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  THE SPECTATOR

  It was a hot day and the flies were constantly buzzing around the captain’s immortal Harlequin cap. As he swatted energetically at one particularly persistent gnat a voice, which had been administering advice to the players all day, rose again above the hubbub: ‘And keep yer bloody hands off our flies, Jardine.’

  Amateur cricket is for players first, spectators second, but there is a good case for that order of precedence to be reversed if the game is to continue as a professional sport. All too often players (and umpires) who ultimately rely upon spectators to pay their wages break faith with them by looking too concerned about getting back to the dressing-room in uninviting weather conditions. Sometimes, of course, it is an illusion: playing conditions may be genuinely impossible when the sun has come out after rain – even though there is no reason apparent to inadequately informed spectators why cricket is not taking place. Bad public relations and a failure by players and umpires to be seen to be doing their best to get the game going are often to blame for the crowd fury which leads to riots amongst volatile onlookers like those in the Caribbean and to the kind of fracas which demeaned the Saturday of the Centenary Test at Lord’s in 1980.

  It is usually the occasional cricket watchers, not the regulars, who make most noise. At such disappointing moments the hardened spectators, at least in England, tend to react with a philosophical smile. The real devotees – those faithful zealots who spend much of their summer watching county cricket and many of their winter evenings talking about the game as members of their local cricket society – are well prepared for rain. An umbrella goes up, a plastic macintosh is unrolled and put on, a cheese roll comes out of the basket and a book on cricket is read or the crossword patiently attended to until the fatal announcement that there will be no further play today.

  Spectators reflect the region or country they come from more clearly than players. One Southern enthusiast up to watch a Test in Leeds was unwise enough to go off to get a sandwich and a beer at lunchtime, leaving his hat on his seat to show that it was taken. When he got back a thick-set miner was firmly established and no other space was visible. The hat was on the ground near the miner’s large black boots. ‘Excuse me,’ said the Southerner politely, ‘but I think you are sitting in my seat by mistake. That’s my hat.’ The miner fixed him with an icy stare and replied: ‘Up ’ere lad, it’s bums what bags seats, not ’ats.’

  The cricket supporters of Yorkshire are second to none in their enthusiasm for and knowledge of the game. They can take a bit of time to get to know you, though. I have kindly been asked to make several visits to address the famous Wombwell Cricket Lovers Society, which is run from Barnsley with breathless energy by their secretary Jack Sokell. On my first visit I was presented with a handsome glass mug on which a local artist had cleverly engraved a very good likeness of my face. Attempting to break the ice, I began my talk by saying: ‘First I must thank you all for presenting me with this ugly mug.’ I meant, of course, my own, but as I looked along the serried ranks of sturdy miners, not a flicker of amusement showed on any face.

  Nothing so inhibits a speaker as one of his jokes going down like a lead balloon, but the first impression was wrong. I soon found out that the men (and a few women) of the Wombwell society are warm people with a lively sense of humour. So too are the members of the Northern Cricket Society, the Sheffield Cricket Lovers, the Lancashire, the Stourbridge, the Hampshire, the Essex . . . The movement has grown rapidly in recent years, all over Britain and in one or two other countries too. The Cricket Society itself, father of them all, now has some 2,200 members. Their members are the faithful souls who would rather go without bread than give up membership of their county club and who make sure, when England are touring Australia, that the alarm is set to go off five minutes before the early morning broadcast begins. No doubt that same philosophical smile greets every England collapse.

  Some of the more wealthy or adventurous of this ilk have in recent years taken to spending their holidays watching M.C.C. – or England, as they now are – battling it out overseas. The players do not wholly approve. Whereas their leisure activities off the field used to be watched in the old days by a few journalists, they are now also under scrutiny from critical holiday-makers, some of whom think it wrong if the players are not in the nets all day and living quiet, abstemious lives by night. Even journalists sometimes feel that their private reserve has been intruded upon. These people should be back at home reading and listening, not coming out to see for themselves! This may sound a mean and illogical feeling, but I can only say that I have shared it; in a way it is because a cosy party has been invaded, and also because people joining a tour for only a fortnight or so tend to make instant judgments about what is going on without knowing the whole picture.

