GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 226
October 2021
Caption Competition
Man in the Street: So what was the point of it?
Michael Atherton: No one knows.
Out & About with the Professor
100 is an important milestone in cricket. More important than it should be perhaps - after all, in a team game, it’s difficult to argue that 100 contributes significantly more than 99. But milestone it is, and, for a cricket club, a big one. So it was a delight to go to the club that I joined, 50 years’ ago, to celebrate our centenary and, I suppose, my half century.
I guess many people would think of Welwyn Garden City as a “new town”. In fact the town’s origins go back to the start of the 20th century and the cricket club’s (obviously) to 1921. I suspect that a fair few cricket clubs will be at or near their centenaries soon; a few years’ after World War One was a time for the founding of sports clubs as part of the desperate post-war need for a return to “normalcy”.
The way to celebrate such an event is, of course, a Ball and so close to 200 members and their friends and relatives gathered last week in a giant marquee which, had the chairs and tables been removed, would have served very nicely as an indoor net…with room to spare. The obligatory aging rock band, some of whom looked like they may have been there at the foundation, provided the music and a very good time was had by all. The other thing people do on these occasions is, naturally, to talk about the past: great victories in leagues and cups, or bizarre incidents that are (or were) funny, or just odd, and thus memorable. One of the latter which has stayed with me was the cricket week game where one of our players dropped three simple catches in a row and when a fourth went up in his direction simply looked at the sky and shouted: “Why me?” We may not have ever been in that exact situation but I guess that most people know the feeling.
Welwyn Garden has been one of the strongest teams in Hertfordshire for many years now and were champions or runners-up five times in the past decade but the downside of the present league arrangements (presumably echoed around the country) is that we now play very little cricket outside Hertfordshire. A strong fixture list which used to involve some of the best sides in Middlesex and Essex has fallen victim to the home and away matches against the other nine Premiership sides and the complete collapse of Sunday cricket. I don’t know if this is true of cricket everywhere else in the country, but if it is (and I suspect our experience is not unique) then it is a great shame. The solution, evidently, would be for Sunday cricket to be revived. Why don’t people want to play on Sundays? After all, if you get a first ball duck in a league game you will not, in effect, have batted for a fortnight. How well are you likely to do then?
Some cricket clubs have been born over the hundred years that Welwyn Garden has been around but I suspect many more have folded. If you were founding a cricket club now, how optimistic would you be about its survival for ten years, never mind a hundred. Still, I suppose that is for others to worry about, right now we are celebrating the contribution and commitment of thousands of people in the past who have helped us notch up our century.
This & That
My first cricket since getting back was T20 finals day. I have not seen this in recent years and had forgot how ludicrous the stuff around the matches was. The dressing up, the congas, the people in the Hollies stand, David Lloyd leading the singing of Sweet Caroline, the Mascot Races and the general pretence that it is a fairground activity. The cricket is in stark contrast to all this and is taken intensely seriously by the players and we now have experienced practitioners using highly developed skills to create a high-class spectacle. It has not developed into being a young man’s game either. Many of the IPL are in their thirties and Chris Gayle continues into his forties. At Edgbaston one of the top performers on the day was the 45-year-old Darren Stevens. Some may not like it, but it is the most popular form of the game and follows the format of the IPL, the cricket world’s main event.
There were two unique events on Final’s Day. The first happened during the first match when Hampshire were in all sorts of trouble and Joe Weatherley suddenly took a wild slog and skied the ball. Tom Banton was keeping wicket for Somerset and he ran to mid-wicket and took a comfortable catch. It took a while for the cameras and the commentators to realise that Weatherley had not walked off and that the umpires were consulting. I believe that Weatherley had told the umpires that an extra fielder had left the inner circle and that the delivery had therefore been a no ball. The third umpire was unable to secure a camera angle to verify this and it looked like a stalemate had been achieved. It then appears that Marchant de Lange admitted to the umpires that he had been outside the circle and they then designated the delivery as a no ball. Joe Weatherley proceeded to clump the Free Hit for six too add salt into Somerset’s wounds.
The second occurred in the final itself. Smeed and Abell had repaired Somerset’s tricky start and seemed to have the game in hand when Smeed slog swept Qais to the mid wicket boundary where Cox took a fairly reulation catch a yard in from the boundary. However, Bell Drummond had also made ground towards the ball and pulled out as he saw Cox take the catch. However, his momentum kept him going and he slid into Cox at knee level and simultaneously crashed into the boundary cushion. The umpires conferred and asked the third umpire to look at the replay and it was determined that Cox, via Bell Drummond, had touched the boundary whilst taking the catch and so awarded Smeed a six. In the same over Qais had Abell caught on the legside off another skied slog sweep and Cox had the last laugh two overs later when he caught Smeed off Joe Denly’s bowling. He appeared to request clarification from the umpires as whether there was anything they could find wrong with this catch….
In the old days the Gillette final at lord’s was the swansong of the season and individual performances were so significant that they could be rewarded by a place on the winter tour. Roland Butcher’s tour ticket was based on his half century in the final. Central Contracts have changed all that and form no longer comes into selection and most of those going to the Ashes won’t have played first class cricket since August. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see who came out of the T20 finals day with an enhanced reputation and who with a tarnished one.
Joe Weatherley played a high-class innings when more experienced heads around him were getting out. Daniel Bell-Drummond has always been rated and made the highest score on the day but I suspect is no closer to any international call up. Jordan Cox was the star in the final and his progress will be monitored. Josh Davey reminded Middlesex fans what they have missed out on both with the ball and the bat. Mat Milnes and Freddie Klaassen were the pick of the seamers and were very impressive. Qais was the pick of the leg spinners but his Afghan international career must be uncertain.
When on song Tom Banton looks a world beater but on this big stage he failed twice which won’t help his cause. Tom Lammonby has received rave notices this summer but was dismissed twice cheaply LBW to leg spinners. Marchant de Lange impressed in the Hundred but will want to forget his two spells at lord’s which returned 1 for 65 in six overs. James Vince failed in his only innings but his credentials are already known. Zak Crawley scored 50 in two innings without ever looking in total charge. He seems to be out of favour at presenr and probably did himself as much harm as anyone.
