Meet the Team
GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 161
May 2016
Caption Competition
1. Jonathan Agnew: I really like your smile, Joe.
Joe Root: Thanks, Jonathan.
2. Jonathan Agnew: I used to roll over pups like you before breakfast, Joe.
Joe Root: I believe you, Jonathan.
3. Jonathan Agnew: Do you like my pale blue mic, Joe?
Joe Root: Yes it’s very nice, Jonathan.
4. Jonathan Agnew: Is it true that you are a shelf stacker for Waitrose, Joe?
Joe Root: Yes, Jonathan.
5. Jonathan Agnew: Did you follow my career when you were a lad, Joe?
Joe Root: No, I thought that you were Henry Blofeld.
6. Jonathan Agnew: Who is going to bat in the middle order for England this year?
Joe Root: It doesn’t matter; Cooky and I will get the runs.
7. Jonathan Agnew: Do you think that we will see Kevin back in an England shirt this summer?
Joe Root: Kevin who?
8. The Barmy Army: Rooooooooot!
Out and About with the Professor
The county championship got underway when I was, somewhat inconveniently, some 5000 miles away. But I needn't have worried: when I got home things were pretty much as expected, Bairstow had made a double hundred, several games had been snowed-off and my copy of Wisden had arrived.
I confess to struggling somewhat with the Booth editorial in Wisden. It is not the content - I more or less agree with his stance on things - especially the shambles at senior administration levels, the collapse of the “Big 3” take over, etc – and I think he is right to crow a little over the resurgence of the England team (after all, it’s been a while). It is more a question of style. I think the jokey colloquial style doesn't quite come off. It's better in my memory than was last year's (or perhaps I'm just becoming inured) but for me, while desiccated formalistic prose is no fun, joke references that are not funny are best avoided. Still he reviews a number of the issues we have referenced in this journal and covers the year well enough.
The "Editors Notes" are, however, a good deal better read than the article that follows by Patrick Collins about drinking. Why anyone would have thought this worthy of inclusion in the volume I have no idea. Mr Collins’ pompous condescension about people drinking at cricket matches is as tiresome an exercise as it is pointless. He tells us that people in the Barmy Army wear old T-shirts with slogans on them, and that the crowd chant “Oh Jimmy, Jimmy” when Anderson comes on to bowl. Oh really? Where has this man been for the past 40 years? It is the smug condescension of the piece that really sets it apart. I can’t see why anyone would want to write it but a far greater mystery is why Booth would want to publish it.
Happily there is some interesting stuff as well. There is a very sensible discussion of the impact in the (not too distant) past of racism in county cricket - specifically the failure of Asian ethnic cricketers to make it into first class cricket. I remember discussing this with you James some 10 years ago about Yorkshire cricket and the Bradford league and the length of time it took for one "Asian" player to get into the first team. Times have changed but, Andrew Miller argues, there is still an under representation of players with sub continental heritage at the top flight given that they represent, apparently, something like 40% of recreational cricketers.
I liked (as it were) the article on deaths in cricket and there some nice tributes to Benaud. We talked about his style of commentating after he died and the comparison with the frantic puerile jabbering of Ponting et al on the "Big Bash" could hardly be more stark. Last year I asked Atherton why they talked so much in commentaries these days, often describing exactly what you had just seen on the screen. His answer was that the Indian companies who take the "feed" want more not less commentary and so they are obliged to fill any possible silence with words, and more words. The Benaud days are, sad to say, gone forever.
For some reason we didn’t talk about the Wisden 5 this year and that is particularly annoying since the five: Bairstow, Smith, McCullum, Stokes and Williamson would have been fairly easy to predict.
There is, however, one glaring omission in this year’s Wisden. In the section about media and blogs there is absolutely no mention of Googlies and Chinamen…surely some mistake?
Underway Matters
As the new County Championship season starts I soon realise how little notice I have paid to cricket news through the winter months. Familiar names pop up in the wrong sides and I have to wait until my new Playfair Annual arrives in the post to work out the transfers that have taken place. There was a time when movement between counties was very rare and Tom Graveney’s move from Gloucestershire to Worcestershire was big news. Nowadays it is commonplace and even Yorkshire are happy to sign up players born in other counties. Indeed their pace attack of Plunkett, ex Durham, and Brooks, ex Northants, has now been supplemented by Willey, also ex Northants.
In this winter’s round the hapless Leicestershire seem to have been the busiest. They have snapped up Dexter, ex Middlesex, Horton, ex Lancs, O’Brien K, ex many counties and Pettini, ex Essex. Glamorgan have picked up Harry Podmore from Middlesex; Gloucestershire have Chris Liddle, ex Sussex; Hampshire have Reece Topley, ex Essex; Sussex have Danny Briggs ex Hampshire; Middlesex have James Fuller from Gloucestershire; Derbyshire have Andrew Carter from Notts and Tom Milnes from Warwickshire; Surrey have Mark Foottit from Derbyshire and Essex have Zaidi from Sussex.
These of course are in addition to the merry go round of International stars and not so stars who will be popping in and out of the season primarily for one day duties with all of the counties.
Equally I find myself wondering why some players are not getting selected only to find that they have been released or have retired. In this category are Clare and Wainwright both ex Derby; Smith G ex Essex; Andre Adams, Joe Gatting, Owais Shah and Sean Terry all ex Hants; Ben Harmison and Brendon Nash ex Kent; Boyce, Pinner and Redfearn ex Leics; Chambers, Coetzer and Peters ex Northants; Keedy ex Notts; Abdur Rehman, Bates, Dibble and Alfonso Thomas ex Somerset; Linley, Solanki, Tremlett ex Surrey; Burgoyne, Jackson, Piolet and Yardy ex Sussex; Andrew, Gabriel, Didman A ex Worcs and Hodgson, Middlebrook and Pyrah ex Yorks.
