The Lord’s Finals: 1973 & 1976 (and a little of 1974)

I went to Lord’s for 24 domestic finals (plus the first three World Cup finals). With the 50-over final moving to Trent Bridge from 2020, there will be no more. Every one of the 24 was played before a full house, even when there were two a year. Were that still the case, the question of moving it would not arise, but over-pricing, the prevalence of international cricket, the devaluing of the county game and the short attention spans of the marketing folk have conspired to devalue what were some of summer’s highest days.

To mark their passing, I hereby announce a series of posts on those 24 finals. This will involve a bit of “curating” (the name young people give to re-sorting and sticking a different label on old stuff). Just as those who played at the MCG in March 1877 were oblivious to taking part in the first test match, so these old posts turn out to be early episodes of this series.

Gillette Cup 1967

Gillette Cup 1971

World Cup 1975

World Cup 1979

World Cup 1983

I’ll mix the cricket reportage with a little of what was happening in the world and as much autobiography as the reader might be able to tolerate.

But anybody anticipating an eyewitness account of the 1974 Gillette Cup final between Kent and Lancashire will be disappointed. I was there on the Saturday, sitting in the sunshine to hear that there would be no play that day, thanks to heavy rain two days before and a sharp shower at 9 am.

People who hanker for the old days of cricket-watching should remember how much of the time we spent watching grass dry. Now, play would probably have started on time.

The game was played on Monday, a school day, hence my absence. Why not Sunday? Because Kent had a Sunday League game scheduled at Worcester. What’s more, the XI that played at New Road was exactly the same as turned out back at Lord’s on the Monday. Rotation then was merely a means of crop management.

I’m sorry to have missed the match—the only one of Kent’s first twelve Lord’s finals from which I was absent—not only because Kent won, but also because it was such a curiosity. Lancashire, having won the toss, lost their tenth wicket to the final ball of the 60th over to be all out for…118. That is to say, a fraction under two an over.

In The Times, John Woodcock described the pitch as “churlish…of uneven bounce and no pace”, but observed that “there was less good batting than one would have thought possible from so many distinguished players”. The Lancashire team contained some of the best one-day batsmen of the era—Lloyd C (& D), Wood, Pilling, Engineer—and those fine tonkers of a cricket ball Hughes and Simmons. Nobody in Kent’s innings made as many as 20, surely a record for a winning team in a final.

Kent’s bowling was apparently splendid: “Rarely did any Kent bowler drop short of a difficult length” reported Wisden. This included James Graham-Brown (his name a pleasing compendium of two other Kent bowlers of the era), who finished with 12–5–15–2. Graham-Brown was a medium-pace bowler with bouncy run up. By a lengthy street, this was the best day of his cricket career. He made only occasional appearances in 1975 and 1976 and then had a couple of years with Derbyshire (as good a euphemism as any for career failure: “Mrs May, we have arranged for you to have a couple of years with Derbyshire”). He was a headteacher for 20 years and now writes plays, including one about Colin Milburn, under the name Dougie Blaxland.

It was Kent’s fielding that won the cup that Monday. There were three run outs, including, crucially, Clive Lloyd, beaten by a 50-yard throw by Alan Ealham after slipping mid-pitch. John Shepherd was responsible for the other two, leading Woodcock to compare him to Learie Constantine.

Kent were coasting at 52 for one, but collapsed to 89 for six before being seen home by Knott and Woolmer (then batting at No 8; within a year he was scoring an Ashes century).

Those not around then would find it hard to credit how difficult it was to find out what was happening in the closing stages for those of us not at Lord’s. BBC schedules were not sufficiently flexible to take account of the delay. Radio coverage was restricted to hourly sports desks, and midweek county games had to give way to the Open University on BBC 2 from about 5 pm, so programmes on Games (sic) Theory and Pure Mathematics filled the screen as Knott and Woolmer eked their way to the target. The tension was in wondering how much tension there was. Nor could time be found to show any highlights, which is presumably so there are none on YouTube.

Gillette Cup final 1974 scorecard

55-over final 1973

Scorecard

No two Lord’s finals were more alike than the 55-over finals of 1973 and 1976. Both were between Kent and Worcestershire. Kent batted first both times, making a good, but not insurmountable score. Worcestershire slipped behind, were given hope by D’Oliveira, but ultimately fell 40 runs or so short. I watched these games from the top deck of the Warner Stand, a largely Kent area on both days.

Kent’s glory years were now well under way, the trophies coming as easily as bonuses to bankers. This was the third of ten in the seventies. Seven of the team were test players, two of them—Knott and Underwood, obviously—in or near the World XI of the time. Woolmer had already played ODIs and was to be a test player two years later. The other three—Johnson, Graham and Ealham—were fine county players, and the former two might have been capped had the selectors actually been as biased towards Kent as supporters of other counties supposed they were.

