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.

 

 

 

 

 

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:

 

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