GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 114
June 2012
Out and About with the Professor
A visit from Northants might not be thought to whet the appetite but it was a lovely day, I needed cheering up, and so I toddled off to Leeds HQ to see t’chaps. I was particularly interested to see Yorkshire’s new signing, Mitchell Starc, who I had only seen on TV before.
Yorkshire have learnt from last years’ policy of playing an (almost) only Yorkshire-born side. This was very popular and had a great deal to recommend it, unless that is, you wanted to win a cricket match. As a result they have added to the two regular overseas players the old boy Phil Jaques and the new boy Starc. Northants, by the way, seem to have gone in the opposite direction and shed their United Nations side for a largely UK outfit. Andrew Hall is of course a permanent fixture and I think we might deduce that Con de Wet de Lange did not come into this world anywhere north of the Limpopo.
I suppose some pundit will describe Starc as medium fast but I have to say that as I stood at square leg sipping my coffee from the elegant “Headingley Experience” cardboard cup, medium he was not. The shorter balls that Barstow took at shoulder height some 20 yards back were not very medium at all…and the four slips and a gully that Gale employed were also a bit of a clue. The Yorkshire boys with the wit and novelty for which cricket teams are famous call him “Starkers” and together with Patterson and Sidebottom it looks as if Yorkshire now have a decent pace attack. At least any one playing Yorkshire this year will get plenty of practice playing left arm seamers. Amid all the euphoria about the England pace attack: “best ever” according to Alec Stewart, with “vast strength in depth”, it might do to reflect on the Australian quicks who with Siddle, Pattinson, Starc and Cummins look a far from shabby outfit.
The other point of interest for me was the Northants wicketkeeper, David Murphy. It seems he was born in Welwyn Garden City and was educated in Hertford at the school at the end of our garden. I don’t recall seeing too many balls in the vegetable patch so I wondered how he might do and the answer was not bad at all – at least compared to some of his colleagues. He batted in the compulsory No.7 spot and handled Starc’s short stuff very well (one trusts Master Bairstow was taking notes), he also hit a huge six off Rafiq (playing instead of Rashid) and so perhaps the courgettes weren’t that safe after all. I don’t think M S Dhoni should be worried that his pre-eminence is under threat but it was nice to see a local boy do good.
While at HQ I picked up a copy of a new cricket paper cleverly titled “The Cricket Paper”. The editorial promises weekly coverage of cricket from Tests to villages. The first edition had reports on all the county games and also on all the 25 (?) ECB Premier Leagues. As I flicked through the 44 pages I could not but reflect on the pleasure the new publication would give to the Assn. of Cricket Statisticians – 44 pages worth of possible errors! What fun!
Middlesex and other matters
The Great Jack Morgan is now well into his stride
It was great that 91% of County cricketers "consider the Championship the most important competition and that 93% believe that it should retain a symmetrical fixture list under which teams in each of the two divisions play the others home and away". So up yours D Morgan! I'm not so sure about the £1m prize for the T20 winners though.
If anyone were to call Middlesex a bunch of hopeless tossers, it would be hard to disagree. After Neil Dexter twice lost important tosses, Chris Rogers has now done exactly the same thing and on all four occasions, Middlesex have been asked to bat first on seaming pitches. There was no play on day 1 of the Championship match at Lord's against Worcestershire and frequent interruptions on days 2 and 3, but Middlesex made a good start with Straussy (49) playing some good shots and Robbo (59) looking untroubled as the pair put on 80 for the first wicket, but the familiar collapse occurred as the lads slumped from 125 for 1 to 210 for 6. That this did not turn into another debacle was due almost entirely to a splendid innings by Joe Denly, playing better than I had ever seen him before. However, Joe was getting minimal support from his partners until Gareth Berg, batting at 8, contributed a useful 36 to a seventh wicket stand of 88, while Denly was on 134* (19 fours and a six) when the surprise declaration came at 327-7.
The Great Alan Richardson (5-89) was magnificent for Worcs and David Lucas deserved better reward than a solitary wicket, but the back up bowling looked very weak and Richardson and Lucas had to bowl 63 of the 86 overs of the Middlesex innings. Some sages were critical of Rogers's declaration, considering the loss of probably two more batting points as too big a price to pay for the extremely remote chance of forcing a victory with little more than a day of the match left. However, Chris obviously knew that the visitors' batting was just as poor as their bowling and he shrewdly persuaded Daryl Mitchell to declare on their overnight score of 45-2, forfeited the Middlesex second innings and invited Worcs to chase 283 to win on the last day. This was soon looking like brilliant captaincy as Worcs quickly descended to 35 for 4. The only resistance came from James Cameron (30 including 6 fours) and a spirited ninth wicket stand of 54 between 18 year old Aneesh Kapil (21*) and Dick Jones (32 off 33 balls with 2 sixes) who took a particular liking to Dawid Malan's leg breaks.
However, the innings lasted only 48 overs as Worcs were all out for 150 and Middlesex won in comfort by 132 runs. Toby Roland-Jones (4 for 31 in the match) and Tim Murtagh (4 for 65 in the match) were the most successful bowlers, with Gareth Berg and Steve Finn helping out with a couple of wickets each. This win lifted Middlesex into third place in Division One of the Championship (with a game in hand over Notts), while the only surprise regarding Worcestershire's lowly position is that there is actually one team (Durham) below them in the table. Middlesex 19 points, Worcs 2.
Tuesday's news was that TSRJ has a foot injury and misses the Notts game, with Corey the expected deputy. The early news on Wed morning was that Ollie was the surprise deputy for Toby. Middlesex made it five lost tosses out of five, but this time Notts chose to bat so the lads had their first chance to bowl first this season and Finny took immediate advantage by bowling Neil Edwards first ball. It did not go so well after that, but Ollie had a great game (145* and 5 wkts) and I liked Rogers's positive attitude to getting a result by declaring at 300, though it did not impress Read, of course, who killed the game stone dead.
