Cricket
Spells of joy
Alan Gibson
rr he cricket season has not gripped me yet, partly because a difficulty in walk- ing, which the medical men cannot quite fathom, has prevented me from seeing very much. May's weather was incomparably better than last year's though June did not begin too confidently. But the chief diffi- culty in working up interest at this stage is the disparate nature of the fixture list. Jumping between the championship and the Benson & Hedges and back, with the Texaco one-day internationals shoved in the middle, makes it hard to establish a rhythm.
I have always thought that we have at 'I'm afraid what you have here is a worth- less forgery —mind you, the real thing's not worth much.' least one too many limited-over competi- tions. I have also always thought that, at least in England, three days should be enough for any cricket match. But I realise these are lost battles. Money talks: though why cricket is so obsessed by money I cannot imagine. The last, 17th county to join the championship was Glamorgan in 1921. Every year since then we have had cries of agony from one county or another, often several at a time, that they are going bust. None has. There have been no Accrington Stanleys. I do not think it would have deeply affected the future of cricket if some had: I am thinking of cricket as a game. The trouble is that cricket has ceased to be a game, and become a business. Boys who happen to be good at it take it up for ambition, principally financial ambition, not fun. There is very little genuine fun left in cricket, even at the lowest levels, since the manners and customs of the top sides, as seen on television, swiftly transmit themselves to the Junior Colts.
However, these are not new grouses, and may have something to do with my irritation at being lame. The game still commands an illogical affection. It gave me at least three spells of joy in the early weeks. The first was when Yorkshire beat Somerset, for, though I disapprove of Yorkshire's new arrangements, I cannot resist a cheer when they win. I doubt if they would have done if Boycott had been captain but Bairstow gave him a nudge in the fourth innings, as if to say – well, it might have been 'Shake a bridle over a Yorkshireman's grave and he will rise up and steal a horse', though I suspect he expressed himself more briefly and pungently. It was certainly not another famous Yorkshire phrase, 'We'll get 'ern in singles'.
The second was when the Combined Universities won at Bristol in the Benson & Hedges. There has been some sugges- tion lately that the Universities' matches against the counties should no longer be ranked first-class. This is a bad idea. It would make cricket a less attractive prop- osition to many young men who otherwise might give a few useful and pleasing years to it, and it would detract from the value to the counties of these early trials. There is still a touch of magic glowing amidst even what some call the ashes of University cricket, and bright sparks sometimes fly up from them. Miller and Carr, who were the principal executants against Gloucester- shire, may well be two who play for England. They are both lined up for Middlesex already. Also the previous week, the Universities had pushed Surrey very closely. They still provide a substan- tial number of county players, and even England players – Marks and Pringle are recent names that come to mind. Roebuck cannot be far away, though as a colleague on the Times observed recently, he does not yet bat so fluently as he writes.
And the third joyous spell, which I only saw on television (not a way I like watching cricket) was the innings of Vivian Richards in the first Texaco international. When you see batting like that, even at second hand, patriotism flies out of the window. All that mattered was that he should not get out. I am told that Englishmen often felt the same way when Bradman was batting, but I never saw Bradman in his prime, and I cannot quite imagine that even he had the commanding, masterful, bold presence of Richards in that innings. His innings at Lord's was a lesser miracle, because he had more support at the other end, but still another beauty. He is not the best batsman I have seen (for I did see Bradman, and as a child Hobbs, and I saw Headley and Hammond and Hutton and Compton and – a closer comparison – Barry Richards) but when he is 'on song', in a phrase cricketers use, none is more compelling to the eye,
Previous page
