GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 35
November 2005
South Hampstead and Shepherds Bush Matters
The Great Jack Morgan bumped into Bill Jarvis, the President of the Bush, at the Oval for the relegation battle that saw Surrey go down
“Bill seemed very concerned about South Hampstead. He said that at the start of the first team game against the Bush, SH only had six men at the ground and although they eventually got eleven onto the pitch, three of them were non-members and so could not bat or bowl. Similarly, for the third eleven cup final against the Bush, they could only raise eight at the start of the match. While the Bush had a successful second half of the season, leaving relegation worries well behind, South Hampstead went in the opposite direction. Like Perrin, he was fairly upbeat about the Bush: they have the best pitch in the league, they regularly field four and even five teams on Saturdays and finance is now in place to build the pavilion, though he is unhappy about the strings attached by Ealing council: apparently, for example, they have got to start running kids’ footy in the winter!
Northants Matters I received the following note from Tom Ferguson I have been a Northamptonshire supporter since seeing the first over that Frank Tyson bowled against the 1953 Australians at Wantage Road accompanied by a sharp intake of breath from the capacity crowd. This was followed by a Schoolboy season ticket at 10/- and Junior membership for £1. In the early sixties I moved North to work with computers, although not before I played against Colin Milburn (at rugby not cricket!). I can dispel a couple of myths about Ollie - those who said he was clumsy and light on his feet. He was agile due to playing a lot of squash but when he ran you could hear the whole buffalo herd.
I'm now retired and still following the stuttering advances of Northants from a distance. Kepler seems to doing a remarkable job changing them from a team (no money, no confidence, no hope) that could not win a match in the first half of the season to one that only the weather could beat in the second half. His son Riki could be the wicket-keeping batsman England is looking for. You heard it first from me.
I collect cricket books, ancient and modern, and am currently researching the life of George Thompson the Northants/England all rounder of the Golden Age.
Leslie Bateman The Professor sent this obituary to members and friends of WGCCC
Members will by now know of the death, last Wednesday, of Leslie Bateman.
Leslie had been in frail health for a number of years and had not been able to come to the Club for some time. I wrote to him once or twice a year to keep him up-to-date with events and his son, Graham, told me that he read the letters to his father, who appreciated being informed about what was happening and how we were all doing.
Leslie’s funeral will be on Friday 28th October, at 2.45 pm, at Knebworth Crematorium.
I joined the Club in 1971, which was just about the time when Leslie had finished playing. I think he may have put on the whites a couple of times after that but I never actually played with him. However, his influence, to say the least, was everywhere in the Club at that time. Leslie had been President of the Club, and Captain of the Ist XI for a number of years. He was a regular for the County for a period from the end of the Second World War to 1958, and joint holder (together with another ex-WGCCC player) of what I believe is still the record highest partnership for any wicket. He was, above all, a consummate captain. When George Arthur and I were asked to select the “Best Ever WGCCC Team” for the 75th Anniversary brochure we had no difficulty at all in appointing Leslie as the captain. In short, Leslie was a very fine cricketer indeed.
My memories of him are all, as I indicated, conversational…but what interesting conversations! Leslie had a particularly clipped authoritative way of speaking. A short, incisive sentence generally summed up just about all there was to say about any situation and invariably ended with an interrogative “eh?” George is the font for stories of Leslie’s one-line summations of the world - cricket at the start of the season, for example, is: “Sometimes wet, sometimes dry, but always bloody cold…eh?” This “eh” incidentally was not an invitation to debate – the judgement was definitive.
Both of Leslie’s sons, Graham and Malcolm, played for the Club with distinction -Malcolm as Ist XI captain for several years. Graham was a gifted opening bat but not one always given to grafting out runs on a difficult track (which was all we had at Digswell at the time). My own favourite Leslie aside, which some older players will remember, was one of the many occasions that he had words with Graham. These conversations were always worth an eves-drop and I don’t ever recall Graham coming out on top. When, for example, Graham was out for a duck, he ambled into the dressing room complaining about the wicket to receive the definitive paternal advice: “You’ve no business worrying about the wicket – that’s the groundsman’s job. Your job is to score runs – and I didn’t see you get any…eh?”
You see the difficulty; there really isn’t much you can say in reply.
The pithy sentences could not however mask a great generosity of spirit, an abiding and enthusiastic interest in cricket and a lifetime dedication to our Club. We have lost a warm, wonderful character and are all the poorer for that…eh?
Trainspotters Corner
Roy Dodson sent me a page out of the Daily Telegraph with the 2005 first class averages. This sorted out two matters straight away. The first is that someone does read the Daily Telegraph after all and the second is that some of you seem to think that I am a trainspotter. I, therefore, adopted such a role and came up with the following list which I offer without comment:
Who had the better season?
Andrew Strauss 588 runs, 2 hundreds, average 29.4
or
Owais Shah 1728 runs, 7 hundreds, average 66.46
Fired:
Phil Jacques, Yorkshire 1359 runs, 4 hundreds, average 64.71
Not considered for England, again:
Mark Ramprakesh 1568 runs, 6 hundreds, average 74.66
Unlikely failures:
Craig Spearman 930 runs average 34.4
Graham Hick 911 runs average 35.03
Keepers
Chris Read 756 runs average 44.47
Jonathan Batty 961 runs average 43.68
James Foster 771 runs average 36.71
Paul Nixon 708 runs average 35.4
Mathew Prior 874 runs average 33.61
Luke Sutton 833 runs average 33.32
Steve Adshead 920 runs average 30.66
Ben Scott 442 runs average 24.55
Geraint Jones 330 runs average 23.57
Throwing pays
Muralitharan top of bowling averages by miles
Bowlers
Mark Davies 49 wickets average 16.53
Ryan Sidebotham 50 wickets average 22.64
James Kirtley 63 wickets average 24.33
Alan Richardson 57 wickets average 25.22
Jimmy Ormond 36 wickets average 27.8
James Anderson 60 wickets average 30.21
Paul Collingwood 21 wickets at 32.71
Everybody knows everybody
John Williams picked up on The Professor’s reference to Russell Grant in the last issue
You may be amused to know that Russell Grant scored for Harrow Town in the 60's - one of our players went out with his Mum for a while. HT had the occasional 1st class player - Eric Russell, Lofty Herman, Bill Wignall & Dick Hughes. Bob Peach also played at HT for a while. Also playing in the 60's was a young leg spinner from Hull called Andy Caro, who emigrated to Australia and became Kerry Packer's right hand man in the Packer revolution.
