Kent v Sussex, County Championship, Tunbridge Wells, 18 July 2016 (second day)

Scorecard

Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells wasn’t even mildly disgruntled. How could he be on such a perfect day? It was 30 degrees celsius (though 86 fahrenheit would be more in the spirit of the retro atmosphere). Rumour had it that in the committee marquee, ties were loosened. The location was gorgeous, the ice cream cold, the beer nicely tepid and the cricket decent, though the last was the least decisive of these factors in making it a relishable day.

Traditionally, the Tunbridge Wells Festival took place at the beginning of June when the rhododendrons made a purple wall of the northern side of the ground, rather like the Christmas scarlet of the pohutukawas at the Basin Reserve. However, the Nevill Ground is less reliant than the Basin on seasonal blooming for its beauty. Marquees shimmer down one side of the ground; opposite, an urban forest shelters the playing area from the traffic—from the twenty-first century in general, in fact. Add a quaint pavilion (rebuilt just before World War One after the original was burned down by suffragettes) and you see why this ground is considered among England’s finest.

CricInfo’s report on the first day described it as a “day for purists”. This was probably not meant kindly, but did not deter more than 2,000 people from turning up this sunny Monday. From this we learn that there is an audience for first-class cricket if it is played in nice places when the sun shines.

Kent resumed at 310 for three, with Sam Northeast and Darren Stevens well-established. Stevens has been one of My Life in Cricket Scorecards’ favourite cricketers since his sublime final-day double century to beat Lancashire three years ago. He deposited Briggs over the deep-square-leg boundary in the second over of the morning, but an attempt at a repeat sent the ball straight up in the air.

Alex Blake replaced Stevens and looked at ease immediately. Blake, a left-hander, has a good technique and straightforward approach, finding his range by lifting Briggs into the trees at deep mid-wicket. He reached his fifty with a similar shot, before falling leg before to the same bowler. Umpire Nick Cook, a distinguished slow left-armer, had the finger up like a shot in sympathy with his fellow practitioner, and did well to restrain himself from joining in with the appeal.

Meanwhile, Sam Northeast just rolled on, in the manner of the Mississippi. He reached his century with a flick off the pads off leg-spinner Beer. Northeast seems a popular choice as captain, unlike some of his predecessors.

With the pitch offering nothing to any bowler, Sussex captain Luke Wright tried a ruse. There is nothing like a skipper’s crackpot theory to brighten the day and this was one of the best . It was a modern take on the umbrella field of the Bodyline era, with the difference that all the fielders were in front of the batsman, six of them initially, from short cover to short mid-wicket. Australian seamer Steve Magoffin was the bowler.

Northeast responded to the conundrum with the ease of Stephen Hawking finding the square root of four. He simply hit the ball to the boundary through the gaps between the catchers (once for four and once for three). The experiment continued in Magoffin’s next over though with fewer personnel. An edge by Northeast through the now-vacated slip area (just about the only edge all day) brought it to an end.

Perhaps there is something in the Tunbridge Wells air that affects Sussex captains. It was here in a Sunday League game in 1994 that Allan Wells set an 8:1 legside field with Neil Taylor the batsman, late on in Kent’s run chase. I’m not sure who the bowler was. Eddie Hemmings was playing for Sussex (I’d forgotten that he’d finished his career at Hove), but I can’t imagine that he’s have stood for it. Anyway, Taylor dealt with it as easily as Northeast did today, by stepping back and biffing it into the void.

Wright’s Professor Branestawm field placing helped Northeast to accelerate after passing the hundred mark, going at more than a run a ball until he became becalmed in the 180s, which is not the worst place for the wind to drop. The frustration led to a false shot and a diving return catch for Magoffin. The innings wrapped up soon afterwards for 575, leaving Kent seven sessions or so to bowl Sussex out twice.

To open the attack, a tall one and a round one, but as unlikely a combination as Stan Laurel and Thomas Hardy: Kagiso Rabada (21) all pace and muscle, and Darren Stevens (40) all waddle and guile. In the opening overs Stevens proved as mean as a German Brexit negotiator, conceding two from his first five overs. It’s the slowing down as he passes the umpire that fools ‘em. It is quite a time for 40s achievers with Misbah’s hundred at Lord’s, and Mickleson and Stenson battling it out at the Open. Stevens will probably give it another five years.

The best contest of the day was that between Rabada and Sussex opener Chris Nash, who looked uncomfortable and hurried  several times in the opening overs but then responded with a series of sweetly timed square and cover drives. Reaching the boundary was an achievement in itself; the outfield was rough, bumpy and as slow as an Ingmar Bergman plot.

The only wicket to fall went to Mitch Claydon, as old school as a Latin primer. Harry Finch played back to one that kept a little low, and was bowled. Sussex finished the day on 69 for one, 506 behind.

This was a day from a picture book of an idealised English settings, probably the one in which John Major found his village green and bobbies on bicycles. These scenes don’t exist in real life, but may occasionally materialise like Brigadoon (hopefully without the bagpipes). The chances of being there when it happens are infinitesimal, but today it happened for me. I'm sure that I glimpsed a suffragette with a box of matches and a petrol can.

