GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 211
July 2020
Second Test
Before the second test the Captain was beset with problems. His best friend was in disgrace for breaking the team rules. Many of his best players came from former colonial origins who opted to participate in illegal mass net sessions all over the country and insisted on batting outside the crease. The miscreants were also all waving banners that proclaimed, “All Wickets Count”. He was also being hampered by the Ladies captain who had issued a proclamation that all overseas players would not be able play for fourteen days thus rendering them ineligible for selection. His best friend told him not to worry too much about these difficulties as they could be used as distractions from their problems and could be blamed for the ensuing chaos.
The Captain thrived on being popular and he usually overcame such problems by stating that they did not apply to him and that it was time to move forward but he feared that it might be going a little too far on this occasion. However, he did act decisively by announcing that he was going to take charge of matters from now on, but this only begged the question “Well who has been in charge up to now?” The Captain said that he wanted to make it very clear that he and his team had been working round the clock to get match fit.
Meanwhile, the team Joker, Mat Hancock, was keeping everyone amused with his claims of how many runs he had scored during his career. The biggest laugh came when he claimed that the total was now over 200,000. It transpired that for every single he scored he was now adding another because the batsman at the other end had run as well.
The first test had proved a total humiliation for the captain as the opposition had run up a world record score, didn’t bother to declare and were still batting at the end of the match. He remembered someone saying in similar circumstances that they had lost the match but won the argument but couldn’t recall who it was or work out whether it was applicable here.
During the first test the Captain discouraged the use of protective helmets for outfielders but for the second he insisted that all of his team wear them when fielding. He had also decreed that senior players had to bat without boxes and many of them were run out without facing a ball.
The Captain and his best friend then came up with a new wheeze for the Second Test to contain the run flow, which they maintained was a world-class high-tech capability which they called Track and Trace. Every time a batsman scored a boundary a group of specially trained recruits would establish exactly where fielders were needed to be placed to stop it being repeated. Fielders were equipped with earpieces so that the specialists could contact them during play and guide them to precision positions. If the fielder then failed to stop the next boundary, he was asked to retire from the field of play for the next two sessions. Unfortunately, the Captain’s home-grown technology proved inadequate for the job and he had to arrange for American kit to replace it which would not be ready for the current test series.
One big change from the first test was that the captain declared that slip cordons could now include six rather than the previous two players. However, the overseas players just ignored him and got together in a huddle and waved their “All Wickets Count” banners. The Captain was perplexed over this and considered calling the American captain for advice but, for once, made the right decision and didn’t.
To justify the nonsense that they were spouting the Captain and his cohorts started saying “right-thinking people would agree that…”. Apparently right-thinking people were those who had been in the same dorm as them at school. Meanwhile, the club Treasurer who had spent all of the Club’s resources for the next two generations on providing nets for everybody in the country kept saying that he would do whatever it takes to win the test series.
The “All Wickets Count” brigade turned their attentions to the statue of W.G. Grace claiming that he had, on occasion, disregarded the loss of his wicket and insisted that he continue batting at the crease. The captain found himself having to defend his idol’s untenable position, further demonstrating his lack of understanding of the modern game.
Meanwhile, all this confusion was hiding the Captain’s decision to leave the ICC at the end of the year. The negotiations were being delayed and there was every likelihood that there would be no test matches against ICC international opposition next year. Secretly the captain wanted this to be the outcome since then he would then be able to organise matches against other countries.
Wisden Five
George sent me this
The Wisden Cricketers of the Year are those selected for the honour based primarily on their "influence on the previous English season". There was a long list of possible candidates for this year. In whittling the list down to five, some fine candidates were dropped: their turn might yet come as the winter tour selection in September gets finalised.
Matt Hancock came into the reckoning early and many thought from the start that giving him the new ball was quite a leap for him. He could have qualified for a WCY for any number of headings but was finally selected for his contribution to unsubstantiated reckless forecasting. Duckworth and Lewis would be scandalised.
After snoozing for three months or so Gavin Williamson came to the fore as an outstanding candidate. For, suddenly, he recognised that there were probably serious issues about bringing colts back into the team. He promptly ignored them. Like Gove before him he wasn’t going to be befuddled by experts. His award is for sheer cluelessness.
Williamson nabbed the slot of sheer cluelessness from under the nose of Dominic Raab, previously thought to have been a shoe-in. Nevertheless, Raab still grabs an award for insensitivity, a highly valued asset among his peers.
There is a special place in most hearts for Pritti Patel. She claims her slot by her energetic fielding on the boundary: shutting the stable door too late to have any effect on health, but a significant negative effect on people’s lives and the economy.
It’s been a tricky season for Boris Johnson. He clearly felt it a little unfair to expose himsef to undeniable facts and international competitive performance. This left him little space for a WCY until he panicked at the possible loss of his best friend. So his original candidature was for unashamed cronyism. But his real strength this season has been flexibility. A willingness to adapt quickly and incisively if things are not going to plan. Others have been unkind enough to call these U-turns. It’s the multiple U-turns that win him his award. There is a fair degree of confidence among the selectors that he will soon return to his heartlands of bluster, shunting blame and unfettered lying. There will be plenty of opportunities for those.
In and Within with the Professor
The MCC has decided to communicate with its members…frequently. There have been those in the past who, I understand, have ventured the occasional criticism about the quantity of information coming from their club…but not anymore. Every week an e-mailed “At Home with Cricket” has arrived in the In-box to help lighten the frustration of the long lock-down. A lock-down which has, in recent weeks, (or so it seems to me at least) got rather harder as, so to speak, it gets easier. Never mind, there’s the weekly email to enjoy.
First up are the clips from the film archives. Grainy black and white images of club matches, as well as some of the famous games at Lord’s. Why (parenthetically) are they so grainy? I can still see (in my head) Cowdrey going out to bat with his arm in plaster for the last couple of balls of the 1963 Test quite clearly. It’s not grainy at all. Was it at the time? Do these images just deteriorate with the years or is my memory now so occluded that I just remember clarity when there was none? What I had forgotten, in this most famous of matches, was the sight of Brian Close giving Wes Hall the charge… after, of course, he had seen the injury to Cowdrey. Not a man to take a backward step “our Brian”. Yorkshire folk are, and forever will remain, proud of him.
There are also “coaching” films: “how to bat” by Bill Edrich (who looks far more orthodox, in the video, than I recall) or “how to keep wicket” by the great Godfrey. Lovely gentle images of more innocent times but with stiff staccato commentaries in received pronunciation.
There are updates, of course, in the e-mails, on the progress of the two new stands. I’m old enough to remember Dennis Compton opening the original Compton stand. He was critical of the design because it didn’t have a bar. He was too diplomatic (possibly) to say that the view from the bottom level would be pretty dreadful and few people would willingly choose to sit there. The new stands should be a vast improvement. MCC are paying for the development, in part, by offering life memberships. The proposed subscriptions run to tens of thousands of pounds and in, what I can only assume is an unintended bit of self-parody, the Club Chairman writes that the cost is a matter of concern since: “none of us wants to do anything to reinforce the impression that we are a club only for the well-off and privileged”. I feel sure that all Googlies readers could assist there.