England Matters
I posed the following to The Great Jack Morgan:
I see that Zafar Ansari has resumed his Surrey career. Will he automatically leapfrog Dawson and Samit into the England squad or does he have to show form first? Dawson , of course, had no form when he was selected. Samit, on the other hand has form and experience and achievement on his side but this doesn’t seem to be enough in his case.
Is Bell going to get back into the test side? Taylor’s retirement will make it easier for him. It is tricky trying to work out who is being considered for which England side. Buttler and Morgan are playing in the IPL and so presumably are out of test match reckoning? Does this mean that Bairstow is now the unopposed wicket keeper of choice? Are we going to see a left armer (Footitt or Topley) or will we be sticking to Anderson, Broad, Finn and Plunkett as well as Stokes? Wood is back or should I say still on the sick list. His career must seriously be in doubt now. Is Robson back in the running. Indeed is there an incumbent opening bat? Is Hales he, or is he already written off? Is Compton an incumbent? I think I have answered my own question-Bell is bound to get back in.
Jack replied
I do not think that either Ansari or Dawson has done enough to get in the Eng team, but I would prefer either of them to Samit. I disagree that Dawson had "no form" when selected (see figures above) and strongly disagree that Samit has "form, experience and achievement" especially if you are talking international cricket: his batting may be OK (but not for a specialist batter) but his bowling and fielding are both weak. His Test batting ave is 32.13 (OK for a no 7 say), but his bowling ave is 45.45! In fc cricket Samit has the best batting record, but the worst bowling record despite having much more experience than the other 2 rather callow chaps. Here are the fc career records:
bat bowl
Ansari 32.1 35.1
Dawson 34.2 36.3
Patel 37.3 40.0
Bell has a good chance of getting back into the Eng side of course, but he will have to do better than he did at Lord's recently; he looked nowhere near as good as Robson or Trott and not quite as good as Oliver Hannon-Dalby! Anderson, Broad, Finn and Stokes are surely the four most likely Eng seam bowlers, but others (Plunkett, Woakes, Willey, Footitt?) might be in with a shout.
Footitt was not in the T20 squad was he? They only take 14 don’t they? The 3 “reserves” were Vince, Dawson and Plunkett/ Topley. Footy went to SA and after not particularly impressing in the warm-ups, he was out because there were no more matches for the fringe players. He is already 30, so he will have to do very well for Surrey (not impossible, but maybe unlikely at his age) to get in unless injuries to others assist him.
Dawson has always been a useful batsman who is also capable of getting some turn on helpful wickets. Last season he averaged 40.08 with bat and 31.93 with the ball, including games for both Hampshire and Essex, which is not bad (sorry I do not have any T20 figures). I assume that with such a small squad, they wanted someone who could cover spinners and batters should injury arise (and who would also provide a left arm option) and as Ansari was not fit enough, they went for Liam.
Middlesex Matters
The Great Jack Morgan was at Lord’s for the season’s opener
In line with the new rules, there was no toss on the first day of the Championship match against Warwickshire at Lord's on April 17th because the visitors' skipper, Ian Bell, fancied a bowl. Middlesex left out James Fuller, Ollie Rayner and Paul Stirling from their squad of 14, leaving them with 4 pace bowlers (Steve Finn, Tim Murtagh, Jimmy Harris and Toby Roland-Jones) no specialist spinner and back-up from part time bowlers James Franklin (left arm slow medium), captain Adam Voges (SLA) and Dawid Malan (leg spin).
Sam Robson dominated an excellent opening partnership of 180 with Nick Gubbins before the latter departed for a sound 68 with 11 fours. Robson was looking right back to his best and passed his century off 158 balls, but two more wickets fell quickly leaving Middlesex on 211-3. Voges helped Sam add 52 for the fourth wicket, then John Simpson joined Robbo in a fine stand of 107 for the fifth wicket before Simmo fell for an attractive 52 with 8 fours and a six. This began a bad spell for the home team as they slumped from 370-4 to 415-9. Having just hit Patel for six over long off, Robson tried it again next ball and this time was caught at long off: he was seventh out for a superb 231 off 345 balls with 30 fours and a six. It was the best innings I have seen him play and it was his second double century against Warwicks.
None of the rest of the Middlesex batsmen looked anywhere near as comfortable as Sam and the next highest score after Robson, Gubbins and Simpson was Steve Finn's 22* at no 11 as Middlesex were all out for a useful, but not exceptional (considering that one of the batters made 231) 452 before a delayed lunch on day 2. Kiwi off spinner Jeetan Patel was the outstanding bowler for the visitors (rather worryingly for the almost spinless home team) with 4 for 80.
When the visitors batted, Middlesex soon had two back in the pavilion with only 31 on the board, but then former captain Varun Chopra and ex-England stalwart Jon Trott steadied things with a fine stand of 77 for the third wicket before Chopra departed for an accomplished 57 off 89 balls with 8 fours. This was the first of four wickets to fall quite quickly to the Middlesex seamers and Warwicks looked in trouble at 173 for 6, but then ex-pro footballer Keith Barker strode to the wicket and the game turned in the visitors' favour. Trott and Barker put on 143 for the seventh wicket before Barker fell for a splendid 81 from 111 balls with 9 fours and a six, but then Trotty found another useful partner in Patel, who hit 5 fours and a six in his 30 out of a stand of 65 for the eighth wicket. Even this was not the end of the resistance as no 11, Oliver Hannon-Dalby (no batsman he with a career average of 6) also hit 5 fours and a six in his 30 as 67 more were added for the last wicket. There is no question these days of captains declaring behind the opposition's total to attempt to get a win, to try to inspire an interesting last day and to entertain spectators, so Bell batted on to 468 with Trott left on a magnificent 219 not out off 289 balls with 31 fours: it was a great effort (his highest ever in the Championship) and, as with Robson's innings, I do not think I have ever seen him play better. The four main Middlesex bowlers shared the wickets between them, with Murtagh returning the best figures of 3-68.
