G&C 210
GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 210
June 2020
Test Cricket
China won the toss and decided to bat. At the toss Captain Johnson shook hands with his counterpart, a gesture he was later to regret. He was somewhat put out as he was used to getting things his own way and so consulted his senior players as to what would be a good score to restrict them to. The consensus was that anything under 20,000 was gettable. He then suggested that he needed to have someone to blame if things went wrong. He said that he normally blames the Groundsman but, on this occasion, decided to call in senior members of the Bowling Academy. He said: “If I keep saying that I consulted them no-one can blame me for making the wrong bowling changes and field placings. I will also make them come onto the field of play in between overs so that everyone can see that it is not me making bad decisions.”
However, Johnson’s team seemingly did everything wrong. Tactics adopted by most successful international teams such as Germany and South Korea were ignored. Left arm bowlers bowled right-handed, spinners opened the bowling and there were some bizarre field placings. The score started mounting alarmingly. Nevertheless, at every drinks interval the senior players explained that everything was going to plan and that the Bowling Academy had advised at every stage of the proceedings. The bowlers continued to serve up half-volleys saying that was what they had been told to do.
Nevertheless, the score didn't seem to be mounting as some had expected and the scorers were asked if all the runs scored had been included. They explained that they had been instructed not to include those scored by the senior players since they did not count towards the first-class averages.
At lunch one of the Bowling Academy whispered in the Captain’s ear that something called Herd Immunity would overcome the flow of runs and so for a while all the players wandered around the field saying “Herd Immunity” although none of them knew what it meant. At the tea break an independent expert was interviewed in the Commentary Box and he explained that to achieve Herd Immunity all players would have to be given a bowl and that by the time Herd Immunity was achieved the score would be over 500,000 and that the Chinese would still be batting on Day Four. The Captain quickly shelved this plan and pretended that he had never subscribed to it.
Instead the Captain inexplicably started babbling in Latin and then said “In our last match everyone came on side when we kept repeating “Don’t drop catches” over and over again”. So, he introduced a series of Mantras which everyone had to learn and repeat between overs: “Stay in the Ring, Protect our Bowling Averages and Save Runs”. Soon everyone in the crowd was saying them too.
Fielding became increasingly difficult; many substitute fielders were used and the Dressing Room became overcrowded. Someone suggested that a new pavilion should be built and so all of the club’s financial resources for the next five years were spent on converting the local school. As more and more players needed to get kit from the team bag they found that there was a shortage of pads, boxes, helmets and other protective gear. Mat Hancock, the Kit Monitor, claimed that he had ordered enough but no one believed him.
When the Captain’s best friend came on to bowl, he took a wicket with what the umpire decided was a no-ball. Everyone could see that his foot had landed over the line but the captain denied this and said that his friend was being discriminated against and that he had done nothing wrong.
When someone sent a message out to the captain that the score was nearing 30,000, he said “I’ve stopped looking at the scoreboard. I’m more concerned with what a prat I shall look if they score more than Italy”.
In and Within on the Professor’s Sofa
SKYPE, Google meet, Facetime, Zoom and Jit.si are all software platforms that, with the exception of the first one, I had not been expecting to use (nor even know about) in my lifetime. Now, like I guess most others, I spend hours in meetings on one or the other. They are promoted as been as good, or even better (you don’t have to travel) than an actual meeting, although it seems to me that while they are indeed better than not meeting at all, and very good for passing on bits of information, they are otherwise very limited, and limiting, in the dynamics of a meeting which, to be frank, is just about the only thing of any interest in such gatherings. There are also the seemingly inevitable glitches where someone is trying to join the discussion but can’t get in, or someone else is speaking without generating any sound or, far the most common, two, three or four people are speaking at once. At times the whole business reminds me of Two-Way Family Favourites when Jean Metcalfe used to say: “Come in Gelsenkirchen” or “Over to you Famagusta”. Result…silence, or sometimes a high-pitched crackling sound as unlike Ella Fitzgerald as anything could be.
I was pondering all this when I joined a cricket webinar last week put on by Lords Tavernier’s and the Black Opal travel group. The participants were: Chris Broad, Mike Gatting, David Gower, Merv Hughes and Gladstone Small and the topic was the 1986/7 Australian tour. They were all in their respective homes, although Hughes appeared to be in his garage and, in truth, it went with many fewer hitches than Family Favourites ever did. Indeed fewer than many Zoom meetings that I have been in recently.
I never know quite what to make of these reminiscences by star players of “the old days”; mostly they appear to remember (counter-intuitively) the seemingly endless booze-ups. It seems almost impossible to mention Ian Botham without a reference to drinking (nor Gatting without food) and I guess that’s what many people want to hear, it gives “colour” and makes great cricketers into “personalities”. There were reflections, in this webinar, about the level of drunkenness – especially at the start of the tour – but happily much more about the cricket. It was Broad’s first tour and his finest as an England opening bat and similarly, Gladstone Small’s selection at the MCG produced perhaps the highlight of his career in the MoM award for 7 wickets in the match.
For Broad much of the early part of the tour consisted in a joust with Slack and Athey for the opening sport. He was picked for the first test, failed in the first innings but, thanks to a dropped slip catch had a 35* in the second, kept his place, and then went on, of course, to score three successive hundreds. On such transitory moments of fortune are careers made. Gatting had taken over the captaincy from Gower who had presided over one of the worst runs England had had – 8 defeats out of 11 tests - (admittedly against some pretty useful opposition). Gatting seemed to have trouble imposing control on Botham and Lamb (and sometimes Gower) and Emburey and Edmonds come to that. What the latter two did, however, was give him control on the field.
A précis of the series could be structured around two speeches. The first was by Botham, the second by Bob Hawke.
The Botham speech was delivered at dinner the evening before the first Test. Prior to that England described, as always, as “the worst team ever to tour Australia”, performed poorly in the two state games and so: “certainly lived up your billing there mate” (Merv, from the garage). Whether it was the booze or inexperience or the pre-Test itinerary who knows, but it prompted Martin-Jenkins into his famous: “can’t bat, can’t bowl, can’t field” which, after the series ended he “explained” as the” right quote but the wrong team”. Botham, having attempted to drink the Barossa Valley dry decided that the team should now be told that the fun was over (his fun presumably) and delivered an eve-of-Waterloo speech although with a level of profanities that would not have gained the approval of the Iron Duke. Gatting said that he, as captain, had a rallying speech prepared, but after ITB there didn’t seem much point.
After four Tests they were 2-0 up. 450+ in the first innings of the First Test proved to be just about enough and another Broad hundred in the Fourth (why is he nicknamed “Jess” by-the-way) together with Gladstone’s wickets was decisive at Melbourne. Enter Prime Minister Hawke. The Davis Cup final had just been played and Pat Cash had starred in the series coming back from two sets down to win the decisive match. In awarding the trophy, Hawke was heard to say that he wished he could replace the Australian cricket team with 11 Pat Cash’s. Didn’t go down too well with captain Border apparently, and was enough of a motivation going to Sydney for a close(ish) win built around a big hundred from Dean Jones and 8 wickets from “the wrong Taylor”. Runs from Gatting and another 5-fer from Gladstone were not quite enough.
Towards the end of the session there was a move into more general matters, especially ball tampering. This wasn’t (sadly) an opportunity to relive the blubbing Aussies interviews but did, so I thought, have some sensible things to say about ball polishing. There is, so it was said, some debate about permitting more ball tampering – one or other of the Chappells is associated with the idea. I suppose a sort of “fair cheating all round” or a resignation to something that is already happening by making it legal. Broad is not a fan of this idea and thinks that whatever polishing is allowed should be under the control of the umpire. There was even, from Merv, the back-to-the-future suggestion that only the bowler should do the polishing. I think a lot of cricket watchers would support that who, like Merv, are: “sick at watching the bowler get back to his mark and having to wait for the ball to come back from the designated polisher in the slips”. Certainly gets my vote.
This webinar was, by the way, the second put on by the Black Opal travel firm. It was free and open to all customers and interested parties. It is obviously a way of keeping the customer base together, but I have not heard from any of the other cricket travel companies (and I have used several) doing anything similar. So, good luck to them; there can hardly have ever been a worse time to launch a travel firm but I hope they hang on and emerge post-virus as a going concern. If so, and if (as my grandmother used to say) “I’m spared”, we will be using them again.
Lockdown Matters
George sent me this
We’ve had a little problem with moths. As a result, Pauline has recycled my old SCD sleeveless pullover and my green SCD cricket cap. I think they must have moved to a new house at least 12 times. I wonder how many of your contributors still have their’s?
The Professor sent me this
You will recall the name Peter Lapping. He has sent in a couple of pieces to Googlies. We met Peter and his wife on a cricket tour and have kept in touch and met-up on a few occasions. We were due to stay with them this summer to go to the Cheltenham festival.The Lappings are very good friends with the Rev Anthony Roberts and his wife and we have also met them on a number of occasions. In addition to a beautiful house in Gloucestershire the Roberts live in Alderney and were good chums with the great John Arlott. Both Peter and Anthony are Googlies readers. You will recall in the last issue that I mentioned some old video clips released by the MCC - one featuring two Lancashire towns I had never heard of: Rawtenstall and Bacup. Both had professionals, Bacup employed the fairly useful services of Everton deCourcy Weekes. So, a couple of days' ago a note arrives from Peter to say that the Rev. is very put out that I had not heard of Bacup. Why? Well, he was born in Bacup. His uncle Jack captained the team and Everton Weekes lodged with his Granny. Small, as they say, world.
Steve Wright sent me this
Can I suggest that you ask your regulars how they would structure any cricket played this year? We all have club cricket backgrounds and this is what has brought us all together. Personally (and I have not seen this suggested by anyone) why not run T20 competitions in the County leagues. The matches are short enough to have either two on Saturdays ( if desired) or during weekdays and it would be a proper competition. Each division of each County league would then play off to have a winner from each County and then further play offs to have regional champions. I just don’t think it’s fair or would be regarded as being fair to have promotion and relegation based on a truncated season. This is not to say that I prefer T20 cricket but it does suit the particular circumstances we find ourselves in.
George sent me this
‘County Cricket to Return in August with Small Crowds'
The GJM noted
It was on page 36 in my copy with the back page (40) devoted to football and
motor racing!
Steve Thompson sent me this
Still, some silver linings, the Rs are unbeaten since March!
Important Notice
Following the demise of the 8pm Thursday Clap for the NHS, right minded citizens are invited to engage in a BOO for Boris at this time slot.
Duckworth Lewis Matters
Tony Lewis, the mathematician and statistician who co-devised what became known as the Duckworth-Lewis method for settling weather-affected limited-overs matches, has died at the age of 78 but he might have been 76 if you take into account the number of ailments he had or 84 if you bear in mind that it rained on his birthday.
He is succeeded by his colleague, Frank Duckworth who recently interviewed The Health Secretary, Mat Hancock. Hancock claimed to have scored over 100,000 runs during his cricket career. An incredulous Duckworth asked him if he was sure about this number but Hancock said that he had set this target when he was still playing in short trousers and that he always made a point of setting himself goals which helped him to achieve them.
Duckworth decided to take the matter up with the scorers and it transpired that Hancock, in order to reach his target, had not only included the runs that he had scored but also those that he had run for the batsman at the other end. He also included the runs scored by the rest of the team after he was out since he claimed that he had facilitated them by getting out.
Duckworth totted all these up and still found himself well short of the 100,000. He then arranged a meeting with Hancock’s personal statistician, and it transpired that Hancock had also included all the runs scored by his personal friends since he claimed that he had helped them develop their skills in the nets.
Morgan matters
The GJM has been twiddling his thumbs in Hampton
Oz have returned to top of the Test rankings (replacing India) for the first time in four years. NZ are second, India 3rd and England 4th. England are top in ODIs, Oz are top in T20s.
Apparently, Kookaburra has developed a "wax applicator" to shine balls on the field of play because the traditional methods of shining the ball have become a dangerous process for the designated ball polisher. This process would not be acceptable under the current laws so MCC would have to agree to a law change.