There is the occasional advertisement for things to buy, never, it has to be said, at giveaway prices, but the section I really like is the “reader’s letters” section at the end. Members have been encouraged to write in with their recollections of cricket at Lord’s or, seemingly, anywhere else. I imagine someone edits the selection which most commonly include a memory of meeting a great player: shaking his hand, touching him on the back, or just being near to him…there are even letters about nearly meeting someone. Often the letters have a strange clipped and slightly awkward style: it’s as though contributors, writing to Lord’s, think they must abandon the way they usually talk and opt instead for a sort of measured formality – a parody of the way policemen are supposed to give evidence. So, in these memories, no one reads, they “peruse”; they don’t walk, they “perambulate”; they don’t buy, they “purchase”; they don’t get off the bus, they “alight”, and so on. The style and the stories give the whole thing a distinct charm, whether it is buying gloves at Jack Hobbs’ shop (“I shook his hand!”) or joining in an impromptu match 10,000 feet up in the Hindu Kush. I had been hoping to read a: “View from the Nursery End”, or “50 Years Beside the Sightscreen”, but the Great Jack Morgan has, I believe, remained stoically and nobly a Middlesex member rather than a member of the MCC.
The other momentous development is with the seating in the pavilion – or rather the excruciatingly uncomfortable white benches on the pavilion terraces. I’ve never understood why the Club had retained these dreadful things which, given the age profile of the membership, just seemed like a disincentive to watch. After various trials and (no doubt) focus groups, a new set of benches have been ordered. So, what to do with the old ones? Well, the MCC are giving them away. That’s right, giving them away. Not only that but they will deliver them to any UK address free of charge. There is a polite (and frequently repeated) request for a “donation”, but one of these dilapidated, most uncomfortable of all benches will be supplied free to anyone foolish enough to enter the ballot and have his/her name drawn out.
Did I enter my own name? Of course I bloody did.
This & that
I was sceptical as to whether I would resume the armchair pose for the resumption of the Premier League but after organising my gardening schedule I duly found myself in position to watch Aston Villa v Sheffield United. I opted for the authentic empty stadium ambience rather than the synthetic imitation crowd version of presentation. It was strange and reminiscent of going to Loftus Road in the fifties to watch the stiffs. Not the quality of football of course but the ability to hear all of the player shouts and their managers and coaches advice and directions.
For reasons I am not entirely clear about the League decided to emblazon the players shirts with “Black Lives Matter”. Maybe it made sense to some but replacing the players names to facilitate this was ludicrous. It would have been so much more sensible to replace the numbers and leave the names. Numbers only mean anything if you have access to a programme and only the 150 people in the ground would have been so endowed, while the rest of us were left hoping that the commentators would mention the player we were having trouble identifying.
But of course, this wasn’t the most ridiculous feature of this opening match. Everyone, including I presume the referee, could see that Sheffield United scored a perfectly clear-cut goal when the Villa keeper carried the ball over his own line. However, the referee claimed that he couldn’t award a goal because his watch hadn’t bleeped! Since the match was a VAR one the question is begged why did he not award a goal and let VAR verify it? Football is becoming like cricket with the officials palming off decisions to technology. Incidentally, the technology was provided on this occasion by Hawkeye. Afterwards they unreservedly apologised for their failings but then spoilt this by explaining that the malfunction had occurred because the goalposts and goalkeeper had got in the way. It is hard to see how the former if not both will always be the case.
It now seems that cricket will be one of the last sports to be allowed to resume and the reason given is that the ball is a conductor of the virus. This has to be more gobbledegook and even if true must be able to be overcome by, for example, the wearing of gloves by fielders. The staggering incompetence of our administration continues to amaze.
It has just seemed odd having no cricket to follow. As Steve Thompson would say “at least Middlesex are still unbeaten this season!”
I started writing this last week and already find that I can’t be bothered to watch the premiership matches. I think that the lack of a crowd reduces the intensity and they all seem bland affairs.
Morgan Matters
The GJM can at last see light at the end of the tunnel
You will be pleased to hear that I have now read the June Cricketer and it was a fairly interesting issue considering that there has been no cricket anywhere! The highlight was probably a long article on Dean Headley, who reveals that he chose to join Middlesex because of Mike Gatting and Ricky Ellcock but left after three years because of poor pay. He was offered £12k per year to stay but complained to Bob Gale who offered a derisory rise... so he left. He now teaches at Stamford School. I suppose we should not expect much county news as there is absolutely nothing going on, but you would think they could come up with something a bit more interesting about Middlesex than the fact that T Murtagh likes to fill in his spare time by playing darts in the garage! We also have Simon Hughes interviewing Peter Parfitt (now aged 83). It was Bill Edrich who got PP to join Middlesex, JT Murray was Peter's best mate at Middlesex and when he got a hundred for England in SA in 1964/65, it brought the only compliment he ever received from Gubby Allen (Chairman of Selectors) who said "Parfitt, that's the best I have ever seen you bat". Charlie Griffith was the fastest bowler he ever faced "by a mile" and when a bouncer hit him on the shoulder, Frank Worrell said "are you OK, Peter", but Charlie said "I am going to kill you, white man"!
The ECB has published a "five-step road map" for the return of recreational cricket, but stage 5 (which would see all formats and all competitions available) is "unlikely to happen this summer".
Pakistan will tour England for 3 Tests and 3 T20s in Aug and Sept and will bring 28 players and 14 support personnel: that should be enough.
Vic has a long and interesting article on G Boycott in today's G and he says: "like D Gower and I Botham, he is withdrawing from the commentary box ".
Surrey have promoted V Solanki to replace head coach M de Venuto. I have seen Vikram several times coaching the 2s. C Silverwood has decided to take a break (it must be all that coaching and managing that he has not been doing) during the 3 ODIs against Ireland in July. P Collingwood will be in charge. M Carberry does not expect anything from the ECB in fighting racism, which he says is "rife" in the game. T Bresnan (35) has left Yorks after 19 years "to pursue playing opportunities elsewhere". Ex-Middx man Paul Stirling is the new vice captain of Ireland and believes his best years are still to come.
New Test rules from the ICC state that players displaying coronavirus symptoms during a Test can be replaced. Speaking from WI's base at OT, assistant coach Roddy Estwick says the current WI pace attack is the strongest and deepest since the "glory days" of the 1980s. The 30 strong England training group for the WI series is: Moeen A, Anderson, Archer, Bairstow, Bess, Bracey, Broad, Burns, Buttler, Crawley, S Curran, Denly, Foakes, Gregory, Jennings, Lawrence, Leach, Saqib M, C Overton, J Overton, Root, Sibley, Stokes, Stone, Virdi, Woakes, Wood.
