GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 37
January 2006
Another Dose of Tour Madness
In the very first issue of this august publication I introduced you to the concept of Tour Madness. I charitably put it down to the consumption of lite beers rather than the innate capacity of professional cricketers and their management to come up with screwball theories that they persuade themselves eventually to put into practice. The England tour of Pakistan proved no exception to this phenomenon and came up with the usual crop of harebrained ideas that would have been better left unfulfilled back in the five star hotel room.
The England management always believe that twenty four hours in foreign sun will cure all ills and as usual they could not resist including in their jaunt some of their favourite brethren who were not fit for the toils ahead. They sensibly left Jones the Ball behind but took along Peg Leg, Gilo and KP who were all carrying injuries that would have, and indeed did, rule out the likes of Owais Shah. These valiant warriors one by one succumbed to recurrences of their injuries and were all sent back to Blighty for an early Christmas that left the remaining group unbalanced and ill equipped for the task in hand.
Sooner or later England tour captains decide that to overcome their weaknesses they should put the opposition in. However wrong they know this to be they still convince themselves that this time it is the right thing to do. Banger was there in Brisbane and was one of those who suffered when Nass put the Aussies in, but had he learned? No, of course not. In went the Pakis after the invaluable good luck of winning the toss at Karachi and away slid the one-day series with the hosts filling their boots to the tune of 350 plus in perfect batting conditions.
We all thought that Mathew Prior had been selected to join the tour as cover for the Teflon Taff behind the stumps. How silly of us. He apparently was first choice opening bat for the one-day internationals. Fletch of course has long wanted a wicket keeper to open the batting in this form of the game since it would facilitate playing an extra batter or bowler. You will recall that Jones himself was given an extended and doomed run in this position. But having used Prior in this role he has then selected the Teflon Taff as well, which may mean that we are covering our weakness behind the stumps with the maxim two keepers are better than one. On this basis why not play three or even four? All of this must mean that Prior is in fact the first choice to open the batting for England, at least in the one day game. Very strange. He has no experience of opening the batting even for Sussex, no pedigree of big run scoring and none of the experts even hinted at him being in the top five as possible batters for England. Fletch obviously liked the look of him in the nets. In the event he failed to reach fifty in each of his trips to the crease despite the favourable batting conditions. Key, Cook, Shah, Joyce and the rest had better cancel their plans to win caps.
James Anderson has been around the England camp for a long time and certainly long enough to know that line and length is the New Rinse. So what did he decide to bowl at Karachi when brought back to bowl at the death? Whilst Freddie bowled ten yorkers in twelve balls at the other end he served up birthday treats for Abdul Razzaq and Inzy at the other. They couldn’t believe their good fortune as they lifted the ball straight out of the slot and into the distant stands to the tune of twenty-three in one over.
It was good to see one of Googlies favourite Red Mist Men, Ian Lardarse Blackwell, back in favour. In the first two ODIs he bowled his full complement of overs and was by some way England’s most economical bowler. However, back in Fletch’s inner sanctum they don’t like slow bowlers, particularly ones slower than Gilo, and so when the stick was being handed out at Karachi in the third match Banger only gave him a few overs despite the fact that he had been once again the most economical.
And so it went on with new theories being hatched but instead of being dropped back into the barrel they had to be tried in the middle to everyone’s chagrin. The difficulties of the tour to Pakistan were clearly underestimated and have been made comprehensively harder by repeated outbursts of Tour Madness. Pakistan were no more than a mediocre side at the beginning of this tour. England made them look very strong. In fact they are still well below England in the world rankings, but it is they who are rising and England who are rapidly falling. This could become freefall in India unless they get a grip of themselves and play cricket to a consistent standard.
Qualification Time
Following the interest shown in English cricket after the Ashes victory the ECB are very concerned that the wrong type of person will be seeking tickets for next year’s test series against Sri Lanka and Pakistan. They have therefore prepared a Questionnaire, which must be completed by all applicants for tickets for the coming season’s international matches in England. It is designed to establish that the applicants are true cricket lovers and not riff raff, hoi polloi or ticket touts. The questions are as follows:
b. Drinks breaks every quarter of an hour
c. Sun glasses worn on top of caps
10. Which of the following beverages are banned from international matches in 2006?
Peach’s Thirty Three
You will recall that Ian McIntosh stretched Peach’s thirty-three first class cricketers who played for South Hampstead to an even more unlikely forty-five. I was a little surprised not to receive any communications about some of the names but probably no one cares one way or the other. However, the Great Jack Morgan could contain himself no longer and sent me this: “I have so far resisted the temptation to query the credentials of any of the players listed as having played first class cricket, but I simply have to ask for more information on a certain David Toosie, for whom I can find no evidence to support the suggestion that he represented Middlesex in a first class match. If confirmed, he could fill a gap in the Middlesex Players with Silly Names XI... he doesn’t keep wicket does he? What is your method of confirming that all these chaps have, in fact, played first class cricket?”
