The CricInfo Years Part 4: 2002/03

 

The final part of the series on my four years as a reporter for CricInfo in New Zealand: 2002/03.

CricInfo was a fine example of the potential of the internet and of the wild overestimates of its ability to turn tech into profit. Founded in 1993 by cricket enthusiast Simon King at the University of Minnesota as a safe place for cricket nerds, it rode the crest of the dotcom boom wave, valued (according to Wikipedia) at US$150 million in 2000. There was no limit to its ambition, which happily included the setting up of the New Zealand operation.

This was based in Christchurch, in a modest suite of offices, proficiently managed by Lynn McConnell, who brought with him the tested disciplines of a distinguished career in newspaper journalism. If the New Zealand model had been applied worldwide things might have gone better. But the UK operation for one, based in a converted manor house in the Wiltshire countryside, was more profligate. A visitor from the New Zealand team observed that he would not have thought it possible that so many people could produce so little in the course of a working day.

The editorship of the daily CricInfo newsletter was passed around the world so that an off-season office was in charge. McConnell took this role for three months or so, never missing a deadline or a story, seven days a week. He then passed it on to the UK office, which announced that the newsletter would now only be published from Monday to Friday as they didn’t care to work at the weekends.

The 2001/02 season had ended uncertainly. The final pay for the season was delayed and it became clear that the “dotcom boom” was actually the sound of it exploding into tiny fragments. Even those of us without a business brain began to work out that a site that carried almost no advertising had to be in some sort of trouble.

So the news that live coverage of domestic cricket was to be pared back to just the 50-over competition came as no surprise (this was before T20 burst upon us in the English season of 2003). I was assigned Northern Districts’ five round-robin games.

I still had my media pass for all cricket that season and used it to gain free admission to the second test of two against India at Seddon Park (then WestPac Park). The first day had been washed out. I was at work in Rotorua until midday on Friday, but still made it to Hamilton before the delayed first ball was bowled at 4 30pm. I did not expect to have seen an entire test match by the time I returned to work on Monday morning, but that is what happened.

When the pitch was unveiled it was the bottle-green colour only a few shades deeper than what was usual at the ground, which had an excellent reputation at that time and did not usually offer bowlers more help than was reasonable at the start of a first-class game.  The difference here was that it was wet close to the surface, which assisted the bowlers in cricketing terms as much as paying off their mortgages and buying them all a Ferrari might have done in their lives generally.

By the close India were 98 for eight, adding only more for the last two wickets the following morning. VVS Laxman was highest scorer with 23, Harbhajan Singh’s 20, consisting of five fours, the only other in double figures. Lynn McConnell reported that “the off-spinner unveiled an array of shots which were probably best suited to other sports”. Four wickets each for Bond and Tuffey.

Yet it was enough for a first-innings lead. Stephen Fleming’s 21 was the highest score in a total of 94. The notes on CricInfo’s scorecard say that it was the first time that neither side had reached 100 in a completed first innings of a test match.

That India got as many as 156 was due to two 30s by great batsmen: Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar. Dravid’s 39 (the highest score of the match) was painstaking, from 100 balls. Tendulkar’s was more rapid: 32 with five fours from 48. Both have scored any number of centuries that drew less on their skill.

New Zealand needed 160 to win and took 57 overs to get them, losing wickets often enough to keep us tense. It was old-fashioned cricket, cautiously prodding the ground ahead for mines rather than charging at the guns. Appropriately, Robbie Hart, ND’s captain, hit the running win. I was pleased to see this as I had interviewed Robbie before the start of the season for an ND promotional brochure. A version appeared on CricInfo.

My reporting that season started at one of my favourite venues, Owen Delany Park in Taupo. Canterbury were the visitors. The most striking thing about the live report is that the performance of several players in this and other games at this time would influence the selection of the New Zealand squad at the upcoming World Cup. Domestic form as a selectorial aid is a notion that has become quaint in some parts of the cricketing world, most notably England (though Australia, to its credit, still holds the Sheffield Shield in high regard). I write having just watched television coverage of New Zealand team with second-string bowling attack driving our first ODI series win in India. Speaking at the end of the match, 31-year-old debutant Jayden Lennox emphasised that it was the strength of domestic cricket that enabled him and his internationally inexperienced colleagues to survive in the deep end at this level.

At Taupo, Craig McMillan illustrated this point in reverse. The Canterbury batter was having a poor run in the series of seven (!) ODIs against India. He had failed again the previous day at Napier, so somebody had the bright idea of sending him over the hill to Owen Delany Park where it was hoped his form could be found by knocking the ND attack about. In fact, he scratched about for two from 16 balls, the ND bowlers sensing prey that was lame.

I don’t say much about the pitch in the live report, but it seems that there was a sporting balance between bat and ball. For much of the reply it appeared that Canterbury’s modest looking 196 would be enough. ND did not make scoring look easy and subsided to 107 for six. A partnership of 76 between Scott Styris and Robbie Hart kept ND in the game, but they were left with 14 to win on the last over, a colossal prospect in the pre-T20 era, but one that Styris addressed by hitting the first two deliveries from Stephen Cunis for straight sixes. He took a single from the next, leaving Graeme Aldridge three balls to hit the winning run (ND had lost one more wicket than Canterbury, who would take the points in a tie). The fast bowler could only block the fourth ball. The fifth he hit straight to Paul Wiseman at mid off, expecting to be run out but giving Styris the strike for the final ball of the match. The fielder, perhaps flustered by this  kamikaze approach, let the ball through his legs and ND had won by two wickets (not the three wickets misreported by CricInfo).

Next, it was back home to Smallbone Park, Rotorua, where ND crashed and burned against Otago, going down by 79 runs. Otago’s star player was Marcel McKenzie, with a career-best score 90, a catch and a run out. I have no memory of him even though I clearly interviewed him at the close of play. I doubt that he remembers me either.

The star attraction for spectators was an Otago all-rounder playing his first cricket for more than a decade: Jeff Wilson, scorer of 44 tries in 60 internationals for the All Blacks. Wilson rejected what had become an All Black pension plan of a lucrative contract with a club in Europe, though he had many offers. Instead he went back to the distinctly unstarry world of New Zealand domestic cricket with the aim of returning to the international team, for which he had made four ODI appearances in 1993.

At Smallbone Park, Wilson conceded just eight runs in five overs. The following year he made two further appearances in ODIs as well as the inaugural T20 international, won by Australia, who took it altogether more seriously than New Zealand, who wore the retro beige kit and, in Hamish Marshall’s case, matching bouffant afro hairstyle.

ND’s three other home games were all at Seddon Park in Hamilton. The first two, against Wellington and Central Districts respectively, were notable for the return of Daniel Vettori to the ND line-up. Vettori was plucked out of domestic cricket at 18 so made few appearances for the province thereafter (in total 19 first-class and 33 List A). I’m pretty sure that this was his first appearance in a game that I reported in the three years I covered ND, though he would quite often turn up at games if he was at home in Hamilton off-duty.

Learning in the international arena benefitted Vettori’s bowling but held back his batting. So he made the most of the opportunity to open in these two games, top-scoring in both with 89 and 57 respectively. His combined figures for 20 overs were three for 52. Vettori’s performance was decisive in the 43-run defeat of Wellington, but could not avert the 100-run loss to CD. ND’s score against Wellington was enhanced by 55 extras including 31 wides.