In the post Bancroft stage of the season Middlesex won their initial games in Division 3 and looked well placed to be champions(?) until, as Ged would say, they managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in their final match against Kent. Low first innings scores were followed by another Stoneman century and Kent were set a highly improbable 373 to win in the best part of two days. Kent got there with two wickets to spare after batting for 105 overs. In their second innings it looks like Middlesex thought that they had a big enough lead. This is demonstrated by Bell-Drummond taking a career best 3 for 47.
It was a relief that the Rangers have settled back into a position outside the promotion group. Promotion would bring another season of pain as they got beaten every week sometimes by cricket scores. However, the win against Everton has put them on the fast track in the EFL cup particularly with a home tie next against Sunderland.
I watched a fair bit of the pointless Bob Willis Trophy held at Lord’s which was reminiscent of those old Gillette Cup Finals which started at dawn and the side who won the toss had the game in the bag by elevensies. The best thing about it was that the umpires made the decisions as there was no referral system available.
Morgan Matters
Our man completes another season without experiencing any live cricket
Lord's: Middlesex win match sensation! Derbyshire 221, TSRJ 5-36, Middlesex win by 112.
Middlesex had a surprisingly good day at Hove as S Robson and M Stoneman (174) put on 376 for the first wicket (a club record opening partnership) and they closed on 400-2 with S Robson still there on 192* and the total on 400-2. Sussex mustn't half be crap! Middlesex went on to win by an innings and 54 and are top of one of the Championship tables having won 2.5 of their 3 matches! I believe that Sussex's Tom Haines is the first to 1,000 first class runs this season.
English cricket will fight to ensure India return for a one-off Test Match that averts a £340m financial black hole after the series finale at OT was called off at the 11th hour in response to a Covid-19 outbreak among the tourists.
Rs drew 3-3 at lowly Reading, who are now 22nd. A Morrison og put Rs ahead on 11 mins, but a Swift hat-trick put Reading 3-1 up on 77 mins. However, late goals from Gray (79) and Johansen (91) ensured a point for the lads, who are now 4th in the table on 12 points from 6 games.
J Bairstow, D Malan and C Woakes have all decided to put England first and have withdrawn from the IPL.
Lord's: CC: Worcestershire won the toss sand asked Middlesex to bat first (on a dodgy track?). Tanya says "it was a shiny green top, with the ball swinging like a fairground waltzer. Middlesex were spreadeagled for 144 before Worcester stomped off the pitch for bad light at 113-8".
Worcestershire went on to 171 a/o to lead by 27 on first innings (J Baker 61*, T Murtagh 5-64, E Bamber 3-52). Middlesex were 233-6, but slumped to 247 a/o (J Simpson 59, L Hollman 46, C Morris 6-52). However, it all came right in the end as Worcestershire collapsed to 119 a/o (G Roderick 42*) with Bamber taking 4-28, Andersson 3-22 and TSRJ 2-23. Middlesex won by 101.
Does anyone understand the current points system being used in the Championship? I do not, eg in division 3, Middx have won 3.5 of their 4 matches and lost 0.5, they have 9.5 batting points and 12 bowling points giving them a total of 77, 2 points clear of Kent in second place. Tanya's version of the match seems much more straightforward: "Middlesex were inspired by Ethan Bamber's 4 for 28 to beat Worcestershire and notch up four consecutive Championship wins for the first time in 26 years". Hampshire are top of Division 1 (58.5 points) and Essex are leading in Division 2 (77 points).
In the G, Andy Bull has quite a long and interesting article on 39 year old Rikki Clarke (40 in a couple of weeks), who retires at the end of the season after 20 years of first class cricket with Surrey, Derbyshire, Warwickshire and then back to Surrey, 2 Test Matches and 20 limited overs internationals.
Somerset and Notts allrounder Peter Trego (who also had a brief spell with Middx) has retired from professional cricket after 18,828 runs and 646 wickets across all 3 formats.
J Greaves is dead aged 81. A headline in the G reads "an elegant poacher who altered the role of the no 9", but I do not think he played no 9, he was nearly always 8 or 10 wasn't he? The no 9 was the big bustling centre forward (eg Bobby Smith), which Greaves was not.
C Cairns says he is "facing possibly the greatest challenge of his life" after being left paralysed from a spinal stroke during a heart operation.
England have been accused of "failing a member of their cricket fraternity" and "making excuses" after cancelling next month's tour of Pakistan and citing mental wellbeing as one of the driving factors behind the decision.
Carabao (League, I suppose?) Cup: Rs 2 (Charlie Austin got both goals on 18 and 34 mins) Everton 2 aet so it went to penalties and Rs won it 8-7! And Rs deserved it with 58% possession to Everton's 42%. The G gave it terrific coverage with a long report (covering 6 columns and 3 photographs, 2 of them large ones) by David Hytner.
One of the shortest games that I can remember has concluded at Chelmsford (probably before lunch on day 2) as Northampton were out for 45 in their second innings (L Procter, 24, was the only one in double figures, S Cook 5-20). Essex won by an innings and 44 and clinch the div 2 title.
Middlesex's final Championship match of the season at Canters is not going well: Middlesex were 121-2, but 147 a/o Kent 138 Middlesex 363 a/o(Stoneman109)): K 275-5 (O Robinson 112) needing 98 more to win Close: Kent 375-8 (T Muyeye 76*) won by 2 wkts and win the Div 3 title ahead of second placed Middlesex. How come there are 6 teams in the group, but only 4 matches are played?
In the September Cricketer, Simon Hughes says that J Root is England’s greatest modern batsman and supports his case by pointing out that his Test Match average of 50.15 is comfortably ahead of the other 6 candidates he considers: Root 50.15, Boycott 47.72, Pietersen 47.28, Cook 45.35, Gower 44.25, Gooch 42.58 and Vaughan 41.44. Nick Howson has a long article telling us why the inaugural Hundred world class was not. Joe Root has risen from no 5 to the top position in the world’s Best Test Batsmen table. Dawid Malan remains at no 1 in the world’s Best T20 Batsmen table. There are interesting obituaries for two of Sussex’s best: Ted Dexter (aged 86) and Ian Thomson (aged 92).
MCC has officially amended the laws of the game to remove the word "batsman" and replace it with "batter" because "the use of gender-neutral terminology helps reinforce cricket's status as an inclusive game for all".
Former SA seamer Steve Elworthy has been appointed Surrey's new chief executive after leaving his role as the ECB's director for events and special projects.
