GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 100
April 2011
A Hundred Editions
Jim Sharp: How much more of this crap can you write?
Jack Morgan: How much do you want?
Historical Matters
In 2002 I was trying to expand my art activities onto the internet and Bob Peach suggested that I go onto Bob Hunt’s Old Danes website. I recorded some notes on the Visitors’ page and promptly received an email from John Adams (the Professor) who I had last seen at Loftus Road in the mid seventies. We exchanged the customary pleasantries and abuse before going on to discuss England’s prospects on their tour of Australia. I copied these exchanges to my brother, Graham, who I have called George for many years.
When the time came to delete these bon mots I decided that perhaps others might like to read them and so circulated them to twenty two pals, mainly Old Danes and South Hampstead alumni, under the title Googlies & Chinamen. I called it An Occasional Cricketing Journal because I thought that I might in due course circulate another edition. In the event one hundred months later I find myself preparing the one hundredth edition which goes out to about nine hundred on my lists and is probably forwarded to more.
One of the recipients of the first edition was Gary Rhodes who put me in touch with someone he referred to as the Great Jack Morgan. I had been in 2L at St Clement Danes with Jack in 1959 and we quickly started exchanging lengthy emails, much of which found their way into these pages. It was Jack who produced over fifty Strange Elevens that peppered the early editions. I unloaded my bigotries under the heading Irritating Trends in Modern Cricket and the Professor’s stylish essays have appeared under the heading Out and About with the Professor.
I have always tried to be non sexist in these pages and the early editions regularly featured the Bush Belles from the sixties and in particular the Lovely Jane Richards whose match reports for the Acton Gazette were reproduced. Later in 2007 Kelvin West sent me some photos of his local ladies football side and said that they were looking for a new manager. Andrew Baker generously offered to help out and has successfully handled the ladies ever since.
Over the years many readers have sent me comments or articles and the vast majority have been published in some form or another. It has been great fun getting back in touch with old friends and making contact with new ones.
To celebrate reaching this milestone I was tempted to reproduce a variety of articles from over the years but decided in the end to just go with our explanations of the Duckworth Lewis Method:
Duckworth Lewis (from edition 4)
I find it fundamentally daft that under the Duckworth Lewis method the side batting second can be required to score more runs to win a game than the side batting first scored, particularly in less overs than the first side enjoyed! Nevertheless, this is one of the zany outcomes of applying this flawed algebra.
In order to make some sense of this, George and I have spent many hours studying the Duckworth Lewis method this winter so that we can explain its intricacies and answer your questions. We are particularly surprised at how limited its application has been when it is, in fact, designed to be applied to all aspects of the game.
For example: Jim Sharp batted over two hours for a tedious 23, but under the D/L method he made a fluent 57 not out – well played Jim! Graham Sharp took some terrible stick claiming 1 for 60 in only 9 overs, but under the D/L method finished with a creditable 4 for 40-well bowled George! Everyone expected Adams with 73 to be Man of the Match but in fact the award went to Jordan who did not bat, but would have made 84 under the D/L method!
In can also be applied to other walks of life. George had his fifty-third birthday in February but under the D/L method he is, in fact, only 39. He tells me that he can get from Chester to Gatwick in three hours, but if he has a bad start the D/L method can increase this to ten or eleven hours. If you have a good start you can complete the second half of the journey in just three or four minutes but you only have two gallons of petrol to do it with.
It has even been suggested that George W Bush only got elected because the Republicans applied the D/L method.
The Duckworth Lewis Method Revisited (from edition 6)
Duckworth and Lewis are both gynaecologists by profession and they originally named their algebraic formula in the belief that it was going to be used in family planning. This made it a sort of latter day version of the world renowned Crawford Method.
In their playing days Duckworth and Lewis were both bowlers. This is obvious to anyone who examines their logic even if they know nothing else about them. So obsessed are they in taking wickets that they add huge numbers of runs to the total required every time you lose one. In my playing days, which can now be described as in the last century, the side that scored the most runs won the game, regardless of how many wickets they lost. Now if you find yourself in a run chase governed by these wannabee mathematicians, the target gets further away in a geometric progression each time you lose a wicket.
Still who am I to argue, I haven’t fathered a baby let alone delivered one! Apparently, referring to the Duckworth Lewis Method, you are twice as likely to have a son if your first child was a girl, but if you had girl twins you will have to have sex twice as often in order to father a boy. On the other hand, if you already have a boy and a girl the D/L Method states that the likelihood of your fathering twins is in inverse proportion to the regularity of your using viagra for you and your wife’s own personal pleasure. These boys really know their stuff.
Your wife might like to know that if she was in labour for ten hours with your first child, recalculation under the D/L Method…………on second thoughts we won’t go there.
If you found that it took five pints of bitter to get you pissed when you were twenty, recalculation using the D/L Method states that it will only take two when you are fifty, as long as you had three gin and tonics at lunchtime and you don’t stuff yourself with crisps. However, if you run into an old acquaintance at the bar who starts to bore you with tedious nostalgia about his playing days, the D/L Method says you can get legless twice as quick by slurping down a double brandy whilst he goes off for a pee. On the other hand, if someone slips you a Mickey, you can still sober up referring to the D/L Method in time to drive home, if you drink a Fernet Branca backwards out of a shot glass. But don’t lose a wicket while you are doing it!
Out and About with the Professor
I wonder how many thousands of hours I have spent in “meetings”? I profess not to enjoy them but, as my wife says, if that is true, why do I go to so many? Married readers of this journal will recognise that it is wise, at this point, to withdraw from any further debate on the subject. Anyway, my most recent meeting was the Annual General Meeting of Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Several hundred (almost entirely elderly men) packed into the East Stand “Long Room” to bask in the recollection of a pretty good 2010 season and look forward to the coming one.
First we had to dispose of the tedious financial stuff and noticed, in passing, that Yorkshire made a loss last season of £1.8 million. This, it seems, was almost entirely due to the decision to host a “neutral” Test between Australia and Pakistan which attracted practically no spectators. The comparison with 2009 is worth noting because then Yorkshire made £3.5 million from international matches even though, as those of us who were there will recall, the Ashes Test was (thanks to Peter Siddle, et al) a fairly short-lived affair. However, nobody worries too much about the finances these days since the Chairman is a chap call Colin Graves who owns a supermarket chain called “Costcutters”. I don’t think I have ever been in one of his shops but they seem to provide Mr. Graves with a reasonably healthy income. The accounts show the “Graves Family Trust” as having loaned the club £4 million during the year.