Towards the end of the day it seemed that the pitch was offering glimmers of hope to the bowlers: a little variable bounce here, a hint of turn there. These were nothing but mirages, as Sussex, though made to follow on, batted through the two remaining days comfortably enough in my absence. Their hero was none other than Ross Taylor, with 142 not out and 68, but I can get that at home.

Norman Graham

Following the recent celebration of Alan Knott on his seventieth birthday, some readers have requested more on Kent players of the golden era. I will take Brian Carpenter’s suggestion of Norman Graham first, partly because Graham was a favourite then but rather forgotten since, and partly because Brian is responsible for my name being mentioned (and kindly at that) in the 2016 Wisden, in his review of cricket blogs.

From time to time I have set about compiling an XI of players of the past who would would have no place in the modern game, not from lack of ability, but because they would not meet contemporary fitness standards. But this is a hard call. What are the criteria for selection?

For example, some would put Colin Cowdrey at the top of the list. A cheer would rise around St Lawrence when he chased the ball to the boundary every couple of years or so. Yet Cowdrey was a talented sportsman and superb slip who, in a later era would have romped around the field like his sons Chris and Graham, both of whom were excellent fielders. So he doesn’t qualify.

In my piece on Derek Underwood I suggested that many a modern coach would have taken one look at a 17-year-old bowler with round shoulders, cigarette on, and the acceleration of a Morris Marina and pointed towards the gate with no need for further discussion. But while Underwood never quite shook off giving the impression that whenever he ran, it was through an invisible trough of treacle, he became a highly dependable fielder capable of the occasional remarkable catch: one at Gloucester in the Sunday League in 1979 sticks in the mind, running back from mid on to stretch out a hand to dismiss Jim Foat when most of us hadn’t thought it a chance.

So not Underwood either.

In fact there are only two players who I would have as stone-cold certainties for this team (the Bradman and Hobbs of the lumbering, if you will). One was playing at the Wagon Works Ground that day and was, to nobody’s surprise, run out: David Shepherd, later one of the great umpires, then a spherical Gloucestershire batsman.

The other: Norman Graham.

Graham opened the bowling for Kent for a decade, one that encompassed almost all of the glory years. He contended with Tony Greig for the title of tallest first-class cricketer of the time, being six foot seven or thereabouts. But before we consider what Norman Graham was, let us address what he wasn’t: he was neither a batsman nor a fielder.

Every team used to have one. Some had two, or even three: a No 11 batsman who was never absolutely certain if he was a right or left-hander. They have disappeared almost completely. I watched a one-day game from Taunton on TV last week. Somerset wanted 60 when the last man, Tim Groenewald, came in. He proceeded to knock them off while doing a passable imitation of Walter Hammond.

Norman Graham wasn’t the worst batsman I have seen; Kevin Jarvis was comfortably that. When the two batted together Graham was at No 10, as he was when he and John Dye were both in the team. One shot sticks in the mind when many by real batsmen have disappeared, because it was such a surprise. St Lawrence, August 1972: Graham plonks the long left leg well down the pitch and drives Johnny Gleeson of the Australians over mid off and to the boundary, two bounces. There was a gasp, then a cheer as loud as for anything in the match.

Another thing that has gone from first-class cricket is third man. Until quite recently, there was invariably a third man from the start of the innings, but these days it seems that no matter how often the ball finds its way there, captains will no more deploy a fielder in that area than they would in a minefield (even though it takes only a couple of cover boundaries for them to install a sweeper for the duration; I sense my inner Fred Trueman emerging).

One reason for this may be that third man is no longer required to fill the role for arthritic fielders that country parishes did for the stupid sons of the aristocracy: to be somewhere for them to hide.

Norman Graham spent much of his time at third man. If the ball came straight to him, all would be well, provided that he had enough notice to get the bending down organised. He had a powerful and accurate throw.

If a pursuit were needed, it would start like a farm tractor on a frosty morning. When the ball beat him he would throw back his head and smile in surprise, as if that were only the second time that season that one had eluded him, rather than the third time that over, as was more probably the case. On the odd occasion when the ball was intercepted, its progress would be allayed by a large boot, and would then rest awhile while it waited for Graham to return from the distant point where he had managed to stop and turn.

There was obviously no question of him diving. Had he done so, it would have required the equipment and expertise necessary to right a felled giraffe to have restored him to the vertical.

What Norman Graham did so very well, was to bowl. Go to 23:30 here to see him in action in the Benson & Hedges Final of 1973. At first glance he does not look much at all: a 12-pace amble to the crease a prelude to a delivery action that Richie Benaud fairly describes as “ungainly”. Yet he took 614 first-class wickets, and a further 172 in one-day cricket.

His height meant that the ball reached the batsman at a steeper angle than his pace suggested, a sort of bargain basement Glenn McGrath. Like the great Australian, Graham bowled with a proofreader’s accuracy, searching out whatever assistance the pitch had to offer.

He established himself as a regular in 1967, when he finished third in the national averages with 104 wickets at 13.9. At Bradford early that season, Geoff Boycott bagged the only pair of his career, bowled Graham in the first innings, caught Knott bowled Graham in the second.

