GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 34
October 2005
And so to Karachi
Long-term readers of this journal will have quickly realized that the best news about winning the Ashes is that the infinitely tedious Project Salvation comes to its natural conclusion. We pledged to keep the Project going until the Ashes had been recovered and that has now been achieved quicker than any of the contributors to the debate had expected. But now we can pull the covers over this topic. The Great Jack Morgan will no longer have to cringe at the Professor’s xenophobic outbursts and no more need be heard of Bob Willis’ screwball ideas to save English cricket.
A new era has dawned which says goodbye to Thorpey, as they called him at the Oval, and almost certainly Mark Butcher who will find the road back almost impossible. However, he should feel secure in his position as captain of Surrey, at least for the time being, since his Dad is now his boss.
Australia has taken their loss out on the squad by axing Gillespie, Hayden and Martyn for the super test against the World XI. England is sticking with the same batsmen for their tour of Pakistan in November, with only Collingwood as cover. This seems overly ballsy unless they see Prior, the reserve wicket keeper, as additional cover. It also seems particularly hard on Shah who cannot have done more in the Championship to earn a tour place.
A clear message has been sent to English quick bowlers - forget your test aspirations unless you can bowl at over 90mph. At the Oval they went as far as going in with only four bowlers, leaving Anderson out, and only got away with it because of the rain interruptions. Tremlett is being groomed as the next Harmison, the rest (Kirtley, Lewis, Mahmood, Saggers & Bicknell) have been ignored.
The poor state of English spin bowling is reflected in the selection of Udal as cover for Giles. Graveney announced that he had been selected because he had the best returns of a spinner this season. His average may have been respectable but he only managed to take forty-four wickets. Fred Titmus use to take that in August alone. Loudon’s selection is bold, but his returns are meager and expensive. Bowlers get better by bowling. He is unlikely to turn his arm over in anger this winter. Collingwood retains preference over Ian Blackwell, whose batting and bowling aggregates were both better in the Championship.
Which leaves us with the Teflon Taff who seems to have been born or at least selected with a golden spoon in his mouth. The selectors have plumped for Prior as his new deputy, which pretty much kills off Reid’s test career. The Great Jack Morgan and I had just about agreed on Batty as the best bet until I saw him give a more than passable imitation of the Teflon Taff in a day-nighter at Hove.
Pakistan will present a different proposition, particularly on their own soil. Saqlain and Shaoib Malik will employ their Doozras and they also have a leg spinner in Danish Kaneira. If the wickets are prepared to suit the home side the English quicks could be substantially neutralized. It will be fascinating to see how Bob Woolmer deploys Red Mist himself and there is also the explosive possibility of the Rawalpindi Express.
Where were you..? George sees the regaining of the Ashes as one of those momentous occasions in life that you will always recall where you were when the news came through
On September 12th we locked up our house near Bergerac and headed off for Montpellier where we were to spend a couple of days in the Camargue.
I had called my golf partner Keith the previous evening. Cricket is not Keith’s best sport, but he is out of work at present and a dab hand with the thumb for texting. We had just crossed the Garonne and were joining the autoroute when the first news came through: phone call: ‘Pull over, you’re not going to want to hear this: 64 for 3.’ Much shaken I took the inside lane and thought, wrongly, that if I drove carefully we wouldn’t lose any more wickets. I drove, willing the text message not to buzz. Then I decided that I had put too much on Keith’s shoulders so I called Geoff and doubled my correspondents. Farmer Geoff proved a sensational texter: ‘82-3 after 75 minutes’ (better) came through. Then ‘McGrath near hat trick. Warne just dropped Pieterson’. It went quiet for some time as we passed Toulouse and then the astonishing Carcassonne.
We stopped to eat a couple of rolls in a service station. I was bargaining on about 125-3, when through came ‘Tres30, Strs 1, Va 45, Bell 0, P’son 35*, F’toff 8, 133-5 at lunch’. This was terrible. Had Geoff been protecting me, or ignoring me? For the first time I started to do the calculations that everyone else in the country must have been doing: how many overs were to be bowled in the day? How many did we need? I figured 240. Geoff texted me again, as the sea came into view around Narbonne ‘65 overs left, P’son 4 6’s off Lee, 78no. 180 ahead’. For the first time it started to feel better, though Pieterson could easily hole out and England could fall quickly. I started to wonder how Flintoff and Harmison would bowl, when the news came through as we reached Montpellier, ‘50 overs left, P’son 100no, 217-7 ahead’. Well-done Kev, indeed, but seven? I figured we needed to bat for another 10 overs, scoring at least 30. We’d arrived at our chambre d’hote and Pauline and I went to the pool. I tried to look nonchalant. I’m afraid I splashed out on a few telephone calls at this point as the Ashes become ours and Keith rang again. The next text read P’son b McG 158 308-8. It was a bit anticlimactic after that, and I missed the ensuing farce. There were a couple more texts from my loyal friends, until a final one from Geoff saying ‘Bad light match drawn’. So a nice relaxing journey.
It was only a day or so later that I realised that England had ‘won’ this test; they would have been hot favourites had there been another day: it didn’t feel like it.
Out and About with the Professor
As you know, I have little time for the new-fangled Twenty/20 form of cricket, except that it brings paying customers in to watch professional cricketers play. However, this year a National Twenty/20 competition was launched at club level by an organisation called SportsWise. The leading light in this set-up appears to be someone called Russell Grant who is best remembered, if at all, as being an astrologer on breakfast TV - or so I'm told.