Middlesex's long serving 2nd XI scorer, Andrew Jones, has apparently been sacked. The immediate effect of this was that there were no team sheets available at Richmond. My first thought was that he had got his just desserts for shovelling all the tea time sandwiches and cakes down his gullet and any remaining into his pockets for later, but then I heard a rumour that he was actually dismissed for removing his strides in the scorebox in warm weather, which had led to complaints from female scorers!
A Message from the Outer Fringes of Cricket
The Professor sent me this
My good friend and Googlies correspondent Douglas Miller, sent me this from the Nether World of the Assn of Cricket Statisticians.
Douglas had been asked the following:
Does anyone happen to know the first class record last wicket partnership by
twin brothers? I have just seen the Overtons add 38 unbeaten for Somerset.
His response was:
Some individual discussion has failed to suggest any previous pair of twins
who might have batted together for the last wicket in first class cricket,
so it is possible that the Overtons set the record just by the fact of
batting together. I would particularly welcome confirmation or contradiction
of this.
As well as being twin brothers, neither Overton had previously scored a run
in first class cricket as Jamie was making his debut and Craig had made 0 in
his only previous innings, so we could also ask for the record last wicket
partnership where neither player had previously scored a run. Any similar cases welcome, relevant to my original question or otherwise.
Isn’t that exciting? And just think what we were doing the other day. We just went to the cricket and watched the game. What dull chaps we are! We could have been asking ourselves how often a former Australian opening bat had scored 180 at Headingley in May having previously been run out in Adelaide from a direct hit from a Warwickshire player who was born in Cape Town…………………………
Wullers Matters
Alec Cullen was in 2L in 1959 with the GJM and me. He sent me these photos recently
I've been meaning to send you these two snaps for a while now. They're of Ricky Ponting scoring his redemptive century, and the muddy celebration that followed. A professional newspaper photographer actually contacted me to ask what equipment I used after he saw them on Facebook! I was very flattered.
Dick Boothroyd
At the beginning of the 1970 season a tall figure entered the ground at the Bowls gate one evening and strolled across the ground with a duffle bag slung over one shoulder. He didn’t say much but joined in the net practise after introductions and caused a few sniggers as he performed in old high sided canvas boots and a white polo shirt.
He had no pretensions to batting but bowled seamers off a few paces. Most quickly assessed that he would play third or at best second eleven cricket, that is those watching from the sidelines but not the batsmen who faced him in the nets. He was deceptively quicker than expected from such a short run up.
After early attempts to talk down his performances by the skippers of the lower elevens in order to hang onto him, he soon found himself elevated to the first eleven. His appearance didn’t change and inevitably he was initially misjudged by opposition batsmen. His strengths were his accuracy, deceptive pace and extraordinary stamina. He could seemingly keep it up indefinitely.
One evening in the nets I batted last and after about fifteen minutes most of the players drifted off to the showers or the bar. Dick asked if I minded batting on for a bit. I always enjoyed batting on a good surface in the nets and agreed. Because of his short run he bowled a lot of balls and there was little respite at my end. After an hour it was getting gloomy and Dick reluctantly decided to call it a day. It was the most exhausting work out that I can remember.
We rarely saw Dick at the crease but he did bat memorably on one occasion. In the sixties the all day Bank Holiday fixtures against Hornsey were contested like test matches. In August it was our turn to visit Crouch End and we lost wickets steadily chasing a not overwhelming total. Dick emerged at the fall of the ninth wicket when it was imperative that he survive a few balls to secure a face saving draw. He slogged the second ball he faced straight up in the air and that was that.
That visit to Hornsey was also memorable for witnessing the worst lunch I experienced in nineteen years of club cricket. Most of us left the strange cooked concoction on the plate but Dick methodically worked his way through his own and most of the rest of the team’s helpings.
At the end of the season he went out of the Bowls Gate and was never seen again. The eagle eyed spotted in the papers a Boothroyd who appeared for a northern Minor County which may or may not have been him.
I asked Allen Bruton if he could help out with this vignette and he sent me the following
Memories of Dick Boothroyd tend to be somewhat fragmented, although Hornsey do feature in a few. On the personal front he came from Brighouse in Yorkshire which to most of us meant little other than when coupled with Rastrick to form a brass band. Fairly sure he had attended Durham University, was employed by the B.B.C. and lived in digs somewhere near the club. Would rarely play on Sundays, not on religious grounds, but this was when he went to an aunt living in Enfield and was fed his only decent meal of the week. This leads on to the dreadful Hornsey lunch.
The game would have been 11.30 start and almost certainly a Bank Holiday Monday, Dick having lunched at aunties the day before. Rumour had it that Don Nute had combined catering manager duties with those of groundsman. What we were served can only be described as pork fat strips, the sort of thing that might be hung on a birdfeeder to attract blue tits. Needless to say plates were pushed to one side the pork fat untouched, although it was soon noticed many were going in the direction of Dick who must have demolished the contents of at least five or six.
I believe it was the same day as the infamous lunch that Dick was batting at number eleven, two overs remaining,60/70 runs required, enormous heave, ball straight up in the air, duly caught and game lost. An apoplectic Cordaroy was given the explanation that Roger Pearman had annoyed him by saying he could not bat. Obviously an early example of sledging.
A game at Tunbridge Wells comes to mind when Brian Moor, a very good bat, was clean bowled by Dick for a duck. He was later was heard to say that it was the first time he had been bowled by somebody wearing a bloody tennis shirt. You may remember that Dick wore a little short sleeved Fred Perry shirt under the hand knitted sweater.
Obviously the maiden over bowled to Roger Pearman in a six a side is often recalled. I also remember a batsman seeing Dick stop the ball from crossing the boundary with his boot, assumed he could take on his arm for a second run. Predictably he was run out by several yards.