Worcestershire had three current test players. Norman Gifford, unaccountably (to us in Kent, and many others) selected in preference to Underwood for the first two tests against New Zealand, where he had bowled to Glenn Turner, who was opening the batting here with Ron Headley, who would open for the West Indies in the first test later that week.

The loss of Johnson and Denness with the score on 23 forced Luckhurst and Asif Iqbal onto the defensive, so much so that after 20 overs the total was only 34. But they knew that if no more wickets were lost the runs would come, and so they did, in a partnership of 116.

They were a contrasting pair, the craftsman and the showman. Looking at the recording (posted by Luckhurst’s son), Brian Luckhurst reminds me a bit of Kane Williamson, so correct, and with a practical answer to every bowler’s questions. He was the least stylish of the Kent batsmen, a short backlift turning most shots into punches, but perhaps the most effective. This was a beautifully paced innings, and it turned the game Kent’s way.

Tony Greig said that Asif was the quickest runner between wickets he ever saw. There is plenty of evidence on the recording to support this contention. See how, as Luckhurst is halfway down the pitch completing his third run to pass 50, Asif is already at the other end, scoping a fourth.

Asif’s fleetness did for Luckhurst in the end, beaten by a howitzer of a throw from D’Oliveira from the general direction of Regent’s Park.

These days they call a batsman coming in for the final ten overs or so a “closer”. Kent’s unlikely closer that day was Colin Cowdrey, whose appearance was greeted with a certain amount of derision by Worcestershire folk, who spoke of blocking and maiden overs. What followed was a short masterclass of placement and timing, enough weight taken off the shot to get two even with seven boundary fielders (no fielding restrictions yet, of course). He was puffed by the end mind, particularly when joined by Alan Knott, perhaps the only Kent player who could challenge Asif in a short sprint. Who would blame Cowdrey for turning down a second from the last ball of the innings, given that would have placed him 22 yards further away from the pavilion, to which he was by then so keen to return? Cowdrey refuted another misconception—that he was a liability away from slip—early in the Worcestershire innings when he threw down the stumps from side on.

Kent’s opening bowlers were Norman Graham and Asif Iqbal. Like Jasprit Bumrah’s now, Norman Graham’s run up was no more than an administrative necessity, but batsmen were unused to seeing the ball from the angle that his six foot seven frame delivered it from. The effect was of a bowler faster than he actually was. Asif’s handling of the new ball was a surprise in that he had bowled only three overs in the competition thus far that season, and did not bowl at all in the first nine games of the Sunday League season. But then Bernard Julien headed off to join the West Indies touring team and somebody remembered that Asif had first emerged as in international cricket as an opening bowler. He did the job very well, with a slingly action and busy arms that looked as if they wanted to dispatch the ball long before reaching the bowling crease.

Worcestershire were going along quite well at 57 for one when Ted Hemsley made a mistake that many had made before and many would after: he took a single to the little dumpy guy at mid on. He was a yard short when the ball hit the base of the middle stump, as it tended to when thrown by Alan Ealham.

A couple more wickets fell quickly. Worcestershire were behind the clock and mesmerised by Underwood. It was a surprise to see the captain, Norman Gifford coming in at six, promoting himself above D’Oliveira and Yardley. This may have had something to do with the fashionable theory that Underwood was less effective against left-handers.

D’Oliveira soon joined him and they came close to turning the game, with a partnership of 70 in 12 overs, massive productivity in the year of the three-day week. Gifford slogged effectively, but some of D’Oliveira’s shots were sublime. All the political business that his name evokes can get in the way of remembering what a fine cricketer he was; a man Peter Oborne reckoned would have toured England in 1951, but for apartheid. As we will see, he wasn’t done with Lord’s finals yet.

The rest of the Worcestershire order folded, leaving them 39 runs short with 20 balls spare. Asif had four wickets to add to his half-century and was named man of the match by Sir Leonard Hutton (“I saw Hutton past his prime…”).

The highlights package on YouTube was posted by Tim Luckhurst, Brian’s son. No highlights package is shown in the schedules for that day on BBC Genome, so it would seem to be a piece of individual enterprise for which we nostalgists are grateful.

How shining white their kit is in those pictures; they look like angels descended from heaven, but your childhood heroes always do, I suppose.

YouTube highlights of the 1973 final

55-over final 1976

Scorecard

For those of us of a certain age, the summer of ’76 will never be beaten. Lazy, hazy, crazy days, the sun relentless and dazzling, the West Indies cricket team the same. Viv Richards announced his greatness with two double hundreds. I was at the Oval for some of Mikey Holding’s 14 wickets on a pitch so flat it would be an exaggeration to call it three-dimensional.

