New Zealand v Pakistan, ODI, Basin Reserve, 25 January 2016

Scorecard

The old joke about New Zealand, favoured by those who can’t think of anything amusing to say, is that when you land here you turn your watch back 20 years. Last Monday at the Basin it was, for once, pleasingly true.

Pakistan were the visitors for the first ODI to played at the Basin Reserve in a decade, and only the second since the Cake Tin opened around the turn of the century. The day was glorious, with Wellington’s perennial gale taking a day off along with many of the capital’s workers, it being the annual provincial public holiday. The idea of a separate holiday for each part of New Zealand should have had its day with the invention of the telephone and the consequent integration of the national economy, but it persists, and under the sun at the Basin we were pleased that it does.

It was one of the more memorable ODIs: New Zealand turned 99 for six into a 70-run victory.

In the sixth over of the morning Martin Guptill off drove Mohammad Irfan for six, the ball kept within the Basin Reserve only by the top of the Don Neely screen at the southern end of the ground. Guptill has been imperious in recent weeks, so 10,000 people sat back and thought “here we go”. Two balls later Guptill hooked Irfan, but, supporting my hypothesis that the Basin pitches are quicker this season, was a little late on the shot and Wahab Riaz took a good catch at long leg.

Latham was caught behind, a thin but definite ripple showing on snicko, but Williamson was in, so there was no need to worry. But, though he is by no means out of form, Williamson has come off the crest of the wave that he surfed throughout 2015, and got an inside edge onto the stumps that would have found the middle a few weeks ago. Two balls later Elliott was bowled through a passable imitation of the nearby Mt Victoria tunnel between bat and pad, which brought in Corey Anderson, 25 overs or so early.

Anderson did a magnificent holding job in the World Cup semi-final last year, but circumspection is not his natural state and he gave the appearance of an elephant trying not to tread on the daisies. He fell caught behind for ten, and Ronchi went the same way next over.

Both men fell to Mohammad Amir, who bowled beautifully. Watching him will be one of the delights of the next decade or so. That he was the subject of taunting from bores on the bank was no surprise, and he will have to learn to live with that sort of thing. It was disappointing to learn that at the T20 a boofhead PA announcer had played cash register sounds when he came on to bowl. NZ Cricket was quick to apologise. As I wrote last week, Amir was a kid bullied into doing wrong and deserves the support of the cricket world. If Salman Butt were to turn up, I’d be happy to join in the booing.

Ninety-nine for six it was, at the crease two players who few of us had heard of at this time last year: Henry Nicholls and Mitch Santner.

Nicholls is a 24-year-old left-hander from Canterbury who has broken into the ODI side this year. He has also had a short spell in the Big Bash (for the Hobart Hyperbole, or possibly the Brisbane Boast, I forget which) so can certainly give it a tonk. He hit seven fours here, the first five of which came when New Zealand were only two down. But when the collapse came he changed his game and became an accumulator. It was impressive and established Nicholls as the leading contender to succeed McCullum at No 5 in the test team. He was dropped by Hafeez at slip at 15, a mistake that cost Pakistan the match.

Nicholls and Santner put on 79 for the seventh wicket in 16 overs. Pakistan skipper Azhar Ali failed the “what would McCullum do?” test early in this partnership when he put spinners on at both ends to get through the ten overs he needed from them, or least that he would need from them if the innings lasted the full 50 overs. Had he invested a few of the overs available to his quick bowlers and told them to attack, he could have brought the innings to an earlier conclusion.

Santner was judicious about shot selection. He came into international cricket without an impressive record at domestic level and has much to learn. But he looks as if he belongs at this level and the selectors are to be praised for picking him on the basis of class and potential. It worked for Daniel Vettori 20 years ago and could have the same result for Santner.

When Nicholls was out for 82 the score was 203 for eight in the 45^th over. Maybe the tail could scratch—let’s be optimistic—another 30 to give New Zealand a modestly decent target to bowl at?

No one foresaw the carnage of the last five overs. Matt Henry and Mitch McClenaghan set about the Pakistan attack like pit bulls. It was cricket remade by Quentin Tarantino. Six sixes and six fours were hit in the last five overs, during which New Zealand added 71 runs. Nos 8, 9 and 10 all passed 30, something that had not been achieved in any of the 3,277 ODIs that were played before this one.

The pace of the pitch helped the ball fly off the bat, but also accounted for McClenaghan who suffered a fractured eye socket when a ball from Anwar Ali penetrated the grille of his helmet. He went down with worrying thump and it was a relief when he walked unassisted from the field a few minutes later.

As it was a special occasion the Basin Reserve authorities had splashed out on replacement lightbulbs for the scoreboard, which was unusually unambiguous as a consequence. But the operators can report to their masters in Pyongyang that, nevertheless, they still advanced their campaign of misinformation by taking a perverse approach to the issue of the names of the Pakistan team. In most cases (though not all, notably when that name is Mohammad), Pakistani cricketers are identified by their first name (eg Hanif, Mushtaq, Zaheer). The video screen respected this convention. But the scoreboard listed Pakistan under their last names, so leaving those unwisely relying on it for information under the impression that it was recording a completely different game from that on the screen next to it.

A target of 281 was about par. New Zealand were without McClenaghan, which meant that all five frontline bowlers would have to bowl ten overs, with only Williamson in reserve. Pakistan started steadily with 33 from the first ten overs.

Grant Elliott had failed with the bat, but he is the Swiss army knife of New Zealand cricket, with something to offer in any circumstance. It was inspired of Williamson to bring him on as early as the seventh over. By the end of the eleventh over he had two wickets.

Mohammad Hafeez and Babar Azam were comfortable enough putting on 81 for the third wicket until the partnership was broken by Williamson, who brought himself on after Babar got after Santner. Hafeez mistimed a drive and was caught by Henry at long on.

Elliott took a third wicket and when Babar fell to Anderson five were down and the required rate was eight-and-a-half an over. Pakistan’s lower order had none of the resilience of New Zealand’s and Boult was able to finish the game with a spell of four for one, which consolidated his position as the No 1 ODI bowler in the world.

It was splendid to have the ODI cricket back at the Basin. In a perfect world, the stands would be rebuilt and the capacity increased to 14,000 or so, plenty for games against most opponents.

For Australia next week, we will be back at the Cake Tin.