Let’s look again at that 55-over trophy win in ‘73. In seven matches he took 11 for 206, conceded at just under three an over. Remember that then the opening bowlers were usually the death bowlers too. Norman Graham was as important as Derek Underwood in that one-day attack. He played in three Lord’s finals and Kent won them all (it is often forgotten that he pulled out of the ‘71 Gillette final on the morning of the game; in his absence the partnership of Hughes and Simmons at the end of Lancashire’s innings made all the difference).

The public showed its appreciation during his benefit year in 1976, when it was said that he visited every pub in Kent. Perhaps not absolutely true, but within the margin of error. He was rewarded with a declared return of £70,000 (the average house price in England in 1976 was £13,000). It was rumoured that the actual figure was somewhat higher, but camouflaged so as not to provoke Her Majesty’s tax inspectors into a review of the tax-free status of cricketers’ benefits. This was an appreciation of Norman Graham’s skill, and of his whole-hearted effort. More than that, it acknowledged that here was a cricketer who set out to enjoy the game and was proud to play it.

If it is the case that cricket would not have room for a Norman Graham these days, the game is the worse for it.

Wounded Tiger by Peter Oborne

Peter Oborne is a political journalist with a pleasing sideline in cricket books; meaty, important cricket books that fill gaps in cricket scholarship. His biography of Basil D’Oliveira was masterful. He has followed it with Wounded Tiger, a history of cricket in Pakistan.

Has a cricket book ever been based on so much hard journalism? In an era when Pakistan is regarded as a no-go zone for westerners, his pursuit of the facts took him not only to the main centres of Lahore and Karachi, but also to places such as Peshawar, an hour away from the border with Afghanistan, where western visitors are usually war reporters not cricket historians. He records his inability to go to Baluchistan and Kashmir (the most militarised place in the world, we learn) as if it amounted to professional negligence. All in the cause of cricket scholarship.

The collection of primary evidence through interviews was essential because source documentary material on the early days of Pakistan cricket does not exist. I have been reading reviews of the latest work by the pre-eminent Tudor historian John Guy, (my tutor at Bristol University a long time ago). Addressing himself to the last two decades of Elizabeth’s reign, Guy has done what he always does: he has gone back to the primary sources and rebuilt the story. He had more to work on from England four centuries ago than Oborne has on Pakistan cricket a few decades past. Of course, many of the oral accounts are incomplete and contradictory, but Oborne guides us through them skilfully.

His biography of D’Oliveira and its account of cricket under Apartheid dealt with the old canard that cricket and politics should not mix. Like non-white South Africans, Pakistani players might have wished that they had the luxury of choice. Pakistan’s cricket emerged from politics in its rawest form: the turmoil of the partition of India in 1947. Some of the most famous names of the early decades of Pakistan cricket were among the the millions of Muslims forced to flee to the new country, including the five Mohammad brothers, four of whom were to play test cricket. I saw Mushtaq and Sadiq play often enough in county cricket, but had not appreciated how perilous their early lives had been.

Politics sets the game’s parameters today more than ever. The UAE appears to be an indefinite home from home, while relations with India mean that Pakistani cricketers—only Pakistani cricketers—are forbidden to milk the golden goat that is the IPL.

As millions struggled their way north and west in 1947, one Muslim was making the journey in the opposite direction. Fazal Mahmood travelled from Punjab in the north of the emerging country to Poona, “an insanely dangerous journey for a twenty-year-old Muslim male”. He had been selected in the Indian team for the tour of Australia and he was determined to make the training camp, oblivious to the chaos and danger, but eventually had to give in to political inevitability.

Fazal Mahmood is the first of heroes of Pakistan cricket whose stories Oborne tells; Wounded Tiger begins ingeniously with Fazal in the crowd at the Oval, watching as England wins the Ashes in 1953. A year later he was back, bowling Pakistan to series-squaring victory with twelve wickets.

That the young country was playing test cricket at all was remarkable, given that its domestic cricket was sparse and somewhat chaotic. How come it was granted almost immediate test status? Oborne puts it down to a victory against an MCC touring team (missing a few big names) in 1951. India proposed Pakistan and England seconded. Perhaps the inclusion of a seventh test team to fill an empty summer in 1954 appealed to Lord’s.

The safe passage of the Mohammad brothers was as well for Pakistan’s first decades of test cricket. Hanif Mohammad usually batted as if surviving a nuclear winter, the essence of a young nation making its way against the odds. Oborne presents Mushtaq Mohammad as one of Pakistan’s most under-rated and best captains, genially presiding over one of its most successful periods in the 1970s.

By then, most of the Pakistan team were familiar to us on the county circuit. Sarfraz Nawaz bustling in with short, angry steps at Northampton; Imran Khan, filmstar pace at Worcester and Hove; Zaheer Abbas, a double and single hundred in one game at Canterbury in the golden summer of ‘76. Above all, Asif Iqbal, dancing down the pitch to lash it through the covers. (How uncomfortable that the source of Pakistani matchfixing can be traced to Sharjah while Asif was in charge there). That county experience, and Kerry Packer, turned Pakistan’s players into professionals, no longer happy to be amateurs with jobs tied to the game.