There was another defeat in the final home round-robin game, against Auckland. ND had a fair excuse: the rain. Their innings was interrupted four times and the Aucks lost six wickets in pursuit of their reduced Duckworth-Lewis target.

I am surprised to find that, despite three home losses out of five, ND not only qualified for the knockout stage of the competition, but went on to win it. A low-scoring semi was won at the Basin Reserve. A partnership of 107 between the Marshall brothers was key in the final win at the North Harbour Stadium in Auckland (and I would have taken five or six guesses to have identified the venue).

And as far as my professional career as a cricket writer went, that was that. There was hope in the sale of CricInfo to the Wisden organisation, then owned by J Paul Getty, who had a delightful combination of a love of cricket and stacks of money. But a couple of months into the winter we had to return our laptops to Christchurch “for maintenance”. This was soon followed by the news that the New Zealand operation was shutting down. In the near quarter-century since, CricInfo reporters have been present at New Zealand grounds rarely, mostly for visits from the big three international teams and not always then.

It was an immensely enjoyable privilege to be paid to travel around the North Island to write about the cricket. I missed it when it was gone. For the next three years I watched very little cricket in person. This was partly because I was busy during the working week, and lived over an hour’s drive away from the nearest venues, but it was also because I found the experience of sitting out on the bank without a notebook in hand (and having to provide my own lunch) to be rather empty. It was not until I moved to Wellington in 2006 that the proximity of the Basin Reserve eased me into the resumption of regular attendance.

The missing pleasure of writing about the game was a gap filled by the creation of Scorecards in 2009. If you are at the Basin and come across someone making notes for no apparent reason, do say hello.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The CricInfo Years: 2001-02

 

Mrs Scorecards and I find ourselves on grandparent duty in Toronto, Canada until the end of January, so all cricket watching until then will be off screen. In the meantime, this piece resumes my account of my time working as a reporter for CricInfo in the early years of the twenty-first century.

Gisborne is a pleasant town on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island, the first in the country to welcome the sun each morning. You don’t pass through Gisborne. You go there for a purpose. In December 2001mine was to cover the first-class game between Northern Districts (the home team) and Canterbury at the Harry Barker Reserve. (Scorecard).

It was the opening match in my second season as a paid cricket writer. I had gone up the pecking order, being first choice for all Northern Districts’ home games (except the one in Whangarei, north of Auckland), with a couple of Central’s thrown in two. The package included England’s two warm-up games against ND, of which more later.

Since the development of the Bay Oval in Mt Maunganui, ND has two test match grounds on which to play its home games, plus an obligation to appear at least once a season in Northland, so no longer use venues such as Owen Delany Park in Taupo, Smallbone Park in Rotorua or the Harry Barker Reserve. This is a pity as games at the outgrounds were big occasions for the local cricket communities, with a buzz about the place throughout, not to mention some first-rate catering for the fourth estate.

CricInfo was housed on the upper floor of the ground’s large scoreboard, along with Radio Sport’s commentator Phil Stevens, whose east coast patch included Gisborne. Phil was Napier manager of the Radio Network and had been commentating cricket for at least 25 years when I came across him. He told entertaining stories of being on air with Freddie Trueman during WSC’s brief tour of New Zealand in 1978.

Phil was joined from time to time by Simon Doull, who had lost his regular place in the ND XI (but who was to make a dramatic reappearance in a new role later that season). These were, I think, Doull’s first commentary stints, so an illustrious broadcasting career began with me, literally, breathing down his neck in the claustrophobic upstairs space of the Harry Barker scorebox. That the structure swayed and groaned in the wind added to the rusticity of the occasion.

It was a match in which history was made, though we did not fully realise that at the time. For it was here that Chris Martin, one of cricket’s most renowned tailenders, made 25, a score to which he had not aspired before (previous highest: 13), and that he would never approach again. My reports on day 2 are therefore the fullest available account of an event that deserves to be in the annals of the game.

Given this, CricInfo’s man might have been a little less sniffy about the gifting and refusal of runs to get Harris off strike and Martin on it, though this is something guaranteed to irk to this day. Chris Harris’s unbeaten 155 was a fine one. He is remembered primarily as a one-day specialist, but in this form could have made it in the longer form with more indulgence from the selectors. As it was, he played 23 tests over ten years without his role ever becoming clear.

Canterbury dominated the first two days, but ND fought back on the third, finishing 29 behind with six wickets remaining after following on. A curiosity was that ND’s second innings had begun with both openers, Matthew Hart and James Marshall, having a runner.

A deluge wiped out the fourth day. I filled some of the time by interviewing (applying the term very loosely) Shane Bond. A month before, Bond had appeared to be transitioning out of the game. He had competed his training as a police officer and was dividing his time between keeping the peace and playing for Canterbury. Then he was a surprise choice to replace the injured Dion Nash after the first test in Australia, something of a hunch by chief selector Sir Richard Hadlee. Though his performances in the two remaining test matches were not spectacular, his selection had a galvanising effect on Bond, who returned home bowling noticeably faster, ND certainly noticed at Gisborne, as their top order was blown away by Bond who finished with a then career best of five for 37. When I talked to him he was still at the wide-eyed, can’t-quite-believe-it stage. He returned to Australia in the new year and was the leading wicket taker—nine ahead of second place—in the ODI tri-series that also included South Africa.

Bond is in my all-time New Zealand XI. Over the next six years more than double the number of tests were won when he was in the side than when he wasn’t, though he wasn’t there more often than he was. Bone china was reinforced concrete by comparison.

ND v Canterbury live reports

ND v Canterbury daily wraps

A measure of how much things have changed in the intervening quarter of a century is that my next assignment was a first-class game in the week between Christmas and New Year, an unthinkable event now that the Plunket Shield has, like the Sheffield Shield and the County Championship, been banished to the season’s fringes.

ND v Auckland at Seddon Park (it had a sponsor’s name then, but same place) was an entertaining game, despite, or perhaps because of, frequent rain interruptions on the first two days. ND won with a couple of overs to spare.

Speaking, as we were, of quick, injury-prone bowlers, Ian Butler was pinging Auckland batsmen throughout the match and added three first-innings wickets to the nine at a cost under 20 that he had taken in two previous games. We were having fantasies about Bond and Butler roaming the globe terrorising batsmen, the Lillee and Thomson of the twenty-first century, but Butler was no more robust than Bond and it was not to be.

ND v Auckland live reports

ND v Auckland daily wraps

The 50-over competition, then the State Shield, occupied January. I covered games at the outgrounds of Blake Park in Mt Maunganui (the Bay Oval is adjacent to the site of the old ground) and Smallbone Park in Rotorua, which was only a mile or so away from where I lived. Smallbone Park is a delightful little ground with a large bank running down one side of the field. There was also a welcome opportunity to return to Pukekura Park in New Plymouth.

CricInfo was situated in Pukekura Park’s functional but plain pavilion, the best viewing point in the ground in the sense that it was the only place from which the pavilion itself did not spoil the panorama. If ever a ground deserved a pavilion with a thatched roof it is Pukekura Park.

The other problem with the location was that a sponsor’s tent blocked our view of one end of the pitch. I flattered myself that being able to see the game enhanced the accuracy of my reports. The match was covered on TV (the commentators peering over the wall from a truck parked outside the ground) but there was no set where we were, so we had to clarify what was going on by messages on the CricInfo chatroom.