The impact of the coronavirus could cost the ECB as much as £380m says the prat in charge, T Harrison. MCC members have been told they will not be refunded subscriptions for 2020 despite the prospect of seeing cricket at Lord's being "increasingly remote". What are the chances of a refund for Middx Life Members?
Brian Bolus has died aged 86. He played 7 Tests in '63 and '64 and averaged 41.33, highest score 88 v Ind in Chennai. He started with Yorks, of course, playing in 3 Championship winning sides before moving to Notts and Derbys. He scored 25,598 first class runs including 39 centuries. He retired in 1976 and served as an Eng selector and chairman of the management advisory committee and became president of Notts in 2004-5.
Desmond Haynes has been voted Middx's greatest ever overseas player with 52% of the vote.
Vic says the ECB is planning to play 6 Tests this summer against WI and Pak behind closed doors from the second week in July onwards. The matches are likely to be played at Old Trafford and the Rose (Ageas) Bowl because they have hotels on site.
Rs' manager Mark Warburton says: "I saw Barnet were losing £100,000 per month; how can that be allowed or sustainable? We spend 65p for every pound we bring in but others in our league are spending £1.75 or £2.05. Given owners are going to be hit in the long term, it could be another 10 years before we get back to a financial level similar to now."
WI "legend" C Gayle says he stands by his comments about former team-mate Ramnaresh Sarwan, calling him "a snake", "evil", "wicked" and "poison". CG blamed Sarwan for his release from the Caribbean Premier League team Jamaica Tallawahs. However, I have had doubts about Gayle for some time and it seems that Sarwan could be right because although Gayle made 116 in his second game, he managed only 243 runs in 10 innings as the Tallawahs finished bottom of the table.
Ali Martin has a long piece in the O today about how this season will look. It is encouraging that there might actually be a season, but it does not make thrilling reading as it is all about "social distancing", "bio-secure models", "island sites", "functional areas", "contact clusters" and "bubbles"! No doubt you will become an expert on all these terms and will be able to explain them to the rest of us!
Former Gloucs capt Tony Brown has died aged 83. He spent all of his 23 year senior career with Gloucs, skippering from 68 to 76 and made 489 first class appearances. He took 1,223 first class wickets, made 12,681 first class runs and his 7 catches in an innings v Notts at TB in 1966 remains a (joint) all-time record. He led Gloucs to the Gillette Cup in 1973 and scored 73* in the final at Lord's.
I do not think they are interested in playing any Championship cricket before August. They are talking about WI Tests in July then some County Championship and T20s in August, September and October. Today's G says "the ECB has confirmed that County Cricket could yet have small crowds, provided clubs adhere to government guidance on physical distancing".
England have picked 14 uncapped players in a group of 55 that have been asked to return to training "in preparation for a revamped international summer". The only Middx players in the squad are E Morgan and T Helm. 23 seamers have been named: that should be enough! Although the 3 Test series v WI has yet to be confirmed, Steve Elworthy (ECB's director of events) is "absolutely confident" that Jason Holder's tourists would arrive on 9 June and begin 2 weeks of quarantine.
The UK government has approved the return of domestic sport behind closed doors from Mon 1/6. Meanwhile, scientists are warning about the risks of easing down too soon and they want a fully working test and trace system first... and I think they are probably right.
Miller Matters
Douglas Miller sent me this
I wonder how many Googlies readers actually know the Professor. I was privileged to come across him for the first time in the West Indies back in 2009, when we were both following Andrew Strauss’s first tour as captain. It has proved a useful contact. Whenever I am confounded by some esoteric piece of jargon beyond most laymen’s comprehension like ‘quantitative easing’, I have only to e-mail the Professor and all will be revealed.
It was within the context of some such enquiry that I let slip that I was engrossed in a book bringing together the letters of the young Brian Close. I was doing so to prepare a review for the quarterly journal of The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (the ACS), a body that has been the subject of the odd jibe from the Professor when not looking for favours as he now is. So, to divert briefly, the ACS enjoys increasing recognition internationally as the guardian of the game’s statistics. It is thanks to its early members that we have a body of matches that are, more or less, accepted as being first-class. It has been an equally rigorous task to classify those that may be recognised as List A, a term coined by the ACS, while the Association’s thirst for scorecards from matches at all levels takes it down into a ‘Miscellaneous’ category where many Googlies readers will have played.
For the more devout members of the ACS it is a matter of great fascination that Australia’s first innings total of 151 against India at Melbourne last year was the highest in all Tests without an individual innings of 25 or better. Many followers of cricket survive happily enough without such gems of information. Indeed the ACS itself contains some long-standing members who might agree with the Professor that an intelligent interest in the game is possible without a constant drip feed of such esoterica. It is for those members that items of a broader historical interest are also covered, and their annual subscription (a snip at less than £30) gives them access to book reviews by such legends of the game as David Frith.
David Frith not being available to review everything that pours off the presses, other mortals like myself are roped in. So it was that the Close letters came my way, and Googlies readers will appreciate that it would not be fair to allow all my pearls of wisdom to be available to those paying nothing to read them. So this is primarily an explanation of what the letters are all about and how they came to light. Brian Close had a friend from childhood, John Anderson, with whom he had been at school and who remained a bosom pal until both men died towards the end of 2015. Anderson died shortly after Close and it was only then that boxes of letters written by his friend between 1948 and 1955 were discovered. They have been brought together for publication with splendid linking commentary by David Warner, once the cricket correspondent of the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, assisted by Ron Deaton, Yorkshire’s memorabilia guru.
To most people who knew Brian Close, even Bryan Stott, another special mate from schooldays and the man chosen to deliver the address at Close’s funeral, his prowess as a letter writer has come as a big surprise. It is not as if he was a voracious reader. He had been a bright lad at school, but it was as a mathematician that he might have moved into higher education. ‘He didn’t read – other than The Sporting Life. He didn’t read books at all, Readers Digest was about his limit,’ his widow says. Yet, as Vivien Close at least knew, he could write – and write well!
The book earns its title from the typical opening to a Close letter: ‘Just a Few Lines’. This phrase could be the prelude to a dozen sides of paper! Though Close’s early months playing for Yorkshire and his time doing National Service are well covered, and the fun and games of the A team tour of Pakistan are also recorded, it is the letters written from Australia that provide greatest historical interest.
It is not Close’s style to dwell at length on the playing side of the trip, though he does pass a few shrewd comments. Even in England his main focus had been on life off the pitch. He had found time to marvel at the splendour of the Cambridge colleges and the sights of London, and in those ration book days he was readily impressed by a half-decent meal. For instance, he writes that he and Frank Lowson ‘came on a posh restaurant and we went in and had a real first-class meal for 8/- (it ought to be for that price). Roast chicken and loads of it, boiled ham as well, chips, peas and cabbage plus soup and sweet of course. Sorry if I make your mouth water!’
It was the same story in Australia, but now on a truly grand scale. It is the magnificence of the countryside, the comfort of the hotels, the endless parties and the entertainment always laid on for the tourists that take precedence. Now, too, with juicy steaks abounding, the food was unimaginably superior to anything on offer back home, while the letters make clear that at the parties and dance halls there is always a bevy of attractive young ladies hoping a cricketer may catch their eye – and young Close is not one to miss out. It was a world apart from anything this 19 year-old working class lad had ever experienced. It was certainly enough to make any mate back in England feel jealous.
Does anything ring untrue? Well, of course it was a disastrous tour for young Close as a player. Moreover, the received wisdom and his own autobiography, written nearly three decades later, make plain that it was a miserable trip with none of the senior professionals helping to make their youngest player feel part of the team. There was even talk of feeling suicidal. Can the joyful exuberance of correspondence to his great mate be reconciled with Close’s more mature admissions in the book ghosted by Don Mosey? Close, I am assured, would not have been one to allow a tissue of untruths to be peddled in his name. Read this new book if you get the chance. Then share your impressions. I have my own theory, but you haven’t paid to hear it!
*****
In the last edition Douglas identified the 38 players who all received their first cap under a different captain. He now relieves the tension by divulging all:
Dennis Amiss
Brian Close
Bob Appleyard
David Sheppard
Bill Athey
Ian Botham
Bob Barber
Colin Cowdrey
Jack Birkenshaw
Tony Lewis
Ian Botham
Mike Brearley
John Childs
John Emburey
Brian Close
Freddie Brown
Alastair Cook
Andrew Flintoff
Geoff Cook
Keith Fletcher
Norman Cowans
Bob Willis
Tim Curtis
Chris Cowdrey
Richard Ellison
David Gower
Liam Dawson
Alastair Cook
Phillip DeFreitas
Mike Gatting
Keith Fletcher
Tom Graveney
James Foster
Nasser Hussain
Mike Gatting
Geoff Boycott
Warren Hegg
Alec Stewart
Mike Hendrick
Mike Denness
Jeff Jones
Mike Smith
Don Kenyon
Nigel Howard
Jim Laker
Ken Cranston
Peter Lever
Ray Illingworth
Peter Loader
Len Hutton
John Mortimore
Peter May
Craig Overton
Joe Root
Kevin Pietersen
Michael Vaughan
Jack Robertson
Norman Yardley
Fred Rumsey
Ted Dexter
Reg Simpson
George Mann
Phil Tufnell
Graham Gooch
Sean Udal
Marcus Trescothick
Johnny Wardle
Gubby Allen
Mike Watkinson
Mike Atherton
Bob Woolmer
Tony Greig
Godfrey Evans
Walter Hammond
Carlin Matters
Paddy Carlin sent me this
I am currently in a discussion with the ECB’s Umpires Association regarding a tongue in cheek hypothesis of mine that concludes that the higher you go up the umpire’s ladder the less competent you need to be. In test cricket DRS is available and all(and I mean all) the difficult decisions(stumpings, run outs, LBWs, questionable catches etc) are verified by DRS whether requested by the umpire or referred by the players. It poses the question that at this level do you need an on field umpire at all? Decision making by the technology available is much better than by the umpire who in many cases has the original decision reversed. This would also remove the nonsense of “Umpire’s Call” – surely you are either out or not?
So Aleem Dar etc don’t really have to do or know very much. They don’t watch for “No Balls”, they don’t have to check the score or the number of balls bowled in the over, they don’t have to worry about pitch or boundary markings although they do act as a clothes horse from time to time and also have to replace the bails from time to time, but surely a mobile gofa could do this? They also get in the way of the action or stand so far back as to make their job impossible.
What do you think? Isn’t this no on field umpire game worth a trial? Predictably the ECB’s umpires’ man was both illogical and churlish in his response to this provocative suggestion. But as technology gets better and faster decision making should be flawless. It begs the question: “Can the DRS visuals be tampered with to give out or not out decisions as required?” In time this is probably feasible. It might be one way to get Steve Smith out.
I think the way 1st class cricket is going there will soon be a five a side competition. That is five overs per side, eight teams, one venue, knock out, four quarter finals, two semi-finals, one final all in one day. Start at 10.30 am finish at 7.30 pm. Seven games in nine hours or more if floodlights are available. Teams either franchises or qualifiers from top eight in fifty over competitions. Perfect for the modern era, thirty ball innings and mayhem from the first ball. Remember you heard it first here.
Williams’ Matters
John Williams has been reminiscing
As currently there is nothing on the horizon in the future I have taken to the reminiscing fields.
Reading about the Surrey disintegration against Lancashire in the B & H Cup in 1993 reminds of the game between Harrow Town and Polytechnic in August 1970 at Rayners Lane. Town played Poly twice a season - on first Saturday of the season at the end of April and the return in August. For some inexplicable reason we always played the April game at Chiswick when invariably a cold wind would be blowing across the open spaces from the Thames. In the 1970 return game Poly batted first and were in dire trouble at 27 for7 when fortunately, their last two players eventually arrived. One of them was Chris Kempadoor, normally an opener, who went in at no. 10 and managed to get them up to 94. Town reached 87 before losing their 2nd wicket however Kempadoor then took 5 wickets with the scores level and the Town eventually scraped a win with a leg bye. Kempadoor finished with 6 for 7 including a hat trick. Embarrassment all round for the home side.