It turns out that the England "tour" of Pak was due to be 4 days long! Barney Ronay writes of the ECB: "it is graceless and unworthy behaviour from a body whose existence is only validated if it retains a sense of mission, of duty, of obligations that go beyond pure self-interest. Not least because the ECB's own articles of association dictate it must promote the game of cricket both inside and outside its own territory, an obligation that has clearly not been met here".
Moeen Ali is retiring from Test cricket after 64 caps and will specialise in white ball cricket... it takes all sorts!
Middlesex assistant coach Nic Pothas (ex-Hants) has left the club "for personal reasons": does that mean he was sacked?
Roger Hunt is dead aged 83. Manager Jurgen Klopp said "Roger comes second to no one in his importance in the history of Liverpool FC". The only 3 still alive of the 1966 WC winning team are G Cohen, B Charlton and G Hurst.
King Cricket Matters
The following article appeared on the King Cricket website
It's always been the case that some tours have been easier to cancel than others. Assorted pressures mean cancellations are coming thicker and faster at the minute. What are the implications of this?
Earlier this month, we wrote that the threshold for binning the Old Trafford Test was lower than normal. In another year, that match would have been played, but Covid cases, bubble life and the impending resumption of the IPL meant there was simply insufficient appetite for it in 2021.
So it is with some tours. There's been a gargantuan effort to bring international cricket back to Pakistan, but it's not like once this was achieved, everything was hunky dory. The great boulder of touring reluctance couldn't quite be held at bay long enough for New Zealand to take the field on their first visit in 18 years, for example.
New Zealand Cricket said they had received a ‘credible threat’ to the safety of their players and with an international cricket team having once been specifically targeted in Pakistan, that was enough to spook them.
New Zealand's spooking was then sufficient to spook England. After first making reference to, "increasing concerns about travelling to the region," the ECB somewhat nebulously cited a reluctance to, "add further pressure to a playing group who have already coped with a long period of operating in restricted Covid environments."
The board claimed its highest priority was, "the mental and physical well-being of our players and support staff." This must have come as news to Heather Knight who inadvertently revealed that no-one had actually thought to ask her or her team about the matter before taking the decision.
Pakistan Cricket Board chair, Ramiz Raja, now reckons that the West Indies will be “jittery” ahead of their visit later in the year and also expects Australia to cancel their tour in February. He is almost certainly correct on that second count because Australia quite simply don't play away Test matches any more. The last time they did so was the 2019 Ashes.
It's not that they don't want to play Tests overseas; it's that their appetite for doing so stretches only so far. And that's what we're coming up against again and again at the moment.
It applies to every team really - albeit far more obviously to some than others. Various pandemic-induced factors mean that the Actually Let's Not Bother Threshold is very consistently being reached.
It's not that teams don't want to play in Pakistan or wherever. It's just that there's an awful lot of cricket and now it's a whole lot more draining than it was before. And so if something has to give, then...
Boards schedule these matches wanting to play them, but then situations keep arising where there's just a bit too much congestion. And it's so often the same sorts of fixtures that wind up getting abandoned.
That's a problem. We've written about there being too much top level cricket too many times to even bother digging up an appropriate link, but this kind of unfocused nibbling away around the edges isn't a way of dealing with it. It's ad-hoc optimisation of an ecosystem with no thought given to the bigger picture. (Oh okay, maybe one link. Try this piece bemoaning the need for England to implement a squad rotation policy.)
From T10 to Tests and from bunsens to greentops, the brilliance of cricket lies in its breadth and scope and variety. When you strip things back to only the biggest, most obvious engagements, you diminish the game as a whole.
Do England fans want an endless merry-go-round comprising nothing more than Ashes series, 50-over World Cups, India series and T20 World Cups? Of course not. But if you keep cutting away what you perceive to be the fat, that's probably what you'll be left with.
No-one is planning that. But then no-one is planning anything.
The Bob Willis Trophy
Nick Friend in the Cricketer has some ideas
What to do with the Bob Willis Trophy, the latest quandary facing the unsolvable Tetris that is English cricket’s domestic schedule.Its second instalment begins on Monday – a year after its foundation as an admirable, appropriate memorial for a widely-respected hero of the game, set up initially to bring meaning to a shortened summer that had decided against trivialising the County Championship into a whistle-stop, chaotic monthlong competition.
It worked as well as could reasonably be expected: Essex and Somerset – the best teams in the country the previous year, when they fought to be county champions at Taunton in the last week of the season – qualified for the final, a five-day showcase at Lord’s, albeit behind closed doors. Perhaps the manner of the result wasn’t ideal – Essex were awarded the title on account of a higher first-innings score – but otherwise it was broadly an autumnal triumph that achieved more than looked feasible at the height of lockdown.
That was a one-off, though: while life isn’t quite back to normal, the county summer did still return to its traditional April beginning, only concluding last week, with Warwickshire clinching the County Championship crown ahead of Lancashire. No doubt, both teams have been celebrating hard. The prospect of another week, therefore, feels like a strange, misplaced addition.
To a degree, the relative antipathy around this showpiece occasion seems somewhat ironic, given the drive in several quarters for more high-profile red-ball matches, but perhaps it also speaks to the sense of tiredness running through the whole game at the end of a season as busy and draining as this. It is asking a lot of the players to go again with the same intensity as the last five months.
So, if it were up to me, I would invert the calendar to make this cricket’s answer to football’s Community Shield: a curtain-raiser to the campaign featuring the two best red-ball teams in the previous year.
In this case, Warwickshire and Lancashire at Lord’s in April: a flagship precursor to the county summer, with its participants known seven months in advance, no complaints around a lack of time to purchase tickets – as was the case with the Royal London Cup final’s 48-hour turnaround this year – and the potential for a high-quality fixture in front of a decent crowd to summon in the new season after a winter away
.
Where that leaves the Champion County match, played out between the winners and an MCC side, would need some discussion, but there is an opportunity here to raise the status of domestic red-ball cricket in a way that the current setup can’t achieve.
There is no partisanship attached to the MCC game – how could there be, with an Invitational XI? It exists, for all intents and purposes, as a glorified warmup. It doesn’t have to be completely dismantled: in the last few years, it has been taken abroad in March, and there is no reason why that innovation shouldn’t continue, but the chance to stage a five-day final – as the World Test Championship has cottoned onto – is a genuinely interesting proposition, if it is packaged and sold correctly.