Javed Miandad comes out of this account well. He has often been presented in the western press as some sort of upstart street urchin. In fact, his origins were firmly middle-class. Oborne credits him with accepting the captaincy at difficult times then gracefully stepping down for Imran Khan whenever the great man made himself available.

Oborne (who, it might be noted, has usually written for right-wing newspapers) is consistently critical of the attitudes of the English players, administrators and media towards Pakistan. He is scathing about the Idrais Baig incident on the MCC (in modern terms an England A team) tour in 1955, using MCC archives to tell a more complete version of the story than has been available before.

Baig was an umpire whose performance had displeased the MCC players. In Peshawar, Baig was taken from his hotel, bound and gagged, moved across town and then drenched with water. It was serious assault, but was laughed off by the MCC team and management as only a joke, the go-to excuse for bullies through the ages.

Oborne’s assessment of the “finger-wagging” incident at Faisalabad in 1987 is that it was incompetently handled by those in charge on both sides. But he makes a telling comment about Mike Gatting: “It is hard to come to grips with the set of values which led the England captain to take such a strong stand against allegedly poor Pakistani umpiring, yet be relaxed enough about apartheid to take a rebel squad to South Africa”.

The middle part of the book tends towards a series-by-series recitation. There is much good cricket played by many good cricketers—Abdul Qadir’s story is told with particular relish—as well as a good deal of selectorial mercuriality, players falling out, administrators with varying degrees of competence and cricketing knowledge, and a revolving door approach to the captaincy. The clues to how this came about are littered through the book and often come down to politics, cricketing, national and international.

The story of last quarter-century is related in themes and is the best part of the book. There is the glorious story of reverse swing, a new dimension to the game achieved only with immense skill; needless to say, the British press assumed it was those Pakistanis cheating again.  

The chapter on betting and match-fixing is the book’s saddest. It is clear that Pakistan cricket has been cursed (Oborne’s description) by the bookmakers for several decades. He makes an interesting comparison with prohibition in the United States in the 1920s, concluding that a legalised and regulated cricket betting market would be the best way of exercising control. He visited Mohammad Amir while the young bowler was serving his ban for the Lord’s no-balls. Oborne finds him playing tapeball cricket with the other village lads. He rightly presents the brilliant young bowler as a victim who stood little chance of being able to resist the massive pressure he came under from bookmakers and senior players. I am pleased to have seen Mohammad Amir play at the Basin Reserve earlier this year and hope that the cricket fraternity welcomes him when Pakistan’s tour of the UK begins in a couple of weeks.

I had not understood before reading the book how cricket was an urban, middle-class sport in Pakistan, and that its spread to the lower classes and the rural north and west is recent. Pakistan has achieved a broadening of interest in the game that the ECB and ICC aspire to but can’t deliver. One consequence has been the emergence of Afghanistan as a cricketing country: poppies on a battlefield.

Of course, 9/11 changed everything for Pakistan cricket. Home test matches were spasmodic thereafter, and ended indefinitely with the attack on the Sri Lankan team bus in 2009. Out of that and the spot fixing scandal emerges the final hero of the story: Misbah-ul-Haq.

Misbah took over the Test captaincy with his predecessor facing imprisonment, unusually difficult circumstances even when judged by the regicidal standards of that office. What’s more, he was a 36-year-old batsman who had never quite established himself in the test side. Oborne sums up:

The task that he faced was more difficult than any previous Test captain, including Kardar. He had to lead a cricket team in exile, deal with constant charges of corruption and match-fixing, and confront a chaotic administration.

Almost six years later, Misbah is still there having won more tests than any other captain of Pakistan with a victory percentage only fractionally below Wasim Akram’s lead mark, all without playing a single test at home.

Needless to say, some of the most famous names in Pakistan cricket are calling for him to be replaced for the tour of England. At this time, more than any, they were lucky to stumble upon him.

My most serious criticism of this fine book is the statement on page 261 that Wasim Bari was in 1976 “the world’s top wicketkeeper”. Readers would, I think, be disappointed if I did not assert the rights of the Kentish candidate to that title.

Wounded Tiger was Wisden’s Book of the Year in 2015 and deservedly so. We must hope that Peter Oborne will soon shine his torch of journalism and scholarship into another of cricket’s dusty corners.

Watching Godfrey Evans

Following last week’s piece on one great Kent and England wicketkeeper, here is something about another.

I have seen Godfrey Evans play cricket. Proper cricket that is, a County Championship game. Given that Evans retired in 1959, I flatter myself that this would surprise acquaintances.  

It was Canterbury Week 1967. Alan Knott was to make his test debut at Trent Bridge, so Evans was called up to replace him in the second match of the week, against Yorkshire, the leaders. Kent were second in the table and as it turned out, this was the deciding game. Yorkshire’s seven-wicket win gave them 12 points; the margin between the two teams at season’s end was ten. Here’s the scorecard.

Perhaps it was the importance of the match that prompted Kent to recall Evans (47) to the colours, but it still seems a bit odd, given the presence of David Nicholls in the Kent team. Nicholls took the gloves for the following game, against Essex, and deputised for Knott most capably for the next ten years. Then again, Evans was the world’s most experienced international player with 91 tests (Colin Cowdrey would draw level with him at Trent Bridge the following day). He was demonstrating age-defying agility and co-ordination on television for the International Cavaliers most Sundays. For the biggest match that Kent had played since the First World War, why not choose experience?

