G&C 273
GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 273
September 2025
Spot the Ball
Out and About with the Professor
So, which one of “the sons” will turn out to be the most accomplished cricketer? There are quite a few of them around at the moment in the county game, ”sons”, that is, of distinguished cricketers. Most of them are quite young, some still teenagers. It presumably opens a few doors but it must be a great burden, especially for the son who is nowhere near as good as his father. I always think, in this context, of Stanley Matthews junior who said that he took up tennis because although football was his preferred sport: “I was always getting the shit kicked out of me” and “when I played well people said I ought to, and when I played badly, they just said: ‘Not as good as his father’.” How much of a burden it is for young county cricketers bearing the name of Benkenstein, Singh, Killeen or Mustard, only they can say. They may all turn out to be better than their fathers: Broad and Bairstow would serve as good examples; or, of course, worse: Hutton R, two Cowdreys…add your own favourite here.
Is being the son of a very good player less of a burden than being the son of a very famous one? Intuitively, it would seem that the more celebrity the father had, the more “living-up-to” there was to be done. In this regard three or four modern young cricketers are facing this particular challenge and have attracted the inevitable focus: Archie Vaughan, who seems to have started his professional cricketing life as a spin bowler (11 wickets in his second game) but is now (being well into his 20th year) opening the batting for Somerset in the Metrobank Cup (or whatever it’s called); Rocky Flintoff (17) who is obviously a very well thought of all-rounder; and Josh de Caires, who seems to have been around for years, and has been, by turns: a top order batter, a Number 8 off spinner, and now is back up the order to open, all at the excessive age of 23.
Flintoff, of course, has both his father and elder brother providing challenging comparisons, while de Caires has a father and great-grandfather with Test match pedigree (Frank de Caires played three Tests for the West Indies in the 1930’s, with a top score of 80). Test players on father’s and mother’s side is, indeed, some pedigree. He seems to be a level-headed young man – despite his movement up and down the Middlesex batting order – and describes his style as: “blocking the crap out of it” in the same way as he’d been told his father did. The one time I have seen de Caires bat he looked to have rather more shots than that, and he first came to notice (at least in these parts) when he played for the Leeds/Bradford University side against Yorkshire. This is an annual “warm-up” event for the Yorkshire professionals (normally played in the freezing cold of the first week of April) where the Yorkshire side bat first, get lots of in-the-middle practice and then bowl out the students for next to nothing. But when de Caires played, the students batted first, de Caires got a hundred…and then retired, to let the others have a go.
I’ve not seen “Rocky” play, and nor, I guess, have many people, but it was reported that he had been dropped from the Northern Superchargers squad in favour of Matthew Revis, who has had an excellent run of form this year, including three Championship hundreds. The coach of the Superchargers is, of course, Andrew Flintoff…so no nepotism up here. I did see Archie Vaughan score a very cultured 90 at York playing for Somerset in the Metrobank Cup (or whatever…) and it was hard, verging on impossible, not to make comparisons with his father, even up to how he leant on his bat. The Yorkshire attack was not at its strongest (when is it?) but it looked a very accomplished knock: strong through the covers off the front foot and a very effective back foot pull shot…sound familiar?
So, who will be the star of the future, born of cricketing parentage? Josh, Rocky or Archie? Perhaps all, or perhaps none. Possibly they may all be eclipsed by yet another “son”, Rehan Ahmed (still only just 21), whose father, I read on Cricinfo, played one ODI for Pakistan, scoring no runs and taking no wickets, and whose younger brother, Farhan, has played some first class matches for Notts.
Who knows? As always, it will be fun to watch.
This & That
August is Metro Bank One Day Cup month for the counties and Middlesex under their new coach, Dane Vilas, and captain, Ben Geddes, had what for them was a highly successful time. It started at Lord’s with a comfortable run chase against Sussex. This was followed by their record-breaking chase at the Riverside against Durham which Jeff Coleman covers in his article. After a win against Warwickshire, they were humbled by Yorkshire only to bounce back with wins against Kent and Northants. Then when all was on the line they slumped to 127 for 6, chasing 292 against Lancashire. Nathan Fernandes and Seb Morgan then added 126 for the seventh wicket but further wickets fell leaving them 284 for 9 with five balls left. Few would have put money on Noah Cornwell and loanee Nathan Gilchrist getting there but they did with a ball to spare. This win took them through to the Play offs where they immediately reverted to type and lost in a low scoring match to Hampshire.
Leicestershire have signed batter Stephen Eskinazi from Middlesex on a three-year contract. The 31-year-old right-hander becomes their third arrival this week after the signings of wicketkeeper Jonny Tattersall and seamer Josh Davey.
In the three match ODI series South Africa beat Australia comfortably in the first two matches but the Australians recovered some pride in the final a match which they won by 276 runs having posted a daunting 431 for 2, with Travis Head, Mitch Marsh and Cameron Green all scoring centuries.
In the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) our old friend Imran Tahir( 72) turned up captaining Guyana Amazon Warriors. But it turned out that he was not there to display just his latest hairstyle. In the Antigua & Barbuda innings he took 5 for 21.
One ball from Oshane Thomas cost 22 runs but Saint Lucia Kings beat Guyana Amazon Warriors by four wickets in the Caribbean Premier League. He started with a dot ball and a four, before he needed five attempts to bowl a legal third delivery, costing his team 22 runs in the process. He started with a no-ball and wide before a no-ball was clubbed over mid-wicket for six by Romario Shepherd. Another overstep was then hit over square leg for six more. Thomas eventually bowled a legal delivery, but Shepherd also hit that over square-leg for a 95m six, meaning one ball cost 22 runs. A dot ball and single followed before Iftikhar Ahmed hit a six from the final ball to mean 33 had been taken from the over. The 17th over from Keon Gaston also consisted of 12 balls after six wides and cost 27 runs as Warriors got up to 202-6.
Before the first round of matches in the Premier League the BBC football pundits all predicted that the top four in the Premiership this season would be some combination of Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea. We are three rounds in now and its Manchester City who look the least likely to make it. .I suspect Arsenal will still be short of goals and Chelsea may surprise everyone.
