't got the vaguest!”
The ground at Wembley CC was small but it was not a high scoring ground because the wickets were invariably slow with a fair covering of grass. However, in 1975 South Hampstead played a high scoring tied match there. The outstanding feature of the match was a magnificent hundred scored by Dav Whatmore. When I checked with the scoresheet for the game I was surprised to see that Peter Ray had not been part of the Wembley side and so I took the opportunity to email him and ask if he had been dropped. He replied:
“I was never dropped from the First XI but I did withdraw my labour once or twice. However, it may be that I was down with a near relation of 'flu or whatever, because this was the year that began with a deceptively balmy spring and then, as soon as we began cricket, turned into a season in Siberia. Week after week the cold went on and on the 1st June, in a game up at Scarborough, play was abandoned due to snow. You can look it up in Wisden.
Why did I catch 'flu? Well, Leigh Hardham and Dav came over together form Oz and could not believe the weather we were having. They kept their underwear on, wore two shirts and as many sweaters as they could borrow, and stood together at slip praying that the ball would not come. I look back now with some shame on my reaction to this. I had some cricket shirts at the time that buttoned all the way down like a jacket. I made a point of taking the field sweaterless and with the shirt unbuttoned almost to the navel and, standing next to Leigh and Dav in the slips, would push my chest out and whenever they said things like, "Christ, is it always like this?" I would say "No, sometimes it gets quite cool, but this is super, it is so bracing" and stuff like that. I put the fear of the English into them but after three or four weeks paid the price. So that may be why I was missing that week.
Leigh was the lesser cricketer of the two, obviously, but strangely made more runs than Dav that year. Dav did far better on a second visit. Leigh was a useful quick bowler. He was lean and rangy and had an extraordinary run-up in which the limbs seemed to be about to fly off in different directions, but when he got to the crease he often produced something pretty handy.
I heard from him years later when I got a telex - remember them? - from one of our offices in the Sydney area - we were insurance brokers and I was the Group Secretary - asking if I was by any chance someone who had once played cricket, and if so, had I played for Wembley? I replied and told him I was and had but was now with Richmond where, coincidentally I had shared a 150 partnership with Dav one fine day and managed to get enough of the strike not to be totally out-distanced.” Peter went on to give details about many of the Wembley players on that day and I will include them next month.
The half day match took place on Saturday 2nd of August 1975 and so was a league match. I must have been persuaded by Ian Jerman to help out as once again I found myself keeping wicket in cricket that I didn’t approve of. Wembley batted first and Leigh Hardham opened with Clive Robinson against our new ball attack of Ossie Burton and Ian Jerman. Hardham was bowled by Ossie in the eleventh over which brought Dav Whatmore to the crease. Even by first eleven standards he seemed a very well organised batsman and soon stamped his authority on our attack. Robinson was caught by Steve Doughty off Ian Jerman’s bowling soon after. John Haskell joined Whatmore at the crease and they took the score to 78 before he was caught by Allen Bruton from Keith Hardie’s bowling. Clem Williams then accompanied Whatmore through to the declaration as they added 139 to take the score to 217 for 3. Whatmore went to his hundred with a four in Ossie’s last over and in all hit 26 from the last eight balls he faced from Burton and Jerman.
We bowled 54 overs and the innings was declared closed at 4.55pm which was about par for a 2pm start. But the score wasn’t at Wembley and 218 to win looked a tall order. Perhaps I should have agreed to play for Ian Jerman more often as I not only got to keep wicket but he would often also ask me to open the batting as he did on this occasion. I can recall recognising that a quick start was imperative and found myself most uncharacteristically hitting the opening attack over mid on, but not for long. Steve Doughty replaced me and he hit a quick fire 30 including a couple of sixes. Keith Hardie replaced him but couldn’t make much headway against accurate bowling. When he was stumped John Evans had taken all three wickets to fall. Steve Thompson moved the score along but he was run out with fifty minutes to play at 118 for four. David Harrison was bowled by Whatmore cheaply and Ian Jerman, after a big six, was also run out. Ossie Burton then dominated a partnership of 35 with Cordaroy before he was caught off Clive Robinson’s bowling for 25 including a couple of sixes. Allen Bruton joined Terry but the latter was bowled for 70 by the first ball of the last over which was bowled by Robinson leaving the score 210 for 8. David Simpson was run out without scoring and although Allen Bruton slog pulled a six into the tennis courts John Courtney was unable to score and was caught by Whatmore from the last ball of the match leaving the scores level.
