G&C 260

GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 260
August 2024
 
Spot the Ball
 

 
Out and About with the Professor
 
Z(u,w) = Z0(w) (1-e-b(w)u )
So, there it is, isn’t it lovely! Bold and clear and legible; and elegant, succinct and precise. A single equation both fulfilling a vital function while happily combining Platonic idealism with Aristotelean empiricism. The left-hand side showing Resources (Z) as dependant on overs (u) and wickets (w) while the right-hand side shows the constant Z0 as the asymptotic average total score in unlimited overs under one-day regulations (obviously) and b as the relevant exponential decay constant, the values of which, for each w, being set by hundreds of hours of estimation and trial runs. It’s an equation that has impacted on the lives of millions: players, managers, commentators, spectators, TV observers and radio listeners. How can it be that the devisors of this splendid statement have not been ennobled or caught the eye of the Nobel committee, or some such. Could it be that the strait-laced Swedes are unaware of this ground-breaking formula? Difficult to think of another reason, although, in truth, last Sunday was the first time I had seen it sitting there in all its splendour - because that was when read the obituary of its joint begetter: Frank Duckworth.
 
And what a lovely story to go with the equation. Duckworth, a mathematician and statistician, was listening to the radio commentary of Chistopher Martin Jenkins in the 1992 World Cup when South Africa were set 22 runs to win from 1 ball. CMJ said something to the effect that there has to be a better way of setting these targets and Duckworth, who was already working on the problem, set about it in earnest. He read a paper at an RSS conference, was contacted by Tony Lewis, discovered that the two of them lived quite close to each other in Gloucestershire, learned that they both shared an “interest” in real ale, met regularly at the Pickwick Inn in the village of Lower Wick (naturally), and the Duckworth-Lewis formula (aka “method”) was born. Nor were these two just abstract thinkers. They speculated (some might think with good reason) that Ben, Baz and most other cricketing practitioners might have a touch of difficulty feeding values into their formula at any given moment in a match and so devised a simple read-off table for use during the game. It was trialled in England’s 1997 tour of Zimbabwe (the tour when, we will all recall, according to Bumble: “We flippin’ murdered them”) and universally adopted throughout the game a few years later and, with slight modification, still remains in place, a quarter of a century later.
 
What a splendid way for two academics to have spent their time, sitting in the pub, going through the figures, devising a formula that would bear their names. The alternative, that of actually playing cricket, was not, so I read, a realistic one, since neither was much good at the game. Duckworth managed to play for his “House” at school but that was about it and I wonder if there might not be a predictable relationship here. Many people I have met who are, shall we say, “extremely interested” in cricket history and facts and figures have professed to not being very good at the game, while some of the world’s greatest ever cricketers profess scarcely any interest at all in the subject beyond their own performances. I suppose an obvious identifiable group might be scorers; could we reasonably suggest that the cricketing ability of the modal scorer is somewhat modest? Clearly, at county level, some distinguished players have found their way to the score box…but at club level? Now it might be objected that this is a self-defining category – a good player is less likely than others to be keeping the scorebook - but why would someone who is not very good at cricket become sufficiently involved in the game that they are willing to spend endless hours in a gloomy scorebox with ten different coloured pencils and a similar eccentric to talk to? I recall two outstanding scorers from my playing days: one in the Middlesex league, one in the Hertfordshire League, who were, on the field of play, fairly close to useless. Might there even be an inverse relationship between ability at cricket and obsession with cricket data? Perhaps a new formula could be devised!
 
A second new experience last week was a trip to Headquarters to see a match in “The Hundred” or “The 16.4 Overs” as a traditionalist friend puts it. The difficulty in attending such a game, for a cricket lover, is to try to separate what is actually happening on the field from that which is happening all around it. Starting from the names of the teams, down to the fireworks, smoke and the deafening disco none of it seems remotely relevant to a cricket match. We had, in addition, two people who I suppose were “entertainers”, who were tasked with creating “excitement” at any opportunity during play. This was mainly aimed at children but even they seemed to feel the synthetic nature of it all.
 
As for the game, (London Spirit v. Welsh Fire) there was, from the start, an obvious problem. For this format to work and create “excitement” there must be a fairly friendly pitch, so that we can all wave our “6” cards. The groundstaff did not provide a friendly pitch, unless you happen to be someone who can bowl at the speed of Worrall or Stone; it was green and it moved sharply off the seam. Kohler-Cadmore could scarcely lay a bat on the ball. After 10 deliveries he had scored 0. Bairstow didn’t fare much better, and only Wells had a score significantly above a run a ball. As a result, the run rate was around that which we are now used to seeing in a Test. If they can’t score more quickly in The Hundred than they can in a Test match it would rather seem to undermine the concept. There was, as might be expected, some excellent fielding – but again, we are also used to that in Test cricket. In the event “The Fire’s” 94 from 100 balls was never going to be enough and “The Spirit” (I’m getting warmed up here) had no great difficulty in knocking them off, although they were 38-4 after 44 balls. The best performance came from that celebrated Londoner, Shimron Hetmyer.
 
