A Sunday League catastrophe

Kent v Middlesex, 11 June 1972, Folkestone, 40 overs

The 2022 season has been a wretched one for Kent. In each of the county’s first five Championship games, the opposition made more than 500. The Sri Lankan Development XI did the same in an additional first-class fixture. The sequence may be a record. The dismissal of Northamptonshire for a mere 430 in the sixth Championship match was, no doubt, greeted by dancing in the streets of Tunbridge Wells.

If we expected Kent’s status as champions to give us solace in the T20, we were to be disappointed. Despite the recent win at Taunton, they remain ninth of nine in the southern group. Being able to watch the live streams of county cricket here in New Zealand is a wonderful thing, but breakfast watching has been a Groundhog Day of Kentish defeats.

My Blean Correspondent and I have been wondering whether 2022 displaces 1980 as the annus horribilis of our times. In that wet summer, Kent were kept off the bottom of the Championship only by a win over Warwickshire off the penultimate possible ball of Canterbury Week. There were exits at the earliest possible opportunity in both knockout competitions, and Sundays were spent adrift in the bottom half of the league.

Allen Hunt and George Murrell always maintained that the fifties were universally grim. One day, I mentioned that in 1951 Kent had a run of 20 Championship games without a win. George just said “Ah yes” as if remembering a summer spent in a foxhole and preferring not to talk about it.

So it is tempting to take refuge in the past, to return to the seventies when the sun shone every day on a never-ending series of Kentish victories, except when it didn’t.

Exactly half-a-century ago today as I write, Kent played Middlesex in the Sunday League at Folkestone. I loved the Sunday League, but it is in the nature of the shorter forms that many of its matches have not stuck in the mind. I look at scorecards knowing that I must have been there, but struggle to excavate corroboration from the memory.

Not this one. Kent v Middlesex at Folkestone in 1972 is a contest that I have thought about more than any other that I have watched. It was again in my mind just last week as I willed New Zealand to take some wickets even as England were within a couple of shots away from victory at Lord’s. Remember Folkestone ‘72, I thought as I invariably do as cricket matches reach their conclusion with one team well ahead, either from caution or hope, depending on whether it is my team that is winning or losing.

For this was a game in which Kent snatched defeat not just from the jaws of victory, but from its lower intestine, almost fully digested.

It was a top-of-the-table fixture. Kent had won four from five thus far in 1972, Middlesex were unbeaten. The first Ashes test was taking place at Old Trafford so Kent were without Luckhurst and Knott. Middlesex had no international absentees, through Price and Parfitt were both to feature later in the series. The Times sent Peter Marson along. His report supplements my memories and is reproduced below.

Kent won the toss and put Middlesex in. We can’t deduce anything about the pitch from this; it was what usually happened on Sundays in 1972. The visitors struggled from the start. It is unusual to write about a Middlesex one-day match in the seventies and eighties without mentioning a match-winning innings of nudging and nurdling from Clive Radley, but here he was run out for three. With MJ Smith and Parfitt also going for single-figures, Middlesex were 15 for three.

Norman “Smokey” Featherstone and Mike Brearley started a cautious rebuild, but both were out with the total at 40. Brearley was in the second of twelve seasons as Middlesex captain, and had not yet attained the mythical status with which he was later to be invested, but his apprenticeship with the Jedi was well under way and may have been behind the mysterious turn that events were to take.

That Middlesex reached 127 was down to a partnership of 54 in nine overs between former England keeper JT Murray, and Keith Jones, who was from Central Casting’s plentiful stock of bits-and-pieces seaming all-rounders.

Derek Underwood, incomprehensibly omitted from the test team for Norman Gifford, took two for 28, but it was John Shepherd who was the meanest of the Kent attack that day with just 12 runs from his eight overs.

Norman Graham took two for 29, getting Smith and Murray both caught behind, no doubt from balls that did just enough, and bounced a little more than expected off the most inconvenient line and length. As I have written before, Graham probably wouldn’t pass the two-skills athlete test to be a cricketer these days, and the game is poorer for it.

Bernard Julien took three wickets, Parfitt early and Titmus and Price to finish the innings. On the basis that he was West Indian, a left-arm bowler who mixed a little wrist-spin in with the quicker stuff, and had unquestioned talent, Julien was lumbered with the worst of all labels: the new Sobers. Ridiculous as that was, he was potentially a high-quality player who never quite achieved what he promised. It didn’t help that for Kent he, the maker of two test hundreds, was a perennial No 9.