Spanish Matters
Ken Molloy used to sit next to me in Jack Harvey’s Upper Sixth Econ and was famous for arriving at school in collarless shirts, which I believe he inherited from an uncle. He would invariably be sent to Woolworth’s in East Acton to buy paper collars so that he could wear his tie in regulation manner before attending lessons. When he was there I would enthuse him with cricket and in 1965 he became a member of the Professor’s first eleven as a left arm fast medium bowler. He recently joined the Googlies fraternity from Madrid where he lives with his Spanish wife. He now sends me regular witty and other internet downloads, in fact more than Bob Denley does. I suggested that he might write an article on the state of cricket in Spain. This was his reply:
“One of the reasons cricket has not taken off in Spain is that nobody has really been able to measure the crowd’s reactions. The difficulty is trying to determine whether they doze in the afternoon because of the cricket or because it is siesta time. The other has been the confusion from the matches being played in bullrings, as they were considered most suitable in terms of shape and size for beginners. I was unable to get all the details but it had something to do with a misunderstanding over dates and times. I believe that beach cricket thrives but only on the coast.”
Absentee Journalism
Whilst he was convalescing in the summer from his heart surgery I cheered George up by sending him a two column report from the Sunday Times on the Warwickshire v Sussex match at Edgbaston by Marianne Philipps. Ms Philipps’ article ran for twelve paragraphs and included no information that could not have been gleaned from a scrutiny of the scorecard. George considers it the longest piece of Absentee Journalism uncovered to date. We assume that she popped into the town centre on the way to the match and got waylaid by an irresistible Shoe Sale for the rest of the day.
However, I should not have been so pleased with myself for spotting this. No sooner had I pressed the send button on Googlies 34 than I received this admonishment from Peter Ray for my own Absentee Journalism:
“In your latest offering, you wrote ‘On the last weekend of the season, I was pleasantly surprised to see that in their match against Hornsey, South Hampstead scored a remarkable 313 for 2 in 49 overs’ As one of the umpires, I can tell you that your feelings would have been entirely different had you actually been at the game. Hornsey turned up with a weak eleven and the bowling would have posed few difficulties for my daughter, who has not played any cricket - to the best of my knowledge - since her last innings on the beach at Woollacombe some twenty or more years ago.
Given the strength of the Hornsey side, a declaration might have been made four or five overs earlier and, instead of the first overs of "spin" coming after seam bowlers had run in for something like ninety minutes, it might have been possible for one of the three slow bowlers to open the bowling. The game finished, as you say, in a draw. It almost finished with the death through near intolerable boredom of my umpiring colleague and me. Both of us earned our fee several times over by resisting stoutly the impulse to spice the game up a bit with a few intentionally bizarre decisions.
Should I be writing this to you? Is it ethical for an umpire to do so? Probably not, but I really cannot let you get away with writing such uninformed crap about a game which caused me to feel only joy and relief that the league season had ground to its appalling end, rather than the regret that should be the proper emotion. Mercifully, not all games are like this. I actually did feel myself wondering whether all this business of breathing in and out was still worthwhile. Only the sight of some totty on the tennis courts gave me the will to carry on.”
Nouveau Umpires
When I heard from Peter Ray I immediately remembered Steve Thompson’s report that had informed us that Peter had taken up umpiring and that in his first league match had fingered eight batsmen LBW alone. I couldn’t resist, mischievously, posing him some questions about his new incarnation: How do you find umpiring? Would you call yourself bowler-friendly? Do you like to "get into the game”? This was his reply:
Umpiring - not as good as playing but better than watching. And, in the old cliché, one is putting something back, because without umpires, you cannot have a meaningful game. So, someone has to do it. And, because it is less easy than it looks - try standing up, with little bits of running or jumping, from 1.30 until 8.00 or thereabouts, with only a twenty minute break between, seventeen minutes for us, because we need to be out there ready for the game to go on; you will find it quite tiring and that's without concentrating on every single delivery - there is a bit of a challenge there to do it as well as you possibly can and to try and keep mistakes to a minimum, and that is rewarding to some degree. And if, as occasionally happens, someone says (without irony) that they think you have had a good game - not necessarily dependent on decisions having gone their way - then it gets quite close to the way it felt to play a few good shots or bowl a few decent balls.
Bowler friendly etc - as I have said often since starting to umpire, I umpire for the game and not for players. It is, and has to be, a matter of supreme indifference to me who is batting or bowling, whether they deserve runs or a wicket or not, or what the state of the game is. You must render decisions purely on the facts as you see them or sometimes - as even with Test umpires, to judge from some playbacks - don't quite manage to. When you should, of course, say a loud 'Not Out' because you should only give what you are convinced about. To do otherwise is folly because one is going to make a certain number of mistakes anyway - if only, whatever players may think, because one is human - and only with a completely impartial approach can you hope to do anything like a proper job. That's my view, anyway.