It was back to Seddon Park for the final two group-stage home games, and abandonment against Otago and a win for ND over Auckland that sealed the home teams place in the knockout phase. The latter contest was the first time that Seddon Park’s new floodlights had been employed. It is difficult now to remember what a novelty this was. Floodlit cricket had been common in Australia for twenty years, and had spread into Asia for the 1996 World Cup, but was still quite new in the UK and New Zealand. Apart from an absurd evening between Kent and Sussex at Gillingham FC in the early 80s (KBS Jarvis opening the batting for Kent), my only experience of cricket under lights had been a couple of games at Owen Delany Park, Taupo, where the artificial illumination amounted to not much more than a full moon might provide.

The lights at Seddon Park were in a different class altogether, the best on any sports ground in New Zealand, or so it was said and appeared. CricInfo’s man declined an opportunity to provide his readers with an account of what it was like to climb one of the six towers and to look out across the Waikato from its apex.

The semi-final was another evening under lights at Seddon Park with ND contriving to lose to a weakened Canterbury side who thus travelled to the Basin Reserve to lose to Wellington in a final still remembered by the RA Vance Pessimists for Mayu Pasupati’s catch to dismiss Aaron Redmond.

The biggest games that I wrote about in my CricInfo years were the two 50-over contests between ND and England XIs at the start of England’s tour early in 2002. The tourists arrived straight from India where they played three tests (lost one-nil) and six (!) ODIs (drawn three-three). We were still a year off the T20 revolution.

Itineraries were already shrinking under the weight of the international timetable; the India leg had begun with two three-day first-class games, but these two fixtures against ND were the only transition into New Zealand conditions that this England squad had before going into five more ODIs (there were then two three-day contests against Otago and Canterbury before the three tests).

Around the world, non-international matches against touring teams had been losing their lustre for a couple of decades, but in New Zealand they were still big events. ND put out their strongest team, to the extent that Scott Styris played in the second game hours after returning to New Zealand from the international one-day squad in Australia. The novelty of the lights helped too. The Waikato has steamy days at the height of summer, and is well suited to floodlit cricket, unlike venues further south.

The first of the two matches was something of a classic. The English made 288, to which 50 or so should be added to gauge its modern equivalent in terms of the challenge of the chase. A run-a-ball century from Nick Knight led the way, well-supported by Trescothick, Thorpe and Shah.

Simon Doull’s role in the ND squad had transformed into that of pinch hitter as the season progressed and reached its zenith under Hamilton’s lights. He hit (and this, rather than slogged, is the fairest description) 80 from 47 balls before falling (“like a warrior” wrote CricInfo’s over-excited reporter) in the fourteenth over with the score on 114.

Michael Parlane, Hamish Marshall and Grant Bradburn kept the momentum  provided by Doull going just enough to give ND a win in the last over. It was a fine match and occasion. As recorded in the match report, ND skipper Robbie Hart was brimming over with pride after the game. The England XI’s stand-in skipper Marcus Trescothick was not too disappointed, saying something along the lines of “we want strong opposition in these matches and today we got it”.

There were extra requirements with (as far as I recall) a separate piece besides the match wrap required for the daily newsletter. I know that I finished writing in my motel room at about 1am, the sweat pouring off me. I think that I wrote more than 6,000 words on the game, though, to the relief of many, the live reports seem to have disappeared. I have rarely had more fun.

The second match, a day game two days later, was a less frenetic, more low-scoring affair that the English won thanks largely to Andrew Flintoff, who followed up three for 20 with 45 from 25 balls. Here are the live reports.

The experience of sharing a press box with the English media was interesting. Individually they were pleasant enough but had an unappealing collective disdain about them. Gareth the scorer and I riled them by taking the side of ND contrary to English press box etiquette.

Christopher Martin-Jenkins was there as the cricket correspondent of The Times. The story about him trying to make a mobile phone call on the TV remote from his hotel room is one of a number concerning his other worldiness. I was witness to another at the second of these two games. CMJ became increasingly agitated that nobody at The Times was answering the phone or emails in order to discuss the article that he had spent a couple of hours writing for that day’s paper, and that the early editions were going to press without them. It was a while before any of his colleagues pointed out that it was Saturday night in the UK, and that the office would be empty, there being no paper on Sunday.

Three first-class games at Seddon Park rounded off the season. The first, against Wellington, was a tense affair that resulted in a one-wicket win for the visitors when the young Jeetan Patel hit the winning run in a last-wicket partnership of 20 with James Franklin.

Wellington’s paceman Andrew Penn took seven wickets in the first innings. I realise only now that he is the only bowler I have seen take seven in both first-class and list A cricket, having been there when he routed ND with seven for 28 at Blake Park a couple of years previously. Not even Deadly Derek achieved this.

A couple of other oddities from this game. Opener James Marshall was ninth out in ND’s second innings, as near as I have come to seeing someone carry their bat in a first-class game. As things stand my headstone will read “He never saw anybody carry their bat”.

In the first innings Michael Parlane made 146 of ND’s 227, 64% of the total, not far short of Bannerman’s 67.3% in the inaugural test match in 1877 that remains test cricket’s oldest record. Michael Slater’s 66.8% in the Sydney Ashes test of 1999 remains the highest that I have witnessed in person.

The next fixture, against Central Districts, was intended to be historic, the inaugural first-class day-night match in New Zealand, and one of the first anywhere, after experiments in Australia and India. The critical difference here was that orange balls had been used on those occasions. There was great confidence that under Seddon Park’s powerful new lights the red ball would outshine all the other stars in the sky. Practice on the evening before the scheduled start was largely encouraging in terms of the ball being followed from the bowler’s hand to the bat. However, when it came time to practise catches in the deep, it became clear that the red ball was as difficult to track against the black sky as a stealth fighter plane and almost as dangerous as it returned to Earth unmonitored. As CricInfo’s newshound reported, the start was postponed until the next morning.

There was an odd related occurrence a few weeks later at the third and final test against England at Eden Park. I was there as a spectator until midway through the third day and watched the bizarre events unfold late on the fourth at home. New Zealand were one-nil down so needed to win this final test. They had a first-innings lead of 42, but, as sunset neared on an early autumn evening, it looked as if they would have to set a generous target if they were to leave enough time to bowl England out (this was Nasser Hussain’s team in the days when not losing in this situation was the prime directive).

It was one of the first times that lights were permitted in test matches, to supplement natural illumination at the margins. But there was a loophole in the regulations as wide as the gap between Zac Crawley’s bat and pad. The choice about going off for bad light was in the hands of the batters, who turned down all opportunities to do so, even as night fell and the sky turned black. Nathan Astle, in rich form after bashing the fastest double hundred in test history at Christchurch, now made the second fastest New Zealand test fifty, in 38 balls, having made only two from the first 15. With Craig Macmillan, Astle put on 50 for the fifth wicket in 36 balls. Both realised that if they could lift the ball into the black background of the heavens there was a good chance that the first thing that any fielder in the path of its descent would know about it would be what they were told as they were resuscitated in A & E.

England were not in a position to complain, but did anyway; they had made use of the same rules a year or so before to bat on in the dark to beat Pakistan. In Auckland, New Zealand won by 78 runs with time to spare.