I was clearing out some old client files when I came across the late John Overy's file. He was also a very good friend as well. He played for Dulwich and Brentham and is the Dad of Graeme, Harrow Town, Parkfield, Brentham and Harrow and currently bottle man for Brondesbury, and Grandad of James, the Brondesbury captain. In the file I found my jottings on Roger Pearman following the Charlie Puckett’s announcement of Roger’s death. AJ is Tony Colbeck of Pinner, currently President of Shepherds Bush. My reference to Roger is political not his style of batting:
Email from John Williams to John Overy, 14 April 2009
What terrible news. Roger always seemed to be present at some of my best performances.
1959 Hove: Middlesex YAs v Sussex. Brearley b. Snow 0. Pearman 103 not out. I took 4 for 28, including John Snow and Mike Griffith, and we won by 7 runs. Lindley took the last wicket-an absurd LBW- too far forward and too high but our, sorry the neutral who had travelled down with us, umpire ( called Snowy by coincidence) wanted us to win and he was worried that if the game lasted any longer he would miss the train he wanted to catch.
1969 Sunbury: Roger was playing for CCC and I was playing for MCC in a 2-day game. We won by 102 runs and I took 7 for 27 in the 2nd innings.
1972 Amersham: Bucks v Beds. Beds won off the last ball by 4 wickets to enable them to challenge Yorks II for the title which they duly won. Roger made 66 and 47*. I took 5 for 35 in 1st innings-did not include RP but unfortunately I broke one of his fingers and he batted no.7 in 2nd innings. Didn’t seem to hinder him much.
Funniest story about Roger was the 2-day YAs game v Surrey at the Oval in 1959. Roger made 0 and Brearley made a ton in the 1st innings. It was AJ’s only game (9 for 69 in the first innings) and as he knew Roger well as did Tony Berry and I , we took the mickey out of him terribly asking him, frequently, if he had ever made a pair. He made 3and took the ribbing very well.
Although he was a leftie he was great fun and we had some great times together. Had not seen him for some time though.
The MCC produce a Magazine about twice a year and Alex Mead the Content Director asked members for their iconic moments at Lord's. Enclosed is what I sent him. The first item, in an abbreviated form, appeared in the October edition:
Number 1 undoubtedly occurred on Friday 21 june 1963. I had taken my driving test in Harrow in the late morning(and passed) and got the train from Harrowat 12.55. I got to Lord’s by 1.20. In those days you could just turn up and pay at the gate. Also play started at 11.30 so I got in just before lunch at 1.30. Also tickets were not sold for the Free Seats so I was able to get to the top of the Compton Stand and see the most fearsome over from Charlie Griffith to Mike Stewart. I met a few friends in the lunch interval and we sat on the grass in front of the Mound Stand for the afternoon session. What we witnessed in the hour after lunch was the most exhilarating cricket as Ted Dexter took on Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith and scored 70 as he straight drove, hooked and cut them to pieces. Quite brilliant.
The second was on 26 June 1995 at 4.20 on the fifth day of the 2nd test when Dominic Cork, on debut, had Courtney Walsh caught behind by Alex Stewart to give England their 1st win against the west Indies at Lord’s since 1957. Cork finished with 7 for 43.
The third moment was on Saturday 1 July 2000 when Dominic Cork hit a four off Courtney Walsh to give England a two wicket win. It was the 100th test at Lord’s and had included a day, the 2nd, when part of all four innings was played. England had lost their 8th wicket at 160 needing 188 to win.Cork played an aggressive of 33 not out against the two mighty West Indies fast bowlers, Courtney Wash ans Curtley Ambrose. It had been a day of unrelenting tension.
Thinking of MCC it will be 50 years next month since I appeared for MCC v Scotland at Lord's in a two-day game, the second of which was my 29th birthday. Considering birthdays and cricket on my 21st Harrow Town played away at North London on Whit Monday in 1962. Not a great (all day) game as NL amassed a mammoth 273 for 8 and bowled Town out for 162 Georgie Hurd 6 for 64. On my 47th in 1988 Pinner 187 for 5 dec played Botany Bay 142 for 9 in a home league game. I managed to get 21 and bowled 6 -4 - 6 -1. On my 53rd in 1994 I played a league game at home for Pinner 141 all out (JW 69* batting at no.3!) v. my alma mater Old Lyonians 142 for 6 - did not bowl. On my 65th I went to an Elton John concert at New Road Worcester with the lovely Papillon, We stayed at the Lygon Arms, Chipping Campden, a hostelry familiar to Richmond CC. It is partly my fault that they now stay at this lovely old coaching inn.
In May 1979 I had played in the MCC v. Aberystwyth University match and was giving a lift home to Roger Kingdon and as we were travelling via Worcester I decided that Roger being an avid punter might like to visit the racecourse. On the route back I showed him the delights of the Lygon Arms. Roger was so delighted with what he saw that he passed on this info to fellow TVG Terry Harris (Richmond CC). After the first tour and on my next visit to The Lygon I was taken aside by the governor, Ivor Potter, and given a bit of a wigging as on that first tour he had had to break up a fight in the bar. Apparently, David Tune and Indy had fallen out and were rolling about on the floor and had to be dragged apart by Ivor.
At Harrow Town we used to get on really well with North Mid, Letchworth, Slough and Harefield and invariably we would end up playing games -Spoof, The Muffin Man, Numbers Clapping , Stump twirling and then trying to walk sightscreen to sightscreen and probably Jim Franklin's favourite - Cardinal Puff. Mind you that was in 60's pre breathalyser.
Northern Echoes
Brian Pacey sent me this
Your article on Ossie Burton in the last issue of G & Cs reminded me of a Saturday afternoon in May at South Hampstead 46 years ago when the Bush were the visitors. Ian “Trigger” Mackenzie, our 1st XI umpire was unavailable so I was asked if I would stand in for him. Fortunately, I had taken an umpires course which was run by David Whiley, the Hornsey umpire (who was an executive member of the Association of Cricket Umpires) the previous winter. As this course was held at South Hampstead, I had met Rhys Axworthy, Eric Haywood and Cyril Peach, all stalwarts of the club, who became friends over the next few years. I seem to remember that Eric and Cyril were involved with the Colts section which brought me into contact with them at Colts matches.
Shepherds Bush batted first and events proceeded smoothly during the afternoon with most of the batsmen scoring runs but with no huge individual score. Keith Hardie wheeled away for about 20 overs from my end with Sidmouth Road behind me. Eventually, the Bush declared at 175 – 9 at 5.10pm leaving South Hampstead an hour plus 20 overs in the last hour to get the runs.
Roy Cutler from my end and Steve Wright opened the bowling with Terry Cordaroy at the crease for South Hampstead. After a quiet start, there was a sudden eruption when Terry was hit low on the pads but having taken a large stride down the wicket. After some thought, and remembering David Whiley’s teaching, I gave him not out. How I would have loved to have a video replay available!!! In the event, a short time later, Terry edged Roy straight to Steve Wright in the gully. The only problem with this dismissal for the Bush was that it brought Len Stubbs to the crease and he proceeded to score a rapid 40. The remainder of the home batsmen continued to attack with Bob Peach striking a few lusty blows towards the end off Laurie Valentine, so that South Hampstead eventually won by 3 wickets with about an over to spare. As usual, we proceeded to the bar and enjoyed the usual South Hampstead hospitality.
That Saturday was a sunny afternoon, but nothing like the temperatures we have seen this year – it reached 25C in Cramlington (10 miles North of Newcastle) yesterday whilst my wife and I were trying to clean paving slabs. We only had a few drops of rain in April and the same this month. It reminds me of the summer of 1976 and like everyone else, I feel so sorry for all cricketers who can’t play for at least another month because of this dreadful virus. I spend my time watching cricket between Durham at Chester-le-Street, my home town of Grantham and Meigle, a small village in Perthshire about 10 miles North of Dundee (my wife comes from a nearby village).
At Chester-le-Street, there wouldn’t be a problem with social distancing to watch 4 day matches as the crowds have dwindled since Durham were relegated to Division 2. The only problem I could foresee would be access to the toilets as they only have one entrance/exit. Admittedly, it wouldn’t be very sociable having a conversation at 2m distance with fellow spectators.
Club cricket would be more of a problem because members tend to gather near the pavilion and in the bar area. I hate to think what financial problems clubs will be in with no bar income. Grantham are lucky in that they have a local businessman as Chairman who underwrites the cost of the ground upkeep. Meigle are at the other end of the scale as they don’t have a bar on their ground and I feel particularly sorry fo them as they won the Strathmore and Perthshire Division 1 title last year. After an end of season playoff victory, they gained promotion to the Scottish Premier League East division for the first time. Unfortunately, the decision has been taken to have no competive leagues in Scotland this season.
Hopefully, we’ll get some live cricket in about a month’s time, even though it will be behind closed doors. Meanwhile, I can start reading Michael Henderson’s book, “That will be England Gone” which arrived yesterday. Unusually for a cricket book, it doesn’t contain any photographs but quite a lot about the history and arts of the places he visited last summer.
Seaxe Matters
Alan Ashton sent me this request
The new editor of Seaxe News, Glen Birkwood, relieved me after 18 years or so, wants to run a series of “where are they now?” of Seaxe youth award winners and how or if they are still playing cricket somewhere, with one of the club teams perhaps or further afield or when did they stop playing and why etc. A mini cricket life after Seaxe story if you like!
I have agreed to write this up for him, but the trouble is finding the people. A lot must be among your vast array of people or who know some of the winners. Could you put in your next issue a plea for these Seaxe award winners to contact me with their life/cricket stories? They could e-mail on [email protected] or ring me on 01279-652669 or even write to my home address 186, Stansted road, Bishop’s Stortford, Herts. CM23 2AR.
Hedgcock matters
Murray Hedgcock sent me this
Good to be reminded that The Summer Game endures, even if for the moment we are largely occupied in looking back rather than looking on. I feel it time I crossed swords once again with the Professor – so here goes….
Plodding my way gamely through memories of the characters adorning yesterday’s Home Counties club cricket (all I can offer are low-key thoughts of Wandsworth’s Baskerville CC and South London Journalists in the Fifties, and then Sheen Park in the Sixties/Seventies) I perked up on reaching the Professor’s always provocative thoughts.
His take on Wisden was stimulating, and I can assure him that Lawrence Booth does indeed continue writing cricket for the Daily Mail. But - even I, a Colonial, knew of Bacup from Forties and Fifties days in Australia when English league cricket made an impact on my world for the number of fellow-countrymen unable to pin down a Test place, who played there – such as top-class legspinner Bruce Dooland (at East Lancashire) , with whom I later had the pleasure of playing in a social match in Adelaide.
However – how come the Prof did not pick up the bizarre declaration made by England’s immigrant short-form captain, Eoin Morgan, in his article rejoicing in the pleasure of leading a diverse team? Morgan declared, incredibly: “The England team has never been made up of 11 white Christians”. Possibly he is looking first to a distant age when Ranji, Duleep and Pataudi played for England – but he is on notably shaky ground overall, even with some post-WW2 elevens in a newly mobile world.
Perhaps an Irish-raised cricketer could hardly be expected to be an expert on the game in England. But if accorded the privilege of captaining his adopted country, he might at least brush up on its proud past. New residents are required to take a test of local knowledge before being granted UK citizenship. Maybe the many imports who now win England selection should similarly be asked to sit an exam on national cricket history before being given their cap.
Napoleon memorably termed England “a nation of shopkeepers”. Today it seems that England increasingly is a nation of sporting importers - and imports. To my amazement, at the time of writing, no-one has picked up Morgan’s claim. Don’t people actually read their Wisden?
King Cricket Matters
A couple of times recently, we’ve made the point that cricket not happening is very much an integral part of cricket. We once travelled all the way to Birmingham to spend an entire day watching cricket not happen, so doing the same thing from the comfort of our own home doesn’t feel like a particular hardship in and of itself. Cricket not happening is an occupational hazard for broadcasters too. That ability to fill time indefinitely is what separates the men from the boys and the women from the girls. As fans, we’re all used to this. We’re comfortable with it. A few months without cricket? We’ll piss it.
But there’s more.
Regular King Cricket contributor Bert writes…
It strikes me that in these times, Cricket has missed a glorious opportunity to point out that it has been right all along. I mean, who spent their weekends social distancing better than the average club cricketers? Even shouting barely carried the distance between players.