Anyway, WGCCC entered and won a couple of preliminary rounds. No one took it very seriously and I'd rather forgotten about the whole thing, but last Sunday we held the regional semi-finals and finals at our club.
We were drawn against the mighty High Wycombe in the semis and they duly arrived in their coach and with their coach and changed into their one-day coloured clothing with numbers on their backs. Our 180-6 looked a reasonable score until they got to 160-4 with three overs to go. It was then that their coach (human) was overheard saying (loudly) that it was a very nice ground and a shame that we "couldn't post a competitive score". Two wickets and 17 balls later the scores were level with the same number of wickets down. The rules then, so I'm told, determine the winner by the highest number of runs scored in the first ten overs - which was them. The story goes that the man at the crease was aware of that but had no intention of winning in anything but the grand manner, after all, they were High Wycombe. His shot into the car park would indeed have won they game had the ball not hit his off stump. Result - we win by fewer wickets down.
The regional final against Beddington saw a more conventional win and amazingly, on the 18th Sept we are all off to the Rose Bowl for the national finals: us, Droitwich (from the Midlands), Finchley (London) and the as yet undetermined team representing the North. I don't know how many sides entered, and we will doubtless get stuffed, but it has to be a great day out. Presumably Russell Grant already knows the result.
WGCCC won all their games last Saturday so the 1st XI seem (just) safe from relegation. The trouble with a 10 team league (as in the county game) - one year almost top, the next nearly down. The 3rds should win their League and the 4ths get promoted so something to celebrate.
I'm off to the C&G final next Saturday so will report back.
And a couple of weeks later he sent me this You will be delighted to know that the national club Twenty/20 Champions goes by the name of Welwyn Garden City C.C. On a beautiful late summer day at the Rose Bowl we beat Droitwich in the semi-final and Finchley in the final to lift the pot - and a pretty bloody happy lot we all were. The two semis and the final all took place on Sunday and the Rose Bowl's wicket lived up to its slow and low reputation by producing three quite low scoring games, albeit in a magnificent setting. Probably the best contest was the first semi where Finchley defended a total of 122 having looked well beaten with three overs to go. We also batted first in our semi and the pessimists (like me) felt that our 135 would not be enough, especially after 9 came from the first over. As it happened, taking wickets proved key, and after their first five, Droitwich looked to be a little thin on batting.
We fielded first in the final and Finchley looked a very strong side. A couple of their players (Jake Milton and Steve Selwood) sported names with recognisable pedigree and there were two representatives of the Hodges family. Nine came off the first five balls but happily the sixth removed the off stump. Eleven came off the next five balls with, again, a wicket off the last. 20-2 from two overs. The next 15 overs must represent some of the best out cricket our chaps have played in the last couple of years and some excellent catching and two run-outs saw Finchley all out for 95 off 17.
Anyone who has watched cricket this year knows that all hopes of steady and predictable results seldom materialise and at 7-2 after two overs things were looking grim - yet again. Time for an old head to come to the rescue and this one was on the shoulders of one Martin James who, with a not out 60, saw us home with a couple of overs to spare. It was a great day for Martin who also got runs in the first innings and whose family had all turned out in support, including brother Kevin, who of course played for Hampshire for many years.
So, all in all, a great day out. Nobody seemed to know how many teams had entered the competition. We played seven rounds so that seems to imply 128 entrants but I don't know. This was the first year and presumably, if it is judged a success, there will be more entrants in future years. To be frank, we don't give a toss - we have a nice big silver cup behind the bar and it says "National Champions" on it - so we're all feeling very smug.
One final aside. When we played the regional semi final and final, the other three sides all turned up in coloured "one-day" kit. Having got to the Rose Bowl we didn't want to appear "amateurish" and so the squad was selected early and a light and dark blue strip (including sweaters) was ordered with each player's cap number on the back (we award caps chronologically - as seen on TV!) The chap who is i/c kit had to drive to Burnley at 5 am on Saturday morning to get the strip for the Sunday and to get back in time to play in the afternoon. So there they all were, 15 players in full change kit. All the other sides played in whites.
Oh...and one last thing. Because we were in this final, we had to cancel our club match on Sunday. The opponents? Finchley.
Quiz Corner
Eric Stephens decided to put Bob Peach out of his misery by coming up with the following who have scored test double centuries on the same grounds:
Lara, St.John's, Antigua
Bradman (3 times), Brisbane, Adelaide and Headingley
Hutton, The Oval
Atapattu, Bulayayo
Miandad, Karachi.
Something tells me that this will not satisfy Bob who had in mind some other names. Meanwhile Bob has had his thinking cap on and has come up with the unlikely claim that he can name thirty-three South Hampstead members who have played first class cricket. I have been working on this challenge with Bill Hart and others. If anyone has any contributions they will be gratefully received.
Bush Matters
I have selected these notes from a longer missive sent by David Perrin, the President of Shepherds Bush
Congratulations, as the season ends, to the First Team for their highest League finish since 2001, to the Seconds and Thirds for top-half finishes, to the Fourths for their assault on promotion, and the Thirds/Fourths for reaching a Cup Final. The club spirit has been impressive this year. Let's keep it up.
On the wider front, we can report that the pavilion is currently out to tender, we are told that we will hear about planning permission for the pavilion by 3 October, and we are working on the detailed terms of Ealing council's offer of £100,000 towards the pavilion.
