Summer of '65, David Green: book

summer of '65 David Green

summer of '65 David Green

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by TME Publishing, Quorn, Leicestershire Copyright David Green & MBP Sports Media, 2015 The author wishes to thank MBP Sports Media www.mbpsportsmedia.co.uk for help in the publication of this book Copies of David Green’s first book, A Handful of Confetti (TME Publishing, £12.99 including P&P), can also be purchased by emailing your order, in the first instance, to sales@mbpsportsmedia.co.uk Design: www.alisoncooper.com ISBN: 978-0-9566542-9-8 Print: XXXXX All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the copyright holders, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for insertion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast, nor be otherwise circulated in any form or binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

Front cover picture of Scarborough Cricket Club: Patrick Eagar www.patrickeagar.com Other photographs in this book are used courtesy of Glamorgan Cricket Archives, Lancashire County Cricket Club, Sussex County Cricket Club, Worcestershire County Cricket Club and Patrick Eagar.

Thanks are due to the Reverend Malcolm Lorimer, Ken Grime, Stephen Chalke, Andrew Hignell, John Curtis, Rob Boddie, Tim Jones (Worcestershire Heritage Group), and Paul Ricketts.

PREFACE Mini-skirts started to appear on the streets of Britain in 1965, and it was a development that did not go unnoticed among the nation’s county cricketers.

The 1960s, indeed, was a time of huge social change, in this country and across the Western world, and at the age of 25 I was a young man ready and willing to embrace those changes. Not that you could live the life of a Rolling Stone, or a Beatle, on a county cricketer’s wage.

School, just outside of Stockport. I was to repeat this winter employment in the 1965-66 off-season, while also turning out, as an amateur of course, for Sale Rugby Football Club.

Fifty years on, and with the benefit of seeing how difficult it is for younger people to get on the housing ladder nowadays, it is remarkable to recall that by the time I was readying myself for the 1965 cricket season I was already living in my own house. I should say ‘our own house’, actually, because I had married Gina in September 1963 and, after a year of renting and saving up for a deposit, we had bought a three-bedroom Victorian semi-detached in Altrincham during the 1964-65 winter.

I was paid around £1,500 for my season’s work with Lancashire in the summer of ’65, which was made up of a basic salary of £1,100 plus around £400 to £450 in appearance money and win bonuses.

Then there was a little bit extra, on top of that, for being chosen to represent MCC and T.N. Pearce’s XI, in matches staged at the beginning and at the end of the season at Lord’s and Scarborough.

It cost us £2,250, although we also had to spend a further £250 immediately to get it re-wired and to install some central heating. Furthermore, on March 31 1965, a matter of weeks before the start of the new season, my elder son Daniel was born. I therefore went into

Additionally, I also earned about £500 during the winter of 1964-65 for teaching English, and taking a bit of sport, at Denton ‘Two Trees’ Secondary Modern

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that summer at a moment of great change in my own life: I had a first child, a first house and a wife to look after. I also had new responsibilities at Lancashire, as I had been appointed vice-captain to Brian Statham and understood that, even if injury or an England call did not take Brian out of the county team, he might well be rested for certain games and I would have to captain the side in his absence.

In effect, however, and as a moderatelypaid and still relatively youthful county cricketer, my annual earnings were roughly the equivalent of the price of a semi-detached house in the southwestern suburbs of Manchester. What would a three-bedroomed semi cost in Altrincham today, I wonder?

Actually, I’ve just looked it up and it’s around £300,000. I bet the 25-year-old Lancashire players of today aren’t on that!

a shilling, and a gallon of petrol was less than five shillings.

television you could watch The Man from Uncle, The Virginian, and Thunderbirds.

The average annual salary was around £1,250, so with teaching on top of cricket I was earning above the average wage – which was between £20 and £25 per week. But it wasn’t a whole lot more than that and yet I still felt reasonably flush. Tax did not bite so hard in those days and I lost only £200 or so to the Inland Revenue, NI etc. I suppose if you were earning around £2,000 a year you were doing pretty nicely, and what I do know is that I appreciated being a professional cricketer and the lifestyle it brought. I enjoyed the camaraderie, and the game, although at times it could be hard and cruel if you were short of form and runs.