“I think we’ve got to make County Championship cricket more exciting,” one county chief executive told me last week. His dream is for a one-off, winner-takes-all match at Lord’s, with the victors taking both the County Championship and the Bob Willis Trophy in the style of Australia’s Sheffield Shield. “I would put everything on Bob Willis Finals Day,” he said. “For me, that’s a no-brainer, but I know I’m probably in a minority in thinking that. We have a big Blast final, we’ve got a big Hundred final, we have to work out where the 50-over final fits. “It would give massive profile to red-ball cricket, to county members, to sponsors. Imagine if every year was built to that crescendo, and two teams in red-ball cricket were getting a five-day match at Lord’s. I think you could market that and get 20,000 people every day at Lord’s. “In reality, we’ve sort of played two semi-finals last week in Division One for the right to play at Lord’s.”
That concept was put to the counties ahead of the season but rejected. “I think the counties felt that was probably a step too far to put it all on that one game, particularly with it all being so late in the year,” Neil Snowball, the ECB’s managing director of county cricket, told The Cricketer. “I still think that debate is to be had. Part of me loves the jeopardy – can you imagine if you ended up with Lancashire and Yorkshire in the Bob Willis Trophy final, playing off to determine who’s also the county champions. You’d have Lord’s packed out for four days.”
Given the legend of Willis – not to mention his legacy with the Bob Willis Fund – there is a real, heartening desire to keep the trophy in circulation, whatever its guise. It is fitting that this edition involves Warwickshire, where he spent 12 years of his professional career, and that it has found a home at Lord’s, where he took more Test wickets – 47 at 18.76 apiece – than at any other ground.
In time, let’s hope it can settle upon a suitable meaning as well. For, given the drama of the final round of the County Championship season, this week will do well to mean as much as it ought. Creating cricket’s Community Shield would be a fine place to start.
T20 Blast 2021 Team of the Tournament
Charlie Peters nominates his pick
1.Daniel Bell-Drummond (Kent)
After working hard to increase his attacking intent after being overlooked in the 2019 Hundred draft, Bell-Drummond has become a machine in the Blast. His 2021 campaign included 492 runs, at an average of 37.84 and strike rate of 155.69, and ends the tournament as its third-highest run-scorer. The 82 off 51 he made in the semi-final against Sussex was the sort of knock he has played on a regular basis for the Spitfires.
2.Joe Clarke (Nottinghamshire)
The Outlaws opener is the ultimate tone-setter, and, alongside Alex Hales, forms half of arguably the most explosive opening partnership the Blast has ever seen. Clarke made 408 runs on the way to the quarter-finals, but perhaps what’s most impressive about the 25-year-old’s season is his strike rate: a staggering 180.53.
3.Josh Inglis (Leicestershire)
That the Australian was the Blast’s highest run-scorer this season speaks as much for his individual quality as it does for Leicestershire’s recruitment policy. His 531 runs, including two centuries and one half-century, struck at 175.82 represents a serious campaign. A place in Australia’s T20 World Cup squad is richly deserved.
4.Harry Brook (Yorkshire)
The 2021 season has been a real breakthrough year for the 22-year-old. His 486 runs for Yorkshire, struck at 149.07 at an average of 69.42, make him the Blast’s fourth-highest run-scorer. It’s particularly impressive that Brook has achieved this quantity of runs from the middle order, too: T20 run-scoring tables are frequently dominated by openers, so Brook’s campaign is no mean feat.
5.Glenn Phillips (Gloucestershire)
The New Zealander’s stock as a T20 gun for hire has rapidly risen in the last year or so, and his 500 runs for Gloucestershire this season will have only aided his cause. Phillips’ runs came at a strike rate of 163.39, and included 30 fours and 36 sixes – 12 more maximums than anybody else in the Blast.
6.Jordan Cox (Kent)
You simply could not assemble this side without including Jordan Cox. Kent’s middle-order man has had a great campaign, averaging 52.42 on his way to 367 Blast runs, and bagging a wildcard slot at Oval Invincibles to boot. But his 2021 will forever be remembered for his unbeaten 58 off 28 deliveries in the final, not to mention *that catch*.
7.Samit Patel (Nottinghamshire)
Even at 36, Patel still has so much to offer. His 309 runs and 16 wickets combined to see him crowned player of the tournament, a richly deserved accolade for the all-rounder. Going at just 6.63 an over, Patel was one of the competition’s most economic bowlers, his slow-left-arm proving just as effective as it did in his younger years. It’s been some renaissance.
8.Calvin Harrison (Nottinghamshire)
The South African-born leg-spinner ends the Blast as third-highest wicket-taker, with 20 victims to his name from 15 matches. 4/17 against Birmingham Bears at Edgbaston would prove to be his best performance in a campaign that saw him average 13.90 per wicket and go for just 6.78 run per over.
9.Scott Currie (Hampshire)
Hant’s 20-year-old seamer enjoyed a fruitful campaign in his first full Blast season. Currie took 19 wickets from just nine matches, striking on average every 9.7 deliveries. Only five players claimed more scalps than him, all of whom played at least three more games. It’s a season Currie won’t be forgetting any time soon, one that cements him as one of the most exciting young seamers in the country.
10.Matt Milnes (Kent)
Milnes has proved to be a superb signing since his move to Canterbury from Nottinghamshire. Only Leicestershire’s Naveen-ul-Haq has taken more than Milnes’ 22 wickets this season, but the 27-year-old’s came from 10 fewer overs, with a better average, economy and strike rate to boot.
11.Tymal Mills (Sussex)
Mills is deservedly back in England’s T20 squad thanks to an excellent summer in both the Hundred and the Blast. His 17 wickets were claimed at an average of 14.11, going at no more than eight-an-over. There is simply nobody better at the death, certainly not in this country. He may not have been able to fire Sussex into the final, but there’s no doubt that he is a world-class operator.
In Memoriam
Bill Hart and his wife Gill both died in the same week in September. I will publish any tributes and memories readers have in the next edition.
Publication Dates
I have always tried to publish Googlies at the beginning of the month whether I was in the High Peak or Chicago. However, following the address book difficulties that I encountered earlier this year I have decided to only send it out from the UK. I will make publication dates as close to the first of the month as possible. Edition 227 on 25 October and Edition 228 on 1 December.
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
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An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 226
October 2021
Caption Competition
- Rob Key: Are you going to Australia this winter?
- Geoffrey Boycott: What’s this nonsense about batters? I don’t get it they could have called them batswomen, cis batsmen, or even walking wickets.
