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.