The home second innings got off to a bad start (20-2), but Robson was still there and Nick Compton joined him in a useful stand of 77 before departing for 44 with 5 fours. This brought skipper Voges to the wicket and worries about defeat disappeared as Sam and Adam put together a stand of 105 before Robbo surprisingly found himself stumped for another excellent effort of 106 off 195 balls with 12 fours, giving him the little matter of 337 runs in the game and he is the first Middlesex batsman ever to score a double century and a century in a first class match. Voges went on to 92 off 193 balls with 8 fours, sharing a stand of 82 with James Franklin, as the innings closed on 304-6.
The match was drawn, of course, with Middlesex taking 12 points and Warwicks 11 and Middlesex have not beaten Warwicks in 20 meetings since 2001. Warwicks added some variety to the closing stages by giving all of their 11 players a bowl and there were not many who had seen former England wicket keeper Tim Ambrose in action with the ball and he took his first ever first class wicket when he accounted for the Middlesex captain, who attempted a big heave into the Tavern stand, but was caught at deep mid wicket. Plenty of facts emerged about Robson's 337 runs in the match: he batted almost 13 hours, faced 540 deliveries, hit 42 fours and a six and broke assorted records held by such luminaries as AE (Andrew) Stoddart (most runs scored for the county at Lord's, 320, a record that has stood for 123 years), Jack Robertson (most runs scored in a Championship match for the county, 331 at Worcester in 1949) and Paul Weekes (another who made 331 against Somerset at Uxbridge in 1996, but his comprised two innings of 171* and 160).
Ged was also there for days two and three
Monday
‘Twas the second day of Middlesex’s cricket season and my first glimpse of live cricket for far too long. Charley “the Gent” Malloy was my guest for the day.
I went to the gym first thing, then on to the bakers for fresh bread and then the flat to prepare the picnic. Cray fish, breakfast muffins and wild Alaskan salmon in poppy-seed bagels formed the highlight of the feast. A fruity little Kiwi Riesling was the highlight beverage.
On my way to Lord’s, I noticed that King Cricket had that very day published my piece about visiting the Ashes test with Daisy, less than nine moths after the event. This coincidence seemed most timely to me, not least because I wanted to discuss with Charley the future of my “match reports” in this brave new Ogblog era.
Charley was waiting for me at the Grace Gate and looked at his watch as I arrived, as if to say “where have you been?” In fact, we had both arrived some minutes ahead of the appointed hour, which was probably just as well, as Charley wasn’t moving too quickly. “Done me knee,” said Charley.
“I’m not in the best of knee health myself,” I said, as my ignominious tumble on the real tennis court on Seaxe AGM day was still causing me gyp in the knee department, not least because I had managed a couple of unfortunate knocks on just the wrong spot since. “We’ll swap knee stories when we sit down”, said Charley, which we did. Charley’s was worse. Much worse.
In accordance with our tradition, Charley and I sat on death row; the front row of the lower tier of the pavilion. Normally, our backs can only tolerate death row for a while, but as it turned out, our knee problems probably served to mask any back pain. Further, with Charley’s limited mobility and no chance of sun that day anywhere in the ground, we ended up staying put on death row for the whole day.
I described to Charley my correspondence with King Cricket on the matter of match reports henceforward. Charley liked my ideas about writing book reviews and recipes for King Cricket, while posting reports of this kind on Ogblog. I wondered whether I should revert to real names here on Ogblog, but Charley felt that the characters’ names were a tradition and allowed me a bit more poetic licence. (Little does Charley realise that I write with reckless abandon, at least in the matter of creative licence, regardless of naming conventions).
While all this was going on, my understanding is that there was a bit of a cricket match taking place on the lawn in front of us and that Sam Robson blessed us with the sight of him reaching a double-hundred. I hadn’t seen one of those since I caught the very end of Chris Rogers’ match winning double a couple of seasons ago in the match linked here. Not that you’d realise what had happened from the King Cricket match report linked here, as you are not allowed to say anything about the actual cricket in a KC report about a professional match.
It was seriously chilly but Charley and I had both wrapped up warm and were chatting eagerly; the start of the season holds so many exciting possibilities. So the day passed very quickly. With just over an hour left to play, the umpires decided that the slight gloom which had pervaded for much of the day had become a little too gloomy, so off came the players and that was that for the day. Charley and I stuck around for a while, partly in hope more than expectation and partly to warm up with some coffee inside the pavilion before heading home. We’d had a very good day.
Tuesday
I returned to Lord’s the next day, primarily for meetings, but with the hope and expectation that I’d get to see some cricket too. Indeed, as a couple of the meetings got postponed, I got to see much of the day’s cricket and get some good reading done.
It was a much sunnier day, so I decided to take up position on the north side of the middle tier balcony. As soon as I plonked myself down, I sensed that I might be blocking Dougie Brown’s view. So the moment I heard “excuse me”, in that unmistakable Scottish accent, I started to shift along the row and checked that all now had a clear view. Dougie was chatting with Peter Such and soon Graham Thorpe joined them, but my mind was firmly on my book, A Confederacy of Dunces (read nothing into the juxtaposition, folks) and of course I was taking in the cricket.
Despite the sun, it still wasn’t warm and I hadn’t donned my thermals on the Tuesday. Also, I was quite peckish by about 12:30, as Charley and I had picnicked sensibly the day before and/but I had only snacked in the evening. So I went to the upstairs bar and bought a nice chunky sandwich and a hot cup of coffee for my lunch, both of which I downed with great pleasure. The bar was mostly populated with Warwickshire 1882 Club members talking exclusively about soccer football.