Thompson Matters
I have the very good fortune to spend several weeks a year on the Algarve. Last February Heather and I walked into our favourite Indian restaurant and met a new waiter. Manish was very chatty and since England were in the midst of a three-nil, one-day whitewash on the sub-continent I ventured to ask him if he was a cricket fan. He gave me a look and a head wobble which effectively said, ‘Is the Maharajah a Hindu’ and then said, ‘Of course, Sir.’ After several more visits to the restaurant, I am now ‘Mr. Steve’. We walked into Pashmina last week and were greeted with, ‘What a great series, Mr. Steve. And what a final test!’ With every visit to our table there were more of his recollections from the series just concluded. At the end of the meal Manish was keen speak about the current Indian side and in particular the bright future he believed there is for Indian Test cricket. It prompted me to ask whether he thought white ball prodigy Vaibhav Suryavanshi would take red ball cricket by storm; he did.
His ambition is to be at Lords next July to watch his beloved team at the home of cricket. ‘I’d love to see you there Mr. Steve.’ The feeling was mutual.
There is a large Indian diaspora in Portugal. In 2024 it comprised 1% of the total population with concentrations around Lisbon, Porto and on the Algarve. Historically, of course, there are close ties with India as Portugal established the first European presence and colonial holdings in India over five hundred years ago. One might therefore be forgiven for thinking that it was this connection which led to the existence of mainland Europe’s oldest cricket club, in Portugal. This year it celebrates its 170th anniversary but the clue to the nationality of its founding fathers lies in its name, Oporto Cricket Club. With its original ground, ‘The Field’ a mere cork’s throw from the banks of the Douro, its home ground has alternated down the years between Porto on one side and Nova de Gaia on the other but it was port wine that spawned its creation and port wine that secured its development. In 1862 Punch published a piece, written by a Portuguese sports journalist, on the first Lisbon v Oporto match, then as now the highlight of each club’s season. It read as follows:
The game of cricket match is an active, running, driving, jumping game, which can only be played by a person with a good pair of legs. Two posts are placed at a great distance from one another. The player close to one of these posts throws a large ball towards the other party, who awaits the ball to send it far with a small stick with which he is armed. The other players then run to look for the ball and, while this search is going on, the party who struck it with the stick runs incessantly from post to post, marking one for each run.
It is also recorded that the “indispensable accompaniment” to every cricket match was
“a sumptuous dinner in the marquee for fifty persons.” I doubt there were any ‘good pairs of legs’ after a few dozen bottles of port had been consumed.
As part of its commitment to growing the game globally, in May of this year MCC sent a thirteen-strong squad to play five matches in Portugal. The opening match was against Porto Club on what is now the Oporto Cricket & Lawn Tennis Club ground with the final game being played against a Portugal XI which saw a win for the home side.
Ironically it was not until 1875, some twenty years after the Cricket Club was founded that football was introduced to the nation, again by British merchants. Of course the two sports now have very different levels of popularity and indeed it’s hard to find a bar or restaurant in these parts that isn’t showing ‘futebol’.
And so it was that a few hours ago I ventured into the local Sports Bar here to watch Rangers take on Charlton. Fortunately they didn’t have the Coventry debacle on their schedule the week before and since I was the only punter in the place for the entire match, not for the first time, The Joker Bar seemed very aptly named. The quality of football seemed depressingly poor but, as they say,’a win’s a win’. However, I doubt Manish and I will be talking anything other than cricket on our next visit to Pashmina.
Unbelievable Matters
Jeff Coleman shakes his head in disbelief
After years of white ball mediocrity Middlesex achieved the highest 50 over chase ever in England and the 4th highest globally. With 7 away in the 100 and 4 or 5 or 6 (dependent on the day of the week) pace bowlers injured a depleted side chased down 387 to beat Durham with 2 overs to spare. If only Durham had scored a few more those 2 overs would have given the opportunity to beat the global highest of 435 (probably a bit too far) but certainly the second highest of 402.
I was spending the day at Merchant Taylors watching the U16’s v Essex and the U18’s v Sussex whilst following the Durham score online. This made me reflect on the huge technological changes in most of our lifetimes. Back in the 70’s I would nip out of work during the afternoon to visit the friendly paper seller on the corner and hope that the stop press on the back page of the News or Standard had championship updates. Now I sit in a field in Hertfordshire with a live feed from 250 miles away.
With a heavy shower at tea time at MT and the progress at Chester le Street I made for home and turned on the feed when a win still looked beyond the team.
A beautiful batting pitch had been prepared by our old friend Vic Demain, ex-Uxbridge groundsman, and against our understrength attack Durham had seemingly put the match out of reach with their 387 including centuries for Lees and Bedingham. The only bowler to go at less than a run a ball was the ageing TRJ.
But then come the hour come the man. Sam Robson in his testimonial year. Better judges than me have suggested that he has been sadly overlooked for too long in white ball. He came in at 2-1 and scored a magnificently paced 169no off 139 balls with excellent support from De Caires, Davies and Hollman. De Caires has done particularly well since his recall to the side but there are rumours in the press that he is off, together with Eskinazi, at the end of the season.
The stunning record breaking 390-5 was followed up with 217 at Rugby School (albeit on a bunsen) and 129 at Radlett. So back to near normal.
By the time you read this in early September Middlesex might have qualified for the play-offs and might even have won a game of white ball knockout cricket for the first time since the Rose Bowl in 2008.
The Durham result was a bit of a lift for the many QPR fans who receive G&C after the R’s kindergarten eleven lost 3-2 to Plymouth the night before having been 2-0 up at half time. Well worth resting the senior pros of course as they went on to lose at Watford 4 days later.
Old Danes Matters
Terry Hunt tells me that he, Mike Cope, Dave Denton, and Bill Groombridge attended Jimmy Jewell's funeral at Hampton recently.
Ged Matters
Ged (Ian Harris) updates us on a hectic few days via the King Cricket website
I spent several days wallowing in a veritable cornucopia of elite sport at its most elite. King Cricket has asked me to keep the match report brief. I’ll try.
Day 1 – Lord’s on me tod
At the start of the day, everyone thought they knew how the match would turn out. I arrived at Lord’s early for a game of real tennis doubles. My partner and I came second. Jeffy (of the King Cricket comments section parish) watched us briefly.