Zaheer Abbas with a double hundred and a hundred at Canterbury…a helicopter landing at Mote Park as Kent won the Sunday League…Cowdrey’s last game…and another Lord’s cup final win.

Kent’s XI for the 1976 final had three changes from that of three years before. Cowdrey had retired (but was to reappear once during Canterbury Week); Luckhurst and Graham had already had their seasons ended by injury, and were both to retire that year (prematurely in Luckhurst’s case). Leading the attack was Kevin Jarvis, like Graham a fine county bowler unlucky not to get a few England caps along the way. When the two played together Graham was promoted to the No 10 position, a promotion that the introduction of no player I have seen other Jarvis could have achieved.  

Cowdrey and Luckhurst were replaced by Charles Rowe and Richard Hills. Here was a straw in the wind, though we didn’t recognise it as such at the time: two players of proven international quality succeeded by two decent county pros. Rowe was embarking on the unenviable sequence of three Lord’s finals in successive years in which he would not score a run, bowl a ball or take a catch.

Only five returned from Worcestershire’s 1973 XI: Turner, D’Oliveira, Gifford, Ormrod and Hemsley. There was plenty of talent among the replacements, most of whom would become well-known county names: Phil Neale, Gordon Willcock, Paul Pridgeon and John Inchmore. The least familiar is all-rounder Cedric Boyns, who had made his way from the Drones Club specially.

And there was Imran Khan, now in the final year of a spasmodic six-season career at New Road. Worcestershire folk chanted his name to the tune of the chorus of You’ll Never Walk Alone (“Imran” for “walk on”) as he opened the bowling, but the volume diminished as the Kent openers Johnson and Woolmer saw off the new ball.

In 1973 Woolmer had been a bowling all-rounder. Three years later, he was an England batsman, his 61 here part of the reason he was promoted to open in the fourth test later that week as the selectors hit upon the notion that it would be a good idea to have openers with a combined age lower than 84, as it had been when Close and Edrich opened in the third test, at Old Trafford.

It was always more fun when a county pro who never experienced international glory turned in the key performance at a Lord’s final. Here, it was Graham Johnson’s day, the high day of a 20-year career (though I’ve written before about the scandal that was Geoff Miller playing 34 tests while Johnson played none). With Woolmer, he put on 110, the first century opening partnership in a Lord’s final. “Watching Johnson and Woolmer…no one would know that English cricket is in the doldrums” reported Woodcock.

Kent didn’t build the big total that might have followed this fine start. There were no boundaries between the 36^th to 52^nd overs. Woodcock described Gifford’s field settings as “as much like rounders as cricket” and suggested that there might be an inner ring containing a specified number of fielders, as has become standard. But there was also some good tight bowling, notably by Gifford himself, but also from Boyns, who had to step up to a full 11-over contribution after D’Oliveira limped off having torn his 44-year-old hamstring. That Kent got as many as 236 was largely thanks again to Asif’s scampering in the last ten overs.

Worcestershire started well enough, with Turner and Ormrod putting on 40 in 12 overs, but Shepherd had the New Zealander caught behind. He dismissed Neale soon after and a tourniquet was applied first by Woolmer, whose first seven overs cost only four runs, then Underwood playing the fifth of his ten finals.

The difficulty that Underwood presented can be judged by the fact that three batsmen in a row were caught by Johnson at deep square leg as they desperately sought to escape the Alcatraz that Underwood built on the line of leg stump.

There is a curiosity around the first of these catches, to dismiss Ormrod. Johnson took the catch inside the rope, but clearly continued across it. For a few years in that era, that constituted a fair catch. That clearly had not been the case in 1968, when Roger Davis caught the fifth of Sobers’ six sixes at Swansea, only to fall over the boundary for the catch to be overruled. The variation to the law that did not last long, or the gymnastic displays that are now a regular feature of boundary fielding would not be necessary.

When D’Oliveira limped in, accompanied by Turner as runner, Worcestershire were 90 for four and well behind the clock, as good as done if all they had to offer was an elderly disabled man and his carer. D’Oliveira proceeded to play what I still regard as the finest one-legged innings I have seen, rivalled perhaps by Chris Gayle’s equally futile effort in the World Cup quarter-final of 2015 (when he was not allowed a runner). With mobility unavailable, he relied on eye and power, one that of an eagle, the other what would get a small town through an afternoon.

“With short-arm jabs, D’Oliveira struck four after four and he straight drove Hills to the pavilion seats for six” reports Wisden. He never quite caught Worcestershire up with the required rate—all those fielders on the boundary saw to that—but he certainly had us worried. Only when he was out for 50 in the 47^th over did we relax, after we had stood to see him on his slow way back to the pavilion. There has never been a cricketer who has attracted such universal goodwill as Basil D’Oliveira.