Of course, elite level cricket got this, like most things, badly wrong. Close catchers, slip cordons, everyone running together and hugging to celebrate a no ball – this was dangerous behaviour then and is dangerous behaviour now. It wouldn’t surprise me if it turned out that it was all this touching and closeness that started this mess. And occasionally, an over-zealous club skipper would get beyond himself and try to set a pro-level field, and we would be treated to one of the great sounds of an English summer:
‘Bob, grab a helmet and go in at short leg.’
‘Piss off.’
So if cricket wants to rescue something from the international summer, surely it should be to go back to basics. Have a Test series with proper, club-level field-settings. And yes, I mean including a long stop. A law could be introduced that if a bowler went on an arms-raised celebration run after a wicket, all his teammates would just call him a wanker and turn their backs. And when dismissed in the last innings, batsmen would avoid the pavilion altogether and get straight in their cars and go home.
“Social Distancing the club cricket way.”
The Miller Adams Emails
I thought that you might enjoy this exchange of emails which I got in on at the end
Douglas Miller:
Such is the narrow circle of my friends that I could think only of you as someone to whom I might turn in my attempts to understand some of the prattle on the economic situation of the UK. I read in The Times (Simon Nixon) these statements:
1. Public debt could increase by £300 billion this year….In a worst case scenario it could reach £500 billion, about 25% of GDP.
2. After a decade of austerity, debt had only just started to level off at about 85% of GDP.
3. All those wage and benefit freezes and spending cuts only succeeded in reducing the deficit from 10 per cent of GDP to 1.5%.
Assuming GDP is a fixed figure, like the number of runs a side needs to score before Duckworth Lewis clicks, how come all these figures talking about debt seem to be so wildly different that a simple mind like mine cannot cope. I would appreciate your comments, not on the simple mind, but on the above statements.
Shall we, by the way, need savage tax increases to tackle the problem or can we somehow spend our way out of it by mending potholes and speeding on with HS2 etc.? When the pubs re-open it will be good to go in and say, ‘A friend of mine who know about these things says…….’
John Adams:
How nice, as always, to hear from you...and a question about economics rather than a challenge about long-dead cricketers!
I think I can help with some of this, although public finance can be a little perplexing.
I haven't read the article (obviously), I don't read reactionary, establishment newspapers, but I may be able to help with some of this:
1. GDP is not a fixed sum, like a cricket score. It is the value of the annual production of the economy. Most years it grows (at a modest rate) some years, when the economy is wrecked by the criminal behaviour of the banking chums of the Times editor, or the population is incarcerated by a pestilence, it can fall. So it is not fixed in any sense. Think of it as the Country's annual income.
2. GDP at present is around £2.3 trillion (I haven't looked it up) so £500 billion is close to 25% of GDP. The discrepancy in the first two figures is because the £300bill (or £500 bill) is in addition to the 85%. Thus, he is saying that the National Debt stands at 85% of GDP now, but with this extra borrowing it could rise by an additional (say) 25% to 110% of GDP.
This, for the UK, is a very high level but not unsustainable. The key issue is the repayments that will have to be met and at present interest rates they should not be too onerous. Indeed, and I hope this doesn't muddy the waters, if interest rates payable on public debt are below the rate of inflation then the real rate of interest (measured in terms of purchasing power) is negative.
3. I think the third figure which uses the word "deficit" is referring to a different measure - the difference between the government's annual income and expenditures. This is the government's balance sheet not that of the whole economy, where the income is (as you now know) measured as GDP. It makes the point of course, en passant, that "austerity" was always about reducing the cost of public services (the biggest of which is the NHS) to make way for tax cuts for Times readers. This explains why the NHS was in such a poor state when the pestilence hit. The service now has moved from a "drain" on the public purse to group beatification. It has even changed its title in the mouths of Tories from "the" NHS to "our" NHS, dropping the definite article for a possessive pronoun. (Quiz question: how soon, after the Covid crisis is gone, will it revert to "the" and be something that needs to be made to work "more efficiently" (ie., cut) so that the well off - who don't use it anyway except when they are desperate - will be placated).
One more thing which I think might be in the back of your mind, as it is many others: What is the National Debt and how can it keep growing? The best way to approach this is to forget any analogy with household debt (yours and mine). Government finance is simply different from that of the individual. If we run up debts, we have to repay them. Governments do not (they do make repayments every day on debts that fall due but can simply cover that by fresh borrowing). The reason they are different is that 1. governments (at least in western developed economies) don't go broke and 2. they don't die. They are therefore a secure place for pension funds and the like to hold their reserves. They (again like ours) are also a good place for other less secure countries to hold their assets (or for counties like Norway which have had budget surpluses for almost a generation after NS oil)
The key issue (avoiding the complication of the external value of the £) is the payment of interest on the debt. As long as a government can do that, it can keep borrowing.
For reference, the National Debt began, in effect, in 1694...it is still with us. Hope that is helpful(?)
Douglas Miller:
John, that is very helpful. I am pleased to gather that, whatever else happens, our economy will not go the way of Zimbabwe. I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear advice on a route out of our trouble that would leave Times readers better off. Are we that bad? I do remember saying that I wouldn’t like to be seen buying the Telegraph, the choice for many of my friends, but I still regard The Times as the newspaper of record with a spread of correspondents from across the political spectrum.
I am currently engaged in reading, for review purposes (ACS), the letters of the young Brian Close, which I am finding deeply fascinating on so many levels. He really is a curiously misunderstood and misrepresented person. He certainly enjoyed himself in Australia – at the cinema or some party night after night, always approving of the local girls but drinking orange squash. He frequently eulogises over the meals, a reminder of the wartime austerity here that made a mixed grill really special. Even in England he had modest ideas of a smashing meal. I quote one at random: ‘I had two lovely meals, eggs, sausage and chips, toast and cakes’. Worth writing home about? Well that is precisely what he did in the full literal sense! Best wishes and once again many thanks. Economics is not an easy subject and I am lucky to have a professor on tap.
John Adams:
The Today programme on Radio 4 (to which I listen everyday) has a "what's in the papers" slot. This morning the reviewer quoted an article in the Times which may assist you in understanding my antipathy. Some years' ago I did a lot of work with teachers' representatives, trade union leaders and the like and I had a lot of time for people like Mary Bousted (Gen Sec of the NEU), a dedicated and committed educationalist. The Times piece quoted said (something very close to): "The teachers' unions, as they always do, were holding the government to ransom and using children as pawns in their game".
Who writes such crap? How dare they, who have in all probability never taught anybody anything, say that about people like Mary Bousted? And why do they think (know) it will be well received by the people who read it, vast numbers of whom don't even send their children to state schools? It is a reactionary, bigoted rag Douglas, nothing more.
Douglas Miller:
What a privilege it is to open up in the morning and find that I am the recipient of a missive from someone I respect as usually knowing what he is talking about, albeit from a left-wing perspective. People like me sit in the middle, dutifully reading the Times leader each day – and that is where you accurately recall what was written. Well it’s Blunkett v Bousted, neither of whom I know at first hand.
As one who missed two entire terms at primary school age (but was privileged to be better taught round that time than at any subsequent stage) I feel catching up is not as hard as some like to make it sound. People like me are not well placed to make judgements on the major issues of the day, but I can see the sound sense of what Mary Bousted is saying. As with care homes the business of running a school does not lend itself well to social distancing for the staff.
Your explanations yesterday have helped me to understand better how we can withstand the effects of an economy in near meltdown. Not to equate the national debt to that of an individual is a helpful concept that has made me more cheerful. So, we print more money, as they used to say, offer a mass of gilts for someone to buy and carry on. But is it a good idea to reduce the spending power of the very rich or hope that they will stimulate the economy by buying more yachts etc. thereby keeping boat- builders employed and the Savoy Grill busy? Your answer please!
I, and one or two others, have been challenged to mark the 85th birthday of Ted Dexter by listing the 41 players who played under his captaincy and then the four who played most often and the four who played only once. I am expecting 100% for my submission!
John Adams:
Captaincy for England?
Douglas Miller:
What’s the problem? Current incumbents suit me well enough. If Root is in maternity, it has to be Stokes or vice-captaincy means nothing’ He has matured, has a good cricket brain and will have the team behind him. Most, now being public school-educated, will understand how they are expected to respond.
John Adams:
Sorry Douglas, you misunderstood me. I was responding to your quiz question about playing "under" Dexter's captaincy by asking if you meant, specifically, his Captaincy of England.
ps I have just been watching a webinar put on by Black Opal about the 1986/7 tour of Australia, with Gower, Broad, Gatting, Hughes and Gladstone Small. Seemed to be mainly about getting drunk which is celebrated in a way that I think might not wash these days.
Douglas Miller:
Oh yes! The captaincy of England. I was a bit puzzled by your one liner! Funny thing words – webinar entered my vocabulary earlier in the day. I went last year to a talk by Phillip DeFreitas, a good chap to hear if offered the chance, and he was plunged into it all with Botham and quite amazed by what went on. The Close letters that I have completed reading this evening confirm (or exaggerate) everything one knows about the A tour of Pakistan. Hugely entertaining – and they come to an end really because in the mid-1950s people were starting to get telephones! Far off days.
John Adams:
Could you write something about the Close letters for Googlies? Not, obviously, a considered piece but just the fact that you are doing it and the sort of correspondence they contain.
Douglas Miller:
Ho hum! Your request has come in the same morning mail as my reviews editor expressing satisfaction with what I have given him.
I have written nearly 70 reviews for the ACS and the one completed and sent off yesterday was the most tortuous to complete – and the longest. It was also almost the only time I have asked for a chance to amend it, a request that was freely granted.
What I must not do, I feel, is allow my ACS review to be pre-empted by my own hand. What I can do is write about the task I had to undertake and its particular complexities, give a bit of a plug for the ACS and leave Googlies readers wondering and thirsting for more. If I do something along those lines within the next 72 hours and send it to you, you can do what you will with it. Leave it with me. The muse may become active when I go for my walk.
John Adams:
Look forward to it.
Douglas Miller:
Here is a short piece that does not allow you to go unscathed.
John Adams to Jim Sharp:
A submission from Douglas Miller for the next Googlies attached.
Jim Sharp:
Thanks for squeezing that out from Douglas. I also enjoyed your exchange of emails with him- any objection to using those as well?
John Adams:
Nope.
I am, of course, traduced by Douglas. I think a world without the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians would be a much poorer place. How could we manage without knowing that 151 was the highest test score without an individual score of 25, let alone the triumph of introducing the List A category. The Association seems to me to be the epitome of the classic English institution of delightful and harmless eccentrics. The way, perhaps, people from overseas think of the English gentleman (although doubtless they have many women members as well). Perhaps I ought to put my money on the table and sign up.
To be just a little pedantic (parenthetically, of course, a characteristic approved of by all ACS members) the only issue of their journal that I have seen did not really contain any statistics in the technical sense (quantitative inference from sample data). They don't, so it seems, "do" statistics - what they have is data...and Boy!, do they have a lot of data.
Jim Sharp:
Do they keep it all on computers these days? This would have expanded the options for the silly stuff. I heard a while back on test match special that Geoff Pullar had got out on his birthday for the same score as his age....We believe that Walmsley does his stuff manually but how could you keep it updated?
John Adams:
Douglas has just emailed me about Peter Siddell's new world record. It seems he has gone 26 Tests without taking a catch. It is impossible to parody these guys.
The Last Old Danes Gathering
We have decided to postpone the Last old Danes Gathering until 2021. The clincher was that although SBCC are very keen to keep their cricket week it may have to proceed without the facilities of a bar. I am sorry to disappoint those who had been desperate for another chance to meet the Great Jack Morgan.
Editor’s Note
I make no apologies for another lengthy edition. I have included plenty for you to digest whilst some or all us are still under lockdown. Please keep sending me stuff to ensure I can fill the next edition.