And then this
You really should not have set me off on this. I have now been to cricketarchive.com and fed R Boothroyd Staffordshire seasons 1974-1980 into the player oracle search. The bowling analyses are truly remarkable and would seem to confirm this to be our R.Boothroyd. Even more conclusive is the fact that in the 29 games he was always number eleven and amassed a grand total of 11 runs. Seems Roger Pearman may have been correct about his batting ability and it seems they met again when Roger was playing for Cheshire.
Headingley Matters
I have been lucky with the weather on my trips to Headingley and the first day of the Yorkshire Hampshire game was no exception. After days of gloomy wet and cold weather it was sunny and warm for the most part although the wind was cold. The Prof and I took up our favourite positions in the north east stand and we were encouraged by the wicket being pitched on that side of the ground. Hampshire won the toss and opened with Adams and Dawson who were both soon back in the hutch. This flattered Yorkshire’s opening attack of Sidebotham and Patterson who were unimpressive. When the former gave way to McGrath any pressure that the openers had imposed was immediately released and runs started to flow. McGrath will probably skipper the 2012 version of the Fatties Eleven and his gentle medium pacers are a throwback to an earlier era of uncovered pitches and he is the sort of bloke you would love to face in the nets if you wanted to play yourself back into form. At the other end Patterson gave way to Wardlaw who was the quickest on show but he sprayed it around and was also expensive. However, he did pick up the wicket of a very disappointed Carberry and when Patterson returned to dismiss Vince Hampshire went into lunch at 92 for 4 and the locals were expecting to see their beloved side bat before tea.
Hampshire’s two most experienced players, Katich and Ervine, were at the crease and in the afternoon session they were untroubled. Sidebotham must have had an enormous lunch because he could not generate anything more than wayward medium pace and was picked off. Rashid, who is now an experienced cricketer, bowls like a novice and is able to create none of the trepidation that the accomplished leg spinner will in the batsman. I suspect that he should seek a change of county to bring him fresh life.
Meanwhile Katich was making untroubled and rapid progress. He lost Ervine, who holed out to Root, but reached his hundred before tea from just 99 balls by which time Hampshire had recovered to 231 for 5. Michael Bates, who is the preferred successor to Nic Pothas, joined Katich and he was soon tucking into the friendly fare being served up. These two batted through to the close by which time Hampshire had reached 352 for 5 with Katich on 170 and Bates on 88.
Root was the only bowler after lunch to exert any pressure and Yorkshire’s bowling seems slim. The Prof told me that they had just recruited the Australian Starc to bolster their resources but having seen him in a televised game at Hove it is hard to see how he will improve things.
The day was very reminiscent of my day at Headingley in 2011 when Warwickshire recovered from a tricky start to post a substantial total. Last year it was Chanderpaul who gave a batting masterclass and this year it was Katich. Both went about their task in an unfussy and untroubled way and took the attack apart with relentless ease. They were both undefeated with big hundreds and the overseas player has much to teach the locals.
A day out in Liverpool
I made my debut at Liverpool CC for the third day of Middlesex’ match against Lancashire. Middlesex started the third day on 155 for 5 in reply to Lancashire’s 392 which had been built on Prince’s 144. I was hoping to see some resistance and then a fight back from Dexter and Simpson and with Rayner and Berg still to come I was anticipating Middlesex getting to within reach of the Lancashire score by mid afternoon. Silly me. Dexter succumbed to Chapple given out caught at slip by the square leg umpire. When Simpson played back to Kerrigan all of us on the bleachers at mid wicket gave him out LBW. Rayner went cheaply and Berg holed out after some lusty blows. By the time Collymore was bowled by Shahzad Middlesex had fallen short of the follow on figure.
The Lancashire fielders show an extraordinary degree of sycophancy towards their captain. When a batsmen leaves one of his deliveries the whole slip cordon shout “well bowled” and other pointless platitudes; when Dexter middled one the cries were even more encouraging and the harder he hit defensive strokes the more claptrap came from behind the wicket. Of course they do have Gareth Cross keeping wicket and his imperfect glove work might be improved if he spent less time with his mouth open.
Lunch was taken and the extraordinary news reached us that Lancashire would not be enforcing the follow on. I could only deduce that Chapple had been told that they needed the fourth day gate receipts. Horton and Moore opened and were soon ticking over against Murtagh and Collymore. It was a surprise when Rayner took an excellent one handed catch at second slip to dismiss Moore. Karl Brown joined Horton and they feasted off the wayward Berg who had to be taken off after three overs. By this time Rayner was bowling at one end and Dexter was tried at the other but he went the same way as Berg. At this point Middlesex’ selection of bowling for this match was looking decidedly suspect and things started to get worse.
Middlesex have three occasional leg spinners in their ranks-Denly, Malan and Rogers. The barrel was being well and truly scraped when Denly was brought on to test the by now rampart batsmen with a series of gentle full tosses and half volleys. It looked as if Middlesex were bowling for an early declaration. But things got worse. Malan came on for the last over before tea and his second delivery pitched closer to him than Horton who obligingly spooned it straight to Morgan. Horton was beside himself with disgust as he missed out on the easiest hundred he will ever be offered. After tea Malan continued with an embarrassing mixture of long hops and full tosses and the game degenerated to something akin to a poor beer match in which the beer was being consumed during the proceedings. The procession of Lancashire batsmen continued as they took turns to smash boundaries and hole out. This was a very poor advert for first division cricket.
Chapple decided to leave himself fourteen overs to bowl at Middlesex and when he declared at 266 for 8 Malan led the Middlesex players off having taken a career best 5 for 61. This was first order rinse and Middlesex should be ashamed of their performance with the ball. Rogers and Robson negotiated the final overs without any real alarms. Chapple did not set any very attacking fields. I didn’t see the champions in action last year and this was my first view of them this season. Chapple’s captaincy was poor and when Middlesex batted out the final day for the loss of one wicket his decision not to enforce the follow on must be seriously in question.
