Kent v Surrey, County Championship, 19-22 April 2024
It was such
a good plan. I would begin in Canterbury with two or three days under the
Spring sun before heading west to Bristol to watch at the County Ground for the
first time since leaving for New Zealand in 1997. Then a day at Lord’s, where I
had last been that same summer, when I put on my suit for a day in the pavilion
on my Kent member’s privilege. But England was grey, wet and, above all, cold
this April, so my return to English cricket after a five-year interval ended up
as two (slightly-less-than) half-days at St Lawrence, where champions Surrey
were the visitors.
It was wet
on the first morning, but I made my way up the Old Dover Road regardless. I am
drawn to this place of memories and happiness whenever I return to Kent,
especially today, when tributes were to be paid to Derek Underwood, who had
died a few days before.
With no
score to show, the big screen was playing a reel of highlights of Underwood picking
off some of the best: the Oval ’68 (how well I remember that long afternoon
waiting for the puddles to be erased from the Oval outfield and the
black-and-white tension of the last hour); Australia in ’72, with Knotty taking
a smart catch or two; Eddie Barlow yorked in the 55-over final at Lord’s in
’78.
There was
supposed to be a tribute before the start of play, but with the delay they
decided to hold it at midday instead (it embraced Ramon Subba Row too). I hope
that they do it again when the ground is full and the sun is shining, but at
least the few who were there had mostly seen him play. None of the players
obviously. For them Derek Underwood would have been as distant a concept as
Tich Freeman was to us. But Alec Stewart was there. He played against him and
will have let the Surrey team know something of the man.
Those of us
who stood and remembered all had stories that we wanted to tell. Mine was of
another grey and wet day at St Lawrence, much like this one, forty years before.
There were even fewer there that day, but I was one of them. Mark
Nicholas was another, one of Underwood’s victims as he made a nonsense of Nick
Pocock’s gleeful acceptance of Chris Tavaré’s
offer of 179 off 59 overs. You see, rain had got under the covers, and it was
bows and arrows against bombs. At least Underwood’s passing was the cause of
some fine writing, Nicholas
again to the fore. I’m
pleased that I was there, in the cold.
There were things to do to pass the
time. For an extra fiver, there was a tour of the ground, conducted by a young
volunteer called Sam, one of Canterbury’s official guides, but doing this recreationally.
He was excellent. I learned more than I expected to, given that I have been
steeped in the place all my life. It had never occurred to me to find out why
it bears St Lawrence’s name. Thanks to Sam, I now know. He was the second
Archbishop of Canterbury after whom a leper hospital on the site of the ground
was named, replaced by a mansion called St Lawrence House, which was demolished
early in the nineteenth century, creating space for the cricket ground.
The fiver also gave access to a
teatime talk in the Chiesman Pavilion (which surely should be renamed the Stevo
Pavilion: the great man was present, ready for recall) by Kent’s curator, Ian
Phipps. This is intended to be a regular feature, the starting point of each
being an item or two from the club’s collection. Here, we went back to the origins
of cricket in the county by looking at one of the sticks into which notches
were cut to record the scores. Afterwards, I chatted to Ian and he showed me
the scorebook in which Colin Cowdrey’s hundredth hundred was recorded in the
copperplate hand of Claude Lewis in 1973.
Kent are to be congratulated on these
initiatives, which I encourage anybody going to Canterbury to take advantage
of. Now, more than ever, there is a need to celebrate cricket’s story and
heritage.
Last time I was there, on the final pre-Covid
day of cricket in 2019, I was a bit concerned for the old ground, which looked
a little tired and uncared for. I am pleased to report that it now has more
sparkle about it. There are new seats around the ground and the Frank Woolley
no longer looks as if it might crumble out of use. They have done a good job of
integrating the new buildings on the pavilion side of the ground; the new
dressing rooms are a great improvement on the old. As Andrew
Miller notes on a piece that
has appeared on CricInfo while I was writing this, even the new
apartments look as if they belong; what was there before was only a car park,
after all (Miller appears to have had the day in the sun that I was hoping for,
but was denied). Only the magnificent old analogue scoreboard over the Leslie Ames
Stand, installed in 1971 if my memory is correct, looks as if it may be
reaching the end of its life. The biting northerly introduced a random element by
blowing the numbers about in a way that would please the North Koreans who run
the Basin Reserve scoreboard. Neither this board nor the big screen can be seen
from the Ames Stand, but as this is given over to a bar and hospitality boxes,
I doubt that anybody notices.
