2 – 8 August 1975 “It's shapely, it’s masculine and it’s seen the last of its cricket for the day”

It is hard to see how Henry Blofeld could justify calling the second test “exciting”. Memorable, certainly, mainly for the benefits for national morale  of David Steele and Tony Greig showing that Lillee and Thomson could be resisted. As John Woodcock wrote “England will be feeling a lot happier. Aren’t we all?” Engrossing, possibly, but it was a low bar for “exciting”. On the Saturday England managed only 225 for the loss of two wickets. Woodcock again: “Six hours is an awfully long time to take making 104 not out on a good pitch and across a fast outfield; but that is Edrich’s way.” It was the way of many in that era.

On the final day Australia required 387 to win with nine wickets standing on a pitch offering little or nothing to the bowlers. The possibility that this might be pursued was barely discussed. It was all about the draw. Fifty years on, England made 367 in 85 overs in the fourth innings of the test match thrillingly completed this week, a rate of scoring that would have seemed fanciful in 1975. It is a great irony that test cricket’s future is under threat like never before when the cricket it produces has never been more entertaining.

Michael Angelow (which sounds like a name that Bertie Wooster would have made up after being arrested for stealing a policeman’s helmet on Boat Race night) woke everybody up on Monday afternoon by becoming cricket’s first and most famous streaker. He had the good sense or luck to do it while John Arlott was at the microphone: “It's shapely, it’s masculine and it’s seen the last of its cricket for the day”. Arlott added to the occasion by describing Angelow as a “freaker”.

At Canterbury, I missed Arlott on the freaker as I was at the ice cream van buying my fourth radioactive ice lolly af the day. It was so glorious a week that Kent’s disastrous performance against Middlesex did not bother us too much, even though it pretty much finished our championship chances.

There were a couple of notable statistical achievements by Middlesex batters. Mike (MJ) Smith made a century before lunch on the first day and Norman Featherstone made two unbeaten centuries in the match. I don’t think that I have ever seen the former feat achieved since, but the latter was bettered by Zaheer Abbas in Canterbury week the following year, with one of his not out hundreds being a double.

Kent did remain on the same points as Essex at the top of the Sunday League after their win over Sussex. Colin Cowdrey’s fine valedictory form continued with 58 not out to take the team home.

My future skiing instructor Barry Dudleston had a very good week. Mike Carey (whose appearance in the press box generally presaged an early dismissal for the Leicestershire opener) said that he was “at his most effervescent” in making 88 against Derbyshire. On Sunday he scored 152 (then the second highest ever in the Sunday League behind Barry Richards’ 155 against Yorkshire in 1970) of his team’s 235 for six, which must be pretty high on the list of proportions of a team’s total, and on that of big individual scores for the losing side as Lancashire won the game with a century from Clive Lloyd.

The heat appears to have encouraged high scoring on Sunday: Somerset made 243 (Viv Richards 119), Essex reached 283 and Worcestershire set a new Sunday League record with 307 for four.

Gloucestershire beat this in the 60-over Gillette Cup quarter-finals with centuries by their two Pakistan internationals Sadiq Mohammad and Zaheer Abbas. Leicestershire’s 282 in reply (another half century for Dudleston) would rarely have been a losing total in this era, but it was that day in 1975.

The big match of the round was at Old Trafford where the two teams at the top of the Championship met. The gates were shut at a capacity of 26,000, but Gerry Harrison in The Times reckoned that there were 30,000 in there “with those rehearsing for the football season still pouring in over the walls”. Incidentally, I am less sure that this is the same Gerry Harrison that was Anglia TV’s football commentator for many years. This one appears to have been based in the north-west.

A high-scoring draw was anticipated, but Hampshire were shot out for 98, four wickets each for Barry Wood and Bob Ratcliffe, and Lancashire reached their target with six wickets and 28 overs to spare.  

New Zealander John Parker made 107 in Worcestershire’s 257, but Middlesex strolled home by eight wickets. Clive Radley scored 105 with MJ Smith and Featherstone both continuing their good form with seventies.

Derbyshire, without a home headquarters at this time, were undergoing a mid-season resurgence sufficient to dispatch neighbours Nottinghamshire easily enough.

Some stories echo through the eras. Gloucestershire, in deep financial duress, were saved by an large input of cash from an external source. In 2025 this will be the ECB handout that will follow the sale of parts of the Hundred teams. Fifty years ago it was the Pheonix Assurance Co buying the County Ground in Bristol. I spent a lot of happy times there in the 19 years I lived in the city. Nobody would claim that it is a pretty ground, but it has soul and history, neither a commodity that can be moved to any new venue to the north of Bristol, as is being mooted.

The Yorkshire fast bowler Tony Nicholson retired this week. He took 879 first-class wickets at 19.76, all the more impressive when you consider that for the first half of his career Fred Trueman would have had choice of ends. Nicholson was particularly fond of bowling at Canterbury where he took 17 wickets across two games in 1967 and 1968. He has to have an early mention in any conversation about the best players of the era not to play test cricket. 

26 July – 1 August 1975: The Bank Clerk Who Went to War

 

We come now to the curious case of the test-match career of David Steele, as strange a story as English cricket has seen in my time. As the week in 1975 begins, Steele is a 33-year-old batsman in his thirteenth year for  Northamptonshire, the archetypal county cricketer. This is his benefit year. He is having a good season and has already accumulated more than a thousand runs, with steady rather than big scores. Over the years, he had occasionally been mentioned as an outside possibility for England selection, but not this season, except in a piece by Tony Pawson in which he was named in a short list of batsmen whose time had passed, along with MJ Smith, David Turner of Hampshire and Chris Balderstone (who was picked a year later, with much less success). John Arlott wrote that his being a left-hander would be useful, a fair point undermined only by Steele’s being right-handed. Arlott was probably confusing David Steele with his brother, the left-handed Leicestershire opener John Steele. Some thought that the selectors had done the same.