New Zealand v Pakistan, T20, The Cake Tin, 22 January 2016

Scorecard

We still haven’t worked out T20 here in New Zealand. I don’t mean in the playing sense. On good days, we are better than most, as shown by the 95-run trouncing of Pakistan at the Cake Tin, following a ten-wicket victory in Hamilton earlier in the week.

What we haven’t got to grips with is the place of T20 in our cricket. Tonight, 70,000 or more will be at the MCG for the final of the Big B(r)ash. The kiwi equivalent, the final of the Super Smash, was played in front of no more than 400 a week before Christmas on a rugby ground in a province that did not make the finals weekend. In marketing terms, touring Jesus Christ Superstar in Syria would be a better proposition.

Clearly, the New Zealand’s T20 should take place over the late December/January holiday season, at the places where people are at that time: Mt Maunganui, Napier, Queenstown and so on. Just as it was until a couple of years ago, in fact. It could feed off the Big Bash in marketing terms and might attract a few county biffers who fancy Christmas in the sun. There could be an auction. Or at least a jumble sale.

This proposal is purely altruistic, obviously. For my own pleasure I would return to the days when the Plunket Shield began on Christmas Day, though that would instigate tricky negotiations here at My Life in Cricket Scorecards Towers.

I take what I can from T20 games, and try to look cheerful. At the Cake Tin on Friday there was plenty to enjoy. Martin Guptill driving is as handsome a sight as contemporary cricket has to offer. As usual, his shots were orthodox, each one chosen to fit the ball delivered. This game confirmed a trend away from the reverse pulls, scoops and other inventions that once seemed about to render the MCC coaching book obsolete. Here, and in such Big Bash as I have seen, the trick shots seem to have reverted to being an occasional variation to the main theme.

As ever, Kane Williamson was everybody’s sensible older brother (his running calls the only hint that he might enjoy a few quiet ones of a Friday night). Corey Anderson’s undefeated 82 from 42 balls was the batting highlight, once he got over an early spell when his timing was out. He took two for 15 in three overs too. Anderson might just be to New Zealand what the New Zealander Stokes is to England: an all-rounder for the next decade.

Adam Milne took three for eight in three overs; he was too quick for them, simple as that. Many of us hope that the selectors will give him a run in a test match on the right surface. Four or five three-over spells in a day is all we would ask. If my observation about the Basin being quicker this year is correct, against Australia in February could be the time, especially with Johnson gone and Starc injured.

Grant Elliott bettered Milne by one run: three for seven. Hard to think that this time last year there was disbelief—scoffing even—at Elliott’s selection for the World Cup. Now he is a national symbol for dependability, a cricketing Volvo estate.

Elliott introduced an element of unorthodoxy to the batting: when facing a free-hit ball he took guard well wide of off stump, inviting the bowler to aim at the stumps. With batsmen now so much more adept at moving around the crease, the time has come to offer the bowlers more leeway, certainly in T20, but possibly in 50-over cricket too. A stumps-wide channel down the legside should be a legitimate operating area for the bowler. Cricket is at its best when bat and ball are in balance.

It was good to see Mohammad Amir back from his five-year ban and custodial sentence for bowling deliberate no-balls for betting purposes. He was still a boy when he was bullied into it, and the punishment (unlike that for Salman Butt) seemed harsh. I hope that the cricket world rallies around him.

If you go to a big T20 match there is no point in railing against the razzmatazz; the music, the lights, the hype are part of the package, and to suggest that it should be different would be to ask that a man carrying a flag precedes a motor car. It is the small things that are the most telling about how far we have come. Here, I was the only spectator I saw with binoculars around his neck, but then I have reached the stage in life where I accept that my role is often to add quaintness to the occasion.

The music was mostly ok, but almost all from the contemporary hit parade. Not until Bridge Over Troubled Water appeared late on could I name that tune. I propose that for the first six overs there should be only two fielders outside the circle and only Beatles and Stones through the speakers.

It was pleasing to see 16,000 or so enjoying themselves, and it is difficult to see a downside to the full grounds in Australia for the Big Bash. But I do worry. How long before the commercial interests start to demand that the best players are available for the biggest crowds and want to make the Melbourne Big Bash Boxing Day game a tradition?

Wellington v Otago, 50 overs, Basin Reserve, 13 January 2016

Scorecard

Any day that begins with the acquisition of two new members of the primrose brotherhood is bound to be a good one, though may be prone to anti-climax. So it was at the Basin today. The Otago batting, then the weather, and finally the match, fizzled, which is not what you expect to say of a game that ended in a tie.

In the past month, five new Wisdens have been added to the shelves in the library at My Life in Cricket Scorecards Towers. My Khandallah Correspondent, in her wonderful way, presented me with the 1947 edition for our anniversary and followed up with 1948 and 1949 at Christmas. Today I persuaded the fine people at the New Zealand Cricket Museum to split a 1960s set to sell me 1963 (the centenary Wisden) and 1965 at NZ$30 (roughly £12) each, a snip. This means that 1962 is the earliest that I don’t have, and the grand total is 62.

Otago won the toss and chose to bat. Arnel was accurate and made the most of a hint of green about the pitch. That was how he induced an edge from Anaru Kitchen, well caught by Papps at second slip, low to his left.

Michael Bracewell dodged bullets with improbability of James Bond. He was dropped by Papps in the gully and Verma from a hard hit caught-and-bowled chance; almost played on; and played and missed numerous times, but also played some fine shots in between. He was finally caught by Murdoch from a steepler to deep mid-wicket that tested the fielder’s attention span as much as his catching.

This brought together Neil Broom and Hamish Rutherford, both batsmen who have not quite made it in the national side. Broom is in excellent form at the moment and glided to a half century at almost a run a ball. Rutherford hit hard and well. He is a good player who may have been miscast as a test opener, but could return to international cricket in the one-day team.

At 147 for two in the 27^th over, a score well past 300 seemed probable, but both batsmen were out on that score. Jeetan Patel scurried back to catch Broom’s top edge off his own bowling, and Rutherford was caught behind off a leg side strangle. The bowler was Alecz (sic) Day, who bowled only the one over in the innings, skipper Papps apparently regarding the ball aimed a yard down the leg side as having been exploited to its full potential.

Otago struggled to 249 thanks to a dogged de Boorder, who hit only one boundary in his 34, and test off spinner Mark Craig, who hit 46 from 41 balls. Hitting the ball out of the Basin is quite common, it being a small piece of real estate, but I have not seen the trees next to the Dempster Gates cleared before as Craig managed today.

