The Cricketer: July 1972

 

The Ashes were the main attraction of 1972 and The Cricketer was fortunate to have John Woodcock as its test match reporter. The July edition carried his account of the first test, played at Old Trafford in early June.

England won a seam-dominated match by 89 runs. John Snow took eight wickets, backed up by Geoff Arnold and Tony Greig with five each. Greig was making his test debut, though this would have come as a surprise to him, given that he had appeared four times for England against the Rest of the World in 1970, contests that were regarded as test matches at that time. He was also ever present in the Rest of the World team that had played in Australia the previous winter, matches that were never categorised by the Australians as tests, though, as discussed here previously, they were manifestly of test quality. Greig also made two half centuries at Manchester.

Anybody who has read much of this blog will know of my admiration for John Woodcock, but he did have a blind spot when it came to the nationality qualifications of England cricketers in general, and of Tony Greig in particular. It will be remembered that he wrote that one of things that explained the Packer schism was that Greig was “not a proper Englishman”. His report here develops this theme.

The ideal England team would be composed of Englishmen, pure and simple. One might have said the same when Ranji, Duleep or Pataudi were playing, or when D’Oliveira was first picked. If I were an Australian I might wonder about the fairness of it all.

But then I might count up the number of Aborigines in the Australian team, find that there were none, and reflect that my team consisted entirely of players who were, in the great scheme of things, recent immigrants themselves.

Woodcock reports that only 36,000 attended the test, which lasted well into the fifth day. That is less than a third of those who went through the gates of Old Trafford for the equivalent fixture in 2019, a comparison that those who argue that test cricket is on permanent decline should note.

Alex Bannister, long-serving Cricket Correspondent of the Daily Mail (and no relation of Jack Bannister, as far as I know) had a series running featuring a different county each month. In July it was Worcestershire. The article ranges between the past and the present in a pleasing way. I learned several things, including that county secretary Mike Vockins was an agricultural biochemist (which might have come in useful when the Severn made one its regular visits to the Worcester outfield), and that the Nawab of Pataudi senior (the same as cited by Woodcock, above) became a Worcestershire player only after having been turned down by Kent. This would have been around the time that Lord Harris insisted that Walter Hammond had to serve a two-year qualification for Gloucestershire because he had been born in Dover while his soldier father was stationed there, so perhaps embracing Pataudi would have been a double standard too far, even for that scion of the aristocracy.

Bannister rated the 25-year-old Glenn Turner highly.

There are two Turners – one intent on crease occupation; the other a magnificent strokemaker. In either mood – and I prefer the latter – he is one of the world’s leading batsmen.

Another New Zealander, John Parker, was on the Worcestershire staff in 1972. Years later, when I was writing for CricInfo, Turner and Parker joined us in the press box at Seddon Park in Hamilton and reminisced about their New Road days. The conversation turned to the use of statistical analysis in modern coaching. One or other of them said something along the lines of:

We had a computer that gave feedback based on the study of the available data. It was called Norman Gifford and it used to stand at short leg giving insightful readouts such as “what the eff are you bowling that effing crap for?”.

I am writing on T20 Blast finals weekend, against which the ECB have scheduled an ODI against India, thus depriving the participating counties of their international players. A similar issue half a century ago saw the boot on the other foot. Surrey and Sussex both refused to release their players to appear for MCC against the Australians in the traditional pre-tests fixture, preferring to retain their services for the Benson and Hedges Cup. I generally avoid a romantic view of cricket in those days, but a time when counties could tell Lord’s to stuff it was a great one in which to be alive.

Denis Compton and John Snow both defended the decision, but the majority of the cricketing establishment was outraged. Crawford White of the Daily Express wrote that “as a member of Surrey for 20 years and more, I think that this is a disgraceful decision”.  MCC Secretary Billy Griffith called it “absolutely deplorable”, while EW Swanton, as Bryon Butler put it in his monthly press review, “drew his sword”.

History of a most regrettable sort has been made…It never occurred to me for a moment that this fixture would not be held sacrosanct…In football, one hears, England suffers from the selfishness of clubs. That is football’s affair. It is cricket’s affair to put country first rather than the short-term financial advantage of a sponsored competition, however good in itself…cricket has been done a grave disservice, which is sure to have strong repercussions.

This is vintage Swanton. “Football” and “sponsored” become terms of abuse. MCC is awarded dominion status. We see in our mind’s eye the oafish member of the lower classes to whom he slips sixpence for furtive news of the association game. And he gets it completely wrong. By the way, that whirring noise is Swanton turning like a rotisserie chicken at the news that the Varsity match has been exiled from Lord’s.

John Arlott profiles Peter Lever. His opening paragraph will move any of us who treasure county cricket.

The heart of English cricket is the county game; and the essence of county cricket is not the Test star who dominates it but the ordinary county cricketer who is there every day and gives it his constant and fullest effort. He does not, like the representative players, miss a dozen county games a year to play for his country. He is a man for all seasons; county cricket is for him an achieved peak and a fulfilment.

