Cricket: Unsung heroes

Whilst the stars make the headlines and common topics of conversation, it’s often the lesser-known names who flesh out our relationships with the entertainment media which matter to us. It could be the TV soap character who sits in the pub uttering just a line at Christmas or the plucky Brit tennis hopeful you only catch on the first day’s Wimbledon highlights.  With cricket, too, the seasoned county pro is just as much a factor in my loyalty to the sport.

It’s not just about the T20 rent-a-slogger or 100-cap fast bowler; I’m talking about the type of player who gives his all to one club, or maybe several, without quite hitting the international heights. They’re the ones who, in Fantasy Cricket terms, may be mid-price but invariably offer unbeatable value ahead of the top-priced England batsmen who are almost invisible on the domestic circuit.

Such people are often disparaged as mere ‘journeymen’ or ‘bed-blockers’ denying starlets the chance of progression. It’s nonsense. Not everyone can be a future, present or past international, and it’s often the experienced stalwarts who do more for the game and its role in schools and clubs than a whole gaggle of ECB fusspots. The only problem with the supporting cast members is that their profiles are so low   that finding references on YouTube is nigh on impossible!

Sometimes, the cricketers who build a fervent following amongst the handful of county followers eventually earn grudging recognition by the blinkered selectors, albeit maybe only for a few matches or as drinks carriers in, say, New Zealand. Sheer volume of runs or wickets, or a well-timed century against the touring side, can propel such icons into the media spotlight for a few glorious weeks or months before being discarded in favour of the next lad from the Surrey nets or a 35 year-old veteran recalled for one final hurrah.

I remember batsmen such as Derbyshire legend Kim Barnett shuffling across the crease wearing the England badge, various Glamorgan favourites like Matthew Maynard, Hugh Morris and Steve James granted fleeting opportunities and bowlers including Phil Newport, Jonathan Agnew, Mark Ilott, Martin Bicknell and Steve Watkin trying their luck against an unforgiving Aussie or Windies line-up. Even left-arm spinner John Childs bowled so well for Essex in 1988 that he made his debut in his late thirties, albeit for only two appearances against Richards, Haynes and co. I also felt sorry for Essex wicketkeeper James Foster whose brilliance was eclipsed by the claims of Matt Prior and the succeeding series of sloggers.

Some, like Simon Kerrigan and Haseeb Hameed, have never recovered from the experience although, at just 22, the latter may yet get another chance. Others, like Adam Lyth and Mal Loye, just dusted themselves off and returned to their counties with renewed vigour.

Many never quite secured a single senior outing for their country. I’ve mentioned Somerset’s James Hildreth but what about the men whose efforts for the county in the Botham-Viv-Garner era have been forgotten by all bar the Taunton faithful. The terrific trio could not have brought success without a supporting cast including Slocombe, Breakwell, Taylor, Denning, Rose and Roebuck.

Similarly, Essex’s sparkling seasons in the late Seventies and Eighties owed much to their entertaining spinner Ray East – always with a smile on his face – Brian Hardie and Paul Prichard. In the Seventies, Scotland-born Hardie was a notoriously slow scorer yet by 1985 out-performed Graham Gooch to hit a match-winning 110 in the 1985 Nat West Trophy final. Billericay-born Prichard didn’t bat that day but I saw him several times in the Nineties as post-Gooch captain and ever-reliable batsman. As an aside, many years later a conversation across desks with an office colleague revealed she had been the Essex man’s girlfriend. Yes, a genuine if unlikely WAG!

Other favourites of mine, for no obvious reasons, included Gloucestershire ‘keeper-batsman Andy Stovold, the anagrammatically perfect Gloucester/Worcester seamer Brian Brain, Derbyshire’s balding medium-pacer Fred Swarbrook, Glamorgan’s Rodney Ontong and Nottinghamshire’s Basharat Hassan (more for their assonance-heavy names than anything) and the Warwickshire batsman and fab fielder Trevor Penney.