After tennis, I watched [cricket] from the pavilion, before and after lunch. Then I switched to the Tavern Stand, where I ran into Mr Johnny Friendly, of all people, so I watched and chatted with him for a while. Then I switched to the Warner Stand.
The gentleman sitting behind me in the Warner admired my tie.
“I’m envious of it,” he said.
It had been a gift from niece and nephew-in-law Lavender and Escamilo-Escapilo. I messaged the gentleman’s words to the couple, who accepted the praise with glee.
The atmosphere at Lord’s that day was more like one of those domestic one-day finals, back when Lord’s held such things, than a Lord’s Test match day.
Day 2 – With Awesome Simo and Jonny-Two-Phones
Last time the Saffers came to Lord’s, I saw Jeffy on Day One and Awesome Simo on Day Two. This Test followed the same format. Simo and I were in the Warner Stand this time. The third man was Jonny-Two-Phones.
Daisy fretted that I might have forgotten my hat, based on a hat-forgetting incident 10 days earlier. I had selected my New Zealand Black Cap for this match, just to confuse the antipodean visitors. I sent Daisy a selfie to reassure her.
The picnic comprised Alaskan salmon bagels, smoked turkey sandwiches with mustard mayo and three kinds of lettuce (that is SO cheffy of me, I know), cheese clouds, strawberries, and grapes.
We had a great day. The atmosphere felt more like a Test match day at the Oval than at Lord’s.
Day 3 – At The Queen’s Club with Daisy
The picnic bore more than a passing resemblance to the Day 2 picnic, except without the turkey sandwiches. Daisy and I got to play table tennis in the sponsor’s exhibition area. I managed a rare win. We also watched rather a lot of lawn. I could get away with telling you all about it, as those details would not breach the King Cricket “no professional cricket” rule. But to keep this report brief, I have reported the tennis in whimsical yet excruciating detail here.
Day 4 – At Lord’s with Daisy
At the start of the day, everyone thought they knew how the match would turn out. I played real doubles again early in the day. Again Peter Plumber was one of my opponents, this time partnering Andrew Trophy, as they are preparing for tournament play. My partner Ben Gate and I came first that day. Daisy is my secret weapon when she watches me play. Top sledging. Ben did his own thing, Peter didn’t stick around, but Andrew sat with me and Daisy to watch cricket.
The atmosphere felt more like a T20 finals day at Edgbaston than a Test match day at Lord’s. After that, Daisy and I went home for lunch.
Atheron Matters
Ken Molloy sent me this by Mike Atherton
Little did I know, as I sat nervously in the junior upstairs dressing room at Old Trafford in late July 1989, that I would be witnessing the start of my professional relationship with Test cricket, which has now spanned more than 400 matches as a player, journalist and broadcaster.
As a young Lancashire player, two months out of university, I had been called to do some 12th man duties for David Gower’s England team, and was witness in that small room to some of the negotiations for the rebel tour to South Africa the following winter. That tour led to a number of players being banned with immediate effect, and, as the Ashes were already lost, I was selected as a promising youngster for the next Test in Nottingham. Never underestimate the role of luck in life.
That was the first of 115 Tests as a player. Since retiring from playing in 2001 I’ve covered the vast majority of England’s Tests at home and overseas, either as a journalist or broadcaster, or, more often than not, as both. Adding all those matches together, plus the odd neutral game, such as three World Test Championship finals, a Super Test in late 2005 and a random Australia v India Test in the same year in Bengaluru, means I have now played in, or covered live, 402 matches, by my count.
I don’t include the ones I worked on remotely, such as those in India and Sri Lanka or the first Ashes Test in Brisbane, all during Covid, when restrictions made it impossible to travel but not work from afar. Nevertheless, there are not too many who can claim to have worked on more than 400 Tests, which is more than a third of England’s total number. Taking a conservative average of four days a game pans out at roughly 4½ years of watching Test cricket continuously — about 7 per cent of my life.
Hard to think now, but there were rest days on Sundays in 1989, which were soon to be canned, although the odd Test continued to have a Sunday break for a year or two, to avoid a clash with, say, the Wimbledon final or the Open. Six Tests that summer were played from June 8 to August 29. Australia landed on April 30, 39 days before the first Test, and played 23 other matches outside of the internationals. David Boon got through 52 cans of beer on the way over, to set a record.
Test cricket was slower then, and less watchable. In my first Test Micky Stewart, the England coach, told me an “average” day’s Test cricket was about 240 for four — a run rate of less than three an over, in other words. The standard of bowling would match up to today, but not, in general, the batting or fielding. Grounds were far less full than now, contrary to the memory of those who like to hark back to the good old days, although the game was more a part of the national conversation then.
It was a more macho game too. There were no restrictions on bouncers at that point — they came in later — and fast, short-pitched bowling was more common (especially in county cricket) than now. There were no match referees either, and the sledging (from Australia, in particular) could be fierce. There was no decision review system (DRS), and you took your chances with umpires, who were generally (maybe because of the absence of technology) more “not-outers” than now. You queried an umpire at your peril.
The schedule was geared to Test cricket, with only three one-day internationals a summer and no T20, of course. County cricket, as a consequence, mattered more. This was pre-central contracts, so you regarded yourself as a county cricketer first and foremost, with the occasional invitation (RSVP please!) to play for England.
Selection was far more uncertain and rogue than now — in the summer of 1989, England used 29 players. Your county was your primary employer, with six-month summer contracts only, worth about £20,000. Players scrabbled around in the winter, doing odd jobs. Test-match fees were about £2,000. Today the Test-match fee is about £15,000, on top of central contracts worth nearly seven figures for the top players.
My first tour fee — for the 1990-91 Ashes — was £20,000. We left for Australia on October 18 and returned from New Zealand four months later. Wayne “Ned” Larkins, recently departed, was my room-mate for much of it and he liked to make long phone calls home and would send me out into the corridor for an hour in the evening to twiddle my thumbs. This was pre-mobile and pre-internet, and he spent his tour fee and more on the cost of calls from fixed-line hotel phones.