Kevin Jarvis cleaned up the tail, giving him four wickets on his Lord’s final debut. The 43-run victory margin was a touch flattering to Kent. Graham Johnson won the gold award by Sir Garry Sobers.

Except for certain members of the committee, none of the Kent people at Lord’s that day would have believed that Mike Denness was in the final couple of months of his Kent career. Nobody would have thought that when we returned a year later our world would have been turned upside down by Kerry Packer (or rather the establishment’s blimpish reaction to him). In a way, that happy day was the last of our childhood, the only time in our lives that we had a full hand of illusions, none yet shattered.

The golden summer of ’76.

YouTube highlights of the 1976 final

New Zealand v Sri Lanka, First Test, Basin Reserve, 15 ­­– 19 December 2018

New Zealand v Sri Lanka, First Test, Basin Reserve, 15 ­­– 19 December 2018

Scorecard

Sri Lanka are here for a two-test “series” (two tests do not a series make) followed by three ODIs and a T20. I was at the Basin for the first two days of the first test.

The two teams start this tour having recently been on different ends of the pleasing recent trend of away teams winning test series. Sri Lanka received a 3­–0 drubbing at England’s hands, while New Zealand beat Pakistan 2­–1 in the UAE.

Play in the latter series began at 7pm New Zealand time, so I was able to watch quite a bit of it. The climax of the first test measured Headingley ’81 on the nerve-wrackingometer. It is common these days to measure the progress of tests in terms of which side has “won” each session. Pakistan had dominated on this count. Not many tests have been won by a side that has appeared doomed to defeat for so much of the game. Needing 175 for victory, Pakistan appeared to be sailing home at 130 for three, then 154 for five when a collective failure of nerve occurred against some fine bowling by slow left-armer Ajaz Patel, on debut after taking plenty of wickets over several seasons in domestic cricket. He was well-supported by Neil Wagner’s usual huff-puff-and-blow-your-house-down bowling.

As well as being unbearably tense, the final overs were also very strange. No 3 batsman Azhar Ali turned down considerably more easy singles than Pakistan lost by, even though Mohammad Abbas is a long way off the worst No 11 around. New Zealand continued to offer these up even as the target got into single figures, each team apparently trying to keep the other in the contest. The absurdity of this approach was underlined by the fact that it was Azhar Ali who finally fell, lbw to Patel, the wait for the DRS decision a child’s on Christmas Eve.

Pakistan won the second test by an innings and took a first-innings lead of 74 in the third match. With New Zealand 60 for four in the second innings, it seemed that home-team suzerainty would inevitably impose itself. A magnificent innings from a great player, Kane Williamson, changed the game and the series, with admirable support from Henry Nicholls. Before their fifth-wicket partnership of 212, the previous ten wickets had gone for 120; Pakistan were bowled out for 156 next day, so these were not easy runs. Williamson’s declaration, setting Pakistan 280 in five hours, was out of Brendon McCullum’s Attacking Captaincy textbook. A couple of early wickets shook Pakistan’s confidence: five down by lunchtime, all out by tea.

It was only the second series defeat Pakistan had suffered in the UAE since it became their home base in 2010. A 2­–0 win in the home series here would send New Zealand to an unprecedented second place in the test rankings.

Those of us present the last time Sri Lanka played a test at the Basin hoped for a contest to equal that one, a magnificent match with double centuries from two of the greats, Sangakkara and Williamson, a world-record partnership (Williamson and Watling) and a fifth-afternoon finish. Of the teams four years ago, Latham, Williamson, Taylor, Watling, Southee and Boult survive for New Zealand, Karunaratne, Mathews, Chandimal and Lakmal for Sri Lanka.

The Basin pitch usually behaves like a small child on Christmas morning, opening all its presents early, to become bored by mid-afternoon, so it is customary to put the opposition in on winning the toss, as Kane Williamson did here.

Sure enough, within four overs the gift wrapping had been torn off three wickets, all to Tim Southee. However, it was movement through the air rather than off the pitch that was responsible. First, Gunathilaka played around one that swung in late to be leg-before. DM de Silva got a thin edge to a ball that swung away, then Mendis hit lazily to give Patel, the only fielder in front of square on the legside, an easy catch.

At this point it seemed likely that Sri Lanka, morale low after their home defeat, would fold, but throughout the series they showed resilience. Karunaratne and Mathews put on 133 for the fourth wicket, their survival improbable at times, notably when Karunaratne clipped De Grandhomme to mid-wicket, only for the replay to reveal a no-ball. The edge of the bat either avoided the ball or directed it wide, short or high of fielders. Karunaratne started to play some attractive straight drives and both batsmen took on the short ball.