- Jeff Coleman: Have you heard that because of the dramatic late season progress the Middlesex Committee have taken drastic action and appointed Chris Grayling as Director of Cricket with immediate effect?
- Man in the Street: If Lancashire had beaten Warwickshire in the Bob Willis Trophy would they have become County Champions?
Man in the Street: So what was the point of it?
Michael Atherton: No one knows.
Out & About with the Professor
100 is an important milestone in cricket. More important than it should be perhaps - after all, in a team game, it’s difficult to argue that 100 contributes significantly more than 99. But milestone it is, and, for a cricket club, a big one. So it was a delight to go to the club that I joined, 50 years’ ago, to celebrate our centenary and, I suppose, my half century.
I guess many people would think of Welwyn Garden City as a “new town”. In fact the town’s origins go back to the start of the 20th century and the cricket club’s (obviously) to 1921. I suspect that a fair few cricket clubs will be at or near their centenaries soon; a few years’ after World War One was a time for the founding of sports clubs as part of the desperate post-war need for a return to “normalcy”.
The way to celebrate such an event is, of course, a Ball and so close to 200 members and their friends and relatives gathered last week in a giant marquee which, had the chairs and tables been removed, would have served very nicely as an indoor net…with room to spare. The obligatory aging rock band, some of whom looked like they may have been there at the foundation, provided the music and a very good time was had by all. The other thing people do on these occasions is, naturally, to talk about the past: great victories in leagues and cups, or bizarre incidents that are (or were) funny, or just odd, and thus memorable. One of the latter which has stayed with me was the cricket week game where one of our players dropped three simple catches in a row and when a fourth went up in his direction simply looked at the sky and shouted: “Why me?” We may not have ever been in that exact situation but I guess that most people know the feeling.
Welwyn Garden has been one of the strongest teams in Hertfordshire for many years now and were champions or runners-up five times in the past decade but the downside of the present league arrangements (presumably echoed around the country) is that we now play very little cricket outside Hertfordshire. A strong fixture list which used to involve some of the best sides in Middlesex and Essex has fallen victim to the home and away matches against the other nine Premiership sides and the complete collapse of Sunday cricket. I don’t know if this is true of cricket everywhere else in the country, but if it is (and I suspect our experience is not unique) then it is a great shame. The solution, evidently, would be for Sunday cricket to be revived. Why don’t people want to play on Sundays? After all, if you get a first ball duck in a league game you will not, in effect, have batted for a fortnight. How well are you likely to do then?
Some cricket clubs have been born over the hundred years that Welwyn Garden has been around but I suspect many more have folded. If you were founding a cricket club now, how optimistic would you be about its survival for ten years, never mind a hundred. Still, I suppose that is for others to worry about, right now we are celebrating the contribution and commitment of thousands of people in the past who have helped us notch up our century.
This & That
My first cricket since getting back was T20 finals day. I have not seen this in recent years and had forgot how ludicrous the stuff around the matches was. The dressing up, the congas, the people in the Hollies stand, David Lloyd leading the singing of Sweet Caroline, the Mascot Races and the general pretence that it is a fairground activity. The cricket is in stark contrast to all this and is taken intensely seriously by the players and we now have experienced practitioners using highly developed skills to create a high-class spectacle. It has not developed into being a young man’s game either. Many of the IPL are in their thirties and Chris Gayle continues into his forties. At Edgbaston one of the top performers on the day was the 45-year-old Darren Stevens. Some may not like it, but it is the most popular form of the game and follows the format of the IPL, the cricket world’s main event.
There were two unique events on Final’s Day. The first happened during the first match when Hampshire were in all sorts of trouble and Joe Weatherley suddenly took a wild slog and skied the ball. Tom Banton was keeping wicket for Somerset and he ran to mid-wicket and took a comfortable catch. It took a while for the cameras and the commentators to realise that Weatherley had not walked off and that the umpires were consulting. I believe that Weatherley had told the umpires that an extra fielder had left the inner circle and that the delivery had therefore been a no ball. The third umpire was unable to secure a camera angle to verify this and it looked like a stalemate had been achieved. It then appears that Marchant de Lange admitted to the umpires that he had been outside the circle and they then designated the delivery as a no ball. Joe Weatherley proceeded to clump the Free Hit for six too add salt into Somerset’s wounds.
The second occurred in the final itself. Smeed and Abell had repaired Somerset’s tricky start and seemed to have the game in hand when Smeed slog swept Qais to the mid wicket boundary where Cox took a fairly reulation catch a yard in from the boundary. However, Bell Drummond had also made ground towards the ball and pulled out as he saw Cox take the catch. However, his momentum kept him going and he slid into Cox at knee level and simultaneously crashed into the boundary cushion. The umpires conferred and asked the third umpire to look at the replay and it was determined that Cox, via Bell Drummond, had touched the boundary whilst taking the catch and so awarded Smeed a six. In the same over Qais had Abell caught on the legside off another skied slog sweep and Cox had the last laugh two overs later when he caught Smeed off Joe Denly’s bowling. He appeared to request clarification from the umpires as whether there was anything they could find wrong with this catch….
In the old days the Gillette final at lord’s was the swansong of the season and individual performances were so significant that they could be rewarded by a place on the winter tour. Roland Butcher’s tour ticket was based on his half century in the final. Central Contracts have changed all that and form no longer comes into selection and most of those going to the Ashes won’t have played first class cricket since August. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see who came out of the T20 finals day with an enhanced reputation and who with a tarnished one.
Joe Weatherley played a high-class innings when more experienced heads around him were getting out. Daniel Bell-Drummond has always been rated and made the highest score on the day but I suspect is no closer to any international call up. Jordan Cox was the star in the final and his progress will be monitored. Josh Davey reminded Middlesex fans what they have missed out on both with the ball and the bat. Mat Milnes and Freddie Klaassen were the pick of the seamers and were very impressive. Qais was the pick of the leg spinners but his Afghan international career must be uncertain.
When on song Tom Banton looks a world beater but on this big stage he failed twice which won’t help his cause. Tom Lammonby has received rave notices this summer but was dismissed twice cheaply LBW to leg spinners. Marchant de Lange impressed in the Hundred but will want to forget his two spells at lord’s which returned 1 for 65 in six overs. James Vince failed in his only innings but his credentials are already known. Zak Crawley scored 50 in two innings without ever looking in total charge. He seems to be out of favour at presenr and probably did himself as much harm as anyone.