The biggest change to the game more broadly since I first played has been the advent of the Indian Premier League, which immediately reordered the incentives in the game. Test cricket had fewer challengers until then but gets swamped now. The rise of women’s cricket has been another hugely significant theme of the past three decades. DRS has been another, improving decision-making and player behaviour.
England’s fixture list when I started was geared towards Australia and West Indies, the drawcards of the day. Sri Lanka had been given Test status only eight years earlier; South Africa were still out in the cold, and India were in the pack, unlike now, when they are leading it. Of my 115 Tests, I played 60 against Australia and West Indies; I played only one in India. The money in the IPL has changed attitudes among administrators (and players).
But it was West Indies above all who were the star attraction. The Caribbean tour of 1990 was England’s first overseas tour to be broadcast live, and the electric atmosphere and fierce nature of the cricket was a long way removed from where it is now — not that England will play Test cricket in the Caribbean in the present cycle, a measure of the decline of the game there. That decline has been the saddest story of the past three decades.
Those early tours to the Caribbean stand as a high bar, in broadcast terms. There are more bells and whistles in the broadcast now, but seeing live cricket abroad was so rare then. The cricket itself was raw and the colour and atmosphere unrivalled. There was no social media, and newspapers ruled the written word. It seemed a simpler, if less democratic, media landscape.
It is a cliché to say that sport reveals character, but a cliché becomes so because it’s true, and Test cricket reveals it more than most sport. This has something to do with the time it takes, the changing conditions and the scope for introspection. It can be a brutal game, which is why Virat Kohli urged cricketers to give their heart and soul to Test cricket, because that is where you earn respect.
The most charismatic players I’ve seen are Viv Richards, Shane Warne and Kohli.
The best batsman? Richards.
The best fast bowler? Malcolm Marshall.
The best spinner? The incomparable Warne.
The best English batsman I’ve seen is Joe Root.
The best English fast bowler? James Anderson.
The best English spinner? Graeme Swann.
And captain? Michael Vaughan, but if Ben Stokes wins the Ashes this winter, he’ll be No1.
Some series stand out. I can’t think that I’ll see one that tops 2005, no matter how long I cover the game. The Ashes of 2023 was terrific, as well. Nothing quite beats seeing Australia lose, so the 2010-11 series stands out, especially Boxing Day at Melbourne, when Australian supporters decided they didn’t much like getting walloped by England and left in droves. The recent India series was a belter.
The memorable Tests? Oval 2025; Hyderabad 2024; Rawalpindi 2022; Wellington 2022; Cape Town 2020; Headingley 2019; Chennai 2008; any of the middle three of the 2005 Ashes; Colombo 2001; Port of Spain 1998 (both of them); Bridgetown and the Oval in 1994 come to mind immediately.
There’s been a good deal of cruelty too: a terrible knee injury to Simon Jones, on the boundary edge not far from where I was sitting at the Gabba, threatened to end his career.
I’ve played in and seen abandoned Tests — Jamaica 1998, Antigua 2009 — and terrible Tests. A good Test will always beat a good ODI, which will always beat a good T20. But a bad Test? Well, they can last too long, as well. Sometimes Test cricket can be a trial: as in life, not everything is sweet and easy all the time.
Test cricket remains healthy in certain territories. The anticipation and hype before any series involving England, Australia and India is far greater than before, and the cricket is more watchable than it has ever been. But the five-day game is on life support elsewhere, especially as an in-stadium spectator sport. Administrators have been blind to the effects of a distorted market (which they have shamelessly encouraged) for too long, and I’m not sure there are any answers other than a continued slide into irrelevance.
Those memories of the early Caribbean tours, and indeed those West Indies teams, burn brightest of all, which is why quite a few West Indians feature in the task I set myself, which was to pick two teams of players I have played against or commentated on or have written about. Two sets of players, starting point 1989, who are not necessarily the best I’ve seen, although many will be among that number, but players I’ve enjoyed playing with or against or have enjoyed watching and writing about, and who would provide a good contest in my fictional Test.
But where should this game be played? My favourite grounds have some common features: they have a sense of history and tradition; they are well connected and easy to get to; part of life, in other words, rather than out of sight and out of mind; they boast a good pitch that offers a fair balance between bat and ball; there will be restaurants and bars nearby to allow spectators to enjoy breakfast on the way there and dinner and a drink on the way back — conversation about the game is essential to the whole experience.
I came up with a list of possible Test venues: Headingley and the Oval in this country; Newlands in Cape Town; Adelaide (before its drop-in pitch) and Sydney in Australia; the Basin Reserve in Wellington, New Zealand; the Kensington Oval in Barbados, and the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. It will be a day, not a day-night fixture, obviously. The Oval is my choice.
I’ve chosen Stokes and Richards to captain my teams, because I fancy that sparks would fly. I’d quite like to see that! There is a broad spectrum of selections from across the countries, because the glory of Test cricket in the era I’ve played and watched has been its global strength — something administrators would do well to remember.
It is a lot of Tests, 402, and 36 years is a long time, but I still feel the same sense of anticipation and excitement on the first morning of a Test as I always did. That enduring enthusiasm is a testament to the five-day game, which remains endlessly fascinating, full of surprises, hard to predict and offers the broadest scope to reveal much about those who play it. With apologies to Larkin and Oxford: the old game still holds us. Bring on Perth in November.
Team A
1 Virender Sehwag (India)
2 Graeme Smith (South Africa)
3 Viv Richards (capt, West Indies)
4 Joe Root (England)
5 Kane Williamson (New Zealand)
6 Andrew Flintoff (England)
7 Adam Gilchrist (wk, Australia)
8 Shane Warne (Australia)
9 Malcolm Marshall (West Indies)
10 Jimmy Anderson (England)
11 Allan Donald (South Africa)
Team B
1 Saeed Anwar (Pakistan)
2 Graham Gooch (England)
3 Virat Kohli (India)
4 Brian Lara (West Indies)
5 David Gower (England)
6 Ben Stokes (capt, England)
7 Jack Russell (wk, England)
8 Wasim Akram (Pakistan)
9 Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka)
10 Darren Gough (England)
11 Curtly Ambrose (West Indies)
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
Excellent, we got through this edition without any reference to the Hundred…
Googlies and Chinamen
is produced by
James Sharp
Broad Lee House
Combs
High Peak
SK23 9XA
[email protected]
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 273
September 2025
Spot the Ball
Out and About with the Professor
So, which one of “the sons” will turn out to be the most accomplished cricketer? There are quite a few of them around at the moment in the county game, ”sons”, that is, of distinguished cricketers. Most of them are quite young, some still teenagers. It presumably opens a few doors but it must be a great burden, especially for the son who is nowhere near as good as his father. I always think, in this context, of Stanley Matthews junior who said that he took up tennis because although football was his preferred sport: “I was always getting the shit kicked out of me” and “when I played well people said I ought to, and when I played badly, they just said: ‘Not as good as his father’.” How much of a burden it is for young county cricketers bearing the name of Benkenstein, Singh, Killeen or Mustard, only they can say. They may all turn out to be better than their fathers: Broad and Bairstow would serve as good examples; or, of course, worse: Hutton R, two Cowdreys…add your own favourite here.