After my lunch, I retired to the writing room, where I thought I’d get some quiet and a decent view of the cricket protected from the cold. To some extent, my plan worked, especially the matter of getting some reading done and shield myself from the cold.
But my attempts to make headway with this Ogblog piece were continually thwarted. Initially, for a few brief minutes, I was distracted by the arms of Morpheus. Then when play resumed, there were interruptions and enough going on in the cricket to tear me away repeatedly from my little Kindle Fire gadget. No matter.
The interruptions came primarily in two forms:
Unpleasant aerial noise from a plethora of helicopters overhead;
Pleasant conversation with the other residents of the writing room; initially about the aerial aural bombardment, which we attributed to President Obama, I believe correctly.
After the helicopter crescendo and witnessing Trott complete his double-hundred (they seem to be like double-decker buses, these double-hundreds), I then had an interesting chat with a couple of the remaining writing room gentlemen. The younger of the two had been a teacher at Highbury Grove School when Rhodes Boyson was the head, which made for an interesting chat. I said that I remembered protesting against Boyson’s cuts when he was an Education Minister and I was a student. The older of the two gentlemen suggested that they might be in the company of a dangerous leftist, to which I countered that the chap who had been teaching in an Islington Comprehensive in the 1970s had, by definition, more “dangerous leftist credentials” than me.
I did not share with those gentlemen the clear memory, which popped into my head, of an anti-cuts protest we staged in the early 1980s outside the UGC Building in Bloomsbury. I’ll need to go through my diaries to write that one up properly and no doubt Simon Jacobs will again deny all memory of the business. Suffice it to say here that a similarly garbed non-violent protest stunt, staged these days, might be inadvisable to say the very least.
I was spotted by one or two other friends and associates at that writing room table, who stopped by for an early season hello and quick chat. Richard Goatley arrived to whisk me away soon after those interludes, so I had a quick drink with Richard and a few other people in the Bowlers’ Bar, then headed for home a few overs before stumps.
I asked Jack
There were a lot of runs in all the games, which I suppose is down to the dry weather despite the incessant cold. But what happened to the Lord’s greentops? Either Robson and Gubbins were fantastic or the policy has been changed.
He replied
It is too soon to know for certain about the Lord's "greentops", but surfaces have (reportedly) changed all over the country because of the uncontested tosses. The season starts early to allow for more and more T20 and because players demand more rest between matches. I am against Sunday starts because our Sunday train "service" is so awful: we get one train per hour... if it is not cancelled because of engineering work
IPL MattersI saw some of the early IPL matches including de Kock’s hundred and Chris Morris also caught the eye with the ball. He didn’t get to the wicket in any of the matches I saw. Playfair doesn’t give his height but I gauge that he must be 6’ 5” and is genuinely quick. He will be performing for Surrey in their T20 campaign and it will be interesting to see him in English conditions. Kohli looked magnificent again but he is unlikely to risk his reputation over here. De Villiers played an extraordinary knock and I also saw a re run of his 156 off 56 balls against WI. I had not previously seen it and the hitting was amazing although there were some dropped catches.
A major feature of the IPL has been the quality of Indian seam bowling. Some of them seem to have mastered length and width and various ways of delivering the slower ball. Bumrah and Shami stand out but the absolute master of this is Bravo. I had planned to get some gardening done in the week before I came over but cold winds and the IPL every afternoon scuppered these intents.
Adamson Matters
I received the following from Stephen Adamson
A writer friend of mine and I attended the Middx Yorks match at Lords in September. It was a fascinating match full of swings of fortune, and my friend, Tim Cawkwell, has written a short illustrated book about it. He believes, fairly enough, that it represents the best of county cricket.
CRICKET’S PURE PLEASURE is the account, in words and images, of a remarkable four-day game of cricket played at Lord’s in September 2015 between Yorkshire and Middlesex.
It opened with high drama when Yorkshire’s Ryan Sidebottom bowled a triple-wicket maiden at the start of the game, and closed spectacularly on the fourth day when Yorkshire suffered a batting collapse. In between was a magnificent 149 from Nick Compton that led the way in wresting the initiative from Yorkshire. To these ingredients were added the absorbing attritional cricket that makes the long form of the game so compelling. At the end Middlesex were the victors but Yorkshire were crowned worthy County Champions.
CRICKET’S PURE PLEASURE takes the reader through the highs and lows, the quick movements and slow movements, the loud and the soft of cricket in its greatest form. Where words fall short of conveying the splendour of the whole, the photographs take up the challenge, so that the book as a whole aims to give some insight into the pure pleasure, free of blemish of any kind, that cricket can provide.
TIM CAWKWELL is the author of several books – on the cinema (‘Film Past, Film Future’ and ‘The New Filmgoer’s Guide to God’) and travel (books about Sicily, the Hebrides and Tivoli near Rome). He runs his own self-publishing imprint, SFORZINDA BOOKS, from Norwich where he lives.
CRICKET’S PURE PLEASURE is his first book on cricket. It is available both as a paperback at £8.90 and as a digital book at £3.50.
Format: 8.5 in. x 8.5 in./21.5 x 21.5 cm., 60 pages, 65 photographs.
For more information contact: [email protected]
CRICKET’S PURE PLEASURE
the story of an extraordinary match
Middlesex v. Yorkshire, September 2015
by Tim Cawkwell
Old Danes Gathering
There will be an Old Danes Gathering at Shepherds Bush Cricket Club on Friday 29 July 2016. All Old Danes, spouses and friends will be welcome as this is not a cricketer only event. The event will commence around 2pm and will continue into the evening or until everyone has left! The bar will be open throughout.
Googlies and Chinamen
is produced by
James Sharp
Broad Lee House
Combs
High Peak
SK23 9XA
Tel: 01298 70237
Email: [email protected]
www.googliesandchinamen.com
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 161
May 2016
Caption Competition
1. Jonathan Agnew: I really like your smile, Joe.
Joe Root: Thanks, Jonathan.
