SPECTATOR SPORT
Immortal lines
Frank Keating
THE FINAL surprise of September is to have unsung John Carr of Middlesex headi- ly top of the first-class batting averages. On merit too — 1,542 runs at 90 with six 100s and seven 50s — and all achieved with the most quaintly ugly stance in cricket in which, at one and the same time, he looks mid-on squarely in the eye while contorting his body and wide-apart feet to face extra cover. Crowds laugh, bowlers and fielders complain of disorientation — and John plunders. Good for him, and for Repton which has always encouraged individuality.
At summer's end, it is a tie for the best one-liner of the season. On the morning of 4 June, Warwickshire's meaty and mirthful left-hander Roger Twose, hot from scoring 277 the previous week, went out to resume his partnership for Warwickshire with Brian Lara, who was on 111 overnight. Roger jestingly chided Brian: 'You're just a glam, fast-century flashpot. Why don't you set out your stall for really big jobs in the late 200s like I do?'
By the end of that unforgettable day, of course, Lara's undefeated 501 had left Twose's 277 far behind.
The afternoon before, the other immor- tal line had been uttered, this time by the Durham wicketkeeper, Christopher Scott. Lara had scored 18 when Scott allowed a straightforward catch to drop through his gloves. 'Damn,' he muttered to first slip, 'I bet he'll go and get a century now.' Another of the summer's poignant sen- tences of resonance was that of Michael Atherton's schoolmaster father, Alan, when the elusive young England captain tele- phoned home from the Lake District the week after the Lord's Test match — 'On no account resign, else it will be all you'll ever be remembered for.'
The retirement of David Graveney means 1995 will be the first summer since 1947 (when his father Ken began for Gloucestershire, a year before his uncle Tom) that a Graveney has not been involved in county cricket.
But at 41 David was by no means the vet- eran of the circuit. For Sussex last week awarded another year's contract to that tubby enthusiast Eddie Hemmings, who will be 46 in February. Once, touring with England in Australia ten years ago, they released a squealing, plump piglet onto the field, with the legend 'Eddie' daubed on both sides.
Hemmings took 'all ten' a dozen years ago for the Rest of the World X1 v. West Indies in Jamaica. I asked him who had played for West Indies that day. `Oh, heck, I can't remember things like that,' he said. I looked up the batting order. It began Greenidge, Haynes, Rowe, Lloyd, Dujon . . . `Oh, really,' says Eddie, matter-of-fact. `All I recall is that for every bag of bound- aries they hit, they then made a mistake, one by one.' He took 10 for 175 in 49 overs. `All history now, and I'd readily swop those ten any day for two or three "five-fors" for Sussex next season.'
It will be Hemmings's 30th in first-class cricket. Graveney had 23; his most stimulat- ing the last three when he captained Durham's entry into the county champi- onship. He is a chartered accountant, but I fancy he will not long be lost to cricket and will return pronto to his beloved game in an important administra- tive job. Possibly because he can now recol- lect in tranquillity, rather than be full of beans for next summer's possibilities, David's memory for detail is more vivid than Eddie's. They each bowled their twirly-whirlies against the world's finest batsmen.
Who were the very best? 'For the ability to murder you with elegance and charm, scarcely breaking sweat, no doubt about it,' says Graveney, 'the three finest were Zaheer Abbas, Majid Khan and Carl Hooper.'
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