I am, of course, much to lazy to check these things out and certainly could not countenance maintaining a second set of Wisdens on the American continent. Bill Hart and I listed known individuals but I see no reason why Messrs Peach and McIntosh should get off so lightly with their claims. It’s quite possible that some of the individuals listed don’t even exist. I believe that Desmond Haynes scored fifty before giving his wicket away on his debut and only match for the club. Did he open with Ken James and how many had Ken scored when Des (as they called him in the dressing room) was dismissed? Does anyone know any more about the spurious appearances these forty-five made for the club?
Oh Shit moments
Steve Thompson introduces us to a familiar experience and bares his soul in the process
Three from my own experiences spring to mind. The first was in the late seventies against Finchley at South Hampstead. It was the first over of a Wills Knockout match. David Hays opened the batting for Finchley. Nothing particularly unusual in that or in the fact that Ossie Burton was spearheading our attack. What was odd was that he was doing so from the bottom end instead of his usual Milverton Road end; a bad omen. Hays dispatched the second or third ball over extra cover into the (fortunately) boarded up window of the cabin for six. I was at first slip and remember the slight fade on the ball as it homed in exocet-like onto its target. Needless to say I did not remain at slip for very long and I recall the 'Oh shit' moment being very justified.
It was equally pertinent in Mid-May 1977 when Lionel Rogers of Winchmore Hill called, 'No!' from the non-striker's end well before the ball hit Nigel Ross's gloves having been delivered by W.W.Daniel as I made a fruitless attempt to play at it in an early exchange during an Association of Middlesex Cricket Clubs match against the then County Champions at Ealing. Strange to say that the experience of facing Wayne must have been as chilling as the call from Lionel sounded since I can remember nothing of my innings afterwards; I can only presume the worst.
Finally, the ultimate 'Oh shit' moment. Not one of impending Alfridi-like ferocity of hitting or 'brown flannels' Shoaib-like fast bowling but something a touch more memorable. Having moved to live in Enfield during the Spring of 1982 I was 'commuting' to play at South Hampstead and in mid-June made the tortuous journey by public transport across North London to Milverton Road to play Southgate. Train delays meant that I was late arriving. We had lost the toss and were due to field. On entering the seemingly crowded dressing room the usual banter was swiftly replaced by pin-drop silence and embarrassed eye-contact avoidance. This was the 'Oh shit' moment. My instincts somehow took over and I left to study the team sheets, which pronounced my selection for the Seconds! I cannot remember how the news was rather more officially broken to me but I do vividly recall the wave of sympathy which then kicked in as I was chauffeured (I think by Ian Macintosh) over to Southgate. At least it was on the way home, it could have been Teddington. I was in no fit state to do very much with the bat but I do remember my last innings for the Club culminating in a slog over mid wicket off Ian McIver the Southgate left-arm spinner, a top edge and a catch to mid-on. Oh, shit.
Fine Seed Pods
Denis Jones sent me the following about a club that I was unfamiliar with
Whilst at my mother's house over Christmas, I discovered some paperwork relating to my father's membership of 'The Fine Seed Pods of Club Cricket'. A membership list, dating back to 1968/69 shows, amongst several hand-written entries, that my father was member number 48. Another Membership list, from 1975, records several names that I am sure you would recognise, including Rhys Axworthy, Len Muncer, and Ernie Perrone. Particularly poignant is a list of members who had already passed away, under the heading ''Members Given Out’’. Alongside their names was recorded the date of their 'Last Innings'. I do not know if the Seed Pod Club still exists, but it is obvious from the names listed, and their rather loose set of rules, that it was a very fine club, full of the guys who made club cricket during our playing days such a pleasant, social way of life.
Slow over rates
In Pakistan it gets dark at four thirty in November and December and so there was never any likelihood of the full daily allocation of overs being bowled. It takes Inzy some time to walk from short extra cover at the end of one over to short extra cover for the start of the next and Peg leg has to change the field every ball to pretend that he is in touch with what is going on. This slows things down further and as a result the most overs bowled on any one day was seventy-eight. In two out of the three tests Pakistan won anyway and so perhaps it didn’t matter that almost a full day of the scheduled playing time was lost on each occasion. Unless the ICC want test cricket to be a 300 over match they will have to find an effective way of speeding things up. In England last summer they further handicapped themselves by having a statutory end to proceedings after an extra half an hour at the ludicrously early time of six o’clock. Now that Channel 4 and their soap opera scheduling are out of the frame perhaps we can revert to playing until the scheduled hours are caught up? That could mean we can enjoy watching test cricket next summer in perfect light at 7.30 pm. That’s if they haven’t run out of drinks intervals by then.