I was there on the first day, a beautiful, blue-sky Wednesday, as all days of childhood summers are in the memory, in defiance of the historical record (it was the summer of love, probably because people needed something to do out of the rain). We sat on the benches on the Bat and Ball side of the ground. I haven’t watched from there since, not for more than a few minutes anyway.

The crowd was large, more than would be allowed in these days, though several thousand short of the number at the Gillette Cup semi-final a three weeks before, when the boundary shortened as the day wore on to accommodate the growing throng.

Brian Close was away, captaining England. He achieved five wins in six tests that summer, but had the captaincy taken away from him for the winter tour as a result of time-wasting at Edgbaston, or at least his cussed reaction to accusations thereof. The committee room at Lord’s hid well its disappointment at having to reinstate Colin Cowdrey (Tonbridge and Brasenose). Fred Trueman captained Yorkshire in Close’s absence. Seven of his team had played test cricket; three more were to do so and the eleventh, opening bowler Tony Nicholson, should have done. Trueman no doubt took the opportunity to drop into the Kent dressing room before the game to appraise them of this information. Perhaps Evans was there to redress the balance off the field as well as on it.

Guile and precision had long since taken the place of brutish pace in Trueman’s bowling, but he was still quick enough to break Brian Luckhurst’s hand in his opening spell. Stuart Leary dug in with a somewhat uncharacteristic three-and-half-hour 66 (a few weeks later he became the only batsman I ever saw clear the old lime tree), but the memory of the day that lingers is of Alan Brown tonking Trueman for 18 off four balls late in the innings.

Brown was a fast bowler with a dragging action, one of the last to carry this legacy of the backfoot lbw law. He played in two tests on Ted Dexter’s tour of Pakistan in 1961/2, when the prospect of playing cricket in south Asia did not have the attraction for the leading players that it does today. But it was Brown’s tailend slogging that caught the imagination of the boy on the boundary that day. The Kent faithful thought that in giving Trueman a sense of his own fallibility Brown was doing him a service, but two for 39 from ten overs shows how well the great bowler had bowled earlier in the innings.

Trueman greeted Evans’ entry at No 8 by doffing his cap and dusting the batting crease with it. Evans made ten before taking his position behind the timbers (as Brian Johnston used to say) for the final hour or so of the day. I have no specific memory of his keeping, but have no reason to doubt Wisden’s report that he “kept wicket superbly”.

Yorkshire won the game quite easily by seven wickets and took the second of a hat-trick of Championships. There is debate about whether the current Yorkshire team, attempting to emulate this feat this season, is better than that of the sixties. If they are, nobody will touch them.

The 1967 season ended happily for Kent nevertheless. Three weeks later the Gillette Cup was won at Lord’s and the glory years began.

Thirteen years later Evans gave an altogether more memorable display of his skill and extraordinary longevity. It was Old England v Old Australia at the Oval in 1980, played on the day before the centenary test began at Lord’s, a match now remembered for Dickie Bird’s fussiness over a damp patch in the outfield that denied a full house most of Saturday’s play.

The previous Wednesday was fine. It was nostalgic at the time. Reading the scorecard makes it seem all the more so in retrospect. It reminds me that I saw Neil Harvey play. One of the 1948 Invincibles. That’s quite something. He stood at mid on in sunglasses (long before this was customary) then finished the game with a composed 22 not out. It was the only time I saw Ken Barrington. He lifted a six onto the tin roof of the old stand beside the pavilion, an enormous hit. Little more than six months later he was dead, on duty as assistant manager with England in the Caribbean. A last chance to see most of the rest. All echoes of the players they once were of course, but an echo can carry sufficient cadence to identify the original tune.

Which brings us back to Godfrey Evans, by now 60. The card shows that he stumped both Australian openers off Fred Titmus. One was straightforward, but the manner of the other (Bobby Simpson I think), suggested that Evans had forsaken the hard stuff a while before and had instead been drinking exclusively from the fountain of youth. The ball slid down the legside, the batsman lifted his foot for a second, and with a blur of the gloves, the bails were off.

The PA announcer declared that the batsman had been bowled. There was confusion among the cognoscenti; we didn’t know whether to trust the evidence of our binoculars. But there it is on the scorecard. Stumped. The muttonchop whiskers might have belonged to a crewman of the Jolly Roger, but the feet and hands were those of Peter Pan.

Our story now moves forward to January 1999 and the Ashes test at Sydney. On the second day my seat in the Churchill Stand* was next to two elderly sisters and the husband of one of them. It was unclear to me to which he was married, and he seemed hazy on the matter too. They were up from the country for a day at the test, as had been their habit since the war (almost certainly the second one). Their dress and demeanor suggested that they had come all the way from 1948. I asked them about the players they had seen. The name that produced the broadest smile and a faraway look in the women’s eyes was that of Godfrey Evans. “Such a showman...the best wicketkeeper we have seen.”

During the lunch interval Evans, passing the winter hosting supporters’ tours, appeared in the stand. When I drew his presence to their attention, they sighed and become young again for a moment.