Inevitably, it was Wagner who led the bouncer barrage. As usual, he was not introduced into the attack until De Grandhomme had had a few overs. The theory is that he doesn’t get anything from the new ball, which, like most things about Wagner’s bowling, defies common sense. It may be more about keeping a hungry dog angry by denying it red meat for longer. The batsmen won the early skirmishes, but Wagner broke the partnership when Karunaratne gloved an attempted hook to Watling.

The weapon of choice continued to be the short ball for the rest of the day. The pitch provided bounce, which isn’t the same thing as pace. It worked for New Zealand, with three more batsman falling to short stuff during the evening session.

Wicketkeeper Dickwella played as well as anyone whatever the length of the delivery, intelligently mixing the orthodox and the unconventional. The sweep/glance/scoop that sent a Southee full-length ball to the fine-leg boundary was the shot of the day, as beautiful in its own way as a Gower cover drive.

Trent Boult’s first wicket came from the last ball of the first day, Rajitha caught behind. Southee had five by this stage and had pushed ahead of Boult in their contest to have taken most test wickets. By the end of the series, both were in the 230s with Southee retaining a four-wicket lead. Southee bowled superbly, but Boult’s performance might have been enough for a five-for on another day.

Dickwella resumed on the second morning on 73 and in the same vein, scooping Boult to the fine-third-man boundary, but any ambition that he might have had regarding a century was thwarted by Kumara, a No 11 possessed of the fatal combination of self-belief and concrete boots. He deftly glanced straight to leg slip to give Southee his sixth wicket and to leave Sri Lanka all out for 282.

The general feeling was that this was inadequate, but by how much? It could have been a good deal fewer had the ball found the edge more often on the first morning. Only four of the Sri Lankans had reached double figures, but three of them had gone on to 79, 80 not out and 83.

Latham and Raval looked very comfortable in the early overs of New Zealand’s innings, the Sri Lankan attack mundane, but getting little help from an increasingly sleepy pitch. Raval looked especially fluent through the offside, as confident as he was when he looked a class above everybody else in making a century for Auckland at the Basin earlier in the season. He needs a big score in a test sometime soon, having made seven 50s but no 100s from 16 tests to date, and this looked a good opportunity. But hooking at the last ball before lunch, he toe-ended a catch to Dickwella to be out for 43.

No cricket lover should miss any opportunity to watch Kane Williamson bat. It doesn’t much matter in which form of the game as his approach barely changes. His century in the ODI on a dodgy pitch at the Cake Tin was the best batting I watched in 2018. Here he resumed where he left off in the UAE a week before, as if he had paused for a drink rather than flying 14,000 km. Two rasping offside fours off the back foot off the second and third balls that he received made it clear that playing himself in was superfluous. Without showing the least sign of urgency or risk he made 91 at a run a ball, a big century looking as certain as Christmas.

For want of a better idea, Chandimal turned to Dhananjaya de Silva, whose soothing off spin had brought him seven wickets in 20 tests at an average of over 70. Possibly salivating a little, Williamson swept the second ball de Silva bowled him straight to backward square leg, where Rajitha took an easy catch. Wiliamson returned the rooms bearing the demeanour of a politician who has thrown away a 20-year career with a one-night dalliance in a seaside hotel.

Tom Latham ended the day on 121, having reached his century with overthrows, just like Alastair Cook at the Oval a few months ago. Latham looked as in control as Williamson and also had a pleasing range of shots around the field. The difference is that the intervals between them were longer.

These days Ross Taylor bats with a sort of impatient bustling, as if he knows that his time in the game is finite and he wants to make the most of it. He has a young family and it would be no surprise if after the World Cup he chooses the easy rewards of the T20 circuit, while he is still young enough to command a hefty price. He reached 50 by the close, though should have been caught at second slip. At the end of the day New Zealand were 29 ahead with seven wickets left, and the course of the match seemed clear.

I wasn’t there for the remaining three days, so missed Latham becoming only the second New Zealander to carry his bat in a test, his 264 not out being the highest score made in such circumstances for any team. He made another big hundred in the second test—his eighth century—and has risen to 14^th in the test batting rankings. With Warner out of commission, the only openers in the top ten are Karunaratne and Elgar, and on form Latham would get into a World XI ahead of either.