When the covers were rolled back, I
experienced culture shock. Living in New Zealand I have become so used to a
first-morning pitch being a palette of greens that one comprising colours of
the desert rather than the forest came as a surprise. Perhaps this made the scheduled
use of the Kookaburra ball in this game somewhat superfluous as a equalising
factor between bat and ball. County cricket, under threat as it is, must be
able to sort the good players out from the moderate. Dobbing seamers producing
unplayable deliveries in the Spring does not do this, but neither do centuries
from mediocre batters against emasculated bowlers. It cannot be beyond the wit
of science to produce a ball that combines the qualities of Dukes and
Kookaburra. Failing that, a machine like those that choose the Lotto balls
could be loaded with an equal number of both and present the fielding side with
the ball of the day after the toss.
Zak Crawley might as well not bother
if I am in the crowd. I have seen him bat “at the ground” five times including
this day; only once, in the second innings of the Greatest Test of All, has he
reached double figures (25 in that case). Here, he nicked off to third slip on five
off Dan Worrall, who followed up by trapping Ben Compton lbw to reduce Kent to
nine for two.
Daniel Bell-Drummond is club captain
this year. At 30, his chance of the international preferment for which he was
mooted as a youngster has probably gone. This is to Kent’s benefit if he
continues to bat as he did here. From the start he showed the touch and eye of
a man who has made two centuries already this year. He hit six fours in his
first 34 runs, this off perhaps the best attack in the Championship. He was
more measured thereafter, but not troubled. It was a surprise when he was out three
overs before the close, lbw to Tom Lawes. If he follows in the tradition of
Johnson, Ealham snr and Jarvis, to name but three, giving service to county
alone, it will have been an honourable career.
It was a treat to watch cricket once
more with my Blean correspondent, and to discover that the jokes and
observations that originated in the glory years of the seventies have stood the
test of time, as has our ability to clear the seats around us with the tedium
of our conversation. But some things change, and we both found that the intense
cold could not be shaken off as easily as it was in our (potato) salad days. It
took us both the rest of the day to restore our body temperatures to normal.
This was my first time back to Kent
since my mother passed away in 2021, so there were things to do and people to
see. Nevertheless, a bright warm day would have brought about a change of
schedule, but the weather continued to be delivered fresh from the Arctic.
We returned on the fourth morning with
a short day in prospect. In the interim, Surrey had created a lead of 299, with
centuries for Sibley and Lawrence. Kent resumed on 120 for five. It could all
have been over very quickly, but the prospect of brevity was an incentive in
these conditions. In fact, we found a place inside the Cowdrey Stand, where the
bar was closed but the room open. It was much the same as watching from behind
glass in the Long Room at the Basin Reserve. The company was similar too. Somebody
was doing the stats and keeping us in touch with progress elsewhere. Football
is a common topic. Given our location, and small numbers, a statistically
unlikely number of the Basin faithful support East Anglian teams, creating an
edge to proceedings when an Old Farm derby is in the offing.
There was an excellent discussion in
Canterbury about the moral obligation on supporters to attend on days like
these that could be all over quickly. It was agreed that it was an imperative
for people in the city itself, and probably for Herne Bay and Whitstable, given
the improved bus services. Those from the more remote coastal settlements were
to be commended, and someone who had come down from Greenwich almost received a
standing ovation. One odd trait shared in both locations is that applause
continues to be offered as normal, even though we are behind glass and the
players can’t hear us. A player who has done really well on a cold day at the
Basin will know because the sliding windows of the Long Room will be unfurled like
the unmuting of a Zoom call.
The money people who condemn the
County Championship to the extremities of the season, and who plot to
streamline/optimise/rationalise (or whatever business euphemism is in fashion) the
number of matches, and the number of counties don’t know the currency that this
stuff is counted in.
Arafat Bhuiyan batted as all No 11s
should, and took a six and two fours off successive deliveries from Kemar
Roach, which few have done. Parkinson was out to the second outstanding short
leg catch by Jamie Smith, and that was that. A pleasant day in good company.
The biting weather persisted, and I went
down with the usual cold I get whenever I return to the old country, so I did
not attend the County Ground in Bristol. I could have made a token visit but
want what memories I have yet to form of cricket in England to be of
shirtsleeves and lemonade, not bobble hats and Benylin. Lord’s was rained off,
so I did not have to work my way through the 21 steps that the Middlesex
website takes you through before sending you to the MCC website to buy the
ticket.
I hope to be back one day, before too
long, at a time of the year when the focus can be on enjoying the cricket,
rather than the preservation of life. A gritty seventh-wicket stand and the
chance to say goodbye to a hero will sustain me for now.