  In the 1981 Barbardos Test a whole stand at the Kensington Oval was filled with British supporters and it was said that half the rest of the crowd were relatives of Roland Butcher! It was different when only a few could afford to follow the tour. The 1970–71 series in Australia was watched from first match to last by two well-to-do English gentlemen, John Gardiner and Geoffrey Saulez. The former became the driving force behind the ‘I.C.C. Trophy’ which brought the little cricket nations of the world to England to play in the World Cup, and the latter has since become England’s regular scorer on overseas tours, paying most of his own expenses. So fanatical is Geoffrey Saulez that he scores for Pakistan or the West Indies or any country that will have him when his own is inactive.

  He is a large, intelligent man with a nose like that of Mr Punch and he sometimes terrorizes fellow-scorers during matches overseas if they do not come up to his high standards. He also reads every hotel bill with the same fastidiousness and usually finds an error! He is probably the ultimate cricket spectator because I believe he must see more cricket matches each year than any living man.

  Australian spectators have a reputation for the quick-witted piece of barracking which happily the mindless yelling of thousands of okkers in recent seasons has not altogether snuffed out. The first time Derek Randall batted in Australia after this triumph in the Centenary Test in Melbourne was in a country match early in the 1978–79 tour. He studiously played a maiden over, whereupon a bearded man near to where I was walking round the boundary put down his can of beer, cupped his hands and shouted: ‘Aw, come on, Randall, you couldn’t get a kick out of an electric chair!’

  It was on the previous tour that Colin Cowdrey had come bravely out to face the fury of Lillee and Thomson exactly twenty years after taking on Lindwall and Miller on his first tour. As the first of many bouncers whistled past Cowdrey’s left shoulder an encouraging voice said: ‘That’s the spirit, Thommo, rattle out a tune on his false teeth!’

  All Pommy players are fair game. Trevor Bailey, who used to win grudging admiration from Australian crowds for his bloody-minded batting, had a habit of bowling one imaginary ball when he came on to bowl in order to get his run-up correct. He did this when England took the new ball ten minutes from the end of the day at Brisbane in 1954, Australia having lost only two wickets in humid heat. As he completed his practice run a man shouted: ‘And that’s the best bloody ball you’ve bowled all day, Boiley.’

  Freddie Brown got the treatment on the previous tour. He had been front-page news one morning after hitting a lamp standard in a car the previous night. When a wild swipe at a Lindwall outswinger failed to make contact by some distance the reaction was swift, if predictable: ‘Pity you didn’t miss the lamp too, Brownie.’

  Another England captain, J.W.H.T. Douglas, whose initials the Melbourne crowd believed stood for ‘Johnny Won’t Hit Today,’ drew the agonized plea during a long, defensive innings: ‘Fetch a cop someone and pinch that bugger for loitering.’ And Trevor Bailey, batting at Sydney, was once asked two pertinent questions: ‘Why don’t you drop dead Boiley? Or are you?’ When it comes to slow play, in fact, Australians themselves do not escape. ‘Slasher’ Mackay, Queensland’s stubborn left-
hander, was told by a bored spectator: ‘Blimey Mackay, you’ll never die of a stroke,’ and Jimmy Burke was informed during a patient rearguard action: ‘Burke, you’re like a bloody statue. I wish I was a pigeon.’

  ‘Yabba,’ the humourist of the Sydney Hill before World War II, used to be an entertainment in himself. He it was, I believe, who first suggested to a bowler who was continually beating the bat: ‘Send ’im down a grand piano, mate, and see if he can play that!’ To less successful bowlers he would yell: ‘Yer length is lousy but yer width’s pretty good.’ When Charles Kelleway took a long time to get off the mark and finally did so with a quick single he shouted: ‘Whoa there, he’s bolted.’ And when Maurice Tate, always having trouble with his boots, bent once again to do up his laces, Yabba called: ‘Thank goodness he’s not a flaming centipede.’