John Woodcock prepared his readers for Steele’s appearance. “A bespectacled figure, almost more white than grey, he is not at all the image of what you would expect of a troubleshooter.” With the upturned peak on his cap there was a touch of Norman Wisdom about him.

It was this Steele that walked down the pavilion steps on the fall of the first wicket at the first day of the test match (having gone via the basement as he was unfamiliar with the route from the home dressing room). He watched three more depart (umpire Bill Alley had a very twitchy finger that morning) before he was joined by Tony Greig on his first day as England’s captain.

Their partnership was worth a usually unremarkable 96, but after months of being pummelled by Lillee and Thomson the sight of this apparent pensioner hooking them to the Grandstand boundary alongside his leader on the counter attack was stirring. Steele had left the pavilion an ordinary man, but returned a hero, a “symbol of national resistance” as John Arlott called him. By Christmas Steele was BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Clive Taylor of the Sun called him "the bank clerk who went to war".

Steele's fall was as precipitous as his rise. There was no winter tour, so the next tests were against the West Indies in 1976. Steele began with his maiden century in the first test and came third in the averages behind Edrich and Close. But he was not included in the touring party for India that winter, and that was that. He continued to play county cricket until 1984 and has made a fair amount of money telling the story of his short but spectacular England career ever since. He appears not much older than he did that day at Lord’s, though that is largely because he looked about 70 then.

Here is Arlott’s account of the first day.

 

At first, the second day was even better. In reply to England’s 315, Australia subsided to 81 for seven. “Not since the war, I think, had Australia suffered such a collapse on a good pitch against England, in England” reported John  Woodcock. “At lunchtime the atmosphere was like that on VE Day. It was too good to last, of course, but it bucked us all up at the time”.

Ross Edwards with 99 (at which point he became Bob Woolmer’s first test wicket) and a Dennis Lillee’s test-best 73 not out reduced the final deficit to 47.

One thing I noticed on the YouTube highlights confirmed my view that Alan Knott was half a century ahead of his time. Then, the standard guards ranged from leg to middle. Taking an off stump guard was almost unheard of. Ask Arthur Jepson for an off stump guard and he would have come at you with a stump in hand. Yet, as Jeff Thomson runs in, there is Knotty tapping his bat well outside off. Genius.

I saw none of this on television. Canterbury week, starting unusually on a Wednesday, coincided with the test match. Peter Marson, there for The Times, paints an evocative picture that takes me straight back there.

 

The organisations named in the first paragraph all had marquees at the Nackington Road End that shimmered through the week. It was gloriously hot, like the summers of our youth ought to be. Deal Beach Parlours had a new ice lolly that summer. I don’t remember the flavour, which probably had a lengthy chemical formula, but it was a wonderfully lurid turquoise. I had so many that week that the man in the ice cream van had one ready each time I approached, the transaction taking place wordlessly. The gaps in my teeth remind me fondly of the summer of ’75.

I also remember the rough reception that greeted Hampshire skipper Richard Gilliatt as he returned to the dressing rooms having declared Hampshire’s second innings closed a couple of hours later than was necessary to make a game of it. The winning team in this fixture would lead the Championship. Perhaps the knowledge of Kent’s successful pursuit against the Australians a few weeks earlier deterred Gilliatt, who eventually called a halt when he was 97 not out.

 

Gilliatt almost had the last laugh. Kent batted testily and quickly lost seven wickets. Cowdrey batted for 100 minutes to save the game.

Ill temper marked this round of matches. The heat was getting to cricketers everywhere. Leicestershire protested against a late Lancashire declaration by having Roger Tolchard bowl an underarm ball at Clive Lloyd. Ray Illingworth then promoted himself to No 3 to block.

Both these games tell us that three-day cricket relied too much on captains being willing to set targets. The restriction of the first innings to 100 overs did not move the game on sufficiently, but encouraged negative, not wicket-taking, bowling.

Hampshire topped the table, with Boycott and Hendrick leading their respective averages.

19 - 25 July 1975 A Dull Affair at Lord's

This week in 1975 the cricket took a mid-season breather. There was no international cricket and no round of Championship games starting on Saturday because the 55-over final was being played at Lord’s. A dull affair this was. Middlesex struggled to 146 all out in the 53^rd over, getting that many chiefly thanks to opener Mike Smith’s 82 (this was MJ Smith, to differentiate from Warwickshire’s MJK Smith). Leicestershire’s innings followed one of the primary conventions of limited-overs cricket at that time: that it must take every opportunity to resemble first-class cricket as closely as possible. Illingworth’s team took 52 overs to win by five wickets, a match scoring rate of 2.84 an over. I have often written how low-scoring one-day games are often the best kind, but this match was not among them because Leicestershire never lost enough wickets for the result to be in doubt.

Another of these conventions was that cricket writers should take all opportunities to denigrate one-day cricket. Arlott, Blofeld and Woodcock all observed this one during this week. Of course, I agree with them that the longer the game the better it is as a format, but recognise that the shorter forms have intrinsic value of their own and brings benefits to first-class cricket. For example, since 1967, the year I featured in a similar exercise to this one, there had been a clear improvement in the quality of fielding, thanks largely to the influence of one-day cricket. The great writers might have appreciated it more had they known what was coming.

There was an interval of 17 days between the end of the first test match and the beginning of the second, a period into which some test series fit these days. The Australians were kept busy, aping the county schedule. The disappearance of tourist fixtures from the schedule is one of the differences between then and now that is the most regretted, though the itinerary reads as if might have been a sentence imposed by a court. This week, they went from Hove to Chesterfield and then on to Manchester. There were no rest days between matches, though they got Sundays off. The county games attracted good crowds and the hosts were usually at full strength or something near it. Players on the fringe of the test side (or who thought they were) leapt at the opportunity to impress. This week, Barry Wood made 84 not out for Lancashire against Lillee, Thomson and Walker and opened the batting for England at Lord’s the following Thursday.