Googlies Website
All the back editions of Googlies can be found on the G&C website. There are also many photographs most of which have never appeared in Googlies.
www.googliesandchinamen.com
Googlies and Chinamen
is produced by
James Sharp
Broad Lee House
Combs
High Peak
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[email protected]
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 210
June 2020
Test Cricket
China won the toss and decided to bat. At the toss Captain Johnson shook hands with his counterpart, a gesture he was later to regret. He was somewhat put out as he was used to getting things his own way and so consulted his senior players as to what would be a good score to restrict them to. The consensus was that anything under 20,000 was gettable. He then suggested that he needed to have someone to blame if things went wrong. He said that he normally blames the Groundsman but, on this occasion, decided to call in senior members of the Bowling Academy. He said: “If I keep saying that I consulted them no-one can blame me for making the wrong bowling changes and field placings. I will also make them come onto the field of play in between overs so that everyone can see that it is not me making bad decisions.”
However, Johnson’s team seemingly did everything wrong. Tactics adopted by most successful international teams such as Germany and South Korea were ignored. Left arm bowlers bowled right-handed, spinners opened the bowling and there were some bizarre field placings. The score started mounting alarmingly. Nevertheless, at every drinks interval the senior players explained that everything was going to plan and that the Bowling Academy had advised at every stage of the proceedings. The bowlers continued to serve up half-volleys saying that was what they had been told to do.
Nevertheless, the score didn't seem to be mounting as some had expected and the scorers were asked if all the runs scored had been included. They explained that they had been instructed not to include those scored by the senior players since they did not count towards the first-class averages.
At lunch one of the Bowling Academy whispered in the Captain’s ear that something called Herd Immunity would overcome the flow of runs and so for a while all the players wandered around the field saying “Herd Immunity” although none of them knew what it meant. At the tea break an independent expert was interviewed in the Commentary Box and he explained that to achieve Herd Immunity all players would have to be given a bowl and that by the time Herd Immunity was achieved the score would be over 500,000 and that the Chinese would still be batting on Day Four. The Captain quickly shelved this plan and pretended that he had never subscribed to it.
Instead the Captain inexplicably started babbling in Latin and then said “In our last match everyone came on side when we kept repeating “Don’t drop catches” over and over again”. So, he introduced a series of Mantras which everyone had to learn and repeat between overs: “Stay in the Ring, Protect our Bowling Averages and Save Runs”. Soon everyone in the crowd was saying them too.
Fielding became increasingly difficult; many substitute fielders were used and the Dressing Room became overcrowded. Someone suggested that a new pavilion should be built and so all of the club’s financial resources for the next five years were spent on converting the local school. As more and more players needed to get kit from the team bag they found that there was a shortage of pads, boxes, helmets and other protective gear. Mat Hancock, the Kit Monitor, claimed that he had ordered enough but no one believed him.
When the Captain’s best friend came on to bowl, he took a wicket with what the umpire decided was a no-ball. Everyone could see that his foot had landed over the line but the captain denied this and said that his friend was being discriminated against and that he had done nothing wrong.
When someone sent a message out to the captain that the score was nearing 30,000, he said “I’ve stopped looking at the scoreboard. I’m more concerned with what a prat I shall look if they score more than Italy”.
In and Within on the Professor’s Sofa
SKYPE, Google meet, Facetime, Zoom and Jit.si are all software platforms that, with the exception of the first one, I had not been expecting to use (nor even know about) in my lifetime. Now, like I guess most others, I spend hours in meetings on one or the other. They are promoted as been as good, or even better (you don’t have to travel) than an actual meeting, although it seems to me that while they are indeed better than not meeting at all, and very good for passing on bits of information, they are otherwise very limited, and limiting, in the dynamics of a meeting which, to be frank, is just about the only thing of any interest in such gatherings. There are also the seemingly inevitable glitches where someone is trying to join the discussion but can’t get in, or someone else is speaking without generating any sound or, far the most common, two, three or four people are speaking at once. At times the whole business reminds me of Two-Way Family Favourites when Jean Metcalfe used to say: “Come in Gelsenkirchen” or “Over to you Famagusta”. Result…silence, or sometimes a high-pitched crackling sound as unlike Ella Fitzgerald as anything could be.
I was pondering all this when I joined a cricket webinar last week put on by Lords Tavernier’s and the Black Opal travel group. The participants were: Chris Broad, Mike Gatting, David Gower, Merv Hughes and Gladstone Small and the topic was the 1986/7 Australian tour. They were all in their respective homes, although Hughes appeared to be in his garage and, in truth, it went with many fewer hitches than Family Favourites ever did. Indeed fewer than many Zoom meetings that I have been in recently.
I never know quite what to make of these reminiscences by star players of “the old days”; mostly they appear to remember (counter-intuitively) the seemingly endless booze-ups. It seems almost impossible to mention Ian Botham without a reference to drinking (nor Gatting without food) and I guess that’s what many people want to hear, it gives “colour” and makes great cricketers into “personalities”. There were reflections, in this webinar, about the level of drunkenness – especially at the start of the tour – but happily much more about the cricket. It was Broad’s first tour and his finest as an England opening bat and similarly, Gladstone Small’s selection at the MCG produced perhaps the highlight of his career in the MoM award for 7 wickets in the match.
For Broad much of the early part of the tour consisted in a joust with Slack and Athey for the opening sport. He was picked for the first test, failed in the first innings but, thanks to a dropped slip catch had a 35* in the second, kept his place, and then went on, of course, to score three successive hundreds. On such transitory moments of fortune are careers made. Gatting had taken over the captaincy from Gower who had presided over one of the worst runs England had had – 8 defeats out of 11 tests - (admittedly against some pretty useful opposition). Gatting seemed to have trouble imposing control on Botham and Lamb (and sometimes Gower) and Emburey and Edmonds come to that. What the latter two did, however, was give him control on the field.
A précis of the series could be structured around two speeches. The first was by Botham, the second by Bob Hawke.
The Botham speech was delivered at dinner the evening before the first Test. Prior to that England described, as always, as “the worst team ever to tour Australia”, performed poorly in the two state games and so: “certainly lived up your billing there mate” (Merv, from the garage). Whether it was the booze or inexperience or the pre-Test itinerary who knows, but it prompted Martin-Jenkins into his famous: “can’t bat, can’t bowl, can’t field” which, after the series ended he “explained” as the” right quote but the wrong team”. Botham, having attempted to drink the Barossa Valley dry decided that the team should now be told that the fun was over (his fun presumably) and delivered an eve-of-Waterloo speech although with a level of profanities that would not have gained the approval of the Iron Duke. Gatting said that he, as captain, had a rallying speech prepared, but after ITB there didn’t seem much point.
After four Tests they were 2-0 up. 450+ in the first innings of the First Test proved to be just about enough and another Broad hundred in the Fourth (why is he nicknamed “Jess” by-the-way) together with Gladstone’s wickets was decisive at Melbourne. Enter Prime Minister Hawke. The Davis Cup final had just been played and Pat Cash had starred in the series coming back from two sets down to win the decisive match. In awarding the trophy, Hawke was heard to say that he wished he could replace the Australian cricket team with 11 Pat Cash’s. Didn’t go down too well with captain Border apparently, and was enough of a motivation going to Sydney for a close(ish) win built around a big hundred from Dean Jones and 8 wickets from “the wrong Taylor”. Runs from Gatting and another 5-fer from Gladstone were not quite enough.
Towards the end of the session there was a move into more general matters, especially ball tampering. This wasn’t (sadly) an opportunity to relive the blubbing Aussies interviews but did, so I thought, have some sensible things to say about ball polishing. There is, so it was said, some debate about permitting more ball tampering – one or other of the Chappells is associated with the idea. I suppose a sort of “fair cheating all round” or a resignation to something that is already happening by making it legal. Broad is not a fan of this idea and thinks that whatever polishing is allowed should be under the control of the umpire. There was even, from Merv, the back-to-the-future suggestion that only the bowler should do the polishing. I think a lot of cricket watchers would support that who, like Merv, are: “sick at watching the bowler get back to his mark and having to wait for the ball to come back from the designated polisher in the slips”. Certainly gets my vote.
This webinar was, by the way, the second put on by the Black Opal travel firm. It was free and open to all customers and interested parties. It is obviously a way of keeping the customer base together, but I have not heard from any of the other cricket travel companies (and I have used several) doing anything similar. So, good luck to them; there can hardly have ever been a worse time to launch a travel firm but I hope they hang on and emerge post-virus as a going concern. If so, and if (as my grandmother used to say) “I’m spared”, we will be using them again.
Lockdown Matters
George sent me this
We’ve had a little problem with moths. As a result, Pauline has recycled my old SCD sleeveless pullover and my green SCD cricket cap. I think they must have moved to a new house at least 12 times. I wonder how many of your contributors still have their’s?
The Professor sent me this
You will recall the name Peter Lapping. He has sent in a couple of pieces to Googlies. We met Peter and his wife on a cricket tour and have kept in touch and met-up on a few occasions. We were due to stay with them this summer to go to the Cheltenham festival.The Lappings are very good friends with the Rev Anthony Roberts and his wife and we have also met them on a number of occasions. In addition to a beautiful house in Gloucestershire the Roberts live in Alderney and were good chums with the great John Arlott. Both Peter and Anthony are Googlies readers. You will recall in the last issue that I mentioned some old video clips released by the MCC - one featuring two Lancashire towns I had never heard of: Rawtenstall and Bacup. Both had professionals, Bacup employed the fairly useful services of Everton deCourcy Weekes. So, a couple of days' ago a note arrives from Peter to say that the Rev. is very put out that I had not heard of Bacup. Why? Well, he was born in Bacup. His uncle Jack captained the team and Everton Weekes lodged with his Granny. Small, as they say, world.
Steve Wright sent me this
Can I suggest that you ask your regulars how they would structure any cricket played this year? We all have club cricket backgrounds and this is what has brought us all together. Personally (and I have not seen this suggested by anyone) why not run T20 competitions in the County leagues. The matches are short enough to have either two on Saturdays ( if desired) or during weekdays and it would be a proper competition. Each division of each County league would then play off to have a winner from each County and then further play offs to have regional champions. I just don’t think it’s fair or would be regarded as being fair to have promotion and relegation based on a truncated season. This is not to say that I prefer T20 cricket but it does suit the particular circumstances we find ourselves in.
George sent me this
‘County Cricket to Return in August with Small Crowds'
The GJM noted
It was on page 36 in my copy with the back page (40) devoted to football and
motor racing!
Steve Thompson sent me this
Still, some silver linings, the Rs are unbeaten since March!
Important Notice
Following the demise of the 8pm Thursday Clap for the NHS, right minded citizens are invited to engage in a BOO for Boris at this time slot.
Duckworth Lewis Matters
Tony Lewis, the mathematician and statistician who co-devised what became known as the Duckworth-Lewis method for settling weather-affected limited-overs matches, has died at the age of 78 but he might have been 76 if you take into account the number of ailments he had or 84 if you bear in mind that it rained on his birthday.
He is succeeded by his colleague, Frank Duckworth who recently interviewed The Health Secretary, Mat Hancock. Hancock claimed to have scored over 100,000 runs during his cricket career. An incredulous Duckworth asked him if he was sure about this number but Hancock said that he had set this target when he was still playing in short trousers and that he always made a point of setting himself goals which helped him to achieve them.
Duckworth decided to take the matter up with the scorers and it transpired that Hancock, in order to reach his target, had not only included the runs that he had scored but also those that he had run for the batsman at the other end. He also included the runs scored by the rest of the team after he was out since he claimed that he had facilitated them by getting out.
Duckworth totted all these up and still found himself well short of the 100,000. He then arranged a meeting with Hancock’s personal statistician, and it transpired that Hancock had also included all the runs scored by his personal friends since he claimed that he had helped them develop their skills in the nets.
Morgan matters
The GJM has been twiddling his thumbs in Hampton
Oz have returned to top of the Test rankings (replacing India) for the first time in four years. NZ are second, India 3rd and England 4th. England are top in ODIs, Oz are top in T20s.
Apparently, Kookaburra has developed a "wax applicator" to shine balls on the field of play because the traditional methods of shining the ball have become a dangerous process for the designated ball polisher. This process would not be acceptable under the current laws so MCC would have to agree to a law change.