So, two new experiences in one week. Both interesting but I’m not sure I repeat either soon…although I might have the occasional peep at the D-L formula.
 
 
This & That
 
The West Indies were awful at Lord’s. They picked an extremely inexperienced group of players who would have struggled against a Division 2 County side. Is there any point in playing test matches between such mismatched sides? The West Indies will claim that all their best players are chasing the white ball shilling but that’s their problem. Purchasers of Day three, four and five tickets at Lord’s were deprived of red ball cricket at the top level.
 
What they did get to see was the Great Jimmy making his enforced final appearance and, as so often in the past, he bowled too short on the opening morning and effectively played the openers in for half an hour. It was up to the debutant, Atkinson, to show him how to do it by bowling a full straight length which proved more than enough for the novice batsmen. On the bowling front the best news was the re-emergence of Stokes as an effective third or fourth seamer. He bowled long spells in both innings and looked a serious threat with his array of swinging and seeming deliveries. This gives England the option of playing an extra bowler. Four seamers and a spinner looks more than enough in English conditions. But will it be enough in Australia? Perhaps, if one of them is Archer and Wood stays fit.
 
At Edgbaston Stokes replaced the injured Crawley in the second innings of the third test against West Indies. He and Duckett added 50 in 4.2 overs which equalled England’s own record for the fastest opening 50 in a test match. Stokes reached his personal 50 in 24 balls beating Ian Botham’s previous record for the fastest fifty of 28 balls against India in 1981. However, a significantly more noteworthy achievement was Duckett’s at Trent Bridge where he reached his fifty by 11.45 on the first morning of a test match. This included eleven fours. He is a dangerous man to bowl at with the new ball as he plays at almost everything as Jayden Seales will testify when his first four legitimate deliveries all went for four.
 
The test wicket at Lord’s is always in the middle of the square. During his innings Smith hit a shortish delivery from this centrally based wicket out of the ground and into St John’s Wood Road. When I was a frequent visitor to this ground the few sixes that were hit normally landed over the rope but inside the fence. On one occasion a brass band played inside the fence during the afternoon session and Ted Dexter scattered the musicians when he on drove (certainly not a slog sweep) Fred Titmus into their midst.
 
I have previously queried in these pages whether top class batsmen actually place their shots to avoid the fielders. I was prompted to pose this unanswered question when England’s premier batsmen would regularly hit the ball straight to the only fielder on the boundary. We can now take this quandary a little further as we have current evidence of batsmen being caught by fielders in the deep in splendid isolation. The explanation is apparently that the modern batsman believes that he can clear the boundary each time he launches a big hit and so doesn’t care where the fielders are positioned. Stokes and Smith both failed at Trent Bridge and were comfortably caught by the only fielder in that acreage. Stokes hung around the crease after his dismissal in Bairstow like pose as if to say “In the nets that always goes for six”. I suppose that one of the backroom boys carries out a risk-reward analysis to establish whether this tactic pays off. If they conclude that it doesn’t, I wouldn’t want to be in that conversation with Baz.
 
At New Road Lewis Hill won the toss and batted and although Higgins and T R-J bowled them out for 179, they then slipped Middlesex out for 86. In their second innings Leicestershire made 372 leaving Middlesex a daunting 466 to win. They could only manage 342 and this was substantially due to T R-J’s innings of 59 which included 8 sixes.
 
Sam Northeast took a different approach and put Gloucester in at Cheltenham. This decision seemed justified as they were bowled out for 179. However, Glamorgan could not press home their advantage and could only achieve a slender first innings lead. This unexceptional match then started on an extraordinary trajectory which entered it into the record books. In their second innings Gloucestershire racked up 610 for 5 dec with Bancroft (184), Hammond (121) and Bracey (204*) all making hundreds. This set Glamorgan a highly unlikely 593 to win. However, Labuschagne (119) and Northeast (184) kept them in the hunt and at the beginning of the final over with nine wickets down Glamorgan needed only 2 to win. But they only managed a single before last man, McIlroy, was caught off the final ball leaving the match tied. As a result West Zone's 541-7 in India's domestic league in 2010 is still the highest winning total in first-class cricket. Middlesex hold the record for the biggest chase in the County Championship - scoring 502-6 to beat Nottinghamshire in 1925, while Surrey scored 501-5 to overcome Kent last season.
 