We have come through what could easily have been our last season much more strongly than we might have. I must thank Tim Howard and Ollie Gibbs in particular for day-to-day running of the club and for making a big financial difference. One of the many challenges still facing us is to run and expand the cricket colts next season, as we will be contracted to do as part of Ealing's £100,000. Keep believing, keep enjoying the club - and to Saturday's cup finalists 'Good Luck!'
Slow Over Rates
Subscribers to the Wisden Cricketer will no doubt have seen my abridged version of the solution to slow over rates that was published in the September edition. Eric Stephens noted the cost to the English side this summer:
“You are right about this great series. Why is it that only Middlesex and Yorkshire captains seem able to win The Ashes? I hope we do this time, but if not, we should reflect on the Old Trafford game when we just managed to bowl our 98 overs for the final day. One extra over per hour (still below the County Championship requirement), or one extra ball per bowler per hour, would have left Australia's last pair to face 10 not 4 overs to draw. If the Aussies came near, we could have bowled 3 overs in the last hour, in the best traditions of King Brian, and still got through our 98. None of the 'Grandees' on TV or TMS seem to have mentioned this. Move over Benaud, et al.!”
Just pleased to be there I received this from Allen Bruton I did wonder how I qualified for an invite to the Googlies Contributors lunch, but after careful consideration realised that I did have previous form for such appearances. This is perhaps best illustrated by four appearances in Middlesex Cup Finals in the seventies where examination of the records will probably confirm this amounted to more than the total number of runs that I compiled in these matches. My sole highlight was when Don Wallis cunningly persuaded a Winchmore Hill batsman to belt a gentle half volley into my midriff at mid-off too powerfully for me take evasive action. Thus this poor chap departed “caught Bruton bowled Wallis”, a dismissal surely second only to “stumped Hayward bowled James”.
A less glorious final than “The year of the Bruton Catch” was also against Winchmore Hill when padded up to go in at number four, I finally entered at number ten to the non-strikers end for the last ball of the innings. The theory, presumably, was that being some thirty years younger than Ossie Burton I would be quicker should we need to run a bye to the keeper. Possibly debatable but at least this thinking rescued me from the ignominy of being a non-bowling number eleven.
Away from these finals there were occasions when my batting position made the reverse journey. These tended to be at Edmonton or Brentham when names like Dunn, Reid, McWilliam and Clark featured in the opposition line up. Coincidentally the rapidity of my ascent up the order seemed to be matched by the descent of the Legendary Len Stubbs.
Finally, with regards Bob Peach’s latest brain teaser I am not one of the thirty three South Hampstead players who have played first class cricket.
Boycott Matters
I hear that in the new Geoff Boycott autobiography he discloses that he thinks that golf would have been a more suitable sport for him to have played since he would have been able to practice it both on his own and all the year round. This reminded me of the story about Norman Cooper who, apparently, in the dead of winter would dress up in his full wicket keeping kit and practice his positioning and taking of the ball in front of the bedroom mirror. If he really did put on his studded boots for this exercise he must have made a terrible mess of the carpet when he rehearsed his takes down the leg side. And he must have given his elderly neighbour a life threatening shock if she called round to borrow a cup of sugar.
Rinse and New Rinse
On the first day of the Lords test I went to Guildford with the Great Jack Morgan to see the second day of Surrey v Kent in the County Championship. We were catching up on various matters when I reported that Melvyn Betts had bowled Rinse in the Twenty20 game that I had watched with the Professor. He responded aggressively “How do you know that it was Rinse? Doesn’t all bowling get hit in Dumberer cricket?” I was into an explanation of him being driven hard and far when I realised that he did have a point and perhaps the traditional concept of Rinse had to be revised.
There was a time when it was easy to tell if a bowler was bowling Rinse. His length or width varied and the batsman dispatched the ball to the boundary. Nowadays there is likely to be a sweeper on the boundary and so the delivery will only concede one run. So this turns out not to be such a bad ball after all. But this is just the beginning of the problem. It’s all too easy to say that one day cricket sees a plethora of slogging of good length bowling which makes it difficult to say whether the bowler is bowling Rinse or not, although increasingly this is more likely to be bona fide shots and not slogs. Now we have the situation where the likes of Freddie and KP in test matches actually want a straight good length ball that they can hit through and, as often as not, out of the ground.
So how do you coach a young fast bowler nowadays? If you tell him to bowl line and length the chances are that he will refer you to the footage of Freddie at Edgbaston and say that that was the Rinse he kept hitting for six.
It seems strange but we may have to go through a whole range of odd ball bowling in an attempt by bowlers to disguise their commitment to the New Rinse bowling, i.e. line and length. When I was at Lords for the Twenty20 match I was surprised by the length of Styris’ run up. It was also noteworthy in that he doesn’t accelerate on his approach to the crease. I noticed in the one-day internationals that Collingwood does the same. At first I was skeptical as to the motives for this, thinking that perhaps that they thought that having a long run intimidates the batsmen. But it is more likely that it is being adopted as part of the ploy to disguise the fact that they are bowling New Rinse. Maybe they are trying to puzzle the batsmen on the assumption that they are going to bowl fast and so they effectively specialise in slower balls, in fact to the exclusion of quicker ones.
At the other end of the scale Paul Weekes has dispensed with a run up completely and delivers his off spinners in the style of Bomber Wells.
