GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 6
June 2003
Wynne and Pugsley
My Mum was an unexpected attendant at Pugsley Proctor’s re-union at Brentham CC in May. She reported that he is in fine form, if a little large (well mums notice these sort of things). Also in attendance was Roger Kingdon and no doubt others that Wynne did not recognise.
I am delighted to report that contact has now been made with Keith Walmsley, a former classmate and now an author of cricket works amongst other things. I shall be trying to get him to contribute to future editions.
Colin Creasy tells me that he played in Steve Thompson’s 1973 SCD 1st XI and for a further two seasons after that. If he can recall who skippered the side in those years, we can extend the tedious list of 1st XI captains to a stretch of over two decades. We have made progress in the 1950s by recourse to The Dane, having failed to stimulate Bob Peach’s memory.
My Mum, who seems to have been everywhere in May, stormed the bulwarks of South Hampstead and insisted that Ken James send a fixture card to at least one of the club’s VPs. Consequently I have been able to include various former SH colleagues in the circulation. It turns out that Ken is not only still Hon. Secretary, but Don Wallis is still Chairman and Ken Fletcher is still President. This triumvirate must have served in these capacities for over twenty years.
I subsequently spoke to Don Wallis and in a short conversation he recalled Shepherds Bush as his favourite ground and reminded me how we would beat them psychologically before the game started through banter, weight of certain individual personality and piss taking. It was this inter-club rivalry and fierce club pride that made the game so compulsive.
Bill Groombridge is organizing a get together for his contemporaries in London in June. Contact Bill direct if you would like further details.
So there we are all ready with an expanded circulation list and a new edition packed full of articles for your delectation. George and I are pleased to bring you further enlightenment on the Duckworth Lewis Method and The Great Jack Morgan provides three Strange Elevens for you to ponder, criticize and improve upon.
The English Season-May
The team of the month is undisputedly the West Indies who became the second side to beat Australia in their last five test matches by scoring the most runs ever in a test match fourth innings run chase. Earlier in the same match, Brown Your Pants Lawson showed what he is capable of by taking seven wickets in the Aussies first innings and then what he is culpable of by being reported to the ICC as a suspected thrower.
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The Professor and I both think that Peg Leg is the wrong choice for one-day captain. He has no captaincy experience, is an iffy fielder and is yet to get serious runs in this form of cricket at the international level. It is clearly an expedient to return to a common captain as soon as Nass retires or, more likely, is pushed.
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Its about time someone asked the question “Why are modern English bowlers unfit to bowl?” In the Good Old Days bowlers used to bowl many more overs than their modern successors (two 3-day matches a week plus Sunday outings) and they would train on a packet of Woodbines and a few pints. Nowadays bowlers can weight lift, compete in triathlons and pose in fashion magazines but can’t stay fit for consecutive matches. Gough is still recovering from a Winter of inaction, Caddick only plays every other game before succumbing to a twinge in his back, Freddy is much the same, Silverwood and Jones hurt themselves before they had marked out their run-ups in Australia and the Grinning Loon, having got an undeserved second chance at Lords, immediately declared that he felt something funny in his tummy. Its all very well to be super fit but maybe its no good for bowling
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The Cat justified his bizarre decision to retire from cricket and become a celebrity by winning the competition in the Australian Outback. It has been suggested that this will make him a millionaire this year, but what will be left for fags and dope after tax and alimony is anyone’s guess. But he bores easily and I would not be surprised if the best English spinner since Underwood does not appear in first class cricket somewhere this season. It would be tragic if that wonderful loop has gone forever.
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The best thing about the most tedious FA Cup Final of all time was being able to switch over when the action (sic) stopped to Sky 2 and seeing Waqar Younis in the studio giving expert comment in a personality enhancing Zoot suit.
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Maybe it’s just as well that the Rangers lost in the millennium dome. They have never handled success all that well and it would have been even more painful if they had come straight back down again. With luck we can have a repeat performance next season. When they just missed promotion in 1965/6 they followed it up by winning the Third Division and the League Cup the following season.
The South Hampstead Wednesday XI – 1964
In the mid 1960’s the South Hampstead Wednesday XI was the complete cricketing experience for an impressionable teenager. The side comprised a strange cocktail of taxi drivers, publicans, shopkeepers, entrepreneurs, a schoolboy or two and the odd first team player that fancied playing himself into form. A typical side of this period would be:
Bertie Joel: MCC manikin
Terry Cordaroy: First teamer playing himself into form
Ron Impey
Jack Wilson
Cyril Friend
Arthur Kirkwood
Jim Sharp: Impressionable schoolboy
Peter Barclay
Ron Hirst
Jimmy Franklin
Derek Rushworth: wicket keeper
The Umpire was normally Rhys Axworthy, Jim Franklin’s brother in law and colleague at Turnham Green at the weekends.
In those days mid-week cricket was still taken seriously and there would be a full season of fixtures. The South Hampstead side was a little long in the tooth but it was nothing if not canny. There were some fearsome hitters in the side, Impey and Friend, who normally made up for any lack of menace posed by the new ball attack. Ron Hirst would normally bowl his barrel chested slow left arm from the Sidmouth Road end throughout the opposition innings and after Ron Impey had done “a bit of this and a bit of that” at the other end and Cyril Friend had filled in a few overs, Jack Wilson would bring himself on to mop up the tail and finish with 2 for 5.
In the school term I would take the bus to College Park and then walk the length of All Souls Avenue to watch the after tea session. On one occasion Rhys Axworthy, who must have been fifty-five at the time, had had to play because someone hadn’t turned up and he opened the club’s innings with Terry Cordaroy. He proceeded to unleash a series of straight drives along the ground that thumped into the Milverton Road wooden fence. He made over sixty before he was dismissed leaving Terry on about fifteen. It was the only time I ever saw Rhys play.
Once the game was over, the wives would arrive at the ground, dressed to the nines, and in no time they would be into their third and fourth gin and tonics. This was a rare sight indeed since there were never any women in the pavilion at weekends. And they were friendly too - Sheila Barclay greeting everyone with her theatrical “Hello Darling”.