Northern Matters
Mike Talbot-Butler sent me the following news from the Cheshire County league
New sponsors of the Cheshire County league in 2006 will be the Warrington based CD Bramall Trucks whose dealer principal is Ron Jones, father of Oulton Park’s Chris and Danny Jones and a long-term former player and committeeman at the Roe Green club. The sponsorship support will be £7,500 plus performance of the month awards, young player of year trophy etc.
At the 31st annual presentation dinner Widnes’ Indian-born off-spinner Bapa Mukherjee won the ECB Premier league Player of the Year poll for his record 10-59 haul against Chester Boughton Hall. Mukherjee, who took 69 wickets, finished top of the Players’ Poll ahead of Oulton Park’s Australian batsman Andy Robinson (990 runs), with Cheshire’s Mark Currie (Alderley Edge), 983 runs, third. The First Division Player of the Year was another Indian, Bangalore based batsman Ashwin Punja who scored 1,044 runs for Alsager. Second equal were Bramhall and Cheshire’s captain Andrew Hall, who completed 1,000 runs on the last day of the season and Urmston newcomer Chris Watson, whose 863 runs included 10 half-centuries.
Appalling Fielders Alf Langley contested my promotion of Danish Kaneria to being the worst fielder in the world. “Clearly you have not been watching the West Indies. I give you, in no particular order, the following: Corey Collymore, Fidel Edwards, Marlon Samuels, Darren Powell, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Jermain Lawson. These guys make Danish look positively Jontylike.”
I replied “I agree that The West Indies are the benchmark for appalling fielders but Danish does bring some special characteristics all of his own to the table. The West Indians in general are natural athletes but lazy. This guy can't catch, can't run and brings out the worst in others....”
New Year’s Resolutions
Googlies is proud to announce its very own New Year’s Resolutions:
Demon Bowler George sent me this account of a seminal experience in his cricketing development
Around about 1962 the Sharp family were fortunate enough to go on holiday near Deal in Kent to Kingsdown Holiday Camp.
It was a feature of such jet setting resorts that sports competitions were held during the week. You just signed up and there you were: selected! Jim, Eric and I always signed up for the cricket (though curiously Wynne didn’t. We also went for the table tennis, Eric for the darts and I sneaked into the under 12’s putting competition). I think Jim took his own bat and gloves, and I’m not sure he didn’t count runs scored in his season’s total.
Attentive readers with good memories (that cuts out a few!) will recall the story of the only six Jim’s and my dad, Eric, hit over third man: this was for Latymer Upper 3rd X1. Not a great deal happened to his cricket career in the ensuing 30 years or so. Suffice it say that by his late forties it appeared that most of Eric’s playing days were in the deep past. He did, though, bowl very gentle off-cutters at Jim and me, with his tongue lightly between his teeth, his fingers across the seam.
The knock out cricket competition at Kingsdown was played with a tennis ball on a hillside with about a 1 in 4 slope across the wicket. It was situated near to the games room, which sported a jukebox. Duane Eddy’s ‘Because They’re Young’ and Jimmy James’ “Good Timin’ alternately boomed out during the course of play. The standard of cricket probably wasn’t that high. In fact I remember our cousin Carol wearing her Miss Kingsdown sash while fielding in the covers. The rules pre-dated one day internationals by some 40 years in allowing more than eleven players per side. Most fielders stayed close to the wicket since the tennis ball could not be hit very far.
On the day in question though, it was the slope that caused the problem, and which ruined the afternoon for everyone except Eric: the gentle off cutters turned at right angles. As I recall it he took 7 wickets for 3 and the game, which had started at 2-30, was over by 3 o’clock. There was considerable ill feeling and I’m not certain that he wasn’t banned for the rest of the tournament.
Jim contrasts this with beach cricket where wickets could be quicker and the tennis ball once it had been in the sea a few times could be hit quite hard. We must wait to hear from Steve Thompson on this.
Strange Elevens
The Great Jack Morgan explains that “last month’s selection were all Middlesex chaps who both batted and bowled left-handed but don’t forget that Kevan James threw right-handed. It took me over two years to complete that team; Banksy would have been proud of me. Here’s one that took me about two minutes”:
Saeed Anwar
Mike Brearley
Andrew Symonds
Usman Afzaal
Paul Weekes
Andrew Flintoff
Franklyn Stephenson
Ben Scott (w/k)
Saqlain Mushtaq
Steve Harmison
Monty Panesar
Easy for the Great man himself but can you identify what Jazz Hat this lot should be wearing?
Red Mist matters
In the Boxing Day test at Melbourne between Australia and South Africa Andrew Symonds, batting at number six in the second innings, hit the first ball he faced for six and went on to score 72 from 54 balls. He hit six sixes in all as well as five fours. This innings took the game away from South Africa and Hamburger and co rolled them over with runs and time to spare on the last day.