The finance stuff that was interesting was the bid price for Test matches; according to Mr. Graves, Yorkshire has a guaranteed Test for the next eight years for which they have paid the ECB about 300,000 per Test. However, were they to bid now for an Ashes Test the bid would have to be above £2 million.
Actually, finance wasn’t the first item on the agenda; rather it was recording those members who had “passed away” in 2010. We all stood in silence for a minute in remembrance which was, of course, given the innate good manners of Yorkshiremen, impeccably observed. I couldn’t, however, suppress the entirely unworthy thought that the assembled geriatrics might have had, somewhere in the back of their minds, the thought that their turn to be so honoured might not be too far into the future.
The principal complaints from our grey and balding throng related to the absurdity of the County Championship programme (no argument there), the P.A. system in the ground (“inaudible” – although one wonders if some of my fellow members might struggle to hear Krakatoa from anything more than 100 yards) and, of course, the new Pavilion. Mr. Graves, in his excellent chairing of the meeting (authoritative and good humoured – both useful attributes at meetings of Yorkshiremen) kept referring to the state-of-the-art, iconic building which would: “secure important income streams going forward”. (When, I ask myself, did “going forward” become a universal synonym for the word “future”). Anyway, his was not the majority view. “Bloody eyesore, if tha’ asks me”. “Thee might think it grand but most o’ folk round ‘ere think it reet bloody ugly”…and so on. More than one member said he had bought a debenture to sit in the new pavilion so that he didn’t have to sit in the ground and look at the thing.
But there was one piece of universally-agreed good news. The new museum had opened! The prime mover in establishing this new facility has been the County Archivist, a nice man called David Hall whom I had met a couple of time at Phil Sharpe’s house. And a splendid job he has made of it. I suppose you either like these sorts of places or you don’t – being a museumish sort of chap I most certainly do and this one is small but excellent with all the things you get in modern museums: touch sensitive screens, things you can push and pull and little quizzes as you go round. It also has a very small cinema.
I wonder how many other cricket museums there are in the country? We all know Lord’s of course, but what of other counties? I have been to two in Australia: Melbourne which was very interesting and Adelaide. The latter is not a museum about South Australia cricket however, it is an entire museum devoted to one man…and there’s no need to say who. The Don moved to Adelaide from NSW “for business reasons” (surely some story there) and the new museum at the Oval pays him due homage. It charts his life and achievements and has numerous screens showing newsreel and other footage of the great man’s exploits. Most Googlies readers will recall the story of how the “boy from Bowral” used to practice in the back yard using a stump to hit a golf ball against a wall and the Bradman museum has a mock-up of the site with a stump and ball so that you can have a go. (…well of course I did). Actually, hitting a golf ball with a stump isn’t that difficult but Bradman used to hit it, not against a wall, but against a cylindrical corrugated water silo. Moreover, the objective is not to bash the ball against the silo (easy) but to hit the rebound, and the next and the next. Should there be any doubt, I have to tell you that a cylindrical corrugated surface does not produce an entirely predictable ricochet. One of the little film clips showed Bradman hitting it time and time again…amazing.
So the Adelaide Oval gets my vote as the best cricket museum (after Lord’s) but Headingley’s is a splendid new addition to the ranks and well worth a visit should any reader venture this far north.
Middlesex Matters
The Great Jack Morgan is now ready for the season
Great news! A copy of the Panther has arrived! I was amused to read that i) Ben Scott thinks that Hampton is in "south London": how can anywhere north of the river be in south London? how about West Middlesex? and ii) Steve Sylvester is the club's sports psychologist. I don't suppose you even remember Steve, but he was a slingy left arm over medium pacer that Don Bennett thought was going to be the new Bernard Julien, but was actually fairly useless and when he joined Notts, my Nottinghamshire mate at work asked me in something of a panic (remembering that I had probably described him as rubbish) what sort of stuff he bowled and I was able to reply "his stock ball is the one that goes through the covers for four, but for variety he's got the one that goes over mid-wicket for six" with only a hint of hyperbole. It does not look as if a permanent off-spinner is on his way, the second team batsmen are practising their spinners and it seems that spin could be a serious weakness this season. I did not hear that Kabir Toor had been sacked, but he does not appear in the Panther's list of players. This is no great surprise, but i) he did actually play in the first team in 40 over games in 2009 so you might have thought his departure would get a mention; and ii) I feel a bit sorry for him because he usually batted down around no 7 when I saw him in the 2s, as if his bowling were his stronger suit, but I never had great hopes for his leg breaks and felt he should have had more chances up the order to show how good a batsman he was. Did you spot who is sponsoring Dan Housego's Championship kit this season?
The mystery sponsors are none other than our very own Jeff Coleman and Geoff Norris
World Cup Haircuts
Whatever quality or otherwise the games have produced there has been plenty of entertainment provided by the barbery on display. The most reliable performer is, predictably, Malinga, who has elected to sport a mini afro or golliwog style but with the variation that the last two inches of the locks are dyed white. The overall effect is that of a circus act or a cast member of a Marx Brothers film.
Hair dyeing is very popular at present and the strangest on display must be that portrayed by Imran Tahir who is now a Protean. He becomes the first blonde Pakistani in history.
However, the most extraordinary pate was displayed by Jacques Kallis who has been bald as a coot for years. When he removed his helmet he displayed a full head of hair. He must have been holidaying with Graham Gooch and Shane Warne. Meanwhile Tillakaratne Dilshan removed his helmet and displayed a beard than had been shaved into several cones between bottom lip and chin.
The Great Jack Morgan informs me: “Several chaps have had hair transplants as well as Monsieur Jacques. Two that spring to mind are R Ponting and S Ganguly.” I feel a Strange Eleven coming on.
Scrubs Matters
The Great Jack Morgan follows up the Professor’s recollections of playing inside the famous Wormwood Scrubs prison
Memories of a Scrubber: i) it was not only an SBCC side that played at the Scrubs, for example, JRS played and another one was Steve Caley; I know SJC actually played one match for the Bush, but he never paid his subs, so he doesn’t count as a member! ii) my memory is that the water-filled tennis ball was very difficult to hit any distance and this makes KVJ’s effort all the more laudable and it is also the reason that he was the only person ever to hit the ball out of the prison; iii) the water-filled ball just would not spin at all, but bowling flatter cutters at a quicker pace worked well; iv) the boundaries were quite short, especially square of the wicket and these did not always count as four; one boundary “into the dungeons” for example (my favourite shot), was worth only two! v) we certainly played against the “lifers”: they ruled the prison, so they played in the cricket team; vi) there were definitely some frightening faces in the crowd, but overall, I recall a decent atmosphere and some good-natured barracking; vii) the impression of a “holiday camp” was probably created by all of the spectators disappearing promptly at 7 pm and when we asked if they all had to be back in their cells by 7, we were told “oh no, they’re all going to watch Top of the Pops!” and viii) I clearly recall our esteemed editor conducting some ill-advised socio-psychological research amongst the inmates which went something like this:
JRS: “What are you in for then?”