I hope that also answers your last question, if I have understood it correctly. I always dreaded umpires who wanted to get into the game - an early but doubtful call of no ball, or one short, or whatever. To me it meant that they were trying to show that they were on top of the game, in charge or whatever. It should not be necessary to do that. I do not mind games in which I am called upon to do nothing other than count to six and signal the boundaries, as long as they are played in a good spirit that, happily, is happening more frequently than was at one time the case. Maybe, because I retired, some say. Even in some closely contested games with promotion or relegation at stake I have witnessed this, this year and last. Mind you, I do not think that this means that an umpire must be like Trappist monk out there. We are all out there to enjoy ourselves and there is no law saying that an umpire cannot talk to players. I happen to think it is better if you do so to some extent. It may give you a better chance to nip problems in the bud before they escalate. As a player, I found that there were umpires who used to have a few words with me - friendly ones - and I seldom had any difficulties when they were around although I was a slightly turbulent chap at one time. So they tell me. There. That will teach you to ask questions.
Quiz Corner
At the Googlies Lunch in Southend Bob Peach claimed that he was able to list 33 members of South Hampstead who had played first class cricket. At the time this seemed ludicrous but I liaised with Bill Hart and we came up with the following sixteen:
Henry Malcolm – Middlesex, Bob Peach – Combined Services, Terry Cordaroy – Middlesex, Ron Hooker – Middlesex, Dick Richardson – Worcester, Cliff Dickeson – Northern Districts, Richard Brooks – Somerset, Ossie Burton – Barbados, Nigel Ross – Middlesex, Keith Hardie – Scotland, Nayan Doshi – Surrey, The Hon Alfred Lyttleton-Middlesex, P.Sherwell - captained S.Africa in 1905, N.Sherwell Cambridge U & Middlesex, R.Adair Scotland & Ireland, C.Pinkham Cambridge U.
At this point I broke down and asked Peach who else he had in mind. It turns out that for the past twenty years he has been a Wednesday XI Groupie and kept detailed records of all the Ringers who Ken James has had playing for the midweek side. He added these names to the list:
Members who played at least one season:
Arundan Sarkar (Bengal/India A) late 80’s, John Anderson (Victoria) SH Cap 82/83, Ricki Anderson (Essex) early 90’s, Neil Maxwell (NSW) 1988 League winners, Martin Robinson (Yorks) ditto, Tim Taylor (Lancs) late 80/90s, Brad Donellan (Notts/ Somerset) late 80/90’s, Greg Logan (NZ Province) late 80’s, Rob Nichol (NZ Province) 90’s, Martin Jean-Jaques (Hampshire/Derbyshire), Frank Le Roux (SA Province) 1970’s, Don Topley (Essex) late 80’s.
Occasionals who played at least one match:
Des Haynes (WI), Surav Ganguly (India), Adam Gilchrist (Australia), Panab Roy (India), Mohammed Khan (India), Devon Gandhi (India), Matthew Hart (NZ), Chris Lewis (Most Counties)
So, if all the above are correct, Peach’s thirty-three becomes thirty-six. This should flush the Legendary Len Stubbs out of his post Thailand slumber since he is bound to claim a spurious membership of this club.
David Mindell excused himself from inclusion in this fraternity when he sent me this: “During National Service I played for the Royal Artillery and also for Northern Command but in all honesty I don't think that these would have qualified as "first-class".” However, Bill Hart thinks that Norman Cooper may have turned out for the Navy.
There was also considerable speculation as to whether Robin Ager had gained first class experience during his time on the Notts staff. Either none of my correspondents’ collection of Wisdens went back that far or, more likely, they couldn’t be bothered to look up the relevant years. So it was left to me to ask Robin directly. He replied as follows:
“No, second team only, I'm afraid. And I was never really in consideration for the first team - even though they were propping up the table at the time! Well, to be strictly accurate, they were second from bottom in 1960, and bottom in 1961. The 1961 county handbook said, "Agar (sic) joined the staff and showed himself to be a batsman full of shots, keen to get after the bowling. He also made a reliable wicketkeeper when required." The next year: "Ager had a disappointing season, and never showed any sort of form but, in Rhodes' absences, he kept wicket extremely well." Thus was a promising career snuffed out.”
Dream Teams
In response to Robin Ager’s Dream Team of opponents from the sixties Colin Lambert sent me this:
I played with or against the following during my brief years on the edge of the Essex organisation and 13 years in the Essex County League. I have put them in a batting order of sorts but don't think it is up to Mr. Ager's standard!
Graham Gooch
Ken McEwan
Steve Waugh
Nasser Hussain
Alan Border
Derek Pringle
Brian "Tonker" Taylor
Ray East (threatened to cave my head with a bat after I was egged into bouncing him in the nets by Stuart Turner)
John Lever
Merv Hughes
Wayne Daniel (scared me witless in a "charity" game).
More Legendary Matters
I received these notes from George Arthur, a Life Member at WGCCC, who calls himself the Octogenarian
I have just read the latest output. Interesting! But most interesting was 'The Professor's contribution about the 20/twenty club final. The Octogenarian has to point out that only one member of the winning team would have been allowed to enter the field of play when WGCCC III XI were playing in the late seventies. Then 'The Octogenarian' was captain and no one got onto the field without clean boots. A supply of whitewash was available. Sadly, standards have fallen.
In previous editions The Legendary Len Stubbs has been mentioned. Before I became The Octogenarian, I played with Len Stubbs in a cricket week match at Kenley CC and made 50 while Len was smashing their bowling for 200 at the other end. The O found it a great privilege to watch from the non-striker's end and has never forgotten it. My age has doubled since then.