Is being the son of a very good player less of a burden than being the son of a very famous one? Intuitively, it would seem that the more celebrity the father had, the more “living-up-to” there was to be done. In this regard three or four modern young cricketers are facing this particular challenge and have attracted the inevitable focus: Archie Vaughan, who seems to have started his professional cricketing life as a spin bowler (11 wickets in his second game) but is now (being well into his 20th year) opening the batting for Somerset in the Metrobank Cup (or whatever it’s called); Rocky Flintoff (17) who is obviously a very well thought of all-rounder; and Josh de Caires, who seems to have been around for years, and has been, by turns: a top order batter, a Number 8 off spinner, and now is back up the order to open, all at the excessive age of 23.
Flintoff, of course, has both his father and elder brother providing challenging comparisons, while de Caires has a father and great-grandfather with Test match pedigree (Frank de Caires played three Tests for the West Indies in the 1930’s, with a top score of 80). Test players on father’s and mother’s side is, indeed, some pedigree. He seems to be a level-headed young man – despite his movement up and down the Middlesex batting order – and describes his style as: “blocking the crap out of it” in the same way as he’d been told his father did. The one time I have seen de Caires bat he looked to have rather more shots than that, and he first came to notice (at least in these parts) when he played for the Leeds/Bradford University side against Yorkshire. This is an annual “warm-up” event for the Yorkshire professionals (normally played in the freezing cold of the first week of April) where the Yorkshire side bat first, get lots of in-the-middle practice and then bowl out the students for next to nothing. But when de Caires played, the students batted first, de Caires got a hundred…and then retired, to let the others have a go.
I’ve not seen “Rocky” play, and nor, I guess, have many people, but it was reported that he had been dropped from the Northern Superchargers squad in favour of Matthew Revis, who has had an excellent run of form this year, including three Championship hundreds. The coach of the Superchargers is, of course, Andrew Flintoff…so no nepotism up here. I did see Archie Vaughan score a very cultured 90 at York playing for Somerset in the Metrobank Cup (or whatever…) and it was hard, verging on impossible, not to make comparisons with his father, even up to how he leant on his bat. The Yorkshire attack was not at its strongest (when is it?) but it looked a very accomplished knock: strong through the covers off the front foot and a very effective back foot pull shot…sound familiar?
So, who will be the star of the future, born of cricketing parentage? Josh, Rocky or Archie? Perhaps all, or perhaps none. Possibly they may all be eclipsed by yet another “son”, Rehan Ahmed (still only just 21), whose father, I read on Cricinfo, played one ODI for Pakistan, scoring no runs and taking no wickets, and whose younger brother, Farhan, has played some first class matches for Notts.
Who knows? As always, it will be fun to watch.
This & That
August is Metro Bank One Day Cup month for the counties and Middlesex under their new coach, Dane Vilas, and captain, Ben Geddes, had what for them was a highly successful time. It started at Lord’s with a comfortable run chase against Sussex. This was followed by their record-breaking chase at the Riverside against Durham which Jeff Coleman covers in his article. After a win against Warwickshire, they were humbled by Yorkshire only to bounce back with wins against Kent and Northants. Then when all was on the line they slumped to 127 for 6, chasing 292 against Lancashire. Nathan Fernandes and Seb Morgan then added 126 for the seventh wicket but further wickets fell leaving them 284 for 9 with five balls left. Few would have put money on Noah Cornwell and loanee Nathan Gilchrist getting there but they did with a ball to spare. This win took them through to the Play offs where they immediately reverted to type and lost in a low scoring match to Hampshire.
Leicestershire have signed batter Stephen Eskinazi from Middlesex on a three-year contract. The 31-year-old right-hander becomes their third arrival this week after the signings of wicketkeeper Jonny Tattersall and seamer Josh Davey.
In the three match ODI series South Africa beat Australia comfortably in the first two matches but the Australians recovered some pride in the final a match which they won by 276 runs having posted a daunting 431 for 2, with Travis Head, Mitch Marsh and Cameron Green all scoring centuries.
In the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) our old friend Imran Tahir( 72) turned up captaining Guyana Amazon Warriors. But it turned out that he was not there to display just his latest hairstyle. In the Antigua & Barbuda innings he took 5 for 21.
One ball from Oshane Thomas cost 22 runs but Saint Lucia Kings beat Guyana Amazon Warriors by four wickets in the Caribbean Premier League. He started with a dot ball and a four, before he needed five attempts to bowl a legal third delivery, costing his team 22 runs in the process. He started with a no-ball and wide before a no-ball was clubbed over mid-wicket for six by Romario Shepherd. Another overstep was then hit over square leg for six more. Thomas eventually bowled a legal delivery, but Shepherd also hit that over square-leg for a 95m six, meaning one ball cost 22 runs. A dot ball and single followed before Iftikhar Ahmed hit a six from the final ball to mean 33 had been taken from the over. The 17th over from Keon Gaston also consisted of 12 balls after six wides and cost 27 runs as Warriors got up to 202-6.
Before the first round of matches in the Premier League the BBC football pundits all predicted that the top four in the Premiership this season would be some combination of Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea. We are three rounds in now and its Manchester City who look the least likely to make it. .I suspect Arsenal will still be short of goals and Chelsea may surprise everyone.