There was an odd result in the Sunday League between Essex and Worcestershire, or one that will appear odd to the modern spectator. Essex made 207 off the full 40 overs. Rain briefly interrupted Worcestershire’s reply at 57 for five. Six overs were lost. Worcestershire’s target was reduced from 151 off 22 overs to 119 from 16, very challenging in its time, but significantly more achievable. There was no adjustment for wickets lost. Wicketkeeper Rodney Cass slogged Worcestershire to victory with nine wickets down. DLS may not be as easy to understand as a simple calculation of run rate, but has justice on its side.

One of the game’s more distinguished international careers came to an end this week, or rather it was discovered to have ended a few weeks before, at Lord’s in the World Cup Final. Rohan Kanhai was omitted from the West Indies squad to tour Australia. He made his point a couple of days later with 178 not out for Warwickshire against one of the stronger counties, Leicestershire. Kanhai finished the season top of the first-class batting averages with 82.53. How the West Indies could do with him now. I repeat that the saddest thing in my cricket-watching life has been the decline of West Indian cricket.

This week (2025 now) they were bowled out for 27, though I must confess that here in New Zealand we were cheering for Australia, something that we do only in the most extreme circumstances. I received a text from one of the RA Vance Stand Pessimists when the score at Sabina Park was 11 for six. “Could this be the day?”, it continued, “70 years”. This, of course, a reference to the day when New Zealand were bowled out for 26 by Hutton’s England, the lowest innings score in 148 years of test cricket. Every few years there is a day when we think that we can pass on the poisoned chalice. Australia 18 for six, Cape Town 2011…England 18 for six, Auckland 2018…India 19 for six at Adelaide, 2020. Kingston 2025 is now another signpost in this Vale of Tears.

12 - 18 July: Chaos at the Crabble

 

Mike Denness’s England captaincy came to an end on the damp grass of Edgbaston. His fortunes had changed. At first he was a lucky captain, drawing a series in the Caribbean that he deserved to lose, followed by an easy summer against weaker opposition. He became unlucky as soon as the Ashes began in Brisbane, when, without warning, Lillee emerged from a long period of injury and Thomson from obscurity to form one of cricket’s most deadly pace-bowling combinations. Let us remember that later that year Clive Lloyd’s West Indies did even worse in Australia than Denness’s England, losing five-one. His winter nemeses both took five-fors in Birmingham, Lillee in the first innings, Thomson in the second, in the intervals between another piece of Denness bad luck: the rain.

The selectors were quick and merciful. The announcement that Denness was to be replaced by Tony Greig came on what would have been the fifth day of the test match, had it lasted that long. Many names had been mentioned, but Greig was the only candidate who did not fall over any of the hurdles that eliminated the rest.

The only other regular member of the test XI who was a contender was John Edrich, Denness’s deputy in Australia. The Surrey man had the grit and quality as a batter, but his county had a reputation of being disunited under his leadership. Keith Fletcher was developing a good name as Essex captain, but was thought to suffer from traumatised batter syndrome after the experiences of the winter. Of his shaky half century at Edgbaston John  Woodcock said “Fletcher’s second-innings fifty was a mixture of desperation and defiance. He will have to stay, whether he likes it or not”.

Any return to old favourites such as Illingworth or Cowdrey was agreed to be retrograde. Resorting to a county captain outside the team—Richard Gilliatt of Hampshire was mentioned more often than Mike Brearley—was how Denness had got the job. So it was Greig, despite a brashness that was a bit much for some of the establishment figures. Knott and Underwood, wisely, held no ambitions for the captaincy, though Knott stood in for Greig for an ODI in 1976.

John Arlott gave Guardian readers a shrewd and balanced assessment of what the new leader had to offer.

 

 As it happened, the Australians played Sussex at Hove this week. Greig made a strong statement by scoring a century then  blasting Greg Chappell for not declaring on the final afternoon. Things had changed.

I followed the unfolding disaster at Edgbaston on Saturday on the radio at the Crabble Ground in Dover where I was watching the first day of Championship game between Kent and Nottinghamshire, who made 328 for eight in their 100 overs, with Mike “Pasty” (he was from Cornwall) Harris making 116. He was making plenty of runs despite having taken on the keeper’s role. Harris would have been a candidate for our imaginary MCC winter touring squad that never happened. As I post this I hear that Pasty Harris has passed away (my Blean correspondent keeps me informed about the expiration of cricketers). RIP.

The Crabble was a lovely ground, set into the hillside of the North Downs as they prepared to burst out as the White Cliffs of Dover, but was in its penultimate year as a county venue. When I was back in the UK in 2011 I visited the Crabble, in the company of my Blean correspondent. Here is my account.

Fast forward to September 2023. I was spending a few days in Melbourne and take a day trip to Geelong, a pleasant coastal town an hour south of the city. In a bookshop I came across a title that I had not heard of, Brian Levinson's Cricket Grounds Then and Now. Flicking through it, I saw a piece on the Crabble and was surprised to find my name in it, referring to the piece on Scorecards. What’s more, I was in the index, sandwiched by two of the greats, George Hirst and Jack Hobbs.

 

 I was not present for the final two days of the Championship game, a pity as there was fun to be had on both. Canterbury’s St Lawrence Ground was, I’m pretty sure, the only venue on the county circuit that operated two full scoreboards, the white one where the café is now and the black one that still tops the length of the Leslie Ames Stand. Not all the test grounds provided two full boards.