The players would all be in the bar until closing time, whenever that was, and the entertainment would include serious drinking and the odd spectacular. If the opposition included some gullible young wise guys, Jim Franklin would amuse them and ply them with jugs of bitter. In due course he would bet them that he and Rhys (both in their fifties) could do a lap of the ground faster than they could. The losers would buy a jug of beer for the winners. As an act of courtesy and hospitality the visitors would be offered first go.
Everyone in the bar would exit to see the great race and an appropriate dignitary would be appointed to record the respective times on an impartial basis. Some stupid bastards would go and get changed to do the run, some just removed jackets or other impediments to a fast circuit. Many threw up on their way round and all got back to the pavilion gates significantly the worse for wear. They would all be greeted by Jim Franklin with a jug of beer at the ready. Still managing to look serious he would invariably say, “Well done lads, you are much too quick for us. Here is your jug of beer”.
The Duckworth Lewis Method Revisited
Duckworth and Lewis are both gynecologists by profession and they originally named their algebraic formula in the belief that it was going to be used in family planning. This made it a sort of latter day version of the world renowned Crawford Method.
In their playing days Duckworth and Lewis were both bowlers. This is obvious to anyone who examines their logic even if they know nothing else about them. So obsessed are they in taking wickets that they add huge numbers of runs to the total required every time you lose one. In my playing days, which can now be described as in the last century, the side that scored the most runs won the game, regardless of how many wickets they lost. Now if you find yourself in a run chase governed by these wannabee mathematicians, the target gets further away in a geometric progression each time you lose a wicket.
Still who am I to argue, I haven’t fathered a baby let alone delivered one! Apparently, referring to the Duckworth Lewis Method, you are twice as likely to have a son if your first child was a girl, but if you had girl twins you will have to have sex twice as often in order to father a boy. On the other hand, if you already have a boy and a girl the D/L Method states that the likelihood of your fathering twins is in inverse proportion to the regularity of your using viagra for you and your wife’s own personal pleasure. These boys really know their stuff.
Your wife might like to know that if she was in labour for ten hours with your first child, recalculation under the D/L Method…………on second thoughts we won’t go there.
If you found that it took five pints of bitter to get you pissed when you were twenty, recalculation using the D/L Method states that it will only take two when you are fifty, as long as you had three gin and tonics at lunchtime and you don’t stuff yourself with crisps. However, if you run into an old acquaintance at the bar who starts to bore you with tedious nostalgia about his playing days, the D/L Method says you can get legless twice as quick by slurping down a double brandy whilst he goes off for a pee. On the other hand, if someone slips you a Mickey, you can still sober up referring to the D/L Method in time to drive home, if you drink a Fernet Branca backwards out of a shot glass. But don’t lose a wicket while you are doing it!
Taking Guard the Lehman Way I remember sitting down to tea at Shepherds Bush in the seventies and watching Barry Richards on the television backing away to leg to cut off spinners in one of the early Sunday League games. This seemed a brilliant and radical way of playing but since then it has become commonplace in the one-day game for players not only do this but also to give themselves room to hit inside out.
Darren Lehman, who looks like an extra in a Quentin Tarentino movie, has produced a further variation on these modern techniques. Most batsmen take a guard, usually one or two legs and stick to it. Lehman has a whole battery of them across the crease and when the bowler turns to start his run-up he has no idea where he is going to be positioned. One of Lehman’s favourites to off-spin bowlers is eighteen inches outside the leg stump. Since he backs himself to hit the ball, anything bowled to him becomes a free hit and he has already given himself all the room he needs to play through or over the off side field.
Terry Cordaroy would have had apoplexy at the non-strikers end if I had taken guard like that. And he would probably have been right since I wouldn’t have been certain of hitting the ball.
Project Salvation
Project Salvation has been launched with the modest objective of solving the problems of the English game-it will run until the Ashes have been regained
Mark Williams, the Chief Executive of the Lords Taverners, writing in The Cricketer, reviewed the progress of the ECB’s blueprint “Raising the Standard”. In Australia grade cricket is the quality objective of those who play below the first class game. There are other leagues and clubs but grade cricket is the pinnacle. Raising the Standard made an attempt to emulate this system through the creation of Premier Leagues. These are in existence now, whether single county leagues as in Middlesex and Surrey or set-ups such as the Home Counties Premier League that accommodates clubs from four Home Counties.
The problem lies with the next stage of the blue print that envisaged that the First Class Counties would employ fewer contracted players. This was supposed to release players into the premier leagues and make competition for elevation into the first class game even stronger. But unfortunately the links from the premier leagues to the first class counties have not yet been forged.
Williams imagines a potential future scenario:
1. First class counties being limited to 15 contracted players.
2. A short 2nd XI programme in the holiday months
3. A regional competition, for which England contracted players would be made available, between six regions that would play 4-day matches from mid April to early June
4. A single one-day competition
5. A first class programme of 4-day cricket from June till the end of the season.
6. With vibrant, well-organized premier leagues below them, the seamless pathway from club to first class cricket would become a reality. The whole recreational game would take on a new meaning, with top performers earning places in their county sides.
The Professor was able to take a weekend off from his Presidential duties in May and sent me these observations
I have just spent a very enjoyable weekend with Mr and Mrs Foreman. Frank (who is nearly as bad at golf as I am) and I meandered our way around his local course from bunker to briar patch and discussed, among other things, "Project Salvation".
Your proposition, of forming the Minor Counties into Divisions 3 and 4
seems to have a lot going for it in terms of spicing up the county
competition but suffers - fairly obviously- from a number of practical
problems, not least of which is that the First Class counties would never
agree. The problems for the promoted county would be considerable (cf,
Durham) but they would be as nothing compared to those of the relegated one. Thus we are where we are, with the First Class list growing (very slowly) over time but no one dropping out. Also it doesn't, for me, get to the heart of the problem.