Thompson Matters
I have the very good fortune to spend several weeks a year on the Algarve. Last February Heather and I walked into our favourite Indian restaurant and met a new waiter. Manish was very chatty and since England were in the midst of a three-nil, one-day whitewash on the sub-continent I ventured to ask him if he was a cricket fan. He gave me a look and a head wobble which effectively said, ‘Is the Maharajah a Hindu’ and then said, ‘Of course, Sir.’ After several more visits to the restaurant, I am now ‘Mr. Steve’. We walked into Pashmina last week and were greeted with, ‘What a great series, Mr. Steve. And what a final test!’ With every visit to our table there were more of his recollections from the series just concluded. At the end of the meal Manish was keen speak about the current Indian side and in particular the bright future he believed there is for Indian Test cricket. It prompted me to ask whether he thought white ball prodigy Vaibhav Suryavanshi would take red ball cricket by storm; he did.
His ambition is to be at Lords next July to watch his beloved team at the home of cricket. ‘I’d love to see you there Mr. Steve.’ The feeling was mutual.
There is a large Indian diaspora in Portugal. In 2024 it comprised 1% of the total population with concentrations around Lisbon, Porto and on the Algarve. Historically, of course, there are close ties with India as Portugal established the first European presence and colonial holdings in India over five hundred years ago. One might therefore be forgiven for thinking that it was this connection which led to the existence of mainland Europe’s oldest cricket club, in Portugal. This year it celebrates its 170th anniversary but the clue to the nationality of its founding fathers lies in its name, Oporto Cricket Club. With its original ground, ‘The Field’ a mere cork’s throw from the banks of the Douro, its home ground has alternated down the years between Porto on one side and Nova de Gaia on the other but it was port wine that spawned its creation and port wine that secured its development. In 1862 Punch published a piece, written by a Portuguese sports journalist, on the first Lisbon v Oporto match, then as now the highlight of each club’s season. It read as follows:
The game of cricket match is an active, running, driving, jumping game, which can only be played by a person with a good pair of legs. Two posts are placed at a great distance from one another. The player close to one of these posts throws a large ball towards the other party, who awaits the ball to send it far with a small stick with which he is armed. The other players then run to look for the ball and, while this search is going on, the party who struck it with the stick runs incessantly from post to post, marking one for each run.
It is also recorded that the “indispensable accompaniment” to every cricket match was
“a sumptuous dinner in the marquee for fifty persons.” I doubt there were any ‘good pairs of legs’ after a few dozen bottles of port had been consumed.
As part of its commitment to growing the game globally, in May of this year MCC sent a thirteen-strong squad to play five matches in Portugal. The opening match was against Porto Club on what is now the Oporto Cricket & Lawn Tennis Club ground with the final game being played against a Portugal XI which saw a win for the home side.
Ironically it was not until 1875, some twenty years after the Cricket Club was founded that football was introduced to the nation, again by British merchants. Of course the two sports now have very different levels of popularity and indeed it’s hard to find a bar or restaurant in these parts that isn’t showing ‘futebol’.
And so it was that a few hours ago I ventured into the local Sports Bar here to watch Rangers take on Charlton. Fortunately they didn’t have the Coventry debacle on their schedule the week before and since I was the only punter in the place for the entire match, not for the first time, The Joker Bar seemed very aptly named. The quality of football seemed depressingly poor but, as they say,’a win’s a win’. However, I doubt Manish and I will be talking anything other than cricket on our next visit to Pashmina.
Unbelievable Matters
Jeff Coleman shakes his head in disbelief
After years of white ball mediocrity Middlesex achieved the highest 50 over chase ever in England and the 4th highest globally. With 7 away in the 100 and 4 or 5 or 6 (dependent on the day of the week) pace bowlers injured a depleted side chased down 387 to beat Durham with 2 overs to spare. If only Durham had scored a few more those 2 overs would have given the opportunity to beat the global highest of 435 (probably a bit too far) but certainly the second highest of 402.
I was spending the day at Merchant Taylors watching the U16’s v Essex and the U18’s v Sussex whilst following the Durham score online. This made me reflect on the huge technological changes in most of our lifetimes. Back in the 70’s I would nip out of work during the afternoon to visit the friendly paper seller on the corner and hope that the stop press on the back page of the News or Standard had championship updates. Now I sit in a field in Hertfordshire with a live feed from 250 miles away.
With a heavy shower at tea time at MT and the progress at Chester le Street I made for home and turned on the feed when a win still looked beyond the team.
A beautiful batting pitch had been prepared by our old friend Vic Demain, ex-Uxbridge groundsman, and against our understrength attack Durham had seemingly put the match out of reach with their 387 including centuries for Lees and Bedingham. The only bowler to go at less than a run a ball was the ageing TRJ.
But then come the hour come the man. Sam Robson in his testimonial year. Better judges than me have suggested that he has been sadly overlooked for too long in white ball. He came in at 2-1 and scored a magnificently paced 169no off 139 balls with excellent support from De Caires, Davies and Hollman. De Caires has done particularly well since his recall to the side but there are rumours in the press that he is off, together with Eskinazi, at the end of the season.
The stunning record breaking 390-5 was followed up with 217 at Rugby School (albeit on a bunsen) and 129 at Radlett. So back to near normal.
By the time you read this in early September Middlesex might have qualified for the play-offs and might even have won a game of white ball knockout cricket for the first time since the Rose Bowl in 2008.
The Durham result was a bit of a lift for the many QPR fans who receive G&C after the R’s kindergarten eleven lost 3-2 to Plymouth the night before having been 2-0 up at half time. Well worth resting the senior pros of course as they went on to lose at Watford 4 days later.
Old Danes Matters
Terry Hunt tells me that he, Mike Cope, Dave Denton, and Bill Groombridge attended Jimmy Jewell's funeral at Hampton recently.
Ged Matters
Ged (Ian Harris) updates us on a hectic few days via the King Cricket website
I spent several days wallowing in a veritable cornucopia of elite sport at its most elite. King Cricket has asked me to keep the match report brief. I’ll try.
Day 1 – Lord’s on me tod
At the start of the day, everyone thought they knew how the match would turn out. I arrived at Lord’s early for a game of real tennis doubles. My partner and I came second. Jeffy (of the King Cricket comments section parish) watched us briefly.