With a deficit of 296 and three down for 13 by the end of the third day, Sri Lanka’s only hope was a forecast of rain for day five, but the chances of the last seven partnerships lasting all day appeared remote. In fact, one partnership, between Mendis and Mathews, sufficed. They batted all day, and through the 13 overs that were possible the next day. I’m not sure if I’m pleased to have missed it or not. To see your team’s hopes receding, inevitably but so slowly, is the cricketing equivalent of watching global warming. But this was only the 22^nd time that a pair of batsmen had occupied the crease for a whole day, so on balance I’m sorry that I wasn’t there. Yes, the rain saved them in the end, but it would take a very mean spirit to think this undeserved.

Similar weather in Christchurch would have repeated the trick. Set 650 to win, Sri Lanka were 24 for two at the end of the third day, but were still there with 231 for six 24 hours later. This time the sun shone and New Zealand completed a 423-run victory. This is one of Sri Lanka’s weaker teams, but it is not short of spirit or fight.

Back at Hamilton: leg spin and an inflatable pub

Northern Districts v Wellington, T20, Seddon Park, 22 December 2018

Scorecard (contains video links of wickets, boundaries and beards).

For the first time since I moved to Wellington in 2006, I have been to the cricket at Seddon Park in Hamilton. I was a regular in the press box there for three years or so from the turn of the century as CricInfo’s man in the central North Island, and reported upon a good deal of interesting cricket while enjoying Northern Districts’ free lunches.

At that time the ground was newly remodelled to double the size of the banking that surrounds two-thirds or so of the playing area, so as to attract more international fixtures. This involved taking out the trees that formed a near continuous canopy around the top of the bank when I first went to Seddon Park twenty years ago. It was pleasing to see that their replacements have matured, returning the rural feel that the ground has despite its central-city location (as I have noted previously, it is the only ground I have spectated at where I have been able to get a haircut and sit-down meal and still been back in my seat for the first ball after lunch). As well as the bouncy castle, without which no T20 match can be played, there was also an inflatable pub.

It was a pleasure to watch under lights in a part of the country where the climate does not necessitate an overcoat, several sweaters and a balaclava to survive the experience. Flags were given to spectators on arrival rather than the thermal blankets that are more appropriate in Wellington. 

The occasion was the opening game of the domestic T20 season, with Northern Districts hosting Wellington. A pleasing scheduling development this year is that many games are double headers, with the men’s match preceded by a women’s game. I arrived in time to catch the last ten overs of so of ND’s innings. Chasing 144, ND were well-placed with 60 or so needed and eight wickets standing, but they collapsed like the morale of the turkey population at this time of year, losing seven wickets for 23 runs.

Amelia Kerr was playing for Wellington. Recently turned 18, in June she broke the women’s world ODI record for an individual with 232 against Ireland. Good judges say that she is a rare talent, and I look forward to seeing her bat. Today it was her bowling that took the eye. She took three for ten with her leg spin, inducing cluelessness in the opposition as only a good leg spinner can. The last time I saw a leggie do that was when Ish Sodhi ran through Wellington at the Basin earlier this year. Though in the other camp, he greeted her with warm approval after the match, the fellowship of the wrist-spinner’s union overriding team loyalty. The ND lower order may not be technically equipped to meet the challenge, but a bowler who lands it with consistent accuracy and turns it both ways with bounce as Kerr does, will bamboozle better players than them.

In the men’s match, Wellington won the toss and put ND in. On a good pitch for batting, as Seddon Park is, I remain of the opinion that it is better to bat first as the pressure of chasing a large total undoes a team so often. That is, more or less, what happened here.

Though Walker wasn’t in the home side here, the other two bearded crowned heads were, and it turned out to be a royalist triumph, though it did not seem that way when Devcich was forced to abdicate from the second ball of the match, top edging Woodcock to short third man.

Devcich was replaced by his emperor-cousin Dean Brownlie who played the most substantial innings of the day, 99 from 45 balls, 76 of which came in boundaries. It was a satisfying combination of muscle and guile. One short of the hundred, Brownlie deserves credit for going for the big hit rather than taking the easy single that was there for the asking.

Each of the first five overs of the innings was delivered by a different bowler. The aim of this is to prevent the batsmen from settling, but it is a tactic that can be more disruptive to the bowlers. Woodcock, for example, bowled a fine first over, but was immediately replaced by Neesham, who was hit for four fours (though more athletic fielding might have turned two of them into catches). One of these was a cross-bat smash by Seifert that rocketed towards non-striker Brownlie at waist height. He just managed to straddle jump the oncoming missile. An inch higher and the line of succession would have been terminated there and then. When Woodcock returned, he got tonked too.