The impact of the coronavirus could cost the ECB as much as £380m says the prat in charge, T Harrison. MCC members have been told they will not be refunded subscriptions for 2020 despite the prospect of seeing cricket at Lord's being "increasingly remote". What are the chances of a refund for Middx Life Members?
Brian Bolus has died aged 86. He played 7 Tests in '63 and '64 and averaged 41.33, highest score 88 v Ind in Chennai. He started with Yorks, of course, playing in 3 Championship winning sides before moving to Notts and Derbys. He scored 25,598 first class runs including 39 centuries. He retired in 1976 and served as an Eng selector and chairman of the management advisory committee and became president of Notts in 2004-5.
Desmond Haynes has been voted Middx's greatest ever overseas player with 52% of the vote.
Vic says the ECB is planning to play 6 Tests this summer against WI and Pak behind closed doors from the second week in July onwards. The matches are likely to be played at Old Trafford and the Rose (Ageas) Bowl because they have hotels on site.
Rs' manager Mark Warburton says: "I saw Barnet were losing £100,000 per month; how can that be allowed or sustainable? We spend 65p for every pound we bring in but others in our league are spending £1.75 or £2.05. Given owners are going to be hit in the long term, it could be another 10 years before we get back to a financial level similar to now."
WI "legend" C Gayle says he stands by his comments about former team-mate Ramnaresh Sarwan, calling him "a snake", "evil", "wicked" and "poison". CG blamed Sarwan for his release from the Caribbean Premier League team Jamaica Tallawahs. However, I have had doubts about Gayle for some time and it seems that Sarwan could be right because although Gayle made 116 in his second game, he managed only 243 runs in 10 innings as the Tallawahs finished bottom of the table.
Ali Martin has a long piece in the O today about how this season will look. It is encouraging that there might actually be a season, but it does not make thrilling reading as it is all about "social distancing", "bio-secure models", "island sites", "functional areas", "contact clusters" and "bubbles"! No doubt you will become an expert on all these terms and will be able to explain them to the rest of us!
Former Gloucs capt Tony Brown has died aged 83. He spent all of his 23 year senior career with Gloucs, skippering from 68 to 76 and made 489 first class appearances. He took 1,223 first class wickets, made 12,681 first class runs and his 7 catches in an innings v Notts at TB in 1966 remains a (joint) all-time record. He led Gloucs to the Gillette Cup in 1973 and scored 73* in the final at Lord's.
I do not think they are interested in playing any Championship cricket before August. They are talking about WI Tests in July then some County Championship and T20s in August, September and October. Today's G says "the ECB has confirmed that County Cricket could yet have small crowds, provided clubs adhere to government guidance on physical distancing".
England have picked 14 uncapped players in a group of 55 that have been asked to return to training "in preparation for a revamped international summer". The only Middx players in the squad are E Morgan and T Helm. 23 seamers have been named: that should be enough! Although the 3 Test series v WI has yet to be confirmed, Steve Elworthy (ECB's director of events) is "absolutely confident" that Jason Holder's tourists would arrive on 9 June and begin 2 weeks of quarantine.
The UK government has approved the return of domestic sport behind closed doors from Mon 1/6. Meanwhile, scientists are warning about the risks of easing down too soon and they want a fully working test and trace system first... and I think they are probably right.
Miller Matters
Douglas Miller sent me this
I wonder how many Googlies readers actually know the Professor. I was privileged to come across him for the first time in the West Indies back in 2009, when we were both following Andrew Strauss’s first tour as captain. It has proved a useful contact. Whenever I am confounded by some esoteric piece of jargon beyond most laymen’s comprehension like ‘quantitative easing’, I have only to e-mail the Professor and all will be revealed.
It was within the context of some such enquiry that I let slip that I was engrossed in a book bringing together the letters of the young Brian Close. I was doing so to prepare a review for the quarterly journal of The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (the ACS), a body that has been the subject of the odd jibe from the Professor when not looking for favours as he now is. So, to divert briefly, the ACS enjoys increasing recognition internationally as the guardian of the game’s statistics. It is thanks to its early members that we have a body of matches that are, more or less, accepted as being first-class. It has been an equally rigorous task to classify those that may be recognised as List A, a term coined by the ACS, while the Association’s thirst for scorecards from matches at all levels takes it down into a ‘Miscellaneous’ category where many Googlies readers will have played.
For the more devout members of the ACS it is a matter of great fascination that Australia’s first innings total of 151 against India at Melbourne last year was the highest in all Tests without an individual innings of 25 or better. Many followers of cricket survive happily enough without such gems of information. Indeed the ACS itself contains some long-standing members who might agree with the Professor that an intelligent interest in the game is possible without a constant drip feed of such esoterica. It is for those members that items of a broader historical interest are also covered, and their annual subscription (a snip at less than £30) gives them access to book reviews by such legends of the game as David Frith.
David Frith not being available to review everything that pours off the presses, other mortals like myself are roped in. So it was that the Close letters came my way, and Googlies readers will appreciate that it would not be fair to allow all my pearls of wisdom to be available to those paying nothing to read them. So this is primarily an explanation of what the letters are all about and how they came to light. Brian Close had a friend from childhood, John Anderson, with whom he had been at school and who remained a bosom pal until both men died towards the end of 2015. Anderson died shortly after Close and it was only then that boxes of letters written by his friend between 1948 and 1955 were discovered. They have been brought together for publication with splendid linking commentary by David Warner, once the cricket correspondent of the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, assisted by Ron Deaton, Yorkshire’s memorabilia guru.
To most people who knew Brian Close, even Bryan Stott, another special mate from schooldays and the man chosen to deliver the address at Close’s funeral, his prowess as a letter writer has come as a big surprise. It is not as if he was a voracious reader. He had been a bright lad at school, but it was as a mathematician that he might have moved into higher education. ‘He didn’t read – other than The Sporting Life. He didn’t read books at all, Readers Digest was about his limit,’ his widow says. Yet, as Vivien Close at least knew, he could write – and write well!
The book earns its title from the typical opening to a Close letter: ‘Just a Few Lines’. This phrase could be the prelude to a dozen sides of paper! Though Close’s early months playing for Yorkshire and his time doing National Service are well covered, and the fun and games of the A team tour of Pakistan are also recorded, it is the letters written from Australia that provide greatest historical interest.
It is not Close’s style to dwell at length on the playing side of the trip, though he does pass a few shrewd comments. Even in England his main focus had been on life off the pitch. He had found time to marvel at the splendour of the Cambridge colleges and the sights of London, and in those ration book days he was readily impressed by a half-decent meal. For instance, he writes that he and Frank Lowson ‘came on a posh restaurant and we went in and had a real first-class meal for 8/- (it ought to be for that price). Roast chicken and loads of it, boiled ham as well, chips, peas and cabbage plus soup and sweet of course. Sorry if I make your mouth water!’
It was the same story in Australia, but now on a truly grand scale. It is the magnificence of the countryside, the comfort of the hotels, the endless parties and the entertainment always laid on for the tourists that take precedence. Now, too, with juicy steaks abounding, the food was unimaginably superior to anything on offer back home, while the letters make clear that at the parties and dance halls there is always a bevy of attractive young ladies hoping a cricketer may catch their eye – and young Close is not one to miss out. It was a world apart from anything this 19 year-old working class lad had ever experienced. It was certainly enough to make any mate back in England feel jealous.
Does anything ring untrue? Well, of course it was a disastrous tour for young Close as a player. Moreover, the received wisdom and his own autobiography, written nearly three decades later, make plain that it was a miserable trip with none of the senior professionals helping to make their youngest player feel part of the team. There was even talk of feeling suicidal. Can the joyful exuberance of correspondence to his great mate be reconciled with Close’s more mature admissions in the book ghosted by Don Mosey? Close, I am assured, would not have been one to allow a tissue of untruths to be peddled in his name. Read this new book if you get the chance. Then share your impressions. I have my own theory, but you haven’t paid to hear it!
*****
In the last edition Douglas identified the 38 players who all received their first cap under a different captain. He now relieves the tension by divulging all:
Dennis Amiss
Brian Close
Bob Appleyard
David Sheppard
Bill Athey
Ian Botham
Bob Barber
Colin Cowdrey
Jack Birkenshaw
Tony Lewis
Ian Botham
Mike Brearley
John Childs
John Emburey
Brian Close
Freddie Brown
Alastair Cook
Andrew Flintoff
Geoff Cook
Keith Fletcher
Norman Cowans
Bob Willis
Tim Curtis
Chris Cowdrey
Richard Ellison
David Gower
Liam Dawson
Alastair Cook
Phillip DeFreitas
Mike Gatting
Keith Fletcher
Tom Graveney
James Foster
Nasser Hussain
Mike Gatting
Geoff Boycott
Warren Hegg
Alec Stewart
Mike Hendrick
Mike Denness
Jeff Jones
Mike Smith
Don Kenyon
Nigel Howard
Jim Laker
Ken Cranston
Peter Lever
Ray Illingworth
Peter Loader
Len Hutton
John Mortimore
Peter May
Craig Overton
Joe Root
Kevin Pietersen
Michael Vaughan
Jack Robertson
Norman Yardley
Fred Rumsey
Ted Dexter
Reg Simpson
George Mann
Phil Tufnell
Graham Gooch
Sean Udal
Marcus Trescothick
Johnny Wardle
Gubby Allen
Mike Watkinson
Mike Atherton
Bob Woolmer
Tony Greig
Godfrey Evans
Walter Hammond
Carlin Matters
Paddy Carlin sent me this
I am currently in a discussion with the ECB’s Umpires Association regarding a tongue in cheek hypothesis of mine that concludes that the higher you go up the umpire’s ladder the less competent you need to be. In test cricket DRS is available and all(and I mean all) the difficult decisions(stumpings, run outs, LBWs, questionable catches etc) are verified by DRS whether requested by the umpire or referred by the players. It poses the question that at this level do you need an on field umpire at all? Decision making by the technology available is much better than by the umpire who in many cases has the original decision reversed. This would also remove the nonsense of “Umpire’s Call” – surely you are either out or not?
So Aleem Dar etc don’t really have to do or know very much. They don’t watch for “No Balls”, they don’t have to check the score or the number of balls bowled in the over, they don’t have to worry about pitch or boundary markings although they do act as a clothes horse from time to time and also have to replace the bails from time to time, but surely a mobile gofa could do this? They also get in the way of the action or stand so far back as to make their job impossible.
What do you think? Isn’t this no on field umpire game worth a trial? Predictably the ECB’s umpires’ man was both illogical and churlish in his response to this provocative suggestion. But as technology gets better and faster decision making should be flawless. It begs the question: “Can the DRS visuals be tampered with to give out or not out decisions as required?” In time this is probably feasible. It might be one way to get Steve Smith out.
I think the way 1st class cricket is going there will soon be a five a side competition. That is five overs per side, eight teams, one venue, knock out, four quarter finals, two semi-finals, one final all in one day. Start at 10.30 am finish at 7.30 pm. Seven games in nine hours or more if floodlights are available. Teams either franchises or qualifiers from top eight in fifty over competitions. Perfect for the modern era, thirty ball innings and mayhem from the first ball. Remember you heard it first here.
Williams’ Matters
John Williams has been reminiscing
As currently there is nothing on the horizon in the future I have taken to the reminiscing fields.
Reading about the Surrey disintegration against Lancashire in the B & H Cup in 1993 reminds of the game between Harrow Town and Polytechnic in August 1970 at Rayners Lane. Town played Poly twice a season - on first Saturday of the season at the end of April and the return in August. For some inexplicable reason we always played the April game at Chiswick when invariably a cold wind would be blowing across the open spaces from the Thames. In the 1970 return game Poly batted first and were in dire trouble at 27 for7 when fortunately, their last two players eventually arrived. One of them was Chris Kempadoor, normally an opener, who went in at no. 10 and managed to get them up to 94. Town reached 87 before losing their 2nd wicket however Kempadoor then took 5 wickets with the scores level and the Town eventually scraped a win with a leg bye. Kempadoor finished with 6 for 7 including a hat trick. Embarrassment all round for the home side.