Irritating trends in modern cricket- Number 15 revisited, again plus numbers 33, 34,35 and 36
Paul Kilvington wrote to say that he agreed with Eric Stephens (definitely a first for Eric) about the final day of the Old test when England struggled to get 98 overs in. He continued: “ I'm not a fan of Mark Nicholas but, to be fair to him, he did suggest that England may have got more overs in had they not had to have at least three drinks intervals. In Googlies edition no 33 mention was made of the frequency of 12th men running on with drinks at any break in play possible. In that edition you also reported on the Professor’s attendance at the first day of the County Championship game at Scarborough between Yorkshire and Durham. I was there for the next two days. I can't remember whether it was the second or third day but on one of them Yorkshire took a wicket with the first ball of the day. Cue man running on with drinks for every fielder! This caused much mirth as you can imagine. It is good to see that the Yorkshire team are using so much energy in the field that they have to have a drink after just one ball! Makes you wonder how they ever make it through the day?
Meanwhile my new correspondent, Tom Ferguson, was getting hot under the collar about various matters:
Why do players wear sun block when they are indoors and the roof is on?
Why don't they wear light enhancing glasses during the day in poor light when they wear them for day/night matches?
In a limited overs match why does a batsman coming out to the non- strikers end for the last ball of the innings need a helmet?
Why do they have training sessions with rugby and footballs immediate before a match? If it is important for the batsman to see the ball as big as a football it would be better to have a net with an undersized ball and a narrow bat. Bradman used a stump and golf ball, Hammond gave demonstrations a batting against spin using the side of the bat only.
Strange XIs
It’s all now clear what you lot have been doing for the last thirty years. I have never had so many correct answers for a Strange XI. Last month’s bunch were, of course, the Junkies who can be seen at Edgbaston for their regular reunions. Steve Caley sent me the first correct answer, closely followed by Steve Thompson, John Williams and Paul Kilvington.
The Great Jack Morgan has come up with this lot to test you with this month:
Tim Robinson
Kim Barnett
Bill Athey
Matthew Maynard
Alan Wells
Chris Cowdrey
Bruce French (w/k)
Richard Ellison
Greg Thomas
David Graveney
Paul Jarvis
What Jazz Hat fits these guys?
Ashes Matters
John Williams got closer to the victorious England team than he had planned
“I went to Trafalgar Square to greet the team and afterwards I decided it was far too pleasant a day to go home and so I phoned Lord's in the hope that the Cross Arrows were playing. They were playing the Stock Exchange and when I arrived at the Nursery End at 3.30 p.m. it was teatime. I glanced to the main ground and noticed a lot of activity by the pavilion. I got to the Coronation Garden to discover that this was covered in Press. I saw Pat Murphy, Radio 5 Live, and asked him what was occurring. His one remark was had I got a camera with me. No. Then out came various members of the team in 2's & 3's culminating in a solo from the Captain. There were only about a dozen people there apart from the Press. I then decided to go and watch the cricket and was passing the Middlesex office when I noticed a small group of about 4 people hovering. And there perched on the wall, with his back to the Harris Garden, was Freddie being interviewed by Mark Austin - very coherent and lucid, but minus sunglasses. His eyes were a perfect example of "piss holes in the snow". Good on him.”
Whilst Murray Hedgcock has a final word on this summer’s activities
I told many friends at the start of the season that I would barrack as strongly as ever for the land of my birth (never mind that it is 39 years since I settled in London), but if England won the Ashes, I should be delighted. This, for the good it would do cricket in general, and the game in England especially, where its decline in schools and streets and parks has been a source of sadness over recent years.
I actually came here first in 1953, when cricket truly mattered, and you regained the Ashes after a 19-year gap - and when England did not find it necessary to hire a South African to set the nation a'buzzing. Why is England the only Test nation that uses foreign-born mercenaries? And yes, I know about Kepler Wessels - a distinct aberration. It's a real blot on your escutcheon.
Anyway, my warmest congratulations: you played the better cricket; my lot did not do themselves justice although I still think they are better than they showed. Never forget how finely balanced the series was. I just hope that some of the media frenzy rubs off on the game in the more serene setting of an ordinary, amiably boring season in 2006.
I express my distaste for all those columnists who wrote, "Never having liked cricket, I found myself to my surprise drawn to the excitement of the game at Edgbaston/Old Trafford/Trent Bridge/The Oval". And if anything summed up the decline of Dear Old England, it was the sight of those newspapers, admittedly at the redtop end of the market, which found it worth the effort to run special articles seeking to explain the game for novices.
And if you want a comprehensive, pleasingly written account of what actually happened onfield in 2005, then mention to the family that the ideal Christmas gift is David Frith's The Battle for the Ashes.
Postscript to Project Salvation
The Professor needs to correct my description in the last issue
Not sure I'm happy with the xenophobe title - particularly since I have explained at length in previous editions that my concern is with the number of players qualified to play for England which, as in the case of Pietersen, and Jones, not to mention D'Oliveira, and countless others has little to do with their country of birth. Instead of the xenophobia jibe let us hear an argument for the counties spending test match receipts on some 60 odd cricketers who are not qualified for England - and how that money might be better spent.
Rangers Matters
The Great Jack Morgan questioned whether G Paladini is the permanent Chairman. It seems that he is likely to be replaced by Antonio Caliendo who is “set to be the next chairman” according to the Guardian. “Now after a string of boardroom showdowns, the club is run by Gianni Paladini, an Italian former players’ agent and, increasingly, Antonio Caliendo, the one-time Mr Big of Italian agents who in 1991 received a 10-month suspended prison sentence for attempted corruption. Two New York-registered companies Barnaby and Wanlock, who operate from Monte Carlo, mostly own QPR. In August, following boardroom upheavals, Chairman Bill Power quit, Mark Devlin was made redundant as chief executive, and the last London-based director, Kevin McGrath, resigned last month. QPR’s directors now are Paladini, the former Brazil captain Dunga, representing Barnaby, and Gualtiero Trucco, a 34-year-old based in Monte Carlo, representing Wanlock.”
This should set all our minds at rest.