Lifer: “Murder”
JRS: “Oh dear. Well, who did you murder?”
Lifer: “My wife”
JRS: “Golly. What did you want to do a thing like that for?”
I am not sure if he ever got an answer to that one, but I was nervously observing from nearby, hoping to dissuade Sharpy from pursuing this line of questioning and dreading that he was going to get a response like:
Lifer: “Because she kept asking me damn fool questions and that’s why I bludgeoned her to death with a cricket bat, which is exactly what I’m going to do to you, you irritating pillock!”
England Matters
The Great Jack Morgan finds something unexpectedly praiseworthy from the ECB
At last... a sensible decision from the ECB. It is crucial for the game's credibility that a logical Championship of 16 games each is to continue. People like me will never be attracted to "pop" cricket like T20, but there is no harm in having some short matches to attract new followers as long as i) the group matches do not go on for an eternity like they did last year, ten is quite sufficient; ii) no one mistakes it for the real thing; and iii) this particular tail is not allowed to wag the first class dog. Further good news is that the Clydesdale could revert to 50 overs per side. If participation in the Champions League is being abandoned, as is sensible, then hopefully the ridiculously early start to the season in early April (or March if you count the MCC/ Champion County match) can also revert to a sensible date with more fixtures in the milder weather normally experienced in September.
Personal Records
I know everyone will want to hear this from the Great Jack Morgan
I was quite close to going to cricket today, 28 March (Middlesex have a two day friendly against Surrey at the Oval), for my earliest ever start to a season. It turned out to be yet another nice day, but it was not quite good enough early on when I had to decide whether to go or not. They are actually talking about light rain for tomorrow afternoon, so my chance of March cricket might have gone.
Wisden Five
The Professor has his annual go at naming the lucky five
Not too easy this year I think.
The domestic Test series were not particularly memorable (or at least not for cricketing reasons) and while the County Championship went down to the last game I not sure who could be thought to stand out. The Wisden editor normally takes account of the winter tour and since I saw Mr Berry in Adelaide I guess he will do so. I would think that this year the "shoo-ins" (shoos-in?) were Cook, and Trott. Other English Test possibles must include Finn, Morgan and Bresnan. Of the international opponents, Wisden sometimes chooses the visiting captain from the previous season. I think we can be reasonably safe in assuming that Salman Butt will not get the nod and the Bangladesh captain, while obviously a very talented cricketer, did not, I suspect, do enough to get in either.Other opposition players must include Hussey and Haddin and I suppose, at a pinch, Siddle and Johnson (though I'm not sure whether you would put Johnson on their side or ours).
The County Championship sometimes produces a winner: Lyth might be in the frame (I don't know if the Editor considers Div 2) and also Read. The latter has proved a fine captain as well as a gifted wicket keeper and his inclusion would please those Googlies readers who think he should have been in the Test side years' ago.
We can only have five, so I go for: Cook, Trott, Hussey, Finn and Read. I trust none of them has won it before.
Red Mist Matters
There was a time when a hundred in the last twenty overs was considered a bit of a stretch. Twenty20 changed that and batsmen started to see that as a doddle and consequently in the fifty over game the more aggressive teams didn’t worry too much how many they scored in the first thirty overs or so since they were confident of scoring heavily at the back end of an innings. This reached the stage whereby a hundred runs in the last ten overs became a not infrequent occurrence. This phenomenon was exhibited in the World Cup match at Kandy when New Zealand were 188 for 5 at the end of the forty fourth over. Afridi, the most successful bowler in the competition, bowled the next over and conceded two sixes and the following over went for eight. So twenty two had been added to the score in two overs but then things went ballistic.
Shoiab Akhtar bowled the forty seventh over to Ross Taylor. I had seen his innings for New Zealand at Old Trafford and also the televised hitting for Durham last season in which he demonstrated that when his eye is in he can hit just about any delivery for six onto the on side.
Akhtar’s first delivery was a wide full toss which Taylor hit through cover point for four. As Akhtar tried to bowl the straight Yorker his next two deliveries were full tosses which ended up in the stands at mid wicket. His next two deliveries were wides of which only one was signaled. His next went into the onside for four before Akhtar reduced the rate by conceding another wide with his fifth legal delivery. He opted to go straight with his final delivery and that went out of the ground. The world’s sometime fastest and most dangerous bowler had gone for 28 in the over. Abdur Rehman calmed things down in the next over and conceded just fifteen.
Abdul Razzaq drew the short straw and was called up to bowl the forty ninth over and found Taylor at the receiving end. The over was remarkably similar to Akhtar’s. Taylor hit three sixes, two fours, there were two wides but the dot ball went for two. So Razzaq conceded thirty runs in his over. Rehman bowled the final over and Oram took sixes from the first two deliveries before getting out to the third. The New Zealanders scored nineteen from this over.
The New Zealanders in the space of six overs re-wrote all of the fast scoring records. They scored 114 in six overs, 92 in the final four overs whilst Oram and Taylor added 85 in 3.4 overs. Taylor scored 55 from his final thirteen balls whilst Oram made his 25 from nine deliveries.
Baron Matters
Dave Baron from Marple CC sent me the following
I only saw four or five of O'Brien's shots on the news so maybe doing him a disservice, but over the years I have told young cricketers at our club the '' monkey playing golf '' joke in order to get them playing properly so much so that 20 year olds wink and say monkey playing golf when somebody slogs it across the line to cow corner. The punch line of the long joke is that having conceded seventeen holes to the monkey after being massively out driven on the 18th the golfer asks the monkey’s owner to get him to sink the three foot putt, and like his previous seventeen shots he goes whoosh and smashes it three hundred yards.
Late Appeals
Harry Compton played in some of my earliest matches at South Hampstead in the early sixties. He sent me these notes following the Professor’s notes in the last edition
I became a full member of ACU in 1985. Is the law still the same regarding appeals? An appeal can be made and upheld after "over" is called providing it is done before the bowler starts his run for the next over, unless time is called. I play golf these days as I would sooner abuse myself than be abused umpiring! My umpiring career included 500 plus Somerset league games and various representative games including county u19s. I still have the doubtful privilege of meeting-up regularly with Mr. Alan May. Congratulations on 100 editions.