Former Glamorgan batsman Alan Jones, who played one "Test" for Eng v the Rest of the World in 1970, a match later stripped of Test status, has now been awarded an England cap 50 years later. Vic has quite a good and long piece on Alan Jones in today's G. He tells us that his "smooth stroke play delivered more than 36,000 first class runs in 26 seasons from 1957 onwards". However, he made 5 and 0 in his solitary Test outing and was replaced by John Edrich for the next match.
I have now read the July Cricketer and was dismayed to read that ridiculous M Vaughan wants further cuts to the Championship fixture list because it is a "loss-making format"! B Ronay is totally against plans to drop the fifth day of Tests, saying it is all about saving some cash.
B Johnson says that a cricket ball is a "natural vector of the coronavirus". I was not totally sure what a vector meant in this context, so I got out the dictionary and found that the word "vector" can mean "an animal that transmits parasites".
Surrey will play Middlesex in a 2-day red ball match at the Oval on 26/27 July. But, of course, this will be "behind closed doors". The county season will definitely start on 1st August. The format(s) have not yet been confirmed, but a 4 day competition and a T20 seem the likeliest. Presumably no spectators will be allowed?
The Beeb's website has an interesting headline today (26/6): "Morgan becomes honorary life vice-president at Middlesex"! Unfortunately, they are talking about Beth Morgan, who becomes the first female honorary life vice-president.
Nostalgia Matters
Steve Thompson sent me this
Graham’s piece in the last Googlie’s prompted this:
My father was neither an opportunist nor someone partial to rifling through builders’ skips. On one occasion, sometime during the mid to late seventies, he abandoned both traits and fished this out of a skip in Milverton Road. Since when it has moved with us on four occasions and is now in our greenhouse in Hereford.
It is always a welcome sight in the garden. A greeting read by cricketers
of all abilities from Test level to park and a special place for many who like me were fortunate enough to have made the club their cricketing home. It’s where I made my highest score, met my wife and celebrated our wedding. Today, as I write, my dad would have celebrated his 101st birthday. He would be delighted to know that the little piece of London club cricket he saved from landfill still has a safe home.
Williams Matters
John Williams sent me this
At school I was a wimpy forward and although I had played occasionally for the 1stXI in my penultimate year, in my final year I was captain of the 2nd XI. On leaving school I was playing for Old Lyonians 2's when towards the end of my first season, still a wimpy forward, the goalkeeper and the captain suggested I try centre. half as I was 6ft 3. Early in the following season I managed to break into the 1st team and being a fit 19 year old started reasonably well. That is until 19th November 1960 when we were drawn at home to Twickenham in the Middlesex Senior Cup. I thought I was quite quick but as the Harrow Observer reported Twickenham had a centre forward who was quicker, possibly hard to believe now. Couple of quotes from the report - "Williams finding Reid a fast and elusive centre forward was less dominant than usual" and we were one down well into the second half when " the turning point came when Reid outpaced Williams in a sudden breakaway to score his second goal". We lost 2-0. Yes this was the great fast bowler Brian Reid. Mates ever since,
Indeed in 1970 I gave Brian a lift down to Portsmouth in my convertible Vitesse when we played in a one day (55 over ) game for the CCC against the Royal Navy. Navy 215 for 6 CCC 201 for 6. After I had dropped Brian off, when I got home I found a pair of red braces on the back seat. Brian - always a dapper dresser!
Adelman matters
Ralph Adelman sent me this
I have just received an email from Surrey about refunds for this year’s Oval test match. It is disappointing that this test match is one of those that will not happen this year. I had tickets for a group of seven family and friends to attend this one. We can keep our seats for next year and I shall keep mine as we have what I reckon are the best available for Test Matches at the Oval.
Surrey had also mentioned the possibility of county cricket with limited attendance later in the year but I am not confident that this will happen. There has certainly been no mention of a refund on my annual membership fee.
Our grandson (Samuel, age 10) has recently got back to the nets at his local club (with his Dad). He had been practicing in the back garden as he has his own bowling machine. He was also following a practice tip from Sam Curran. His Dad had drilled a hole in a cricket ball through which he fed some string. The ball was then hung from a tree branch so that Samuel could hit the swinging ball. I have seen a video of this mode of practice and was amazed at how well it worked in improving his footwork.
There was a lot about cricket publications and statistics in C&G and I thought that I could perhaps have reviewed Surrey’s 175th Anniversary book. Our daughter and son-in-law had bought it as my Christmas present but it wasn’t published until March. It arrived just in time to give me additional reading material during lockdown. And it was so much better than I expected not least because it was not filled with loads of statistics.
I was disappointed to find out that Michael di Venutto would not be returning to continue his role as Surrey coach. His tenure has been a successful one. The championship was won again (at last) and lots (too may for my liking) of Surrey players became England players. That is due in no small part to his ability to develop those players.
Hedgcock Matters
Murray Hedgcock sent me this
I can’t resist horning in on the Miller- Close report:
Looking forward to the book of Brian Close letters, and its review penned by my old friend Douglas Miller (Googlies 210-11) I mourn that my chance of figuring in the Close archives was blotted out on February 16,1951. This was my big cricket-writing opportunity as a junior reporter on The Geelong Advertiser – the first time I had covered a match. It was the two-day fixture between the touring MCC team and a Victorian Country XI, played in the State’s second city. MCC captain Freddie Brown, probably checking the weather forecast, chose to stand down, and Cyril Washbrook took charge. The temperature hit 103 degrees Fahrenheit in mid-afternoon, confirming Brown’s judgment in staying off-field as acting manager.
The locals batted dourly against a not over-inspired attack (Bailey, Warr, Close, Hollies, Berry and Simpson) notably the youthful John Shaw, a nephew of current Australian captain Lindsay Hassett. I delighted in the exchange between a couple of weary Pressbox veterans, one asking: “Is this boy Shaw only nineteen?”, to which a wit responded, “He was, when he came in”. When Shaw went lbw to Eric Hollies for a long, slow 12, the score was three for 69 (allow me Australian usage, please) made in a grim 133 minutes.
Lunch came as a relief; sitting with other journalists and officials, I was delighted to see Brian Close head for a vacant seat next to mine. Here was a chance to learn what it was like to be a youthful English professional cricketer (I had long since given up hope that one day I might wear the Baggy Green). But as Close wandered over, acting captain Washbrook spotted him, and barked out an order: he must join the rest of the team at their table. It was especially disappointing, as I had taken a particular interest in the progress of the young Yorkshireman, for one specific reason – I was precisely a day his senior. I was born on February 23, 1931, he on February 24 of the same year.
I never did meet Brian Close even in my many years in England – and I harboured a smouldering dislike ever afterwards for a certain Lancashire and England opening bat. Certainly, Cyril W was promptly cut off my Christmas card list, never to be re-instated.