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 35
November 2005
South Hampstead and Shepherds Bush Matters
The Great Jack Morgan bumped into Bill Jarvis, the President of the Bush, at the Oval for the relegation battle that saw Surrey go down
“Bill seemed very concerned about South Hampstead. He said that at the start of the first team game against the Bush, SH only had six men at the ground and although they eventually got eleven onto the pitch, three of them were non-members and so could not bat or bowl. Similarly, for the third eleven cup final against the Bush, they could only raise eight at the start of the match. While the Bush had a successful second half of the season, leaving relegation worries well behind, South Hampstead went in the opposite direction. Like Perrin, he was fairly upbeat about the Bush: they have the best pitch in the league, they regularly field four and even five teams on Saturdays and finance is now in place to build the pavilion, though he is unhappy about the strings attached by Ealing council: apparently, for example, they have got to start running kids’ footy in the winter!
Northants Matters I received the following note from Tom Ferguson I have been a Northamptonshire supporter since seeing the first over that Frank Tyson bowled against the 1953 Australians at Wantage Road accompanied by a sharp intake of breath from the capacity crowd. This was followed by a Schoolboy season ticket at 10/- and Junior membership for £1. In the early sixties I moved North to work with computers, although not before I played against Colin Milburn (at rugby not cricket!). I can dispel a couple of myths about Ollie - those who said he was clumsy and light on his feet. He was agile due to playing a lot of squash but when he ran you could hear the whole buffalo herd.
I'm now retired and still following the stuttering advances of Northants from a distance. Kepler seems to doing a remarkable job changing them from a team (no money, no confidence, no hope) that could not win a match in the first half of the season to one that only the weather could beat in the second half. His son Riki could be the wicket-keeping batsman England is looking for. You heard it first from me.
I collect cricket books, ancient and modern, and am currently researching the life of George Thompson the Northants/England all rounder of the Golden Age.
Leslie Bateman The Professor sent this obituary to members and friends of WGCCC
Members will by now know of the death, last Wednesday, of Leslie Bateman.
Leslie had been in frail health for a number of years and had not been able to come to the Club for some time. I wrote to him once or twice a year to keep him up-to-date with events and his son, Graham, told me that he read the letters to his father, who appreciated being informed about what was happening and how we were all doing.
Leslie’s funeral will be on Friday 28th October, at 2.45 pm, at Knebworth Crematorium.
I joined the Club in 1971, which was just about the time when Leslie had finished playing. I think he may have put on the whites a couple of times after that but I never actually played with him. However, his influence, to say the least, was everywhere in the Club at that time. Leslie had been President of the Club, and Captain of the Ist XI for a number of years. He was a regular for the County for a period from the end of the Second World War to 1958, and joint holder (together with another ex-WGCCC player) of what I believe is still the record highest partnership for any wicket. He was, above all, a consummate captain. When George Arthur and I were asked to select the “Best Ever WGCCC Team” for the 75th Anniversary brochure we had no difficulty at all in appointing Leslie as the captain. In short, Leslie was a very fine cricketer indeed.
My memories of him are all, as I indicated, conversational…but what interesting conversations! Leslie had a particularly clipped authoritative way of speaking. A short, incisive sentence generally summed up just about all there was to say about any situation and invariably ended with an interrogative “eh?” George is the font for stories of Leslie’s one-line summations of the world - cricket at the start of the season, for example, is: “Sometimes wet, sometimes dry, but always bloody cold…eh?” This “eh” incidentally was not an invitation to debate – the judgement was definitive.
Both of Leslie’s sons, Graham and Malcolm, played for the Club with distinction -Malcolm as Ist XI captain for several years. Graham was a gifted opening bat but not one always given to grafting out runs on a difficult track (which was all we had at Digswell at the time). My own favourite Leslie aside, which some older players will remember, was one of the many occasions that he had words with Graham. These conversations were always worth an eves-drop and I don’t ever recall Graham coming out on top. When, for example, Graham was out for a duck, he ambled into the dressing room complaining about the wicket to receive the definitive paternal advice: “You’ve no business worrying about the wicket – that’s the groundsman’s job. Your job is to score runs – and I didn’t see you get any…eh?”
You see the difficulty; there really isn’t much you can say in reply.
The pithy sentences could not however mask a great generosity of spirit, an abiding and enthusiastic interest in cricket and a lifetime dedication to our Club. We have lost a warm, wonderful character and are all the poorer for that…eh?
Trainspotters Corner
Roy Dodson sent me a page out of the Daily Telegraph with the 2005 first class averages. This sorted out two matters straight away. The first is that someone does read the Daily Telegraph after all and the second is that some of you seem to think that I am a trainspotter. I, therefore, adopted such a role and came up with the following list which I offer without comment:
Who had the better season?
Andrew Strauss 588 runs, 2 hundreds, average 29.4
or
Owais Shah 1728 runs, 7 hundreds, average 66.46
Fired:
Phil Jacques, Yorkshire 1359 runs, 4 hundreds, average 64.71
Not considered for England, again:
Mark Ramprakesh 1568 runs, 6 hundreds, average 74.66
Unlikely failures:
Craig Spearman 930 runs average 34.4
Graham Hick 911 runs average 35.03
Keepers
Chris Read 756 runs average 44.47
Jonathan Batty 961 runs average 43.68
James Foster 771 runs average 36.71
Paul Nixon 708 runs average 35.4
Mathew Prior 874 runs average 33.61
Luke Sutton 833 runs average 33.32
Steve Adshead 920 runs average 30.66
Ben Scott 442 runs average 24.55
Geraint Jones 330 runs average 23.57
Throwing pays
Muralitharan top of bowling averages by miles
Bowlers
Mark Davies 49 wickets average 16.53
Ryan Sidebotham 50 wickets average 22.64
James Kirtley 63 wickets average 24.33
Alan Richardson 57 wickets average 25.22
Jimmy Ormond 36 wickets average 27.8
James Anderson 60 wickets average 30.21
Paul Collingwood 21 wickets at 32.71
Everybody knows everybody
John Williams picked up on The Professor’s reference to Russell Grant in the last issue
You may be amused to know that Russell Grant scored for Harrow Town in the 60's - one of our players went out with his Mum for a while. HT had the occasional 1st class player - Eric Russell, Lofty Herman, Bill Wignall & Dick Hughes. Bob Peach also played at HT for a while. Also playing in the 60's was a young leg spinner from Hull called Andy Caro, who emigrated to Australia and became Kerry Packer's right hand man in the Packer revolution.