Provisions at the outgrounds were not as efficient. I have forgotten what the arrangements were at the Crabble, or even where the scoreboard was, but it almost certainly involved lots of individual metal sheets hung on hooks with operators who were not as familiar with the process as those at headquarters. On the second day of the Nottinghamshire game there confusion about the visitors’ first-innings score, which became crucial when Kent were in danger of following on. Happily, Alan Gibson was present to record the chaos.

 

Two years later a similar scoreboard fiasco occurred down the road at Folkestone. With 15 left to get in five overs and six wickets in hand, Kent contrived a collapse that left that epitome of No 11 batters Kevin Jarvis on strike with three balls remaining. To quote the Kent Annual “the scoreboard suggested that two were required and Fletcher set the field accordingly, thus when Jarvis scored the winning run off his first ball confusion reigned as the batsmen left the wicket with the fielders and umpires believing the scores were still level”.

On the third day of the Championship match back in 1975, Kent chased down 330 in 72 overs, a good chase now, then an improbable one. From Gibson in The Times:

 

Nottinghamshire lost despite losing only ten wickets to Kent’s 17, but that was in the nature of three-day cricket.

I was at the Crabble for the Sunday League match that also ended in a successful Kent pursuit, an unbroken sixth-wicket stand of 60 between Dave Nicholls and Alan Ealham.

After the Championship game finished at 6 20pm on Tuesday the two teams got in their cars and drove 210 miles to Nottingham where they began a 60-over Gillette Cup game at 11 am on Wednesday. Tell the young people of today that you could get 120 overs into a day’s cricket and they won’t believe you. Kent did well to recover from 47 for five to reach 216, but still lost by 31 runs.

Alan Ealham was twelfth man for that game and fielded for the injured Norman Graham. I doubt that there has ever been a greater disparity in the quality of fielding between the replaced and the replacing. It makes the difference between Gary Pratt and the England bowlers he subbed on for in 2005 look as nothing. Ealham took two catches described by Peter Marson in The Times as “splendid”, a level of fielding proficiency of which the gangly bowler could only dream.

My future skiing instructor Barry Dudleston was in fine form, completing his third century in a month. Barry was 80 this week; going round a golf course in less than his age may be a realistic prospect some time soon. Happy birthday to him.

 

 

 

5 – 11 July 1975: Denness undone by the Edgbaston rain

Starting in the present day, England won the first test against India, and lost the second, after Ben Stokes won the toss and put the visitors in. During the first there was a good deal of harping about the decision until the fifth day win, at which point it ceased. Chastened, the critics were less vocal at Edgbaston. I doubt that the toss decision made any difference to either result other than placing Stokes’ England ready to chase in the fourth innings, as they prefer to do. It rarely does unless the pitch deteriorates significantly, which happens regrettably rarely these days.

If a team loses having put the opposition in, the decision is often assumed to be a contributing factor; a defeat after choosing to bat first rarely attracts such opprobrium. The disparity is historical, a hangover from a time when pitches often did turn more and more as the game progressed, and when they were uncovered.

Which brings us to the first test against Australia in 1975, at Edgbaston, and Mike Denness’s decision to put Australia in. The basis for this was the overcast conditions that appeared favourable to England’s wobblers of the seam, Arnold, Old and the recalled Snow. John Woodcock, in The Times, said that Ian Chappell would have done the same.

The first day was pretty even, finishing with Australia on 243 for five. A slogging Thommo’s 49 next morning stretched the lead to 359 at which point it rained.

Adam Collins and Geoff Lemon, hosts of the excellent podcast The Final Word, have been known to ridicule the whole idea of uncovered pitches, and you can see their point, particularly when, as was the case in 1975, the exposure only occurred during interruptions in play. Once proceedings were abandoned for the day the covers were wheeled on. It seems a random way in which to conduct an international sporting contest. The reason why those of us sufficiently venerable to have seen it happen regret the passing of uncovered pitches was that they produced some fascinating cricket, particularly if your team contained DL Underwood.

Of course, Denness might have been saved had the weather forecasts been better in 1975. As it was, the falling rain was a fatal diagnosis for his captaincy. By the end of Friday England were 83 for seven.

As we have seen, there was some doubt as to whether this series would be on television at all. It was, but had to compete for air time with the Open golf at Carnoustie. The BBC’s on-air team was that with which we were so familiar through the seventies and early eighties. Peter West presented. Richie Benaud and Jim Laker were the lead commentators with another voice to provide further analysis. At Edgbaston that was Ted Dexter.

On the radio, John Arlott, Brian Johnston and Alan McGilvray were present throughout the series. As Arlott now only commentated for the first half of the day—officially to free him to concentrate on his report for The Guardian, but also allowing him to enjoy without inhibition the several bottles of claret carried in his briefcase—a fourth ball-by-ball commentator was required. At Edgbaston it was Don Mosey. For subsequent tests Henry Blofeld, Alan Gibson or Chris Martin-Jenkins joined the team. Comments and summaries and were provided by Trevor Bailey and, in his first year as a regular, Fred Trueman. Bill Frindall was the scorer and published his elegant scoresheets in book form after the series (I have it, but our books are in boxes in the garage because we have recently recarpeted; it’s like having your children locked away). Jim Swanton no longer delivered his Day of Judgement close-of-play summaries having retired from reporting after the winter tour.

County cricketer of the week was Malcolm Nash, who took 14 for 137 in Glamorgan’s defeat of Hampshire, including nine in the first innings. Nash is cursed to be an eternal quiz question: who did Sobers hit for six sixes at Swansea in 1968? He deserves rather to be remembered as a top county cricketer, one who would make an XI of the best uncapped players of his era. Leading the attack in that team would be Peter Lee of Lancashire, the leading wicket taker at that point of the season with 60 (Sarfraz Nawaz was second with 55, then Mike Hendrick, 47). There was no winter tour by MCC in 1975/76. Lee and others who had a good 1975 may therefore have missed the recognition that they deserved.