In the post Bancroft stage of the season Middlesex won their initial games in Division 3 and looked well placed to be champions(?) until, as Ged would say, they managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in their final match against Kent. Low first innings scores were followed by another Stoneman century and Kent were set a highly improbable 373 to win in the best part of two days. Kent got there with two wickets to spare after batting for 105 overs. In their second innings it looks like Middlesex thought that they had a big enough lead. This is demonstrated by Bell-Drummond taking a career best 3 for 47.
It was a relief that the Rangers have settled back into a position outside the promotion group. Promotion would bring another season of pain as they got beaten every week sometimes by cricket scores. However, the win against Everton has put them on the fast track in the EFL cup particularly with a home tie next against Sunderland.
I watched a fair bit of the pointless Bob Willis Trophy held at Lord’s which was reminiscent of those old Gillette Cup Finals which started at dawn and the side who won the toss had the game in the bag by elevensies. The best thing about it was that the umpires made the decisions as there was no referral system available.
Morgan Matters
Our man completes another season without experiencing any live cricket
Lord's: Middlesex win match sensation! Derbyshire 221, TSRJ 5-36, Middlesex win by 112.
Middlesex had a surprisingly good day at Hove as S Robson and M Stoneman (174) put on 376 for the first wicket (a club record opening partnership) and they closed on 400-2 with S Robson still there on 192* and the total on 400-2. Sussex mustn't half be crap! Middlesex went on to win by an innings and 54 and are top of one of the Championship tables having won 2.5 of their 3 matches! I believe that Sussex's Tom Haines is the first to 1,000 first class runs this season.
English cricket will fight to ensure India return for a one-off Test Match that averts a £340m financial black hole after the series finale at OT was called off at the 11th hour in response to a Covid-19 outbreak among the tourists.
Rs drew 3-3 at lowly Reading, who are now 22nd. A Morrison og put Rs ahead on 11 mins, but a Swift hat-trick put Reading 3-1 up on 77 mins. However, late goals from Gray (79) and Johansen (91) ensured a point for the lads, who are now 4th in the table on 12 points from 6 games.
J Bairstow, D Malan and C Woakes have all decided to put England first and have withdrawn from the IPL.
Lord's: CC: Worcestershire won the toss sand asked Middlesex to bat first (on a dodgy track?). Tanya says "it was a shiny green top, with the ball swinging like a fairground waltzer. Middlesex were spreadeagled for 144 before Worcester stomped off the pitch for bad light at 113-8".
Worcestershire went on to 171 a/o to lead by 27 on first innings (J Baker 61*, T Murtagh 5-64, E Bamber 3-52). Middlesex were 233-6, but slumped to 247 a/o (J Simpson 59, L Hollman 46, C Morris 6-52). However, it all came right in the end as Worcestershire collapsed to 119 a/o (G Roderick 42*) with Bamber taking 4-28, Andersson 3-22 and TSRJ 2-23. Middlesex won by 101.
Does anyone understand the current points system being used in the Championship? I do not, eg in division 3, Middx have won 3.5 of their 4 matches and lost 0.5, they have 9.5 batting points and 12 bowling points giving them a total of 77, 2 points clear of Kent in second place. Tanya's version of the match seems much more straightforward: "Middlesex were inspired by Ethan Bamber's 4 for 28 to beat Worcestershire and notch up four consecutive Championship wins for the first time in 26 years". Hampshire are top of Division 1 (58.5 points) and Essex are leading in Division 2 (77 points).
In the G, Andy Bull has quite a long and interesting article on 39 year old Rikki Clarke (40 in a couple of weeks), who retires at the end of the season after 20 years of first class cricket with Surrey, Derbyshire, Warwickshire and then back to Surrey, 2 Test Matches and 20 limited overs internationals.
Somerset and Notts allrounder Peter Trego (who also had a brief spell with Middx) has retired from professional cricket after 18,828 runs and 646 wickets across all 3 formats.
J Greaves is dead aged 81. A headline in the G reads "an elegant poacher who altered the role of the no 9", but I do not think he played no 9, he was nearly always 8 or 10 wasn't he? The no 9 was the big bustling centre forward (eg Bobby Smith), which Greaves was not.
C Cairns says he is "facing possibly the greatest challenge of his life" after being left paralysed from a spinal stroke during a heart operation.
England have been accused of "failing a member of their cricket fraternity" and "making excuses" after cancelling next month's tour of Pakistan and citing mental wellbeing as one of the driving factors behind the decision.
Carabao (League, I suppose?) Cup: Rs 2 (Charlie Austin got both goals on 18 and 34 mins) Everton 2 aet so it went to penalties and Rs won it 8-7! And Rs deserved it with 58% possession to Everton's 42%. The G gave it terrific coverage with a long report (covering 6 columns and 3 photographs, 2 of them large ones) by David Hytner.
One of the shortest games that I can remember has concluded at Chelmsford (probably before lunch on day 2) as Northampton were out for 45 in their second innings (L Procter, 24, was the only one in double figures, S Cook 5-20). Essex won by an innings and 44 and clinch the div 2 title.
Middlesex's final Championship match of the season at Canters is not going well: Middlesex were 121-2, but 147 a/o Kent 138 Middlesex 363 a/o(Stoneman109)): K 275-5 (O Robinson 112) needing 98 more to win Close: Kent 375-8 (T Muyeye 76*) won by 2 wkts and win the Div 3 title ahead of second placed Middlesex. How come there are 6 teams in the group, but only 4 matches are played?
In the September Cricketer, Simon Hughes says that J Root is England’s greatest modern batsman and supports his case by pointing out that his Test Match average of 50.15 is comfortably ahead of the other 6 candidates he considers: Root 50.15, Boycott 47.72, Pietersen 47.28, Cook 45.35, Gower 44.25, Gooch 42.58 and Vaughan 41.44. Nick Howson has a long article telling us why the inaugural Hundred world class was not. Joe Root has risen from no 5 to the top position in the world’s Best Test Batsmen table. Dawid Malan remains at no 1 in the world’s Best T20 Batsmen table. There are interesting obituaries for two of Sussex’s best: Ted Dexter (aged 86) and Ian Thomson (aged 92).
MCC has officially amended the laws of the game to remove the word "batsman" and replace it with "batter" because "the use of gender-neutral terminology helps reinforce cricket's status as an inclusive game for all".