Spanish Matters
Ken Molloy used to sit next to me in Jack Harvey’s Upper Sixth Econ and was famous for arriving at school in collarless shirts, which I believe he inherited from an uncle. He would invariably be sent to Woolworth’s in East Acton to buy paper collars so that he could wear his tie in regulation manner before attending lessons. When he was there I would enthuse him with cricket and in 1965 he became a member of the Professor’s first eleven as a left arm fast medium bowler. He recently joined the Googlies fraternity from Madrid where he lives with his Spanish wife. He now sends me regular witty and other internet downloads, in fact more than Bob Denley does. I suggested that he might write an article on the state of cricket in Spain. This was his reply:
“One of the reasons cricket has not taken off in Spain is that nobody has really been able to measure the crowd’s reactions. The difficulty is trying to determine whether they doze in the afternoon because of the cricket or because it is siesta time. The other has been the confusion from the matches being played in bullrings, as they were considered most suitable in terms of shape and size for beginners. I was unable to get all the details but it had something to do with a misunderstanding over dates and times. I believe that beach cricket thrives but only on the coast.”
Absentee Journalism
Whilst he was convalescing in the summer from his heart surgery I cheered George up by sending him a two column report from the Sunday Times on the Warwickshire v Sussex match at Edgbaston by Marianne Philipps. Ms Philipps’ article ran for twelve paragraphs and included no information that could not have been gleaned from a scrutiny of the scorecard. George considers it the longest piece of Absentee Journalism uncovered to date. We assume that she popped into the town centre on the way to the match and got waylaid by an irresistible Shoe Sale for the rest of the day.
However, I should not have been so pleased with myself for spotting this. No sooner had I pressed the send button on Googlies 34 than I received this admonishment from Peter Ray for my own Absentee Journalism:
“In your latest offering, you wrote ‘On the last weekend of the season, I was pleasantly surprised to see that in their match against Hornsey, South Hampstead scored a remarkable 313 for 2 in 49 overs’ As one of the umpires, I can tell you that your feelings would have been entirely different had you actually been at the game. Hornsey turned up with a weak eleven and the bowling would have posed few difficulties for my daughter, who has not played any cricket - to the best of my knowledge - since her last innings on the beach at Woollacombe some twenty or more years ago.
Given the strength of the Hornsey side, a declaration might have been made four or five overs earlier and, instead of the first overs of "spin" coming after seam bowlers had run in for something like ninety minutes, it might have been possible for one of the three slow bowlers to open the bowling. The game finished, as you say, in a draw. It almost finished with the death through near intolerable boredom of my umpiring colleague and me. Both of us earned our fee several times over by resisting stoutly the impulse to spice the game up a bit with a few intentionally bizarre decisions.
Should I be writing this to you? Is it ethical for an umpire to do so? Probably not, but I really cannot let you get away with writing such uninformed crap about a game which caused me to feel only joy and relief that the league season had ground to its appalling end, rather than the regret that should be the proper emotion. Mercifully, not all games are like this. I actually did feel myself wondering whether all this business of breathing in and out was still worthwhile. Only the sight of some totty on the tennis courts gave me the will to carry on.”
Nouveau Umpires
When I heard from Peter Ray I immediately remembered Steve Thompson’s report that had informed us that Peter had taken up umpiring and that in his first league match had fingered eight batsmen LBW alone. I couldn’t resist, mischievously, posing him some questions about his new incarnation: How do you find umpiring? Would you call yourself bowler-friendly? Do you like to "get into the game”? This was his reply:
Umpiring - not as good as playing but better than watching. And, in the old cliché, one is putting something back, because without umpires, you cannot have a meaningful game. So, someone has to do it. And, because it is less easy than it looks - try standing up, with little bits of running or jumping, from 1.30 until 8.00 or thereabouts, with only a twenty minute break between, seventeen minutes for us, because we need to be out there ready for the game to go on; you will find it quite tiring and that's without concentrating on every single delivery - there is a bit of a challenge there to do it as well as you possibly can and to try and keep mistakes to a minimum, and that is rewarding to some degree. And if, as occasionally happens, someone says (without irony) that they think you have had a good game - not necessarily dependent on decisions having gone their way - then it gets quite close to the way it felt to play a few good shots or bowl a few decent balls.
Bowler friendly etc - as I have said often since starting to umpire, I umpire for the game and not for players. It is, and has to be, a matter of supreme indifference to me who is batting or bowling, whether they deserve runs or a wicket or not, or what the state of the game is. You must render decisions purely on the facts as you see them or sometimes - as even with Test umpires, to judge from some playbacks - don't quite manage to. When you should, of course, say a loud 'Not Out' because you should only give what you are convinced about. To do otherwise is folly because one is going to make a certain number of mistakes anyway - if only, whatever players may think, because one is human - and only with a completely impartial approach can you hope to do anything like a proper job. That's my view, anyway.