The Great Jack Morgan suggested “Many batters do not find it easy to judge the pace of straight full-pitched deliveries. Shortness or wideness gives the batsman much more chance to assess the ball correctly, but variations of pace when bowling full and straight can be very effective, hence the popularity of slower balls and yorkers. Collingwood claims to bowl three different slower balls. The logical conclusion seems to be that each bowler must have a flexible plan, not only for each competition, but also for each individual batman. This would probably be beyond your average bowler, so this is where the likes of Buchanan, Fletcher, and Emburey earn their corn by studying videos and coming up with a strategy for each of their charges. Possibly this has already happened?”
This sounded good but it still didn’t confirm whether line and length was New Rinse. I was getting desperate for a solution to this puzzle when I found myself sitting next to Alan Flipper Seal at dinner. He recently came out of retirement and has been bowling off his full sixteen pace run up. Apparently his accuracy has remained unwavering but his knees have been giving him some serious post match gyp. However, he explained that there is absolutely no alternative to bowling line and length. But, the secret is that you must develop some lateral movement either in the air or off the wicket. So there we have it. I should have asked a bowler in the first place.
The Lager Lounge When I was at Lords for the sellout Twenty20 game between Middlesex and Surrey I noticed outside the crowded bar areas, beneath the grandstand, some vendors with tanks in the form of backpacks. The tanks apparently contained Fosters Lager and had flexible pipes connected to them. These ambulatory vendors were able to dispense their disgusting liquids into plastic tumblers on the hoof, as it were. I drew the Professor’s attention to this vulgar development and we concluded that in this age of instant cricket it was perhaps a natural development in that it enabled the beer drinker to obtain a pint without the need to visit a bar.
However, one shudders to think what the logical progression of this lamentable trend will be. If the process is designed to eliminate intermediate steps the plastic beakers could be the next to go with the vendors dispensing straight from the nozzle down the throats of rows of lager swilling louts. Ultimately the drinkers will be invited to the Gents where this process can be enacted alongside the urinals and the punters will be able to piss it straight out without it having touched the sides, so to speak.
Middlesex League Matters Don Shelley who is known to many of us as a sometime scorer for Ealing and Shepherds Bush is now the scorer for the county side. One of his other duties is to maintain the records of the Middlesex County League. He sends out a weekly email of the results and tables. Ian Rocker Robinson has kindly started to forward this to me and so I am surprisingly well versed these days in the results and star performers in the league.
On the final weekend of the season I was pleasantly surprised to see that in their match against Hornsey South Hampstead amassed a remarkable 313 for 2 dec. from 49 overs, with Zia Sialvi scoring 117 and James Williams scoring 104 not out. The match finished in a draw with Hornsey scoring 220 for 6.
I know that many readers are not in touch with their former clubs currently and so I thought that it would be of interest to print the final Middlesex League tables:
Division 1 Division 2 Division 3
Ealing Brentham Wembley
Brondesbury Uxbridge Harrow
Stanmore Southgate Acton
Teddington Hornsey Kenton
Hampstead Shepherds Bush Harrow Town
Richmond Enfield Highgate
Winchmore Hill South Hampstead North London
Finchley Barnes Barnet
Eastcote North Middlesex Wycombe House
Ickenham Barclays Bessborough
In each case the top two are promoted and the bottom two relegated. This is the situation for First XIs, the seconds and thirds have their own leagues.
Dream Team Robin Ager sent me this interesting side composed of players he had played against in the early sixties when he played for Middlesex Grammar Schools, Nottinghamshire 2nds and Surrey 2nds:
Dennis Amiss
Phil Sharpe
Bill Edrich
Tom Graveney
John Hampshire
Chris Balderstone
Jack Birkenshaw
Don Wilson
Bob Taylor
Fred Rumsey
Jeff Jones.
Rangers Matters There have been some extraordinary goings on at Loftus Road this season featuring pre-match stick-ups and weekly Mafia involvement accusations. The latest development is that Gianni Paladini has recently been installed as Chairman. He is a FIFA registered players agent and the plot will thicken as he signs new players to the squad and lines the pockets of his pals in the trade. One mystery is solved for me. The Rangers came out of administration on the back of a £10 million loan from a Panama based company. So that’s OK, nothing fishy there.
EBay The following items have recently been seen for sale on eBay: Bill Hart’s correspondence with High Wycombe CC
Alan Cox’s wafer thin pads
Steve Thompson’s Afro hair comb
Don Wallis’ Ford Anglia
Alexander Park CC
John Allport’s A-Z
Ossie Burton’s birth certificate
Wally Cambridge’s beer tankard
Peter Huntley’s plimsoles
Tubby Peach’s snuff box
David Jukes’ little black book
Let me know if you spot any interesting items that I can bid on.
Strange Elevens
Last month’s side are wearing celestial Jazz Hats since they all passed away during 2004. The Great Jack Morgan has come up with this bunch to tease you with:
Paul Smith
Stephen Fleming
Graham Wagg
Ian Botham
Dermot Reeve
Keith Piper (w/k)
Dion Nash
Shane Warne
Matthew Hart
Asim Butt
Ed Giddins
All you have to do is identify which hat fits them all.
Earlier Editions
I will be please to email you a copy of the earlier editions of Googlies & Chinamen, if you missed or have mislaid them. If you received this edition through a third party, please send me your email address to ensure that you get on the main mailing list for future editions.