Former SA seamer Steve Elworthy has been appointed Surrey's new chief executive after leaving his role as the ECB's director for events and special projects.
It turns out that the England "tour" of Pak was due to be 4 days long! Barney Ronay writes of the ECB: "it is graceless and unworthy behaviour from a body whose existence is only validated if it retains a sense of mission, of duty, of obligations that go beyond pure self-interest. Not least because the ECB's own articles of association dictate it must promote the game of cricket both inside and outside its own territory, an obligation that has clearly not been met here".
Moeen Ali is retiring from Test cricket after 64 caps and will specialise in white ball cricket... it takes all sorts!
Middlesex assistant coach Nic Pothas (ex-Hants) has left the club "for personal reasons": does that mean he was sacked?
Roger Hunt is dead aged 83. Manager Jurgen Klopp said "Roger comes second to no one in his importance in the history of Liverpool FC". The only 3 still alive of the 1966 WC winning team are G Cohen, B Charlton and G Hurst.
King Cricket Matters
The following article appeared on the King Cricket website
It's always been the case that some tours have been easier to cancel than others. Assorted pressures mean cancellations are coming thicker and faster at the minute. What are the implications of this?
Earlier this month, we wrote that the threshold for binning the Old Trafford Test was lower than normal. In another year, that match would have been played, but Covid cases, bubble life and the impending resumption of the IPL meant there was simply insufficient appetite for it in 2021.
So it is with some tours. There's been a gargantuan effort to bring international cricket back to Pakistan, but it's not like once this was achieved, everything was hunky dory. The great boulder of touring reluctance couldn't quite be held at bay long enough for New Zealand to take the field on their first visit in 18 years, for example.
New Zealand Cricket said they had received a ‘credible threat’ to the safety of their players and with an international cricket team having once been specifically targeted in Pakistan, that was enough to spook them.
New Zealand's spooking was then sufficient to spook England. After first making reference to, "increasing concerns about travelling to the region," the ECB somewhat nebulously cited a reluctance to, "add further pressure to a playing group who have already coped with a long period of operating in restricted Covid environments."
The board claimed its highest priority was, "the mental and physical well-being of our players and support staff." This must have come as news to Heather Knight who inadvertently revealed that no-one had actually thought to ask her or her team about the matter before taking the decision.
Pakistan Cricket Board chair, Ramiz Raja, now reckons that the West Indies will be “jittery” ahead of their visit later in the year and also expects Australia to cancel their tour in February. He is almost certainly correct on that second count because Australia quite simply don't play away Test matches any more. The last time they did so was the 2019 Ashes.
It's not that they don't want to play Tests overseas; it's that their appetite for doing so stretches only so far. And that's what we're coming up against again and again at the moment.
It applies to every team really - albeit far more obviously to some than others. Various pandemic-induced factors mean that the Actually Let's Not Bother Threshold is very consistently being reached.
It's not that teams don't want to play in Pakistan or wherever. It's just that there's an awful lot of cricket and now it's a whole lot more draining than it was before. And so if something has to give, then...
Boards schedule these matches wanting to play them, but then situations keep arising where there's just a bit too much congestion. And it's so often the same sorts of fixtures that wind up getting abandoned.
That's a problem. We've written about there being too much top level cricket too many times to even bother digging up an appropriate link, but this kind of unfocused nibbling away around the edges isn't a way of dealing with it. It's ad-hoc optimisation of an ecosystem with no thought given to the bigger picture. (Oh okay, maybe one link. Try this piece bemoaning the need for England to implement a squad rotation policy.)
From T10 to Tests and from bunsens to greentops, the brilliance of cricket lies in its breadth and scope and variety. When you strip things back to only the biggest, most obvious engagements, you diminish the game as a whole.
Do England fans want an endless merry-go-round comprising nothing more than Ashes series, 50-over World Cups, India series and T20 World Cups? Of course not. But if you keep cutting away what you perceive to be the fat, that's probably what you'll be left with.
No-one is planning that. But then no-one is planning anything.
The Bob Willis Trophy
Nick Friend in the Cricketer has some ideas
What to do with the Bob Willis Trophy, the latest quandary facing the unsolvable Tetris that is English cricket’s domestic schedule.Its second instalment begins on Monday – a year after its foundation as an admirable, appropriate memorial for a widely-respected hero of the game, set up initially to bring meaning to a shortened summer that had decided against trivialising the County Championship into a whistle-stop, chaotic monthlong competition.
It worked as well as could reasonably be expected: Essex and Somerset – the best teams in the country the previous year, when they fought to be county champions at Taunton in the last week of the season – qualified for the final, a five-day showcase at Lord’s, albeit behind closed doors. Perhaps the manner of the result wasn’t ideal – Essex were awarded the title on account of a higher first-innings score – but otherwise it was broadly an autumnal triumph that achieved more than looked feasible at the height of lockdown.
That was a one-off, though: while life isn’t quite back to normal, the county summer did still return to its traditional April beginning, only concluding last week, with Warwickshire clinching the County Championship crown ahead of Lancashire. No doubt, both teams have been celebrating hard. The prospect of another week, therefore, feels like a strange, misplaced addition.
To a degree, the relative antipathy around this showpiece occasion seems somewhat ironic, given the drive in several quarters for more high-profile red-ball matches, but perhaps it also speaks to the sense of tiredness running through the whole game at the end of a season as busy and draining as this. It is asking a lot of the players to go again with the same intensity as the last five months.
So, if it were up to me, I would invert the calendar to make this cricket’s answer to football’s Community Shield: a curtain-raiser to the campaign featuring the two best red-ball teams in the previous year.
In this case, Warwickshire and Lancashire at Lord’s in April: a flagship precursor to the county summer, with its participants known seven months in advance, no complaints around a lack of time to purchase tickets – as was the case with the Royal London Cup final’s 48-hour turnaround this year – and the potential for a high-quality fixture in front of a decent crowd to summon in the new season after a winter away
.
Where that leaves the Champion County match, played out between the winners and an MCC side, would need some discussion, but there is an opportunity here to raise the status of domestic red-ball cricket in a way that the current setup can’t achieve.
There is no partisanship attached to the MCC game – how could there be, with an Invitational XI? It exists, for all intents and purposes, as a glorified warmup. It doesn’t have to be completely dismantled: in the last few years, it has been taken abroad in March, and there is no reason why that innovation shouldn’t continue, but the chance to stage a five-day final – as the World Test Championship has cottoned onto – is a genuinely interesting proposition, if it is packaged and sold correctly.