Just like the pitch at the Plunket Shield game between the same teams last month, this one appeared pacier than we are used to at the Basin. However, more batsmen than usual were caught from catches that lobbed up off mistimed shots, which suggests that the ball was stopping, as they say.

Was 249 enough, or perhaps 30 or more short? We were never to find out. As the Wellington innings got under way the cloud began to darken and lower. By the 20^th over, the minimum required for a result, an interruption was obviously imminent.

Now the Basin Reserve scoreboard intervened crucially. This, you may recall, is what Mike Selvey described as the “ransom-note scoreboard” during England’s 2002 tour because of the eccentric collection of fonts that it used. If the North Koreans ever take up cricket their scoreboards will be modelled on the Basin’s, a cruel mixture of the hard-to-interpret and downright wrong. As ever, a few blown lightbulbs made it difficult to discern quite what numbers were showing for total and batsmen’s scores.  

At the start of the 23^rd over Wellington were 72 for one. A light drizzle was already in the air. Heavier rain was clearly close by and heading our way. This made the Duckworth-Lewis target  the most important piece of information on the scoreboard. As the first ball of the over was bowled, it read “74 to win”. Michael Papps and Steven Murdoch and Michael Papps are as experienced a combination as New Zealand cricket has to offer. They knew that the loss of a wicket in this over would inflate the D/L target, so were cautious, making just two singles from the over, so raising the total to 74.

But let’s look again at that phrase “74 to win”. Did it mean that 74 were needed to win? It did not. Seventy-four was the par score, which meant that 75 was the winning target. Hence, when the umpires took the players off at the end of the over, never to return, the match was tied, to the surprise of the batsmen.

This, of course, is much the same mistake that South Africa made in the 2003 World Cup, eschewing the chance to make single against Sri Lanka that would have kept them in the tournament.

My Blean correspondent will be reminded of the Essex match at Folkestone in ’77. Kent were 156 for three, apparently cruising to their target of 184, when beset with one of their more spectacular collapses. Within the hour, ashen-faced, we were watching Kevin Jarvis stride to the middle with the score 183 for nine.

I have written before that Jarvis was the worst batsman I have ever seen, and do not retreat from this judgement. The sole counter argument is that, once, he hit the winning run in a first-class game. Somehow, he got a bat on a delivery from JK Lever and completed the single, then, along with Derek Underwood, turned to walk back to the pavilion.

The Essex team, and the umpires (Jack Crapp and Ken Palmer) stayed where they were, looking surprised. You see, they had made the mistake that Murdoch and Papps were to repeat 39 years later; they believed what they saw on the scoreboard, which said that 185 were needed to win.

As well as our pleasure at the win, and our unlikely hero, we also enjoyed the out-foxing of Keith Fletcher, widely regarded as a Mike Brearley without the degrees when it came to canniness.

In the present, by the following Sunday, for the Auckland match the Basin scoreboard had replaced “to win” with “par score”.

Wellington v Otago, Plunket Shield, Basin Reserve, 17 – 20 December 2015

Scorecard

#plunketshield trended briefly on Twitter in Wellington on the first day of this game, which was heartening, but more indicative of a capital city that gives up giving a damn about anything much at this time in December, rather than one suddenly in thrall to the delights of first-class cricket.

My Life in Cricket Scorecards had intended to be present throughout this game, but single-digit temperatures and a Rottweiler southerly on the first two days meant that it was not until the third morning that I took my seat at the Basin—the tweeting hoards absent, I noticed—with Otago 100 for two in reply to Wellington’s 328.

The best batting for Otago came from Neil Broom and Anaru Kitchen, but the biggest partnership of the innings was only 58. With more than half of the second day had been lost to rain, the game needed moving along and a declaration came at 279 for eight, conceding a lead of 49.

Michael Papps and Luke Woodcock spent the last session putting on a rapid unbeaten double-century opening partnership for Wellington. Almost half the overs in this period were bowled either by inexperienced leg spinner Rhys Phillips, or by Anaru Kitchen, whose slow left arm has reaped four wickets in 52 first-class appearances.

Was there a slightly unpleasant taste to all this, the disappointment of discovering that the cream topping the trifle is artificial, not the genuine full fat? In short, was it declaration bowling?

Yes and no. The bowlers were doing their best, but had Otago skipper Hamish Rutherford been really determined to staunch the flow, others would have been given the ball on the third evening. Even so, attack leader Jacob Duffy bowled more than double the overs that anybody else did over the innings as a whole. So while Otago would have bowled Wellington out if they could, the inevitability of a target being set on the fourth morning was accepted. I don’t think that a deal was done.

Michael Papps’ agony in the nineties was powerful evidence for the defence. He cut and pulled as forcefully as ever, and was particularly hard on Phillips’ nervous leggies. Yet with the century just a shot away, it was suddenly as if he was batting at the bottom of the sea, feet heavy, hands slow. For a couple of overs he offered respect to Kitchen’s nondescript bowling as if under the impression that it was a senior member of the royal family.

It was Papps’ 28^th first-class century, so it was not as if he was unfamiliar with the situation. The achievement of a century has been built into a cult, and cults mess with the minds of reasonable people.

After Papps finally forced a cut through the infield to bring up three figures he was away again, and raced to 132 before getting out early on the final morning. An hour’s tonking, led by Woodcock who reached 131, and Wellington set Otago a target of 355, four an over for a minimum of 86 overs.

The pitch was as pacey as has there has been at the Basin for quite a few seasons. This was to everyone’s advantage (except, as we will see, an aging medium pacer in whom it induced delusions of a return to a long-past youth of bouncers and blood); the quicker bowlers found reward for effort; a canny spinner could employ the bounce to good effect; and batsmen could play shots with confidence.

So Hamish Rutherford was most unfortunate to be out early, lbw to one of the very few balls all day to keep low. There followed an exchange of what it would be inaccurate to call pleasantries between the batsman and the bowler, Brent Arnel.

Arnel was on a mission; today was the day he would revive Bodyline. To both Brad Wilson and later Derek de Boorder he placed as many as four legside close catchers, with a deep square leg too. His plan was to pepper the batsmen with short-pitched deliveries that they would fend off into the hands of the waiting predators, just like Larwood and Voce.

Wilson and de Boorder had to avoid playing shots. They were mostly able to do this by simply standing there as the ball passed high or wide of them. If anybody at the Basin on Sunday had said “there are two teams out there, but only one is playing cricket” it would only be because Arnel appeared to have abandoned the game in favour of pie throwing.

Yet it worked.