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An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 34
October 2005
And so to Karachi
Long-term readers of this journal will have quickly realized that the best news about winning the Ashes is that the infinitely tedious Project Salvation comes to its natural conclusion. We pledged to keep the Project going until the Ashes had been recovered and that has now been achieved quicker than any of the contributors to the debate had expected. But now we can pull the covers over this topic. The Great Jack Morgan will no longer have to cringe at the Professor’s xenophobic outbursts and no more need be heard of Bob Willis’ screwball ideas to save English cricket.
A new era has dawned which says goodbye to Thorpey, as they called him at the Oval, and almost certainly Mark Butcher who will find the road back almost impossible. However, he should feel secure in his position as captain of Surrey, at least for the time being, since his Dad is now his boss.
Australia has taken their loss out on the squad by axing Gillespie, Hayden and Martyn for the super test against the World XI. England is sticking with the same batsmen for their tour of Pakistan in November, with only Collingwood as cover. This seems overly ballsy unless they see Prior, the reserve wicket keeper, as additional cover. It also seems particularly hard on Shah who cannot have done more in the Championship to earn a tour place.
A clear message has been sent to English quick bowlers - forget your test aspirations unless you can bowl at over 90mph. At the Oval they went as far as going in with only four bowlers, leaving Anderson out, and only got away with it because of the rain interruptions. Tremlett is being groomed as the next Harmison, the rest (Kirtley, Lewis, Mahmood, Saggers & Bicknell) have been ignored.
The poor state of English spin bowling is reflected in the selection of Udal as cover for Giles. Graveney announced that he had been selected because he had the best returns of a spinner this season. His average may have been respectable but he only managed to take forty-four wickets. Fred Titmus use to take that in August alone. Loudon’s selection is bold, but his returns are meager and expensive. Bowlers get better by bowling. He is unlikely to turn his arm over in anger this winter. Collingwood retains preference over Ian Blackwell, whose batting and bowling aggregates were both better in the Championship.
Which leaves us with the Teflon Taff who seems to have been born or at least selected with a golden spoon in his mouth. The selectors have plumped for Prior as his new deputy, which pretty much kills off Reid’s test career. The Great Jack Morgan and I had just about agreed on Batty as the best bet until I saw him give a more than passable imitation of the Teflon Taff in a day-nighter at Hove.
Pakistan will present a different proposition, particularly on their own soil. Saqlain and Shaoib Malik will employ their Doozras and they also have a leg spinner in Danish Kaneira. If the wickets are prepared to suit the home side the English quicks could be substantially neutralized. It will be fascinating to see how Bob Woolmer deploys Red Mist himself and there is also the explosive possibility of the Rawalpindi Express.
Where were you..? George sees the regaining of the Ashes as one of those momentous occasions in life that you will always recall where you were when the news came through
On September 12th we locked up our house near Bergerac and headed off for Montpellier where we were to spend a couple of days in the Camargue.
I had called my golf partner Keith the previous evening. Cricket is not Keith’s best sport, but he is out of work at present and a dab hand with the thumb for texting. We had just crossed the Garonne and were joining the autoroute when the first news came through: phone call: ‘Pull over, you’re not going to want to hear this: 64 for 3.’ Much shaken I took the inside lane and thought, wrongly, that if I drove carefully we wouldn’t lose any more wickets. I drove, willing the text message not to buzz. Then I decided that I had put too much on Keith’s shoulders so I called Geoff and doubled my correspondents. Farmer Geoff proved a sensational texter: ‘82-3 after 75 minutes’ (better) came through. Then ‘McGrath near hat trick. Warne just dropped Pieterson’. It went quiet for some time as we passed Toulouse and then the astonishing Carcassonne.
We stopped to eat a couple of rolls in a service station. I was bargaining on about 125-3, when through came ‘Tres30, Strs 1, Va 45, Bell 0, P’son 35*, F’toff 8, 133-5 at lunch’. This was terrible. Had Geoff been protecting me, or ignoring me? For the first time I started to do the calculations that everyone else in the country must have been doing: how many overs were to be bowled in the day? How many did we need? I figured 240. Geoff texted me again, as the sea came into view around Narbonne ‘65 overs left, P’son 4 6’s off Lee, 78no. 180 ahead’. For the first time it started to feel better, though Pieterson could easily hole out and England could fall quickly. I started to wonder how Flintoff and Harmison would bowl, when the news came through as we reached Montpellier, ‘50 overs left, P’son 100no, 217-7 ahead’. Well-done Kev, indeed, but seven? I figured we needed to bat for another 10 overs, scoring at least 30. We’d arrived at our chambre d’hote and Pauline and I went to the pool. I tried to look nonchalant. I’m afraid I splashed out on a few telephone calls at this point as the Ashes become ours and Keith rang again. The next text read P’son b McG 158 308-8. It was a bit anticlimactic after that, and I missed the ensuing farce. There were a couple more texts from my loyal friends, until a final one from Geoff saying ‘Bad light match drawn’. So a nice relaxing journey.
It was only a day or so later that I realised that England had ‘won’ this test; they would have been hot favourites had there been another day: it didn’t feel like it.
Out and About with the Professor
As you know, I have little time for the new-fangled Twenty/20 form of cricket, except that it brings paying customers in to watch professional cricketers play. However, this year a National Twenty/20 competition was launched at club level by an organisation called SportsWise. The leading light in this set-up appears to be someone called Russell Grant who is best remembered, if at all, as being an astrologer on breakfast TV - or so I'm told.