The delayed ND v CD match was a good one, the difference between the teams being one spell of five for ten by CD’s Michael Mason. On the last day ND put all their chips on the weather, which allowed only ten minutes play in a six-hour period from lunch to early evening. The home players stood aside as the CD squad, who still had a chance of the title, assisted the groundstaff with rapid and frequent covering and uncovering of the block. There was enough time for them to register a seven-wicket win.

My final engagement of the 2001/02 season was for the visit of Otago, who were having a bad season that got no better over these few days. The centrepiece was an unbeaten 212 by Scott Styris. Astonishingly, this was the highest first-class score ever made by an ND batsman. It should be remembered that ND had only been playing first-class cricket since the 1950s and that for much of that time a Plunket Shield season consisted of five three-day games per association. The record for first-class hundreds in an ND career was held by none other than Graeme Hick, who played in New Zealand domestic competition for just two seasons, making ten centuries.

Otago went down to an innings defeat. A curiosity was that their openers were Brendon McCullum, and Chris Gaffeney who is now one of the leading international umpires.

So ended my second summer as a paid cricket writer. What bliss, particularly as my patch covered much of the North Island south of Auckland and north of Wellington, a beautiful part of the world to travel round. It seemed that I had found the perfect way to spend the New Zealand summer for decades to come.

But the pay for the last part of the season came in late. Rumours circulated. NZ Cricket contributed to the cost of covering domestic cricket, but there was sparse advertising on CricInfo and it was unclear how money was being made. Maybe the dotcom boom wasn’t all it was cracked up to be after all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A perfect day at Pukekura Park

 

Central Districts v Wellington, 50 overs, Pukekura Park, 25 October 2025

Scorecard

What if I’m wrong and there is a heaven, where we can while away eternity by selecting cricket teams of the passed to entertain us? My home ground will be Pukekura Park, New Plymouth (touring sides welcome). It is quite the most entrancing ground at which I have watched cricket. I was there at the weekend, for the first time in a decade or so.

The only change in the appearance of the ground in that time is that two of the three grass ziggurats that that comprise the spectator seating now have wooden supports on their vertical sections, as the photo shows.

When these were first installed the newness of the wood stood out somewhat uncomfortably, but they have weathered sufficiently to blend in well with the arboreal surround, and do not detract from the idyll whatsoever. I was on the sixth terrace up directly behind the sightscreen at the Park End of the ground, as perfect a view of the cricket as it is possible to have, with a view of the Tasman Sea adding even more to the wonderfulness.

The occasion was the opening of the domestic season, a 50-over game between Central Districts (CD) and Wellington. CD are the most itinerant of New Zealand’s provincial teams. This season they will play at four grounds: McLean Park in Napier, Fitzherbert Park in Palmerston North and Pukekura Park are spread across the lower half of the North Island, while Saxton Oval in Nelson is at the top of the South Island. This is logistically complicated, but means that matches are more of an occasion for the local cricket community than is the case in the bigger centres.

In these surroundings the quality of the cricket has little bearing on the level of enjoyment. The Old Trafford test of 1964 (Tom Cartwright 77-32-118-2) would have left delightful memories had it been played at Pukekura Park. In fact, this game had plenty of good cricket on a pitch where the balance between bat and ball was just right. With its short boundaries square of the pitch on both sides, estimates of par scores for the team batting first in 50-over contests start at 300 and rise quickly. Today, there were two green strips down the corridor of uncertainty on either side of the stumps. Assistance was available to bowlers, but required precision to gain access to it. Waver a little and the ball headed for the trees.

Wellington were not sharp enough to realise that the order of the day was more circumspection than is usual at this venue. McLaughlin being caught on the mid-wicket boundary in the third over of the day was an early indication of this.

Twenty of Jesse Tashkoff’s 21 came in boundaries before he nicked Tickner to slip in the fourth over. Tickner exploited the possibilities of the pitch well, but finished with only the one wicket at a cost of 55 from seven overs. He beat the bat often enough and with more luck could have had three or four, but bowled too many short deliveries when a good length was the best way of coaxing movement.

Tim Robinson (back from the international T20 side) and Gareth Severin put on 77 for the third wicket in 12 overs and it seemed that a Pukekura Park megascore was on the cards until Josh Clarkson came on to bowl. Clarkson bowls on the sharp side of medium pace and with considerable intelligence. Starting from the Park End he got movement both off the pitch and through the air. When he switched to the Sea End (I have no idea if those are the correct names of the ends but which is which is clear) he bowled more back of a length, without repeating the mistake of his quicker colleagues Tickner and Findlay by going all out short.

Clarkson took five of the remaining eight wickets that fell, reducing Wellington from 105 for two to 199 all out. In his first spell of four overs he took three for 13 including Nick Kelly and Tom Blundell, who had the same stump knocked out of the ground, though it was Kelly’s leg and Blundell’s off.

Clarkson was well-supported by slow left-armer Jayden Lennox, who invariably impresses in white-ball cricket, even if his inclusion here was at the expense of Ajaz Patel, one of only three to have taken all ten in a test-match innings. I am pretty sure that Jim Laker and Anil Kumble were never subjected to the indignity of running the drinks in a domestic game as Patel was here.

Lennox got Severin for 60 with the first apparently poor ball that he bowled, full outside off at which the batter thrashed and was well caught at point by Tickner. But was it a bad ball? Could it have been ploy to tempt a man who was eager to push on when the previous two overs had produced just five runs? That’s the frustrating thing about watching cricket. You don’t know what is actually happening out there.

Lennox is captain of CD in this form of the game and is to be complimented on staying on the attack, with close catchers present almost throughout the innings.

As the wickets tumbled Logan van Beek constrained his natural aggressive game in favour of marshalling the lower order until the loss of Snedden and appearance of Hartshorn at an ambitious No 10 made him decide that it was time for a hit. One of these blows cleared the road at the Sea End and pitched on the front lawn of a house opposite, though the size of the ground makes this less of a feat than at most places. At one time, if television was present the commentators were located in a truck parked in that same road outside the ground, peering over the wall like Kilroy.

CD’s approach was altogether more measured. After the early loss of Cleaver, charging at Dudding to be caught at backward point, Schmulian and Foxcroft put on 78 the second wicket, whereupon two wickets fell from successive deliveries from legspinner Peter Younghusband. Curtis Heaphy then joined Schmulian and contributed a calm, accomplished 35 to a partnership of 68. Last year, I watched Heaphey—then only 20—make 135 from 328 deliveries in the Plunket Shield to save the game against Wellington. He is a cricketer with old-fashioned talent, and he will play for New Zealand before long.

The loss of two further wickets within ten of the target meant that the margin of victory was four wickets, which makes it seem closer than it was, there being more than ten overs to spare.

Before setting off to the ground I was alarmed to discover that I had left what I call my Plunket Shield coat—the one that I have acquired to see me through Christmas in Canada—in Wellington, but I need not have worried. It was balmy to the extent that I even went sweaterless for an hour in the afternoon.

Pukekura Park is much more than the cricket ground, which occupies no more than five percent of the total area. There is a small zoo, an excellent tea room (I recommend the vanilla slice), a couple of lakes with ducklings parading in lines, a concert bowl, and as many shades of green as there are in nature itself. A number of families made a half-hour at the cricket part of their day out, including, I am pleased to say, my own. Mrs Scorecards dropped in along with her sister, brother, sister-in-law, and two nieces. We were sitting just behind the sole camera and microphone providing the YouTube feed, and eight-year-old Olive made a promising debut as a commentator. Wellington should take heed of her perceptive analysis.