I was clearing out some old client files when I came across the late John Overy's file. He was also a very good friend as well. He played for Dulwich and Brentham and is the Dad of Graeme, Harrow Town, Parkfield, Brentham and Harrow and currently bottle man for Brondesbury, and Grandad of James, the Brondesbury captain. In the file I found my jottings on Roger Pearman following the Charlie Puckett’s announcement of Roger’s death. AJ is Tony Colbeck of Pinner, currently President of Shepherds Bush. My reference to Roger is political not his style of batting:
Email from John Williams to John Overy, 14 April 2009
What terrible news. Roger always seemed to be present at some of my best performances.
1959 Hove: Middlesex YAs v Sussex. Brearley b. Snow 0. Pearman 103 not out. I took 4 for 28, including John Snow and Mike Griffith, and we won by 7 runs. Lindley took the last wicket-an absurd LBW- too far forward and too high but our, sorry the neutral who had travelled down with us, umpire ( called Snowy by coincidence) wanted us to win and he was worried that if the game lasted any longer he would miss the train he wanted to catch.
1969 Sunbury: Roger was playing for CCC and I was playing for MCC in a 2-day game. We won by 102 runs and I took 7 for 27 in the 2nd innings.
1972 Amersham: Bucks v Beds. Beds won off the last ball by 4 wickets to enable them to challenge Yorks II for the title which they duly won. Roger made 66 and 47*. I took 5 for 35 in 1st innings-did not include RP but unfortunately I broke one of his fingers and he batted no.7 in 2nd innings. Didn’t seem to hinder him much.
Funniest story about Roger was the 2-day YAs game v Surrey at the Oval in 1959. Roger made 0 and Brearley made a ton in the 1st innings. It was AJ’s only game (9 for 69 in the first innings) and as he knew Roger well as did Tony Berry and I , we took the mickey out of him terribly asking him, frequently, if he had ever made a pair. He made 3and took the ribbing very well.
Although he was a leftie he was great fun and we had some great times together. Had not seen him for some time though.
The MCC produce a Magazine about twice a year and Alex Mead the Content Director asked members for their iconic moments at Lord's. Enclosed is what I sent him. The first item, in an abbreviated form, appeared in the October edition:
Number 1 undoubtedly occurred on Friday 21 june 1963. I had taken my driving test in Harrow in the late morning(and passed) and got the train from Harrowat 12.55. I got to Lord’s by 1.20. In those days you could just turn up and pay at the gate. Also play started at 11.30 so I got in just before lunch at 1.30. Also tickets were not sold for the Free Seats so I was able to get to the top of the Compton Stand and see the most fearsome over from Charlie Griffith to Mike Stewart. I met a few friends in the lunch interval and we sat on the grass in front of the Mound Stand for the afternoon session. What we witnessed in the hour after lunch was the most exhilarating cricket as Ted Dexter took on Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith and scored 70 as he straight drove, hooked and cut them to pieces. Quite brilliant.
The second was on 26 June 1995 at 4.20 on the fifth day of the 2nd test when Dominic Cork, on debut, had Courtney Walsh caught behind by Alex Stewart to give England their 1st win against the west Indies at Lord’s since 1957. Cork finished with 7 for 43.
The third moment was on Saturday 1 July 2000 when Dominic Cork hit a four off Courtney Walsh to give England a two wicket win. It was the 100th test at Lord’s and had included a day, the 2nd, when part of all four innings was played. England had lost their 8th wicket at 160 needing 188 to win.Cork played an aggressive of 33 not out against the two mighty West Indies fast bowlers, Courtney Wash ans Curtley Ambrose. It had been a day of unrelenting tension.
Thinking of MCC it will be 50 years next month since I appeared for MCC v Scotland at Lord's in a two-day game, the second of which was my 29th birthday. Considering birthdays and cricket on my 21st Harrow Town played away at North London on Whit Monday in 1962. Not a great (all day) game as NL amassed a mammoth 273 for 8 and bowled Town out for 162 Georgie Hurd 6 for 64. On my 47th in 1988 Pinner 187 for 5 dec played Botany Bay 142 for 9 in a home league game. I managed to get 21 and bowled 6 -4 - 6 -1. On my 53rd in 1994 I played a league game at home for Pinner 141 all out (JW 69* batting at no.3!) v. my alma mater Old Lyonians 142 for 6 - did not bowl. On my 65th I went to an Elton John concert at New Road Worcester with the lovely Papillon, We stayed at the Lygon Arms, Chipping Campden, a hostelry familiar to Richmond CC. It is partly my fault that they now stay at this lovely old coaching inn.
In May 1979 I had played in the MCC v. Aberystwyth University match and was giving a lift home to Roger Kingdon and as we were travelling via Worcester I decided that Roger being an avid punter might like to visit the racecourse. On the route back I showed him the delights of the Lygon Arms. Roger was so delighted with what he saw that he passed on this info to fellow TVG Terry Harris (Richmond CC). After the first tour and on my next visit to The Lygon I was taken aside by the governor, Ivor Potter, and given a bit of a wigging as on that first tour he had had to break up a fight in the bar. Apparently, David Tune and Indy had fallen out and were rolling about on the floor and had to be dragged apart by Ivor.
At Harrow Town we used to get on really well with North Mid, Letchworth, Slough and Harefield and invariably we would end up playing games -Spoof, The Muffin Man, Numbers Clapping , Stump twirling and then trying to walk sightscreen to sightscreen and probably Jim Franklin's favourite - Cardinal Puff. Mind you that was in 60's pre breathalyser.
Northern Echoes
Brian Pacey sent me this
Your article on Ossie Burton in the last issue of G & Cs reminded me of a Saturday afternoon in May at South Hampstead 46 years ago when the Bush were the visitors. Ian “Trigger” Mackenzie, our 1st XI umpire was unavailable so I was asked if I would stand in for him. Fortunately, I had taken an umpires course which was run by David Whiley, the Hornsey umpire (who was an executive member of the Association of Cricket Umpires) the previous winter. As this course was held at South Hampstead, I had met Rhys Axworthy, Eric Haywood and Cyril Peach, all stalwarts of the club, who became friends over the next few years. I seem to remember that Eric and Cyril were involved with the Colts section which brought me into contact with them at Colts matches.
Shepherds Bush batted first and events proceeded smoothly during the afternoon with most of the batsmen scoring runs but with no huge individual score. Keith Hardie wheeled away for about 20 overs from my end with Sidmouth Road behind me. Eventually, the Bush declared at 175 – 9 at 5.10pm leaving South Hampstead an hour plus 20 overs in the last hour to get the runs.
Roy Cutler from my end and Steve Wright opened the bowling with Terry Cordaroy at the crease for South Hampstead. After a quiet start, there was a sudden eruption when Terry was hit low on the pads but having taken a large stride down the wicket. After some thought, and remembering David Whiley’s teaching, I gave him not out. How I would have loved to have a video replay available!!! In the event, a short time later, Terry edged Roy straight to Steve Wright in the gully. The only problem with this dismissal for the Bush was that it brought Len Stubbs to the crease and he proceeded to score a rapid 40. The remainder of the home batsmen continued to attack with Bob Peach striking a few lusty blows towards the end off Laurie Valentine, so that South Hampstead eventually won by 3 wickets with about an over to spare. As usual, we proceeded to the bar and enjoyed the usual South Hampstead hospitality.
That Saturday was a sunny afternoon, but nothing like the temperatures we have seen this year – it reached 25C in Cramlington (10 miles North of Newcastle) yesterday whilst my wife and I were trying to clean paving slabs. We only had a few drops of rain in April and the same this month. It reminds me of the summer of 1976 and like everyone else, I feel so sorry for all cricketers who can’t play for at least another month because of this dreadful virus. I spend my time watching cricket between Durham at Chester-le-Street, my home town of Grantham and Meigle, a small village in Perthshire about 10 miles North of Dundee (my wife comes from a nearby village).
At Chester-le-Street, there wouldn’t be a problem with social distancing to watch 4 day matches as the crowds have dwindled since Durham were relegated to Division 2. The only problem I could foresee would be access to the toilets as they only have one entrance/exit. Admittedly, it wouldn’t be very sociable having a conversation at 2m distance with fellow spectators.
Club cricket would be more of a problem because members tend to gather near the pavilion and in the bar area. I hate to think what financial problems clubs will be in with no bar income. Grantham are lucky in that they have a local businessman as Chairman who underwrites the cost of the ground upkeep. Meigle are at the other end of the scale as they don’t have a bar on their ground and I feel particularly sorry fo them as they won the Strathmore and Perthshire Division 1 title last year. After an end of season playoff victory, they gained promotion to the Scottish Premier League East division for the first time. Unfortunately, the decision has been taken to have no competive leagues in Scotland this season.
Hopefully, we’ll get some live cricket in about a month’s time, even though it will be behind closed doors. Meanwhile, I can start reading Michael Henderson’s book, “That will be England Gone” which arrived yesterday. Unusually for a cricket book, it doesn’t contain any photographs but quite a lot about the history and arts of the places he visited last summer.
Seaxe Matters
Alan Ashton sent me this request
The new editor of Seaxe News, Glen Birkwood, relieved me after 18 years or so, wants to run a series of “where are they now?” of Seaxe youth award winners and how or if they are still playing cricket somewhere, with one of the club teams perhaps or further afield or when did they stop playing and why etc. A mini cricket life after Seaxe story if you like!
I have agreed to write this up for him, but the trouble is finding the people. A lot must be among your vast array of people or who know some of the winners. Could you put in your next issue a plea for these Seaxe award winners to contact me with their life/cricket stories? They could e-mail on [email protected] or ring me on 01279-652669 or even write to my home address 186, Stansted road, Bishop’s Stortford, Herts. CM23 2AR.
Hedgcock matters
Murray Hedgcock sent me this
Good to be reminded that The Summer Game endures, even if for the moment we are largely occupied in looking back rather than looking on. I feel it time I crossed swords once again with the Professor – so here goes….
Plodding my way gamely through memories of the characters adorning yesterday’s Home Counties club cricket (all I can offer are low-key thoughts of Wandsworth’s Baskerville CC and South London Journalists in the Fifties, and then Sheen Park in the Sixties/Seventies) I perked up on reaching the Professor’s always provocative thoughts.
His take on Wisden was stimulating, and I can assure him that Lawrence Booth does indeed continue writing cricket for the Daily Mail. But - even I, a Colonial, knew of Bacup from Forties and Fifties days in Australia when English league cricket made an impact on my world for the number of fellow-countrymen unable to pin down a Test place, who played there – such as top-class legspinner Bruce Dooland (at East Lancashire) , with whom I later had the pleasure of playing in a social match in Adelaide.
However – how come the Prof did not pick up the bizarre declaration made by England’s immigrant short-form captain, Eoin Morgan, in his article rejoicing in the pleasure of leading a diverse team? Morgan declared, incredibly: “The England team has never been made up of 11 white Christians”. Possibly he is looking first to a distant age when Ranji, Duleep and Pataudi played for England – but he is on notably shaky ground overall, even with some post-WW2 elevens in a newly mobile world.
Perhaps an Irish-raised cricketer could hardly be expected to be an expert on the game in England. But if accorded the privilege of captaining his adopted country, he might at least brush up on its proud past. New residents are required to take a test of local knowledge before being granted UK citizenship. Maybe the many imports who now win England selection should similarly be asked to sit an exam on national cricket history before being given their cap.
Napoleon memorably termed England “a nation of shopkeepers”. Today it seems that England increasingly is a nation of sporting importers - and imports. To my amazement, at the time of writing, no-one has picked up Morgan’s claim. Don’t people actually read their Wisden?
King Cricket Matters
A couple of times recently, we’ve made the point that cricket not happening is very much an integral part of cricket. We once travelled all the way to Birmingham to spend an entire day watching cricket not happen, so doing the same thing from the comfort of our own home doesn’t feel like a particular hardship in and of itself. Cricket not happening is an occupational hazard for broadcasters too. That ability to fill time indefinitely is what separates the men from the boys and the women from the girls. As fans, we’re all used to this. We’re comfortable with it. A few months without cricket? We’ll piss it.
But there’s more.