As ever, we should remember that 127 was, in 1972, not quite the cinch that it would be now. But it wasn’t far off. For the greatest part of the chase, Kent made it look easy. Dave Nicholls opened the batting at the ground where, nine years before, he had made 211 against Derbyshire, one of only two double hundreds in the County Championship that year. He was bracketed with Luckhurst and Denness as the future of Kent’s batting in the annual report. But it was eight years until he made his only other first-class hundred. He might have drifted out of the game had it not been for Kent’s lack of a deputy for Alan Knott when the great keeper began his England career in 1967. It was a role that Nicholls filled most capably for a decade. In 1972 he made regular appearances as a batter even when Knott was available. In this game he opened, put on 51 for the first wicket with Graham Johnson and was sixth out, for 54, going for the run that would have levelled the scores. No doubt he returned to the pavilion thinking that a good job had been done.

Denness and Cowdrey were both out for five, and Asif Iqbal was unable to bat at his usual place as he was ill. As so often, it was Alan Ealham who moved things along, with 24 of a fourth-wicket partnership of 33 with Nicholls. Only 19 were needed when Ealham was out, only ten when Shepherd’s was the fifth wicket to fall.

Neither Woolmer’s duck two runs later, nor Nicholls’ departure caused us any worries. People round the ground were packing up their picnic baskets, folding their chairs and making for car park or railway station. Some of them may have gone to their graves ignorant of the catastrophe that unfolded as they left the ground.

Only when Julien edged Selvey behind for the second of five noughts on the scorecard did it sudden occur to us that the victory that had seemed captive since the opening overs was tunnelling beneath our feet and had almost reached the perimeter fence. But still it was only two runs to win, one for the tie.

The next sight offered no reassurance. Peter Marson reported that Asif, who now walked down the pavilion steps, was unwell and running a high temperature. The story that went round at the time was that he had malaria, and had gone into quick decline shortly after the toss. He had left the field not long into the Middlesex innings. Now, this most swift footed of cricketers appeared to be using his bat as a walking stick as he made his way to the middle.

The simple act of scoring a run now seemed akin to splitting the atom or running a four-minute mile. Asif appeared incapable of lifting the bat with sufficient purpose to play a shot, nor of getting down the other end if he had, when normally he would have been there and back in an instant. Twice he watched the ball go by before the desperate attempted slog against Mike Selvey that resulted in the loss of a stump.

It was telling that, so ill as he obviously was, Asif was still considered a better bet to win the game than a perfectly well Norman Graham, in whose hand a bat was as effective as a bow and arrow when charging machine guns. I am not sure if Norman received a ball when he replaced Asif. Marson makes it clear that Underwood was faced the last over, bowled by Sam Black. The “dire alarms” sounded by the first two balls of the over were wild swipes as the collective hysteria that overtook the Kent lower order spread to the usually phlegmatic Underwood.

Frankly, the leg before decision given to the third ball was a relief as much as anything, so unbearable was the tension, so improbable the scoring of even a single run. There was an awful silence as the ground emptied, as spectators tried to work out what they had just seen.

Four wickets fell for no runs when only two were needed for a win. If ever you need to cling onto hope a little longer as your side nears defeat, or if you want to guard against complacency when victory seems certain, say to yourself as I do, “Folkestone ’72”. 

Underwood likes to be beside the seaside: 8 to 14 July 1967

Kent v Lancashire, County Championship, Folkestone 8 – 10 July 1967

Lancashire v Kent, County Championship, Southport, 12 – 14 July 1967

It was Kent v Lancashire week this week. Two games at seaside resorts at either end of the country, Derek Underwood the common factor, inducing in the Lancashire batsmen the inhibition of a teenager at their first school dance. Over the two matches his analysis was 118.5-58-181-14.  I was about to write that Underwood was approaching his peak, but he had already taken 100 wickets in three of his four seasons, so he started only a short walk from the summit and stayed at altitude for a quarter of a century. It is surprising that nobody that I have come across so far in 1967 was talking about him in terms of England selection. As we saw earlier in the season John Woodcock, among others, didn’t quite know how to categorise him. Spinner or medium pacer? Simply calling him Derek Underwood was enough, as there has only ever been one of those. A return to the test side was just a few weeks away. 

There was Sunday play at Folkestone, watched by the largest crowd seen at the ground since the Second World War, but Kent were barely more aggressive than Lancashire and slow handclapping—a lost art these days, but common enough then—filled the void. Charles Bray in The Times reported that the Lancashire players and the umpires sprinted to their positions at the end of one over to provide alternative amusement. 