Four Days at the Oval
Paddy Carlin bewails lost glory and tells us more
No more Montpellier Club, which is not surprising since it cost $£8020 a pop and didn’t include food and drink, but now I am the guest of Roger Hamilton-Brown in the Kennington Club which is also spectacularly underused and overpriced at £1700. When will the marketing boys at Surrey realize that there is a recession and it is £1500 a year cheaper to be an ordinary member and get a better view from the pavilion?
Surrey v Somerset
Surrey lost the toss on a flat belter against Somerset with a short gas holder side boundary. Ramps, Dernbach and Linley were dropped. The latter two were probably delighted but the first would have welcomed the chance to regain form. The Surrey opening attack was poor. Lewis short and wide of the off stump, Jordan wide of both stumps and all over the place-just like Dernbach actually. The youthful and diminutive Barron helped himself to a rapid near 50 whilst Suppiah dug in. Runs came very freely with Suppiah accelerating and Compton keeping up his good run. They added almost 150 before Compton ran out Suppiah just after the latter had got his ton.
As the grandson of the great DCS who was surely the originator of the yes/no/wait/sorry school of running Nick was adhering to a fine family tradition. Incidentally I read recently that Chanderpaul has been involved in twenty four test run outs and the victim of only three. Are similar stats available for Boycott?
On this issue, Roger, a friend of Dennis Amiss, told me that Dennis had opened with Sir Geoffrey on his first test match and that not one word of encouragement had left Yorkshire lips on the way to the middle. Some time later Amiss was involved in a muddle with Boycott which ran Geoffrey out. Some matches later Amiss had recourse to complain to manager Ken Barrington that Boycott was continually trying to run him out. Elephants never forget.
Back to the cricket. Nice ton from Suppiah, 80 odd from Compton, nicer ton from Hildreth and quick runs from Kieswetter. With Maynard and Hamilton-Brown in the Surrey eleven and Suppiah, Hildreth and Kieswetter playing for the visitors there really seemed to be too many Millfield old boys on the pitch. There are many more around the counties so along with being South African this seems a good way to get into a county team. Only Surrey’s South Africans, Meaker and de Bruyn, looked like taking a wicket on the first day although George Edwards looked very promising. Somerset reached 450 for 5.
On day two Surrey did rather better racing though the batsmen through Meaker and Lewis until the giant Overton twins added forty odd for the last wicket. When Surrey batted Rudolph failed again but Davies scored a splendid century. Roy smashed it around fro half an hour and de Bruyn scored a half century. Day two ended with Maynard again looking a very good player on 63 not out and Surrey rattling along at four an over. Vernon Philander looks a more than useful quick bowler and if he is the third or fourth best South African seamer after Steyn, Morkel and others then it would not be entirely wise for England to prepare wickets to suit their pace attack. A slow turner for Swann might be better.
Surrey v Warwickshire
Beautiful day; good wicket which might turn later; win the toss and bat. Easy and Surrey did it. Result –all out in 60 overs. Most batsmen got set and then got out to the Warwicks all pace attack. Davies and Hamilton-Brown both looking very good ran themselves out in the thirties. Maynard and Lewis got there too but all in all it was very poor. It also allowed the Warwicks batsmen to take no chances at allto reach 100 for 1 after 35 overs with a view to scoring another slow 250 odd the next day.
Surrey captain Rory Hamilton-Brown gets a 6.15am text from his manager summoning him to the Oval for an 8am meeting. According to Dad the poor lad is suffering from flu like symptoms and worries about the job anyway. So is this good management? Mr Adams might well say yes because the next day Surrey had very much the better of things as Batty with six wickets and Hamilton-Brown himself with a tidy spell of off spin ran through the Warwicks batting after Meaker had wrecked the stumps of Traughton and Maddy.
The Surrey second innings showed exactly why the the management is sos concerned. In the first hour Roy was magnificent as he and Davies put on 40 in seven overs and then he and de Bruyn added 50 in the next yen. It couldn’t last and it didn’t. In rapid succession 88 for 1 became 108 for 4 leaving Rudolph and Maynard to play out the day. All in all a really good day of county cricket.
Nine Reasons why the Rangers should have been relegated
It pains me to say so but here they are:
1. They brought shame on the Premiership and disgrace on themselves with nine red cards which meant that they played a quarter of their games with ten men.
2. They fielded some of the slowest players in the league including Ferdinand and Derry.
3. They lost 4-0 at home to Bolton.
4. They paraded outdated and ridiculous red and white quarters for their away kit at Stamford Bridge.
5. Cisse’s absurd dyed beard
6. They lost at home to Wolves
7. Stoke’s goal against Bolton was clearly a foul.
8. They still haven’t worked out that Sean Wright-Phillips is no good. Chelsea and Manchester City know this. It’s why he never played for them.
9. Employing Joey Barton.
Jack Hyams
Michael Blumberg sent me the following
I was informed yesterday that Jack Hyams passed away on Wednesday night and is henceforth netting once again with Bertie Joel in perhaps a better place. Jack was a club cricket legend scoring over £121,000 runs and 176 centuries. He had played some ten games in his 91st year when he suffered a series of paralysing strokes from which he never fully recovered. He had played for Cockfosters, Finchley, Mill Hill, Stoics, MCC, Bunburrys, Nomads, Forty Club, Club Cricket Conference, Cricket World XI, Bertie Jowell XI. He was Life President of the Barmy Army.
Old Danes Gathering 2012
The 2012 Old Danes Gathering will be held on Friday 27 July. Once again Shepherds Bush CC have kindly agreed to host this event. The Gathering will take place between 2pm and 8pm and we hope to see as many Old Danes as can make it. Even if you can only pop in for an hour you will be warmly greeted and made to feel welcome. There will be a bar and food available throughout. Please let me know whether you plan to attend and I will circulate a list regularly between now and the event.