Irritating Trends in Modern Cricket Number 33
Back in the days when apartheid was an acceptable means of organizing society, at least in some parts of the southern hemisphere, South Africa was, as a Commonwealth member, one of the test playing nations. The players in these times were known collectively as South Africans or if you were feeling particularly sporty, Springboks. However, nowadays, for some completely incomprehensible reason, they have to be referred to as Proteas. No one has any idea why, what it means, where it has come from or indeed is comfortable with saying the word. It presumably has something to do with Political Correctness. Daft I call it.
Du Cane Divas
The Great Jack Morgan noted: “the Guardian’s deaths column the other day reported the passing of one Leonard Hill, an inspirational teacher. It was just a two-line announcement, there was nothing else. The fact that there was no mention of any wife or offspring might be seen as confirmation that the popular view of his sexuality was correct. All I remember is that we did poetry all the time (Flannan Isle is one that lingers in the memory), until they replaced Len for not following the syllabus with Percy Taylor, who gave us thrilling lessons on parsing, syntax and clause analysis.”
He was of course Primrose to all of us and was form master to 3L in the huts in 1960/1. His affected elocution always marked him out as different and he invariably had novel ways of dealing with any situation. I can recall him releasing members of the form from detention if they would stand up and recite anything, particularly if it was amusing. I correctly answered the question “How many beans make five?” and found myself toddling off to the 220 bus stop whilst the rest of the form continued a bewildered detention.
ebay
More stuff seen for sale on eBay recently:
Harry Bayliss’ magical sponges
Lily Coleman’s favourite teapot
Gary Black’s cartilages
Audrey Hawdon’s original set of coloured biros
A Polaroid of Robin Ager’s stag night at South Hampstead
Ossie Burton’s London Transport bus pass
A video of Roy Cutler’s yips over
A filing cabinet containing complete details of Jack Hyam’s career batting records
A selection of Jack Singman’s cricket cardigans
A cassette of Henry Malcolm explaining the mathematics of batting
A lock of Bob Baxter’s hair
And in the “any offers accepted” category:
Mill Hill CC
Rangers Matters
It isn’t often that QPR feature in Private Eye and even rarer for them to get a mention in Pseuds Corner. I was therefore taken by surprise when I came across the following by Michael Nyman, which had originally appeared in the Guardian:
“I maintain that the best football writing about QPR, and possibly about football, was a piece I commissioned from John Tilbury for Vogue. It was a musicological analysis of the descending minor third in the “Rodney” chant that the Rangers fans of the early seventies sang for Rodney Marsh, based on the differences in the chant when QPR were winning and when they were losing.”
The Great Jack Morgan sent me this: “The Rangers have put a correction in the programme saying that the Guardian had got it wrong about Antonio Caliendo becoming Chairman. “Antonio spoke to the journalist through a translator and there has been a simple misunderstanding. Antonio is the Chairman of a company in Monaco that has nothing to do with QPR.” However, “A Kick Up the Rs” continues to assert that these Italian agents from Monaco and other places are all a bunch of crooks who move from one vulnerable club to another looking for easy pickings Paladini has previously been involved with Northampton and Port Vale.”
The last thing you want with these Mafia guys is a simple misunderstanding.
Sam King was 85 recently and celebrated his birthday together with 75 years as a Rangers fan in a box at Loftus Road with family members and friends. The club included a photo of the happy event in the next home match programme. And I thought that I was a long-suffering supporter.
Stop Press
We have just heard that the Great Jack Morgan has not been included in the New Year’s Honours List yet again. It is not yet clear whether he was not nominated or whether he chose to turn down a proffered knighthood. Members of the Great Jack Morgan Appreciation Society are devastated at his continued lack of recognition. A former President, Gary Rhoades, said that he was “Gobsmacked and Gutted”. Googlies will try to obtain the skinny on this sad matter from Sir Jack, as he would have been known, and update you all in the next issue.
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.
Googlies and Chinamen
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Broad Lee House
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High Peak
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Tel: 01298 70237
Email: [email protected]
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 37
January 2006
Another Dose of Tour Madness
In the very first issue of this august publication I introduced you to the concept of Tour Madness. I charitably put it down to the consumption of lite beers rather than the innate capacity of professional cricketers and their management to come up with screwball theories that they persuade themselves eventually to put into practice. The England tour of Pakistan proved no exception to this phenomenon and came up with the usual crop of harebrained ideas that would have been better left unfulfilled back in the five star hotel room.
The England management always believe that twenty four hours in foreign sun will cure all ills and as usual they could not resist including in their jaunt some of their favourite brethren who were not fit for the toils ahead. They sensibly left Jones the Ball behind but took along Peg Leg, Gilo and KP who were all carrying injuries that would have, and indeed did, rule out the likes of Owais Shah. These valiant warriors one by one succumbed to recurrences of their injuries and were all sent back to Blighty for an early Christmas that left the remaining group unbalanced and ill equipped for the task in hand.
