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.