I hope that also answers your last question, if I have understood it correctly. I always dreaded umpires who wanted to get into the game - an early but doubtful call of no ball, or one short, or whatever. To me it meant that they were trying to show that they were on top of the game, in charge or whatever. It should not be necessary to do that. I do not mind games in which I am called upon to do nothing other than count to six and signal the boundaries, as long as they are played in a good spirit that, happily, is happening more frequently than was at one time the case. Maybe, because I retired, some say. Even in some closely contested games with promotion or relegation at stake I have witnessed this, this year and last. Mind you, I do not think that this means that an umpire must be like Trappist monk out there. We are all out there to enjoy ourselves and there is no law saying that an umpire cannot talk to players. I happen to think it is better if you do so to some extent. It may give you a better chance to nip problems in the bud before they escalate. As a player, I found that there were umpires who used to have a few words with me - friendly ones - and I seldom had any difficulties when they were around although I was a slightly turbulent chap at one time. So they tell me. There. That will teach you to ask questions.
Quiz Corner
At the Googlies Lunch in Southend Bob Peach claimed that he was able to list 33 members of South Hampstead who had played first class cricket. At the time this seemed ludicrous but I liaised with Bill Hart and we came up with the following sixteen:
Henry Malcolm – Middlesex, Bob Peach – Combined Services, Terry Cordaroy – Middlesex, Ron Hooker – Middlesex, Dick Richardson – Worcester, Cliff Dickeson – Northern Districts, Richard Brooks – Somerset, Ossie Burton – Barbados, Nigel Ross – Middlesex, Keith Hardie – Scotland, Nayan Doshi – Surrey, The Hon Alfred Lyttleton-Middlesex, P.Sherwell - captained S.Africa in 1905, N.Sherwell Cambridge U & Middlesex, R.Adair Scotland & Ireland, C.Pinkham Cambridge U.
At this point I broke down and asked Peach who else he had in mind. It turns out that for the past twenty years he has been a Wednesday XI Groupie and kept detailed records of all the Ringers who Ken James has had playing for the midweek side. He added these names to the list:
Members who played at least one season:
Arundan Sarkar (Bengal/India A) late 80’s, John Anderson (Victoria) SH Cap 82/83, Ricki Anderson (Essex) early 90’s, Neil Maxwell (NSW) 1988 League winners, Martin Robinson (Yorks) ditto, Tim Taylor (Lancs) late 80/90s, Brad Donellan (Notts/ Somerset) late 80/90’s, Greg Logan (NZ Province) late 80’s, Rob Nichol (NZ Province) 90’s, Martin Jean-Jaques (Hampshire/Derbyshire), Frank Le Roux (SA Province) 1970’s, Don Topley (Essex) late 80’s.
Occasionals who played at least one match:
Des Haynes (WI), Surav Ganguly (India), Adam Gilchrist (Australia), Panab Roy (India), Mohammed Khan (India), Devon Gandhi (India), Matthew Hart (NZ), Chris Lewis (Most Counties)
So, if all the above are correct, Peach’s thirty-three becomes thirty-six. This should flush the Legendary Len Stubbs out of his post Thailand slumber since he is bound to claim a spurious membership of this club.
David Mindell excused himself from inclusion in this fraternity when he sent me this: “During National Service I played for the Royal Artillery and also for Northern Command but in all honesty I don't think that these would have qualified as "first-class".” However, Bill Hart thinks that Norman Cooper may have turned out for the Navy.
There was also considerable speculation as to whether Robin Ager had gained first class experience during his time on the Notts staff. Either none of my correspondents’ collection of Wisdens went back that far or, more likely, they couldn’t be bothered to look up the relevant years. So it was left to me to ask Robin directly. He replied as follows:
“No, second team only, I'm afraid. And I was never really in consideration for the first team - even though they were propping up the table at the time! Well, to be strictly accurate, they were second from bottom in 1960, and bottom in 1961. The 1961 county handbook said, "Agar (sic) joined the staff and showed himself to be a batsman full of shots, keen to get after the bowling. He also made a reliable wicketkeeper when required." The next year: "Ager had a disappointing season, and never showed any sort of form but, in Rhodes' absences, he kept wicket extremely well." Thus was a promising career snuffed out.”
Dream Teams
In response to Robin Ager’s Dream Team of opponents from the sixties Colin Lambert sent me this:
I played with or against the following during my brief years on the edge of the Essex organisation and 13 years in the Essex County League. I have put them in a batting order of sorts but don't think it is up to Mr. Ager's standard!
Graham Gooch
Ken McEwan
Steve Waugh
Nasser Hussain
Alan Border
Derek Pringle
Brian "Tonker" Taylor
Ray East (threatened to cave my head with a bat after I was egged into bouncing him in the nets by Stuart Turner)
John Lever
Merv Hughes
Wayne Daniel (scared me witless in a "charity" game).
More Legendary Matters
I received these notes from George Arthur, a Life Member at WGCCC, who calls himself the Octogenarian
I have just read the latest output. Interesting! But most interesting was 'The Professor's contribution about the 20/twenty club final. The Octogenarian has to point out that only one member of the winning team would have been allowed to enter the field of play when WGCCC III XI were playing in the late seventies. Then 'The Octogenarian' was captain and no one got onto the field without clean boots. A supply of whitewash was available. Sadly, standards have fallen.
In previous editions The Legendary Len Stubbs has been mentioned. Before I became The Octogenarian, I played with Len Stubbs in a cricket week match at Kenley CC and made 50 while Len was smashing their bowling for 200 at the other end. The O found it a great privilege to watch from the non-striker's end and has never forgotten it. My age has doubled since then.