It was a perfect day at the cricket.

 

 

 

 

The season ends; final thoughts

 

That the county season of 1975 finished as late as 16 September was a significant development in the scheduling of the English cricket season. Until then, the Championship had regularly concluded on the day before the Gillette Cup final, always played on the first Saturday in September. This extension seems to have been considered a bit too bold, as it remained the latest season’s end for ten years, until in 1985 it was a day later. In 1990 the last day pushed past 20 September, largely to accommodate four-day cricket. The following year, the Championship concluded on the 20^th, but that was followed by one and four-day contests between the champions (Essex) and the winners of the Sheffield Shield (Victoria). Rain cost Essex victory when they were two wickets short of an innings victory. That Merv Hughes was the top scorer for the Victorians suggests that they were treating the trip as a bit of a jolly. It has not been repeated.

It was another five years until the Championship went beyond the 20^th of the month, and it remained the exception rather than the rule. Only in 2005 did the last Championship game start after the 20^th, and only since 2013 has the last week in September become the regular finishing point for English cricket. Only once (since the foundation of the Championship at least) and for barely more than an hour, has October hosted county cricket, the Bob Willis Trophy challenge match between winners and runners-up in 2021.

In 2025, I write at the end of a wet week of disrupted county games (happily excluding the probable decider between Surrey and Nottinghamshire), including a shortened 50-over final. As usual when September is wet, there are complaints that it is unnatural to play as the leaves change colour, but the rain can disrupt any English month. Much of my cricket watching on visits to the UK in the past three decades has been in September and with the exception of 2019, it was idyllic. Twice I visited in April and froze on both occasions. Playing county cricket throughout September is fine by me.

In 1975, it was the week in which Leicestershire became county champions for the first time. A month out, four or five teams appeared to have a better chance, but they timed their run perfectly. It was a personal triumph for Raymond Illingworth, whose seventh season as Leicestershire captain this was. He had built the county into a winning unit in one-day cricket, the 55-over trophy earlier in the season being their third in four seasons. Yet on paper they were not one of the strongest contenders in first-class cricket. For one thing, their overseas fast bowler, Graham McKenzie, was playing one more year than was wise, and came seventh on the county’s wicket-takers list for 1975. They had no current England players, but were a line up of county pros most of whom were having one of their best seasons, plus the other overseas player, Brian Davison, who led the batters. They were superbly captained by Illingworth, who, at 43, came 15^th in both the national batting and bowling averages (though with a third of his appearances at the crease being not out).

One of the great sporting tales was rightly celebrated on its fiftieth anniversary: Chris Balderstone finished the second day’s play 51 not out. Earlier, the securing of a bonus point had given Leicestershire the Championship, but rather than join in with the celebrations Balderstone got in a car driven by Doncaster Rovers manager and was driven to the club’s home ground, Belle Vue, where he played the full 90 minutes in a one-all draw against Brentford in Division Four. The following morning Balderstone resumed his innings and completed his century.

Kent had their worst year of the seventies. In their other two trophyless seasons of the decade they got to a final (1971) or led into the final game of the Sunday League (1979). In ’75 the county went out of both knockouts at the first opportunity and faded away on the final month of both leagues. The heavy demands of the selectors was a partial explanation. Six players  to the World Cup, Underwood and Knott for four tests, Woolmer for two and Denness for one. Then we would never have contemplated that the county could have a season as bad as 2025, 29 points adrift at the bottom of the table.

News came this week of the death of Bernard Julien. Fifty years ago he was a World Cup winner, and had a good season for Kent around international appearances and injury, averaging 30 with the bat (despite often coming in at No 9) and 17 (40 wickets) with the ball in first-class cricket, including a five-for with spin at Folkestone.  He toured with the successful West Indies side in 1976 and had a more moderate year in 1977, after which he was released, possibly because those in charge felt compelled to make a sacrificial gesture of one Packer player, at least. Bernard Julien was a richly talented cricketer whose promise was never quite realised, but he shone along with the sun in the glorious summer of ’75.

When I last conducted an exercise like this—recording scores and news each day on Twitter (now also on Bluesky) with a weekly retrospective here on Scorecards—I had the feeling that I was, if not quite at the cutting edge of the digital revolution, at least no more than a day’s walk from it. A few years later and writing a blog seems akin to driving a car that needs a starting handle to shake it into life, or playing cricket on uncovered pitches. If I had any self-respect I should be doing a podcast, or on Tik-Tok, I realise.

Yet there remains an unsurpassed pleasure from turning thoughts and memories into words on paper or a screen and it is an exercise that I undertake primarily for my own enjoyment, grateful as I am for the occasional interactions with a very small cross-section of the discerning. It has been an excuse to enjoy again the writing of John Woodcock and Alan Gibson among cricket writers, and others such as David Lacey and High McIlvanney on football and Clive James’s TV reviews, all scribes who inspired my interest in words and how to use them when I first came across the posh papers at around that time.

For these reasons, I will probably do this again at some point, museum piece as it is. The following summer, 1976, was even sunnier and drier, and full of fine cricket, most of it played by the West Indies. I would like at some point to recreate an old-fashioned tour, playing the states before going into the test matches, or to go way back, perhaps to Kent’s first Championship year of 1906. If and when this comes about, I will try to restore more context in terms of what was happening in Britain and the world. There was less of this for 1975 than there had been for 1967, partly because the news was so much concerned with income policies and industrial action, which interested me at the time, but have become archaic and so take too much explaining to be of any use here.

As for 1975, the opening words of Norman Preston’s Notes by the Editor in the 1976 Wisden hold good.

Surely the season of 1975 will go down in the annals of English cricket as one of the best of all time.

 

 

 

6 to 12 September 1975: Another Dull Lord’s Final

For the second time in the 1975 season a Lord’s final was an anti-climax, and for the same reason as the first: Middlesex batted first and did not score sufficient runs to make a game of it. Their 180 for eight in the 60-over Gillette final was an improvement on the 146 they scraped together in the 55-over contest, but John Woodcock may have been underestimating when he wrote that “For the second time this season in a one-day final Middlesex needed another 30 runs to give their bowlers a fair winning chance”.

The whole event was conducted at a stately gait, only pushing past three an over in the final stages. Lancashire followed the unwritten rule that the side chasing a small total should extract whatever joy they could from proceedings by using most of the overs available to them. They went so slowly as to induce anxiety in their vociferous if untuneful supporters, but Clive Lloyd, incapable of playing dully, took the game by the scruff of the neck, just as he had the World Cup final in June. He was a wonderful player.

The think I remember most about watching the match on television was the warm reception given to the Middlesex (and in 21 tests, England) wicketkeeper JT Murray as he walked out to bat at Lord’s for the last time. He provided one of the few highlights for the Londoners by taking what Wisden describes as “a brilliant one-handed catch” to dismiss Frank Hayes.

Nobody realised how that mundane match marked the close of one era and the start of another. For Lancashire, it was a fifth final in six years, only that of the previous year lost. “See you next year” they might justifiably have said to the gatemen as they left. Middlesex fans were still more inclined to rhapsodise about Edrich and Compton than dwell on the present.