Anyway, WGCCC entered and won a couple of preliminary rounds. No one took it very seriously and I'd rather forgotten about the whole thing, but last Sunday we held the regional semi-finals and finals at our club.
We were drawn against the mighty High Wycombe in the semis and they duly arrived in their coach and with their coach and changed into their one-day coloured clothing with numbers on their backs. Our 180-6 looked a reasonable score until they got to 160-4 with three overs to go. It was then that their coach (human) was overheard saying (loudly) that it was a very nice ground and a shame that we "couldn't post a competitive score". Two wickets and 17 balls later the scores were level with the same number of wickets down. The rules then, so I'm told, determine the winner by the highest number of runs scored in the first ten overs - which was them. The story goes that the man at the crease was aware of that but had no intention of winning in anything but the grand manner, after all, they were High Wycombe. His shot into the car park would indeed have won they game had the ball not hit his off stump. Result - we win by fewer wickets down.
The regional final against Beddington saw a more conventional win and amazingly, on the 18th Sept we are all off to the Rose Bowl for the national finals: us, Droitwich (from the Midlands), Finchley (London) and the as yet undetermined team representing the North. I don't know how many sides entered, and we will doubtless get stuffed, but it has to be a great day out. Presumably Russell Grant already knows the result.
WGCCC won all their games last Saturday so the 1st XI seem (just) safe from relegation. The trouble with a 10 team league (as in the county game) - one year almost top, the next nearly down. The 3rds should win their League and the 4ths get promoted so something to celebrate.
I'm off to the C&G final next Saturday so will report back.
And a couple of weeks later he sent me this You will be delighted to know that the national club Twenty/20 Champions goes by the name of Welwyn Garden City C.C. On a beautiful late summer day at the Rose Bowl we beat Droitwich in the semi-final and Finchley in the final to lift the pot - and a pretty bloody happy lot we all were. The two semis and the final all took place on Sunday and the Rose Bowl's wicket lived up to its slow and low reputation by producing three quite low scoring games, albeit in a magnificent setting. Probably the best contest was the first semi where Finchley defended a total of 122 having looked well beaten with three overs to go. We also batted first in our semi and the pessimists (like me) felt that our 135 would not be enough, especially after 9 came from the first over. As it happened, taking wickets proved key, and after their first five, Droitwich looked to be a little thin on batting.
We fielded first in the final and Finchley looked a very strong side. A couple of their players (Jake Milton and Steve Selwood) sported names with recognisable pedigree and there were two representatives of the Hodges family. Nine came off the first five balls but happily the sixth removed the off stump. Eleven came off the next five balls with, again, a wicket off the last. 20-2 from two overs. The next 15 overs must represent some of the best out cricket our chaps have played in the last couple of years and some excellent catching and two run-outs saw Finchley all out for 95 off 17.
Anyone who has watched cricket this year knows that all hopes of steady and predictable results seldom materialise and at 7-2 after two overs things were looking grim - yet again. Time for an old head to come to the rescue and this one was on the shoulders of one Martin James who, with a not out 60, saw us home with a couple of overs to spare. It was a great day for Martin who also got runs in the first innings and whose family had all turned out in support, including brother Kevin, who of course played for Hampshire for many years.
So, all in all, a great day out. Nobody seemed to know how many teams had entered the competition. We played seven rounds so that seems to imply 128 entrants but I don't know. This was the first year and presumably, if it is judged a success, there will be more entrants in future years. To be frank, we don't give a toss - we have a nice big silver cup behind the bar and it says "National Champions" on it - so we're all feeling very smug.
One final aside. When we played the regional semi final and final, the other three sides all turned up in coloured "one-day" kit. Having got to the Rose Bowl we didn't want to appear "amateurish" and so the squad was selected early and a light and dark blue strip (including sweaters) was ordered with each player's cap number on the back (we award caps chronologically - as seen on TV!) The chap who is i/c kit had to drive to Burnley at 5 am on Saturday morning to get the strip for the Sunday and to get back in time to play in the afternoon. So there they all were, 15 players in full change kit. All the other sides played in whites.
Oh...and one last thing. Because we were in this final, we had to cancel our club match on Sunday. The opponents? Finchley.
Quiz Corner
Eric Stephens decided to put Bob Peach out of his misery by coming up with the following who have scored test double centuries on the same grounds:
Lara, St.John's, Antigua
Bradman (3 times), Brisbane, Adelaide and Headingley
Hutton, The Oval
Atapattu, Bulayayo
Miandad, Karachi.
Something tells me that this will not satisfy Bob who had in mind some other names. Meanwhile Bob has had his thinking cap on and has come up with the unlikely claim that he can name thirty-three South Hampstead members who have played first class cricket. I have been working on this challenge with Bill Hart and others. If anyone has any contributions they will be gratefully received.
Bush Matters
I have selected these notes from a longer missive sent by David Perrin, the President of Shepherds Bush
Congratulations, as the season ends, to the First Team for their highest League finish since 2001, to the Seconds and Thirds for top-half finishes, to the Fourths for their assault on promotion, and the Thirds/Fourths for reaching a Cup Final. The club spirit has been impressive this year. Let's keep it up.
On the wider front, we can report that the pavilion is currently out to tender, we are told that we will hear about planning permission for the pavilion by 3 October, and we are working on the detailed terms of Ealing council's offer of £100,000 towards the pavilion.