Godfrey Evans died just five months later, his ability to enchant unabated to the end.

*Named after the rugby league legend Clive Churchill. It would be frustrating being named Churchill and having something named after you. Nobody would realise it was about you.

Alan Knott at 70

During the recent World T20, Australia played New Zealand. Glenn Maxwell got one to turn sharply past Colin Munro’s outside edge. Wicketkeeper Peter Nevill’s hands started to move only after the ball had passed. I thought what I always think, what I have always thought, on such occasions for the last fifty years: Knotty would have had it.

So he would have too, for Alan Knott was the finest wicketkeeper that I have seen, will ever see.

A while ago, some younger work colleagues who are keen on cricket raised the subject of Geoff Boycott’s selection of a team of the best players he had seen or played against. Boycott’s pick of Alan Knott as keeper rather than Adam Gilchrist, attracted ridicule, identifying the Yorkshireman as an old fogey.

Gather round, my young friends, as I reveal your foolishness to you.

“How would Knott have got on keeping to Shane Warne?” they might ask. “Brilliantly” is the unhesitating answer (a less benevolent blog than My Life in Cricket Scorecards would be tempted to respond with another question: “How would Gilchrist have got on keeping to Derek Underwood on a drying turner?”, but the purpose here is to celebrate one great cricketer, not to denigrate another).

By the way, one of the few things that Boycott agreed with Tony Greig about was that Knott was the greatest keeper he had ever seen. Greig used Knott as the benchmark whenever the Channel Nine commentators were comparing glovemen. Ray Illingworth thought so too. He may have incomprehensibly preferred Norman Gifford to Derek Underwood on several occasions, but he was unshakeable in picking Knott as his keeper. This is the only recorded case of two Yorkshiremen admiring someone from Kent.

Knott’s brilliance behind the stumps is evident from a quick search on YouTube. But it wasn’t the flashy dives and extraordinary catches that impressed the old pros;  it was Knott’s consistency. Wicketkeepers should be judged not by the chances they take, but by those that they miss. A keeper who has one chance all day and takes it has had a better day than one who has six chances and takes five of them. Alan Knott made takes and catches that others would not be thought badly of for not attempting; but what made him better than all the rest was that he missed less than anybody. For Kent, as well as England; not once did he give anything less than his best for the county (the same could be said for Underwood). In this respect he differed from his predecessor in the Pantheon of great Kent keepers, Godfrey Evans, who rarely had an off day in a test match, but would perform indifferently for the county when his heavy social schedule drained him of energy and concentration.

Some will promote the claims of that fine wicketkeeper Bob Taylor as the best of the era. At the time, it was commonly said that Taylor was the better keeper, but that Knott’s superior batting kept him in the England team. The fact that Taylor stood up to medium pacers more than Knott did was incorrectly seen as evidence of the Derbyshire man’s superior skill. In fact, Knott believed that more chances would be offered if he stood back than if he stood up; don’t forget that Underwood was always classified as medium paced, and Knott’s work standing up to his co-assassin was as close to perfection as it is possible to come on a cricket field.

Barry Dudleston believed Knott to be the better keeper of the two. Barry played against both men many times and, as recorded here previously, was himself a county wicketkeeper, briefly but gloriously. He said that Taylor, when standing up, would sometimes move his foot back an inch or so as he took the ball, to rebalance. Knott never had to do this; his balance was always perfect.

Alan Knott averaged 32 with the bat in tests, just one fewer than IT Botham (another noted all-rounder) and respectable for any No 7, whatever else they had to offer. But with Alan Knott, the quantity of runs is not how he should be judged. It was when he made them and how he made them.

Knott was a T20 batsman before his time, his guard merely a point of departure for his journey around the crease as the pinball wizard, sending the ball in all manner of unexpected directions. I had a chat with Dennis Lillee about this once. For reasons that were never clear, the great bowler was flogging photocopiers in Bristol one day in the late eighties and the school I worked at sent me along. I took with me a scorecard of the Oval test of 1981 for him to sign. Lillee took seven for 89, his test best, and I was there to see him do it.  

When I handed him the card, it was not his own figures that took his eye, but Knott’s name. He had forgotten that Knott had played in that famous series (he came in for the final two tests). “He was an awkward bastard to bowl at. He’d hit you where you thought you couldn’t be hit.” One great player regarding another as worthy of the contest.

Look again at that Oval card. In the first innings Knott came in after four wickets had fallen for ten runs. His 36, including a couple of fours off Lillee lifted over gully from outside leg stump to prove the bowler’s point, was the only double-figure score made by anybody below No 4 in the order.

In the second innings he came in at six down for 144, the target of 383 well beyond reach, but half a day left to battle through. Close of play: Knott 70 not out, test match saved. It was his last test innings. Knott did not care to make easy runs. Against a tired attack, expect him to be out quickly for not many. Put his back against the wall against top bowling and the quiet fighter would approach the crease. If there were a measure of the value of runs to the team at the time, Knott would rank above any of the great keeper-batsmen. This was so from his first overseas test tour to the Caribbean in 1968, when his unbeaten 73 in the final test in Georgetown saved the match and won the series, to that last day at the Oval 13 years later. Here is an extract from the Wisden report from the Bourda:

All  seemed lost when Knott joined Cowdrey, but he was there to stay until the end, almost four hours later...Somehow, Knott extracted enough help from the tailenders to steer his side to safety...he was well nigh as assured as Cowdrey and no less courageous.

