The Cricket Magazines: October 1972

I have fallen behind in my surveys of the cricket magazines of half-a-century ago. My summer holiday task is to catch up, starting with the October editions.

The focus of both The Cricketer and Playfair Cricket Monthly was the fifth test at the Oval that concluded the best Ashes series in England since the Second World War. It was decided on the sixth day, the last test in England to have such a provision until the final of the World Test Championship in 2021.

Centuries by both Chappells gave Australia a first-innings advantage of 115, but debutant Barry Wood’s 90 led a strong response to set a target of 242, a cinch in the era of Bazball but quite a challenge in 1972.

England were handicapped by the depletion of their attack through the second innings: D’Oliveira had a bad back, Illingworth turned his ankle and Snow had the flu, “sick and shaking” as he managed a single over with the second new ball.

At 171 for five, Jack Fingleton, according to Basil Easterbrook, “groaned and said ‘It’s too many for us now’ ”, but Paul Sheahan and Rod Marsh took them home without further loss.

England’s top scorer in the match was Alan Knott, with 92 and 63. The other day one of the Australian TV commentators said that Adam Gilchrist had re-written the book on how wicketkeepers batted in test matches. Gilchrist, brilliant as he was, merely added a chapter to Knott’s draft. This match was one of many on which Knott had a critical influence with the bat, and in a way that ignored cricket’s geometry. He would have broken the bank in an IPL auction.

Both titles agree that Australia deserved to (at least) draw the series. Easterbrook’s summary put it in historical context.

Australia won both their victories after losing the toss. They had the series outstanding bowler in Lillee, the best supporting bowler in Massie and their batsmen produced five centuries, whereas the best England could manage were three innings in the 90s. If Australia, who were beaten in vile weather in Manchester and on an unworthy pitch at Leeds, did not have the luck this time it perhaps went some way to compensate for the period between 1961 and 1968 when three Australian sides in no way superior to England…undeservedly held on to The Ashes.

John Woodcock agreed that Lillee had a decisive influence, which he expressed in the language of the time.

He runs a tediously long way; yet to see him pounding in to bowl, and to put oneself in the batsman’s shoes, is to know one is watching a man’s game.

Not quite how I would put it, but Lillee running in, shirt billowing, with a Dick Dastardly scowl, was one of the great sights of cricket.

Clive Lloyd made one of the finest Lord’s-final centuries in the first World Cup in 1975. Three years earlier he made another as Lancashire won the Gillette Cup for the third successive year (Jack Bond, Lancashire skipper, is pictured with the trophy on the cover of Playfair). It was the centrepiece of the reports by Michael Melford for The Cricketer and Gordon Ross for Playfair. Melford noted the power of Lloyd’s drives:

…most of them, off fast bowling, went at such a pace that the bowler, deep mid-on and deep mid-off scarcely moved before the ball was past them.

For Ross, it was the cross-bat shots:

Three times he cleared the boundary ropes with massive pulls, and it made no difference whatsoever who was bowling; this was utter domination of the attack.

Bryon Butler’s press review in The Cricketer collected more acclaim for the Guyanan, from Arlott, Swanton, Marlar, and from Dennis Compton, who got quite carried away in the Sunday Express:

This was the greatest innings I have ever seen at Lord’s at any level. I have seen and played against Sir Donald Bradman, Walter Hammond, Stan McCabe, Sir Frank Worrell, Clive [sic] Walcott, Everton Weekes and many other great players in full flow: but I have never seen an attack torn to pieces like this.

The October editions cover the first ODIs—or one-day tests as they were referred to—played in England, the first anywhere except for the hastily arranged inaugural at Melbourne the previous year. England won an entertaining series two-one. In the first game, Dennis Amiss became the first century-maker in this form of the international game.

It will surprise many to see that, in the absence of the injured Illingworth, England were captained by Brian Close. A more obvious choice might have been Tony Lewis, already named as captain of MCC’s tour of India, Pakistan and Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was then known). Illingworth, along with Boycott and Snow, had made himself unavailable for a gruelling schedule that included eight test matches over more than four months.

EW Swanton’s editorial in The Cricketer once again deployed the royal pronoun in critiquing the tour party:

We must admit to disappointment that the promising new material among the 21-25 brigade has been overlooked.