We have come through what could easily have been our last season much more strongly than we might have. I must thank Tim Howard and Ollie Gibbs in particular for day-to-day running of the club and for making a big financial difference. One of the many challenges still facing us is to run and expand the cricket colts next season, as we will be contracted to do as part of Ealing's £100,000. Keep believing, keep enjoying the club - and to Saturday's cup finalists 'Good Luck!'
Slow Over Rates
Subscribers to the Wisden Cricketer will no doubt have seen my abridged version of the solution to slow over rates that was published in the September edition. Eric Stephens noted the cost to the English side this summer:
“You are right about this great series. Why is it that only Middlesex and Yorkshire captains seem able to win The Ashes? I hope we do this time, but if not, we should reflect on the Old Trafford game when we just managed to bowl our 98 overs for the final day. One extra over per hour (still below the County Championship requirement), or one extra ball per bowler per hour, would have left Australia's last pair to face 10 not 4 overs to draw. If the Aussies came near, we could have bowled 3 overs in the last hour, in the best traditions of King Brian, and still got through our 98. None of the 'Grandees' on TV or TMS seem to have mentioned this. Move over Benaud, et al.!”
Just pleased to be there I received this from Allen Bruton I did wonder how I qualified for an invite to the Googlies Contributors lunch, but after careful consideration realised that I did have previous form for such appearances. This is perhaps best illustrated by four appearances in Middlesex Cup Finals in the seventies where examination of the records will probably confirm this amounted to more than the total number of runs that I compiled in these matches. My sole highlight was when Don Wallis cunningly persuaded a Winchmore Hill batsman to belt a gentle half volley into my midriff at mid-off too powerfully for me take evasive action. Thus this poor chap departed “caught Bruton bowled Wallis”, a dismissal surely second only to “stumped Hayward bowled James”.
A less glorious final than “The year of the Bruton Catch” was also against Winchmore Hill when padded up to go in at number four, I finally entered at number ten to the non-strikers end for the last ball of the innings. The theory, presumably, was that being some thirty years younger than Ossie Burton I would be quicker should we need to run a bye to the keeper. Possibly debatable but at least this thinking rescued me from the ignominy of being a non-bowling number eleven.
Away from these finals there were occasions when my batting position made the reverse journey. These tended to be at Edmonton or Brentham when names like Dunn, Reid, McWilliam and Clark featured in the opposition line up. Coincidentally the rapidity of my ascent up the order seemed to be matched by the descent of the Legendary Len Stubbs.
Finally, with regards Bob Peach’s latest brain teaser I am not one of the thirty three South Hampstead players who have played first class cricket.
Boycott Matters
I hear that in the new Geoff Boycott autobiography he discloses that he thinks that golf would have been a more suitable sport for him to have played since he would have been able to practice it both on his own and all the year round. This reminded me of the story about Norman Cooper who, apparently, in the dead of winter would dress up in his full wicket keeping kit and practice his positioning and taking of the ball in front of the bedroom mirror. If he really did put on his studded boots for this exercise he must have made a terrible mess of the carpet when he rehearsed his takes down the leg side. And he must have given his elderly neighbour a life threatening shock if she called round to borrow a cup of sugar.
Rinse and New Rinse
On the first day of the Lords test I went to Guildford with the Great Jack Morgan to see the second day of Surrey v Kent in the County Championship. We were catching up on various matters when I reported that Melvyn Betts had bowled Rinse in the Twenty20 game that I had watched with the Professor. He responded aggressively “How do you know that it was Rinse? Doesn’t all bowling get hit in Dumberer cricket?” I was into an explanation of him being driven hard and far when I realised that he did have a point and perhaps the traditional concept of Rinse had to be revised.
There was a time when it was easy to tell if a bowler was bowling Rinse. His length or width varied and the batsman dispatched the ball to the boundary. Nowadays there is likely to be a sweeper on the boundary and so the delivery will only concede one run. So this turns out not to be such a bad ball after all. But this is just the beginning of the problem. It’s all too easy to say that one day cricket sees a plethora of slogging of good length bowling which makes it difficult to say whether the bowler is bowling Rinse or not, although increasingly this is more likely to be bona fide shots and not slogs. Now we have the situation where the likes of Freddie and KP in test matches actually want a straight good length ball that they can hit through and, as often as not, out of the ground.
So how do you coach a young fast bowler nowadays? If you tell him to bowl line and length the chances are that he will refer you to the footage of Freddie at Edgbaston and say that that was the Rinse he kept hitting for six.
It seems strange but we may have to go through a whole range of odd ball bowling in an attempt by bowlers to disguise their commitment to the New Rinse bowling, i.e. line and length. When I was at Lords for the Twenty20 match I was surprised by the length of Styris’ run up. It was also noteworthy in that he doesn’t accelerate on his approach to the crease. I noticed in the one-day internationals that Collingwood does the same. At first I was skeptical as to the motives for this, thinking that perhaps that they thought that having a long run intimidates the batsmen. But it is more likely that it is being adopted as part of the ploy to disguise the fact that they are bowling New Rinse. Maybe they are trying to puzzle the batsmen on the assumption that they are going to bowl fast and so they effectively specialise in slower balls, in fact to the exclusion of quicker ones.
At the other end of the scale Paul Weekes has dispensed with a run up completely and delivers his off spinners in the style of Bomber Wells.