Sooner or later England tour captains decide that to overcome their weaknesses they should put the opposition in. However wrong they know this to be they still convince themselves that this time it is the right thing to do. Banger was there in Brisbane and was one of those who suffered when Nass put the Aussies in, but had he learned? No, of course not. In went the Pakis after the invaluable good luck of winning the toss at Karachi and away slid the one-day series with the hosts filling their boots to the tune of 350 plus in perfect batting conditions.
We all thought that Mathew Prior had been selected to join the tour as cover for the Teflon Taff behind the stumps. How silly of us. He apparently was first choice opening bat for the one-day internationals. Fletch of course has long wanted a wicket keeper to open the batting in this form of the game since it would facilitate playing an extra batter or bowler. You will recall that Jones himself was given an extended and doomed run in this position. But having used Prior in this role he has then selected the Teflon Taff as well, which may mean that we are covering our weakness behind the stumps with the maxim two keepers are better than one. On this basis why not play three or even four? All of this must mean that Prior is in fact the first choice to open the batting for England, at least in the one day game. Very strange. He has no experience of opening the batting even for Sussex, no pedigree of big run scoring and none of the experts even hinted at him being in the top five as possible batters for England. Fletch obviously liked the look of him in the nets. In the event he failed to reach fifty in each of his trips to the crease despite the favourable batting conditions. Key, Cook, Shah, Joyce and the rest had better cancel their plans to win caps.
James Anderson has been around the England camp for a long time and certainly long enough to know that line and length is the New Rinse. So what did he decide to bowl at Karachi when brought back to bowl at the death? Whilst Freddie bowled ten yorkers in twelve balls at the other end he served up birthday treats for Abdul Razzaq and Inzy at the other. They couldn’t believe their good fortune as they lifted the ball straight out of the slot and into the distant stands to the tune of twenty-three in one over.
It was good to see one of Googlies favourite Red Mist Men, Ian Lardarse Blackwell, back in favour. In the first two ODIs he bowled his full complement of overs and was by some way England’s most economical bowler. However, back in Fletch’s inner sanctum they don’t like slow bowlers, particularly ones slower than Gilo, and so when the stick was being handed out at Karachi in the third match Banger only gave him a few overs despite the fact that he had been once again the most economical.
And so it went on with new theories being hatched but instead of being dropped back into the barrel they had to be tried in the middle to everyone’s chagrin. The difficulties of the tour to Pakistan were clearly underestimated and have been made comprehensively harder by repeated outbursts of Tour Madness. Pakistan were no more than a mediocre side at the beginning of this tour. England made them look very strong. In fact they are still well below England in the world rankings, but it is they who are rising and England who are rapidly falling. This could become freefall in India unless they get a grip of themselves and play cricket to a consistent standard.
Qualification Time
Following the interest shown in English cricket after the Ashes victory the ECB are very concerned that the wrong type of person will be seeking tickets for next year’s test series against Sri Lanka and Pakistan. They have therefore prepared a Questionnaire, which must be completed by all applicants for tickets for the coming season’s international matches in England. It is designed to establish that the applicants are true cricket lovers and not riff raff, hoi polloi or ticket touts. The questions are as follows:
- I Zingari is:
- The name for Murali’s new delivery
- An onomatopoeia for Sangakarra’s appeal
- A bunch of public school yobs
- What is reverse swing?
- A figment of Duncan Fletcher’s imagination invented by Troy Cooley
- Something to do with Ossie Burton
- The panacea for all test seamers
- In Baseball switch-hitting is a common phenomena whereby batters switch from right to left handed on a whim. In cricket it is extremely rare. Who of the following are known to have switch hit in cricket?
- Colin Cowdrey
- Geoffrey Boycott
- Bob Cozens
- The Barmy Army is:
- An overseas branch of the Shiite militia
- A mindless bunch of morons
- Conscripts from bedlam
- To equip Umpires for the modern game, they should:
- Attend trigonometry classes to help them judge a fifteen-degree bend in the arm of Asian bowlers.
- Become celebrities in their own right.
- Be armed.
- What is a Jazz Hat?
- Headgear favoured by Thelonius Monk
- A form of contraception
- Multicoloured millinery
- What is the Duckworth Lewis Method?
- The solution to global warming
- A sexual technique for the handicapped
- A version of Sod’s Law, designed to lose you matches you thought you were winning
- Who is Richie Benaud?
- The only man who can identify all of Hamburger’s deliveries
- Barry Mackenzie’s cousin
- Michael Parkinson in disguise
- Arrange the following into the correct order of importance in modern cricket:
b. Drinks breaks every quarter of an hour
c. Sun glasses worn on top of caps
10. Which of the following beverages are banned from international matches in 2006?
- Tizer
- Earl Grey tea
- Moet et Chandon Champagne
- Who won the County Championship in 2005?