Old Danes Matters
Before I published the last edition I checked with Bob Peach as to the correct identification of the personnel in the Old Danes photo. I still managed to get it wrong. Thanks to Terry Hunt and John Williams who both pointed out: “I think you will find that Ron Bloome is, in fact, Ron Broome. He played soccer for Kingstonian and Hayes, was a Welsh international, and worked and played for Barclays Bank.”
Meanwhile Jim Maddock commented: “It was great to see picture of Nick Vincent. I played with him at Brentham. Whatever happened to Brain Reid?”
And Jim Revier topically noted: “Stephen Davies would like to know where Nick Vincent got his pink shirt.”
Chesterfield Matters
The Great Jack Morgan contributed the following for publication in Seaxe News at the request of his new chum, Alan Ashton
Steve Baldwin's comment that "not many, if any, Middlesex supporters will have seen the team play at the venue" brought back several happy memories of visits to the attractive ground at Queen's Park, Chesterfield, when I was a long-haired student in neighbouring Sheffield in the late sixties. Indeed, I actually played on the ground for the university against Chesterfield CC. However, it was later, on 20 August 1975 that I saw Middlesex play at the ground in a Gillette Cup semi-final.
We drove up from London in some fairly damp and depressing weather, so it was a nice surprise to arrive at the ground and find that the sun was coming out and there was a good chance of a full day's play. Admission was £1.50 and the tiny scorecard, which makes the Lord's scorecards look huge and which I am consulting at this moment as I remind myself of the events of the day, was 5p. The Middlesex team contained eight Test players of the past, present or future and this figure would have been nine if Tim Lamb had not been a late replacement for John Price. In addition, Mike Smith also played ODIs for England, leaving only Norman Featherstone (from Rhodesia, as it was then) and the Hon Timothy Lamb (from Shrewsbury School and Oxford) as non-internationals. The line-up read: Smith, Brearley (c), Radley, Featherstone, Gomes, Barlow, Murray (w), Edmonds, Titmus, Lamb and Selvey.
Middlesex batted first in some seamer-friendly conditions and struggled to get the scoreboard moving at any pace at all. Mike Hendrick found the conditions entirely to his liking and Smith and Radley were both gone with only 29 scored, though it was the Test Match off-spinner Venkat, on for an early bowl, who accounted for Radley. However, the situation changed dramatically with the arrival of Featherstone at the crease. At his best, "Smokey" was as good an attacking batsman as any in the country and today he raced to 50 off 46 balls and altogether hit 3 sixes and 6 fours in a thoroughly entertaining 70 which put the visitors firmly in charge. The captain did well to fight his way through to 37 and shared in a stand of 85, the best of the match, with Featherstone, but at no stage did he look fluent. Norman had been particularly severe on the home spinners: Venkat went for 62 off his 12 overs and his partner, slow left armer Fred Swarbrook (3 for 53), was nearly as expensive, but at least he had the satisfaction of claiming the wickets of both of the most successful batsmen, Brearley and Featherstone. All of the first nine batsmen made it into double figures, but the highest score among the other seven was 16, which left Middlesex, who did not quite see out their 60 overs, all out for 207. It was a disappointing total, but Hendrick in particular had been a real handful, finishing with the startling figures of 11.5-4-16-4 and Middlesex knew that if they bowled well, that total had given them a chance.
Derbys also fielded seven Test players, Hendrick and Venkat have already been mentioned, Brian Bolus, Bob Taylor and Alan Ward also played and the other two, Ron Headley and Phil Sharpe, opened the Derbyshire innings and gave the home side an excellent start. Mike Selvey, Phil Edmonds and Fred Titmus were top class bowlers, but the back-up seamers Lamb and Larry Gomes (before he turned to off-spin) looked a little lightweight by the standards of today's batteries of four and five pacemen. The bat was in the ascendancy up to tea time with Headley in particularly good form and Derbys went into the interval on 75 for 0 (Headley 52*). The game began to change when Gomes bowled Headley (58) with the score on 81 and although Sharpe batted on and on for 55, wickets started to tumble at the other end. All the bowlers chipped in, Edmonds plucked two wickets out of nowhere with brilliant fielding and when Lamb bowled last man Ward the total was only 183 and Middlesex had won by 24 runs. The award for the Man of the Match went to Featherstone and was thoroughly deserved. One strange feature, by today's standards, was that each team stuck rigidly to their five main bowlers, with not a ball bowled by anyone else. I do not remember a large Middlesex presence at the game, but I am sure that I cannot be the only survivor.
Readers may recall that Middlesex lost fairly lamely in the final against Lancashire, as they had done to Leicestershire in the final of the Benson and Hedges Cup earlier in the season. Although these were very disappointing results, this was the closest that Middlesex had come to a trophy since sharing the County Championship title with Yorkshire in 1949 and it can be seen in retrospect that this was a pivotal season for Middlesex CCC. The team that played in the final was already being strengthened by some exciting young players: John Emburey, Roland Butcher, Ian Gould and Mike Gatting had already being acquiring first team experience and someone called Wayne Wendell Daniel was already terrorising second XI batsmen. Middlesex won the Championship in 1976 and became one of the top sides (perhaps the top side?) in the country for the best part of two decades.
Berry Matters
I heard from Les Berry
The Old Danes gathering is firmly in the diary alongside the summer’s other standout events … the Lord’s Test v India, Queens … and, who knows, possibly QPR at Old Trafford in mid-August. That one’s still only in pencil! I saw Jeff Coleman and Geoff Norris at the Middlesex forum last night – we’re all very miffed about the Rangers v Blades game being shifted to Monday 4 April as it now clashes with the MCCC AGM. Unfortunately for Geoff he can’t duck out of that as he’s being sworn in (or whatever it’s called) as El Presidente that night – wouldn’t look good to do it via satellite link from Loftus Road, I guess. Jeff and I however have a simpler choice and it will be a W12 night, hopefully with a happy ending. It could be all back to the post-AGM party if promotion is clinched, though being Rangers that will no doubt be held back until the 93rd minute v Leeds on 7 May.
Old Danes Gathering
The fifth annual Old Danes Gathering will be held on Friday 29 July at Shepherds Bush CC from 2pm. This has been a popular opportunity to meet old faces and renew acquaintances. Over a hundred alumni have attended the previous events and you are encouraged to contact others and bring along your own core party. There will be a bar open all afternoon and food will be available. Some have to travel considerable distances and wives, partners and guests will be most welcome.
Football Matters
Kelvin West is nothing if not a traditionalist and he recently approached Andrew Baker to see if his Ladies Team would be interested in reviving “bob a job” week. Andrew is always willing to try anything once and his ladies reacted enthusiastically. Here they are bringing a whole new meaning to the term “be prepared”.