Jeetan Patel, who stepped aside from the domestic 50-over competition, is back for the T20 and made an immediate impact, conning the in-form Seifert to tap the first ball he bowled back for an easy caught-and-bowled. Only a single came from that over, but Patel’s effectiveness diminished with each over that he bowled. In his last over his normally infallible control went missing, and three full tosses all went over the rope, by a considerable margin. I felt sympathy for Patel earlier, when a clear mishit by Mitchell went for six, a sure sign of imbalance between bat and ball. Nofal also went for three sixes in one over, all by Brownlie.  

Hamish Bennett’s clever change of pace restricted ND to four from the last over of the innings, but 215 for six is a T20 total that will win many more games than it loses, even in Seddon Park’s corseted boundaries.

It was good to see Mitch Santner back for ND after being out for nine months with a knee injury. The national team lacks balance without him, and 22 not out and three overs for 28 was a satisfactory start.

Leading the reply, Devon Conway got off the mark with a six over long off in the first over off Devcich, followed by a four through mid-wicket next ball. He hit seven more fours, all pure shots through the off side. It was the best cricket of the match.

It is Conway’s second season for Wellington since moving from South Africa. Such is the way of the world that a televised 45 here set off social media in a way that a double hundred in the Plunket Shield a couple of weeks ago failed to do, with many asking when he will be qualified to play for New Zealand (to which the answer is September 2020).

But returning to the theme of leg spinners instigating self-doubt, the mere appearance of Ish Sodhi ball-in-hand caused Conway to abandon the composed orthodoxy that had served him so well to that point. Sodhi’s first ball he unsuccessfully attempted to reverse sweep. The second he charged at brainlessly and was bowled.

Four of Conway’s boundaries came in Scott Kuggeleijn’s first over, and things got no better for the bowler, who had a shocker. The tenth over of the innings included three wides as he kept getting the slow bouncer wrong. At least that over eventually reached a conclusion. Kuggeleijn’s final over included two above-waist full tosses so he was stood down with two balls of the over left. Paradoxically, he bowled more deliveries than anybody else in the game, wides and no balls included, finishing with 3.4-0-58-1.

However, it was Kuggeleijn’s dismissal of Hose, caught behind from the last ball of the tenth over, that sparked the collapse that gave the game to ND. At that point Wellington were more than halfway towards their target with seven wickets standing, so were still narrow favourites.

But Neesham went in the next over, miscuing Sodhi to cover. Sodhi isn’t always the most economical bowler, but gets the key batsmen out, which is why he is No 6 in the world bowling rankings for T20 at the time of writing. Any hope that Wellington had from this point on was expunged by the deceptively unlikely figure of Anton Devcich.

If asked to demonstrate to a young person the art of pie throwing, simply show them a video of Devcich bowling and the job will be done, or so anyone watching him bowl for the first time might be forgiven for thinking. Any indecision on the batsman’s part would be merely whether to hit him over midwicket or long off. But beware. Devcich is in the great tradition of bowlers who carry the appearance of a friendly spaniel but who can bite like a rottweiler. Chris Harris is the personification of the type, his ambling windmill action apparently doing no more than placing the ball on the tee, yet performing good enough a con to bring him 203 wickets in ODIs. Darren Stevens is another example. Devcich finished with four for 27. Wellington’s last six wickets fell for 12 runs.

One man’s misfortune is another’s opportunity. Much of Kuggeleijn’s waywardness was communicated to the world by Billy Bowden, making the most of a rare appearance before the TV cameras to reprise his full range of theatrical umpiring signals, a Christmas ham a few days early.

The Return of the Kings

Wellington v Northern Districts, 50 overs, Basin Reserve, 4 November 2018

Scorecard

At full strength Northern Districts would be favourites to beat any other domestic team in the world, Surrey included. They have five bowlers in the top 15 of the world rankings in at least one format—Boult, Southee, Wagner, Santner and Sodhi—as well as one of the world’s best batsmen, Kane Williamson, other established internationals De Grandhomme and Watling, and Anderson and Seifert in T20.

“At full strength” is the key thing there. All the above except the injured Santner are on international duty in the UAE at the moment, where the Black Caps are taking on Pakistan in all three formats.

Wellington are without Blundell, van Beek and Rachin Ravindra, all with New Zealand A in the same location. Ravindra’s absence is particularly noteworthy as he is yet to play for Wellington’s senior team in first-class, list A or T20, but has been accelerated into the national A squad because of exceptional promise shown in international age group cricket, another straw in the wind that blows away the significance of the domestic first-class game.

What’s more, Jeetan Patel has opted out of the shorter forms for Wellington this year so as to preserve his aging bones for the next English season, for which nobody blames him in the least. Luke Woodcock has also decided to restrict himself to red-ball cricket, having made more first-class appearances for Wellington than any player has for any New Zealand province.

This is the New Zealand present, and the UK future: the national 50-over competition without the top talent, and with a fair portion of the middling talent unavailable too. This is what it will be like from 2020 when the Hundread (feel free to use that) gets under way.