But the highlight of the July edition comes in the School Review. It is the historic first appearance in the press of the great CJ Tavaré. Then captain of Severnoaks School, he made 116 including 12 fours and—wait for it—ten sixes.

No doubt this news will provoke ill-judged and distasteful remarks from the class of person who in earlier times would have earned a crust by slipping news of Aston Villa’s away form to Swanton, and who know Tav only as the obdurate fellow who was the tax manual of England’s batting in the early eighties. But it will come as no surprise to those of us who knew the Sunday Tavaré, the man who would dismantle any attack in the country over 40 overs. Three of the Australians at Old Trafford would still be around in 1982/3 to play tests against Tavaré.

 

 

 

The Cricketer: June 1972

 

The touring Australian batter Doug Walters appears on the cover of the June 72 edition of The Cricketer, right knee almost grounded, bat above his head on the follow through, ball presumably clattering over the boundary at Worcester even as Patrick Eager’s shutter clicked. It was a shot seen only on county grounds that summer; in the tests he scored just 57 in seven innings. On his four tours to Britain, Walters never made a test century, an astonishing omission for a man who averaged almost 50 in that form of the game.

Henry Blofeld reported from the Caribbean on the final test of New Zealand’s first tour to that part of the world. It was drawn, as were the previous four games in the series. It was only New Zealand’s third five-test series. With none in the half century since, we can safely say it was our last.

The West Indies were in transition between the great side of the early and mid-sixties and that of the mid-to-late seventies. In the featured game, at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain, the bowling was opened by Vanburn Holder and Garry Sobers, now 35, who went for only 67 from 40 overs across the two innings.

The run rate for the match was well short of two-and-a-half an over. What a contrast to the turbo-charged series just completed fifty years on. Readers of these pieces over the years will be aware of my admiration for Brendon McCullum. We all have our XIs of favourite cricketers; McCullum is captain of mine.

But the most dedicated of his fans could not have anticipated the extent and speed of the change that he has brought to the England team, transforming them from the frightened, risk-and-esteem-free unit that we saw in Australia and the Caribbean into the warp-speed daredevils now before us. What he has done is make them forget that they are English.

At this rate, if he stays in post for the full four years he could change the entire fabric of British society. People will start talking to strangers on public transport. Beer will be drunk only if refrigerated. Café patrons will refuse to accept bad coffee.

For us in the South Pacific, it has all been a bit much. We feel a certain nostalgia for the days when you could block for a draw for five days, five times in a row.

Blofeld identifies four New Zealanders as “world-class”. Glenn Turner hit his peak and averaged 96. Like Turner, Bevan Congdon made two centuries in the series. The following year, Congdon was to score another pair of hundreds (both170s) in a losing cause; Daryl Mitchell has gone one better.

Another to reach a career peak in the sun was Bruce Taylor, whose fast-medium took 27 wickets at 17. More surprisingly, Blofeld’s quartet is completed by slow left-armer Hedley Howarth, whose contribution was “a much bigger one than his figures suggest”. You might hope so, given that those figures were 14 wickets at 50, At least Howarth was picked; Ajaz Patel has bowled all of two overs for the national team since he took all ten in Mumbai at the end of last year.

The most interesting piece in the June edition was Christopher Martin-Jenkins’ profile of Alan Knott. These days, it would be entirely unremarkable for a cricketer to speak of yoga (taught to him first by Bishen Bedi), training with a soccer team (Charlton FC) for better fitness, or pursuing perfection through continuous improvement. Knott, frequently mocked by away crowds for his stretching regime during play, was way ahead of his time.

CMJ reminds us that, earlier in 1972, a selection panel of Arlott, Cardus and Johnston had picked Knott ahead of Godfrey Evans as keeper in England’s greatest post-war XI for a computer Ashes test (featured nightly across a week on Radio 4 as I recall). It is gratifying to find that his genius was recognised by his contemporaries.

There is also a profile of Warwickshire skipper Alan Smith, better known as AC to differentiate him from MJK Smith, also of that parish. Those familiar with AC as a keeper-batsman good enough to play six tests will be surprised to see him pictured in mid bowl, deploying a Procter-like chest-on action. There is a piece to be written on keeper-bowlers. Something in the air at Edgbaston made custodians cast off the pads and grab the leather. Geoff Humpage was wont to have eight overs of a Sunday in the eighties.

With Deryck Murray now in the team, Smith was free to bowl more often, and did so with some effect in 1972, taking a five-for in both the Championship and the Sunday League. He was a frightening sight, ball in hand. His run up was that of a man charging a locked door, the teeth, bared in a clown’s smile, only accentuating the aggression. The ball emerged from a confusion of limbs, apparently an afterthought.

AC Smith later became one of English cricket’s leading administrators, famously (if Martin Johnson is to be believed) responding to a journalist’s enquiry with “no comment, but don’t quote me on that”.