Irritating trends in modern cricket- Number 15 revisited, again plus numbers 33, 34,35 and 36
Paul Kilvington wrote to say that he agreed with Eric Stephens (definitely a first for Eric) about the final day of the Old test when England struggled to get 98 overs in. He continued: “ I'm not a fan of Mark Nicholas but, to be fair to him, he did suggest that England may have got more overs in had they not had to have at least three drinks intervals. In Googlies edition no 33 mention was made of the frequency of 12th men running on with drinks at any break in play possible. In that edition you also reported on the Professor’s attendance at the first day of the County Championship game at Scarborough between Yorkshire and Durham. I was there for the next two days. I can't remember whether it was the second or third day but on one of them Yorkshire took a wicket with the first ball of the day. Cue man running on with drinks for every fielder! This caused much mirth as you can imagine. It is good to see that the Yorkshire team are using so much energy in the field that they have to have a drink after just one ball! Makes you wonder how they ever make it through the day?
Meanwhile my new correspondent, Tom Ferguson, was getting hot under the collar about various matters:
Why do players wear sun block when they are indoors and the roof is on?
Why don't they wear light enhancing glasses during the day in poor light when they wear them for day/night matches?
In a limited overs match why does a batsman coming out to the non- strikers end for the last ball of the innings need a helmet?
Why do they have training sessions with rugby and footballs immediate before a match? If it is important for the batsman to see the ball as big as a football it would be better to have a net with an undersized ball and a narrow bat. Bradman used a stump and golf ball, Hammond gave demonstrations a batting against spin using the side of the bat only.
Strange XIs
It’s all now clear what you lot have been doing for the last thirty years. I have never had so many correct answers for a Strange XI. Last month’s bunch were, of course, the Junkies who can be seen at Edgbaston for their regular reunions. Steve Caley sent me the first correct answer, closely followed by Steve Thompson, John Williams and Paul Kilvington.
The Great Jack Morgan has come up with this lot to test you with this month:
Tim Robinson
Kim Barnett
Bill Athey
Matthew Maynard
Alan Wells
Chris Cowdrey
Bruce French (w/k)
Richard Ellison
Greg Thomas
David Graveney
Paul Jarvis
What Jazz Hat fits these guys?
Ashes Matters
John Williams got closer to the victorious England team than he had planned
“I went to Trafalgar Square to greet the team and afterwards I decided it was far too pleasant a day to go home and so I phoned Lord's in the hope that the Cross Arrows were playing. They were playing the Stock Exchange and when I arrived at the Nursery End at 3.30 p.m. it was teatime. I glanced to the main ground and noticed a lot of activity by the pavilion. I got to the Coronation Garden to discover that this was covered in Press. I saw Pat Murphy, Radio 5 Live, and asked him what was occurring. His one remark was had I got a camera with me. No. Then out came various members of the team in 2's & 3's culminating in a solo from the Captain. There were only about a dozen people there apart from the Press. I then decided to go and watch the cricket and was passing the Middlesex office when I noticed a small group of about 4 people hovering. And there perched on the wall, with his back to the Harris Garden, was Freddie being interviewed by Mark Austin - very coherent and lucid, but minus sunglasses. His eyes were a perfect example of "piss holes in the snow". Good on him.”
Whilst Murray Hedgcock has a final word on this summer’s activities
I told many friends at the start of the season that I would barrack as strongly as ever for the land of my birth (never mind that it is 39 years since I settled in London), but if England won the Ashes, I should be delighted. This, for the good it would do cricket in general, and the game in England especially, where its decline in schools and streets and parks has been a source of sadness over recent years.
I actually came here first in 1953, when cricket truly mattered, and you regained the Ashes after a 19-year gap - and when England did not find it necessary to hire a South African to set the nation a'buzzing. Why is England the only Test nation that uses foreign-born mercenaries? And yes, I know about Kepler Wessels - a distinct aberration. It's a real blot on your escutcheon.
Anyway, my warmest congratulations: you played the better cricket; my lot did not do themselves justice although I still think they are better than they showed. Never forget how finely balanced the series was. I just hope that some of the media frenzy rubs off on the game in the more serene setting of an ordinary, amiably boring season in 2006.
I express my distaste for all those columnists who wrote, "Never having liked cricket, I found myself to my surprise drawn to the excitement of the game at Edgbaston/Old Trafford/Trent Bridge/The Oval". And if anything summed up the decline of Dear Old England, it was the sight of those newspapers, admittedly at the redtop end of the market, which found it worth the effort to run special articles seeking to explain the game for novices.
And if you want a comprehensive, pleasingly written account of what actually happened onfield in 2005, then mention to the family that the ideal Christmas gift is David Frith's The Battle for the Ashes.
Postscript to Project Salvation
The Professor needs to correct my description in the last issue
Not sure I'm happy with the xenophobe title - particularly since I have explained at length in previous editions that my concern is with the number of players qualified to play for England which, as in the case of Pietersen, and Jones, not to mention D'Oliveira, and countless others has little to do with their country of birth. Instead of the xenophobia jibe let us hear an argument for the counties spending test match receipts on some 60 odd cricketers who are not qualified for England - and how that money might be better spent.
Rangers Matters
The Great Jack Morgan questioned whether G Paladini is the permanent Chairman. It seems that he is likely to be replaced by Antonio Caliendo who is “set to be the next chairman” according to the Guardian. “Now after a string of boardroom showdowns, the club is run by Gianni Paladini, an Italian former players’ agent and, increasingly, Antonio Caliendo, the one-time Mr Big of Italian agents who in 1991 received a 10-month suspended prison sentence for attempted corruption. Two New York-registered companies Barnaby and Wanlock, who operate from Monte Carlo, mostly own QPR. In August, following boardroom upheavals, Chairman Bill Power quit, Mark Devlin was made redundant as chief executive, and the last London-based director, Kevin McGrath, resigned last month. QPR’s directors now are Paladini, the former Brazil captain Dunga, representing Barnaby, and Gualtiero Trucco, a 34-year-old based in Monte Carlo, representing Wanlock.”
This should set all our minds at rest.
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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