The Country lads struggled to a turgid 201 for six wickets in 320 minutes on the first day, batting on next morning, to the unconcealed indignation of the visitors. Rain ended the match after just 28 minutes, including a brief appearance by Ian Quick, the leftarm spinner who toured England in 1961 without playing a Test.
Gunner Gould
Vic Marks wrote this tribute to Gunner
We have been deprived of a rare opportunity to see one of our world class performers in action on a cricket field this spring. Ian Gould has been an international umpire for more than a decade, which means he has seldom been in action in England during that time. He retired from the international panel last year and at the age of 62 he was about to embark on a full season of domestic cricket this season – in part as an act of gratitude for how well the England and Wales Cricket Board has looked after its umpires over the years (we can be tormented by some of its other decisions but the board is reckoned to be an excellent employer by the vast majority of umpires).
Gould will certainly be missed on the international circuit by his peers and the players, who respected his umpiring and enjoyed the no-nonsense asides delivered in the manner of an irrepressible cockney, albeit one that grew up around Slough. Virat Kohli, no less, gave him a hug as he left the field after his last game, at Headingley in the 2019 World Cup.
Gould has been immersed in cricket ever since the Arsenal manager Bertie Mee concluded that he was a bit too small to be a top-notch goalkeeper. He joined Middlesex in 1975 at the same time as Mike Gatting, with whom he was forever linked; he played for Sussex from 1981; he returned to Lord’s for a decade as a coach and second-team captain in 1991. Then he opted for umpiring and it was not long before he was a regular on the international circuit. It’s all documented in a Brighton-breezy, witty way in his autobiography, which is published later this month.
Self-isolation does not suit “Gunner”; he has always been a gregarious man, as I discovered when touring with him on the 1982-83 Ashes tour (I roomed with him for a fortnight but we seemed to work to slightly different timetables so I did not see that much of him). He was rarely without a smile or a quip, which explains how positively he views the end of two phases of his life when he was employed by Middlesex CCC. “They did me a favour twice” he told me. “Once when they signed Paul Downton [in 1980] – they did not bring him to Lord’s to play in the second team – and then when they sacked me as a coach in 2001. Gatt [the head coach] had an appointment at 10am; I had one at 11 and we were both sent packing by noon”.
Both these sackings led to fertile pastures new. Gould fell in love with Hove very quickly off the pitch and on it where he would be standing in the middle distance when keeping wicket to Imran Khan and Garth Le Roux. Before long he was vice-captain to John Barclay at Sussex and they got on brilliantly. “Hardly surprising really since we were at schools only a mile apart”, he explains. Barclay went to Eton, Gould to Westgate Secondary Modern just outside of Slough.
He played for England in 18 one-day internationals , which included being a semi-finalist in the 1983 World Cup but he may be best remembered for a flying catch at cover to dismiss Greg Chappell when fielding as a substitute in the thrilling Melbourne Test of 1982, which England won by three runs. In his book he recalls, “Graeme Fowler was struck on the toe by Jeff Thomson and couldn’t field and the 12th man options weren’t great. Vic Marks wasn’t much of an athlete; Jackers [Robin Jackman] could only do fine leg at both ends and Geoff Cook was struggling with a rib injury. That left me and I loved it”. This tallies, I’m afraid. My recollection is that we bundled him out there. Back at Sussex he would succeed Barclay, which might have added a new dimension to the team talks and he led the Sussex side to victory in the Lord’s final of 1986. His victory speech consisted of “Watch out, Soho”.
After the Middlesex sacking he was encouraged by the old brigade of umpires such as Alan Whitehead, David Constant, Merv Kitchen and Jack Hampshire to have a go at umpiring. And he soon discovered that he was good at it and that he liked it. “My motto was “I want to umpire in the way I wanted to be umpired as a player”, which meant that there was a constant stream of communication.
A measure of his standing is that he was asked to umpire India v Pakistan seven times in international tournaments, potentially the most incendiary of fixtures. This was because he had the respect of the players and was capable of defusing any tricky moments better than most. “I did one of those at Edgbaston quite recently with Richard Kettleborough and told him ‘Don’t worry about the players; they get on fantastically well but the noise at those games is something else’”.
He gained the reputation of being calm and trustworthy in a crisis, like one of his English predecessors, David Shepherd. At Cape Town in the notorious ball-tampering match of 2018 in which Cameron Bancroft was exposed by the TV cameras, he was the third umpire and it was his job to inform the on-field umpires, who happened to be his mates, Richard Illingworth and Nigel Llong, what was about to be shown on the screens. He kept them on an even keel, beginning with “They’ve got some pictures for you and they’re not of Table Mountain”. In fact Gould often carried a gauge for a women’s cricket ball in his pocket so that he always had the option of changing the ball without too much kerfuffle. He knew that a men’s ball would never pass through this gauge.
He has always had an idiosyncratic way of giving batsmen out, raising his arm way above his head Aussie style and that came about because of his mother, who came to watch him early in his career. “You were pointing your finger at that man – and that’s rude”, she said so Gould dutifully adopted a different technique which soon became automatic. That became one of his hallmarks. Let’s hope we see it again before too long.
“I have nightmares about having to become an umpire” said the great England fast bowler John Snow, when he was giving evidence in the High Court on the Packer affair in 1978. Which reminds us of two things: it was then possible to be short of money despite being the best English fast bowler since Fred Trueman and the prospect of becoming an umpire was – for Snow, at least – the most desperate measure to take to earn a living.
In fact Snow became a travel agent, who specialised in cricket tours, and a very good one. Large chunks of the press corps often travelled with him and Snow, the firebrand fast bowler whose autobiography was called “Cricket Rebel”, was in his new role the most calm and laid-back of figures. When problems arose he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Don’t worry; I’ll sort it.” And, despite seeming so unbothered, he did.
The value, not only of fast bowlers, but also of umpires, has changed a bit since then – for the better. There was one typically candid observation from Ian Gould in his book when he admitted to surprise at how much he was going to get paid when elevated to the ICC’s Elite panel. Of course the top umpires deserve to be well paid. Umpiring at the highest level is incredibly arduous on and off the pitch. There is now the constant scrutiny and the constant separation from families and friends.
The situation has also improved for umpires at county level. Four decades ago several of them acquired campervans of various standards in an attempt to reduce their costs; they would park up behind the pavilion of an out-ground and therefore save on the cost of their bed and breakfast. Such parsimony is not so necessary now. However, no matter what the pay is like you have to really love the game to do this job and that has always applied whether you were Frank Chester, Charlie Elliott, Dickie Bird, David Shepherd or the mischievous Gunner Gould. That remains the most important criterion for any prospective umpire.
Editor’s Note
Since the lockdown is now over and you will all be too busy swarming onto the beaches, holding street parties and participating in illegal protests and demonstrations I have reverted to the editorial discipline of a twelve page 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.