When the Blast returned Gloucestershire found themselves playing at Taunton and did well to restrict their hosts to 105 for 5 in 13 overs but they got away after that and added 75 in their last four overs. This included a dramatic final over bowled by two bowlers. Josh Shaw bowled two full tosses and was removed from the attack and his replacement Ollie Price also got clobbered. In total the final over went for 32. But Price had the last laugh as he was at the wicket to steer his side home with one ball to spare.
 
India sent a very respectable looking second XI for their five match T20 series in Zimbabwe but they were give a rude awakening when, in the first match, having reduced Zimbabwe to 115 for 9, they were bowled out for 102. There were to be no further mishaps and with big contributions from Abhishek Singh (100*), Jaiswal (93*) they comfortably won the next four matches.
 
In the Metro One Day Cup Middlesex have selected yet another different captain, Stoneman, but he seems to be committed to the same script as his peers. At New Road he duly won the toss and elected to field. Middlesex took their first wicket in the thirty sixth over with the score on 259. What magic had his bowlers failed to perform? Worcestershire went onto 371 for 3 and then skittled Middlesex for 188 to win by a staggering 183 runs.
 
On the other hand, some teams seem to know what they are doing. At Derby Samit Patel won the toss and fielded restricting Middlesex to 266. Derby then knocked them off for the loss of only one wicket with seven overs to spare.
 
 
 
Thompson Matters
Steve was there
 
I often find a visit to Lord’s an emotive experience. Whether it’s meeting old friends in the bar at the top of the Allen or perhaps one year not being able to because they are no longer with us. Lord’s does emotion and it does it in spades. The second day of the first Lord’s Test of the summer is now Red for Ruth Day and with the ground a sea of red it is an inherently emotional start to the day’s proceedings. That the Home of Cricket had turned red on the occasion of Lancashire’s (and England’s) greatest fast bowler’s last Test appearance was almost certainly something which Sir Andrew Strauss happily shared.
 
I saw Jimmy bowl in his first Test on the same ground twenty-one years previously. He was of course raw and much more Burnley Express then but  WH Auden the great train poet would surely have  smiled to see a rhythmical bowling card read Anderson Woakes Atkinson Stokes as Jimmy set off from the pavilion for his last few journeys.  Theses days of course, raw he isn’t. Complete economy of effort and movement such that if someone decides to use AI to produce the perfect fast bowling action...tell them not to bother, it’s all there in James Anderson. The only disappointment on the day was that his captain didn’t promote him up the order to ten so that he might have had a better chance to proffer one last reverse sweep. As it was another not out was probably just as fitting.
 
One thing I try to do on any visit is to be in the Long Room as the players pass through onto the field at the start of sessions. Such is the spasmodic nature of this process these days that one can easily get the timing wrong as I did this time with Jimmy having already exited the white gate well before the umpires. Not so Jason Holder who is a pretty fearsome sight from a distance but as he walked past just feet away looking all of his 6’ 7” (plus spikes!) and dripping in gold he resembled a great Caribbean athlete as much as a fine Test cricketer. 
 
Speaking of which, Jamie Smith. Unless you are a regular visitor to the Oval for most of the full house it will have been the first glimpse of the usurper. How dare they replace the world’s best wicketkeeper and a highly competent batsman to boot with a young upstart. First Jimmy and now this! He takes guard and his rear end sticks out ugly-ducklingly but as the bowler hits the crease the swan emerges. He drives like Root and hits like Brook; his pull-hook over Father Time will remain long in the memory. His innings at Birmingham was further evidence, not that any was necessary, that in more ways than one he is definitely a keeper.
 
If there was a sadness to the day it was the inevitable observation that there were very few West Indian supporters in the ground.  Thirty years ago or more the ground would have been jumping as another Richards, Haynes or Greenidge boundary was heralded with secreted horns, but sadly not today. A three test series all comfortably over in ten playing days is, a victory down under notwithstanding, a fair reflection of the demise of what was once the very greatest test playing nation. To see a really competitive West Indies team at Lord’s with strong support from a re-energised West Indian cricket community, now that would be emotional.
 
Molloy Matters
Ken Molloy sent me this book review
 
Pugnacious and brave, the cricketer Bill Edrich brought joy to postwar, ration-era Britain. He also squeezed in five wives, a top military accolade and a serious alcohol problem.
 