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An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 100
April 2011
A Hundred Editions
Jim Sharp: How much more of this crap can you write?
Jack Morgan: How much do you want?
Historical Matters
In 2002 I was trying to expand my art activities onto the internet and Bob Peach suggested that I go onto Bob Hunt’s Old Danes website. I recorded some notes on the Visitors’ page and promptly received an email from John Adams (the Professor) who I had last seen at Loftus Road in the mid seventies. We exchanged the customary pleasantries and abuse before going on to discuss England’s prospects on their tour of Australia. I copied these exchanges to my brother, Graham, who I have called George for many years.
When the time came to delete these bon mots I decided that perhaps others might like to read them and so circulated them to twenty two pals, mainly Old Danes and South Hampstead alumni, under the title Googlies & Chinamen. I called it An Occasional Cricketing Journal because I thought that I might in due course circulate another edition. In the event one hundred months later I find myself preparing the one hundredth edition which goes out to about nine hundred on my lists and is probably forwarded to more.
One of the recipients of the first edition was Gary Rhodes who put me in touch with someone he referred to as the Great Jack Morgan. I had been in 2L at St Clement Danes with Jack in 1959 and we quickly started exchanging lengthy emails, much of which found their way into these pages. It was Jack who produced over fifty Strange Elevens that peppered the early editions. I unloaded my bigotries under the heading Irritating Trends in Modern Cricket and the Professor’s stylish essays have appeared under the heading Out and About with the Professor.
I have always tried to be non sexist in these pages and the early editions regularly featured the Bush Belles from the sixties and in particular the Lovely Jane Richards whose match reports for the Acton Gazette were reproduced. Later in 2007 Kelvin West sent me some photos of his local ladies football side and said that they were looking for a new manager. Andrew Baker generously offered to help out and has successfully handled the ladies ever since.
Over the years many readers have sent me comments or articles and the vast majority have been published in some form or another. It has been great fun getting back in touch with old friends and making contact with new ones.
To celebrate reaching this milestone I was tempted to reproduce a variety of articles from over the years but decided in the end to just go with our explanations of the Duckworth Lewis Method:
Duckworth Lewis (from edition 4)
I find it fundamentally daft that under the Duckworth Lewis method the side batting second can be required to score more runs to win a game than the side batting first scored, particularly in less overs than the first side enjoyed! Nevertheless, this is one of the zany outcomes of applying this flawed algebra.
In order to make some sense of this, George and I have spent many hours studying the Duckworth Lewis method this winter so that we can explain its intricacies and answer your questions. We are particularly surprised at how limited its application has been when it is, in fact, designed to be applied to all aspects of the game.
For example: Jim Sharp batted over two hours for a tedious 23, but under the D/L method he made a fluent 57 not out – well played Jim! Graham Sharp took some terrible stick claiming 1 for 60 in only 9 overs, but under the D/L method finished with a creditable 4 for 40-well bowled George! Everyone expected Adams with 73 to be Man of the Match but in fact the award went to Jordan who did not bat, but would have made 84 under the D/L method!
In can also be applied to other walks of life. George had his fifty-third birthday in February but under the D/L method he is, in fact, only 39. He tells me that he can get from Chester to Gatwick in three hours, but if he has a bad start the D/L method can increase this to ten or eleven hours. If you have a good start you can complete the second half of the journey in just three or four minutes but you only have two gallons of petrol to do it with.
It has even been suggested that George W Bush only got elected because the Republicans applied the D/L method.
The Duckworth Lewis Method Revisited (from edition 6)
Duckworth and Lewis are both gynaecologists by profession and they originally named their algebraic formula in the belief that it was going to be used in family planning. This made it a sort of latter day version of the world renowned Crawford Method.
In their playing days Duckworth and Lewis were both bowlers. This is obvious to anyone who examines their logic even if they know nothing else about them. So obsessed are they in taking wickets that they add huge numbers of runs to the total required every time you lose one. In my playing days, which can now be described as in the last century, the side that scored the most runs won the game, regardless of how many wickets they lost. Now if you find yourself in a run chase governed by these wannabee mathematicians, the target gets further away in a geometric progression each time you lose a wicket.
Still who am I to argue, I haven’t fathered a baby let alone delivered one! Apparently, referring to the Duckworth Lewis Method, you are twice as likely to have a son if your first child was a girl, but if you had girl twins you will have to have sex twice as often in order to father a boy. On the other hand, if you already have a boy and a girl the D/L Method states that the likelihood of your fathering twins is in inverse proportion to the regularity of your using viagra for you and your wife’s own personal pleasure. These boys really know their stuff.
Your wife might like to know that if she was in labour for ten hours with your first child, recalculation under the D/L Method…………on second thoughts we won’t go there.
If you found that it took five pints of bitter to get you pissed when you were twenty, recalculation using the D/L Method states that it will only take two when you are fifty, as long as you had three gin and tonics at lunchtime and you don’t stuff yourself with crisps. However, if you run into an old acquaintance at the bar who starts to bore you with tedious nostalgia about his playing days, the D/L Method says you can get legless twice as quick by slurping down a double brandy whilst he goes off for a pee. On the other hand, if someone slips you a Mickey, you can still sober up referring to the D/L Method in time to drive home, if you drink a Fernet Branca backwards out of a shot glass. But don’t lose a wicket while you are doing it!
Out and About with the Professor
I wonder how many thousands of hours I have spent in “meetings”? I profess not to enjoy them but, as my wife says, if that is true, why do I go to so many? Married readers of this journal will recognise that it is wise, at this point, to withdraw from any further debate on the subject. Anyway, my most recent meeting was the Annual General Meeting of Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Several hundred (almost entirely elderly men) packed into the East Stand “Long Room” to bask in the recollection of a pretty good 2010 season and look forward to the coming one.
First we had to dispose of the tedious financial stuff and noticed, in passing, that Yorkshire made a loss last season of £1.8 million. This, it seems, was almost entirely due to the decision to host a “neutral” Test between Australia and Pakistan which attracted practically no spectators. The comparison with 2009 is worth noting because then Yorkshire made £3.5 million from international matches even though, as those of us who were there will recall, the Ashes Test was (thanks to Peter Siddle, et al) a fairly short-lived affair. However, nobody worries too much about the finances these days since the Chairman is a chap call Colin Graves who owns a supermarket chain called “Costcutters”. I don’t think I have ever been in one of his shops but they seem to provide Mr. Graves with a reasonably healthy income. The accounts show the “Graves Family Trust” as having loaned the club £4 million during the year.