Cricket, as a national game, is declining. “Salvation" may already be
impossible but it would be great to attempt to arrest the decline. That
means raising the profile of the national side. This is not chauvinism but
practicality. In a media age boys (and girls) will take to a high profile
sport. But where is cricket? It hardly gets a mention in the tabloid press
and has been shunted off the principal TV channels by a short-sighted
desire for money. Can you image the football World Cup not being shown on terrestrial TV?
The County Championship is of interest to a few (ageing) aficionados (like us), the vast bulk of who never go to a match. The Great Jack Morgan (GJM) appears to approve of the current state of affairs and thinks, "there is too much emphasis on the national team". But then he is a life member of one of the counties. That is what you would expect them to say. Indeed Jack is very clear, "I like county cricket for its own sake". The problem is that not many others do. There are, if this is the phrase I want, too few GJMs.
To get cricket back centre stage I think there should be more, not less,
attention on the national side and that the money coming into cricket
should be directed at producing and supporting players who could go on to play for England. Thus the parts of the ECB plan about reducing county staffs and down sizing the 2nd XI competition are to be welcomed. I don't think much to some of the rest, particularly the regional competition that I doubt would raise the interest of even the County Championship. There must also be a route from the very best club cricket into the chance of a First Class game that smaller county staffs would facilitate.
I don't believe that the gap between the very best club cricketers and county cricket is all that great and more funding for (say) professional coaching at club level would reduce the gap still further. Really talented young players, who may have set out on other careers, should be able to have a taste of First Class cricket without having to join a county staff. This is exactly what happens in Australia and while there are many different elements to their success, I think this is something to emulate. There is, of course, a glimpse of "salvation" in the talent emerging from the British Asian community (so long held back in this country) and the enthusiasm of the Barmy Army (of whom I greatly approve, providing I don't have to sit with them). One thing is clear. If nothing changes the decline will continue. Fewer and fewer schools will play cricket, the football "season" will fill all 12 months, no one will read about cricket in the popular press and clubs will continue to fold. In the last week I have learned of a very well established club in my area - Hatfield Hyde - that may well close after nearly 100 years. Other big clubs like Watford have had to merge with neighbours. If Salvation is at hand, it had better get a move on.
Do you have any views on this critical matter? I will be pleased to publish them in future editions
Big Girls Blouse
Prior to adopting the plaited look, the fey footballer, David Beckham, had taken to playing soccer with an Alice Band in his hair. This would not have been necessary in an earlier incarnation of his barnet when he shaved his head and indeed it would have looked even more ridiculous.
The implications, though, of this ill-chosen accessory warrant consideration. If he is trying to curry favour with his pre-teen female fans, one wonders where it will stop and what, indeed, he is wearing under his shorts.
As a cult figure his actions are always watched closely and copied. In cricket we may find Yorkshire and Durham players showing sympathy for their dwindling mining communities by installing a light on the front of their batting helmets. Those with a preference for the burgling fraternity might start fielding with stockings over their heads, whilst the students may start adding a satchel slung casually over their shoulders.
Fielding at short-leg
Nowadays it takes almost as long to prepare to field at short leg as it does to bat. Australians wear the new short wicket keeping pads under their trousers as well as a box and a helmet. Seeing Ricky Ponting so inelegantly attired took me back to my own, less protected, days in that most specialist of fielding positions.
At school and university I was considered to be a wicket keeper batsman, but when first selected to play for the South Hampstead First XI in the late sixties, it was purely as a batsman. Harry Stubbs, brother of Len, had by that time taken over the wicket keeping duties from Robin Ager. As the rookie in the side I was given the job of fielding in the fashionably new position of short leg, right foot on the popping crease. I wore no additional protection and actually quite enjoyed the experience. I caught eighteen catches there that season, including four in one innings off Don Wallis at Hounslow.
I used the technique of crouching as low as possible and staying down whatever happened. I don’t remember getting hit let alone hurt in any of the first team games, but elsewhere it was a different story. Playing for the Old Danes at Ducane Road I was hit on the chin by an on drive off Bob Harvey’s bowling and needed stitches in the ever handy, adjacent, Hammersmith Hospital. In the South Hampstead Cricket Week I unwisely agreed to field there to Lloyd Abrams, a genial West Indian third eleven bowler of fast off-breaks. He bowled a long hop to Peter Barclay who hit me on the top of the head and the ball cannoned out to extra cover. Poor Peter thought that he had killed me and the irony is that it was probably the only time he had ever hit the ball in the middle of the bat.
So who’s watching?
An Indian fan noticed on television, by reading his lips, that Red Mist Afridi had sworn at Umpire Shepherd during the India-Pakistan World Cup match. So what?
Well, this interfering little prick emailed a complaint to the ICC and consequently Afridi was banned from playing for Pakistan in the Sharjah Cup and fined half of his match fee.
So Big Brother is everywhere now. Make sure you avoid the video cameras at your local shopping precinct when you next offer explanatory profanities to those well meaning souls selling copies of the Big Issue.
Useful American Cricketing Slang
Even the Americans have got fed up with saying, “Have a nice day” and now the check-out girl will upgrade to “Have a great evening” and the waiter will add even more insincerely “Have a wonderful weekend”.
But not all American sayings are banal and some can, indeed, be extremely useful. Perhaps the most widely adopted in my spheres of influence is “shit load”, which is an extremely specific measuring rod. So when asked the statistically challenging question “How many runs did Terry Cordaroy score in his illustrious career?” feel free to answer, with confidence, “A shit load”. Everyone will know exactly how many he scored and you will have saved hours of going through the scorebooks.
Instead of saying that “the Third XI skipper is as thick as two short planks” or that “he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time”, try suggesting that “he can’t tell shit from Shineola” and bask in the glory of those admiring glances.
Appalling Fielders Following the article on Geoff Cleaver, it has been suggested to me that no assessment of his contribution to the game would be complete without a reference to his appalling fielding. I don’t think that I ever played with him either at school or at Shepherds Bush but this made me realize that to really recognize a bad fielder you have to have been in the same side as them and learned how to stifle those groans when they make and repeat those awful gaffs.