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An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 211
July 2020
Second Test
Before the second test the Captain was beset with problems. His best friend was in disgrace for breaking the team rules. Many of his best players came from former colonial origins who opted to participate in illegal mass net sessions all over the country and insisted on batting outside the crease. The miscreants were also all waving banners that proclaimed, “All Wickets Count”. He was also being hampered by the Ladies captain who had issued a proclamation that all overseas players would not be able play for fourteen days thus rendering them ineligible for selection. His best friend told him not to worry too much about these difficulties as they could be used as distractions from their problems and could be blamed for the ensuing chaos.
The Captain thrived on being popular and he usually overcame such problems by stating that they did not apply to him and that it was time to move forward but he feared that it might be going a little too far on this occasion. However, he did act decisively by announcing that he was going to take charge of matters from now on, but this only begged the question “Well who has been in charge up to now?” The Captain said that he wanted to make it very clear that he and his team had been working round the clock to get match fit.
Meanwhile, the team Joker, Mat Hancock, was keeping everyone amused with his claims of how many runs he had scored during his career. The biggest laugh came when he claimed that the total was now over 200,000. It transpired that for every single he scored he was now adding another because the batsman at the other end had run as well.
The first test had proved a total humiliation for the captain as the opposition had run up a world record score, didn’t bother to declare and were still batting at the end of the match. He remembered someone saying in similar circumstances that they had lost the match but won the argument but couldn’t recall who it was or work out whether it was applicable here.
During the first test the Captain discouraged the use of protective helmets for outfielders but for the second he insisted that all of his team wear them when fielding. He had also decreed that senior players had to bat without boxes and many of them were run out without facing a ball.
The Captain and his best friend then came up with a new wheeze for the Second Test to contain the run flow, which they maintained was a world-class high-tech capability which they called Track and Trace. Every time a batsman scored a boundary a group of specially trained recruits would establish exactly where fielders were needed to be placed to stop it being repeated. Fielders were equipped with earpieces so that the specialists could contact them during play and guide them to precision positions. If the fielder then failed to stop the next boundary, he was asked to retire from the field of play for the next two sessions. Unfortunately, the Captain’s home-grown technology proved inadequate for the job and he had to arrange for American kit to replace it which would not be ready for the current test series.
One big change from the first test was that the captain declared that slip cordons could now include six rather than the previous two players. However, the overseas players just ignored him and got together in a huddle and waved their “All Wickets Count” banners. The Captain was perplexed over this and considered calling the American captain for advice but, for once, made the right decision and didn’t.
To justify the nonsense that they were spouting the Captain and his cohorts started saying “right-thinking people would agree that…”. Apparently right-thinking people were those who had been in the same dorm as them at school. Meanwhile, the club Treasurer who had spent all of the Club’s resources for the next two generations on providing nets for everybody in the country kept saying that he would do whatever it takes to win the test series.
The “All Wickets Count” brigade turned their attentions to the statue of W.G. Grace claiming that he had, on occasion, disregarded the loss of his wicket and insisted that he continue batting at the crease. The captain found himself having to defend his idol’s untenable position, further demonstrating his lack of understanding of the modern game.
Meanwhile, all this confusion was hiding the Captain’s decision to leave the ICC at the end of the year. The negotiations were being delayed and there was every likelihood that there would be no test matches against ICC international opposition next year. Secretly the captain wanted this to be the outcome since then he would then be able to organise matches against other countries.
Wisden Five
George sent me this
The Wisden Cricketers of the Year are those selected for the honour based primarily on their "influence on the previous English season". There was a long list of possible candidates for this year. In whittling the list down to five, some fine candidates were dropped: their turn might yet come as the winter tour selection in September gets finalised.
Matt Hancock came into the reckoning early and many thought from the start that giving him the new ball was quite a leap for him. He could have qualified for a WCY for any number of headings but was finally selected for his contribution to unsubstantiated reckless forecasting. Duckworth and Lewis would be scandalised.
After snoozing for three months or so Gavin Williamson came to the fore as an outstanding candidate. For, suddenly, he recognised that there were probably serious issues about bringing colts back into the team. He promptly ignored them. Like Gove before him he wasn’t going to be befuddled by experts. His award is for sheer cluelessness.
Williamson nabbed the slot of sheer cluelessness from under the nose of Dominic Raab, previously thought to have been a shoe-in. Nevertheless, Raab still grabs an award for insensitivity, a highly valued asset among his peers.
There is a special place in most hearts for Pritti Patel. She claims her slot by her energetic fielding on the boundary: shutting the stable door too late to have any effect on health, but a significant negative effect on people’s lives and the economy.
It’s been a tricky season for Boris Johnson. He clearly felt it a little unfair to expose himsef to undeniable facts and international competitive performance. This left him little space for a WCY until he panicked at the possible loss of his best friend. So his original candidature was for unashamed cronyism. But his real strength this season has been flexibility. A willingness to adapt quickly and incisively if things are not going to plan. Others have been unkind enough to call these U-turns. It’s the multiple U-turns that win him his award. There is a fair degree of confidence among the selectors that he will soon return to his heartlands of bluster, shunting blame and unfettered lying. There will be plenty of opportunities for those.
In and Within with the Professor
The MCC has decided to communicate with its members…frequently. There have been those in the past who, I understand, have ventured the occasional criticism about the quantity of information coming from their club…but not anymore. Every week an e-mailed “At Home with Cricket” has arrived in the In-box to help lighten the frustration of the long lock-down. A lock-down which has, in recent weeks, (or so it seems to me at least) got rather harder as, so to speak, it gets easier. Never mind, there’s the weekly email to enjoy.
First up are the clips from the film archives. Grainy black and white images of club matches, as well as some of the famous games at Lord’s. Why (parenthetically) are they so grainy? I can still see (in my head) Cowdrey going out to bat with his arm in plaster for the last couple of balls of the 1963 Test quite clearly. It’s not grainy at all. Was it at the time? Do these images just deteriorate with the years or is my memory now so occluded that I just remember clarity when there was none? What I had forgotten, in this most famous of matches, was the sight of Brian Close giving Wes Hall the charge… after, of course, he had seen the injury to Cowdrey. Not a man to take a backward step “our Brian”. Yorkshire folk are, and forever will remain, proud of him.
There are also “coaching” films: “how to bat” by Bill Edrich (who looks far more orthodox, in the video, than I recall) or “how to keep wicket” by the great Godfrey. Lovely gentle images of more innocent times but with stiff staccato commentaries in received pronunciation.
There are updates, of course, in the e-mails, on the progress of the two new stands. I’m old enough to remember Dennis Compton opening the original Compton stand. He was critical of the design because it didn’t have a bar. He was too diplomatic (possibly) to say that the view from the bottom level would be pretty dreadful and few people would willingly choose to sit there. The new stands should be a vast improvement. MCC are paying for the development, in part, by offering life memberships. The proposed subscriptions run to tens of thousands of pounds and in, what I can only assume is an unintended bit of self-parody, the Club Chairman writes that the cost is a matter of concern since: “none of us wants to do anything to reinforce the impression that we are a club only for the well-off and privileged”. I feel sure that all Googlies readers could assist there.