The only winter since then without representative cricket overseas was 1988-89 when Graham Gooch’s tour of India was cancelled because of its captain’s South African connections.

In high summer county cricket spread itself to outgrounds, this week including Ilkeston, Southport, Bournemouth and Basingstoke. I watched at the latter two in later years. The cricket reporters enjoyed these outposts, none more so than Alan Gibson, who was at May’s Bounty, Basingstoke, along with Henry Blofeld. Readers who think that this whole exercise is no more than a pretext for me to read Gibson’s accounts once more (reports isn’t quite the word) once more are on to something. This is how he began on the first day:

 

The next day he let us know that headmaster had sought him out to let him that the pupil in question was not in trouble, but had a dentist’s appointment.

Lancashire led the Championship. Barry Richards and Derek Underwood headed the averages.

 

 

 

28 June – 4 July: Woolmer’s week

Bob Woolmer had been a Kent regular for seven years by 1975. For most of that time he had batted at No 8 and been a useful purveyor of swing at an amiable pace, most notably in the Canterbury Week of 1972 when he took 17 wickets. These days he would probably have shifted to another county with more space at the top of the order. Now he was showing what he could do when batting was his main purpose. His unbeaten 71 (with a break for injury mid-innings) was valuable support for Cowdrey in Kent’s win over the tourists. For MCC against the same opposition he made 56 and 85 with a hat-trick thrown in taken on the day of the funeral of the last man to take a hat-trick against the Australians in England, HS Enthoven for Middlesex in 1934. International selection was just a few weeks away.

The two other Kent players at Lord’s did not do so well. Colin Cowdrey, leading MCC, bagged a pair, ending sentimental speculation that he would play again for England. Graham Johnson made two and one at No 3 and was not to catch the eye of the selectors again.

Graham Gooch’s first innings 75 attracted considerable praise and resulted in his notorious England debut the following week. Both Arlott and Woodcock focus on Gooch’s build, which led to comparison with Colin Milburn. The daily runs from ground to hotel were still a thing of the future apparently.

I was at Maidstone on Sunday to watch Kent beat Lancashire by 24 runs in a (by the standards of the day) high-scoring game. Luckhurst, Johnson and Cowdrey all made fifties, but the one memory I have of the game is of Clive Lloyd smiting a six over Mote Park’s mock-Tudor pavilion, a mighty blow.

Kent also won the Championship game against the same opposition at Tunbridge Wells. John Woodcock was there for The Times. Most readers will know about Knott’s greatness, as will anybody who has made the mistake of engaging me in conversation at the Basin Reserve. Alan Ealham’s fielding prowess will be less well-known. Being somewhat dumpy in stature, nobody would have picked him as the gun fielder. New overseas players were often caught out in this way, the middle stump flying out of its ground while they were still a couple of yards short of completing what they had thought a safe single. What Woodcock has to say about the Kent team and the captaincy of Denness (of which he was not a fan) is interesting.

 

 In the 55-over semi-finals Middlesex beat Warwickshire and Leicestershire defeated Hampshire, against form in both cases.  In the latter case it was despite a century by Gordon Greenidge and a storming Andy Roberts, as described by Gerry Harrison in The Times.

With Roberts roaring in from the car park end…Steele, Balderstone and Davison were not sure whether it was Shrove Tuesday or Sheffield Wednesday.

Harrison was, for many years, Anglia TV’s football commentator. His Yorkshire TV counterpart, Keith Macklin, also reported cricket for The Times in 1975.

Middlesex’s win was largely down to a century by Clive Radley, whose batting style was captured by Alan Gibson:

Radley…was, as usual, a mixture of the classical, the baroque and the Old Kent Road.

Radley’s name often comes up as the scorer of key runs at crucial times, and continued to do so for another decade or more. It seems wrong that his England career was so short.

This was the second week of Wimbledon, which was exciting, firstly for the tennis itself, but also because it meant that Clive James would be reviewing the tournament’s TV coverage in The Observer, an annual treat in this era.

In 2025 the BBC lists 39 commentators for the TV coverage, which continues for 12 hours a day and ranges across all 18 courts. Fifty years ago it was limited to Centre and No 1. Harry Carpenter presented coverage that lasted under six hours plus a highlights package in the evening. The commentary team comprised no more than six led by Dan Maskell and Peter West (Peter Walker filled in at the cricket during the fortnight). On the radio Peter Jones presented three hours of commentary by Max Robertson and Maurice Edelston, with expertise provided by Fred Perry and Bob Howe.

It has always seemed a pity that Clive James was the only Australian with no interest in cricket. I only came across him writing about the game once, when he referred to the Chappel [sic] brothers. Cricket broadcasters may have been relieved.

 

21-27 June 1975: West Indies Win the First World Cup; Cowdrey 100 as Kent beat the Australians

This week fifty years ago was the finest of my cricket-watching life. That two defeats for Australia were involved only enhances the memory, writing as I do from New Zealand. There were two days that, of all the hundreds I have spent at the cricket, I have wanted to revisit most, lately along with the final day of the Basin Reserve test of 2023, New Zealand’s one-run win over England.

I won’t, in this piece, relitigate the events of either of these two sublime days, both of which I have described before:

World Cup Final

Kent beat the Australians

Here are John Arlott’s accounts of both days.

World Cup Final

Kent v Australians

 

On more pace-friendly Australian pitches a few months later  Lillee,  Thomson and the rest re-established suzerainty with a five-one win in the test series.

From this far-off perspective some things that were not worth commenting on then now seem extraordinary. One such is that several of the victorious West Indies team were back with their counties for the Sunday League just 17 hours after the Duke of Edinburgh handed the trophy to Clive Lloyd. Viv Richards went all the way to Bradford to score 30. Alvin Kallicharran made 72 for a losing Warwickshire at Edgbaston, where Rohan Kanhai also turned out. Later in the week Keith Boyce took 11 wickets in the Championship for Essex.