2. Jonathan Agnew: I used to roll over pups like you before breakfast, Joe.
Joe Root: I believe you, Jonathan.
3. Jonathan Agnew: Do you like my pale blue mic, Joe?
Joe Root: Yes it’s very nice, Jonathan.
4. Jonathan Agnew: Is it true that you are a shelf stacker for Waitrose, Joe?
Joe Root: Yes, Jonathan.
5. Jonathan Agnew: Did you follow my career when you were a lad, Joe?
Joe Root: No, I thought that you were Henry Blofeld.
6. Jonathan Agnew: Who is going to bat in the middle order for England this year?
Joe Root: It doesn’t matter; Cooky and I will get the runs.
7. Jonathan Agnew: Do you think that we will see Kevin back in an England shirt this summer?
Joe Root: Kevin who?
8. The Barmy Army: Rooooooooot!
Out and About with the Professor
The county championship got underway when I was, somewhat inconveniently, some 5000 miles away. But I needn't have worried: when I got home things were pretty much as expected, Bairstow had made a double hundred, several games had been snowed-off and my copy of Wisden had arrived.
I confess to struggling somewhat with the Booth editorial in Wisden. It is not the content - I more or less agree with his stance on things - especially the shambles at senior administration levels, the collapse of the “Big 3” take over, etc – and I think he is right to crow a little over the resurgence of the England team (after all, it’s been a while). It is more a question of style. I think the jokey colloquial style doesn't quite come off. It's better in my memory than was last year's (or perhaps I'm just becoming inured) but for me, while desiccated formalistic prose is no fun, joke references that are not funny are best avoided. Still he reviews a number of the issues we have referenced in this journal and covers the year well enough.
The "Editors Notes" are, however, a good deal better read than the article that follows by Patrick Collins about drinking. Why anyone would have thought this worthy of inclusion in the volume I have no idea. Mr Collins’ pompous condescension about people drinking at cricket matches is as tiresome an exercise as it is pointless. He tells us that people in the Barmy Army wear old T-shirts with slogans on them, and that the crowd chant “Oh Jimmy, Jimmy” when Anderson comes on to bowl. Oh really? Where has this man been for the past 40 years? It is the smug condescension of the piece that really sets it apart. I can’t see why anyone would want to write it but a far greater mystery is why Booth would want to publish it.
Happily there is some interesting stuff as well. There is a very sensible discussion of the impact in the (not too distant) past of racism in county cricket - specifically the failure of Asian ethnic cricketers to make it into first class cricket. I remember discussing this with you James some 10 years ago about Yorkshire cricket and the Bradford league and the length of time it took for one "Asian" player to get into the first team. Times have changed but, Andrew Miller argues, there is still an under representation of players with sub continental heritage at the top flight given that they represent, apparently, something like 40% of recreational cricketers.
I liked (as it were) the article on deaths in cricket and there some nice tributes to Benaud. We talked about his style of commentating after he died and the comparison with the frantic puerile jabbering of Ponting et al on the "Big Bash" could hardly be more stark. Last year I asked Atherton why they talked so much in commentaries these days, often describing exactly what you had just seen on the screen. His answer was that the Indian companies who take the "feed" want more not less commentary and so they are obliged to fill any possible silence with words, and more words. The Benaud days are, sad to say, gone forever.
For some reason we didn’t talk about the Wisden 5 this year and that is particularly annoying since the five: Bairstow, Smith, McCullum, Stokes and Williamson would have been fairly easy to predict.
There is, however, one glaring omission in this year’s Wisden. In the section about media and blogs there is absolutely no mention of Googlies and Chinamen…surely some mistake?
Underway Matters
As the new County Championship season starts I soon realise how little notice I have paid to cricket news through the winter months. Familiar names pop up in the wrong sides and I have to wait until my new Playfair Annual arrives in the post to work out the transfers that have taken place. There was a time when movement between counties was very rare and Tom Graveney’s move from Gloucestershire to Worcestershire was big news. Nowadays it is commonplace and even Yorkshire are happy to sign up players born in other counties. Indeed their pace attack of Plunkett, ex Durham, and Brooks, ex Northants, has now been supplemented by Willey, also ex Northants.
In this winter’s round the hapless Leicestershire seem to have been the busiest. They have snapped up Dexter, ex Middlesex, Horton, ex Lancs, O’Brien K, ex many counties and Pettini, ex Essex. Glamorgan have picked up Harry Podmore from Middlesex; Gloucestershire have Chris Liddle, ex Sussex; Hampshire have Reece Topley, ex Essex; Sussex have Danny Briggs ex Hampshire; Middlesex have James Fuller from Gloucestershire; Derbyshire have Andrew Carter from Notts and Tom Milnes from Warwickshire; Surrey have Mark Foottit from Derbyshire and Essex have Zaidi from Sussex.
These of course are in addition to the merry go round of International stars and not so stars who will be popping in and out of the season primarily for one day duties with all of the counties.
Equally I find myself wondering why some players are not getting selected only to find that they have been released or have retired. In this category are Clare and Wainwright both ex Derby; Smith G ex Essex; Andre Adams, Joe Gatting, Owais Shah and Sean Terry all ex Hants; Ben Harmison and Brendon Nash ex Kent; Boyce, Pinner and Redfearn ex Leics; Chambers, Coetzer and Peters ex Northants; Keedy ex Notts; Abdur Rehman, Bates, Dibble and Alfonso Thomas ex Somerset; Linley, Solanki, Tremlett ex Surrey; Burgoyne, Jackson, Piolet and Yardy ex Sussex; Andrew, Gabriel, Didman A ex Worcs and Hodgson, Middlebrook and Pyrah ex Yorks.