After tennis, I watched [cricket] from the pavilion, before and after lunch. Then I switched to the Tavern Stand, where I ran into Mr Johnny Friendly, of all people, so I watched and chatted with him for a while. Then I switched to the Warner Stand.
The gentleman sitting behind me in the Warner admired my tie.
“I’m envious of it,” he said.
It had been a gift from niece and nephew-in-law Lavender and Escamilo-Escapilo. I messaged the gentleman’s words to the couple, who accepted the praise with glee.
The atmosphere at Lord’s that day was more like one of those domestic one-day finals, back when Lord’s held such things, than a Lord’s Test match day.
Day 2 – With Awesome Simo and Jonny-Two-Phones
Last time the Saffers came to Lord’s, I saw Jeffy on Day One and Awesome Simo on Day Two. This Test followed the same format. Simo and I were in the Warner Stand this time. The third man was Jonny-Two-Phones.
Daisy fretted that I might have forgotten my hat, based on a hat-forgetting incident 10 days earlier. I had selected my New Zealand Black Cap for this match, just to confuse the antipodean visitors. I sent Daisy a selfie to reassure her.
The picnic comprised Alaskan salmon bagels, smoked turkey sandwiches with mustard mayo and three kinds of lettuce (that is SO cheffy of me, I know), cheese clouds, strawberries, and grapes.
We had a great day. The atmosphere felt more like a Test match day at the Oval than at Lord’s.
Day 3 – At The Queen’s Club with Daisy
The picnic bore more than a passing resemblance to the Day 2 picnic, except without the turkey sandwiches. Daisy and I got to play table tennis in the sponsor’s exhibition area. I managed a rare win. We also watched rather a lot of lawn. I could get away with telling you all about it, as those details would not breach the King Cricket “no professional cricket” rule. But to keep this report brief, I have reported the tennis in whimsical yet excruciating detail here.
Day 4 – At Lord’s with Daisy
At the start of the day, everyone thought they knew how the match would turn out. I played real doubles again early in the day. Again Peter Plumber was one of my opponents, this time partnering Andrew Trophy, as they are preparing for tournament play. My partner Ben Gate and I came first that day. Daisy is my secret weapon when she watches me play. Top sledging. Ben did his own thing, Peter didn’t stick around, but Andrew sat with me and Daisy to watch cricket.
The atmosphere felt more like a T20 finals day at Edgbaston than a Test match day at Lord’s. After that, Daisy and I went home for lunch.
Atheron Matters
Ken Molloy sent me this by Mike Atherton
Little did I know, as I sat nervously in the junior upstairs dressing room at Old Trafford in late July 1989, that I would be witnessing the start of my professional relationship with Test cricket, which has now spanned more than 400 matches as a player, journalist and broadcaster.
As a young Lancashire player, two months out of university, I had been called to do some 12th man duties for David Gower’s England team, and was witness in that small room to some of the negotiations for the rebel tour to South Africa the following winter. That tour led to a number of players being banned with immediate effect, and, as the Ashes were already lost, I was selected as a promising youngster for the next Test in Nottingham. Never underestimate the role of luck in life.
That was the first of 115 Tests as a player. Since retiring from playing in 2001 I’ve covered the vast majority of England’s Tests at home and overseas, either as a journalist or broadcaster, or, more often than not, as both. Adding all those matches together, plus the odd neutral game, such as three World Test Championship finals, a Super Test in late 2005 and a random Australia v India Test in the same year in Bengaluru, means I have now played in, or covered live, 402 matches, by my count.
I don’t include the ones I worked on remotely, such as those in India and Sri Lanka or the first Ashes Test in Brisbane, all during Covid, when restrictions made it impossible to travel but not work from afar. Nevertheless, there are not too many who can claim to have worked on more than 400 Tests, which is more than a third of England’s total number. Taking a conservative average of four days a game pans out at roughly 4½ years of watching Test cricket continuously — about 7 per cent of my life.
Hard to think now, but there were rest days on Sundays in 1989, which were soon to be canned, although the odd Test continued to have a Sunday break for a year or two, to avoid a clash with, say, the Wimbledon final or the Open. Six Tests that summer were played from June 8 to August 29. Australia landed on April 30, 39 days before the first Test, and played 23 other matches outside of the internationals. David Boon got through 52 cans of beer on the way over, to set a record.
Test cricket was slower then, and less watchable. In my first Test Micky Stewart, the England coach, told me an “average” day’s Test cricket was about 240 for four — a run rate of less than three an over, in other words. The standard of bowling would match up to today, but not, in general, the batting or fielding. Grounds were far less full than now, contrary to the memory of those who like to hark back to the good old days, although the game was more a part of the national conversation then.
It was a more macho game too. There were no restrictions on bouncers at that point — they came in later — and fast, short-pitched bowling was more common (especially in county cricket) than now. There were no match referees either, and the sledging (from Australia, in particular) could be fierce. There was no decision review system (DRS), and you took your chances with umpires, who were generally (maybe because of the absence of technology) more “not-outers” than now. You queried an umpire at your peril.
The schedule was geared to Test cricket, with only three one-day internationals a summer and no T20, of course. County cricket, as a consequence, mattered more. This was pre-central contracts, so you regarded yourself as a county cricketer first and foremost, with the occasional invitation (RSVP please!) to play for England.
Selection was far more uncertain and rogue than now — in the summer of 1989, England used 29 players. Your county was your primary employer, with six-month summer contracts only, worth about £20,000. Players scrabbled around in the winter, doing odd jobs. Test-match fees were about £2,000. Today the Test-match fee is about £15,000, on top of central contracts worth nearly seven figures for the top players.
My first tour fee — for the 1990-91 Ashes — was £20,000. We left for Australia on October 18 and returned from New Zealand four months later. Wayne “Ned” Larkins, recently departed, was my room-mate for much of it and he liked to make long phone calls home and would send me out into the corridor for an hour in the evening to twiddle my thumbs. This was pre-mobile and pre-internet, and he spent his tour fee and more on the cost of calls from fixed-line hotel phones.