Peter Huntley, the South Hampstead 2nd XI player of the sixties and seventies and sometime Wednesday XI skipper, fielded in plimsoles, which should be a strong indicator as to his prowess in that department. He would normally be found at mid-off and unless the ball was struck precisely to him, he would approach it with hands flared at his sides and then describe a D as he neared it so that he moved first parallel to and then behind the ball as it progressed towards the boundary. It had its amusing aspect unless of course you were the bowler.
The Professor responded to my appeal for instances of Appalling Fielders with this little cameo, which should not be read by the sensitive
Some years ago we had a young chap at WGCCC called Kemp. He could bat a bit, bowl a bit and run and throw. He had also mastered the art of getting his body behind the ball when fielding. Unfortunately he left out the little bit about using your hands. We had a Bank Holiday match against Hampstead and Master Kemp found himself in the covers. A couple of useful opening bats found our bowling to their liking and started to crash the ball through the girls side. Down would go Kemp and thud would go the ball. A couple hit him in the chest and stomach but then for about half a dozen successive deliveries he fielded the ball with his bollocks. Thwack would go the drive, down would go the Kemp and "yeow" would come the sound.
The response from the other fielders was the traditional one, exacerbated by the fact that it kept happening. The odd thing was that the cries of pain started to diminish as the number of direct hits increased. By the fourth hit it was a groan and by the fifth or six hit it was little more than a sigh of inevitability. It was as if his balls had become desensitised, which I supposed they had. We, of course, in the field, had not become desensitised and each time it happened it took longer and longer for the team to recover itself. Since Master Kemp also took some time to come round, it had the effect of slowing the innings down very satisfactorily.
As you might imagine, batting now became more difficult. Trying to keep a straight face as the bowler ran up was followed by a fleeting moment of despair each time the batsman realised that he had hit it to cover and would have another ten minute break before the next ball arrived. In the end they both got out trying to hit the ball exclusively to the boys side. In the event the match was drawn. As for Master Kemp, he played another couple of games in the Seconds or Thirds and then, as the saying goes, "dropped out”.
I think we have only scratched the surface of Appalling Fielders and look forward to further contributions
Cockney Rhyming Slang
I am indebted to Kelvin West, a sometime Brentham player, for adding to our lexicon of Cricketing slang:
Ashley Giles-piles, as in: Our Umpire suffers from Ashleys
Strange Elevens The Great Jack Morgan got quite hot under the collar over my England XI comprised of foreigners, some of whom, he claims, were legitimately qualified. However, he has used this thesis together with his considerable intellect and reference library to come up with two Middlesex sides of his own:
The first is his official overseas players team:
Desmond Haynes
Justin Langer
Stephen Fleming
Jacques Kallis
Larry Gomes
Norman Featherstone
Abdul Razzaq
Ashley Noffke
Vincent van der Bijl
Wayne Daniel
Alan Connolly
OK as far as it goes but someone has got to keep wicket and wicket keepers are rare overseas mercenaries in the County Championship. Perhaps Fleming can perform the honours as he is the only non-bowler and is reputed to have enormous hands. Jack also has the luxury of having some notable twelfth men: Dion Nash and none other than Thommo himself.
Is this Middlesex Overseas XI the strongest that could be fielded by any county? Does anyone fancy putting together a Jazz Hat side of overseas players representing another county to take them on?
His second side is his “born abroad but we don’t count them as overseas players” team:
Wilf Slack
Andrew Strauss
Owais Shah
Roland Butcher
Ed Joyce
Jamie Dalrymple
Philippe Edmunds
Neil Williams
Rodney Kinkead-Weekes
Ricky Ellcock
Norman Cowans
His star turn in this side is Roddy Kinkead-Weekes, the South African born wicket keeper, who made two appearances in 1976
He has also been collaborating with Dave Banks to produce the reciprocal side of my left-handers who all bowled right-handed:
Mike Smith
Philippe Edmonds
Denis Compton
Ted Clark
Rajesh Maru
Alex Barnett
Phil Tufnell
Bob Hurst
Dennis Marriott
Colin Drybrough
Steve Sylvester
Jack and David are the first to admit that this side would struggle to get enough runs to beat England on tour, but if the pitch were dusty and cracking there would be a queue of slow left armers at each end! There is, of course, no wicket keeper but perhaps, Jack suggests, Roddy may have offered a few chinamen in the nets.
The answer to May’s Strange Eleven was that all the players have three initials. No one said it had to be clever.
Irritating Trends in Modern Cricket-Number 5
Attending an international or first class game requires considerable time and expense. It also requires concentration when in the ground as the action takes place ninety yards or more away.
In the sixties you only left your seat to go for a piss when play stopped between overs so that you did not disturb the other spectators. There was also total silence as the bowler commenced his run-up.
Nowadays a large proportion of the spectators appear to be at the ground primarily to draw attention to their ludicrous attire and boorish behaviour. In addition they constantly get to their feet to vie for the attention of the TV cameras. For no good reason connected to cricket people also carry banners and flags into the ground to wave at every opportunity. How can this add to their enjoyment of the cricket? It clearly only acts as an irritating distraction or an impediment to the sight lines of those who are there to watch the game.
This behaviour is regrettably not confined to the dreadful Barmy Army on foreign soil. However, I am sure that none of the readers of this organ have ever behaved in so lamentable a manner. Now you must all speak out against it, so that real cricket watchers can once again watch the game in peace.
Cyberspace
The Professor can be seen in Presidential mode on the WGCCC website, www.digswellpark.com
Please advise me of other club or interesting cricket web sites so that I can include them for all to surf around.
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. I have now bundled 1-5 together and will send to anyone who wants them. You will be able to find out who George and the Professor are, who named him the Great Jack Morgan, all about Tour Madness, avail yourself of the definitive guide to the Duckworth Lewis method and discover other trivia that is essential to your understanding of the modern game. Just send me an email to secure your copies.