The only World Cup participant who was not back in county colours was Barry Wood who absented himself from Lancashire service, claiming injury (as did his colleagues Hayes and Lever, but they took the precaution of securing a doctor’s note) and was suspended for six matches.

Cowdrey’s famous innings came a few days after he announced his retirement. Tony Greig at once asked him to play for Sussex in 1976, an offer to which the great man gave serious thought before turning down. The rest of 1975 turned into a Cowdrey-fest; he collected farewell gifts wherever he went, starting this week with an engraved miner’s lamp from Glamorgan.

On the day of his hundred Cowdrey was named as MCC captain against the Australians next week. These fixtures—another long-gone relic of the schedule—were always played before the test series and were essentially opportunities for players on the edge of the England XI to impress. Two Kent players were in: Graham Johnson and Bob Woolmer. It would have been hard to have predicted which of the two would have a good, if brief, international career, as Woolmer did. Johnson was unfortunate with the timing of both form and injury.

Two young batters of rich promise were also named: Graham Gooch and Phil Slocombe. Again, it was not obvious which was have a 20-year international career and which was destined for obscurity.

Wednesday saw the first round of the Gillette Cup, the 60-over knockout competition. At that time the 17 first-class counties were joined by the top five minor counties based on the previous year’s Minor Counties Championship. All five were in the first-round draw along with seven of their social betters. However, no seeding applied, so Oxfordshire played Cornwall for a place in the second round, while Sussex (who were having a grim run of form) went out to Nottinghamshire (where newcomer Clive Rice was making quite the mark) and Surrey lost to Somerset by one wicket.

In the second XI competition a young man named Gower scored two nineties.

Lines of the week:

“The Glamorgan innings was a little like those early aeroplanes worked by pedals: impressive as they gathered speed but never getting more than a few feet above the ground.” – Alan Gibson

“It always gives special pleasure to an Edgbaston crowd to win when Close is the opposing captain” – Alan Gibson. This refers to the 1967 time-wasting by Brian Close’s Yorkshire that denied Warwickshire victory and cost Close the England captaincy.

“If the idea of playing…at the Morris Motors Ground was for the strikers to swell the crowd it misfired” – John Woodcock at Oxfordshire v Cornwall. This tells us much about 70s Britain.

Of a loose dog on the field at Westcliff “Like several of the Gloucestershire batsmen, the intruder made a brief visit to the middle” Peter Marson, The Times

Alan Gibson was at Canterbury for the Australians:

 

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14-20 June 1975: Swing it like Happy Gilmour

 

Public interest in the World Cup was increasing as it moved towards its climax. Its success was clear. On Saturday New Zealand beat India to take what would become our traditional semi-final spot. India’s respectable 230 was passed with an over to spare thanks to Glenn Turner’s unbeaten 114, his second century of the tournament.

East Africa continued with their strategy of making the (sparse) crowd regret that they had paid good money to go to the cricket. They took 53 overs to make 92 in answer to England’s 290. John Snow took four for 11.

Sri Lanka weren’t much different: 138 in 51 overs chasing (or not) Pakistan’s 330.

Even though it meant nothing in terms of qualification, the game of the day was Australia v West Indies at the Oval, with immense interest in how the Caribbean batters would face up to the sensation that was Lillee and Thomson. The prospect was sufficiently intriguing to tempt Hugh McIlvanney into a rare visit to the cricket. His report in The Observer demonstrated an insight beyond that of most regular cricket correspondents and shows why he was widely regarded as the best sports writer of his era.

 

It was the West Indian quicks rather than the Australians who won the day. Kent’s Bernard Julien—I’d forgotten what an striking loping run he had—, Keith Boyce and Andy Roberts reduced Australia to 61 for five, with the help of a brilliant run out of Walters by Greenidge at mid-wicket. When an RAF flypast connected with the Trooping the Colour ceremony was seen at about this point Richie Benaud said that it was to mark the first Australian boundary.

Edwards and Marsh put on 99 before the second batch of five wickets fell for 32, leaving the West Indians with an obviously inadequate target of 193. After losing Greenidge early, Fredericks and Kallicharran put on 124 for the second wicket. The Warwickshire left-hander carried his fine county form into the World Cup and took it to Lillee in particular, with four fours in one over, leaving the great fast bowler with one for 66 off ten overs.

Anybody younger than 40 would not understand how difficult it was to keep up with this game. Because of the pageantry at Horseguards there was no live coverage for the first hour or so. Thereafter, the Oval game had to share space with the England match, racing from Bath and show jumping from Hickstead. There was sparse radio commentary, and it was pre-teletext, so basically a live-scores Stone Age.

Their defeat meant that Australia faced England at Headingley while the West Indies played New Zealand at the Oval.

For the Australians, it was a return to Headingley where they had been defeated in three days on a fusarium infested pitch perfect for DL Underwood to run through them, which is exactly what he did. To this day, mention Headingley ’72 to any Australian and they will slam their glass on the table and allege conspiracy and chicanery. It must be on the Australian schools curriculum in the Wrongs Done to Us section given roughly equal weight with the Japanese bombing of Darwin. What unfolded that Wednesday was seen as payback, as the Leeds gloom provided perfect conditions for Gary Gilmour’s left-arm swing.

Gilmour’s career consisted of dramatic entrances that created expectations that he did not come close to living up to. A century on debut for New South Wales; 52 and four for 75 on Test debut against New Zealand. Then the World Cup semi-final at Headingley. A late selection to replace Ashley Mallett when the Australians saw how grassy the pitch was, he took six for 14 as England were rolled for 93, then shared a partnership of 55 with Doug Walters to take Australia from 39 for six to a four-wicket victory. As we will see, Gilmour had another good day at Lord’s in the final, but there was hardly any more. Not quite a one-match wonder in the manner of Bob Massie, but not that far off. Unfulfilled promise for a player who the great left-armer Alan Davidson thought was a better player than he had been early in their careers. Gideon Haigh's profile of Gilmour for CricInfo suggests that a "light-hearted" approach to training did not help.