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 114
June 2012
Out and About with the Professor
A visit from Northants might not be thought to whet the appetite but it was a lovely day, I needed cheering up, and so I toddled off to Leeds HQ to see t’chaps. I was particularly interested to see Yorkshire’s new signing, Mitchell Starc, who I had only seen on TV before.
Yorkshire have learnt from last years’ policy of playing an (almost) only Yorkshire-born side. This was very popular and had a great deal to recommend it, unless that is, you wanted to win a cricket match. As a result they have added to the two regular overseas players the old boy Phil Jaques and the new boy Starc. Northants, by the way, seem to have gone in the opposite direction and shed their United Nations side for a largely UK outfit. Andrew Hall is of course a permanent fixture and I think we might deduce that Con de Wet de Lange did not come into this world anywhere north of the Limpopo.
I suppose some pundit will describe Starc as medium fast but I have to say that as I stood at square leg sipping my coffee from the elegant “Headingley Experience” cardboard cup, medium he was not. The shorter balls that Barstow took at shoulder height some 20 yards back were not very medium at all…and the four slips and a gully that Gale employed were also a bit of a clue. The Yorkshire boys with the wit and novelty for which cricket teams are famous call him “Starkers” and together with Patterson and Sidebottom it looks as if Yorkshire now have a decent pace attack. At least any one playing Yorkshire this year will get plenty of practice playing left arm seamers. Amid all the euphoria about the England pace attack: “best ever” according to Alec Stewart, with “vast strength in depth”, it might do to reflect on the Australian quicks who with Siddle, Pattinson, Starc and Cummins look a far from shabby outfit.
The other point of interest for me was the Northants wicketkeeper, David Murphy. It seems he was born in Welwyn Garden City and was educated in Hertford at the school at the end of our garden. I don’t recall seeing too many balls in the vegetable patch so I wondered how he might do and the answer was not bad at all – at least compared to some of his colleagues. He batted in the compulsory No.7 spot and handled Starc’s short stuff very well (one trusts Master Bairstow was taking notes), he also hit a huge six off Rafiq (playing instead of Rashid) and so perhaps the courgettes weren’t that safe after all. I don’t think M S Dhoni should be worried that his pre-eminence is under threat but it was nice to see a local boy do good.
While at HQ I picked up a copy of a new cricket paper cleverly titled “The Cricket Paper”. The editorial promises weekly coverage of cricket from Tests to villages. The first edition had reports on all the county games and also on all the 25 (?) ECB Premier Leagues. As I flicked through the 44 pages I could not but reflect on the pleasure the new publication would give to the Assn. of Cricket Statisticians – 44 pages worth of possible errors! What fun!
Middlesex and other matters
The Great Jack Morgan is now well into his stride
It was great that 91% of County cricketers "consider the Championship the most important competition and that 93% believe that it should retain a symmetrical fixture list under which teams in each of the two divisions play the others home and away". So up yours D Morgan! I'm not so sure about the £1m prize for the T20 winners though.
If anyone were to call Middlesex a bunch of hopeless tossers, it would be hard to disagree. After Neil Dexter twice lost important tosses, Chris Rogers has now done exactly the same thing and on all four occasions, Middlesex have been asked to bat first on seaming pitches. There was no play on day 1 of the Championship match at Lord's against Worcestershire and frequent interruptions on days 2 and 3, but Middlesex made a good start with Straussy (49) playing some good shots and Robbo (59) looking untroubled as the pair put on 80 for the first wicket, but the familiar collapse occurred as the lads slumped from 125 for 1 to 210 for 6. That this did not turn into another debacle was due almost entirely to a splendid innings by Joe Denly, playing better than I had ever seen him before. However, Joe was getting minimal support from his partners until Gareth Berg, batting at 8, contributed a useful 36 to a seventh wicket stand of 88, while Denly was on 134* (19 fours and a six) when the surprise declaration came at 327-7.
The Great Alan Richardson (5-89) was magnificent for Worcs and David Lucas deserved better reward than a solitary wicket, but the back up bowling looked very weak and Richardson and Lucas had to bowl 63 of the 86 overs of the Middlesex innings. Some sages were critical of Rogers's declaration, considering the loss of probably two more batting points as too big a price to pay for the extremely remote chance of forcing a victory with little more than a day of the match left. However, Chris obviously knew that the visitors' batting was just as poor as their bowling and he shrewdly persuaded Daryl Mitchell to declare on their overnight score of 45-2, forfeited the Middlesex second innings and invited Worcs to chase 283 to win on the last day. This was soon looking like brilliant captaincy as Worcs quickly descended to 35 for 4. The only resistance came from James Cameron (30 including 6 fours) and a spirited ninth wicket stand of 54 between 18 year old Aneesh Kapil (21*) and Dick Jones (32 off 33 balls with 2 sixes) who took a particular liking to Dawid Malan's leg breaks.
However, the innings lasted only 48 overs as Worcs were all out for 150 and Middlesex won in comfort by 132 runs. Toby Roland-Jones (4 for 31 in the match) and Tim Murtagh (4 for 65 in the match) were the most successful bowlers, with Gareth Berg and Steve Finn helping out with a couple of wickets each. This win lifted Middlesex into third place in Division One of the Championship (with a game in hand over Notts), while the only surprise regarding Worcestershire's lowly position is that there is actually one team (Durham) below them in the table. Middlesex 19 points, Worcs 2.
Tuesday's news was that TSRJ has a foot injury and misses the Notts game, with Corey the expected deputy. The early news on Wed morning was that Ollie was the surprise deputy for Toby. Middlesex made it five lost tosses out of five, but this time Notts chose to bat so the lads had their first chance to bowl first this season and Finny took immediate advantage by bowling Neil Edwards first ball. It did not go so well after that, but Ollie had a great game (145* and 5 wkts) and I liked Rogers's positive attitude to getting a result by declaring at 300, though it did not impress Read, of course, who killed the game stone dead.