  But the last word shall be with an English spectator. In the Lord’s Pavilion they tend to be either very knowledgeable or very ignorant about the game. The Lord’s Taverners once had a match at headquarters during which Norman Wisdom got himself into a succession of hilarious running tangles in partnership with Roy Castle. An elderly gentleman with a moustache and panama hat, obviously not quite sure what match he was watching, turned to his neighbour with a half-smile and said: ‘That chap ought to be a comedian, y’know.’

  HIGHER THINGS

  For 16- and 17-years-olds the shock of playing competitively with adults can be quite severe, both physically and psychologically, not least for the promising youngster who aspires to county cricket. Nowadays it may be less daunting for some than it used to be partly because the young are no longer brought up to believe that all elders are betters. Moreover, most counties now have teams at various age-levels so that an improving player can move by logical stages up the pyramid. This has been the case in Australia, where the grade system toughens the competitive instincts by giving each player one higher step to aim for all the way from country team to the Test eleven.

  Even after the abolition of distinctions between amateur and professional cricketers in England after 1962, it took some time for the system to change at junior level. What still tended to happen was that good young school cricketers were seen either as potential members of the county staff, or as ‘Young Amateurs,’ probably bound for university. Young amateur cricket was fun, although there was always the apprehension, not present in schools games, of having to play with team-mates one had only just met.

  Arthur McIntyre, coach at The Oval for many years, used to take a keen interest in Y.A. games, although he was sparing with his praise and sometimes caustic in his criticism in the old professional tradition that nothing should be easily gained. When it came to playing Club-and-Ground cricket – matches played by representative county elevens against the best clubs – and occasional Second XI matches, the young amateur with little chance of ever making the county team tended to find himself going in at number seven with little hope, on good wickets, of getting a proper bat, and the all-rounder usually got a bowl only when the regulars were tired or a long stand was in progress. I once dismissed Alvin Kallicharran for 94 with a long hop at The Oval in just such circumstances. Rightly, no doubt, I was immediately taken off on the grounds that lightning never strikes twice in the same place!

  THE CATCH THAT NEVER WAS

  So convinced was J. Southerton (Surrey) that a skier he struck against M.C.C. Club and Ground in 1870 would be caught, he set off for the pavilion without waiting to see whether the fielder would safely take it. In fact he dropped it, and the scorebook records the innings as:

  ‘J. Southerton – retired, thinking he was caught – 0.’

  To become a professional cricketer requires dedication. Those Young Amateurs of the ’60s who were unable to go to university when the academic demands became greater, often found that it was easier to mix with other members of the county staff if they cast off any evidence of their privileged public-school education. But whatever their background those who aspire to play cricket for a living have always had to go through a tough apprenticeship. Old pros will tell you how easy it is nowadays compared with former times when a good deal more time was spent in the nets, tirelessly working on techniques of batting and bowling, and when rewards were smaller and less easily gained. This is undoubtedly so, but the modern county cricketer has to cope with a variety of different cricket tempos – from the three-day fox-trot through the 60-over quick-step to the 40-over Charleston. The experienced South African giant Vintcent Van der Bijl, who had such a successful season for Middlesex in 1980, thought it a daunting task for the young player to ‘adapt like a seasoned professional to the many types of wickets and conditions against not only players of England but international players from overseas.’