Yet it was 15 years until Lancashire next got their hands the 60-over trophy, by which time Middlesex had won it four times. The following season Middlesex won the Championship for the first time since 1949 and were to do so (including the 1977 share with Kent) seven times in 18 years, more than any county in the rest of the century. The veneration of Mike Brearley was about to begin.

The County Championship resumed on Wednesday with, rather oddly, just three matches, two of which involved teams that had to win to stand any chance of cresting the tape ahead of Leicestershire. Lancashire succeeded, Hampshire did not.

In his preview, John Woodcock suggested that the absence of the injured Andy Roberts might be a decisive blow to Hampshire, and he was probably right. John Ward made his maiden century for Derbyshire in his final innings and Alan Hill batted with his trademark obstinacy to hold them up for much of the third day. Roberts would surely have blasted through Alan Ward and Mike Hendrick who ground things out into the last hour until Hampshire gave up on the game and therefore their slim hope of winning the Championship.

It is a measure of the times that when Hampshire chose to shake hands, had they taken the last wicket with the following ball they would have had 86 to win from seven overs with Barry Richards and Gordon Greenidge to open. Now, that would be tough but quite possible. Then it was seen as fantasy.

At Old Trafford, Lancashire also faced some dogged resistance, partly from the Gloucestershire batters, but mostly from the rain, which delayed play until mid-afternoon, at which point Lancashire wrapped things up quite swiftly. They were now second in the Championship. If they secured the maximum 18 points against Sussex in the final match, Leicestershire would need the full eight bonus points to top them.

Hampshire had managed to wrap up the Sunday League, also against Derbyshire, at what must be county cricket’s most obscure venue, Darley Dale. As we have discussed, Derbyshire had lost the use of the County Ground in Derby after the opening game of the season, so for the rest of the summer wandered the county as itinerant minstrels in search of a stage. Thus did Darley Dale come to host what remains its only county cricket match, and they got a trophy presentation, fifties by Richards and Greenidge, and John Arlott and Jim Laker thrown in. With a population of 3,500, I cannot think of a smaller place to have hosted a county game. One of two here in New Zealand in the past might have matched it, for example Waikanae, north of Wellington, which has been an occasional venue for Central Districts over the years. Hampshire won easily enough by 70 runs.

30 August to 5 September: The Never-ending Test Match: Leicestershire Make Their Move

 

The fourth test match was the longest game of cricket ever played in England, and was still drawn when it finally ended after six days.

When I left the Oval at the end of the second day England were 513 behind Australia with all wickets standing and four days to go, there being a sixth day available as the series could yet be drawn. This situation, and how it was resolved, tells us much about how attitudes to test cricket have changed over the past half century. Now, McCullum and Stokes’ England would have their eyes on a lead acquired at sufficient pace to make a win possible, as they did at Multan in 2024, replying to 556 with 823 to set up the win. In 1975 such an eventuality would have been considered incredible, not worth discussion. Survival was the only aim, which meant that the pace would be measured, particularly on an Oval pitch that offered the bowlers nothing and attacking batters not much more. John Woodcock described it as “being as dry as the Nullarbor Plain, and much the same colour”.

On the third day, England subsided to 169 for eight, which Woodcock wrote was “as poor a display as any in the last year”. Yet over the next three days England ground out 538 in the second innings to save the game. Edrich, made for this situation, opened with 96. Steele the folk hero registered his fourth half-century in six innings and Roope made 77, which turned out to be his highest test score. It is pleasing to record that the draw was finally secured by the Kent pair, Knott and Woolmer’s, sixth-wicket partnership of 151.

It was not pretty. Woolmer’s 149 was the slowest century for England against Australia. Ten successive overs before tea on the fifth day were maidens. John Arlott called it “one of the best defensive performances in the history of test cricket”. It is probable that modern batters would not be capable of mounting such a rearguard, though the existence of DRS might also have been a mitigating factor: “At Lord’s Fagg and Spencer gave everything out. At the Oval Spencer and Bird gave everything in”, according to Woodcock.

Australia were left with 198 to win the game in about 30 overs. Now, they would have had a go. Then, not a chance.

In the County Championship, it was the week in which Leicestershire moved from being outsiders to putative champions. They began at Tunbridge Wells, achieving a first-innings lead of 78 thanks to an unbeaten ninth-wicket partnership of 136 between fast bowlers McVicker and McKenzie. Kevin Jarvis, in his first season, took four for 43 as Leicestershire were dismissed for 123 in the second innings. At 160 for four, Kent looked like being the team to make a late charge for the Championship, but Ray Illingworth’s excess of cunning made him an appropriate leader of Foxes and he induced a collapse of the last six wickets for 23 runs to leave his team winners by 18 runs. Illingworth was the bowler for four of the six, and caught one of the other two. No doubt he took quiet satisfaction that his replacement as England captain was the defeated leader.

Leicestershire then went home to Grace Road to face Middlesex (whose minds may have been on the Gillette Cup final on the day after this fixture). The performance of the match was by my personal skiing instructor Barry Dudleston, who made 107, described by Peter Marson in The Times as “an innings of high quality”. Illingworth again weighed in with second-innings wickets that ensured a modest victory target. The two wins left Leicestershire 17 points clear of Yorkshire with a game to play, though third-placed Hampshire had a slightly better chance of catching them with two games left and a 27 point deficit (there were 10 points for a win and a maximum of four batting and four bowling bonus points).

On Sunday, Leicestershire lost to Hampshire, with Barry Richards rolling out anther century. This left Hampshire four points ahead of Kent (four points for a win), but with a much superior run rate, which meant that there would have to be two mathematically improbable results to deprive them of the trophy.

A curiosity among the cricket scores this week was the Fenner Trophy, played over the then unusual duration of 50 overs per innings. It was a three-day knockout tournament that was part of the Scarborough Festival. Yorkshire and Hampshire defeated Kent and Gloucestershire in the semis, and Hampshire beat the hosts despite (or perhaps because of) a century by Boycott in the final. The teams were close to full strength despite it being played at the end of an intense season, but the inducements, financial and liquid no doubt, were sufficiently enticing. There were five-figure crowds throughout.

 

23 – 29 August: Cricket in the Sun

The cricket ground at Cheriton Road, Folkestone was functional, with a concrete crescent of a terrace forming a stand about ten rows deep that spread out either side of the brick pavilion and around half the ground. Most of the other half  was occupied by the marquees that moved around Kent from cricket week to cricket week, temporary homes for men in suits and (fewer) ladies in hats. Put it in a city and it would be forgettable. Located as it was with a view of the North Downs, rolling down towards Dover where they became the White Cliffs, it was one of my favourite grounds.

Peter Marson’s scene setting of the second day of the match against Surrey in The Times tallies with my recollection of that week as something close to idyllic.

“Here was the perfect summer’s day, sunny with a light breeze to caress furrowed brows. Undulating Kentish Downs, etched against the palest blue skies, completed the picture”.

I got a lift from Canterbury to Folkestone in a Morris Traveller driven by a man called Frank in which a passenger was Harold Warner, something of a historian of Kent cricket. Even in this hot summer he was wearing his traditional waistcoat, jacket and mac, topped by a Homburg. As boys they watched Freeman, Woolley, Ames and Chapman, perhaps even Wilfred Rhodes who played in the nineteenth century. I have seen Brook, Bethall and others who may be active into the 2040s.