Bill Edrich in action at the Oval in 1956
 
Some names just demand to be recited in pairs — Morecambe and Wise, Torvill and Dean, Truss and Kwarteng. For cricket lovers of a certain age, Compton and Edrich are similarly locked in eternal embrace. Thousands of spectators at the Lord’s Test this week will sit in the towering stands that bear their names. Plenty of them will be able to summon an image of dashing Denis Compton, probably from a Brylcreem ad, but what about his companion in arms, Bill Edrich?
 
Known to opponents as the “Terrible Twins”, the pair and their buccaneering style brought joy to postwar, ration-era Britain. In the glorious summer of 1947, they scored between them a staggering 7,355 runs for Middlesex and England (nowadays 1,000 first-class runs in a season is an achievement, albeit from far fewer matches). Compton, with his film star good looks and flashing strokeplay, was easily characterised as a Cavalier, while Edrich, a shorter, more pugnacious character, was the Roundhead. But with five marriages, innumerable affairs throughout his career and a Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) to show for his wartime RAF exploits, Edrich arguably had the more colourful life.
 
He joined the Lord’s ground staff as an 18-year-old in 1934, won a Middlesex contract three years later, went on the Marylebone Cricket Club tour of India that winter and in 1938 scored 1,000 first-class runs before the end of May, a landmark achieved by only five men before him, two of whom were WG Grace and Donald Bradman. It should have signalled the beginning of a stellar England career, but, while he had his moments, not least a vital innings that helped England win the Ashes in 1953, his position in the team was rarely secure and he played a relatively modest 39 Tests in 17 years.
 
Drinking and sex were part of the problem. The signs were there from the moment he embarked for India in 1937: it was his first time abroad and he was delighted to find that the ship was full of debutantes. Thereafter he was constantly on the lookout for his next conquest. Driving with teammates to a match at Hove, he waved to a girl in the next lane of the A23 and they both pulled over. Edrich got out of his car and into hers and wasn’t seen again until the next morning.
 
On September 3, 1939, he listened with teammates at Lord’s to Neville Chamberlain’s announcement that Britain was at war with Germany. As he walked down to Baker Street afterwards an air raid siren went off and in the ensuing panic he found himself next to an attractive woman, both of them clearly feeling a frisson of danger. Without the money for a hotel room, there were, he remembered, “fireworks up against a tree in Regent’s Park”. No wonder one of his ex-wives described him as “like a randy mole”.
 
None of this, nor the staggering amount that Edrich drank, was to the taste of the snootier guardians of the game. This was still the era of two tribes in cricket, Gentlemen and Players, and Edrich, a professional, belonged to the latter. Although he had grown up in Norfolk on grandly named farms leased by his father, the family were closer to yeoman farmers than landed gentry and at school Edrich was occasionally called “a right little tinker”.
 
Cricketers didn’t earn much in the 1930s and Edrich, like many fellow players, supplemented his income with football. While Compton played for Arsenal, Edrich was for a time an outside left for Spurs, although he moved to Chelmsford City when they offered £8 a week. Throughout his life he kept looking in vain for the business opportunity that might make him a fortune. Poultry rearing, installing concrete cricket pitches and a mobile sewage plant all came to nothing; his prototype cashier’s bag that was meant to explode in a cloud of purple smoke if stolen failed to go off.
 
The war, Leo McKinstry suggests, did much to reduce Edrich’s sense of inferiority, and no wonder. After training as a pilot in 1940 he flew Bristol Blenheims, light bombers that were increasingly vulnerable to German fighters and anti-aircraft artillery, always wearing his England cricket sweater under his flying jacket for luck. His courage was evident and he was quickly promoted to squadron leader before taking part in one of the RAF’s most daring missions of the war, a low-level daylight raid on power stations near Cologne in 1941, for which he won the DFC.
 
Perhaps his boldest peacetime bet was to switch from professional to amateur status in 1947. He had taken a job as sales director of a London paint and varnish company, another attempt to improve his income, but had one eye on the possibility of becoming England captain, which remained the preserve of amateurs until 1952. In doing so he passed up the opportunity of a benefit year with Middlesex, which would have earned him well over £10,000.
 
Despite lobbying from Edrich’s supporters in the press and cricket establishment, he was repeatedly overlooked for the captaincy. The reasons weren’t hard to divine. Every tour was an excuse to charm his way into the beds of a new set of women, at sea or on land, and the all-night drinking tested even his teammates’ patience.
 