While de Boorder had been content to leave all but the most punishable of Arnel’s nonsense, Neil Broom, with the confidence that being 85 not out gives you, had a go at a perambulating long hop that was too straight to be pulled. A thin edge to the keeper resulted.

At that point Otago had eased ahead, needing 128 more with six wickets standing and two batsmen set. It turned the game.

Jeetan Patel was the difference. He had two wickets already, following three in the first innings. Brad Wilson had hit him for a straight six, but when he attempted a repeat later in the same over found too late that it was a little quicker, a little fuller. Caught and bowled. Next over, Kitchen followed, bowled playing forward.

Once the Broom/de Boorder partnership was broken Patel was too clever for the rest of the order and last six wickets fell for 35, four to the off spinner. Wellington won by 92 runs.

Which brings us to the Jeetan Patel question: he is by far and away the best spinner in New Zealand, the most respected slow bowler in county cricket (if available he would be a shoo in for the England test team) and a current Wisden Cricketer of the Year. So why is he not in the national team?

The surprising thing is not the answer, but that the question is never asked. Patel has not played for New Zealand since the tour of South Africa when he staged his infamous retreat to square leg against Dale Steyn’s bowling. He was picked for the West Indies tour last year, but put his county commitments first, which is, presumably, why he is no longer considered. But does it matter that he picks and chooses? There is Australia to beat, and had Patel played at Adelaide he might just have made the difference. But neither public nor media seem to raise the possibility. We, the faithful few at the Basin, will be happy to have him to ourselves.

Hat tricks I have seen (Part 3)

Hat tricks Nos 6 and 7 are at opposite ends of the sublime/ridiculous spectrum. One a fluent Gower off drive, the other a Devon Malcolm swipe; the first flowing Dennis Lillee, the second twisted Paul Adams. Place, occasion, significance, reaction, everything could not have been more different.
Darren Gough, Australia v England, Sydney Cricket Ground, 2 January 1999
I was in my seat at the SCG more than two hours before play started, my expression that of a Seventh Day Adventist on the morning of the second coming. After so many years of early alarms to tune into a crackling McGilvray, how wonderful it was to actually be there.

And how magnificent for a day’s cricket to be worth the 30-year wait. A partnership of 190 between the Waugh twins would have been the highlight of almost any other day. Mark got a century, but for once the usually more artisan Steve outdid his brother in silkiness of stroke.

Dean Headley dismissed three of Australia’s top four. Peter Such skipped around the field, knowing that there would not be many more test matches for him (just one as it turned out), and set on enjoying himself while he could.

Some spectators left a few overs before the end, replete with the sort of joy that only a good day’s test cricket can bring. Their way of making their day perfect was to get an early bus, or avoid the queues at the train station.

As, with a self-satisfied smirk, they bought their ticket, Darren Gough completed the first hat trick taken by an England bowler in the Ashes in a hundred years.

Watch to see what magnificent fast bowling it was. Quick enough late in the day to produce bounce and enough movement into Ian Healy to make his attempted cut shot the wrong choice. An easy catch for the keeper (three guesses who that was, by the way: answer below).

Next, a perfect yorker to take Stuart Macgill’s middle stump.

Colin Miller, expecting the same, barely raised his bat, planting if firmly in front of middle. Gough was cleverer and better, coaxing enough away swing to clatter the off stump. Up in the Churchill Stand, how we stood and cheered.

My friends, unless you want to live an old age blighted with remorse and regret, never leave a cricket match before the last ball is bowled.

The keeper was Warren Hegg. Remember him? Thought not.

Simon Doull, Northern Districts v Auckland, Cricket Max, Rex Morpeth Park, Whakatane, 2 November 2000

Cricket Max was Martin Crowe’s idea. Then a Sky TV executive, Crowe spotted a gap in the leisure market and TV schedules that three hours’ cricket could fill. This was six years before T20 began in England, with the ECB’s marketing people taking the credit.

But, as he tended to do as a captain from time to time, Crowe overthought a good idea and made it a bit too complicated for its own good. Instead of two 20-over innings, there were four of ten overs. And there was the Max Zone between long off and long on. If the ball entered or passed over the zone, runs scored were doubled.

The CricInfo feature that introduced the competition reminds me that there were other superfluous embellishments, though many of these had been dropped by the time I arrived in Whakatane, on the sunny Bay of Plenty coast, to cover the game in question.

Every New Zealand town has a space like Rex Morpeth Park, often several of them. A pleasant, tree-lined space with a functional dressing room and bar area. No media area though. Thus it was that I delivered my first-ever live reports for CricInfo—my account of each ten-over innings published on-line within a couple of minutes of its conclusion—from the middle of the hospitality area—sausage rolls and lamingtons so near yet so far—viewing the action through a sort of enlarged letter box.

Simon Doull’s hat trick was spread over two innings, which some would argue means that it wasn’t a proper hat trick at all. The record books contain several such examples however, so it counts as one of my seven.
Forgive me for being sufficiently self-regarding as to quote my own account of the event from my end-of-match summary:

He removed Lou Vincent and Kyle Mills with the last two balls of the fourth over of the first innings, completing the hat-trick with the first ball of the second over of the second innings when James Marshall took a good catch to dismiss Llorne Howell.

You might at this point think that you would like to know more, and should consult those live reports. Well, you can’t as they have disappeared from the CricInfo archives. This is just as well, as you would search for mention of the hat trick in vain.

You see, nobody noticed that a hat trick had been taken until Northern Districts’ splenetic scorer Bill Andersson audited his score book at the end of the game. Simon Doull was as surprised as anybody. Max exaggerated one of the deficiencies of quick cricket: it moves like a bullet train, too fast to take in everything that is interesting as you look out of the window.

“Unique” is one of the most overworked and abused words in the language, but I would say with a high degree of confidence that Doull’s achievement that day of a hat trick and king pair all within three hours justifies its deployment.

By the way, Bill Andersson (still ND’s scorer today) was one reason why covering ND for a few summers was so much fun. He had the people skills and vocabulary of a sergeant major. In the press box we used to compete to see how many swear words we could elicit from him in response to an innocently phrased statistical enquiry. If memory serves, the record was thirteen.

So those are my seven hat tricks. There have been no more these fifteen years. Not even the remarkable 2014/15 season could produce one. My first visit to the Basin this season is imminent, so here’s hoping.

Hat tricks I have seen (Part 2)

The middle three of my seven hat tricks were all taken by Kent quick bowlers all of whom experienced fleeting glory for England.