We went via the route that the Romans designed, arrow straight down Stone Street, then across the Kentish countryside to Rhodes Minnis and Lyminge and on to Folkestone. That was the way I used forever after and still do whenever I return to Kent.

Asif Iqbal, who always enjoyed Folkestone, got the week under way with a glittering hundred. Many a swordsman have not been as fleet of foot or flashed a blade as proficiently as Asif at Cheriton Road. Three years later, after he launched a similar onslaught against Gloucestershire, causing cover fielder Jim Foat to miss the following day’s Sunday League game with bruised hands.

The other contender for innings of the week was by Viv Richards, who made a rapid, fierce 122. Brian Luckhurst could not compete aesthetically with these two overseas players but scored more runs than anybody else that week with a hundred, a ninety and a sixty. It was good to see him getting past the trauma of the previous winter. Graham Johnson rediscovered the early season form that had him talked about as a possible test-match selection and made a hundred in the win against Somerset.

The decisive bowling that won that game was by Bernard Julien who had gone into the game as a batter only because of injury. In Underwood’s absence he reverted to slow bowling in the final stages of the game and took five for 55 to finish things off. As a slow bowler Julien could bowl in both orthodox and unorthodox mode. When he joined Kent he was, most unfairly, touted as the next Sobers, because of promise and his ability to bowl in different styles. Kent did not make the most of Julien’s ability, batting him low in the order even after a Lord’s test century and not providing the structure that would have enabled him to get the most from his ability. Bob Woolmer, this week batting at No 5 for England, was another who should have been higher up the order much earlier.

Here is Henry Blofeld’s report on the first day of the Somerset match.

 

I missed Julien’s decisive bowling on the final day of Folkestone week as I was at the Oval for the second day of the final test. As was (mercifully briefly) the custom for unresolved Ashes series at that time, a sixth day had been added. As we will see, this did no more than act as a sedative, a disincentive to moving things along.

As John Woodcock described “Yet again it was fiercely hot and beautifully sunny” as I took my seat in the open section of the Vauxhall Stand. I saw 271 runs for the loss of eight Australian wickets, pretty standard for for a day’s test cricket at the time, but possibly the most entertaining of the six days, which gives you a picture of the game as a whole. It began unusually with two centurions resuming. McCosker scored only one more before being caught by Roope in the slips off Old, but Ian Chappell added another fifty, finishing with 192. Doug Walters made a rare English half-century but never looked comfortable. He was stuck on 49 for so long that a wag near me shouted “I have a ticket for Tuesday if anyone wants to see Walters get his fifty”.

As was the case through much of the seventies, the Oval was geologically slow, making scoring runs and getting out equally challenging, the worst of all pitches. It took the genius of Mikey Holding the following year to produce a win in such conditions. In 1975, a draw was assumed to be the denouement from early on. John Arlott was moved to quote Andrew Marvell in his report on the second day:

“Yonder all before us lie / Deserts of vast eternity at least it must feel like that to more English batsmen than read him regularly”.

 Spare a thought for Keith Fletcher, whose treatment by the selectors in 1975 would be regarded as cruel and unusual these days. Picked for the first test when he deserved a break after the travails of the Australian tour, he was then dropped despite scoring England’s only fifty. He was then recalled at Headingley, a venue at which he had never fared well after a disastrous debut when he was picked ahead of local hero Phil Sharpe. Then he was dropped again for the Oval, a ground on which he had made 122 in similar conditions the year before. Instead, he was leading Essex against Northamptonshire with Alan Gibson watching:

“They do not seem pleased with Fletcher in Essex at present, or perhaps it is that so many Yorkshiremen take their holidays at Southend”.

Yorkshiremen were more cheerful than at most times in the seventies as they led the Championship, but had only two games to play when all their pursuers had three, so would inevitably be overtaken unless a national deluge intervened.

Performance of the week was Robin Hobbs’ hundred for Essex against the Australians. It took him 40 minutes, the fastest since Percy Fender took 35 minues for Surrey against Nottinghamshire in 1920.

Curiosity of the week occurred at Lord’s where Middlesex suffered two bowlers taking eight wickets in an innings against them for different sides on successive days. What’s more, both were career bests for international players, first John Snow with eight for 87 for Sussex, then David Brown, eight for 60 for Warwickshire. Snow ridiculed reports that Middlesex had been blown away by his pace, claiming that he had mostly bowled off spin (Snow took six of his wickets on the second day, for the sake of accuracy).

Sunday found me among 10,000 spectators at Mote Park, Maidstone, a ground that could accommodate no more than a fifth of that number comfortably. If I was lucky, I got a seat in the pavilion or on the small area of concrete terracing. Otherwise, it was a piece of four-by-two perched improbably on ill-suited logs, if at all. Kent were beaten comfortably by five wickets, ending our chances in the Sunday League in 1975. The trophy was delivered to us by helicopter at the same venue a year later.

It was a wonderful week.

16 – 22 August: George Davis is innocent but only this time ok?

The fourth day of the third test set up us up for a wonderful fifth. England, already 337 ahead, added another 107 to their overnight score at a rate of five an over, roughly equivalent to the speed of sound in test cricket in 1975. “Even Steele came out of his shell” reported Norman Preston in Wisden. The man in question top scored with 92. It is hard to convey the extent to which he had become a national totem in just a couple of weeks. The anticipation of his maiden century was akin to waiting for the birth of a new royal heir. “When Thomson hit Steele under the ribs the Australians’ lack of compassion was a kind of compliment to him”, reported John Woodcock. The hundred would have to wait for another year.

Australia did well in pursuit of a daunting target of 445, quickly dispatching any thoughts that the game would finish that day. At the close they were 220 for three, fast enough to leave an attainable 225 on the final day. Opener Rick McCosker was still there on 95. Doug Walters also, on 25. Perhaps this would be the day when he would finally show an English crowd how good he was. With Gary Gilmour as high as No 7, England remained favourites.

We returned from our Devon holiday on the Monday evening and I looked forward to a tense day in front of the TV. It must have been at about 8am that the news broke that the groundsman had discovered upon removing the covers that holes had been dug in the pitch and that oil had been poured over a length at one end. That was it. Rightly, there was no question of transferring to a different strip. There was loose talk about arranging an extra test, but that was dismissed pretty quickly too. Thus were the Ashes retained by Australia.

It began to rain at midday, so the game would have been drawn anyway. Or would it? With play underway, so the pitch would have been uncovered. Deadly Derek would have needed half an hour…

The protest was to draw attention to the plight of George Davis, in prison for armed robbery after (according his supporters) a miscarriage of justice. Given how easily the match could have finished on the fourth day, there appeared to be a lack of cricket intelligence about the timing of the action. Davis was given a royal pardon by Home Secretary Roy Jenkins the following year, though the guilty verdict was not overturned until 2011. However, Davis was subsequently convicted of involvement in robberies of a bank and of mailbags, in 1977 and 1987 respectively. In both cases, he was plumb with no question of wasting a DRS review.