On the 1946-47 Ashes tour Edrich ran into an old RAF pal in Sydney the night before the second Test. Compton, who was sharing a room with him, woke to find Edrich’s bed empty and quickly messed it up before the captain, Wally Hammond, knocked on the door. Edrich appeared shortly afterwards, roaring drunk in his dinner jacket. Compton pushed him under a cold shower and somehow got him to the ground, dreading the thought of watching him bat. Ten minutes into the match Edrich was at the crease and scored a majestic 71. Why did you get out, the wicketkeeper Godfrey Evans asked him, when you were playing so well? “I think I’d sobered up by then, Godders,” Edrich replied.
 
There’s nothing admirable about borderline alcoholism, nor in abusing the trust of five wives, but Edrich was clearly a much-loved and much-forgiven hero. His career began under George V and ended with Middlesex as Cliff Richard was making his debut in the charts. McKinstry’s biography will fascinate cricket lovers, but it’s also a revealing social history, with plenty of insight into class distinctions and the status of professional sportsmen before, during and after the war.
 
Edrich’s life ended, aged 70, in a way that can’t have surprised his friends. A St George’s Day lunch at the Grosvenor House Hotel became an emotional affair when Air Vice-Marshal Sir Ivor Broom, who had flown with him in Bomber Command, praised his courage in a speech. The band of the Blues and Royals found themselves joined by Edrich, champagne glass in hand, marching across the ballroom floor.
 
After he was ferried home in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce, he had a few more drinks with his wife Mary and climbed the stairs to bed, but fell down them and died. A sad end, but as cricket watchers know, sometimes a sparkling 70 is better than a boring ton.
 
 
Cheltenham Matters
 
George moved down to Cheltenham a few years back and I opted to make the long trek down there a couple of times when he invited me to be his guest at the Cheltenham Festival. I think that I had been stimulated by John Williams’ tales of the event, but the cricket was in the main dull. Although we did see Miles Hammond’s first hundred and Archer taking three wickets in four balls. On the last occasion it was the famous hot day when the players were given time out to suck oranges or some such.
 
I opted to stay in the perpetually wet Derbyshire this year, but I asked George whether he had witnessed Middlesex’ rare victory in a T20 match on the penultimate day of the Festival. He replied: “No: but I’m going tomorrow to see the next Gloucester v Glamorgan tie”. He followed up with this:
         
It was good fun: Hammond was out in a first over wicket maiden. Bracey and Bancroft were entertaining: then Jack Taylor slapped 80* off 35 balls with 7 sixes, all on our side. Gloucester scraped a creditable 206-6. Glamorgan pretty much collapsed from the start and Labuschane was out to a terrible shot.
 

 
This pic was taken in the quiet period for the chap with the pale blue shirt and black cap, when he was only on his third pint. The ball incidentally went for 6, like many others. He later became such a pain that I left when Glamorgan lost their 7th wicket. Goodness knows what he was like by the time England lost in Berlin.
 
George also sent me a reminder of my last visit to international cricket at Old Trafford and why I no longer will visit.
 

 
The drunk Irishman in the Fred Flintstone outfit was located in the seat in front of mine and chose to stand and perform his histrionics throughout. The only relief came when his volume of beer consumption necessitated a trip to the toilets. He apparently couldn’t find his way back.
 
 
Matthews Matters
Jon Matthews sent me this
 
Reading Googlies-259 this morning, Steve Thompson’s contribution reminded me of the story of Chesham (Bucks) playing a Yorkshire touring side, probably in the 1980s, and Boycott ‘guesting’ to get some batting practice.
 
The Yorkshire touring side batted first and, inevitably, Boycott opened the innings and, equally inevitably, made an unbeaten hundred.
 
At the tea interval he calmly said to his teammates “Thanks, Lads, I’m off now” and took no further part in the match!
 
Sadly, I can’t corroborate this story, so unless anyone else can, I guess it’ll stay as a Boycott legendary tale!
 
A possible solution for South Hampstead?
 
Southwick and Shoreham Cricket Club have received complaints from neighbours who claim that house windows, cars, sheds and even people have been in the firing line from six hitting. As a result, six hitting is being banned at their ground. Batsmen have been told that the first six will count as no runs. And if they hit a second during their innings on the Green, they are out.
 

1 / 10

The ground has short boundaries and is surrounded by residential homes. Nets have been erected by the club but their height is limited by nearby trees. Mark Broxup, treasurer of the club, said: 'We took the proactive decision to ban sixes at the ground after a few incidents in the past when cars, houses and even roofs were damaged. 'We don't want to have to pay costly insurance or have any legal claims against us so it seemed a sensible thing to do.'
 
It looks a pretty large ground to me compared to South Hampstead’s where I know that the club is attempting to erect even higher fences, probably still to no avail.
 
 
Googlies Website
 
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