The finance stuff that was interesting was the bid price for Test matches; according to Mr. Graves, Yorkshire has a guaranteed Test for the next eight years for which they have paid the ECB about 300,000 per Test. However, were they to bid now for an Ashes Test the bid would have to be above £2 million.
Actually, finance wasn’t the first item on the agenda; rather it was recording those members who had “passed away” in 2010. We all stood in silence for a minute in remembrance which was, of course, given the innate good manners of Yorkshiremen, impeccably observed. I couldn’t, however, suppress the entirely unworthy thought that the assembled geriatrics might have had, somewhere in the back of their minds, the thought that their turn to be so honoured might not be too far into the future.
The principal complaints from our grey and balding throng related to the absurdity of the County Championship programme (no argument there), the P.A. system in the ground (“inaudible” – although one wonders if some of my fellow members might struggle to hear Krakatoa from anything more than 100 yards) and, of course, the new Pavilion. Mr. Graves, in his excellent chairing of the meeting (authoritative and good humoured – both useful attributes at meetings of Yorkshiremen) kept referring to the state-of-the-art, iconic building which would: “secure important income streams going forward”. (When, I ask myself, did “going forward” become a universal synonym for the word “future”). Anyway, his was not the majority view. “Bloody eyesore, if tha’ asks me”. “Thee might think it grand but most o’ folk round ‘ere think it reet bloody ugly”…and so on. More than one member said he had bought a debenture to sit in the new pavilion so that he didn’t have to sit in the ground and look at the thing.
But there was one piece of universally-agreed good news. The new museum had opened! The prime mover in establishing this new facility has been the County Archivist, a nice man called David Hall whom I had met a couple of time at Phil Sharpe’s house. And a splendid job he has made of it. I suppose you either like these sorts of places or you don’t – being a museumish sort of chap I most certainly do and this one is small but excellent with all the things you get in modern museums: touch sensitive screens, things you can push and pull and little quizzes as you go round. It also has a very small cinema.
I wonder how many other cricket museums there are in the country? We all know Lord’s of course, but what of other counties? I have been to two in Australia: Melbourne which was very interesting and Adelaide. The latter is not a museum about South Australia cricket however, it is an entire museum devoted to one man…and there’s no need to say who. The Don moved to Adelaide from NSW “for business reasons” (surely some story there) and the new museum at the Oval pays him due homage. It charts his life and achievements and has numerous screens showing newsreel and other footage of the great man’s exploits. Most Googlies readers will recall the story of how the “boy from Bowral” used to practice in the back yard using a stump to hit a golf ball against a wall and the Bradman museum has a mock-up of the site with a stump and ball so that you can have a go. (…well of course I did). Actually, hitting a golf ball with a stump isn’t that difficult but Bradman used to hit it, not against a wall, but against a cylindrical corrugated water silo. Moreover, the objective is not to bash the ball against the silo (easy) but to hit the rebound, and the next and the next. Should there be any doubt, I have to tell you that a cylindrical corrugated surface does not produce an entirely predictable ricochet. One of the little film clips showed Bradman hitting it time and time again…amazing.
So the Adelaide Oval gets my vote as the best cricket museum (after Lord’s) but Headingley’s is a splendid new addition to the ranks and well worth a visit should any reader venture this far north.
Middlesex Matters
The Great Jack Morgan is now ready for the season
Great news! A copy of the Panther has arrived! I was amused to read that i) Ben Scott thinks that Hampton is in "south London": how can anywhere north of the river be in south London? how about West Middlesex? and ii) Steve Sylvester is the club's sports psychologist. I don't suppose you even remember Steve, but he was a slingy left arm over medium pacer that Don Bennett thought was going to be the new Bernard Julien, but was actually fairly useless and when he joined Notts, my Nottinghamshire mate at work asked me in something of a panic (remembering that I had probably described him as rubbish) what sort of stuff he bowled and I was able to reply "his stock ball is the one that goes through the covers for four, but for variety he's got the one that goes over mid-wicket for six" with only a hint of hyperbole. It does not look as if a permanent off-spinner is on his way, the second team batsmen are practising their spinners and it seems that spin could be a serious weakness this season. I did not hear that Kabir Toor had been sacked, but he does not appear in the Panther's list of players. This is no great surprise, but i) he did actually play in the first team in 40 over games in 2009 so you might have thought his departure would get a mention; and ii) I feel a bit sorry for him because he usually batted down around no 7 when I saw him in the 2s, as if his bowling were his stronger suit, but I never had great hopes for his leg breaks and felt he should have had more chances up the order to show how good a batsman he was. Did you spot who is sponsoring Dan Housego's Championship kit this season?
The mystery sponsors are none other than our very own Jeff Coleman and Geoff Norris
World Cup Haircuts
Whatever quality or otherwise the games have produced there has been plenty of entertainment provided by the barbery on display. The most reliable performer is, predictably, Malinga, who has elected to sport a mini afro or golliwog style but with the variation that the last two inches of the locks are dyed white. The overall effect is that of a circus act or a cast member of a Marx Brothers film.
Hair dyeing is very popular at present and the strangest on display must be that portrayed by Imran Tahir who is now a Protean. He becomes the first blonde Pakistani in history.
However, the most extraordinary pate was displayed by Jacques Kallis who has been bald as a coot for years. When he removed his helmet he displayed a full head of hair. He must have been holidaying with Graham Gooch and Shane Warne. Meanwhile Tillakaratne Dilshan removed his helmet and displayed a beard than had been shaved into several cones between bottom lip and chin.
The Great Jack Morgan informs me: “Several chaps have had hair transplants as well as Monsieur Jacques. Two that spring to mind are R Ponting and S Ganguly.” I feel a Strange Eleven coming on.
Scrubs Matters
The Great Jack Morgan follows up the Professor’s recollections of playing inside the famous Wormwood Scrubs prison
Memories of a Scrubber: i) it was not only an SBCC side that played at the Scrubs, for example, JRS played and another one was Steve Caley; I know SJC actually played one match for the Bush, but he never paid his subs, so he doesn’t count as a member! ii) my memory is that the water-filled tennis ball was very difficult to hit any distance and this makes KVJ’s effort all the more laudable and it is also the reason that he was the only person ever to hit the ball out of the prison; iii) the water-filled ball just would not spin at all, but bowling flatter cutters at a quicker pace worked well; iv) the boundaries were quite short, especially square of the wicket and these did not always count as four; one boundary “into the dungeons” for example (my favourite shot), was worth only two! v) we certainly played against the “lifers”: they ruled the prison, so they played in the cricket team; vi) there were definitely some frightening faces in the crowd, but overall, I recall a decent atmosphere and some good-natured barracking; vii) the impression of a “holiday camp” was probably created by all of the spectators disappearing promptly at 7 pm and when we asked if they all had to be back in their cells by 7, we were told “oh no, they’re all going to watch Top of the Pops!” and viii) I clearly recall our esteemed editor conducting some ill-advised socio-psychological research amongst the inmates which went something like this:
JRS: “What are you in for then?”