Keith Peacock, of Charlton Athletic, became in August 1965 the first footballer to appear as a substitute in a Football League match, while Manchester United took the First Division title earlier in the year and Liverpool won the FA Cup for the first time in their history, beating Leeds United at Wembley with goals by Roger Hunt and Ian St John.

England, of course, had another year still to wait before winning the World Cup at Wembley, and Bobby Moore was yet to pause and wipe his muddied hands on the velvet rail of the Royal Box before receiving the Jules Rimet Trophy from The Queen.

I was more of a Ray Charles and Rolling Stones fan than a Beatles one, even though the mop-haired Fab Four were getting to the height of their fame in 1965, releasing four albums and playing the world’s first major stadium concert at Shea Stadium in New York. By the end of a year which had begun solemnly with Sir Winston Churchill’s death and state funeral, in January, the Beatles had played their last live tour of the UK.

What this all shows is how much farther your money seemed to go in the midSixties, and the really remarkable thing, looking back, is that in that summer of 1965 – and despite the massive and recent change in my home life – I can’t remember ever thinking I was hard up, or that I didn’t have any spare cash for a few beers or a bag of fish and chips when I was out on the county circuit.

It was also a year in which 35,000 people marched in Washington in protest at the Vietnam War, while the number of US troops engaged in that conflict rose to 125,000. Ronnie Biggs, the Great Train Robber, escaped from Wandsworth Prison and fled to Brazil. The Post Office Tower opened in London, the 70 miles per hour speed limit was imposed on British roads, The Sound of Music was released, as was the James Bond film Goldfinger, and on (black and white)

It was one shilling and five old pence for a pint of ale, or ‘one and six’ at some of the better-class establishments. It was a penny or two on top of that if you were in London. An ice cream, or a Mars bar, would be about sixpence and a newspaper around the same. Even a packet of fags was not much more than

PREFACE

I well remember the time – during one of my early seasons with Lancashire – when we arrived at Hove station in the early hours of the day on which we were due to start a three-day game against Sussex.

It was around 1am, or perhaps even later, and there weren’t any taxis outside the station. In the end, we just started to hail passing cars and that’s how we got to our digs in Hove. Blokes driving home from a lock-in in the pub were transporting the Lancashire cricketers to their hostelry in the dead of night. You couldn’t have made it up.

There were also lots of long nights, and long days, in the life of a county cricketer in the English summer of ’65. Men’s hair was getting longer too, but at least those women’s skirts were getting shorter.

Of more than passing interest to county cricketers, in that year of 1965, was the expansion of the country’s still fledgling motorway network. New sections of the M4 between Slough and London, the M6 between Preston and Lancaster, the M1 from Kegworth in Leicestershire to Rugby, the M2 in Kent and the M5 west of Birmingham were opened, and any newly-opened stretch of fast road was welcome news for those of us who spent the summer months criss-crossing the nation to get from game to game in what was a tightly-packed county schedule.

Most of our journeys were by car, with people taking it in turns to drive or be a passenger. I remember I wanted to be the driver most of the time. We did go by train on occasions, during the 1960s, but this was more complicated from a baggage point of view. It was far easier just to throw your bags into the car. Train connections could also be a problem, and sometimes caused aggravating delays, and

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contents 1

Preface

9

Introduction

13

Chapter One: MCC Calls

19

Chapter Two: A Drubbing at Taunton

27

Chapter Three: A Duck and Another Defeat

35

Chapter Four: Runs at Last

41

Chapter Five: Cut Down in the Gillette

49

Chapter Six: Succour at Aigburth

57

Chapter Seven: In Dread of Fred

65

Chapter Eight: Captain of a Ship in Distress

75

Chapter Nine: Festival Frolics

85

Chapter Ten: Defeat in West Wales

93

Chapter Eleven: High Summer, Low Points

103

Chapter Twelve: Closey and a Roses Thrashing

113

Chapter Thirteen: Back-to-Back Victories

123

Chapter Fourteen: Season’s Best

131

Chapter Fifteen: A Bowlers’ Game

139

Chapter Sixteen: Campaign’s End

147

Chapter Seventeen: Two Thousand Up

156

Index

xxxxx

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CONTENTS

David Green pulls against Middlesex at Lord’s, watched by (left to right) Peter Parfitt, Fred Titmus and John Murray

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INTRODUCTION Fifty years on, it is still what I am most remembered for as a cricketer and, when you look at it dispassionately, I suppose no one will ever score 2,000 first-class runs in an English season again without ever getting to a century.

upheaval for my first county, but above all it has been my intention to use the ‘diary of a season’ mechanism to capture a time when domestic cricket was, in character, very different from what it is today.