The biggest change to the game more broadly since I first played has been the advent of the Indian Premier League, which immediately reordered the incentives in the game. Test cricket had fewer challengers until then but gets swamped now. The rise of women’s cricket has been another hugely significant theme of the past three decades. DRS has been another, improving decision-making and player behaviour.
England’s fixture list when I started was geared towards Australia and West Indies, the drawcards of the day. Sri Lanka had been given Test status only eight years earlier; South Africa were still out in the cold, and India were in the pack, unlike now, when they are leading it. Of my 115 Tests, I played 60 against Australia and West Indies; I played only one in India. The money in the IPL has changed attitudes among administrators (and players).
But it was West Indies above all who were the star attraction. The Caribbean tour of 1990 was England’s first overseas tour to be broadcast live, and the electric atmosphere and fierce nature of the cricket was a long way removed from where it is now — not that England will play Test cricket in the Caribbean in the present cycle, a measure of the decline of the game there. That decline has been the saddest story of the past three decades.
Those early tours to the Caribbean stand as a high bar, in broadcast terms. There are more bells and whistles in the broadcast now, but seeing live cricket abroad was so rare then. The cricket itself was raw and the colour and atmosphere unrivalled. There was no social media, and newspapers ruled the written word. It seemed a simpler, if less democratic, media landscape.
It is a cliché to say that sport reveals character, but a cliché becomes so because it’s true, and Test cricket reveals it more than most sport. This has something to do with the time it takes, the changing conditions and the scope for introspection. It can be a brutal game, which is why Virat Kohli urged cricketers to give their heart and soul to Test cricket, because that is where you earn respect.
The most charismatic players I’ve seen are Viv Richards, Shane Warne and Kohli.
The best batsman? Richards.
The best fast bowler? Malcolm Marshall.
The best spinner? The incomparable Warne.
The best English batsman I’ve seen is Joe Root.
The best English fast bowler? James Anderson.
The best English spinner? Graeme Swann.
And captain? Michael Vaughan, but if Ben Stokes wins the Ashes this winter, he’ll be No1.
Some series stand out. I can’t think that I’ll see one that tops 2005, no matter how long I cover the game. The Ashes of 2023 was terrific, as well. Nothing quite beats seeing Australia lose, so the 2010-11 series stands out, especially Boxing Day at Melbourne, when Australian supporters decided they didn’t much like getting walloped by England and left in droves. The recent India series was a belter.
The memorable Tests? Oval 2025; Hyderabad 2024; Rawalpindi 2022; Wellington 2022; Cape Town 2020; Headingley 2019; Chennai 2008; any of the middle three of the 2005 Ashes; Colombo 2001; Port of Spain 1998 (both of them); Bridgetown and the Oval in 1994 come to mind immediately.
There’s been a good deal of cruelty too: a terrible knee injury to Simon Jones, on the boundary edge not far from where I was sitting at the Gabba, threatened to end his career.
I’ve played in and seen abandoned Tests — Jamaica 1998, Antigua 2009 — and terrible Tests. A good Test will always beat a good ODI, which will always beat a good T20. But a bad Test? Well, they can last too long, as well. Sometimes Test cricket can be a trial: as in life, not everything is sweet and easy all the time.
Test cricket remains healthy in certain territories. The anticipation and hype before any series involving England, Australia and India is far greater than before, and the cricket is more watchable than it has ever been. But the five-day game is on life support elsewhere, especially as an in-stadium spectator sport. Administrators have been blind to the effects of a distorted market (which they have shamelessly encouraged) for too long, and I’m not sure there are any answers other than a continued slide into irrelevance.
Those memories of the early Caribbean tours, and indeed those West Indies teams, burn brightest of all, which is why quite a few West Indians feature in the task I set myself, which was to pick two teams of players I have played against or commentated on or have written about. Two sets of players, starting point 1989, who are not necessarily the best I’ve seen, although many will be among that number, but players I’ve enjoyed playing with or against or have enjoyed watching and writing about, and who would provide a good contest in my fictional Test.
But where should this game be played? My favourite grounds have some common features: they have a sense of history and tradition; they are well connected and easy to get to; part of life, in other words, rather than out of sight and out of mind; they boast a good pitch that offers a fair balance between bat and ball; there will be restaurants and bars nearby to allow spectators to enjoy breakfast on the way there and dinner and a drink on the way back — conversation about the game is essential to the whole experience.
I came up with a list of possible Test venues: Headingley and the Oval in this country; Newlands in Cape Town; Adelaide (before its drop-in pitch) and Sydney in Australia; the Basin Reserve in Wellington, New Zealand; the Kensington Oval in Barbados, and the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. It will be a day, not a day-night fixture, obviously. The Oval is my choice.
I’ve chosen Stokes and Richards to captain my teams, because I fancy that sparks would fly. I’d quite like to see that! There is a broad spectrum of selections from across the countries, because the glory of Test cricket in the era I’ve played and watched has been its global strength — something administrators would do well to remember.
It is a lot of Tests, 402, and 36 years is a long time, but I still feel the same sense of anticipation and excitement on the first morning of a Test as I always did. That enduring enthusiasm is a testament to the five-day game, which remains endlessly fascinating, full of surprises, hard to predict and offers the broadest scope to reveal much about those who play it. With apologies to Larkin and Oxford: the old game still holds us. Bring on Perth in November.
Team A
1 Virender Sehwag (India)
2 Graeme Smith (South Africa)
3 Viv Richards (capt, West Indies)
4 Joe Root (England)
5 Kane Williamson (New Zealand)
6 Andrew Flintoff (England)
7 Adam Gilchrist (wk, Australia)
8 Shane Warne (Australia)
9 Malcolm Marshall (West Indies)
10 Jimmy Anderson (England)
11 Allan Donald (South Africa)
Team B
1 Saeed Anwar (Pakistan)
2 Graham Gooch (England)
3 Virat Kohli (India)
4 Brian Lara (West Indies)
5 David Gower (England)
6 Ben Stokes (capt, England)
7 Jack Russell (wk, England)
8 Wasim Akram (Pakistan)
9 Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka)
10 Darren Gough (England)
11 Curtly Ambrose (West Indies)
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
Excellent, we got through this edition without any reference to the Hundred…
Googlies and Chinamen
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Broad Lee House
Combs
High Peak
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