Lifer: “Murder”
JRS: “Oh dear. Well, who did you murder?”
Lifer: “My wife”
JRS: “Golly. What did you want to do a thing like that for?”
I am not sure if he ever got an answer to that one, but I was nervously observing from nearby, hoping to dissuade Sharpy from pursuing this line of questioning and dreading that he was going to get a response like:
Lifer: “Because she kept asking me damn fool questions and that’s why I bludgeoned her to death with a cricket bat, which is exactly what I’m going to do to you, you irritating pillock!”
England Matters
The Great Jack Morgan finds something unexpectedly praiseworthy from the ECB
At last... a sensible decision from the ECB. It is crucial for the game's credibility that a logical Championship of 16 games each is to continue. People like me will never be attracted to "pop" cricket like T20, but there is no harm in having some short matches to attract new followers as long as i) the group matches do not go on for an eternity like they did last year, ten is quite sufficient; ii) no one mistakes it for the real thing; and iii) this particular tail is not allowed to wag the first class dog. Further good news is that the Clydesdale could revert to 50 overs per side. If participation in the Champions League is being abandoned, as is sensible, then hopefully the ridiculously early start to the season in early April (or March if you count the MCC/ Champion County match) can also revert to a sensible date with more fixtures in the milder weather normally experienced in September.
Personal Records
I know everyone will want to hear this from the Great Jack Morgan
I was quite close to going to cricket today, 28 March (Middlesex have a two day friendly against Surrey at the Oval), for my earliest ever start to a season. It turned out to be yet another nice day, but it was not quite good enough early on when I had to decide whether to go or not. They are actually talking about light rain for tomorrow afternoon, so my chance of March cricket might have gone.
Wisden Five
The Professor has his annual go at naming the lucky five
Not too easy this year I think.
The domestic Test series were not particularly memorable (or at least not for cricketing reasons) and while the County Championship went down to the last game I not sure who could be thought to stand out. The Wisden editor normally takes account of the winter tour and since I saw Mr Berry in Adelaide I guess he will do so. I would think that this year the "shoo-ins" (shoos-in?) were Cook, and Trott. Other English Test possibles must include Finn, Morgan and Bresnan. Of the international opponents, Wisden sometimes chooses the visiting captain from the previous season. I think we can be reasonably safe in assuming that Salman Butt will not get the nod and the Bangladesh captain, while obviously a very talented cricketer, did not, I suspect, do enough to get in either.Other opposition players must include Hussey and Haddin and I suppose, at a pinch, Siddle and Johnson (though I'm not sure whether you would put Johnson on their side or ours).
The County Championship sometimes produces a winner: Lyth might be in the frame (I don't know if the Editor considers Div 2) and also Read. The latter has proved a fine captain as well as a gifted wicket keeper and his inclusion would please those Googlies readers who think he should have been in the Test side years' ago.
We can only have five, so I go for: Cook, Trott, Hussey, Finn and Read. I trust none of them has won it before.
Red Mist Matters
There was a time when a hundred in the last twenty overs was considered a bit of a stretch. Twenty20 changed that and batsmen started to see that as a doddle and consequently in the fifty over game the more aggressive teams didn’t worry too much how many they scored in the first thirty overs or so since they were confident of scoring heavily at the back end of an innings. This reached the stage whereby a hundred runs in the last ten overs became a not infrequent occurrence. This phenomenon was exhibited in the World Cup match at Kandy when New Zealand were 188 for 5 at the end of the forty fourth over. Afridi, the most successful bowler in the competition, bowled the next over and conceded two sixes and the following over went for eight. So twenty two had been added to the score in two overs but then things went ballistic.
Shoiab Akhtar bowled the forty seventh over to Ross Taylor. I had seen his innings for New Zealand at Old Trafford and also the televised hitting for Durham last season in which he demonstrated that when his eye is in he can hit just about any delivery for six onto the on side.
Akhtar’s first delivery was a wide full toss which Taylor hit through cover point for four. As Akhtar tried to bowl the straight Yorker his next two deliveries were full tosses which ended up in the stands at mid wicket. His next two deliveries were wides of which only one was signaled. His next went into the onside for four before Akhtar reduced the rate by conceding another wide with his fifth legal delivery. He opted to go straight with his final delivery and that went out of the ground. The world’s sometime fastest and most dangerous bowler had gone for 28 in the over. Abdur Rehman calmed things down in the next over and conceded just fifteen.
Abdul Razzaq drew the short straw and was called up to bowl the forty ninth over and found Taylor at the receiving end. The over was remarkably similar to Akhtar’s. Taylor hit three sixes, two fours, there were two wides but the dot ball went for two. So Razzaq conceded thirty runs in his over. Rehman bowled the final over and Oram took sixes from the first two deliveries before getting out to the third. The New Zealanders scored nineteen from this over.
The New Zealanders in the space of six overs re-wrote all of the fast scoring records. They scored 114 in six overs, 92 in the final four overs whilst Oram and Taylor added 85 in 3.4 overs. Taylor scored 55 from his final thirteen balls whilst Oram made his 25 from nine deliveries.
Baron Matters
Dave Baron from Marple CC sent me the following
I only saw four or five of O'Brien's shots on the news so maybe doing him a disservice, but over the years I have told young cricketers at our club the '' monkey playing golf '' joke in order to get them playing properly so much so that 20 year olds wink and say monkey playing golf when somebody slogs it across the line to cow corner. The punch line of the long joke is that having conceded seventeen holes to the monkey after being massively out driven on the 18th the golfer asks the monkey’s owner to get him to sink the three foot putt, and like his previous seventeen shots he goes whoosh and smashes it three hundred yards.
Late Appeals
Harry Compton played in some of my earliest matches at South Hampstead in the early sixties. He sent me these notes following the Professor’s notes in the last edition
I became a full member of ACU in 1985. Is the law still the same regarding appeals? An appeal can be made and upheld after "over" is called providing it is done before the bowler starts his run for the next over, unless time is called. I play golf these days as I would sooner abuse myself than be abused umpiring! My umpiring career included 500 plus Somerset league games and various representative games including county u19s. I still have the doubtful privilege of meeting-up regularly with Mr. Alan May. Congratulations on 100 editions.