It could have been even worse for England on one of those Leeds days when the grey Yorkshire skies allowed the ball to go in any direction bar straight; they subsided to 37 for seven. Skipper Mike Denness top scored with 27, sporting a resemblance to the captain of the Titanic stoically on deck after iceberg Gilmour had holed his craft with irrevocable consequences. Only Arnold joined him in double figures. When Australia lost four wickets for seven runs the home side briefly became unlikely favourites, but Walters and Gilmour saw them home, helped by the first sight of the sun that day.

The other semi-final was much more prosaic. New Zealand’s 158 was about a hundred short of what was needed against the confident West Indian batting. Julien was agin in form with four for 27. A second-wicket partnership of 165 between Greenidge and Kallicharran settled it.

On the Sunday of that week I was at St Lawrence for the 40-over game against Worcestershire, one of the better examples of the genre. The visitors made what by the standards of the time was a massive 231 for four, Alan Ormrod batting through the innings for an unbeaten 110. How we missed the restraint that Derek Underwood imposed. Kent were 184 for one (Luckhurst 53, Johnson 88) but had fallen behind the clock. Four wickets fell quickly and things seemed hopeless when Colin Cowdrey, greeted as a hero after the announcement of his retirement, came in at No 6. Cowdrey was nobody’s choice for the improvised slogging that appeared to be Kent’s only hope, yet when John Inchmore dug one in Cowdrey swivelled inside the line and casually flicked the ball among the benches by the white scoreboard. A repeat and the game was Kent’s but Cowdrey was bowled by Inchmore and Worcestershire won by two runs.

The Sunday game interrupted a Championship match at Maidstone against Sussex, which Kent won on the third morning thanks to one of the greatest all-round performances by a Kent player. John Shepherd bowled unchanged through the first innings, finishing with eight for 93. He then made 52 in a sixth-wicket partnership of 122 with Dave Nicholls before taking seven for 54 to finish with 15 for 147. It seems that only a late change stopped him from becoming the first Kent bowler to bowl unchanged through both innings since the First World War. It was the first time since Dave Halfyard in 1959 that a Kent man had taken 15 in a match, Only Mohammad Sami and Martin McCague have done it since.

It was timely that Henry Blofeld interviewed Shepherd for The Guardian after this game.

 

One curiosity of that match was that it featured Norman Graham and Kevin Jarvis in the same Kent XI. Cricket scholars have long debated the question of which of these two was the worse batter. Their respective final career averages were 3.88 and 3.59. Graham’s seniority promoted him to the unexplored heights of No 10.

Gregory Armstrong, another young Caribbean fast bowler referred to in the Shepherd interview, was taking plenty of wickets, and creating a fair amount of mayhem, for Glamorgan. Surrey won the game at Cardiff but captain John Edrich (the “He” quoted in the following report) was not happy.

 

 

Wilf Wooller could always be relied upon for a pointed or splenetic quote. There are many stories associated with him. One of my favourites was his response to Jim Swanton’s letter requesting information about a young Glamorgan player. Swanton, often accused of focusing too much on the south-eastern counties, enclosed a stamped-addressed envelope for the reply. When it was returned a few days later it was found to contain only a copy of the London to Cardiff train timetable.

At the end of the week Hampshire remained on top of the County Championship while Clive Lloyd and Derek Underwood led the first-class averages.

 

There was a century by David Steele of Northamptonshire, an innings that was of much greater significance that anybody could have imagined.

The Second XI scores record nineties by T Chappell of Lancashire and Gower of Leicestershire.

 

At the end of the week your writer is preparing to go to Lord’s for the World Cup final. It was to be the biggest week of his cricket-watching life, and remains that to this day.

Daily updates on Twitter/X at @kentccc1975 and Bluesky at @kentkiwi.bsky.social

7 – 13 June 1975 The First Cricket World Cup is Underway

 In the present there is a world cricket final taking place at Lord’s. There was another one, in Dubai (!) a couple of months ago, and another last year, when part of the tournament was played partly in the USA (!!). And so on. It all began fifty years ago this week, when the first Cricket World Cup began. Not that is was called anything so vulgar. Officially, it was the International Championship Cricket Event of 1975, or, in acknowledgement of the sponsors, the Prudential Cup. The word “World” did not appear on anything official.

There were eight competing teams: the six active test-playing sides plus Sri Lanka (Ceylon, recently renamed) and the composite East Africa. England, India, New Zealand and East Africa constituted one group, Australia, Pakistan, West Indies and Sri Lanka the other. Each played their groupmates once, the top two progressing to the semis. It was a 60-over, which made for long days. There were no fielding restrictions. The whole thing was done in 15 days.

Fitting in with the established pattern of domestic cricket in the UK, matches were scheduled for Saturdays and Wednesdays, with two days in reserve to finish in case of weather interruption. Happily, this was unnecessary. From the time that the first ball of the World Cup was bowled, 1975 turned glorious, the sunniest summer of my lifetime to that point.  

The tournament was covered on television by the BBC, who had cameras at two games on each matchday, but insufficient airtime to cover one from first ball to last, let alone a pair. On Saturday, the cricket had to share Grandstand with the racing from Haydock Park, and BBC 2 preferred to give its afternoon to the Tony Hancock film The Punch and Judy Man rather than offer the possibility of live coverage of both games. The four commentators who would normally have worked at one game were spread between two, Jim Laker and Ted Dexter at Lord’s for England against India, and Peter West and Richie Benaud at Headingley for Australia versus Pakistan.