England Matters
I posed the following to The Great Jack Morgan:
I see that Zafar Ansari has resumed his Surrey career. Will he automatically leapfrog Dawson and Samit into the England squad or does he have to show form first? Dawson , of course, had no form when he was selected. Samit, on the other hand has form and experience and achievement on his side but this doesn’t seem to be enough in his case.
Is Bell going to get back into the test side? Taylor’s retirement will make it easier for him. It is tricky trying to work out who is being considered for which England side. Buttler and Morgan are playing in the IPL and so presumably are out of test match reckoning? Does this mean that Bairstow is now the unopposed wicket keeper of choice? Are we going to see a left armer (Footitt or Topley) or will we be sticking to Anderson, Broad, Finn and Plunkett as well as Stokes? Wood is back or should I say still on the sick list. His career must seriously be in doubt now. Is Robson back in the running. Indeed is there an incumbent opening bat? Is Hales he, or is he already written off? Is Compton an incumbent? I think I have answered my own question-Bell is bound to get back in.
Jack replied
I do not think that either Ansari or Dawson has done enough to get in the Eng team, but I would prefer either of them to Samit. I disagree that Dawson had "no form" when selected (see figures above) and strongly disagree that Samit has "form, experience and achievement" especially if you are talking international cricket: his batting may be OK (but not for a specialist batter) but his bowling and fielding are both weak. His Test batting ave is 32.13 (OK for a no 7 say), but his bowling ave is 45.45! In fc cricket Samit has the best batting record, but the worst bowling record despite having much more experience than the other 2 rather callow chaps. Here are the fc career records:
bat bowl
Ansari 32.1 35.1
Dawson 34.2 36.3
Patel 37.3 40.0
Bell has a good chance of getting back into the Eng side of course, but he will have to do better than he did at Lord's recently; he looked nowhere near as good as Robson or Trott and not quite as good as Oliver Hannon-Dalby! Anderson, Broad, Finn and Stokes are surely the four most likely Eng seam bowlers, but others (Plunkett, Woakes, Willey, Footitt?) might be in with a shout.
Footitt was not in the T20 squad was he? They only take 14 don’t they? The 3 “reserves” were Vince, Dawson and Plunkett/ Topley. Footy went to SA and after not particularly impressing in the warm-ups, he was out because there were no more matches for the fringe players. He is already 30, so he will have to do very well for Surrey (not impossible, but maybe unlikely at his age) to get in unless injuries to others assist him.
Dawson has always been a useful batsman who is also capable of getting some turn on helpful wickets. Last season he averaged 40.08 with bat and 31.93 with the ball, including games for both Hampshire and Essex, which is not bad (sorry I do not have any T20 figures). I assume that with such a small squad, they wanted someone who could cover spinners and batters should injury arise (and who would also provide a left arm option) and as Ansari was not fit enough, they went for Liam.
Middlesex Matters
The Great Jack Morgan was at Lord’s for the season’s opener
In line with the new rules, there was no toss on the first day of the Championship match against Warwickshire at Lord's on April 17th because the visitors' skipper, Ian Bell, fancied a bowl. Middlesex left out James Fuller, Ollie Rayner and Paul Stirling from their squad of 14, leaving them with 4 pace bowlers (Steve Finn, Tim Murtagh, Jimmy Harris and Toby Roland-Jones) no specialist spinner and back-up from part time bowlers James Franklin (left arm slow medium), captain Adam Voges (SLA) and Dawid Malan (leg spin).
Sam Robson dominated an excellent opening partnership of 180 with Nick Gubbins before the latter departed for a sound 68 with 11 fours. Robson was looking right back to his best and passed his century off 158 balls, but two more wickets fell quickly leaving Middlesex on 211-3. Voges helped Sam add 52 for the fourth wicket, then John Simpson joined Robbo in a fine stand of 107 for the fifth wicket before Simmo fell for an attractive 52 with 8 fours and a six. This began a bad spell for the home team as they slumped from 370-4 to 415-9. Having just hit Patel for six over long off, Robson tried it again next ball and this time was caught at long off: he was seventh out for a superb 231 off 345 balls with 30 fours and a six. It was the best innings I have seen him play and it was his second double century against Warwicks.
None of the rest of the Middlesex batsmen looked anywhere near as comfortable as Sam and the next highest score after Robson, Gubbins and Simpson was Steve Finn's 22* at no 11 as Middlesex were all out for a useful, but not exceptional (considering that one of the batters made 231) 452 before a delayed lunch on day 2. Kiwi off spinner Jeetan Patel was the outstanding bowler for the visitors (rather worryingly for the almost spinless home team) with 4 for 80.
When the visitors batted, Middlesex soon had two back in the pavilion with only 31 on the board, but then former captain Varun Chopra and ex-England stalwart Jon Trott steadied things with a fine stand of 77 for the third wicket before Chopra departed for an accomplished 57 off 89 balls with 8 fours. This was the first of four wickets to fall quite quickly to the Middlesex seamers and Warwicks looked in trouble at 173 for 6, but then ex-pro footballer Keith Barker strode to the wicket and the game turned in the visitors' favour. Trott and Barker put on 143 for the seventh wicket before Barker fell for a splendid 81 from 111 balls with 9 fours and a six, but then Trotty found another useful partner in Patel, who hit 5 fours and a six in his 30 out of a stand of 65 for the eighth wicket. Even this was not the end of the resistance as no 11, Oliver Hannon-Dalby (no batsman he with a career average of 6) also hit 5 fours and a six in his 30 as 67 more were added for the last wicket. There is no question these days of captains declaring behind the opposition's total to attempt to get a win, to try to inspire an interesting last day and to entertain spectators, so Bell batted on to 468 with Trott left on a magnificent 219 not out off 289 balls with 31 fours: it was a great effort (his highest ever in the Championship) and, as with Robson's innings, I do not think I have ever seen him play better. The four main Middlesex bowlers shared the wickets between them, with Murtagh returning the best figures of 3-68.