“I think we’ve got to make County Championship cricket more exciting,” one county chief executive told me last week. His dream is for a one-off, winner-takes-all match at Lord’s, with the victors taking both the County Championship and the Bob Willis Trophy in the style of Australia’s Sheffield Shield. “I would put everything on Bob Willis Finals Day,” he said. “For me, that’s a no-brainer, but I know I’m probably in a minority in thinking that. We have a big Blast final, we’ve got a big Hundred final, we have to work out where the 50-over final fits. “It would give massive profile to red-ball cricket, to county members, to sponsors. Imagine if every year was built to that crescendo, and two teams in red-ball cricket were getting a five-day match at Lord’s. I think you could market that and get 20,000 people every day at Lord’s. “In reality, we’ve sort of played two semi-finals last week in Division One for the right to play at Lord’s.”
That concept was put to the counties ahead of the season but rejected. “I think the counties felt that was probably a step too far to put it all on that one game, particularly with it all being so late in the year,” Neil Snowball, the ECB’s managing director of county cricket, told The Cricketer. “I still think that debate is to be had. Part of me loves the jeopardy – can you imagine if you ended up with Lancashire and Yorkshire in the Bob Willis Trophy final, playing off to determine who’s also the county champions. You’d have Lord’s packed out for four days.”
Given the legend of Willis – not to mention his legacy with the Bob Willis Fund – there is a real, heartening desire to keep the trophy in circulation, whatever its guise. It is fitting that this edition involves Warwickshire, where he spent 12 years of his professional career, and that it has found a home at Lord’s, where he took more Test wickets – 47 at 18.76 apiece – than at any other ground.
In time, let’s hope it can settle upon a suitable meaning as well. For, given the drama of the final round of the County Championship season, this week will do well to mean as much as it ought. Creating cricket’s Community Shield would be a fine place to start.
T20 Blast 2021 Team of the Tournament
Charlie Peters nominates his pick
1.Daniel Bell-Drummond (Kent)
After working hard to increase his attacking intent after being overlooked in the 2019 Hundred draft, Bell-Drummond has become a machine in the Blast. His 2021 campaign included 492 runs, at an average of 37.84 and strike rate of 155.69, and ends the tournament as its third-highest run-scorer. The 82 off 51 he made in the semi-final against Sussex was the sort of knock he has played on a regular basis for the Spitfires.
2.Joe Clarke (Nottinghamshire)
The Outlaws opener is the ultimate tone-setter, and, alongside Alex Hales, forms half of arguably the most explosive opening partnership the Blast has ever seen. Clarke made 408 runs on the way to the quarter-finals, but perhaps what’s most impressive about the 25-year-old’s season is his strike rate: a staggering 180.53.
3.Josh Inglis (Leicestershire)
That the Australian was the Blast’s highest run-scorer this season speaks as much for his individual quality as it does for Leicestershire’s recruitment policy. His 531 runs, including two centuries and one half-century, struck at 175.82 represents a serious campaign. A place in Australia’s T20 World Cup squad is richly deserved.
4.Harry Brook (Yorkshire)
The 2021 season has been a real breakthrough year for the 22-year-old. His 486 runs for Yorkshire, struck at 149.07 at an average of 69.42, make him the Blast’s fourth-highest run-scorer. It’s particularly impressive that Brook has achieved this quantity of runs from the middle order, too: T20 run-scoring tables are frequently dominated by openers, so Brook’s campaign is no mean feat.
5.Glenn Phillips (Gloucestershire)
The New Zealander’s stock as a T20 gun for hire has rapidly risen in the last year or so, and his 500 runs for Gloucestershire this season will have only aided his cause. Phillips’ runs came at a strike rate of 163.39, and included 30 fours and 36 sixes – 12 more maximums than anybody else in the Blast.
6.Jordan Cox (Kent)
You simply could not assemble this side without including Jordan Cox. Kent’s middle-order man has had a great campaign, averaging 52.42 on his way to 367 Blast runs, and bagging a wildcard slot at Oval Invincibles to boot. But his 2021 will forever be remembered for his unbeaten 58 off 28 deliveries in the final, not to mention *that catch*.
7.Samit Patel (Nottinghamshire)
Even at 36, Patel still has so much to offer. His 309 runs and 16 wickets combined to see him crowned player of the tournament, a richly deserved accolade for the all-rounder. Going at just 6.63 an over, Patel was one of the competition’s most economic bowlers, his slow-left-arm proving just as effective as it did in his younger years. It’s been some renaissance.
8.Calvin Harrison (Nottinghamshire)
The South African-born leg-spinner ends the Blast as third-highest wicket-taker, with 20 victims to his name from 15 matches. 4/17 against Birmingham Bears at Edgbaston would prove to be his best performance in a campaign that saw him average 13.90 per wicket and go for just 6.78 run per over.
9.Scott Currie (Hampshire)
Hant’s 20-year-old seamer enjoyed a fruitful campaign in his first full Blast season. Currie took 19 wickets from just nine matches, striking on average every 9.7 deliveries. Only five players claimed more scalps than him, all of whom played at least three more games. It’s a season Currie won’t be forgetting any time soon, one that cements him as one of the most exciting young seamers in the country.
10.Matt Milnes (Kent)
Milnes has proved to be a superb signing since his move to Canterbury from Nottinghamshire. Only Leicestershire’s Naveen-ul-Haq has taken more than Milnes’ 22 wickets this season, but the 27-year-old’s came from 10 fewer overs, with a better average, economy and strike rate to boot.
11.Tymal Mills (Sussex)
Mills is deservedly back in England’s T20 squad thanks to an excellent summer in both the Hundred and the Blast. His 17 wickets were claimed at an average of 14.11, going at no more than eight-an-over. There is simply nobody better at the death, certainly not in this country. He may not have been able to fire Sussex into the final, but there’s no doubt that he is a world-class operator.
In Memoriam
Bill Hart and his wife Gill both died in the same week in September. I will publish any tributes and memories readers have in the next edition.
Publication Dates
I have always tried to publish Googlies at the beginning of the month whether I was in the High Peak or Chicago. However, following the address book difficulties that I encountered earlier this year I have decided to only send it out from the UK. I will make publication dates as close to the first of the month as possible. Edition 227 on 25 October and Edition 228 on 1 December.
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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