There is the occasional advertisement for things to buy, never, it has to be said, at giveaway prices, but the section I really like is the “reader’s letters” section at the end. Members have been encouraged to write in with their recollections of cricket at Lord’s or, seemingly, anywhere else. I imagine someone edits the selection which most commonly include a memory of meeting a great player: shaking his hand, touching him on the back, or just being near to him…there are even letters about nearly meeting someone. Often the letters have a strange clipped and slightly awkward style: it’s as though contributors, writing to Lord’s, think they must abandon the way they usually talk and opt instead for a sort of measured formality – a parody of the way policemen are supposed to give evidence. So, in these memories, no one reads, they “peruse”; they don’t walk, they “perambulate”; they don’t buy, they “purchase”; they don’t get off the bus, they “alight”, and so on. The style and the stories give the whole thing a distinct charm, whether it is buying gloves at Jack Hobbs’ shop (“I shook his hand!”) or joining in an impromptu match 10,000 feet up in the Hindu Kush. I had been hoping to read a: “View from the Nursery End”, or “50 Years Beside the Sightscreen”, but the Great Jack Morgan has, I believe, remained stoically and nobly a Middlesex member rather than a member of the MCC.
The other momentous development is with the seating in the pavilion – or rather the excruciatingly uncomfortable white benches on the pavilion terraces. I’ve never understood why the Club had retained these dreadful things which, given the age profile of the membership, just seemed like a disincentive to watch. After various trials and (no doubt) focus groups, a new set of benches have been ordered. So, what to do with the old ones? Well, the MCC are giving them away. That’s right, giving them away. Not only that but they will deliver them to any UK address free of charge. There is a polite (and frequently repeated) request for a “donation”, but one of these dilapidated, most uncomfortable of all benches will be supplied free to anyone foolish enough to enter the ballot and have his/her name drawn out.
Did I enter my own name? Of course I bloody did.
This & that
I was sceptical as to whether I would resume the armchair pose for the resumption of the Premier League but after organising my gardening schedule I duly found myself in position to watch Aston Villa v Sheffield United. I opted for the authentic empty stadium ambience rather than the synthetic imitation crowd version of presentation. It was strange and reminiscent of going to Loftus Road in the fifties to watch the stiffs. Not the quality of football of course but the ability to hear all of the player shouts and their managers and coaches advice and directions.
For reasons I am not entirely clear about the League decided to emblazon the players shirts with “Black Lives Matter”. Maybe it made sense to some but replacing the players names to facilitate this was ludicrous. It would have been so much more sensible to replace the numbers and leave the names. Numbers only mean anything if you have access to a programme and only the 150 people in the ground would have been so endowed, while the rest of us were left hoping that the commentators would mention the player we were having trouble identifying.
But of course, this wasn’t the most ridiculous feature of this opening match. Everyone, including I presume the referee, could see that Sheffield United scored a perfectly clear-cut goal when the Villa keeper carried the ball over his own line. However, the referee claimed that he couldn’t award a goal because his watch hadn’t bleeped! Since the match was a VAR one the question is begged why did he not award a goal and let VAR verify it? Football is becoming like cricket with the officials palming off decisions to technology. Incidentally, the technology was provided on this occasion by Hawkeye. Afterwards they unreservedly apologised for their failings but then spoilt this by explaining that the malfunction had occurred because the goalposts and goalkeeper had got in the way. It is hard to see how the former if not both will always be the case.
It now seems that cricket will be one of the last sports to be allowed to resume and the reason given is that the ball is a conductor of the virus. This has to be more gobbledegook and even if true must be able to be overcome by, for example, the wearing of gloves by fielders. The staggering incompetence of our administration continues to amaze.
It has just seemed odd having no cricket to follow. As Steve Thompson would say “at least Middlesex are still unbeaten this season!”
I started writing this last week and already find that I can’t be bothered to watch the premiership matches. I think that the lack of a crowd reduces the intensity and they all seem bland affairs.
Morgan Matters
The GJM can at last see light at the end of the tunnel
You will be pleased to hear that I have now read the June Cricketer and it was a fairly interesting issue considering that there has been no cricket anywhere! The highlight was probably a long article on Dean Headley, who reveals that he chose to join Middlesex because of Mike Gatting and Ricky Ellcock but left after three years because of poor pay. He was offered £12k per year to stay but complained to Bob Gale who offered a derisory rise... so he left. He now teaches at Stamford School. I suppose we should not expect much county news as there is absolutely nothing going on, but you would think they could come up with something a bit more interesting about Middlesex than the fact that T Murtagh likes to fill in his spare time by playing darts in the garage! We also have Simon Hughes interviewing Peter Parfitt (now aged 83). It was Bill Edrich who got PP to join Middlesex, JT Murray was Peter's best mate at Middlesex and when he got a hundred for England in SA in 1964/65, it brought the only compliment he ever received from Gubby Allen (Chairman of Selectors) who said "Parfitt, that's the best I have ever seen you bat". Charlie Griffith was the fastest bowler he ever faced "by a mile" and when a bouncer hit him on the shoulder, Frank Worrell said "are you OK, Peter", but Charlie said "I am going to kill you, white man"!
The ECB has published a "five-step road map" for the return of recreational cricket, but stage 5 (which would see all formats and all competitions available) is "unlikely to happen this summer".
Pakistan will tour England for 3 Tests and 3 T20s in Aug and Sept and will bring 28 players and 14 support personnel: that should be enough.
Vic has a long and interesting article on G Boycott in today's G and he says: "like D Gower and I Botham, he is withdrawing from the commentary box ".
Surrey have promoted V Solanki to replace head coach M de Venuto. I have seen Vikram several times coaching the 2s. C Silverwood has decided to take a break (it must be all that coaching and managing that he has not been doing) during the 3 ODIs against Ireland in July. P Collingwood will be in charge. M Carberry does not expect anything from the ECB in fighting racism, which he says is "rife" in the game. T Bresnan (35) has left Yorks after 19 years "to pursue playing opportunities elsewhere". Ex-Middx man Paul Stirling is the new vice captain of Ireland and believes his best years are still to come.
New Test rules from the ICC state that players displaying coronavirus symptoms during a Test can be replaced. Speaking from WI's base at OT, assistant coach Roddy Estwick says the current WI pace attack is the strongest and deepest since the "glory days" of the 1980s. The 30 strong England training group for the WI series is: Moeen A, Anderson, Archer, Bairstow, Bess, Bracey, Broad, Burns, Buttler, Crawley, S Curran, Denly, Foakes, Gregory, Jennings, Lawrence, Leach, Saqib M, C Overton, J Overton, Root, Sibley, Stokes, Stone, Virdi, Woakes, Wood.