3. Richard Ellison, Kent v Hampshire, Sunday League, Canterbury, 29 May 1983

When Fred Trueman first saw Richard Ellison bowl in test cricket, the king of curmudgeon took just one over to write him off as a mere medium-pacer, and a southern one at that. But any batsman who thought that he could reside on the front foot against Ellison would likely be disabused by a surprisingly sharp bouncer.

He was brisk enough to make his command of swing devastating on his day. He is one of those who will be remembered for one day—little more than one hour really. Late in the afternoon of the fourth day of the fifth Ashes test in 1985 Ellison took the top off the Australian order, leaving them 36 for five at the close and completing ten wickets in the match for him.

Ellison played his last test less than a year later, a persistent back injury taking the edge off the swing and the pace, though he played on for Kent until 1993.
His hat trick was the most prosaic of my seven, the last three balls of a mundane 40-over game, the result already clear. Hampshire were 133 for seven, 66 short of their target with seven overs left, the Kent innings built around a fine 62 by the great CJ Tavaré.

Ellison, bowling from the Pavilion End, bowled Tim Tremlett, then had Bobby Parks caught behind by Alan Knott. Steve Malone—in 1985, high on the list of players who the bowler would choose to face a hat-trick delivery—came in at No 11. I would assume that Ellison bowled cross-seam and cut the pace down as it is inconceivable that Malone would have come within a bus ride of a swinging ball; to have found the edge to a first delivery, as he did, was an achievement in batting equal to most other players hitting it back over the bowler’s head for six. So it was that for the second time Alan Knott made the dismissal that completed a hat trick that I have seen.

Ellison again took three wickets at the end of another match between the same teams at St Lawrence just a few days later, with Hampshire again chasing 199 for victory, this time in a 55-over quarter-final. Despite being hat-trick free, it was an altogether more gripping occasion. Hampshire’s collapse, from 167 for two to a five-run defeat, was as spectacular as I have seen, worth a post to itself sometime.

4. Graham Dilley, Surrey v Kent, County Championship, the Oval, 6 July 1985

It was the English summer at its finest. A Saturday when the sun shouted from a cloudless sky, to demand that decent people gather up their binoculars, Wisdens and scotch eggs, and go to the cricket. So it was the early train from Bristol, then the Northern Line to Kennington.

County cricket does not seem out of place at the Oval, as it does at Lord’s. Middlesex—usually poked away on the edge of the square with an absurdly short boundary on one side—are the servants allowed to dance in the ballroom when the owners are away, but the Oval seems able to adjust to the occasion (perhaps the majestic new stand at the Vauxhall End has changed that since I was last there, but I hope not). I watched from high in the Pavilion with Allen Hunt, George Murrell and others.

Chris Cowdrey—in the first year of his usurpation of the captaincy—won the toss and Kent compiled 301 at a pleasant tempo. Simon Hinks’ 81 was the top score. Hinks was a tall left-hander with a pleasing drive, but whose career statistics do not reflect his potential

There was drama at the end of the innings, Shakespearian servings of plot, pathos and comedy. When the ninth wicket fell, Kent were 13 short of the 300 needed for a fourth batting bonus point. When Derek Underwood saw Kevin Jarvis walking down the pavilion steps to join him he could have thought himself in the position of a general struggling for survival in battle who sees a friendly army coming to rescue, only to discover that it is the Italians.

KBS Jarvis is the worst batsman I have seen in my half century of spectating, a judgement made without hesitation or equivocation. For Underwood to distil the required 13 from the partnership was to scale the north face of Mt Pessimism. Jarvis’ 0 was one of his finest.

But the best cricket of the day, pre hat trick, came from the off spinner Pat Pocock, who took seven for 42. Underwood bowled only 16 overs in the match, and Pocock went wicketless in the second innings, so this was pure art and craft, and three of them were clean bowled. Pocock had played the last of his 25 tests as recently as the previous February, 17 years after his first. He couldn’t bat and was no more than reliable in the field, so might not have had a place in the modern game, but what a lot of wickets he would take.

Surrey were left to face 40 minutes or so of Kent bowling. Graham Dilley opened the bowling from the Pavilion End. Dilley had returned to cricket after missing the whole of the 1984 season with a neck injury, and it was hard going as he tried to get that manufactured, goose-stepping action back into rhythm. It is a generalisation, but when Dilley was bowling well he was mostly away playing for England, and when he wasn’t he was a bit of a liability. As a county cricketer, Worcestershire got more from him later on. He took only 32 first-class wickets in 1985, but eight of them were in this game, and three in three balls this sunny afternoon.

Opener Duncan Pauline was caught by Hinks at slip, then nightwatchman Nick Taylor had his stumps demolished first ball.

“I have never seen a hat trick,” said George Murrell. This seemed an unlikely claim from one who had seen so much of Doug Wright, taker of seven hat tricks, more than anyone else in cricket history. But only two of those were taken in Kent, and there were few others in the fifties and sixties, so it was not improbable.

When Andy Needham edged the next ball for Hinks to take another catch to complete Dilley’s feat, I turned to George, expecting a jubilant reaction.
“I was going to have the words ‘He never saw a hat trick’ on my headstone, but that’s put paid to that” was all he said.

5. Dean Headley, Kent v Hampshire, County Championship, 14 September 1996

In terms of hat tricks, 1996 was to Kent cricket what 1849 was to California’s gold prospectors. Dean Headley’s hat trick that I saw on the third day of this game was his third in under two months. Martin McCague took another on the final day of the same match. To put this in its full probability defying context, there has only been one first-class hat-trick by a Kent bowler in the 20 seasons since.

Headley came Kent from Middlesex and his enthusiastic approach made him very popular with the Kent faithful. Discordant cries of “Dean-oh!” would fill the air once the bars had been open for a few hours. When it all worked, he could get movement in the air and off the pitch.

He began a 15-match test career in the 1997 Ashes, taking eight wickets on debut at Old Trafford. I was at Sydney for the New Year test in 1999 to see him repeat this achievement, but it is for the previous test at Melbourne that he is best remembered. At 130 for three, Australia appeared to be cruising to a series-winning target of 175 when Headley ripped out the middle and lower order to finish with six for 60. England won by 12 runs.

In the match in question, Hampshire were 87 behind Kent on first innings with the eighth-wicket partnership together. With captain John Stephenson still there—albeit proceeding at a glacial pace—parity was not out of the question. Kent were still in with an outside chance of the Championship, but needed a win in this, the penultimate match, to stay in the race.