Middlesex's long serving 2nd XI scorer, Andrew Jones, has apparently been sacked. The immediate effect of this was that there were no team sheets available at Richmond. My first thought was that he had got his just desserts for shovelling all the tea time sandwiches and cakes down his gullet and any remaining into his pockets for later, but then I heard a rumour that he was actually dismissed for removing his strides in the scorebox in warm weather, which had led to complaints from female scorers!
A Message from the Outer Fringes of Cricket
The Professor sent me this
My good friend and Googlies correspondent Douglas Miller, sent me this from the Nether World of the Assn of Cricket Statisticians.
Douglas had been asked the following:
Does anyone happen to know the first class record last wicket partnership by
twin brothers? I have just seen the Overtons add 38 unbeaten for Somerset.
His response was:
Some individual discussion has failed to suggest any previous pair of twins
who might have batted together for the last wicket in first class cricket,
so it is possible that the Overtons set the record just by the fact of
batting together. I would particularly welcome confirmation or contradiction
of this.
As well as being twin brothers, neither Overton had previously scored a run
in first class cricket as Jamie was making his debut and Craig had made 0 in
his only previous innings, so we could also ask for the record last wicket
partnership where neither player had previously scored a run. Any similar cases welcome, relevant to my original question or otherwise.
Isn’t that exciting? And just think what we were doing the other day. We just went to the cricket and watched the game. What dull chaps we are! We could have been asking ourselves how often a former Australian opening bat had scored 180 at Headingley in May having previously been run out in Adelaide from a direct hit from a Warwickshire player who was born in Cape Town…………………………
Wullers Matters
Alec Cullen was in 2L in 1959 with the GJM and me. He sent me these photos recently
I've been meaning to send you these two snaps for a while now. They're of Ricky Ponting scoring his redemptive century, and the muddy celebration that followed. A professional newspaper photographer actually contacted me to ask what equipment I used after he saw them on Facebook! I was very flattered.
Dick Boothroyd
At the beginning of the 1970 season a tall figure entered the ground at the Bowls gate one evening and strolled across the ground with a duffle bag slung over one shoulder. He didn’t say much but joined in the net practise after introductions and caused a few sniggers as he performed in old high sided canvas boots and a white polo shirt.
He had no pretensions to batting but bowled seamers off a few paces. Most quickly assessed that he would play third or at best second eleven cricket, that is those watching from the sidelines but not the batsmen who faced him in the nets. He was deceptively quicker than expected from such a short run up.
After early attempts to talk down his performances by the skippers of the lower elevens in order to hang onto him, he soon found himself elevated to the first eleven. His appearance didn’t change and inevitably he was initially misjudged by opposition batsmen. His strengths were his accuracy, deceptive pace and extraordinary stamina. He could seemingly keep it up indefinitely.
One evening in the nets I batted last and after about fifteen minutes most of the players drifted off to the showers or the bar. Dick asked if I minded batting on for a bit. I always enjoyed batting on a good surface in the nets and agreed. Because of his short run he bowled a lot of balls and there was little respite at my end. After an hour it was getting gloomy and Dick reluctantly decided to call it a day. It was the most exhausting work out that I can remember.
We rarely saw Dick at the crease but he did bat memorably on one occasion. In the sixties the all day Bank Holiday fixtures against Hornsey were contested like test matches. In August it was our turn to visit Crouch End and we lost wickets steadily chasing a not overwhelming total. Dick emerged at the fall of the ninth wicket when it was imperative that he survive a few balls to secure a face saving draw. He slogged the second ball he faced straight up in the air and that was that.
That visit to Hornsey was also memorable for witnessing the worst lunch I experienced in nineteen years of club cricket. Most of us left the strange cooked concoction on the plate but Dick methodically worked his way through his own and most of the rest of the team’s helpings.
At the end of the season he went out of the Bowls Gate and was never seen again. The eagle eyed spotted in the papers a Boothroyd who appeared for a northern Minor County which may or may not have been him.
I asked Allen Bruton if he could help out with this vignette and he sent me the following
Memories of Dick Boothroyd tend to be somewhat fragmented, although Hornsey do feature in a few. On the personal front he came from Brighouse in Yorkshire which to most of us meant little other than when coupled with Rastrick to form a brass band. Fairly sure he had attended Durham University, was employed by the B.B.C. and lived in digs somewhere near the club. Would rarely play on Sundays, not on religious grounds, but this was when he went to an aunt living in Enfield and was fed his only decent meal of the week. This leads on to the dreadful Hornsey lunch.
The game would have been 11.30 start and almost certainly a Bank Holiday Monday, Dick having lunched at aunties the day before. Rumour had it that Don Nute had combined catering manager duties with those of groundsman. What we were served can only be described as pork fat strips, the sort of thing that might be hung on a birdfeeder to attract blue tits. Needless to say plates were pushed to one side the pork fat untouched, although it was soon noticed many were going in the direction of Dick who must have demolished the contents of at least five or six.
I believe it was the same day as the infamous lunch that Dick was batting at number eleven, two overs remaining,60/70 runs required, enormous heave, ball straight up in the air, duly caught and game lost. An apoplectic Cordaroy was given the explanation that Roger Pearman had annoyed him by saying he could not bat. Obviously an early example of sledging.
A game at Tunbridge Wells comes to mind when Brian Moor, a very good bat, was clean bowled by Dick for a duck. He was later was heard to say that it was the first time he had been bowled by somebody wearing a bloody tennis shirt. You may remember that Dick wore a little short sleeved Fred Perry shirt under the hand knitted sweater.
Obviously the maiden over bowled to Roger Pearman in a six a side is often recalled. I also remember a batsman seeing Dick stop the ball from crossing the boundary with his boot, assumed he could take on his arm for a second run. Predictably he was run out by several yards.