Delve into the circumstances of any of Alan Knott’s five test centuries or 30 half-centuries (and some of the 30s and 40s too) and you will often find that they were made in times of trouble.

One more example. Trent Bridge 1977, third Ashes test. Knott came to the crease with England at 82 for five on the first day. This rescue job was more complicated than usual, as it involved penetrating the tormented psyche of Geoffrey Boycott. The Napoleon of the Ridings had returned from three-year exile on his personal Elba, only, it appeared, to have met his Waterloo. He was recoiling from having run out local favourite Derek Randall (the only time he expressed any visible regret for dispatching a partner). Refocusing Boycott was essential if England were to pass Australia’s 243. The outcome: a partnership of 215, with 107 for Boycott and 135 (at four an over) from Knott. It was the decisive stand in the series, ensuring a two-nil lead with two to play.

A quality apparently valued in modern keepers is the ability to emit a constant stream of vacuous noise all day. Knott was Trappist by comparison, but volume is not to be mistaken for personality. His career was a slow capitulation to eccentricity. The headware tells the story. At first a regulation cap, Kent’s or England’s as appropriate. Quite early though, the MCC touring cap became the hat of choice, on tour or otherwise, followed by the sun hat, worn at first in sunny places like Australia, but later in locations such as Derby and Old Trafford where it was an excessive precaution. As the years went on, the handkerchief drooped permanently from the left pocket, the pads became ever more baggy and were secured by tape. Touching the bails began as a start-of-innings affectation, then developed into a sort of continuing nervous tick.

And, of course, the calisthenics continued. In an era when the closest to regular exercise most cricketers took was the raising of the right arm in the bar after play, with Knott it appeared that the batting and wicketkeeping were interrupting the main activity, which was stretching. His between-deliveries routine was more entertaining than watching some players bat and bowl.

When Derek Underwood turned 70 last year I wrote that he would be my favourite cricketer until Alan Knott reached that age. That day came last week. Happy birthday Knotty. The truth is that I find it impossible to choose between them. To discover cricket just as these two great players of Kent were starting out, and to have watched them over so many seasons was the most extraordinary good fortune.

Auckland wins the Plunket Shield

Wellington v Auckland, Plunket Shield, Basin Reserve, 23 – 26 March 2016

Scorecard

I have ticked off an item on my cricketing wishlist by being at the Basin Reserve when Auckland won the Plunket Shield, the first time in my spectating half century that I have been present for the moment of victory in the domestic first-class competition.

Kent’s three County Championships in the seventies were all secured away from home, at the Oval, Edgbaston and Hove. Neither Canterbury nor Bristol—my most common end-of-season locations—were the venue for the away side to take the title when I was there, though my Blean correspondent was at St Lawrence when Durham claimed their first title, so has always had the advantage in this respect.

With only six teams in contention, you might think that shorter odds would have prevailed during my 19 New Zealand seasons, but not so, until now.

I was there for most of the first, third and fourth days, on for the final 90 minutes or so of day two.

Day 1

The penultimate round of the Plunket Shield, and Auckland, the leaders, visit second-placed Wellington. The home side are 23 points behind. Twenty points are the most that can be accrued from one match, so Wellington need to win (third-placed Canterbury are also in with a shout). Throw in a forecast of dodgy weather and it was no surprise to find a pitch as green and angry as the Incredible Hulk.

The pitch for the test against Australia here a few weeks ago was also described as green, but in comparison was merely a truculent off-yellow. Then, given skilful guidance by Haslewood and Siddle, the ball did just enough. As I noted at the time, few balls beat the bat or found the edge on that first morning apart from those that took wickets.

This one, however, was an English green top circa 1988, when moderate dobbers could trundle up, present the seam and pick off good batsmen. Auckland—put in, obviously—took the view that dogged defence would be futile on a day when a ball with a batsman’s name on it was around every corner. Every opportunity to garner any available runs was taken.

The outcome was 152 all out from 34 overs. Brent Arnel (who, to be fair, is more than a dobber) finished with five for 51. Auckland’s Butch-and-Sundance approach to overwhelming odds against them was justified, all the more so when Wellington’s more cautious approach failed to protect its batsmen. Only 27 runs came from the first 13 overs, but three wickets fell nevertheless.

However, after tea the greenness faded and the pitch lost just enough pace to turn it from challenging to good for playing strokes. Michael Pollard and Scott Borthwick of Durham put on 73 for the fourth wicket. Borthwick was impressive and it was a surprise when he chipped a soft catch to mid-wicket. Pollard rode his luck.

Play was ended by bad light. As is customary, this came at the point when the batsmen appeared to be seeing the ball better than at any time during the day. Wellington were 22 behind with four wickets standing.

Day 2

Wellington made 236 in their first innings, and by the time I arrived for the last 90 minutes of the day, Auckland were within 25 of negating the lead, without loss. The pitch was still tinged with green and there was some movement, but it was on the fast lane to being the usual batman’s paradise that Basin pitches tend to become by the end of the second day. There was plenty of loose bowling too.