Stephenson was the first of the three hat-trick victims, caught by Ealham (perhaps at mid off or mid on, but I am not certain). Fast bowlers James Bovill and Simon Renshaw followed from the next two deliveries, both leg before. The reaction of the bowler and his teammates was one of disbelief followed by laughter.

Preparing for this piece, I had no memory of who the umpire was raised the fateful finger twice in succession. The scorecard tells me that the two on duty that day were George Sharp and Ray “Trigger” Julian. I would wager a considerable sum that it was Julian who was at the bowler’s end on that occasion. His nickname was the result of his interpretation of the lbw law in a way that dispatched batsmen at an attrition rate of a wild west saloon on a Saturday night.

The first thing bowlers would look for when the umpires’ roster for each season was published would be how many times Trigger was doing their games. Tense negotiation with their captain would ensue to ensure that they bowled from his end.

Julian was of the view that umpires were far too cautious about lbw decisions, and that, other conditions being satisfied, if on balance it was more likely than not that the ball would have hit the stumps, off the batsman should go. It has to be said that the advent of DRS has vindicated his view entirely, and had he been umpiring now, he might have had a lengthy international career.

He used to keep a count of his victims through the season, and the temptation of claiming two-thirds of a hat trick may have been irresistible, though my memory is that both looked out from the top deck of the Frank Woolley.

On the following Monday (Sunday was still set aside for a one-day game), Hampshire were well-placed at 143 for one, chasing a target of 292. Then McCague turned in a fearsome spell that those who saw it claim was one of the fastest seen at St Lawrence. Nine wickets fell for seven runs, so Hampshire collapses at Canterbury become a theme of this post. Kent finished fourth in the Championship that year, and after an 11-year hiatus, my hat-trick count was up to five.

Hat Tricks I Have Seen (Part 1)

I have seen seven hat tricks over my half-century in the stands.

Have I been lucky to have been there for so many, or deprived to have witnessed so few? A straw poll of two people suggests the former. My Blean correspondent reckons that he saw one of Dean Headley’s in 1996, the year when an epidemic of Kentish hat tricks stared down the laws of probability. The other half of my sample has been hat-trick free for forty years or so despite spending many summer days at the Basin and other New Zealand venues, so seven seems a good return. After all, there have only been 41 hat tricks in all test cricket.

Of my seven, one was in a test match, four in the County Championship, one in the Sunday League and the other in the kiwi curiosity that was Cricket Max. Over a short series of posts I will describe them in chronological order, with the fixture linked to the scorecard.

1.  Robin Jackman, Kent v Surrey, County Championship, Canterbury, 21 May 1971

Simon Langton Boys’ School was just half a mile down the Nackington Road from the St Lawrence Ground, so on a match day I invariably took my seat during the tea interval.

That Friday I arrived on the final afternoon to find Mike Denness and Brian Luckhurst setting a good pace in pursuit of a target of 207 in roughly 40 overs, which sounds nothing much now, but would have been thought a tallish order then. No doubt quick singles, taken without a perceptible call, kept the scoreboard turning. Never have I seen a pair bat with more understanding of each other than Denness and Luckhurst.

Denness went with the partnership at exactly a hundred, and Cowdrey soon followed. Alan Ealham joined Luckhurst. Ealham’s career statistics—average 28, 7 centuries in 16 years—are not impressive on the face of it, but they tell nothing like the full story. Time and again, when an injection of momentum was required it would be Alan Ealham who would provide it with a quick 30 or 40, anonymous in the scorebook, devastating on the field.

So it was today. With 58 needed from the last ten overs, Wisden says that “Ealham really punished the Surrey attack” (which won the Championship that year) and the Kent annual that he was “hitting hard”. You bet he was. In no time he was on 45, and Kent were 11 short of victory, coasting it seemed.

Alan Gibson called Robin Jackman the “Shoreditch Sparrow”. This made the public schoolboy (St Edmund’s in Canterbury, as it happens) appear more of a common Londoner than he actually was, though he certainly bowled in the artisan tradition. Fast-medium off a long run up with short steps, Jackman was on the edge of test selection for a decade. At the Oval test match in 1976 I sat next to a couple of friends of Jackman. He had been talked about for much of that summer, but not picked and they relayed his view that, at 31, his chance had gone. Four years later, he played the first of four tests.

His lbw appeals had the volume of a soprano and the passion of a barrister arguing for the life of a murderer. A few years ago, when commentating on a test in India, he criticised a bowler for appealing loudly and I emailed to ask if he was any relation to the RD Jackman who appealed for Surrey.

Here, he had Ealham caught-and-bowled, then bowled Bernard Julien off the last ball of the over. The hat trick was completed off the first ball of Jackman’s next over when Stuart Storey “brilliantly caught” (Kent Annual) Luckhurst. John Shepherd was also out in this period, causing nervousness among the faithful, but Knott and Woolmer took Kent to victory with seven balls to spare.

2.  Derek Underwood, Sussex v Kent, County Championship, Hove, 31 August 1977

1977 was an uneasy season. The Kerry Packer issue had exploded with the impact of an asteroid on the dinosaurs, though it did not so much make cricket’s T Rexes extinct, as provoke them into a cacophony of over-reaction and foolishness. Six players at Hove that day had already signed for WSC: Derek Underwood, Alan Knott and Asif Iqbal of Kent, and for Sussex Imran Khan, John Snow and Tony Greig, who was cricket’s Darth Vader in the summer that Star Wars first appeared in cinemas. Bob Woolmer’s “defection” (to use the absurd language of that confused time) was announced the following Saturday.

The dinosaurs were trying to drive the WSC players out of county cricket, so it was possible that it was the last we would see of these fine players if the dinosaurs continued to rule the world. In itself, that made the trip to Hove worthwhile, as did the fact that Kent had their best chance in seven years of winning the Championship.

It was a dismal summer in terms of the weather as well as cricketing politics; just few days previously, my Blean correspondent and myself had spent much of a test match Saturday afternoon sheltering under the terraces at the Oval, our only consolation a grotesque tenth wicket stand between Bob Willis and Mike Hendrick during the brief period of play.

Play did not begin until three o’clock at Hove that Wednesday. The Kent Annual says that “Knight [who has just taken office as MCC President] attacked vigorously and Barclay defended dourly”, a division of labour that produced a second-wicket stand of 61. But as the afternoon wore on the pitch started to dry out and the wickets started to fall, though only two of the first six went to Underwood, which suggests that it was difficult rather than lethal.  