- Surrey
- Nottinghamshire
- Rutland
Peach’s Thirty Three
You will recall that Ian McIntosh stretched Peach’s thirty-three first class cricketers who played for South Hampstead to an even more unlikely forty-five. I was a little surprised not to receive any communications about some of the names but probably no one cares one way or the other. However, the Great Jack Morgan could contain himself no longer and sent me this: “I have so far resisted the temptation to query the credentials of any of the players listed as having played first class cricket, but I simply have to ask for more information on a certain David Toosie, for whom I can find no evidence to support the suggestion that he represented Middlesex in a first class match. If confirmed, he could fill a gap in the Middlesex Players with Silly Names XI... he doesn’t keep wicket does he? What is your method of confirming that all these chaps have, in fact, played first class cricket?”
I am, of course, much to lazy to check these things out and certainly could not countenance maintaining a second set of Wisdens on the American continent. Bill Hart and I listed known individuals but I see no reason why Messrs Peach and McIntosh should get off so lightly with their claims. It’s quite possible that some of the individuals listed don’t even exist. I believe that Desmond Haynes scored fifty before giving his wicket away on his debut and only match for the club. Did he open with Ken James and how many had Ken scored when Des (as they called him in the dressing room) was dismissed? Does anyone know any more about the spurious appearances these forty-five made for the club?
Oh Shit moments
Steve Thompson introduces us to a familiar experience and bares his soul in the process
Three from my own experiences spring to mind. The first was in the late seventies against Finchley at South Hampstead. It was the first over of a Wills Knockout match. David Hays opened the batting for Finchley. Nothing particularly unusual in that or in the fact that Ossie Burton was spearheading our attack. What was odd was that he was doing so from the bottom end instead of his usual Milverton Road end; a bad omen. Hays dispatched the second or third ball over extra cover into the (fortunately) boarded up window of the cabin for six. I was at first slip and remember the slight fade on the ball as it homed in exocet-like onto its target. Needless to say I did not remain at slip for very long and I recall the 'Oh shit' moment being very justified.
It was equally pertinent in Mid-May 1977 when Lionel Rogers of Winchmore Hill called, 'No!' from the non-striker's end well before the ball hit Nigel Ross's gloves having been delivered by W.W.Daniel as I made a fruitless attempt to play at it in an early exchange during an Association of Middlesex Cricket Clubs match against the then County Champions at Ealing. Strange to say that the experience of facing Wayne must have been as chilling as the call from Lionel sounded since I can remember nothing of my innings afterwards; I can only presume the worst.
Finally, the ultimate 'Oh shit' moment. Not one of impending Alfridi-like ferocity of hitting or 'brown flannels' Shoaib-like fast bowling but something a touch more memorable. Having moved to live in Enfield during the Spring of 1982 I was 'commuting' to play at South Hampstead and in mid-June made the tortuous journey by public transport across North London to Milverton Road to play Southgate. Train delays meant that I was late arriving. We had lost the toss and were due to field. On entering the seemingly crowded dressing room the usual banter was swiftly replaced by pin-drop silence and embarrassed eye-contact avoidance. This was the 'Oh shit' moment. My instincts somehow took over and I left to study the team sheets, which pronounced my selection for the Seconds! I cannot remember how the news was rather more officially broken to me but I do vividly recall the wave of sympathy which then kicked in as I was chauffeured (I think by Ian Macintosh) over to Southgate. At least it was on the way home, it could have been Teddington. I was in no fit state to do very much with the bat but I do remember my last innings for the Club culminating in a slog over mid wicket off Ian McIver the Southgate left-arm spinner, a top edge and a catch to mid-on. Oh, shit.
Fine Seed Pods
Denis Jones sent me the following about a club that I was unfamiliar with
Whilst at my mother's house over Christmas, I discovered some paperwork relating to my father's membership of 'The Fine Seed Pods of Club Cricket'. A membership list, dating back to 1968/69 shows, amongst several hand-written entries, that my father was member number 48. Another Membership list, from 1975, records several names that I am sure you would recognise, including Rhys Axworthy, Len Muncer, and Ernie Perrone. Particularly poignant is a list of members who had already passed away, under the heading ''Members Given Out’’. Alongside their names was recorded the date of their 'Last Innings'. I do not know if the Seed Pod Club still exists, but it is obvious from the names listed, and their rather loose set of rules, that it was a very fine club, full of the guys who made club cricket during our playing days such a pleasant, social way of life.
Slow over rates
In Pakistan it gets dark at four thirty in November and December and so there was never any likelihood of the full daily allocation of overs being bowled. It takes Inzy some time to walk from short extra cover at the end of one over to short extra cover for the start of the next and Peg leg has to change the field every ball to pretend that he is in touch with what is going on. This slows things down further and as a result the most overs bowled on any one day was seventy-eight. In two out of the three tests Pakistan won anyway and so perhaps it didn’t matter that almost a full day of the scheduled playing time was lost on each occasion. Unless the ICC want test cricket to be a 300 over match they will have to find an effective way of speeding things up. In England last summer they further handicapped themselves by having a statutory end to proceedings after an extra half an hour at the ludicrously early time of six o’clock. Now that Channel 4 and their soap opera scheduling are out of the frame perhaps we can revert to playing until the scheduled hours are caught up? That could mean we can enjoy watching test cricket next summer in perfect light at 7.30 pm. That’s if they haven’t run out of drinks intervals by then.