There was no ball-by-ball commentary on radio until the final. There were BBC commentators at all four games, but they had to compete with racing, cycling and tennis on Sport on 2, presented by Alan Parry, and extended until 7pm, which would not have been late enough to guarantee covering the end of every contest. The Radio Times listed John Arlott, Brian Johnston, Don Mosey, Henry Blofeld and Freddie Trueman as commentators, along with visitors Tony Cozier and New Zealand’s Alan Richards, but does not say who was where. On Wednesday there was no commentary at all, merely reports on the hourly sports desks.

The showpiece of the first day, England v India, is remembered fifty years on, but not in a good way. England showed the value of experience in this form of the game by running up 334, 137 by Dennis Amiss leading the way. This was an immense score. For context, the highest in 12 years of England’s domestic 60-over competition thus far was 327, and that by Gloucestershire against minor county Berkshire.

India had one of the Himalayas to climb. They decided before leaving the dressing room that it could not be attempted. Famously, Sunil Gavaskar batted through the 60 overs for 36 not out of India’s 132 for three. BBC huffily switched to Headingley and included none of the Indian innings on the highlights package. Gavaskar is usually blamed, but there was collective responsibility. None of the other batters were much more aggressive and, as John Arlott noted in The Guardian, Farokh Engineer—hard-hitting member of three Lancashire 60-over champion teams—was not promoted up the order. In The Times John Woodcock made the point that the previous year India had been humiliated at Lord’s, bowled out for 42, and that anything was better than that.

Not all India’s supporters agreed and several entered the field of play to inform Gavaskar of this personally. One felt strongly enough to punch two policemen and on Monday was jailed for six months.

We have to remember that the grammar of one-day cricket was still being learned. Almost every week in this series of articles it has been noted, with a degree of astonishment, how low the scoring was in limited-over games of various durations. The next day only nine sixes were hit across seven games in the Sunday League, and only one of the 14 teams passed 200. To a fair extent limited-overs cricket was approached as if it was a first-class innings with a bit of hitting at the end. The Indians, who as yet played no domestic one-day cricket, opened the grammar primer for the first time that Saturday at Lord’s to find out about a language that they had not heard before. They learned quickly. Just eight years later they fluent enough to win the third World Cup.

The game at Edgbaston followed much the same pattern. New Zealand scored 309 for five, of which Glenn Turner made 171 not out, which remained his country’s highest ODI score until Lou Vincent made 172 against Zimbabwe 40 years later. East Africa made four fewer than India did at Lord’s, their aim not to win but to survive 60 overs, which they did, with two wickets to spare. In 2015 I paid good money to watch the UAE do the same thing (over 50 overs) against South Africa, which is why I am in the small minority who do not want World Cups open to a greater number of teams until there are enough who want to win not just be there.

Pakistan lost to Australia by 73 runs, Lillee five for 34, though his mate Thommo had no-ball issues. West Indies blew Sri Lanka away by nine wickets.

On Wednesday, West Indies v Pakistan produced the first classic World Cup contest, a game that remains one of the competition’s greatest. Pakistan, without Imran Khan taking exams in Oxford and captain Asif Iqbal in hospital, made 266. Stand-in skipper Majid Khan led with 60 and a young man we had not heard of called Javed Miandad chipped in 24 at the end.

Sarfraz Nawaz knocked off the top three and wickets continued to fall until West Indies were 168 for eight. Henry Blofeld told Guardian readers what happened thereafter.

The key was that the run rate was kept up even as wickets fell. Deryck Murray’s experience of the limited-overs game helped as did the intelligence and judgement that later made him Trinidad and Tobago’s representative at the UN.

At the Oval Australia made 328, opener Alan Turner leading with 101. When Jeff Thomson took the new ball, for the Sri Lankans it was more like the Colosseum as Wisden 1976 relates with some distaste.

 

As Australian manager Fred Bennett said in response to criticism of Thomson, “What do you expect us to tell the boy to do, bowl underarm?”. Given that Sri Lanka were 150 for two in good time a little hostility seems not unreasonable. It should be remembered that we are two years away from batsmen wearing helmets for the first time.

The two exponents of slow cricket, India and East Africa, met at Headingley where the Boycott fans no doubt cheered the Africans as they took 56 overs to make 120, a total that openers Gavaskar and Engineer put on without loss in a breathless 30 overs.

England dispatched New Zealand easily enough with Keith Fletcher making 131. For New Zealand it was notable for appearance of three Hadlee brothers together in international cricket, batter Barry joining Dayle and Richard, something that also occurred when New Zealand played England in Dunedin a few months before.

So with a round to play, Australia, West Indies and England were through to the semis with New Zealand and India to play for the last place.

The County Championship continued, though with most sides depleted by the loss of World Cup players. Performance of the week was eight for 73 by Yorkshire off spinner Geoff Cope at Bristol, this three years before being troubled by problems of legality with his bowling action that led to a disruptive young section of the Kent crowd referring to him as “Chucker” Cope.

A young Somerset player was being tipped for future international selection, but not the one you think. It was batter Phil Slocombe who was attracting attention with a run of good scores, stylishly made. 1975 was to be his best year. John Woodcock also observed that “Botham is a robust hitter of the ball, a strong young man, in fact”.

Kent lost in the Sunday League for the first time this season, vacating the top of the table not to return until the following year. It was Kent’s worst season of the seventies, with early exits in both knock-out competitions and falling out of contention in the leagues well before the season’s end.

Alan Gibson was in a mood to reminisce, first at Ilford.

 

And at the Oval for the Australia v Sri Lanka game.

 

This week saw the start of a four-week trial of broadcasting radio coverage of question time in the House of Commons. It so happened that this occurred on the very day that I sat the British Constitution O level exam. I collected obscure subjects, but took no science O levels. French Literature followed later in the week.

Colin Cowdrey announced his retirement at the end of the season, but was to have a glorious curtain call in a couple of weeks.