The Gillette Cup semi-finals were played on the day following the Headingley debacle. Younger people might be surprised at what huge occasions in the cricketing calendar these games were. There were 25,000 at Old Trafford for Gloucestershire’s visit, a repeat of the famous semi-final five years before, won by David Hughes hitting John Mortimore for 26 in an over as the BBC delayed the Nine O’Clock News. There was tension here too. Opener Sadiq Mohammad made 122, but only three other batters got into double figures, so 236 was fewer than Gloucestershire should have got. Lancashire started well as openers Wood and Kennedy put on 75 , but wickets fell regularly. Eighteen runs were needed off 11 balls with three wickets left, an equation that would lead to failure more times than not in 1975, but Simmons and Ratcliffe got them over the line with three balls to spare.

The other semi-final was at the more picturesque surroundings of Queen’s Park in Chesterfield, Derbyshire being without access to the County Ground in Derby because of a dispute with the council. Mike Hendrick’s four for 16 helped limit Middlesex to 207. Derbyshire would have been confident when Ron Headley (son of George, father of Dean) and Phil Sharpe put on 81 for the first wicket. The occasion got to them after that. They lost by 24 runs.

Yorkshire remained top of the Championship, 14 points ahead of Surrey who had a game in hand. Rain at Cardiff prevented Boycott’s men from taking full advantage of a 96-run lead on first innings, but Glamorgan had knocked off 78 of those for the loss of only one wicket so it was far from  certain. The innings of the week was Rohan Kanhai’s 192 for Warwickshire against Worcestershire. Essex, Hampshire and Kent were level on top of the Sunday League.

Readers who have come to the view that this exercise in retrospection is merely a pretext for me to read again Alan Gibson’s reports in The Times are not far from the mark. Gibson was also a commentator on Test Match Special, and brought to that role the same wit and descriptive originality that characterised his writing. With Martin-Jenkins, Mosey and Blofeld joining the rota, opportunities were becoming more limited and his appearance in the team at Headingley was the only one that season. It was also his last. The circumstances are described by Anthony Gibson (the BBC’s Somerset commentator) in his collection of his father’s writing Of Didcot and the Demon. I agree with the first line completely.

At the top of his form Alan was a match for any of [the TMS commentators] with the possible exception of Arlott. But finding him at the top of his form was increasingly difficult, especially after lunch, and the new BBC regime was less tolerant of this amiable weakness, as Alan saw it, than their predecessors. In the end, Cliff Morgan puthis foot down. Alcoholic drink was banned from the commentary box. Alan’s response was to turn up for his next commentary session armed with a pint of whisky and water, which he proceeded to drink whilst on air…when Cliff Morgan heard Alan on the Monday evening, clearly the worse for drink, he swore there and then that he would never commentate for the BBC again.

So ended the career of one of the best radio commentators. He continued to write for The Times for another 11 years, during which he wrote the classic The Cricket Captains of England, recently republished by Fairfield Books with a new companion by Vic Marks to bring the story up-to-date.

9 to 15 August: Phil Edmonds makes a grand entrance

Australia went to Leeds for the third test with a degree of suspicion. Their last test match there ended in a three-day loss as Derek Underwood took advantage of a fusarium-infused pitch. They beat England there in the World Cup semi-final with six for Gary Gilmour as the ball swung like the Glenn Miller Orchestra, but at 39 for six in reply before Gilmour and Walters  steered them home, it was a nervous victory that will not have left them feeling positive about returning to Headingley. It was also clear that Tony Greig’s England now had Steele in their backbone.

The Northamptonshire batter had become a national hero on the back of 50 and 45 in the draw at Lord’s. He had reinforced the perception of him as a human Maginot Line by taking 102 off the Australians at Northampton earlier in the week. Younger readers will have to read that sentence several times to make sense of it, so improbable does it seem from today’s perspective that there should be such a fixture between test matches, let alone that one of England’s leading players should play in it.

The pessimism brought on by the winter’s drubbing was not entirely expunged as John Woodcock’s preview of the game made clear:  “Unless we get an opportune storm, or it becomes consistently overcast, it is not easy to see how England will bowl Australia out twice”.

Yet by the end of the second day, at the end of this week, England were on top, with Australia on 107 for eight in reply to England’s 288 (Steele top scorer with 73). What’s more it was a spinner who did the damage. Phil Edmonds played in 51 test matches over 12 years, but his performance on his first afternoon as a test bowler remained this best-remembered single performance. He finished the day with figures of 12-4-17-5, including Nos 3 to 6 in the Australian order. At the other end Derek Underwood took one for 12 in 13 overs.

After this series Edmonds was not picked for England again until the tour of Pakistan in 1978. The absence of a tour in 1975-76 meant that there was no momentum carried forward from Edmonds’ success at Headingley. After this series he never again played in the same team as Underwood, presumably because the selectors blanched at two left-arm spinners in the same team. If so, this was unfortunate. They were left-armers who asked the batters with very different questions at considerably different paces. John Woodcock’s report on the second day described Edmonds as having “a hint of arrogance” about him. As the years passed it was the “hint of” that was challenged, rather than the “arrogance”, and it may sometimes have been personality rather than talent that kept him out, to the chagrin of the selectors. But a player who put himself beyond even Mike Brearley’s man-management compass must take some responsibility for his fate.

I followed this test match on the radio. We were on holiday in south Devon, my objections to vacationing in a minor county being overruled. Living as we did in a smallish seaside town, it was my father’s natural preference to spend our annual week away in another smallish seaside town in a different part of the country  (Brixham in this case). It was an enjoyable week of happy memory.

Everybody thought that the test match was in for an exciting finish that was difficult to predict. We were right, in a way of which none of us could have conceived.

On Sunday Alan Gibson was at Leicester. A young player took his eye, though only after shenanigans on the railway of a kind that provided a common opening to his reports, much treasured by Gibson devotees.

 

Gibson over-estimated Gower’s devotion to the law, but not his talent with a cricket bat.

The common memory of Yorkshire in the seventies is of off-field division and on-field mediocrity. It therefore comes as a surprise to find us in the last month of the season with Yorkshire ten points clear at the head of the Championship. This week, Geoffrey Boycott cemented his place at the top of the batting averages with an unbeaten double hundred at Lord’s. His opening partner Richard Lumb (father of Michael) was not far behind him. As pitches developed August turn, Phil Carrick and Geoff Cope were among the wickets; five bowlers averaged under 30 for the season.

Non-Boycott County Championship performance of the week was Fred Swarbrook’s nine for 20 for Derbyshire against Sussex at Hove, the best bowling figures in the UK between 1964 and 1991 (acknowledgement to Derbyshire’s archivist and photographer @dgriffinpix for that, the best county-related X feed).

Not far behind was Basil D’Oliveira with 97 and 81 in a loss for Worcestershire at Surrey. At 43 (officially, but quite possibly a couple of years more) D’Oliveira was still making 1100 runs at 43 and had not lost his knack of breaking partnerships with the ball. It was his penultimate season; in 1976 at Lord’s I saw him hit 50 on one leg after pinging a hamstring to come close to winning the 55-over final against Kent. In his outstanding biography of D’Oliveira, Peter Oborne makes the case that only apartheid stopped him from being selected for South Africa’s 1951 tour of England. D’Oliveira’s story is one of cricket’s most remarkable; with a just government in his country it might have been one of the greatest.

The Guardian had an amusing piece on the evolution of England’s selection panel by Ian Peebles of Middlesex and England, one of the first to go from dressing room to press box ghost-unassisted. His Woolley, Pride of Kent was one of the first cricket books I had.