Today’s match was an illustration of what the game becomes in these circumstances—a contest in who can best disguise their inexperience. Of course, a fine game of cricket can be the outcome, tolerable in the New Zealand spring, but lacking something as the main attraction outside the big grounds in the high English summer.

Andrew Fletcher and Malcolm Nofal opened, ND having won the toss and put Wellington in. Fletcher, who has earned his first professional contract at 25 with a lot of runs in club cricket, has been Wellington’s 50-over star so far, with two centuries in three games. He didn’t start like a man in peak form. One handsome cover drive apart, he was fortunate not to touch at least one of the deliveries that Brett Randell sent down the off-stump corridor.

As so often, a wicket fell after the release of pressure when good but unrewarded opening bowlers were replaced. The deceptively amiably paced Daryl Mitchell came on and had soon accounted for the first three Wellington wickets.

Nofal played casually across to be leg before, Conway feathered a catch behind (from his disappointed reaction the bird was already plucked), and Michael Bracewell top-edged a hook to fine leg.

Mitchell, by the way, is no relation to the Worcestershire player of the same name but is the son of John Mitchell, the former All Blacks coach who seems to be doing a fine job as England’s defensive coach, judging from the difficulty teams from this half of the world have had in crossing the line in the last couple of weeks.

For all Mitchell’s success, there was a right-arm-medium sameness about the Northern Districts attack. Fletcher was given far too many opportunities to play off his pads, which seems to be a strength of his.

Off spinner Joe Walker provided a little variety. He is one of several Northern Districts players whose off field time (there being little else to do in Hamilton of an evening) is the cultivation of big, bushy beards. A field-setting discussion between Walker, Devcich and Brownlie resembled a meeting of the crowned heads of Europe in the years before the First World War.

 

Devcich and Brownlie model ND's one-day and T20 uniforms

At 81 for three, Fletcher was joined by Jimmy Neesham, perhaps the best player left in New Zealand this weekend. At once, he was on the attack with great reserves of timing and power. The extent of his domination can be measured by the fact that when he reached 50, the fourth-wicket partnership was worth no more than 67.

Fletcher edged a catch behind off the slow left-arm of Anton Devcich for 64, but with ten overs to go Wellington were 203 for four, looking to set a target not far short of 300. At that time I wrote a cautionary note saying “all depends on Neesham”. So when he was out chasing a Devcich down the legside in the 42^nd over, estimates of the final total tumbled like those for the post-Brexit pound.

It was a smart piece of keeping by Bocock. Everybody around the boundary thought that Neesham had been stumped, but the clue was that no wide was given. It took the online replay to confirm a sharp catch, the bails whipped off in affirmation. Neesham made 86 from 67 balls with eight fours and four sixes.

That Wellington got as far as 269 was due to some loose bowling and optimistic hitting, particularly from Ollie Newton, whose innings was the cricketing equivalent of the golfer who keeps driving into the trees only to have the ball rebound into the middle of the fairway.

Devcich cleaned up the last three wickets to give him a career-best five for 46.

In the break between innings I called into the Museum, where I was delighted to find that they were having a half-price Wisden sale. I settled on an unusual 1950 edition, bound in hard covers, but dark red with a navy blue spine. I have never seen one like this before. Perhaps it was an individual collector salvaging a dilapidated copy with their own design; one or two of mine could do with some help. It cost NZ$30, which is about £15 at current rates.

That’s No 73 on the shelves in Scorecards Towers, with 1951 the most recent gap. I must get round to writing something in each edition about how I got it and where it’s been so that when they end up on other shelves one day, their story will be known.

Wellington’s opening bowlers Bennett and Newton started well, conceding just five runs from the first four overs. Bennett had Cooper leg before with a full pitch. For the next 15 overs, Northern Districts made decent progress, but it was clear that much rested on the partnership between the Tsar and the King, who, with Mitchell, comprised the bulk of their team’s experience.

At 86 for two in the 21^st over it was pretty even, but Devcich’s slog-sweep to long on was the first of six wickets to fall in the next 12 overs, with just 44 added to the total. The last two wickets added a further hundred, with Randell, Gibson and (especially) Bocock striking the ball well and with spirit. But the rate required expanded throughout, so for those of us who stayed, the experience of the last hour was akin to knowing that your car has passed its warrant (= MoT for UK readers) but having to hang around for the paperwork to be completed.

With four for 34, Hamish Bennett was again outstanding. Nofal took three with his slow left-arm, with the word “occasional” now deleted from that description.

With four of ten rounds completed, Wellington were top of the table. The winner of the group stage hosts the final with second and third playing off for the other place.