Former Glamorgan batsman Alan Jones, who played one "Test" for Eng v the Rest of the World in 1970, a match later stripped of Test status, has now been awarded an England cap 50 years later. Vic has quite a good and long piece on Alan Jones in today's G. He tells us that his "smooth stroke play delivered more than 36,000 first class runs in 26 seasons from 1957 onwards". However, he made 5 and 0 in his solitary Test outing and was replaced by John Edrich for the next match.
I have now read the July Cricketer and was dismayed to read that ridiculous M Vaughan wants further cuts to the Championship fixture list because it is a "loss-making format"! B Ronay is totally against plans to drop the fifth day of Tests, saying it is all about saving some cash.
B Johnson says that a cricket ball is a "natural vector of the coronavirus". I was not totally sure what a vector meant in this context, so I got out the dictionary and found that the word "vector" can mean "an animal that transmits parasites".
Surrey will play Middlesex in a 2-day red ball match at the Oval on 26/27 July. But, of course, this will be "behind closed doors". The county season will definitely start on 1st August. The format(s) have not yet been confirmed, but a 4 day competition and a T20 seem the likeliest. Presumably no spectators will be allowed?
The Beeb's website has an interesting headline today (26/6): "Morgan becomes honorary life vice-president at Middlesex"! Unfortunately, they are talking about Beth Morgan, who becomes the first female honorary life vice-president.
Nostalgia Matters
Steve Thompson sent me this
Graham’s piece in the last Googlie’s prompted this:
My father was neither an opportunist nor someone partial to rifling through builders’ skips. On one occasion, sometime during the mid to late seventies, he abandoned both traits and fished this out of a skip in Milverton Road. Since when it has moved with us on four occasions and is now in our greenhouse in Hereford.
It is always a welcome sight in the garden. A greeting read by cricketers
of all abilities from Test level to park and a special place for many who like me were fortunate enough to have made the club their cricketing home. It’s where I made my highest score, met my wife and celebrated our wedding. Today, as I write, my dad would have celebrated his 101st birthday. He would be delighted to know that the little piece of London club cricket he saved from landfill still has a safe home.
Williams Matters
John Williams sent me this
At school I was a wimpy forward and although I had played occasionally for the 1stXI in my penultimate year, in my final year I was captain of the 2nd XI. On leaving school I was playing for Old Lyonians 2's when towards the end of my first season, still a wimpy forward, the goalkeeper and the captain suggested I try centre. half as I was 6ft 3. Early in the following season I managed to break into the 1st team and being a fit 19 year old started reasonably well. That is until 19th November 1960 when we were drawn at home to Twickenham in the Middlesex Senior Cup. I thought I was quite quick but as the Harrow Observer reported Twickenham had a centre forward who was quicker, possibly hard to believe now. Couple of quotes from the report - "Williams finding Reid a fast and elusive centre forward was less dominant than usual" and we were one down well into the second half when " the turning point came when Reid outpaced Williams in a sudden breakaway to score his second goal". We lost 2-0. Yes this was the great fast bowler Brian Reid. Mates ever since,
Indeed in 1970 I gave Brian a lift down to Portsmouth in my convertible Vitesse when we played in a one day (55 over ) game for the CCC against the Royal Navy. Navy 215 for 6 CCC 201 for 6. After I had dropped Brian off, when I got home I found a pair of red braces on the back seat. Brian - always a dapper dresser!
Adelman matters
Ralph Adelman sent me this
I have just received an email from Surrey about refunds for this year’s Oval test match. It is disappointing that this test match is one of those that will not happen this year. I had tickets for a group of seven family and friends to attend this one. We can keep our seats for next year and I shall keep mine as we have what I reckon are the best available for Test Matches at the Oval.
Surrey had also mentioned the possibility of county cricket with limited attendance later in the year but I am not confident that this will happen. There has certainly been no mention of a refund on my annual membership fee.
Our grandson (Samuel, age 10) has recently got back to the nets at his local club (with his Dad). He had been practicing in the back garden as he has his own bowling machine. He was also following a practice tip from Sam Curran. His Dad had drilled a hole in a cricket ball through which he fed some string. The ball was then hung from a tree branch so that Samuel could hit the swinging ball. I have seen a video of this mode of practice and was amazed at how well it worked in improving his footwork.
There was a lot about cricket publications and statistics in C&G and I thought that I could perhaps have reviewed Surrey’s 175th Anniversary book. Our daughter and son-in-law had bought it as my Christmas present but it wasn’t published until March. It arrived just in time to give me additional reading material during lockdown. And it was so much better than I expected not least because it was not filled with loads of statistics.
I was disappointed to find out that Michael di Venutto would not be returning to continue his role as Surrey coach. His tenure has been a successful one. The championship was won again (at last) and lots (too may for my liking) of Surrey players became England players. That is due in no small part to his ability to develop those players.
Hedgcock Matters
Murray Hedgcock sent me this
I can’t resist horning in on the Miller- Close report:
Looking forward to the book of Brian Close letters, and its review penned by my old friend Douglas Miller (Googlies 210-11) I mourn that my chance of figuring in the Close archives was blotted out on February 16,1951. This was my big cricket-writing opportunity as a junior reporter on The Geelong Advertiser – the first time I had covered a match. It was the two-day fixture between the touring MCC team and a Victorian Country XI, played in the State’s second city. MCC captain Freddie Brown, probably checking the weather forecast, chose to stand down, and Cyril Washbrook took charge. The temperature hit 103 degrees Fahrenheit in mid-afternoon, confirming Brown’s judgment in staying off-field as acting manager.
The locals batted dourly against a not over-inspired attack (Bailey, Warr, Close, Hollies, Berry and Simpson) notably the youthful John Shaw, a nephew of current Australian captain Lindsay Hassett. I delighted in the exchange between a couple of weary Pressbox veterans, one asking: “Is this boy Shaw only nineteen?”, to which a wit responded, “He was, when he came in”. When Shaw went lbw to Eric Hollies for a long, slow 12, the score was three for 69 (allow me Australian usage, please) made in a grim 133 minutes.
Lunch came as a relief; sitting with other journalists and officials, I was delighted to see Brian Close head for a vacant seat next to mine. Here was a chance to learn what it was like to be a youthful English professional cricketer (I had long since given up hope that one day I might wear the Baggy Green). But as Close wandered over, acting captain Washbrook spotted him, and barked out an order: he must join the rest of the team at their table. It was especially disappointing, as I had taken a particular interest in the progress of the young Yorkshireman, for one specific reason – I was precisely a day his senior. I was born on February 23, 1931, he on February 24 of the same year.
I never did meet Brian Close even in my many years in England – and I harboured a smouldering dislike ever afterwards for a certain Lancashire and England opening bat. Certainly, Cyril W was promptly cut off my Christmas card list, never to be re-instated.
