Wellington’s home domestic fixtures were concentrated into
the first half of the season so as to free the Basin for the Women’s World Cup.
I had intended to go to four or five games, and was contemplating flying down
to Christchurch for the final, but restricted numbers meant that the tickets
set aside for Wellington members were withdrawn. When, towards the end of the
tournament, the limits were lifted, I still did not feel sufficiently at ease in
a big crowd to attend. I watched a good deal of the competition on television
and enjoyed it greatly.
When I have the time, I intend to give another season the
treatment that I gave 1967 five years ago: to record it day-to-day on Twitter,
with a weekly round-up here. A busy job means that I do not have the time for
that yet, but the arrival of a consignment of 1970s editions of The Cricketer from my late parents’
house in Herne Bay has provided the impetus to get blogging again, and to
resume reminiscence from half-a-century past.
The intention is to use editions from 1972 as the basis
for a piece half a century after the month on the cover. Not a summary or a
review, but as a starting point for something probably historical, but possibly
contemporary.
We begin with the April edition, which features Geoff
Boycott on the cover, playing an on drive like the one that was to bring him
his hundredth hundred five years later. Edited
by EW Swanton warns the front page, but that is the extent of the Great
Pontificator’s contribution to this edition, which appears to have been left in
the hands of assistant editor Tony
Pawson, who fitted these duties in with writing for The Observer on
cricket and football, and a full-time management job in industrial relations, a
profession that in the 1970s was as stressful as bomb disposal.
Pawson headed a distinguished list of contributors that
included Arlott, Cozier, Frith (soon to become editor), Gibson, Lewis,
Martin-Jenkins, Peebles and Rosenwater.
Also, Ray Robinson, who reported on the final match
between Australia and the World XI, which had replaced the tour by South
Africa, copying the arrangement made when the Springboks’ series against
England was cancelled in 1970. The England v Rest of the World matches were
classics, regarded as test matches when they were played, and well worthy of
that status. Only later were they downgraded, famously at the cost of the
entire test career of Glamorgan’s Alan Jones.
The Australians never claimed that their games against the
World XI were tests. The touring party (there were games against the states as
well as the national team) included a few players who would not have been close
to a genuine World XI, such as Richard Hutton, unaware that his brief test
career was already over, and Tony Greig, who didn’t know that his hadn’t
started (he had played in the 1970 series). Nor had Hylton Akerman’s, and his
never would (I interviewed
Ackerman for CricInfo on a
wet day in New Plymouth, twenty years ago, when he talked about this series).
None of Norman Gifford, Bob Cunis or Asif Masood could be described as
world-class. Perhaps this explains why history has paid these matches scant
attention.
But Robinson’s report made me take a closer look. A
batting order that included Gavaskar, Kanhai, Pollock, Zaheer Abbas, Lloyd and
Sobers could not be faulted for quality; neither could the spin attack of Bedi
and Intikhab Alam. Pace was short, especially until Peter Pollock arrived
halfway through the tour, but the cricket world then had fewer fast bowlers of
international quality than at any time since. West Indians Hall and Griffith
were done, and the next generation had not yet come through. Indian fast
bowlers remained a contradiction in terms. John Snow would have made a
difference, but perhaps he did not fancy renewing his acquaintance so soon with
his friends on the Sydney hill.
In these circumstances it was not surprising that the
batsmen flourished, most of all Ian Chappell, who made four centuries in his
first full series as Australian captain, including two in the opener at the
Gabba. There were also two centuries each for Keith Stackpole, Doug Walters and
Greg Chappell. For the World XI, Ackerman made a hundred on international
debut, Rohan Kanhai made two, and Graeme Pollock another. And Sobers, 254 not
out at the MCG in the third international, the one thing that this series is
remembered for, described by Sir Donald Bradman thus:
“I believe Gary Sobers’
innings was probably the best ever seen in Australia. The people who saw Sobers
have enjoyed one of the historic events of cricket, they were privileged to
have such an experience.”
When Sobers came in, his team had a lead of 45 with seven
wickets standing. Wickets continued to fall at the other end. Shortly after
Sobers got his century, he was left with the tail. Intikhab Alam, the mildest
of cricketers, made his reaction clear when given lbw a bus ride away from the
off stump. This was the season after England won the Ashes despite not getting a
single favourable leg-before decision in six tests.
Other cricketers have rescued their team with a
backs-to-the-wall innings. Few have done so while refusing to make any
concession in terms of style or approach. There are nine grainy,
black-and-white, joyous minutes of the innings on YouTube. Look at the way Sobers moves: he flows. Lillee bowling to
him is ballet and theatre, as aesthetically satisfying bowler/batter combination
as the game has produced.
The World XI won by 96 runs to level the series.
It wasn’t all batting. Australia won the second game, at
Perth. Dennis Lillee announced himself as a bowler of the highest quality: eight
for 29 to dismiss the World XI for 59 on a WACA pitch on which Australia
had made 349. He was never to beat this performance. His test best of seven for
89 came at the Oval in 1981. I was there on the third day to see six of them. That
the Perth eight included Gavaskar, Lloyd, Greig and Sobers pokes fun at the
lower status of the series.
For the third and fourth games, Lillee’s new-ball partner
was Bob Massie, who ran through the World XI in the first innings at Sydney with
seven for 76. So Massie’s 16 wickets on test debut at Lord’s a few months later
were not quite the one-test wonder that many have always assumed them to be.
The first and fourth games were affected by rain. The
first had three declarations with only three or four wickets down, so it is
hard to say how it would have gone without the interruptions, but in the fourth
the World team needed 450 with five wickets standing when the final day was washed
away, so the visitors’ victory in the final game, giving them a two-one win,
was not a fair reflection of the series as a whole, as Sobers, with
characteristic generosity, acknowledged.
There is more of this enjoyable, neglected, series on YouTube.
It gave the Australian selectors plenty of data to work on
when they picked the tour party to England. The April edition of The Cricketer devoted several pages of
analysis to the results of their deliberations. Bryon Butler—better known as the
BBC’s Football Correspondent—wrote a monthly press review that summarised
criticism of the omissions of McKenzie, O’Keefe, Lawry and Redpath, among
others.
Ray Robinson profiled five members of the party, including
Massie, who he describes as an “up-the-cellar-steps” bowler, which makes me
want to read more Ray Robinson. He gives the professions of four of the five,
another echo from a different age.
This edition of the magazine was branded as the Spring Annual, one of two occasions in the
year when a double-length edition was produced, though, at 80 pages, it was
shorter than 2022’s Cricketer.
Let us end with Gerald Pawle’s profile of Cecil Buttle,
recently retired as Taunton groundsman after fifty years’ service. When he
started the heavy roller was pulled by a horse. Somerset owned only one set of
horse boots, so had to hire horses that fitted the boots. Perhaps Rob Key could
use this as a way of picking the England pace attack.