Northern Matters
Mike Talbot-Butler sent me the following news from the Cheshire County league
New sponsors of the Cheshire County league in 2006 will be the Warrington based CD Bramall Trucks whose dealer principal is Ron Jones, father of Oulton Park’s Chris and Danny Jones and a long-term former player and committeeman at the Roe Green club. The sponsorship support will be £7,500 plus performance of the month awards, young player of year trophy etc.
At the 31st annual presentation dinner Widnes’ Indian-born off-spinner Bapa Mukherjee won the ECB Premier league Player of the Year poll for his record 10-59 haul against Chester Boughton Hall. Mukherjee, who took 69 wickets, finished top of the Players’ Poll ahead of Oulton Park’s Australian batsman Andy Robinson (990 runs), with Cheshire’s Mark Currie (Alderley Edge), 983 runs, third. The First Division Player of the Year was another Indian, Bangalore based batsman Ashwin Punja who scored 1,044 runs for Alsager. Second equal were Bramhall and Cheshire’s captain Andrew Hall, who completed 1,000 runs on the last day of the season and Urmston newcomer Chris Watson, whose 863 runs included 10 half-centuries.
Appalling Fielders Alf Langley contested my promotion of Danish Kaneria to being the worst fielder in the world. “Clearly you have not been watching the West Indies. I give you, in no particular order, the following: Corey Collymore, Fidel Edwards, Marlon Samuels, Darren Powell, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Jermain Lawson. These guys make Danish look positively Jontylike.”
I replied “I agree that The West Indies are the benchmark for appalling fielders but Danish does bring some special characteristics all of his own to the table. The West Indians in general are natural athletes but lazy. This guy can't catch, can't run and brings out the worst in others....”
New Year’s Resolutions
Googlies is proud to announce its very own New Year’s Resolutions:
- The word xenophobia will be retired from usage
- There will be no snide references to the MCC and its cronyism
- We will continue to resist Bob Peach’s promptings to include references to Lionel Haywood’s wicket keeping.
- We will accept the Teflon Taff as a world-class wicket keeper.
- We will attempt indefatigably to obtain a contribution from the Legendary Len Stubbs.
- We will include Bill Hart in all Dream Team selections.
- We will embrace all new trends in modern cricket however irritating.
- We will avoid gloating at Surrey’s status in the second division of the Championship.
Demon Bowler George sent me this account of a seminal experience in his cricketing development
Around about 1962 the Sharp family were fortunate enough to go on holiday near Deal in Kent to Kingsdown Holiday Camp.
It was a feature of such jet setting resorts that sports competitions were held during the week. You just signed up and there you were: selected! Jim, Eric and I always signed up for the cricket (though curiously Wynne didn’t. We also went for the table tennis, Eric for the darts and I sneaked into the under 12’s putting competition). I think Jim took his own bat and gloves, and I’m not sure he didn’t count runs scored in his season’s total.
Attentive readers with good memories (that cuts out a few!) will recall the story of the only six Jim’s and my dad, Eric, hit over third man: this was for Latymer Upper 3rd X1. Not a great deal happened to his cricket career in the ensuing 30 years or so. Suffice it say that by his late forties it appeared that most of Eric’s playing days were in the deep past. He did, though, bowl very gentle off-cutters at Jim and me, with his tongue lightly between his teeth, his fingers across the seam.
The knock out cricket competition at Kingsdown was played with a tennis ball on a hillside with about a 1 in 4 slope across the wicket. It was situated near to the games room, which sported a jukebox. Duane Eddy’s ‘Because They’re Young’ and Jimmy James’ “Good Timin’ alternately boomed out during the course of play. The standard of cricket probably wasn’t that high. In fact I remember our cousin Carol wearing her Miss Kingsdown sash while fielding in the covers. The rules pre-dated one day internationals by some 40 years in allowing more than eleven players per side. Most fielders stayed close to the wicket since the tennis ball could not be hit very far.
On the day in question though, it was the slope that caused the problem, and which ruined the afternoon for everyone except Eric: the gentle off cutters turned at right angles. As I recall it he took 7 wickets for 3 and the game, which had started at 2-30, was over by 3 o’clock. There was considerable ill feeling and I’m not certain that he wasn’t banned for the rest of the tournament.
Jim contrasts this with beach cricket where wickets could be quicker and the tennis ball once it had been in the sea a few times could be hit quite hard. We must wait to hear from Steve Thompson on this.