The Country lads struggled to a turgid 201 for six wickets in 320 minutes on the first day, batting on next morning, to the unconcealed indignation of the visitors. Rain ended the match after just 28 minutes, including a brief appearance by Ian Quick, the leftarm spinner who toured England in 1961 without playing a Test.
Gunner Gould
Vic Marks wrote this tribute to Gunner
We have been deprived of a rare opportunity to see one of our world class performers in action on a cricket field this spring. Ian Gould has been an international umpire for more than a decade, which means he has seldom been in action in England during that time. He retired from the international panel last year and at the age of 62 he was about to embark on a full season of domestic cricket this season – in part as an act of gratitude for how well the England and Wales Cricket Board has looked after its umpires over the years (we can be tormented by some of its other decisions but the board is reckoned to be an excellent employer by the vast majority of umpires).
Gould will certainly be missed on the international circuit by his peers and the players, who respected his umpiring and enjoyed the no-nonsense asides delivered in the manner of an irrepressible cockney, albeit one that grew up around Slough. Virat Kohli, no less, gave him a hug as he left the field after his last game, at Headingley in the 2019 World Cup.
Gould has been immersed in cricket ever since the Arsenal manager Bertie Mee concluded that he was a bit too small to be a top-notch goalkeeper. He joined Middlesex in 1975 at the same time as Mike Gatting, with whom he was forever linked; he played for Sussex from 1981; he returned to Lord’s for a decade as a coach and second-team captain in 1991. Then he opted for umpiring and it was not long before he was a regular on the international circuit. It’s all documented in a Brighton-breezy, witty way in his autobiography, which is published later this month.
Self-isolation does not suit “Gunner”; he has always been a gregarious man, as I discovered when touring with him on the 1982-83 Ashes tour (I roomed with him for a fortnight but we seemed to work to slightly different timetables so I did not see that much of him). He was rarely without a smile or a quip, which explains how positively he views the end of two phases of his life when he was employed by Middlesex CCC. “They did me a favour twice” he told me. “Once when they signed Paul Downton [in 1980] – they did not bring him to Lord’s to play in the second team – and then when they sacked me as a coach in 2001. Gatt [the head coach] had an appointment at 10am; I had one at 11 and we were both sent packing by noon”.
Both these sackings led to fertile pastures new. Gould fell in love with Hove very quickly off the pitch and on it where he would be standing in the middle distance when keeping wicket to Imran Khan and Garth Le Roux. Before long he was vice-captain to John Barclay at Sussex and they got on brilliantly. “Hardly surprising really since we were at schools only a mile apart”, he explains. Barclay went to Eton, Gould to Westgate Secondary Modern just outside of Slough.
He played for England in 18 one-day internationals , which included being a semi-finalist in the 1983 World Cup but he may be best remembered for a flying catch at cover to dismiss Greg Chappell when fielding as a substitute in the thrilling Melbourne Test of 1982, which England won by three runs. In his book he recalls, “Graeme Fowler was struck on the toe by Jeff Thomson and couldn’t field and the 12th man options weren’t great. Vic Marks wasn’t much of an athlete; Jackers [Robin Jackman] could only do fine leg at both ends and Geoff Cook was struggling with a rib injury. That left me and I loved it”. This tallies, I’m afraid. My recollection is that we bundled him out there. Back at Sussex he would succeed Barclay, which might have added a new dimension to the team talks and he led the Sussex side to victory in the Lord’s final of 1986. His victory speech consisted of “Watch out, Soho”.
After the Middlesex sacking he was encouraged by the old brigade of umpires such as Alan Whitehead, David Constant, Merv Kitchen and Jack Hampshire to have a go at umpiring. And he soon discovered that he was good at it and that he liked it. “My motto was “I want to umpire in the way I wanted to be umpired as a player”, which meant that there was a constant stream of communication.
A measure of his standing is that he was asked to umpire India v Pakistan seven times in international tournaments, potentially the most incendiary of fixtures. This was because he had the respect of the players and was capable of defusing any tricky moments better than most. “I did one of those at Edgbaston quite recently with Richard Kettleborough and told him ‘Don’t worry about the players; they get on fantastically well but the noise at those games is something else’”.
He gained the reputation of being calm and trustworthy in a crisis, like one of his English predecessors, David Shepherd. At Cape Town in the notorious ball-tampering match of 2018 in which Cameron Bancroft was exposed by the TV cameras, he was the third umpire and it was his job to inform the on-field umpires, who happened to be his mates, Richard Illingworth and Nigel Llong, what was about to be shown on the screens. He kept them on an even keel, beginning with “They’ve got some pictures for you and they’re not of Table Mountain”. In fact Gould often carried a gauge for a women’s cricket ball in his pocket so that he always had the option of changing the ball without too much kerfuffle. He knew that a men’s ball would never pass through this gauge.
He has always had an idiosyncratic way of giving batsmen out, raising his arm way above his head Aussie style and that came about because of his mother, who came to watch him early in his career. “You were pointing your finger at that man – and that’s rude”, she said so Gould dutifully adopted a different technique which soon became automatic. That became one of his hallmarks. Let’s hope we see it again before too long.
“I have nightmares about having to become an umpire” said the great England fast bowler John Snow, when he was giving evidence in the High Court on the Packer affair in 1978. Which reminds us of two things: it was then possible to be short of money despite being the best English fast bowler since Fred Trueman and the prospect of becoming an umpire was – for Snow, at least – the most desperate measure to take to earn a living.
In fact Snow became a travel agent, who specialised in cricket tours, and a very good one. Large chunks of the press corps often travelled with him and Snow, the firebrand fast bowler whose autobiography was called “Cricket Rebel”, was in his new role the most calm and laid-back of figures. When problems arose he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Don’t worry; I’ll sort it.” And, despite seeming so unbothered, he did.
The value, not only of fast bowlers, but also of umpires, has changed a bit since then – for the better. There was one typically candid observation from Ian Gould in his book when he admitted to surprise at how much he was going to get paid when elevated to the ICC’s Elite panel. Of course the top umpires deserve to be well paid. Umpiring at the highest level is incredibly arduous on and off the pitch. There is now the constant scrutiny and the constant separation from families and friends.
The situation has also improved for umpires at county level. Four decades ago several of them acquired campervans of various standards in an attempt to reduce their costs; they would park up behind the pavilion of an out-ground and therefore save on the cost of their bed and breakfast. Such parsimony is not so necessary now. However, no matter what the pay is like you have to really love the game to do this job and that has always applied whether you were Frank Chester, Charlie Elliott, Dickie Bird, David Shepherd or the mischievous Gunner Gould. That remains the most important criterion for any prospective umpire.
Editor’s Note
Since the lockdown is now over and you will all be too busy swarming onto the beaches, holding street parties and participating in illegal protests and demonstrations I have reverted to the editorial discipline of a twelve page 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.
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