In more recent times, I can’t help but admire long-servers such as Worcestershire’s Daryl Mitchell (for whose career-best 298 I was present at Taunton), evergreen seamer David Masters, faithful Glamorgan gloveman Mark Wallace and the gritty Notts all-rounder Steven Mullaney. I had to check Mullaney’s English credentials as I thought his absence from senior recognition must be explained by a South African or Australian nationality. No, he’s a Cheshire lad and only this winter was selected to lead the England Lions in India. 

Before I end this chapter, I should mention Wes Durston. Despite being only a bit-part player, he was much loved in Somerset where he skipped between roles at Glastonbury CC and the county. Finding himself out of contract in 2009, he was picked alongside others in a similar position to represent the Unicorns in the CB40 competition. Brilliant performances attracted Derbyshire’s attention and for a few summers he was one of their brightest all-round stars. Even Somerset fans cheered the late-career success of this archetypal unsung hero.

Cricket - LIVE!

Reflecting upon my four decades of watching cricket, it’s inevitable my thoughts wander and weave over the more memorable matches I’ve attended. It’s not as if I’ve been a particularly prolific circuit basher, averaging no more than one game a year. However, few have been total disasters. Of course, Somerset defeats are always disappointing but even the fixtures wrecked by the weather left me with some enduring emotions and lasting images.

Some of the outstanding memories are associated with ‘firsts’ and inevitably I must begin with that inaugural trip to the Essex County Ground with Dad on 4^th May 1975 for the visit of my Somerset team. Even huddled on the benches just gazing across the greensward towards the pavilion at the figures in white gave me an intoxicating buzz. Eventual victory in that Sunday League encounter for Somerset, achieved with a Viv Richards six, awarded me a natural high hitherto unsurpassed. I even leapt off my plank seat, mercifully without causing those on either end to be catapulted over the boundary rope. The feeling of euphoria ensured this wasn’t a one-off, even if I never saw Somerset play at Chelmsford again. Since enjoying another taste of success against Gloucestershire in Bath six years later, watching my county has been a tough gig. In limited-overs cricket, it has been a string of five defeats, whether in Southchurch Park, Taunton or Cardiff. The anticlimactic T20 Finals Day of 2012 was perhaps the hardest to take.

Three visits to Lord’s, the ancestral home of the sport, also stand out. My first came with a complimentary ticket courtesy of my then boss and local club captain, Peter Finucane. At first reading, Old Hill vs Reading might not seem an unmissable fixture. However, this was the 1985 final of the national club knockout tournament and so there was much at stake. For a neutral like me, there was the bonus of watching the ex-Pakistan and Northamptonshire all-rounder Mushtaq Mohammad bowling his looping leg-breaks for Old Hill. Sadly, rain set in by lunchtime and I abandoned my Tavern Stand seat to mosey around the grand old ground.

The famous red-brick pavilion was out of bounds for riff-raff like me but since then I have been lucky enough to strut around the Long Room three times without attracting the attention of security. The first occurred following a Radio 3 Awayday (the station’s genial Controller, Roger Wright was an avid Lancashire supporter), and I also sat in the great space to enjoy a special Radio Authority panel event to mark a Test Match Special anniversary. However, on 13^th June 2010 I was granted the opportunity to actually watch cricket from the Pavilion. Friend, former work colleague and Middlesex Member Dipesh secured us both tickets (surprisingly inexpensive) for a T20 clash with Essex. The only concession was to wear a jacket and tie and I had free rein to roam the hallowed halls. I took full advantage, initially viewing proceedings from the balcony adjacent to the Middlesex dressing room then later from the Long Room door. The cricket itself proved quite exciting. Home skipper Adam Gilchrist, then little-known David Warner and the likes of Morgan and Malan set Essex an awkward target. A fabulous 102 from Ryan Ten Doeschate took the visitors close but after the allotted twenty overs they were five runs short.