Regular King Cricket contributor Bert writes…
It strikes me that in these times, Cricket has missed a glorious opportunity to point out that it has been right all along. I mean, who spent their weekends social distancing better than the average club cricketers? Even shouting barely carried the distance between players.
Of course, elite level cricket got this, like most things, badly wrong. Close catchers, slip cordons, everyone running together and hugging to celebrate a no ball – this was dangerous behaviour then and is dangerous behaviour now. It wouldn’t surprise me if it turned out that it was all this touching and closeness that started this mess. And occasionally, an over-zealous club skipper would get beyond himself and try to set a pro-level field, and we would be treated to one of the great sounds of an English summer:
‘Bob, grab a helmet and go in at short leg.’
‘Piss off.’
So if cricket wants to rescue something from the international summer, surely it should be to go back to basics. Have a Test series with proper, club-level field-settings. And yes, I mean including a long stop. A law could be introduced that if a bowler went on an arms-raised celebration run after a wicket, all his teammates would just call him a wanker and turn their backs. And when dismissed in the last innings, batsmen would avoid the pavilion altogether and get straight in their cars and go home.
“Social Distancing the club cricket way.”
The Miller Adams Emails
I thought that you might enjoy this exchange of emails which I got in on at the end
Douglas Miller:
Such is the narrow circle of my friends that I could think only of you as someone to whom I might turn in my attempts to understand some of the prattle on the economic situation of the UK. I read in The Times (Simon Nixon) these statements:
1. Public debt could increase by £300 billion this year….In a worst case scenario it could reach £500 billion, about 25% of GDP.
2. After a decade of austerity, debt had only just started to level off at about 85% of GDP.
3. All those wage and benefit freezes and spending cuts only succeeded in reducing the deficit from 10 per cent of GDP to 1.5%.
Assuming GDP is a fixed figure, like the number of runs a side needs to score before Duckworth Lewis clicks, how come all these figures talking about debt seem to be so wildly different that a simple mind like mine cannot cope. I would appreciate your comments, not on the simple mind, but on the above statements.
Shall we, by the way, need savage tax increases to tackle the problem or can we somehow spend our way out of it by mending potholes and speeding on with HS2 etc.? When the pubs re-open it will be good to go in and say, ‘A friend of mine who know about these things says…….’
John Adams:
How nice, as always, to hear from you...and a question about economics rather than a challenge about long-dead cricketers!
I think I can help with some of this, although public finance can be a little perplexing.
I haven't read the article (obviously), I don't read reactionary, establishment newspapers, but I may be able to help with some of this:
1. GDP is not a fixed sum, like a cricket score. It is the value of the annual production of the economy. Most years it grows (at a modest rate) some years, when the economy is wrecked by the criminal behaviour of the banking chums of the Times editor, or the population is incarcerated by a pestilence, it can fall. So it is not fixed in any sense. Think of it as the Country's annual income.
2. GDP at present is around £2.3 trillion (I haven't looked it up) so £500 billion is close to 25% of GDP. The discrepancy in the first two figures is because the £300bill (or £500 bill) is in addition to the 85%. Thus, he is saying that the National Debt stands at 85% of GDP now, but with this extra borrowing it could rise by an additional (say) 25% to 110% of GDP.
This, for the UK, is a very high level but not unsustainable. The key issue is the repayments that will have to be met and at present interest rates they should not be too onerous. Indeed, and I hope this doesn't muddy the waters, if interest rates payable on public debt are below the rate of inflation then the real rate of interest (measured in terms of purchasing power) is negative.
3. I think the third figure which uses the word "deficit" is referring to a different measure - the difference between the government's annual income and expenditures. This is the government's balance sheet not that of the whole economy, where the income is (as you now know) measured as GDP. It makes the point of course, en passant, that "austerity" was always about reducing the cost of public services (the biggest of which is the NHS) to make way for tax cuts for Times readers. This explains why the NHS was in such a poor state when the pestilence hit. The service now has moved from a "drain" on the public purse to group beatification. It has even changed its title in the mouths of Tories from "the" NHS to "our" NHS, dropping the definite article for a possessive pronoun. (Quiz question: how soon, after the Covid crisis is gone, will it revert to "the" and be something that needs to be made to work "more efficiently" (ie., cut) so that the well off - who don't use it anyway except when they are desperate - will be placated).
One more thing which I think might be in the back of your mind, as it is many others: What is the National Debt and how can it keep growing? The best way to approach this is to forget any analogy with household debt (yours and mine). Government finance is simply different from that of the individual. If we run up debts, we have to repay them. Governments do not (they do make repayments every day on debts that fall due but can simply cover that by fresh borrowing). The reason they are different is that 1. governments (at least in western developed economies) don't go broke and 2. they don't die. They are therefore a secure place for pension funds and the like to hold their reserves. They (again like ours) are also a good place for other less secure countries to hold their assets (or for counties like Norway which have had budget surpluses for almost a generation after NS oil)
The key issue (avoiding the complication of the external value of the £) is the payment of interest on the debt. As long as a government can do that, it can keep borrowing.
For reference, the National Debt began, in effect, in 1694...it is still with us. Hope that is helpful(?)
Douglas Miller:
John, that is very helpful. I am pleased to gather that, whatever else happens, our economy will not go the way of Zimbabwe. I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear advice on a route out of our trouble that would leave Times readers better off. Are we that bad? I do remember saying that I wouldn’t like to be seen buying the Telegraph, the choice for many of my friends, but I still regard The Times as the newspaper of record with a spread of correspondents from across the political spectrum.
I am currently engaged in reading, for review purposes (ACS), the letters of the young Brian Close, which I am finding deeply fascinating on so many levels. He really is a curiously misunderstood and misrepresented person. He certainly enjoyed himself in Australia – at the cinema or some party night after night, always approving of the local girls but drinking orange squash. He frequently eulogises over the meals, a reminder of the wartime austerity here that made a mixed grill really special. Even in England he had modest ideas of a smashing meal. I quote one at random: ‘I had two lovely meals, eggs, sausage and chips, toast and cakes’. Worth writing home about? Well that is precisely what he did in the full literal sense! Best wishes and once again many thanks. Economics is not an easy subject and I am lucky to have a professor on tap.
John Adams:
The Today programme on Radio 4 (to which I listen everyday) has a "what's in the papers" slot. This morning the reviewer quoted an article in the Times which may assist you in understanding my antipathy. Some years' ago I did a lot of work with teachers' representatives, trade union leaders and the like and I had a lot of time for people like Mary Bousted (Gen Sec of the NEU), a dedicated and committed educationalist. The Times piece quoted said (something very close to): "The teachers' unions, as they always do, were holding the government to ransom and using children as pawns in their game".
Who writes such crap? How dare they, who have in all probability never taught anybody anything, say that about people like Mary Bousted? And why do they think (know) it will be well received by the people who read it, vast numbers of whom don't even send their children to state schools? It is a reactionary, bigoted rag Douglas, nothing more.
Douglas Miller:
What a privilege it is to open up in the morning and find that I am the recipient of a missive from someone I respect as usually knowing what he is talking about, albeit from a left-wing perspective. People like me sit in the middle, dutifully reading the Times leader each day – and that is where you accurately recall what was written. Well it’s Blunkett v Bousted, neither of whom I know at first hand.
As one who missed two entire terms at primary school age (but was privileged to be better taught round that time than at any subsequent stage) I feel catching up is not as hard as some like to make it sound. People like me are not well placed to make judgements on the major issues of the day, but I can see the sound sense of what Mary Bousted is saying. As with care homes the business of running a school does not lend itself well to social distancing for the staff.
Your explanations yesterday have helped me to understand better how we can withstand the effects of an economy in near meltdown. Not to equate the national debt to that of an individual is a helpful concept that has made me more cheerful. So, we print more money, as they used to say, offer a mass of gilts for someone to buy and carry on. But is it a good idea to reduce the spending power of the very rich or hope that they will stimulate the economy by buying more yachts etc. thereby keeping boat- builders employed and the Savoy Grill busy? Your answer please!
I, and one or two others, have been challenged to mark the 85th birthday of Ted Dexter by listing the 41 players who played under his captaincy and then the four who played most often and the four who played only once. I am expecting 100% for my submission!
John Adams:
Captaincy for England?
Douglas Miller:
What’s the problem? Current incumbents suit me well enough. If Root is in maternity, it has to be Stokes or vice-captaincy means nothing’ He has matured, has a good cricket brain and will have the team behind him. Most, now being public school-educated, will understand how they are expected to respond.
John Adams:
Sorry Douglas, you misunderstood me. I was responding to your quiz question about playing "under" Dexter's captaincy by asking if you meant, specifically, his Captaincy of England.
ps I have just been watching a webinar put on by Black Opal about the 1986/7 tour of Australia, with Gower, Broad, Gatting, Hughes and Gladstone Small. Seemed to be mainly about getting drunk which is celebrated in a way that I think might not wash these days.
Douglas Miller:
Oh yes! The captaincy of England. I was a bit puzzled by your one liner! Funny thing words – webinar entered my vocabulary earlier in the day. I went last year to a talk by Phillip DeFreitas, a good chap to hear if offered the chance, and he was plunged into it all with Botham and quite amazed by what went on. The Close letters that I have completed reading this evening confirm (or exaggerate) everything one knows about the A tour of Pakistan. Hugely entertaining – and they come to an end really because in the mid-1950s people were starting to get telephones! Far off days.
John Adams:
Could you write something about the Close letters for Googlies? Not, obviously, a considered piece but just the fact that you are doing it and the sort of correspondence they contain.
Douglas Miller:
Ho hum! Your request has come in the same morning mail as my reviews editor expressing satisfaction with what I have given him.
I have written nearly 70 reviews for the ACS and the one completed and sent off yesterday was the most tortuous to complete – and the longest. It was also almost the only time I have asked for a chance to amend it, a request that was freely granted.
What I must not do, I feel, is allow my ACS review to be pre-empted by my own hand. What I can do is write about the task I had to undertake and its particular complexities, give a bit of a plug for the ACS and leave Googlies readers wondering and thirsting for more. If I do something along those lines within the next 72 hours and send it to you, you can do what you will with it. Leave it with me. The muse may become active when I go for my walk.
John Adams:
Look forward to it.
Douglas Miller:
Here is a short piece that does not allow you to go unscathed.
John Adams to Jim Sharp:
A submission from Douglas Miller for the next Googlies attached.
Jim Sharp:
Thanks for squeezing that out from Douglas. I also enjoyed your exchange of emails with him- any objection to using those as well?
John Adams:
Nope.
I am, of course, traduced by Douglas. I think a world without the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians would be a much poorer place. How could we manage without knowing that 151 was the highest test score without an individual score of 25, let alone the triumph of introducing the List A category. The Association seems to me to be the epitome of the classic English institution of delightful and harmless eccentrics. The way, perhaps, people from overseas think of the English gentleman (although doubtless they have many women members as well). Perhaps I ought to put my money on the table and sign up.
To be just a little pedantic (parenthetically, of course, a characteristic approved of by all ACS members) the only issue of their journal that I have seen did not really contain any statistics in the technical sense (quantitative inference from sample data). They don't, so it seems, "do" statistics - what they have is data...and Boy!, do they have a lot of data.
Jim Sharp:
Do they keep it all on computers these days? This would have expanded the options for the silly stuff. I heard a while back on test match special that Geoff Pullar had got out on his birthday for the same score as his age....We believe that Walmsley does his stuff manually but how could you keep it updated?
John Adams:
Douglas has just emailed me about Peter Siddell's new world record. It seems he has gone 26 Tests without taking a catch. It is impossible to parody these guys.
The Last Old Danes Gathering
We have decided to postpone the Last old Danes Gathering until 2021. The clincher was that although SBCC are very keen to keep their cricket week it may have to proceed without the facilities of a bar. I am sorry to disappoint those who had been desperate for another chance to meet the Great Jack Morgan.
Editor’s Note
I make no apologies for another lengthy edition. I have included plenty for you to digest whilst some or all us are still under lockdown. Please keep sending me stuff to ensure I can fill the next edition.
Googlies Website
All the back editions of Googlies can be found on the G&C website. There are also many photographs most of which have never appeared in Googlies.
www.googliesandchinamen.com
Googlies and Chinamen
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