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 6
June 2003
Wynne and Pugsley
My Mum was an unexpected attendant at Pugsley Proctor’s re-union at Brentham CC in May. She reported that he is in fine form, if a little large (well mums notice these sort of things). Also in attendance was Roger Kingdon and no doubt others that Wynne did not recognise.
I am delighted to report that contact has now been made with Keith Walmsley, a former classmate and now an author of cricket works amongst other things. I shall be trying to get him to contribute to future editions.
Colin Creasy tells me that he played in Steve Thompson’s 1973 SCD 1st XI and for a further two seasons after that. If he can recall who skippered the side in those years, we can extend the tedious list of 1st XI captains to a stretch of over two decades. We have made progress in the 1950s by recourse to The Dane, having failed to stimulate Bob Peach’s memory.
My Mum, who seems to have been everywhere in May, stormed the bulwarks of South Hampstead and insisted that Ken James send a fixture card to at least one of the club’s VPs. Consequently I have been able to include various former SH colleagues in the circulation. It turns out that Ken is not only still Hon. Secretary, but Don Wallis is still Chairman and Ken Fletcher is still President. This triumvirate must have served in these capacities for over twenty years.
I subsequently spoke to Don Wallis and in a short conversation he recalled Shepherds Bush as his favourite ground and reminded me how we would beat them psychologically before the game started through banter, weight of certain individual personality and piss taking. It was this inter-club rivalry and fierce club pride that made the game so compulsive.
Bill Groombridge is organizing a get together for his contemporaries in London in June. Contact Bill direct if you would like further details.
So there we are all ready with an expanded circulation list and a new edition packed full of articles for your delectation. George and I are pleased to bring you further enlightenment on the Duckworth Lewis Method and The Great Jack Morgan provides three Strange Elevens for you to ponder, criticize and improve upon.
The English Season-May
The team of the month is undisputedly the West Indies who became the second side to beat Australia in their last five test matches by scoring the most runs ever in a test match fourth innings run chase. Earlier in the same match, Brown Your Pants Lawson showed what he is capable of by taking seven wickets in the Aussies first innings and then what he is culpable of by being reported to the ICC as a suspected thrower.
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The Professor and I both think that Peg Leg is the wrong choice for one-day captain. He has no captaincy experience, is an iffy fielder and is yet to get serious runs in this form of cricket at the international level. It is clearly an expedient to return to a common captain as soon as Nass retires or, more likely, is pushed.
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Its about time someone asked the question “Why are modern English bowlers unfit to bowl?” In the Good Old Days bowlers used to bowl many more overs than their modern successors (two 3-day matches a week plus Sunday outings) and they would train on a packet of Woodbines and a few pints. Nowadays bowlers can weight lift, compete in triathlons and pose in fashion magazines but can’t stay fit for consecutive matches. Gough is still recovering from a Winter of inaction, Caddick only plays every other game before succumbing to a twinge in his back, Freddy is much the same, Silverwood and Jones hurt themselves before they had marked out their run-ups in Australia and the Grinning Loon, having got an undeserved second chance at Lords, immediately declared that he felt something funny in his tummy. Its all very well to be super fit but maybe its no good for bowling
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The Cat justified his bizarre decision to retire from cricket and become a celebrity by winning the competition in the Australian Outback. It has been suggested that this will make him a millionaire this year, but what will be left for fags and dope after tax and alimony is anyone’s guess. But he bores easily and I would not be surprised if the best English spinner since Underwood does not appear in first class cricket somewhere this season. It would be tragic if that wonderful loop has gone forever.
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The best thing about the most tedious FA Cup Final of all time was being able to switch over when the action (sic) stopped to Sky 2 and seeing Waqar Younis in the studio giving expert comment in a personality enhancing Zoot suit.
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Maybe it’s just as well that the Rangers lost in the millennium dome. They have never handled success all that well and it would have been even more painful if they had come straight back down again. With luck we can have a repeat performance next season. When they just missed promotion in 1965/6 they followed it up by winning the Third Division and the League Cup the following season.
The South Hampstead Wednesday XI – 1964
In the mid 1960’s the South Hampstead Wednesday XI was the complete cricketing experience for an impressionable teenager. The side comprised a strange cocktail of taxi drivers, publicans, shopkeepers, entrepreneurs, a schoolboy or two and the odd first team player that fancied playing himself into form. A typical side of this period would be:
Bertie Joel: MCC manikin
Terry Cordaroy: First teamer playing himself into form
Ron Impey
Jack Wilson
Cyril Friend
Arthur Kirkwood
Jim Sharp: Impressionable schoolboy
Peter Barclay
Ron Hirst
Jimmy Franklin
Derek Rushworth: wicket keeper
The Umpire was normally Rhys Axworthy, Jim Franklin’s brother in law and colleague at Turnham Green at the weekends.
In those days mid-week cricket was still taken seriously and there would be a full season of fixtures. The South Hampstead side was a little long in the tooth but it was nothing if not canny. There were some fearsome hitters in the side, Impey and Friend, who normally made up for any lack of menace posed by the new ball attack. Ron Hirst would normally bowl his barrel chested slow left arm from the Sidmouth Road end throughout the opposition innings and after Ron Impey had done “a bit of this and a bit of that” at the other end and Cyril Friend had filled in a few overs, Jack Wilson would bring himself on to mop up the tail and finish with 2 for 5.
In the school term I would take the bus to College Park and then walk the length of All Souls Avenue to watch the after tea session. On one occasion Rhys Axworthy, who must have been fifty-five at the time, had had to play because someone hadn’t turned up and he opened the club’s innings with Terry Cordaroy. He proceeded to unleash a series of straight drives along the ground that thumped into the Milverton Road wooden fence. He made over sixty before he was dismissed leaving Terry on about fifteen. It was the only time I ever saw Rhys play.
Once the game was over, the wives would arrive at the ground, dressed to the nines, and in no time they would be into their third and fourth gin and tonics. This was a rare sight indeed since there were never any women in the pavilion at weekends. And they were friendly too - Sheila Barclay greeting everyone with her theatrical “Hello Darling”.