The home second innings got off to a bad start (20-2), but Robson was still there and Nick Compton joined him in a useful stand of 77 before departing for 44 with 5 fours. This brought skipper Voges to the wicket and worries about defeat disappeared as Sam and Adam put together a stand of 105 before Robbo surprisingly found himself stumped for another excellent effort of 106 off 195 balls with 12 fours, giving him the little matter of 337 runs in the game and he is the first Middlesex batsman ever to score a double century and a century in a first class match. Voges went on to 92 off 193 balls with 8 fours, sharing a stand of 82 with James Franklin, as the innings closed on 304-6.
The match was drawn, of course, with Middlesex taking 12 points and Warwicks 11 and Middlesex have not beaten Warwicks in 20 meetings since 2001. Warwicks added some variety to the closing stages by giving all of their 11 players a bowl and there were not many who had seen former England wicket keeper Tim Ambrose in action with the ball and he took his first ever first class wicket when he accounted for the Middlesex captain, who attempted a big heave into the Tavern stand, but was caught at deep mid wicket. Plenty of facts emerged about Robson's 337 runs in the match: he batted almost 13 hours, faced 540 deliveries, hit 42 fours and a six and broke assorted records held by such luminaries as AE (Andrew) Stoddart (most runs scored for the county at Lord's, 320, a record that has stood for 123 years), Jack Robertson (most runs scored in a Championship match for the county, 331 at Worcester in 1949) and Paul Weekes (another who made 331 against Somerset at Uxbridge in 1996, but his comprised two innings of 171* and 160).
Ged was also there for days two and three
Monday
‘Twas the second day of Middlesex’s cricket season and my first glimpse of live cricket for far too long. Charley “the Gent” Malloy was my guest for the day.
I went to the gym first thing, then on to the bakers for fresh bread and then the flat to prepare the picnic. Cray fish, breakfast muffins and wild Alaskan salmon in poppy-seed bagels formed the highlight of the feast. A fruity little Kiwi Riesling was the highlight beverage.
On my way to Lord’s, I noticed that King Cricket had that very day published my piece about visiting the Ashes test with Daisy, less than nine moths after the event. This coincidence seemed most timely to me, not least because I wanted to discuss with Charley the future of my “match reports” in this brave new Ogblog era.
Charley was waiting for me at the Grace Gate and looked at his watch as I arrived, as if to say “where have you been?” In fact, we had both arrived some minutes ahead of the appointed hour, which was probably just as well, as Charley wasn’t moving too quickly. “Done me knee,” said Charley.
“I’m not in the best of knee health myself,” I said, as my ignominious tumble on the real tennis court on Seaxe AGM day was still causing me gyp in the knee department, not least because I had managed a couple of unfortunate knocks on just the wrong spot since. “We’ll swap knee stories when we sit down”, said Charley, which we did. Charley’s was worse. Much worse.
In accordance with our tradition, Charley and I sat on death row; the front row of the lower tier of the pavilion. Normally, our backs can only tolerate death row for a while, but as it turned out, our knee problems probably served to mask any back pain. Further, with Charley’s limited mobility and no chance of sun that day anywhere in the ground, we ended up staying put on death row for the whole day.
I described to Charley my correspondence with King Cricket on the matter of match reports henceforward. Charley liked my ideas about writing book reviews and recipes for King Cricket, while posting reports of this kind on Ogblog. I wondered whether I should revert to real names here on Ogblog, but Charley felt that the characters’ names were a tradition and allowed me a bit more poetic licence. (Little does Charley realise that I write with reckless abandon, at least in the matter of creative licence, regardless of naming conventions).
While all this was going on, my understanding is that there was a bit of a cricket match taking place on the lawn in front of us and that Sam Robson blessed us with the sight of him reaching a double-hundred. I hadn’t seen one of those since I caught the very end of Chris Rogers’ match winning double a couple of seasons ago in the match linked here. Not that you’d realise what had happened from the King Cricket match report linked here, as you are not allowed to say anything about the actual cricket in a KC report about a professional match.
It was seriously chilly but Charley and I had both wrapped up warm and were chatting eagerly; the start of the season holds so many exciting possibilities. So the day passed very quickly. With just over an hour left to play, the umpires decided that the slight gloom which had pervaded for much of the day had become a little too gloomy, so off came the players and that was that for the day. Charley and I stuck around for a while, partly in hope more than expectation and partly to warm up with some coffee inside the pavilion before heading home. We’d had a very good day.
Tuesday
I returned to Lord’s the next day, primarily for meetings, but with the hope and expectation that I’d get to see some cricket too. Indeed, as a couple of the meetings got postponed, I got to see much of the day’s cricket and get some good reading done.
It was a much sunnier day, so I decided to take up position on the north side of the middle tier balcony. As soon as I plonked myself down, I sensed that I might be blocking Dougie Brown’s view. So the moment I heard “excuse me”, in that unmistakable Scottish accent, I started to shift along the row and checked that all now had a clear view. Dougie was chatting with Peter Such and soon Graham Thorpe joined them, but my mind was firmly on my book, A Confederacy of Dunces (read nothing into the juxtaposition, folks) and of course I was taking in the cricket.
Despite the sun, it still wasn’t warm and I hadn’t donned my thermals on the Tuesday. Also, I was quite peckish by about 12:30, as Charley and I had picnicked sensibly the day before and/but I had only snacked in the evening. So I went to the upstairs bar and bought a nice chunky sandwich and a hot cup of coffee for my lunch, both of which I downed with great pleasure. The bar was mostly populated with Warwickshire 1882 Club members talking exclusively about soccer football.