My first Test match had been on a sunny August Bank Holiday 1991, when Sri Lanka were still only grudgingly permitted one-off contests with England. I’d taken the train from Billericay and bought a ticket at the ground, finding an excellent vantage point in the Compton Stand. Just looking at the Pavilion was enough. The cricket wasn’t particularly scintillating but when I went with friend Andrew Blunt six years later, I was fortunate to witness one of the greatest bowling performances ever seen at Lord’s.

It was the Saturday of an Ashes Test, a highlight of the middle-class sporting calendar. However, the weather wasn’t playing ball and the occasion was ravaged by a stream of short, sharp showers. Nonetheless, in the sunny interludes, we observed from the old Grand Stand the masterful Australian pace bowler Glenn McGrath ripping through the home side, concluding with awesome figures of 8-38. Despite England’s obvious problems, the atmosphere remained upbeat, enhanced by the cheery banter with a line of dry-humour of Aussie fans behind us. While a lot of play had indeed been lost, it had been an afternoon to remember. Coincidentally my only other experience of an Ashes Test, at The Oval in 2013, was also abbreviated by London rain. On the plus side, when play was eventually possible, it effectively made Steve Smith’s Test career (he reached his maiden century with a straight six) and strangled Simon Kerrigan’s at birth.

This wasn’t my last experience of a Test match. On 31^st August 2015 I nipped down to Sophia Gardens for a Twenty20 double-header of England-Australia cricket. The men’s contest was the main course (and a tasty one it was, too, thanks to a mix of Moeen Ali, Eoin Morgan and that man Smith again) but the women served up an appetising starter. I’d begun to take more of an interest in the newly-professionalised women’s international scene, and so the afternoon’s opener was to me on equal footing as the more publicised match later on. Indeed, it was the final fixture in the multi-format Women’s Ashes series and, although Meg Lanning’s side had already clinched their version of the urn, Charlotte Edwards’ team were desperate to snatch a compensatory victory. 

Predictably, it wasn’t a high-scoring affair but, after Anya Shrubsole ripped out the world-class Aussie top four, Natalie Sciver’s 4-15 and unbeaten 47 saw England home by five wickets. After receiving their series trophy, Lanning, Perry, Healy et al were joined by the English squad to cheerily sign autographs at the boundary. If my pen hadn’t given out, I’d surely have collected more scribbles on my scorecard. 

Two very different matches linger in my mind because the cricketing gods ripped up the script. In 1996, Essex Member Andrew bought tickets for their Nat West Trophy final appearance against Lancashire at Lord’s. It all started so well on that September Saturday. Tidy bowling restricted Mike Watkinson’s team to just 186 from their 60 overs. Victory would surely be a mere formality. Er, no. Glen Chapple’s 6-18 and Peter Martin’s 3-17 annihilated Paul Prichard’s men, bowling them out for 57.  Andrew was distraught and understandably refused to join me on the pitch to observe the prize-giving ceremony (below). It had been an embarrassment.

Fast forward to 13^th June 2017 in Cardiff, and England were favourites to win the Champions Trophy. I was there to witness their expected steamrollering of Pakistan in the semi-final. The green flag-waving fans were just there to enjoy themselves come what may. Nevertheless, everyone was surprised at the way Hasan Ali in particular choked Morgan, Stokes, Buttler and co before Azhar Ali and Fakhar Zaman laid the foundation for an eight-wicket demolition job. It was no flash in the pan either, because Pakistan went on to defeat India in the final, too.

Perhaps the most memorable of all matches I’ve attended so far was also a Champions Trophy encounter. Four years earlier I’d applied successfully for the opening fixture at Cardiff, to be contested by India and South Africa. What elevated that fifty-over match to the pinnacle was not just the cricket itself. 638 runs were scored, Shikhar Dhawan’s century was undoubtedly brilliant and Ravi Jadeja’s all-round performance also impressive but it was all about the incredible atmosphere fostered by the India supporters, who comprised maybe 90% of the crowd.

I’d no preconceived plan of favouritism but the heady mix of Indian fan fervour and watching all-time greats like Kohli, AB De Villiers and Dhoni in meaningful competition was contagious. It was such a happy vibe. Had it been raining serotonin in Cardiff or was it merely an injection of cricket causing such joy? We needed neither booze nor those blasted taped bugle blasts to get us going; this was what sport should be about. I’ll never forget it. 