The players would all be in the bar until closing time, whenever that was, and the entertainment would include serious drinking and the odd spectacular. If the opposition included some gullible young wise guys, Jim Franklin would amuse them and ply them with jugs of bitter. In due course he would bet them that he and Rhys (both in their fifties) could do a lap of the ground faster than they could. The losers would buy a jug of beer for the winners. As an act of courtesy and hospitality the visitors would be offered first go.
Everyone in the bar would exit to see the great race and an appropriate dignitary would be appointed to record the respective times on an impartial basis. Some stupid bastards would go and get changed to do the run, some just removed jackets or other impediments to a fast circuit. Many threw up on their way round and all got back to the pavilion gates significantly the worse for wear. They would all be greeted by Jim Franklin with a jug of beer at the ready. Still managing to look serious he would invariably say, “Well done lads, you are much too quick for us. Here is your jug of beer”.
The Duckworth Lewis Method Revisited
Duckworth and Lewis are both gynecologists by profession and they originally named their algebraic formula in the belief that it was going to be used in family planning. This made it a sort of latter day version of the world renowned Crawford Method.
In their playing days Duckworth and Lewis were both bowlers. This is obvious to anyone who examines their logic even if they know nothing else about them. So obsessed are they in taking wickets that they add huge numbers of runs to the total required every time you lose one. In my playing days, which can now be described as in the last century, the side that scored the most runs won the game, regardless of how many wickets they lost. Now if you find yourself in a run chase governed by these wannabee mathematicians, the target gets further away in a geometric progression each time you lose a wicket.
Still who am I to argue, I haven’t fathered a baby let alone delivered one! Apparently, referring to the Duckworth Lewis Method, you are twice as likely to have a son if your first child was a girl, but if you had girl twins you will have to have sex twice as often in order to father a boy. On the other hand, if you already have a boy and a girl the D/L Method states that the likelihood of your fathering twins is in inverse proportion to the regularity of your using viagra for you and your wife’s own personal pleasure. These boys really know their stuff.
Your wife might like to know that if she was in labour for ten hours with your first child, recalculation under the D/L Method…………on second thoughts we won’t go there.
If you found that it took five pints of bitter to get you pissed when you were twenty, recalculation using the D/L Method states that it will only take two when you are fifty, as long as you had three gin and tonics at lunchtime and you don’t stuff yourself with crisps. However, if you run into an old acquaintance at the bar who starts to bore you with tedious nostalgia about his playing days, the D/L Method says you can get legless twice as quick by slurping down a double brandy whilst he goes off for a pee. On the other hand, if someone slips you a Mickey, you can still sober up referring to the D/L Method in time to drive home, if you drink a Fernet Branca backwards out of a shot glass. But don’t lose a wicket while you are doing it!
Taking Guard the Lehman Way I remember sitting down to tea at Shepherds Bush in the seventies and watching Barry Richards on the television backing away to leg to cut off spinners in one of the early Sunday League games. This seemed a brilliant and radical way of playing but since then it has become commonplace in the one-day game for players not only do this but also to give themselves room to hit inside out.
Darren Lehman, who looks like an extra in a Quentin Tarentino movie, has produced a further variation on these modern techniques. Most batsmen take a guard, usually one or two legs and stick to it. Lehman has a whole battery of them across the crease and when the bowler turns to start his run-up he has no idea where he is going to be positioned. One of Lehman’s favourites to off-spin bowlers is eighteen inches outside the leg stump. Since he backs himself to hit the ball, anything bowled to him becomes a free hit and he has already given himself all the room he needs to play through or over the off side field.
Terry Cordaroy would have had apoplexy at the non-strikers end if I had taken guard like that. And he would probably have been right since I wouldn’t have been certain of hitting the ball.
Project Salvation
Project Salvation has been launched with the modest objective of solving the problems of the English game-it will run until the Ashes have been regained
Mark Williams, the Chief Executive of the Lords Taverners, writing in The Cricketer, reviewed the progress of the ECB’s blueprint “Raising the Standard”. In Australia grade cricket is the quality objective of those who play below the first class game. There are other leagues and clubs but grade cricket is the pinnacle. Raising the Standard made an attempt to emulate this system through the creation of Premier Leagues. These are in existence now, whether single county leagues as in Middlesex and Surrey or set-ups such as the Home Counties Premier League that accommodates clubs from four Home Counties.
The problem lies with the next stage of the blue print that envisaged that the First Class Counties would employ fewer contracted players. This was supposed to release players into the premier leagues and make competition for elevation into the first class game even stronger. But unfortunately the links from the premier leagues to the first class counties have not yet been forged.
Williams imagines a potential future scenario:
1. First class counties being limited to 15 contracted players.
2. A short 2nd XI programme in the holiday months
3. A regional competition, for which England contracted players would be made available, between six regions that would play 4-day matches from mid April to early June
4. A single one-day competition
5. A first class programme of 4-day cricket from June till the end of the season.
6. With vibrant, well-organized premier leagues below them, the seamless pathway from club to first class cricket would become a reality. The whole recreational game would take on a new meaning, with top performers earning places in their county sides.
The Professor was able to take a weekend off from his Presidential duties in May and sent me these observations
I have just spent a very enjoyable weekend with Mr and Mrs Foreman. Frank (who is nearly as bad at golf as I am) and I meandered our way around his local course from bunker to briar patch and discussed, among other things, "Project Salvation".
Your proposition, of forming the Minor Counties into Divisions 3 and 4
seems to have a lot going for it in terms of spicing up the county
competition but suffers - fairly obviously- from a number of practical
problems, not least of which is that the First Class counties would never
agree. The problems for the promoted county would be considerable (cf,
Durham) but they would be as nothing compared to those of the relegated one. Thus we are where we are, with the First Class list growing (very slowly) over time but no one dropping out. Also it doesn't, for me, get to the heart of the problem.