After my lunch, I retired to the writing room, where I thought I’d get some quiet and a decent view of the cricket protected from the cold. To some extent, my plan worked, especially the matter of getting some reading done and shield myself from the cold.
But my attempts to make headway with this Ogblog piece were continually thwarted. Initially, for a few brief minutes, I was distracted by the arms of Morpheus. Then when play resumed, there were interruptions and enough going on in the cricket to tear me away repeatedly from my little Kindle Fire gadget. No matter.
The interruptions came primarily in two forms:
Unpleasant aerial noise from a plethora of helicopters overhead;
Pleasant conversation with the other residents of the writing room; initially about the aerial aural bombardment, which we attributed to President Obama, I believe correctly.
After the helicopter crescendo and witnessing Trott complete his double-hundred (they seem to be like double-decker buses, these double-hundreds), I then had an interesting chat with a couple of the remaining writing room gentlemen. The younger of the two had been a teacher at Highbury Grove School when Rhodes Boyson was the head, which made for an interesting chat. I said that I remembered protesting against Boyson’s cuts when he was an Education Minister and I was a student. The older of the two gentlemen suggested that they might be in the company of a dangerous leftist, to which I countered that the chap who had been teaching in an Islington Comprehensive in the 1970s had, by definition, more “dangerous leftist credentials” than me.
I did not share with those gentlemen the clear memory, which popped into my head, of an anti-cuts protest we staged in the early 1980s outside the UGC Building in Bloomsbury. I’ll need to go through my diaries to write that one up properly and no doubt Simon Jacobs will again deny all memory of the business. Suffice it to say here that a similarly garbed non-violent protest stunt, staged these days, might be inadvisable to say the very least.
I was spotted by one or two other friends and associates at that writing room table, who stopped by for an early season hello and quick chat. Richard Goatley arrived to whisk me away soon after those interludes, so I had a quick drink with Richard and a few other people in the Bowlers’ Bar, then headed for home a few overs before stumps.
I asked Jack
There were a lot of runs in all the games, which I suppose is down to the dry weather despite the incessant cold. But what happened to the Lord’s greentops? Either Robson and Gubbins were fantastic or the policy has been changed.
He replied
It is too soon to know for certain about the Lord's "greentops", but surfaces have (reportedly) changed all over the country because of the uncontested tosses. The season starts early to allow for more and more T20 and because players demand more rest between matches. I am against Sunday starts because our Sunday train "service" is so awful: we get one train per hour... if it is not cancelled because of engineering work
IPL MattersI saw some of the early IPL matches including de Kock’s hundred and Chris Morris also caught the eye with the ball. He didn’t get to the wicket in any of the matches I saw. Playfair doesn’t give his height but I gauge that he must be 6’ 5” and is genuinely quick. He will be performing for Surrey in their T20 campaign and it will be interesting to see him in English conditions. Kohli looked magnificent again but he is unlikely to risk his reputation over here. De Villiers played an extraordinary knock and I also saw a re run of his 156 off 56 balls against WI. I had not previously seen it and the hitting was amazing although there were some dropped catches.
A major feature of the IPL has been the quality of Indian seam bowling. Some of them seem to have mastered length and width and various ways of delivering the slower ball. Bumrah and Shami stand out but the absolute master of this is Bravo. I had planned to get some gardening done in the week before I came over but cold winds and the IPL every afternoon scuppered these intents.
Adamson Matters
I received the following from Stephen Adamson
A writer friend of mine and I attended the Middx Yorks match at Lords in September. It was a fascinating match full of swings of fortune, and my friend, Tim Cawkwell, has written a short illustrated book about it. He believes, fairly enough, that it represents the best of county cricket.
CRICKET’S PURE PLEASURE is the account, in words and images, of a remarkable four-day game of cricket played at Lord’s in September 2015 between Yorkshire and Middlesex.
It opened with high drama when Yorkshire’s Ryan Sidebottom bowled a triple-wicket maiden at the start of the game, and closed spectacularly on the fourth day when Yorkshire suffered a batting collapse. In between was a magnificent 149 from Nick Compton that led the way in wresting the initiative from Yorkshire. To these ingredients were added the absorbing attritional cricket that makes the long form of the game so compelling. At the end Middlesex were the victors but Yorkshire were crowned worthy County Champions.
CRICKET’S PURE PLEASURE takes the reader through the highs and lows, the quick movements and slow movements, the loud and the soft of cricket in its greatest form. Where words fall short of conveying the splendour of the whole, the photographs take up the challenge, so that the book as a whole aims to give some insight into the pure pleasure, free of blemish of any kind, that cricket can provide.
TIM CAWKWELL is the author of several books – on the cinema (‘Film Past, Film Future’ and ‘The New Filmgoer’s Guide to God’) and travel (books about Sicily, the Hebrides and Tivoli near Rome). He runs his own self-publishing imprint, SFORZINDA BOOKS, from Norwich where he lives.
CRICKET’S PURE PLEASURE is his first book on cricket. It is available both as a paperback at £8.90 and as a digital book at £3.50.
Format: 8.5 in. x 8.5 in./21.5 x 21.5 cm., 60 pages, 65 photographs.
For more information contact: [email protected]
CRICKET’S PURE PLEASURE
the story of an extraordinary match
Middlesex v. Yorkshire, September 2015
by Tim Cawkwell
Old Danes Gathering
There will be an Old Danes Gathering at Shepherds Bush Cricket Club on Friday 29 July 2016. All Old Danes, spouses and friends will be welcome as this is not a cricketer only event. The event will commence around 2pm and will continue into the evening or until everyone has left! The bar will be open throughout.
Googlies and Chinamen
is produced by
James Sharp
Broad Lee House
Combs
High Peak
SK23 9XA
Tel: 01298 70237
Email: [email protected]
www.googliesandchinamen.com