And then this
You really should not have set me off on this. I have now been to cricketarchive.com and fed R Boothroyd Staffordshire seasons 1974-1980 into the player oracle search. The bowling analyses are truly remarkable and would seem to confirm this to be our R.Boothroyd. Even more conclusive is the fact that in the 29 games he was always number eleven and amassed a grand total of 11 runs. Seems Roger Pearman may have been correct about his batting ability and it seems they met again when Roger was playing for Cheshire.
Headingley Matters
I have been lucky with the weather on my trips to Headingley and the first day of the Yorkshire Hampshire game was no exception. After days of gloomy wet and cold weather it was sunny and warm for the most part although the wind was cold. The Prof and I took up our favourite positions in the north east stand and we were encouraged by the wicket being pitched on that side of the ground. Hampshire won the toss and opened with Adams and Dawson who were both soon back in the hutch. This flattered Yorkshire’s opening attack of Sidebotham and Patterson who were unimpressive. When the former gave way to McGrath any pressure that the openers had imposed was immediately released and runs started to flow. McGrath will probably skipper the 2012 version of the Fatties Eleven and his gentle medium pacers are a throwback to an earlier era of uncovered pitches and he is the sort of bloke you would love to face in the nets if you wanted to play yourself back into form. At the other end Patterson gave way to Wardlaw who was the quickest on show but he sprayed it around and was also expensive. However, he did pick up the wicket of a very disappointed Carberry and when Patterson returned to dismiss Vince Hampshire went into lunch at 92 for 4 and the locals were expecting to see their beloved side bat before tea.
Hampshire’s two most experienced players, Katich and Ervine, were at the crease and in the afternoon session they were untroubled. Sidebotham must have had an enormous lunch because he could not generate anything more than wayward medium pace and was picked off. Rashid, who is now an experienced cricketer, bowls like a novice and is able to create none of the trepidation that the accomplished leg spinner will in the batsman. I suspect that he should seek a change of county to bring him fresh life.
Meanwhile Katich was making untroubled and rapid progress. He lost Ervine, who holed out to Root, but reached his hundred before tea from just 99 balls by which time Hampshire had recovered to 231 for 5. Michael Bates, who is the preferred successor to Nic Pothas, joined Katich and he was soon tucking into the friendly fare being served up. These two batted through to the close by which time Hampshire had reached 352 for 5 with Katich on 170 and Bates on 88.
Root was the only bowler after lunch to exert any pressure and Yorkshire’s bowling seems slim. The Prof told me that they had just recruited the Australian Starc to bolster their resources but having seen him in a televised game at Hove it is hard to see how he will improve things.
The day was very reminiscent of my day at Headingley in 2011 when Warwickshire recovered from a tricky start to post a substantial total. Last year it was Chanderpaul who gave a batting masterclass and this year it was Katich. Both went about their task in an unfussy and untroubled way and took the attack apart with relentless ease. They were both undefeated with big hundreds and the overseas player has much to teach the locals.
A day out in Liverpool
I made my debut at Liverpool CC for the third day of Middlesex’ match against Lancashire. Middlesex started the third day on 155 for 5 in reply to Lancashire’s 392 which had been built on Prince’s 144. I was hoping to see some resistance and then a fight back from Dexter and Simpson and with Rayner and Berg still to come I was anticipating Middlesex getting to within reach of the Lancashire score by mid afternoon. Silly me. Dexter succumbed to Chapple given out caught at slip by the square leg umpire. When Simpson played back to Kerrigan all of us on the bleachers at mid wicket gave him out LBW. Rayner went cheaply and Berg holed out after some lusty blows. By the time Collymore was bowled by Shahzad Middlesex had fallen short of the follow on figure.
The Lancashire fielders show an extraordinary degree of sycophancy towards their captain. When a batsmen leaves one of his deliveries the whole slip cordon shout “well bowled” and other pointless platitudes; when Dexter middled one the cries were even more encouraging and the harder he hit defensive strokes the more claptrap came from behind the wicket. Of course they do have Gareth Cross keeping wicket and his imperfect glove work might be improved if he spent less time with his mouth open.
Lunch was taken and the extraordinary news reached us that Lancashire would not be enforcing the follow on. I could only deduce that Chapple had been told that they needed the fourth day gate receipts. Horton and Moore opened and were soon ticking over against Murtagh and Collymore. It was a surprise when Rayner took an excellent one handed catch at second slip to dismiss Moore. Karl Brown joined Horton and they feasted off the wayward Berg who had to be taken off after three overs. By this time Rayner was bowling at one end and Dexter was tried at the other but he went the same way as Berg. At this point Middlesex’ selection of bowling for this match was looking decidedly suspect and things started to get worse.
Middlesex have three occasional leg spinners in their ranks-Denly, Malan and Rogers. The barrel was being well and truly scraped when Denly was brought on to test the by now rampart batsmen with a series of gentle full tosses and half volleys. It looked as if Middlesex were bowling for an early declaration. But things got worse. Malan came on for the last over before tea and his second delivery pitched closer to him than Horton who obligingly spooned it straight to Morgan. Horton was beside himself with disgust as he missed out on the easiest hundred he will ever be offered. After tea Malan continued with an embarrassing mixture of long hops and full tosses and the game degenerated to something akin to a poor beer match in which the beer was being consumed during the proceedings. The procession of Lancashire batsmen continued as they took turns to smash boundaries and hole out. This was a very poor advert for first division cricket.
Chapple decided to leave himself fourteen overs to bowl at Middlesex and when he declared at 266 for 8 Malan led the Middlesex players off having taken a career best 5 for 61. This was first order rinse and Middlesex should be ashamed of their performance with the ball. Rogers and Robson negotiated the final overs without any real alarms. Chapple did not set any very attacking fields. I didn’t see the champions in action last year and this was my first view of them this season. Chapple’s captaincy was poor and when Middlesex batted out the final day for the loss of one wicket his decision not to enforce the follow on must be seriously in question.