Cricket, as a national game, is declining. “Salvation" may already be
impossible but it would be great to attempt to arrest the decline. That
means raising the profile of the national side. This is not chauvinism but
practicality. In a media age boys (and girls) will take to a high profile
sport. But where is cricket? It hardly gets a mention in the tabloid press
and has been shunted off the principal TV channels by a short-sighted
desire for money. Can you image the football World Cup not being shown on terrestrial TV?
The County Championship is of interest to a few (ageing) aficionados (like us), the vast bulk of who never go to a match. The Great Jack Morgan (GJM) appears to approve of the current state of affairs and thinks, "there is too much emphasis on the national team". But then he is a life member of one of the counties. That is what you would expect them to say. Indeed Jack is very clear, "I like county cricket for its own sake". The problem is that not many others do. There are, if this is the phrase I want, too few GJMs.
To get cricket back centre stage I think there should be more, not less,
attention on the national side and that the money coming into cricket
should be directed at producing and supporting players who could go on to play for England. Thus the parts of the ECB plan about reducing county staffs and down sizing the 2nd XI competition are to be welcomed. I don't think much to some of the rest, particularly the regional competition that I doubt would raise the interest of even the County Championship. There must also be a route from the very best club cricket into the chance of a First Class game that smaller county staffs would facilitate.
I don't believe that the gap between the very best club cricketers and county cricket is all that great and more funding for (say) professional coaching at club level would reduce the gap still further. Really talented young players, who may have set out on other careers, should be able to have a taste of First Class cricket without having to join a county staff. This is exactly what happens in Australia and while there are many different elements to their success, I think this is something to emulate. There is, of course, a glimpse of "salvation" in the talent emerging from the British Asian community (so long held back in this country) and the enthusiasm of the Barmy Army (of whom I greatly approve, providing I don't have to sit with them). One thing is clear. If nothing changes the decline will continue. Fewer and fewer schools will play cricket, the football "season" will fill all 12 months, no one will read about cricket in the popular press and clubs will continue to fold. In the last week I have learned of a very well established club in my area - Hatfield Hyde - that may well close after nearly 100 years. Other big clubs like Watford have had to merge with neighbours. If Salvation is at hand, it had better get a move on.
Do you have any views on this critical matter? I will be pleased to publish them in future editions
Big Girls Blouse
Prior to adopting the plaited look, the fey footballer, David Beckham, had taken to playing soccer with an Alice Band in his hair. This would not have been necessary in an earlier incarnation of his barnet when he shaved his head and indeed it would have looked even more ridiculous.
The implications, though, of this ill-chosen accessory warrant consideration. If he is trying to curry favour with his pre-teen female fans, one wonders where it will stop and what, indeed, he is wearing under his shorts.
As a cult figure his actions are always watched closely and copied. In cricket we may find Yorkshire and Durham players showing sympathy for their dwindling mining communities by installing a light on the front of their batting helmets. Those with a preference for the burgling fraternity might start fielding with stockings over their heads, whilst the students may start adding a satchel slung casually over their shoulders.
Fielding at short-leg
Nowadays it takes almost as long to prepare to field at short leg as it does to bat. Australians wear the new short wicket keeping pads under their trousers as well as a box and a helmet. Seeing Ricky Ponting so inelegantly attired took me back to my own, less protected, days in that most specialist of fielding positions.
At school and university I was considered to be a wicket keeper batsman, but when first selected to play for the South Hampstead First XI in the late sixties, it was purely as a batsman. Harry Stubbs, brother of Len, had by that time taken over the wicket keeping duties from Robin Ager. As the rookie in the side I was given the job of fielding in the fashionably new position of short leg, right foot on the popping crease. I wore no additional protection and actually quite enjoyed the experience. I caught eighteen catches there that season, including four in one innings off Don Wallis at Hounslow.
I used the technique of crouching as low as possible and staying down whatever happened. I don’t remember getting hit let alone hurt in any of the first team games, but elsewhere it was a different story. Playing for the Old Danes at Ducane Road I was hit on the chin by an on drive off Bob Harvey’s bowling and needed stitches in the ever handy, adjacent, Hammersmith Hospital. In the South Hampstead Cricket Week I unwisely agreed to field there to Lloyd Abrams, a genial West Indian third eleven bowler of fast off-breaks. He bowled a long hop to Peter Barclay who hit me on the top of the head and the ball cannoned out to extra cover. Poor Peter thought that he had killed me and the irony is that it was probably the only time he had ever hit the ball in the middle of the bat.
So who’s watching?
An Indian fan noticed on television, by reading his lips, that Red Mist Afridi had sworn at Umpire Shepherd during the India-Pakistan World Cup match. So what?
Well, this interfering little prick emailed a complaint to the ICC and consequently Afridi was banned from playing for Pakistan in the Sharjah Cup and fined half of his match fee.
So Big Brother is everywhere now. Make sure you avoid the video cameras at your local shopping precinct when you next offer explanatory profanities to those well meaning souls selling copies of the Big Issue.
Useful American Cricketing Slang
Even the Americans have got fed up with saying, “Have a nice day” and now the check-out girl will upgrade to “Have a great evening” and the waiter will add even more insincerely “Have a wonderful weekend”.
But not all American sayings are banal and some can, indeed, be extremely useful. Perhaps the most widely adopted in my spheres of influence is “shit load”, which is an extremely specific measuring rod. So when asked the statistically challenging question “How many runs did Terry Cordaroy score in his illustrious career?” feel free to answer, with confidence, “A shit load”. Everyone will know exactly how many he scored and you will have saved hours of going through the scorebooks.
Instead of saying that “the Third XI skipper is as thick as two short planks” or that “he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time”, try suggesting that “he can’t tell shit from Shineola” and bask in the glory of those admiring glances.
Appalling Fielders Following the article on Geoff Cleaver, it has been suggested to me that no assessment of his contribution to the game would be complete without a reference to his appalling fielding. I don’t think that I ever played with him either at school or at Shepherds Bush but this made me realize that to really recognize a bad fielder you have to have been in the same side as them and learned how to stifle those groans when they make and repeat those awful gaffs.