  All but the occasional prodigy, like a David Gower or an Ian Botham (and even they have had lean times at county level) must be very patient and long-suffering. The path to glory, and affluence through a tax-free benefit, is often made with bare feet through nettles. It is much more than simply a question of the nervous feeling in the pit of the stomach when the young cricketer goes to a major county ground to share a dressing-room with players he may have adulated only a year or two before. It is a lad of strange confidence who at first does not feel out of place and out of his depth. These feelings soon pass and most people relax, encouraged by the feeling that they have grown up, cheered also by the banter which goes on in any dressing-room. The real test of character comes when keen and gifted young players, anxious to get to the top, quickly find themselves spending season after season as Second XI cricketers. Rivalry for the rare chances to play a game or two in the First XI – even if it is only in a limited-over game – can become bitter as the season wears on and the fateful day draws near, towards the end of August, when the county’s committee make their decision about who will and who will not be retained on the staff. Often it is a hit and miss business and only the genius is certain of a quick rise to the top.

  I remember Geoff Howarth, for example, now a highly successful Test batsman and captain, struggling for year after year in the lower reaches of the Surrey staff at The Oval, and another Surrey batsman of the period, Roy Lewis, a name few will remember now although in 38 matches spread over six seasons between 1968 and 1973 he averaged 29 with the bat, better than – to take two players at random – ‘Shrimp’ Leveson-Gower and Harry Jupp, who both played for England in different eras. Lewis also had the same average exactly as Donald Knight, an England player of high class, and Alf Jeacocke, a fixture in the Surrey side for many years. What made Lewis – and many others like him in many other counties that one could think of – different? The answer may be partly that it is a matter of luck and partly also that, in the old cliché, cricket is more than a game, more than a matter of runs and wickets. As in every profession a face must fit if it is to be accepted, and (again, always excepting the genius) things must be done in the ‘right’ way. I remember one batsman on the Surrey staff unleashing a splendid array of strokes in the last over before lunch and then being out l.b.w. to the last ball as he tried to sweep an off-spinner with his front foot a good way down the pitch. Arthur McIntyre’s scorn for this display was made clearly apparent. He never became a regular county player and I doubt if it would have been different anywhere else.

  Another illustration of the somewhat haphazard nature of the early days of a county cricketer was provided recently by Hugh Wilson, the tall young fast bowler who played several matches for Hampshire’s Second XI and Club and Ground in the summer after he had left Wellington. Surrey spotted his potential, offered him terms, and he had just played his first Championship match for them, with some success, when he received a letter from Hampshire’s coach offering him ‘a game or two for the Second XI again this season.’ Wilson got quite close to selection for the England tour of Australia in 1979–80 but spent most of 1980 back in the Surrey Second XI. Again, Paul Downton, who won his first England cap in Trinidad in 1981, had been a Second XI player for both Kent and Middlesex only a few
months before.

  The best job a young professional can land remains one on the Lord’s Ground Staff, as Fred Titmus, Ian Botham and many others will confirm. Much of their life is menial in the extreme, with hours and days spent rolling pitches, selling scorecards, taking covers on and off the square and making up the numbers in M.C.C. sides of varying quality. But the members of the Lord’s staff get a broad experience under wise guidance from old pros like Len Muncer and Harry Sharpe. It is said of Sharpe that he was approached one evening in the early summer of 1957 – just as he was clearing up the gear after a long and tiring day in the nets – by the fierce young fast bowler Roy Gilchrist, who was eager for his first bat of the tour. ‘Me Roy Gilchrist,’ the conversation began. ‘This ball. You bowl.’ Sharpe’s reply was as his name. ‘Me Harry Sharpe. This ball. You f . . . off!’

  COUNTY CRICKET

  A county cricketer’s life has its drawbacks: little time is spent at home; it is physically demanding and mentally stressful since earning a good living depends more on personal performance than it does in most jobs; but very few of the 340-odd cricketers currently employed by the county clubs would swap their life of cameraderie in the open air for a nine-to-five job behind closed doors.

  Frustrations exist, however, even in the best of jobs. In the days when the Pakistan Test cricketer Majid Khan was captaining Glamorgan, the team had to travel by coach one Saturday night all the way from Swansea to Buxton in Derbyshire for a John Player League match the next day. Late at night the coach pulled up at the appointed inn. It was quite a small place and Mein Host looked rather aggrieved to hear a knock on his bolted front door.