The only player under 25 was Chris Old. The India correspondent of The Cricketer, KN Prabhu, reported on an underwhelmed response to the selection. The editor of a sports magazine demanded that the tour be called off if England were to be represented by a second XI. The Indian Express was barely less damning, saying that the team

…might be well balanced in that the standard of its batsmanships [sic] and bowling are likely to balance each other in mediocrity.

Prabhu himself was not so quick to write off the tourists, noting the success of various members of the party as members of an International XI some years before.

England won the first test in India before losing the next two narrowly, by 28 runs and four wickets. The final two matches in the series were drawn, as were all three in Pakistan, a reminder of how historically difficult it has been to attain a positive result on those pitches. The achievement of the McCullum/Stokes team in winning three-nil in similar conditions is one of the great achievements of the intervening half century.

       

       

Christmas Eve at the Cricket

Wellington v Otago

Women

Men

Until the 1970s, provincial cricket was played on Christmas Day in New Zealand. There would be a late start to allow for the hasty opening of presents and the bolting down of some turkey, but the afternoon could be spent on the bank at the Basin, Lancaster Park or Carisbrook. Perhaps it is as well that the practice was abandoned; the ensuing negotiations would be tricky in many households.

In Wellington we have the pleasing new tradition (this is its third year, so “tradition” passes, just) of Christmas Eve cricket, a T20 double-header, to be precise.

All fixtures in New Zealand’s domestic T20 competition—not merely the “Smash” but the “Super Smash”—pair a women’s game with that of the same men’s teams, the women usually (but not always) playing first. All games are shown on television, with 18 of the men’s games and 15 of the women’s free-to-air (with the imminent closure of rights-holders Spark Sport, from next season all domestic and international cricket in New Zealand will be free-to-air for three seasons).

The Basin is at its best at this time of year. The cricket-ball red flowers of the puhutukawa trees bloom for Christmas, draping a crimson ribbon round the ground and up the hill to Government House. The bank was near-full, with an increasing number of spectators arriving in time to take in most of the women’s game. Despite the presence of Billy Bowden, Rain-deviner-in-chief, the sun was out, and all was right with the world.

Otago will look back at both games with the ruefulness of a child who wakes up on Christmas Day to find that Santa has stolen their presents from under the tree. They could and should have won them both.

When both Kerr sisters were out with the score on 110 in the 17th over it seemed that Wellington would be some way short of setting a challenging target, but Maddy Green and Leigh Kasperek took 31 from the final two overs to finish the innings on 146 for five, very attainable with Suzie Bates opening for Otago.

With Ebrahim, Bates put on 49 for the third wicket, but five was the most scored from any over between the third and the ninth, which left an asking rate of almost ten an over, unsustainable against an attack of the quality of Wellington’s. The innings subsided like a sherry-filled grandma into an armchair after the Christmas pudding. Wellington won by 19 runs. Kasperek was the best bowler with three for 16. Her omission from New Zealand’s World Cup squad last year remains mystifying.

For the men, Adam Milne made his Wellington debut, after 12 years with Central Districts. As Kent fans know, Milne is a quality bowler who offers a desirable combination of pace and smarts, so the Basin faithful were pleased to hear that he was coming to the capital. However, some of us were sceptical that we would ever see him in a Wellington shirt on the field of play, given that he is a regular in the white-ball national squad, in demand from the franchises, and more prone to breakage than a Chinese vase in a situation comedy. Yet here he was.

The match followed the pattern of that of the women. Wellington batted first and reached an underwhelming 152. It was only thanks to Rachin Ravindra that it was that many. Regular readers may be rather bored by my regular extolling of Ravindra’s qualities and class, but I can merely report what I see. Here, once more, time appeared to move more slowly when he was at the crease, such was the facility of his shots.

A team chasing a modest total and that is 80 for one after 12 overs, as Otago were, should not lose. But they blew it. Run rates that were unimaginable twenty years ago are now commonplace. Ten an over is the new six an over. But this is not an entitlement, as Otago demonstrated here. They were complacent, expecting to go up through the gears as they wanted. When 29 came from overs 17 and 18 they would have considered themselves on track, but no further boundaries ensued and they lost by eight runs. They had the chance to secure the game earlier and should have taken it.