Zummerset la-la-la!

Life as a fan of any club, in any sport, is inevitably a rollercoaster ride. Winning matches is great, and doing so in entertaining fashion is a bonus, but the old cliché of ‘It’s all about winning trophies’ is hard to avoid. And that’s where supporting Somerset has been a particularly tough test. So why couldn’t I have simply plumped for a proven champion county like Surrey, Middlesex, Lancashire or Yorkshire? The answer is, of course, because Somerset picked me.

I can’t recall exactly when and where it happened but it must have been inspired by my delightful family holiday spent in and around Minehead in the summer of '71. As it happened, that was one of Somerset’s best cricket seasons for a while but it had long been considered one of the sport’s sleepy backwaters. There were no international stars, just a few ageing ex-England players in Brian Close and Tom Cartwright plus a motley collection of journeymen and young recruits from that longstanding cricket academy in Millfield School. It was probably the random combo of attractive scenery and sympathy that brought me and SCCC together.

Somerset’s Taunton HQ must be one of the county circuit’s most recognisable grounds. Like The Oval’s gasholders, the trio of sandstone church towers provided a familiar backdrop to the arena for TV cameras set high on the River End pavilion. From the opposite side, the Quantock Hills fill the space between what is now the Sir Ian Botham Stand and the sky. Whilst living and working nearby, I attended several matches there, in addition to a few sneaky peaks through the Garner Gates in lunch breaks, but my introduction to live cricket was Somerset’s trip to Essex at Chelmsford on a cool May afternoon in 1975. It was to be a winning start thanks largely to a then little-known West Indian called IVA Richards. More of him later…..

The following season we came agonisingly close to clinching a first ever trophy. While it wasn’t the featured live game, Dad and I were following the fortunes of Somerset at Glamorgan, watching BBC2’s cricket coverage of the final round of Sunday League fixtures. We lost a thrilling encounter by just one run and the title on away games won, and this teenager was in despair. In ’78 we were again runners-up, not only in the Sunday League but also the premier knockout competition, the Gillette Cup. This has been a recurring theme for the past four decades.

Luckily, the lengthy search for silverware ended the following year. Neither Essex nor Somerset had ever won anything. Then, in one glorious season, the two clubs shared all four titles on offer. For us it was the John Player (Sunday) and Gillette Cup. Under Brian Rose’s captaincy, with Ian Botham an established international all-rounder Viv Richards’ extraordinary batting and Joel ‘Big Bird’ Garner leading the attack, Somerset’s golden era had begun.

The forty-over league proved to be our speciality and yet we could finish only second in three of the subsequent four years. It was in June 1981, following my end-of year exams at Exeter University, that I enjoyed my only live experience of watching our three legends playing together.

It was at the Bath Festival clash with neighbours Gloucestershire but, instead of the current bristling rivalry, the atmosphere was light and friendly and before the game we could stand on the outfield while the players warmed up amongst us. Standing alongside Joel Garner I could appreciate just how tall he was (barely fitting into my lens, below), and he played his part in our 20-run triumph, taking 4-21 as Gloucestershire suffered a catastrophic collapse.

That memorable summer we clinched the Benson & Hedges Cup (55 overs a side), repeated the feat in ’82 and took Kent apart in the Nat West Trophy final (successor to the Gillette Cup) in ’83. After that, it all went horribly quiet. In 1985 the county tore itself in two, not over Brexit but on the thornier issue of whether to replace Richards with the younger and frankly more conscientious Kiwi, Martyn Crowe. Somerset hadn’t experienced such division since the Monmouth Rebellion three centuries earlier, and that hadn’t ended well! Despite my hero-worship of King Viv, I actually sided with the more forward-thinking members at SCCC. Richards departed, followed by his friends Garner and Botham and suddenly captain Peter Roebuck and Vic Marks were left with some mighty boots to fill.