Imran Khan was the first leg of hat trick, falling to a diving catch by Bob Woolmer at short leg. Woolmer continued to field at short leg—still in the helmetless era—long after many players would have called rank and retreated to the slips.

John Snow was next. With a little application Snow could have become a bowling all-rounder, but his attitude to batting suggested that he felt it a bit beneath him, though not as much as fielding was, as those of us who watched him on the boundary, immobile with arms folded in a Championship match will recall. It would be dishonest to pretend that I remember what shot Snow offered to Underwood on this occasion, but trust that it was a wild swipe. One way or the other, he was bowled.

That completed the over, so Tony Greig had six deliveries to get down the other end to face the hat-trick ball. Ten were scored off the next over, which leads one to consider whether nine or 11 might have been attainable without great inconvenience. But it was Arnold Long who was left to keep Underwood out.

I have written before that my Blean correspondent and I have spent much of our prime on perfecting the selection of the All-time Boring XI. The wicket-keeping position has caused us particular angst, because boring keepers are oxymorons. The role seems to demand skittishness and militates against tedium bat-in-hand.

So the incumbent is A Long, the very man who now stood between Derek Underwood and his first hat-trick. It was Long’s anonymity that won us over. We had seen him play often, yet could remember nothing that he had done. But Long’s approach to this situation persuades me that we should look again.

You see, on a drying pitch, with the world’s best exponent of such conditions on a hat trick, Long—facing the first ball of his innings remember—chose to charge down the pitch even before the ball had left the bowler’s hand. They could have given him 20 goes at this and the outcome—the easiest stumping of Alan Knott’s career—would have been the same every time. Perhaps it was some sort of protest at this captain leaving him in the line of fire.

It was Derek Underwood’s only hat trick, so was quite something to have seen. The rain washed out the last day, the Packer players were allowed to return to county cricket (though Greig did so for only a few games, so I never saw him play again), and Kent shared the Championship with Middlesex.

It was six years until I saw another hat trick.

Watching Kent lose on TV

Napoleon, when in exile on St Helena, used to receive news of how badly things were going with the Bourbon Restoration, and mightily did it depress him. The physical distance between him and France did not dampen the disappointment one bit.

Having spent last weekend watching recordings of Kent being swept away by the undercurrent of defeat when just an inch away from the shore of victory not once, but twice, I know how he felt. You would think that being separated from the carnage by 12,000 miles would ease the pain. It does not.

There was also the women’s test match between England and Australia from Canterbury, allowing me to think myself once more at St Lawrence in August. However, my Blean correspondent was quick to send caution. His email compared it to the 1969 Gillette Cup semi-final. It was the summer of Woodstock. My correspondent’s view is that what the festival was to rock’n’roll, the fixture between Derbyshire and Sussex was to slow scoring, a marker that no future event would surpass. So it was a warning to be heeded.

Look at the scorecard and you see his point. Derbyshire hewed 136 from the granite of 57 overs, PJK Gibbs leading the resistance with an innings of 44 that was as dogged as a pack of foxhounds (unfortunately Alan Gibson does not appear to have been there to describe the innings in its full horror). Sussex could merely hang on briefly to the crevices of the rock face; all out for 49 in the 36^th over.

The one thing I would say is that limited-overs cricket on a poor pitch (“slow and stopping” is Wisden’s description of the Chesterfield strip on that occasion) can be fascinating. Canterbury this week was merely slow, on the evidence of the two hours or so I have watched so far. Heeding my correspondent’s advice, I turned to the men’s game.

First, I watched Glamorgan v Kent in a group match in the 50 over competition. I used to cross the Severn Bridge to watch cricket at Sophia Gardens at some point in most seasons and always found it a convivial place to spectate. Now, over-reaching ambition has turned it into an arena in which county cricketers are hobbits in the full-sized world.

Though the game was a fortnight old when I watched, I had avoided the result, so the arrow of disappointment met no armour as it pierced my heart. Kent were put in. The Sams Northeast and Billings put on 104 for the third wicket. Northeast has had a good year and seems to be enjoying the captaincy. Rob Key remains club captain, but Northeast leads on the field. Key sits out the shorter forms and was doing a fine job in the commentary box, combining dry wit with observation of the subtleties.

Kent seem to be doing a better job of retaining their young players. The captaincy may be part of the deal that has persuaded Northeast to sign a long-term extension to his contract. Daniel Bell-Drummond has just done the same. It may help that Joe Denly and Matt Coles have returned after unsuccessful stints elsewhere, and that Billings is in the England ODI team without having had to move.

But today all the younger ones were outshone by the old stager, Darren Stevens. What a remarkable cricketer Stevens is. A couple of years ago I was there to watch him play one of the finest innings I have seen to beat Lancashire on the last day of the season. Here he made 110 from 64 balls, with nine fours and six sixes. Just as it was that day at Canterbury, his batting was aggressive, but almost wholly orthodox, each shot right for the ball it dispatched.

How gettable was Glamorgan’s target of 318? The pitch was amiable, if a little slow. There hasn’t yet been time to assess the extent to which the new fielding restrictions will restore the balance between bat and ball in the closing overs. Two fielders are allowed outside the circle in the first ten overs, four in overs 11 to 40 and five thereafter. This suggests that the gorging by batsmen in the final ten overs that we saw at the World Cup will be curtailed. Not today though.

Like Kent, Glamorgan had a solid stand early on: 132 between Bragg and Ingram for the second wicket. Ingram went on to a run-a-ball hundred, but momentum was lost mid-innings, thanks to none other than Stevens, who bowled his ten overs for only 38.

Stevens reminds me of Chris Harris. Both deliver ambling bowling that looks innocuous but makes decent batsmen into fools; both can be devastating bat-in-hand. The difference? Harris played 250 ODIs (taking 203 wickets), Stevens none. I doubt that anybody can think of a better player without an international appearance.

When there was a brief rain interruption in the 42^nd over, Glamorgan looked out of it, needing 13 an over with four wickets standing. On the resumption, Kent fell apart in a spectacular manner. The game should have been over when the hard-hitting Chris Cooke was caught-and-bowled off a skyer by Ivan Thomas, only for the replay to reveal a front-foot no ball, one of three no-balls in this period. There was a decent excuse: a wet ball, which made it particularly difficult for spinner Tredwell, but there was some poor bowling and fielding, as well as some fine hitting, by Cooke in particular. The win came with two balls to spare.