Not that you would have known it from the whooping and hollering of the Wellington fielders, mundane dot balls lauded as if they were bursting with fiendish cunning. I’m all for positivity, but the danger here is that the bowlers come to believe that they are better than they really are.

I was at Seddon Park in Hamilton for CricInfo one day about 15 years ago, when we were joined in the press box by Glenn Turner and John Parker, teammates for Worcestershire as well as New Zealand. The conversation turned to the feedback that technology offers to modern players. “Our bowlers had feedback” said one. “It came from Norman Gifford at short leg and tended to be along the lines of ‘what are you bowling that crap for?’”  Different days.

No wickets fell before light again intervened with batting looking as easy as the Sun crossword. Auckland were 73 ahead.

Day 3

It takes some time to put on all the layers necessary to withstand a day in the southerly at the Basin, so I arrived only just in time to see Michael Guptill-Bunce reach his hundred, the second of his first-class career. A cousin of Martin Guptill, but somewhat shorter, Guptill-Bunce has an open stance and shots on both sides of the pitch. These he displayed with ever greater freedom as he progressed to 189 before falling a leading edge to cover from the first delivery with the second new ball.

Earlier, his first-wicket partnership with Jeet Ravel, worth 215, had ended when McPeake removed Ravel’s off stump. Ravel has often been mentioned when the perpetual vacancy at the top of the order in the test team is being discussed, but has not been picked thus far. He has had another good summer.

I would move Martin Guptill down the order to fill the gap created by Brendon McCullum’s retirement. Away from the torment of the new ball, Guptill would become the test batsman that his one-day achievements promise him to be. The gap between Plunket Shield and test cricket is huge, but Ravell’s consistency puts him at the head of the line to open the innings with Tom Latham (now of Kent, I am pleased to note).

With a draw almost certain to be enough to give Auckland the Shield, there was no question of a declaration. A queue formed of Auckland batsman eager to make the most of a pitch that had transformed from cornered tiger to purring tabby, eager to encourage strokes.

Mark Chapman (whose parents, we may summise, are not Beatles fans), hit a breezy, run-a-ball 73. Colin de Grandhomme’s 33 was as quick. At the close Donovan Grobbelaar was 89 not out. His innings contained as good a display of precision straight driving as I have seen for a long time; shot after shot missing the bowler’s stumps by a just a few centimetres.

A little over two years ago, Scott Borthwick was picked by England as a leg spinner, and has a test bowling average of 20.50 to show for his sole appearance at Sydney. He has been one of the highest scorers in county cricket over the past three years, but the bowling has fallen away. Borthwick wasn’t given a proper spell until Auckland had passed 400; he was tidy but unthreatening, which is not a bad report for a leggie on this pitch.

Of course, every leg spinner wants to be Shane Warne, and rightly so. They may not be able to bowl like he did, but they can mimic Warne’s theatricality. Borthwick is a star in this respect. When any ball is not met by the absolute middle of the bat, he gives us his Hamlet, a moving portrayal of the injustice of the human condition. Just like Shane Warne.  Until he lets go of the ball, at least.

Day 4

This was the day on which Auckland would probably win the Plunket Shield for the first time in seven seasons. Unless Wellington produced an improbable win, or Canterbury beat Northern Districts (which also seemed unlikely), it would be theirs by dinner time.

Grobbelaar completed his century and captain Michael Bates set about enjoying himself. He hit Borthwick for four and three sixes off successive deliveries. Never fear; when the final ball of the over was defended, Borthwick reached deep into his repertoire of pain to convince us that the rest of the over had been no more than an administrative oversight.

Auckland’s total of 598 was the highest in a domestic game at the Basin. Wellington‘s target was 515 at about six an over, the tallest of orders even on such a benign surface. There was no doubt that they would give it a go.

By lunch they had reached a solid 68 for one from 19 overs, though it would have been two had the perfect Nethula googly that bowled Murdoch not been a no ball, one of three the leg spinner bowled in his first two overs. The luck continued to run with Wellington and Murdoch after the interval. A top edge could have been caught by either mid on or deep mid-wicket, but with exquisite politeness they left it to each other. They probably laughed about it later, but not at the time. The second-wicket partnership between Murdoch and Woodcock was worth 144 when Murdoch was bowled by Nethula.

Any residual hope disappeared after tea, with the loss of four wickets for 23 runs. To their credit, Wellington focused on saving the game. An eighth-wicket stand of 60 between Verma and Blundell was central to enabling them to do so. Verma remained unbeaten at the end.

The end of the game at the expiry of the 16 overs compulsory in the final hour was not quite the moment of triumph, as play was still in progress in Christchurch. But Canterbury had given up hope at about the same time as Wellington and had been blocking for an hour, so it was as good as. I had expected scenes of uninhibited joy and emotion, but not so. The two teams lined up, shook hands and left the field, and that was that. It was much like I expect it was at the Oval in 1970; Colin Cowdrey proffering an outstretched hand and Micky Stewart calling for three cheers.

Nevertheless, I am happy to be able to give the ultimate affirmation of the sports fan: I was there.