The victory champagne dried up. For years, we couldn’t even finish second. It wasn’t until 2001 when Jamie Cox’s side ended the barren run with success over Leicestershire in the new 50-over C&G Trophy. It has since gone down in folklore because of Leicester seamer Scott Boswell’s nightmare second over, in which he bowled eight wides. Eight!

It wasn't as if we had no decent players. Quite the reverse. Talented locals like Vic Marks, Colin Dredge, Richard Harden and Marcus Trescothick were supplemented by imports such as Andy Caddick, Mushtaq Ahmed, Steve Waugh, Graeme Smith and Jimmy Cook. The latter spent only three years at Somerset, yet racked up 28 centuries and almost 7,000 first-class runs. And still we struggled.

Then in 2007, following the arrival of Justin Langer, a new golden age beckoned. We returned to Division One, tightened up on discipline and discovered that the exciting new Twenty20 format played towards our strengths. Somerset were great to watch, competing in every competition. And yet, for some reason, the fates conspired against us. Apart from the solitary T20 success in 2005, we crumbled under the weight of destiny and expectation. Between 2009 and 2012, we were beaten finalists five times in the Blast and 40-over CB40 trophy, and runners-up twice in the Championship. Surely we would win something? No.

For years, the Taunton pitch was notoriously batting-friendly, ideal for high scores but useless for taking the twenty wickets needed to win matches. But it did make for some incredible run chases. In 2009, I was invited to join some old BBC friends to watch day one of Somerset’s home fixture against Yorkshire. Jacques Rudolph piled on the runs and the draw seemed inevitable right until the final day. As I followed proceedings online, Arul Suppiah and Peter Trego crashed centuries in the last two sessions to pull off a remarkable victory. Heartwarming stuff. After that, no chase was impossible and opposing captains would henceforth be extremely wary of offering declarations.

Marcus Trescothick’s age and fitness have restricted his appearances but he resolutely refuses to retire until the elusive Championship pennant flutters proudly above Taunton. I fear he’ll have to be batting in a wheelchair. For all the talents of the much-loved Trego, James Hildreth, Lewis Gregory, Tom Abell, Jack Leach and the Overton twins, another county always seems to do just that little bit better. In 2018 it was Surrey, while an excellent T20 season ended in the semis. 

                                  

Could 2019 see us get over the line at last? Old hands like me fear the worst but if the planets of batting and bowling align, anything’s possible. Please let it happen, even if it’s just to see the smile on Marcus Trescothick’s face.

County Cricket - A Love Affair

Whilst much of my cricketing love is reserved for Somerset, a great deal of my affection remains concentrated upon the bigger picture, the structure which has supported Somerset and the other first-class counties since Victorian times. Whether as a supply line for the national teams or the stage for entertainment and competition in its own right, county cricket doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.

I remember once being at the first day of a Lord’s Test involving England and – I think – the West Indies. The tiers around me seemed filled by half of London’s market research community and indeed I was only there at the expense of the BBC, a very rare corporate ‘jolly’. I chatted to a colleague whom I considered a cricket fan. Remarking on the recent form of maybe Andrew Strauss or Darren Gough for Middlesex and Yorkshire I was struck by his reply: he had no knowledge of England players’ counties and, worse still, was completely uninterested. Would a football aficionado at Wembley be similarly ignorant about which clubs Harry Kane or Marcus Rashford represented in the Premier League?

This response got my hackles up but, even in the mid-Noughties, the writing had long been on the wall. The ECB’s central contract system severely weakened the link between England’s stars and the clubs that developed them into the biggest nations in cricket. Everything was geared to improving the chances of the national teams in the Ashes, World Cup or a tin-pot Twenty20 tournament, the counties receiving a few quid as a grudging compensatory ‘thank you’.

It’s the same with national media. Whereas in my younger days the centrepiece one-day final in September would generate genuine headlines, in these Ashes-dominated times any newspaper article would be relegated to the inside back pages beneath the angling and netball and – with the exception of Sky Sports - on TV there’d be nothing. I find that so sad.