I asked Steve Thompson if he could recall anything about these events. He replied:
“This is just further confirmation of my complete amnesia when it comes to match details. I do remember Whatmore making full use of the short leg -side boundary. Can't remember the run out and certainly can't remember the last over but given its nature I would have thought my memory would have been triggered by Cords' inevitable anxieties. If there's any certainty in my recollections I believe it to be that Peter Ray had been dropped for disciplinary reasons. The whole thing appears bizarre! You can just see Cords' face at the end of it having batted for the entire innings only for us to cock it up at the end!”
Red Mist Matters The Caribbean may be used to Red Stripe but has been assaulted by an outbreak of Red Mist over the last month. Any shortfall in the quality of the wickets in the World Cup has been more than compensated by the shortness of the boundaries. On most of these even the Great Jack Morgan would have cleared the ropes, or perhaps not. Over two hundred sixes were hit in the Group Stages and there was no shortage of candidates to feature in this column. Here are the sluggers from this stage:
Imran Nazir 8 sixes in 160 from 121 balls against Zimbabwe
Herschelle Gibbs 7 sixes in 72 from 40 balls against Netherlands
Brad Hodge 7 sixes in 123 from 89 balls against Netherlands
Yuvraj Singh 7 sixes in 83 from 46 balls against Bermuda
Sanath Jayasuriya 7 sixes in 109 from 87 balls against Bangladesh
Ricky Ponting 5 sixes in 113 from 93 balls against Scotland
Jacques Kallis 5 sixes in 128* from 109 balls against Netherlands
Craig McMillan 5 sixes in 71 from 48 balls against Kenya
Brendan McCullum 5 sixes in 52* from 21 balls against Canada
Mark Boucher 4 sixes in 75* from 31 balls against Netherlands
Sachin Tendulkar 4 sixes in 57* from 29 balls against Bermuda
E Chigumbura 4 sixes in 27 from 11 balls against Sri Lanka
Matthew Hayden 4 sixes in 101 from 68 balls against South Africa
Michael Clarke 4 sixes in 92* from 75 balls against South Africa
Brad Hogg 3 sixes in 40* from 15 balls against Scotland
Gibbs innings included six sixes in one over. Hayden’s hundred was the fastest in World Cup history. Boucher beat the World Cup record for the fastest fifty but McCullum beat it again within days. Hogg was on track to beat both but the innings ended.
Old Danes Matters The Professor sent me this recently: “My son is getting married in September and last week Judith and I went for drinks with his intended in-laws. The father has just retired as Principal of the College of Estate Management in Reading. He talked at some length about one of his former colleagues - the richest and meanest man he had ever met. Name? Jack Harvey... of course.”
Bill Groombridge passed on the following note from Jim Batson:
“I have had some contact with Old Danes over recent years. I am still in contact with Ken Spink and more regularly Tony Bennett. I have met with Richard Crawshay when I was once in Sydney and I have spoken to and exchanged e-mails with Douglas Oatway, Alan Russell, Alan Fox and a couple of others who's names allude me. Incredibly there is an Old Dane from a later year living near to me in Nelson. I spoke to him once by phone. I have been keen to contact Joe Banbury whom I regarded as a special mate and people like Brian Hugenet and Robin Pither. These three appear to be below my radar at present. Any help with contacting them would be appreciated- [email protected].”
Strange Elevens The Strange Eleven in last month’s edition were all born in Cornwall. The Great Jack Morgan who had selected the side in the first place was the only one to respond this time. He reminded me that since compiling the side he had had second thoughts and updated his selection. Since nobody got the first side I doubt whether anybody is interested in his second one. But that doesn’t mean that you get off that easily. I have delved into the archive once again and found another of his previously unpublished sides:
Barry Dudleston Leics/ Gloucs
Mike Harris Middx/ Notts
John Steele Leics/ Glam
Trevor Jesty Hants/ Surrey/ Lancs
Nigel Llong Kent
Graham Burgess Somerset
Nigel Cowley Hants/ Glam
Ian Gould (w/k) Middx/ Sussex
Peter Hartley Warks/ Yorks/ Hants
Vanburn Holder Worcs
Allan Jones Sussex/ Somerset/ Middx/ Glam
As usual all you have to do is find out which Jazz Hat fits them all.
Football Matters It turns out that Andrew Baker’s Ladies side are not just pretty faces, but they have a sense of humour as well. Visitors to the Gents toilets adjacent to the changing rooms at Gunnersbury Park will see that they have installed a mural on the wall behind the urinal. I am indebted to Kelvin West for sending me this photo although he declined to tell me which stall he used himself.
The Great Jack Morgan is Innocent
Outraged at suggestions in certain sections of the media The Professor has started a campaign proclaiming that the Great Jack Morgan is Innocent. This organ is throwing its puny weight behind this initiative.
Googlies and Chinamen
is
produced by
James Sharp
Broad Lee House
Combs
High Peak
SK23 9XA
Tel & fax: 01298 70237
Email: [email protected]