At least the spectators had what Bray accurately describes as “picturesque” surroundings in which to enjoy the sun. In 1967 it would have been possible to walk down the pavilion steps, across the field of play and to continue across green fields right to the top of the North Downs (which terminate spectacularly as the White Cliffs of Dover just down the road). Soon after, a housing estate started to spread in the area below the escarpment and now the walker would have to negotiate the entrance to the Channel Tunnel, but for all that it would still be one of the more pleasing outlooks from the public seats of a cricket ground. I must write about cricket at Folkestone at greater length as there is no ground at which watching cricket has been more pleasurable.

On the third afternoon it seemed that Lancashire, 30 short of making Kent bat again and with six wickets in hand, had done enough to salvage the draw, but a combination of Underwood and brilliant fielding turned the game.

Kent’s fielding (Norman Graham and one or two others apart) was a major factor in their rise to the top of English cricket and was well ahead of the general standard of the time.

That win brought Kent to within six points of leaders Yorkshire, but at Southport in the second half of the week they collected only two points after missing the first-innings lead by six runs and having the third day washed out when Lancashire 116 for six, again mesmerised by Underwood. Yorkshire, at Bramall Lane Sheffield, were also washed out on the third day, but had the first-innings lead so were ten points ahead in the Championship at the end of the week.

Contrast the week for two batsmen. John Prodger of Kent made one before being bowled by Ken Shuttleworth. That was it for him. He was dropped for Southport and retired at the end of the season without making another first-team appearance. Roy Marshall, the West Indian opener who chose to make his career with Hampshire rather than on the international stage, made 160 out of 239 against Northamptonshire in a manner that caused Alan Gibson to suggest that Marshall should be ranked among the best of his time. Who remembers him now? He later ran a pub in Taunton and served on the Somerset committee.

John Arlott (still masquerading unconvincingly in The Times as John Silchester) was vocal on the subject of the points system this week, after a frustrating afternoon at Southampton.

Some of the best cricket is slow, when the wind is with the bowlers and the batsmen are heads down into the gale, but we have already seen ample evidence that in 1967 there was plenty of cricket that was simply dull without cause. The authorities became convinced that something was needed to challenge the inbuilt conservatism of batsmen and captains, and in 1968 the bonus points system was introduced. It has been with us, in one form or another, ever since. 

The three-test series against India was disappointingly one-sided. At the end of the first day of the third test, at Edgbaston, it seemed that India might be in with a chance, having dismissed England for 298 (despite opening the bowling with reserve keeper Kunderan, his only bowl of the tour; Pataudi did the job in the second innings). The talented quartet of spin bowlers—all selected here—now had the sun on their backs and a responsive surface. But no. India were rattled out for 92 on the second day. Brian Close did not enforce the follow on, a highly unusual course of action in the age of rest days. On India’s previous tour in 1959, Colin Cowdrey did not enforce the follow on one occasion, publicly stating that this was to give the Saturday crowd cricket to watch. All very well for a dilettante southern amateur, but surely not the wizened northern pro who carried with him x-rays to prove to doubters that his heart was made of flint?

Basil D’Oliveira was omitted from the twelve despite his first-test century, but as we know a D’Oliveira hundred was never a guarantee of his future selection.

Henry Blofeld made 67 for Eton Ramblers (appropriately, some would say) against Radley Rangers in the Cricketer Cup, the competition for the old boys of public schools, but Ted Dexter’s unbeaten 78 won the game. Fifty years on, Blofeld is on his farewell tour of the commentary boxes. In the days when Henry Blofeld was his name rather than his profession I enjoyed his writing in the Guardian, then the Independent. His reports would often be the most perceptive available; you would learn more about a game you had watched from reading them. Over the years he has lurched into self-parody in a way that Brian Johnston, for example, never did (on TV David Lloyd is in danger of going the same way).

Wimbledon finished with Billie Jean King forcing the tennis writers to plunder the thesaurus for the usual descriptions of losing Brits—doughty fighter etc—by defeating Ann Jones quite easily in the ladies’ final. King also won both doubles titles, in the company of Rosie Casals and Owen Davidson.

At the Open golf at Hoylake Roberto di Vicenzo led with one round to play. Neither Wimbledon nor the Open played on Sunday. 

The bill that reformed the abortion law completed its passage through the Commons, the second major social reform to be passed as a private member’s bill in a fortnight, following the partial decriminalisation of homosexual activity. Readers must be aware that my nerdery extends beyond cricket into the arcane world of parliamentary procedure; in the past couple of years I have seen my name not only in Wisden (thanks to Brian Carpenter) but also in the new edition of Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand (the equivalent of Erskine May). In 1967 the Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, ensured that there would be sufficient time for these bills to pass, thus overcoming the usual obstacle to the enactment of private members’ bills. The abortion bill was in the name of David Steel, then a couple of decades off being a mini-puppet in David Owen’s top pocket in Spitting Image.