Strange Elevens
The Great Jack Morgan explains that “last month’s selection were all Middlesex chaps who both batted and bowled left-handed but don’t forget that Kevan James threw right-handed. It took me over two years to complete that team; Banksy would have been proud of me. Here’s one that took me about two minutes”:
Saeed Anwar
Mike Brearley
Andrew Symonds
Usman Afzaal
Paul Weekes
Andrew Flintoff
Franklyn Stephenson
Ben Scott (w/k)
Saqlain Mushtaq
Steve Harmison
Monty Panesar
Easy for the Great man himself but can you identify what Jazz Hat this lot should be wearing?
Red Mist matters
In the Boxing Day test at Melbourne between Australia and South Africa Andrew Symonds, batting at number six in the second innings, hit the first ball he faced for six and went on to score 72 from 54 balls. He hit six sixes in all as well as five fours. This innings took the game away from South Africa and Hamburger and co rolled them over with runs and time to spare on the last day.
Irritating Trends in Modern Cricket Number 33
Back in the days when apartheid was an acceptable means of organizing society, at least in some parts of the southern hemisphere, South Africa was, as a Commonwealth member, one of the test playing nations. The players in these times were known collectively as South Africans or if you were feeling particularly sporty, Springboks. However, nowadays, for some completely incomprehensible reason, they have to be referred to as Proteas. No one has any idea why, what it means, where it has come from or indeed is comfortable with saying the word. It presumably has something to do with Political Correctness. Daft I call it.
Du Cane Divas
The Great Jack Morgan noted: “the Guardian’s deaths column the other day reported the passing of one Leonard Hill, an inspirational teacher. It was just a two-line announcement, there was nothing else. The fact that there was no mention of any wife or offspring might be seen as confirmation that the popular view of his sexuality was correct. All I remember is that we did poetry all the time (Flannan Isle is one that lingers in the memory), until they replaced Len for not following the syllabus with Percy Taylor, who gave us thrilling lessons on parsing, syntax and clause analysis.”
He was of course Primrose to all of us and was form master to 3L in the huts in 1960/1. His affected elocution always marked him out as different and he invariably had novel ways of dealing with any situation. I can recall him releasing members of the form from detention if they would stand up and recite anything, particularly if it was amusing. I correctly answered the question “How many beans make five?” and found myself toddling off to the 220 bus stop whilst the rest of the form continued a bewildered detention.
ebay
More stuff seen for sale on eBay recently:
Harry Bayliss’ magical sponges
Lily Coleman’s favourite teapot
Gary Black’s cartilages
Audrey Hawdon’s original set of coloured biros
A Polaroid of Robin Ager’s stag night at South Hampstead
Ossie Burton’s London Transport bus pass
A video of Roy Cutler’s yips over
A filing cabinet containing complete details of Jack Hyam’s career batting records
A selection of Jack Singman’s cricket cardigans
A cassette of Henry Malcolm explaining the mathematics of batting
A lock of Bob Baxter’s hair
And in the “any offers accepted” category:
Mill Hill CC
Rangers Matters
It isn’t often that QPR feature in Private Eye and even rarer for them to get a mention in Pseuds Corner. I was therefore taken by surprise when I came across the following by Michael Nyman, which had originally appeared in the Guardian:
“I maintain that the best football writing about QPR, and possibly about football, was a piece I commissioned from John Tilbury for Vogue. It was a musicological analysis of the descending minor third in the “Rodney” chant that the Rangers fans of the early seventies sang for Rodney Marsh, based on the differences in the chant when QPR were winning and when they were losing.”
The Great Jack Morgan sent me this: “The Rangers have put a correction in the programme saying that the Guardian had got it wrong about Antonio Caliendo becoming Chairman. “Antonio spoke to the journalist through a translator and there has been a simple misunderstanding. Antonio is the Chairman of a company in Monaco that has nothing to do with QPR.” However, “A Kick Up the Rs” continues to assert that these Italian agents from Monaco and other places are all a bunch of crooks who move from one vulnerable club to another looking for easy pickings Paladini has previously been involved with Northampton and Port Vale.”
The last thing you want with these Mafia guys is a simple misunderstanding.
Sam King was 85 recently and celebrated his birthday together with 75 years as a Rangers fan in a box at Loftus Road with family members and friends. The club included a photo of the happy event in the next home match programme. And I thought that I was a long-suffering supporter.
Stop Press
We have just heard that the Great Jack Morgan has not been included in the New Year’s Honours List yet again. It is not yet clear whether he was not nominated or whether he chose to turn down a proffered knighthood. Members of the Great Jack Morgan Appreciation Society are devastated at his continued lack of recognition. A former President, Gary Rhoades, said that he was “Gobsmacked and Gutted”. Googlies will try to obtain the skinny on this sad matter from Sir Jack, as he would have been known, and update you all in the next issue.
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.
Googlies and Chinamen
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