SPECTATOR SPORT
Inspired by genius
Frank Keating
WHILE Warwickshire's sudden springtime signing of Brian Lara was certainly a volup- tuous coup for county cricket, it has to be said that the Edgbaston team's astonishing, sustained, and hitherto unconsidered assault on all four season's trophies — the brace of knockout cups and the two league competitions — has been mounted by a col- lectively vibrant show from the workaday and unsung also-rans on the county's staff. They have carried Lara around the shires as a regal top of the bill, and are happy to admit with wonder that what has rubbed off is their ability to be inspired to raise their own game.
Warwickshire's phenomenal and unprecedented run — no county side has ever before been favourites challenging for the quartet of prizes in mid-August — is to the immense credit of their captain withthe audacious and appealing swagger, Dermot Reeve.
When the resplendent aura-laden Lara walked into the Edgbaston dressing-room in April, Roger Twose, the county bits-and- pieces pro, jokily hung a sign on his own changing-place peg, proclaiming 'World's Second-best Lefthand Bat', Inside the next couple of months the jesting, insecure prophecy might even have become halfway to being true as Twose was inspired to go out to bat with a prolific greed that amazed even his best friends. Twose has gone in first to sweep and tidy the stage for the great man's entrance, then shared many a stand with him, marvelling from 22 yards away. Says Twose: `When I've got out I'll take off my pads and just sit and watch Brian from the pavil- ion, His arrival was some sort of destiny and his genius has rubbed off and I have discovered a shining new confidence in myself. Don't get excited, I cannot remotely emulate him shot for shot; technically, he is a complete one-off genius. But his approach fascinates me and has allowed me to learn. For a classic bat, his footwork is not governed by the manual, and his "top hand" play is definitely not from the MCC coaching book. It is his phenomenal eye married with his quite breath-taking attack- ing instincts which make him so irresistible. Brian's simple philosophy is to consider every single ball as an opportunity to score a boundary. Of course, he cannot do so every time, so he adapts his stroke accord- ingly. But he knows, and the bowler cer- tainly knows, how basic and stark the chal- lenge is.'
Two other men, knowing old seen-it-all pros, have been near perfect foils in War- wickshire's glorious run: the nicely reac- tionary coach Bob Woolmer, and — stand- ing lollingly at slip, hands in pockets and more often than not whistling like an errand boy — Dermot Reeve, whose cava- lier impudence, especially in the tense gloaming of the one-dayers, does not miss a trick.
Reeve's appealing colonial strut is gen- uine — he was born and brought up in Hong Kong, where his father was headmas- ter of King George V school in Kowloon. At 18, he joined the Lord's ground staff. `We lived in digs, sold scorecards, rolled the pitch and, worst of all, cleaned the pavilion windows. I was by myself on the old manual scoreboard the day Roland Butcher flogged Yorkshire all over St John's Wood for 199. Every day I walked through the Grace Gates with my obsession fired by the little kid's daydream: "If Denis Compton and Ian Botham could become household names from being a Lord's ground staff oik, then so can I".'
If Warwickshire win even an unprece- dented three out of four, Reeve's fame as a captain will be deservedly assured in the all-time pantheon.
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