For me, the County Championship remains the epitome of proper cricket. It’s not called ‘first-class’ for nothing. I’m not convinced about the value of a two-tier league system, though. If it was designed, like football’s PL, to make the rich richer and poor poorer, it’s not working. For example, in 2011, Lancashire clinched the title before spending the next four seasons in yo-yo mode. Despite the presence of Malan, Morgan, Finn, Robson et al even the rich men of Middlesex now languish in Division Two, just two years after finishing top of the tree.

Since the early Seventies, no county has displayed the all-important pennant for more than two consecutive seasons, although between 1979 and 1987 Essex and Middlesex almost made it a duopoly. Newcomers Durham were initially whipping boys in the Nineties but in the Noughties won two crowns on the trot. That made my frustration at Somerset’s lack of success even more acute. At least we are not alone; neither Northants and Gloucestershire have so far ended their drought.

Perhaps the two most compelling Championship chases occurred in 1981 and 2016. In a memorable summer of sport (and decent weather), while England were winning a memorable Ashes series, Sussex and Nottinghamshire were involved in a right old ding-dong. In the end, with Clive Rice and Richard Hadlee in top form, Notts narrowly nicked it. Just a few years ago, three sides went into the final day with a chance of success. Somerset had fulfilled their promise inside three days and hoped Middlesex and Yorkshire drew, a likely result. Then came a Toby Roland-Jones hat-trick and my hopes were dashed yet again.

The red-ball, white-flannelled game may be largely off even the Sky Sports  screens but at least it endures in Fantasy Cricket. Two decades ago Dad and I started participating in the Telegraph’s summer-long sister competition to its football one, and I have continued, albeit with an occasional hiatus, ever since. It keeps me grounded in the minutiae of the Championship. Where once it was necessary to assess the point-scoring potential of the Neil Lenhams, Adrian Dales or Alan Igglesdens, I now pore over the numbers for the Benny Howells, Tom Baileys and Billy Godlemans. Their faces may not be familiar but I have a fair feeling for whether they are good value for their Fantasy ‘price’!

I’ve written already about the role the John Player League played in the evolution of my relationship with cricket. With Dad I’d watch BBC2’s coverage on most Sunday afternoons and play in the garden afterwards. Furthermore it was the opening JPL fixture of the 1975 season which introduced me to the live experience at Chelmsford and the extraordinary batting of a 23 year-old Viv Richards.

Then there was the excitement of a knockout competition in the form of the 55-over Benson & Hedges (usually a July climax) and 60-over Gillette Cups (later the Nat West Trophy). In my mind, the Gillette final (before packed houses) and the following day’s Sunday League denouement (for instance, 1989) comprised the most electrifying weekend in the entire sporting calendar. Unlike the Championship, these benefited from network TV coverage and, for the decisive overs in the early evenings, healthy audiences way above anything Sky can generate nowadays in spite of the vast array of cameras and commentators employed.

The knockouts also offered the leading Minor Counties like Cornwall or Buckinghamshire and other outfits such as Scotland and even the Netherlands the opportunity to spring a surprise against the professionals. These days, the only new names in the domestic cricket pages of the Guardian or ESPN Cricinfo website are associated with whatever sponsor-friendly suffix counties adopt for the new T20 Blast campaign. With Warwickshire ditching the county name in preference for the Birmingham Bears, I fear the move to a city franchise system is looming ever closer.

That would be a calamity, but that’s what is earmarked for the forthcoming ‘Hundred’. I’ve not been immune to the charms of the Blast, even attending in person the 2012 Finals Day in Cardiff, but surely it’s important to harness the exuberance of short formats to county cricket rather than divorce the two permanently.

Whether a match lasts four hours or four days, county games deliver just as much drama, tension and enjoyment as anything served up by a Test or IPL clash; it’s just that the crowds are thinner, and TV cameras don’t like empty seats. County cricket has given me so much pleasure that it merits a much longer life, alongside the bigger bang of the five-day events. In any case, I don’t think England can manage without it.