The Great Jack Morgan suggested “Many batters do not find it easy to judge the pace of straight full-pitched deliveries. Shortness or wideness gives the batsman much more chance to assess the ball correctly, but variations of pace when bowling full and straight can be very effective, hence the popularity of slower balls and yorkers. Collingwood claims to bowl three different slower balls. The logical conclusion seems to be that each bowler must have a flexible plan, not only for each competition, but also for each individual batman. This would probably be beyond your average bowler, so this is where the likes of Buchanan, Fletcher, and Emburey earn their corn by studying videos and coming up with a strategy for each of their charges. Possibly this has already happened?”
This sounded good but it still didn’t confirm whether line and length was New Rinse. I was getting desperate for a solution to this puzzle when I found myself sitting next to Alan Flipper Seal at dinner. He recently came out of retirement and has been bowling off his full sixteen pace run up. Apparently his accuracy has remained unwavering but his knees have been giving him some serious post match gyp. However, he explained that there is absolutely no alternative to bowling line and length. But, the secret is that you must develop some lateral movement either in the air or off the wicket. So there we have it. I should have asked a bowler in the first place.
The Lager Lounge When I was at Lords for the sellout Twenty20 game between Middlesex and Surrey I noticed outside the crowded bar areas, beneath the grandstand, some vendors with tanks in the form of backpacks. The tanks apparently contained Fosters Lager and had flexible pipes connected to them. These ambulatory vendors were able to dispense their disgusting liquids into plastic tumblers on the hoof, as it were. I drew the Professor’s attention to this vulgar development and we concluded that in this age of instant cricket it was perhaps a natural development in that it enabled the beer drinker to obtain a pint without the need to visit a bar.
However, one shudders to think what the logical progression of this lamentable trend will be. If the process is designed to eliminate intermediate steps the plastic beakers could be the next to go with the vendors dispensing straight from the nozzle down the throats of rows of lager swilling louts. Ultimately the drinkers will be invited to the Gents where this process can be enacted alongside the urinals and the punters will be able to piss it straight out without it having touched the sides, so to speak.
Middlesex League Matters Don Shelley who is known to many of us as a sometime scorer for Ealing and Shepherds Bush is now the scorer for the county side. One of his other duties is to maintain the records of the Middlesex County League. He sends out a weekly email of the results and tables. Ian Rocker Robinson has kindly started to forward this to me and so I am surprisingly well versed these days in the results and star performers in the league.
On the final weekend of the season I was pleasantly surprised to see that in their match against Hornsey South Hampstead amassed a remarkable 313 for 2 dec. from 49 overs, with Zia Sialvi scoring 117 and James Williams scoring 104 not out. The match finished in a draw with Hornsey scoring 220 for 6.
I know that many readers are not in touch with their former clubs currently and so I thought that it would be of interest to print the final Middlesex League tables:
Division 1 Division 2 Division 3
Ealing Brentham Wembley
Brondesbury Uxbridge Harrow
Stanmore Southgate Acton
Teddington Hornsey Kenton
Hampstead Shepherds Bush Harrow Town
Richmond Enfield Highgate
Winchmore Hill South Hampstead North London
Finchley Barnes Barnet
Eastcote North Middlesex Wycombe House
Ickenham Barclays Bessborough
In each case the top two are promoted and the bottom two relegated. This is the situation for First XIs, the seconds and thirds have their own leagues.
Dream Team Robin Ager sent me this interesting side composed of players he had played against in the early sixties when he played for Middlesex Grammar Schools, Nottinghamshire 2nds and Surrey 2nds:
Dennis Amiss
Phil Sharpe
Bill Edrich
Tom Graveney
John Hampshire
Chris Balderstone
Jack Birkenshaw
Don Wilson
Bob Taylor
Fred Rumsey
Jeff Jones.
Rangers Matters There have been some extraordinary goings on at Loftus Road this season featuring pre-match stick-ups and weekly Mafia involvement accusations. The latest development is that Gianni Paladini has recently been installed as Chairman. He is a FIFA registered players agent and the plot will thicken as he signs new players to the squad and lines the pockets of his pals in the trade. One mystery is solved for me. The Rangers came out of administration on the back of a £10 million loan from a Panama based company. So that’s OK, nothing fishy there.
EBay The following items have recently been seen for sale on eBay: Bill Hart’s correspondence with High Wycombe CC
Alan Cox’s wafer thin pads
Steve Thompson’s Afro hair comb
Don Wallis’ Ford Anglia
Alexander Park CC
John Allport’s A-Z
Ossie Burton’s birth certificate
Wally Cambridge’s beer tankard
Peter Huntley’s plimsoles
Tubby Peach’s snuff box
David Jukes’ little black book
Let me know if you spot any interesting items that I can bid on.
Strange Elevens
Last month’s side are wearing celestial Jazz Hats since they all passed away during 2004. The Great Jack Morgan has come up with this bunch to tease you with:
Paul Smith
Stephen Fleming
Graham Wagg
Ian Botham
Dermot Reeve
Keith Piper (w/k)
Dion Nash
Shane Warne
Matthew Hart
Asim Butt
Ed Giddins
All you have to do is identify which hat fits them all.
Earlier Editions
I will be please to email you a copy of the earlier editions of Googlies & Chinamen, if you missed or have mislaid them. If you received this edition through a third party, please send me your email address to ensure that you get on the main mailing list for future editions.
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