Four Days at the Oval
Paddy Carlin bewails lost glory and tells us more
No more Montpellier Club, which is not surprising since it cost $£8020 a pop and didn’t include food and drink, but now I am the guest of Roger Hamilton-Brown in the Kennington Club which is also spectacularly underused and overpriced at £1700. When will the marketing boys at Surrey realize that there is a recession and it is £1500 a year cheaper to be an ordinary member and get a better view from the pavilion?
Surrey v Somerset
Surrey lost the toss on a flat belter against Somerset with a short gas holder side boundary. Ramps, Dernbach and Linley were dropped. The latter two were probably delighted but the first would have welcomed the chance to regain form. The Surrey opening attack was poor. Lewis short and wide of the off stump, Jordan wide of both stumps and all over the place-just like Dernbach actually. The youthful and diminutive Barron helped himself to a rapid near 50 whilst Suppiah dug in. Runs came very freely with Suppiah accelerating and Compton keeping up his good run. They added almost 150 before Compton ran out Suppiah just after the latter had got his ton.
As the grandson of the great DCS who was surely the originator of the yes/no/wait/sorry school of running Nick was adhering to a fine family tradition. Incidentally I read recently that Chanderpaul has been involved in twenty four test run outs and the victim of only three. Are similar stats available for Boycott?
On this issue, Roger, a friend of Dennis Amiss, told me that Dennis had opened with Sir Geoffrey on his first test match and that not one word of encouragement had left Yorkshire lips on the way to the middle. Some time later Amiss was involved in a muddle with Boycott which ran Geoffrey out. Some matches later Amiss had recourse to complain to manager Ken Barrington that Boycott was continually trying to run him out. Elephants never forget.
Back to the cricket. Nice ton from Suppiah, 80 odd from Compton, nicer ton from Hildreth and quick runs from Kieswetter. With Maynard and Hamilton-Brown in the Surrey eleven and Suppiah, Hildreth and Kieswetter playing for the visitors there really seemed to be too many Millfield old boys on the pitch. There are many more around the counties so along with being South African this seems a good way to get into a county team. Only Surrey’s South Africans, Meaker and de Bruyn, looked like taking a wicket on the first day although George Edwards looked very promising. Somerset reached 450 for 5.
On day two Surrey did rather better racing though the batsmen through Meaker and Lewis until the giant Overton twins added forty odd for the last wicket. When Surrey batted Rudolph failed again but Davies scored a splendid century. Roy smashed it around fro half an hour and de Bruyn scored a half century. Day two ended with Maynard again looking a very good player on 63 not out and Surrey rattling along at four an over. Vernon Philander looks a more than useful quick bowler and if he is the third or fourth best South African seamer after Steyn, Morkel and others then it would not be entirely wise for England to prepare wickets to suit their pace attack. A slow turner for Swann might be better.
Surrey v Warwickshire
Beautiful day; good wicket which might turn later; win the toss and bat. Easy and Surrey did it. Result –all out in 60 overs. Most batsmen got set and then got out to the Warwicks all pace attack. Davies and Hamilton-Brown both looking very good ran themselves out in the thirties. Maynard and Lewis got there too but all in all it was very poor. It also allowed the Warwicks batsmen to take no chances at allto reach 100 for 1 after 35 overs with a view to scoring another slow 250 odd the next day.
Surrey captain Rory Hamilton-Brown gets a 6.15am text from his manager summoning him to the Oval for an 8am meeting. According to Dad the poor lad is suffering from flu like symptoms and worries about the job anyway. So is this good management? Mr Adams might well say yes because the next day Surrey had very much the better of things as Batty with six wickets and Hamilton-Brown himself with a tidy spell of off spin ran through the Warwicks batting after Meaker had wrecked the stumps of Traughton and Maddy.
The Surrey second innings showed exactly why the the management is sos concerned. In the first hour Roy was magnificent as he and Davies put on 40 in seven overs and then he and de Bruyn added 50 in the next yen. It couldn’t last and it didn’t. In rapid succession 88 for 1 became 108 for 4 leaving Rudolph and Maynard to play out the day. All in all a really good day of county cricket.
Nine Reasons why the Rangers should have been relegated
It pains me to say so but here they are:
1. They brought shame on the Premiership and disgrace on themselves with nine red cards which meant that they played a quarter of their games with ten men.
2. They fielded some of the slowest players in the league including Ferdinand and Derry.
3. They lost 4-0 at home to Bolton.
4. They paraded outdated and ridiculous red and white quarters for their away kit at Stamford Bridge.
5. Cisse’s absurd dyed beard
6. They lost at home to Wolves
7. Stoke’s goal against Bolton was clearly a foul.
8. They still haven’t worked out that Sean Wright-Phillips is no good. Chelsea and Manchester City know this. It’s why he never played for them.
9. Employing Joey Barton.
Jack Hyams
Michael Blumberg sent me the following
I was informed yesterday that Jack Hyams passed away on Wednesday night and is henceforth netting once again with Bertie Joel in perhaps a better place. Jack was a club cricket legend scoring over £121,000 runs and 176 centuries. He had played some ten games in his 91st year when he suffered a series of paralysing strokes from which he never fully recovered. He had played for Cockfosters, Finchley, Mill Hill, Stoics, MCC, Bunburrys, Nomads, Forty Club, Club Cricket Conference, Cricket World XI, Bertie Jowell XI. He was Life President of the Barmy Army.
Old Danes Gathering 2012
The 2012 Old Danes Gathering will be held on Friday 27 July. Once again Shepherds Bush CC have kindly agreed to host this event. The Gathering will take place between 2pm and 8pm and we hope to see as many Old Danes as can make it. Even if you can only pop in for an hour you will be warmly greeted and made to feel welcome. There will be a bar and food available throughout. Please let me know whether you plan to attend and I will circulate a list regularly between now and the event.
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