The Kentish benchmark for wrenching defeat from the certain hands of victory remains the Sunday League contest against Middlesex at Folkestone in 1972. Chasing 128, Kent were 109 for three, then 126 for six, only to lose the last four wickets without addition (including a malaria-stricken Asif Iqbal at No 10). The Glamorgan game was an honourable contender, but at least, thanks to later rain, they still got through to the knock-out stage.

The second Kent fixture of my weekend was the T20 quarter-final against Lancashire at St Lawrence. I watched this one just a few hours after it was played, again without knowledge of the result. This was a defeat of a different school. Kent struggled throughout, only coming close to an unlikely win at the end, but then losing anyway, by a squeak.

It was good to see the old ground full, though the current definition of “full”—7,000—is less than half the number of us who squeezed in for the Gillette Cup semi-final in ’67. Five-figure crowds were common for the big one-day games of the seventies. It didn’t help that plenty of thought appeared to have been put into finding ways to block the view from the stands. The sightscreen put the lower pavilion out of commission, the TV scaffolding the upper; the dug-outs got in the way of the corner of the Underwood-Knott where I spent seventies summers.

There has been pleasing news about county attendances elsewhere in the last few weeks. There were 6,000 at the Oval for a 50-over game I watched on TV. Best of all, 14,000 attended the three-days of a Championship game at Scarborough. So if county cricket is played at times and in places that suit people, they will watch. This statement of the obvious will be ignored by the ECB as the Championship is further curtailed, probably to take place only on weekdays in April and September.

Kent were put in, and struggled almost throughout, losing wickets whenever a smidgen of momentum had been gained. That they reached 142 was largely thanks to an eighth-wicket partnership of 52 between Tredwell and Fabian Cowdrey, who looks much like his Uncle Graham at the crease, which is no bad thing at all.

A low first-innings in any form of cricket always brings with it the hope that the pitch is to blame, and that the opposition will find run-making just as difficult, if not more so. This strip was next to the one that induced torpor among the women, and shot making was not straightforward; orthodoxy is imposed upon batsmen by this sort of surface. A couple of early wickets gave substance to the hope, but as long as Ashwell Prince remained, there seemed to be inevitability about the outcome, particularly when he was joined by Jos Buttler in a fifth-wicket partnership of 73.

England players appear for their counties so rarely these days that some Lancashire folk may not have remembered that Buttler had joined them from Somerset. He was very impressive, the one batsman able to play cross-bat shots and reverse sweeps with confidence in the conditions. With two overs to go and the partnership intact, 13 were needed, nothing at all in T20 terms. Prince was out to the first ball of the over, but seven were scored off the remainder, leaving six to win, but effectively five as in a tie Lancashire would have lost fewer wickets.

Why is there is no “super” over in the event of a tie in this competition, as there is everywhere else? T20 is only about entertainment so razzmatazz should be pursued to its logical outcome. Deciding a tie on a statistical nicety is like finishing a punk rock concert with the national anthem (actually, the Sex Pistols did end concerts with God Save the Queen so I’ll leave it there).

There was a single off the first ball, then Buttler and Croft holed out in the deep off successive deliveries by Coles. New Batsmen James Faulkner missed the fourth ball, and for the first time in the game Kent were on equal terms.

However, Faulkner—man of the match in the World Cup final a few months ago—is developing the habit of trampling on my dreams. Two runs from the fifth ball left two needed for the tie. They were fluked. Faulkner’s drive hit the stumps at the bowler’s end and ricocheted at precisely the angle needed to place the ball between two fielders to allow a safe two to be taken. It was Jack Bond diving to catch Asif Iqbal all over again.

I look back to the glory days of the seventies and think that we should have enjoyed them even more than we did had we known that decades of frustration were to follow. Distance does not temper that feeling, but the thing about sport is that there is always another game. Surrey v Kent in the 50-over quarter-final, in this case.

Canterbury Week 1965: It Begins

Thursday 5 August 1965.

LBJ is in the White House. That night Morley Safer’s CBS News report showing US troops setting light to the homes of unarmed Vietnamese villagers starts to turn public opinion against the war.

In London, the Wilson Cabinet and the House of Commons meet for the last time before the summer break. “The whole place is completely conked out” records the Minister of Housing and diarist, Richard Crossman. “We have taken a terrible beating; our own people are disheartened and the press are utterly vicious.”

The Beatles are No 1 with Help!, both on Top of the Pops—Alan Freeman presenting on BBC 1—and at the cinemas.

In Kent, My Life in Cricket Scorecards goes to the cricket for the first time, fifty years ago today.

It was Canterbury Week, Middlesex the visitors. A Thursday, half-day closing in Herne Bay, so our grocer’s shop shut at one and we got there for the afternoon session. My Dad had been lent somebody’s membership card (thus adding a touch of illicitness to the outing) and we took our seats in the what was then referred to as “the wooden stand”, but which now bears the names of two of those playing that day, not much more than boys, but who have been surpassed by none in the half-century since, in my eyes at least: Derek Underwood and Alan Knott. Mike Brearley appeared for the visitors.

Piecing together the evidence from Wisden, I certainly saw Knott bat, but not for long; he was out for a duck, just as he was the last time I saw him, twenty summers later. I have no specific memory of Brian Luckhurst completing the first century that I ever saw, but the Wisden helpfully says that he batted for three hours 40 minutes, so I must have joined in the applause, and that for a jaunty eighty by Alan Dixon.

Dixon had a good game. Kent had scored only 138 batting first, but his five for 22 had helped conjure a lead of 65 as Middlesex were skittled for 73. Four of Dixon’s five victims went for ducks, as did two more off Alan Brown the fast bowler. Those were the days of uncovered pitches of course, but Wisden’s report makes no mention of it having rained and tellingly, young Underwood didn’t even get a bowl. Difficult pitches were accepted as part of the game.

Batting was easier by Thursday afternoon. Bob Wilson, captain in Colin Cowdrey’s absence at the test match, declared at nine down at about the time we left. Eric Russell made a hundred, but Kent still won by 76 runs.

In truth, I remember nothing precise about the play. But the occasion stays with me: the buzz of the stand, abating as the first ball of the over was bowled; the attractiveness of white movement on green grass; all those numbers flicking over on the scoreboard; a scorecard (cricket and writing went together even then); the routine, the ritual, the theatre. 

The recruiting officer signed me up there and then.