Old Danes Matters
Before I published the last edition I checked with Bob Peach as to the correct identification of the personnel in the Old Danes photo. I still managed to get it wrong. Thanks to Terry Hunt and John Williams who both pointed out: “I think you will find that Ron Bloome is, in fact, Ron Broome. He played soccer for Kingstonian and Hayes, was a Welsh international, and worked and played for Barclays Bank.”
Meanwhile Jim Maddock commented: “It was great to see picture of Nick Vincent. I played with him at Brentham. Whatever happened to Brain Reid?”
And Jim Revier topically noted: “Stephen Davies would like to know where Nick Vincent got his pink shirt.”
Chesterfield Matters
The Great Jack Morgan contributed the following for publication in Seaxe News at the request of his new chum, Alan Ashton
Steve Baldwin's comment that "not many, if any, Middlesex supporters will have seen the team play at the venue" brought back several happy memories of visits to the attractive ground at Queen's Park, Chesterfield, when I was a long-haired student in neighbouring Sheffield in the late sixties. Indeed, I actually played on the ground for the university against Chesterfield CC. However, it was later, on 20 August 1975 that I saw Middlesex play at the ground in a Gillette Cup semi-final.
We drove up from London in some fairly damp and depressing weather, so it was a nice surprise to arrive at the ground and find that the sun was coming out and there was a good chance of a full day's play. Admission was £1.50 and the tiny scorecard, which makes the Lord's scorecards look huge and which I am consulting at this moment as I remind myself of the events of the day, was 5p. The Middlesex team contained eight Test players of the past, present or future and this figure would have been nine if Tim Lamb had not been a late replacement for John Price. In addition, Mike Smith also played ODIs for England, leaving only Norman Featherstone (from Rhodesia, as it was then) and the Hon Timothy Lamb (from Shrewsbury School and Oxford) as non-internationals. The line-up read: Smith, Brearley (c), Radley, Featherstone, Gomes, Barlow, Murray (w), Edmonds, Titmus, Lamb and Selvey.
Middlesex batted first in some seamer-friendly conditions and struggled to get the scoreboard moving at any pace at all. Mike Hendrick found the conditions entirely to his liking and Smith and Radley were both gone with only 29 scored, though it was the Test Match off-spinner Venkat, on for an early bowl, who accounted for Radley. However, the situation changed dramatically with the arrival of Featherstone at the crease. At his best, "Smokey" was as good an attacking batsman as any in the country and today he raced to 50 off 46 balls and altogether hit 3 sixes and 6 fours in a thoroughly entertaining 70 which put the visitors firmly in charge. The captain did well to fight his way through to 37 and shared in a stand of 85, the best of the match, with Featherstone, but at no stage did he look fluent. Norman had been particularly severe on the home spinners: Venkat went for 62 off his 12 overs and his partner, slow left armer Fred Swarbrook (3 for 53), was nearly as expensive, but at least he had the satisfaction of claiming the wickets of both of the most successful batsmen, Brearley and Featherstone. All of the first nine batsmen made it into double figures, but the highest score among the other seven was 16, which left Middlesex, who did not quite see out their 60 overs, all out for 207. It was a disappointing total, but Hendrick in particular had been a real handful, finishing with the startling figures of 11.5-4-16-4 and Middlesex knew that if they bowled well, that total had given them a chance.
Derbys also fielded seven Test players, Hendrick and Venkat have already been mentioned, Brian Bolus, Bob Taylor and Alan Ward also played and the other two, Ron Headley and Phil Sharpe, opened the Derbyshire innings and gave the home side an excellent start. Mike Selvey, Phil Edmonds and Fred Titmus were top class bowlers, but the back-up seamers Lamb and Larry Gomes (before he turned to off-spin) looked a little lightweight by the standards of today's batteries of four and five pacemen. The bat was in the ascendancy up to tea time with Headley in particularly good form and Derbys went into the interval on 75 for 0 (Headley 52*). The game began to change when Gomes bowled Headley (58) with the score on 81 and although Sharpe batted on and on for 55, wickets started to tumble at the other end. All the bowlers chipped in, Edmonds plucked two wickets out of nowhere with brilliant fielding and when Lamb bowled last man Ward the total was only 183 and Middlesex had won by 24 runs. The award for the Man of the Match went to Featherstone and was thoroughly deserved. One strange feature, by today's standards, was that each team stuck rigidly to their five main bowlers, with not a ball bowled by anyone else. I do not remember a large Middlesex presence at the game, but I am sure that I cannot be the only survivor.
Readers may recall that Middlesex lost fairly lamely in the final against Lancashire, as they had done to Leicestershire in the final of the Benson and Hedges Cup earlier in the season. Although these were very disappointing results, this was the closest that Middlesex had come to a trophy since sharing the County Championship title with Yorkshire in 1949 and it can be seen in retrospect that this was a pivotal season for Middlesex CCC. The team that played in the final was already being strengthened by some exciting young players: John Emburey, Roland Butcher, Ian Gould and Mike Gatting had already being acquiring first team experience and someone called Wayne Wendell Daniel was already terrorising second XI batsmen. Middlesex won the Championship in 1976 and became one of the top sides (perhaps the top side?) in the country for the best part of two decades.
Berry Matters
I heard from Les Berry
The Old Danes gathering is firmly in the diary alongside the summer’s other standout events … the Lord’s Test v India, Queens … and, who knows, possibly QPR at Old Trafford in mid-August. That one’s still only in pencil! I saw Jeff Coleman and Geoff Norris at the Middlesex forum last night – we’re all very miffed about the Rangers v Blades game being shifted to Monday 4 April as it now clashes with the MCCC AGM. Unfortunately for Geoff he can’t duck out of that as he’s being sworn in (or whatever it’s called) as El Presidente that night – wouldn’t look good to do it via satellite link from Loftus Road, I guess. Jeff and I however have a simpler choice and it will be a W12 night, hopefully with a happy ending. It could be all back to the post-AGM party if promotion is clinched, though being Rangers that will no doubt be held back until the 93rd minute v Leeds on 7 May.
Old Danes Gathering
The fifth annual Old Danes Gathering will be held on Friday 29 July at Shepherds Bush CC from 2pm. This has been a popular opportunity to meet old faces and renew acquaintances. Over a hundred alumni have attended the previous events and you are encouraged to contact others and bring along your own core party. There will be a bar open all afternoon and food will be available. Some have to travel considerable distances and wives, partners and guests will be most welcome.
Football Matters
Kelvin West is nothing if not a traditionalist and he recently approached Andrew Baker to see if his Ladies Team would be interested in reviving “bob a job” week. Andrew is always willing to try anything once and his ladies reacted enthusiastically. Here they are bringing a whole new meaning to the term “be prepared”.
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