Peter Huntley, the South Hampstead 2nd XI player of the sixties and seventies and sometime Wednesday XI skipper, fielded in plimsoles, which should be a strong indicator as to his prowess in that department. He would normally be found at mid-off and unless the ball was struck precisely to him, he would approach it with hands flared at his sides and then describe a D as he neared it so that he moved first parallel to and then behind the ball as it progressed towards the boundary. It had its amusing aspect unless of course you were the bowler.
The Professor responded to my appeal for instances of Appalling Fielders with this little cameo, which should not be read by the sensitive
Some years ago we had a young chap at WGCCC called Kemp. He could bat a bit, bowl a bit and run and throw. He had also mastered the art of getting his body behind the ball when fielding. Unfortunately he left out the little bit about using your hands. We had a Bank Holiday match against Hampstead and Master Kemp found himself in the covers. A couple of useful opening bats found our bowling to their liking and started to crash the ball through the girls side. Down would go Kemp and thud would go the ball. A couple hit him in the chest and stomach but then for about half a dozen successive deliveries he fielded the ball with his bollocks. Thwack would go the drive, down would go the Kemp and "yeow" would come the sound.
The response from the other fielders was the traditional one, exacerbated by the fact that it kept happening. The odd thing was that the cries of pain started to diminish as the number of direct hits increased. By the fourth hit it was a groan and by the fifth or six hit it was little more than a sigh of inevitability. It was as if his balls had become desensitised, which I supposed they had. We, of course, in the field, had not become desensitised and each time it happened it took longer and longer for the team to recover itself. Since Master Kemp also took some time to come round, it had the effect of slowing the innings down very satisfactorily.
As you might imagine, batting now became more difficult. Trying to keep a straight face as the bowler ran up was followed by a fleeting moment of despair each time the batsman realised that he had hit it to cover and would have another ten minute break before the next ball arrived. In the end they both got out trying to hit the ball exclusively to the boys side. In the event the match was drawn. As for Master Kemp, he played another couple of games in the Seconds or Thirds and then, as the saying goes, "dropped out”.
I think we have only scratched the surface of Appalling Fielders and look forward to further contributions
Cockney Rhyming Slang
I am indebted to Kelvin West, a sometime Brentham player, for adding to our lexicon of Cricketing slang:
Ashley Giles-piles, as in: Our Umpire suffers from Ashleys
Strange Elevens The Great Jack Morgan got quite hot under the collar over my England XI comprised of foreigners, some of whom, he claims, were legitimately qualified. However, he has used this thesis together with his considerable intellect and reference library to come up with two Middlesex sides of his own:
The first is his official overseas players team:
Desmond Haynes
Justin Langer
Stephen Fleming
Jacques Kallis
Larry Gomes
Norman Featherstone
Abdul Razzaq
Ashley Noffke
Vincent van der Bijl
Wayne Daniel
Alan Connolly
OK as far as it goes but someone has got to keep wicket and wicket keepers are rare overseas mercenaries in the County Championship. Perhaps Fleming can perform the honours as he is the only non-bowler and is reputed to have enormous hands. Jack also has the luxury of having some notable twelfth men: Dion Nash and none other than Thommo himself.
Is this Middlesex Overseas XI the strongest that could be fielded by any county? Does anyone fancy putting together a Jazz Hat side of overseas players representing another county to take them on?
His second side is his “born abroad but we don’t count them as overseas players” team:
Wilf Slack
Andrew Strauss
Owais Shah
Roland Butcher
Ed Joyce
Jamie Dalrymple
Philippe Edmunds
Neil Williams
Rodney Kinkead-Weekes
Ricky Ellcock
Norman Cowans
His star turn in this side is Roddy Kinkead-Weekes, the South African born wicket keeper, who made two appearances in 1976
He has also been collaborating with Dave Banks to produce the reciprocal side of my left-handers who all bowled right-handed:
Mike Smith
Philippe Edmonds
Denis Compton
Ted Clark
Rajesh Maru
Alex Barnett
Phil Tufnell
Bob Hurst
Dennis Marriott
Colin Drybrough
Steve Sylvester
Jack and David are the first to admit that this side would struggle to get enough runs to beat England on tour, but if the pitch were dusty and cracking there would be a queue of slow left armers at each end! There is, of course, no wicket keeper but perhaps, Jack suggests, Roddy may have offered a few chinamen in the nets.
The answer to May’s Strange Eleven was that all the players have three initials. No one said it had to be clever.
Irritating Trends in Modern Cricket-Number 5
Attending an international or first class game requires considerable time and expense. It also requires concentration when in the ground as the action takes place ninety yards or more away.
In the sixties you only left your seat to go for a piss when play stopped between overs so that you did not disturb the other spectators. There was also total silence as the bowler commenced his run-up.
Nowadays a large proportion of the spectators appear to be at the ground primarily to draw attention to their ludicrous attire and boorish behaviour. In addition they constantly get to their feet to vie for the attention of the TV cameras. For no good reason connected to cricket people also carry banners and flags into the ground to wave at every opportunity. How can this add to their enjoyment of the cricket? It clearly only acts as an irritating distraction or an impediment to the sight lines of those who are there to watch the game.
This behaviour is regrettably not confined to the dreadful Barmy Army on foreign soil. However, I am sure that none of the readers of this organ have ever behaved in so lamentable a manner. Now you must all speak out against it, so that real cricket watchers can once again watch the game in peace.
Cyberspace
The Professor can be seen in Presidential mode on the WGCCC website, www.digswellpark.com
Please advise me of other club or interesting cricket web sites so that I can include them for all to surf around.
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. I have now bundled 1-5 together and will send to anyone who wants them. You will be able to find out who George and the Professor are, who named him the Great Jack Morgan, all about Tour Madness, avail yourself of the definitive guide to the Duckworth Lewis method and discover other trivia that is essential to your understanding of the modern game. Just send me an email to secure your copies.
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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