Particularly, I wanted to commit to paper my memories and recollections of many of the cricketers I played with and against in 1965, and the life we led.

There are simply not enough first-class matches played now between April to September for anyone to have even the chance to do so. In 1965 my final tally was 2,037 runs from 63 innings at an average of 32.85 and a top score of 85. Therefore, if I am to remain the only player in cricket history to have achieved such a feat, and despite the passing of so many years I remain unsure if achievement is exactly the right word to describe it, then writing a book about my unique statistical claim to fame is the least I can do.

It is difficult for me to feel too much pride about topping two thousand runs without ever once raising my blade in gladiatorial triumph to the cheering masses on account of reaching a hundred. Indeed, I should have gone on to score a century on more than several occasions that summer, but perhaps the reason I never did was part of my wider failure to hit loftier heights as a first-class batsman.

One particular innings from 1965 sums up that season for me. I made 78 in our first innings against Leicestershire at Old Trafford after we had bowled out Leicestershire for 59, Ken Higgs taking

The following pages will not, however, be primarily about me. Yes, they will chart my progress with bat in hand throughout the wet summer of ’65, and that of Lancashire’s team during a year of

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series against the Springboks. I also averaged 34.30 in the championship in 1965, slightly above my final first-class average for that season, and my 1,784 championship runs is definitely something to crow quietly about considering it was a summer dominated by bowlers.

seven for 19 on a firm pitch that seamed a little. Geoff Pullar and I put on 89 for our first wicket. We were around 140 for two when Mick Beddow joined me.

Mick was new to the side and though he had played Rugby League for St Helens he was clearly a bit nervous. He pushed a ball into the inner ring, and then uttered the immortal words: ‘Yes, no, wait – sorry’. I was run out after trying unsuccessfully to get back to the non-striker’s crease. We collapsed after that, all out 201. If we had got 300 or so Leicestershire would have been out of it, but as it was they made well over 300 at their second attempt, setting us a target we never looked like reaching, so we drew when we should clearly have won.

Brian Statham, still Lancashire’s spearhead that year, as he would remain until his retirement in 1968, finished with 137 wickets at 12.4 runs apiece, and yet ended up only third in the national firstclass bowling averages behind Harold Rhodes and Brian Jackson of Derbyshire.

In the batting list, just five players with more than ten innings to their names (Colin Cowdrey, Tom Graveney, Peter Parfitt, John Edrich and Basil D’Oliveira) averaged above 40 in championship cricket, which to modern eyes is an extraordinarily low number. Yet it shows how difficult it was to make consistently large scores during that particular season, with dampness often around on uncovered championship pitches, and indeed any average above 30 was a good return for the professional county batsmen of that time.

I was good enough in a first-class career that lasted from 1959 to 1970 to score 13,381 runs overall from 266 matches, but from 479 innings in total there were only 14 hundreds and my career batting average of 28.83, despite the uncovered pitches and many outgrounds that we played on in that era, also tells a story.

I did take more than a hundred firstclass wickets, mind you, so I often made an additional contribution as a bowler and, especially later in my career at Gloucestershire, I was classed as an allrounder in limited-overs cricket.

Cowdrey, who topped the 1965 championship batting averages, totalled 1,230 runs from 24 innings at 64.73 – a magnificent record – while Graveney, in second place, averaged 48.11 from 44 innings and scored 1,684 runs. Edrich, in fourth spot, had 1,513 runs from 34 innings at 47.28. Eleven players averaged more than I did, having batted for ten innings or more, but no one topped my total; Eric Russell of Middlesex was the nearest with 1,724 at 39.18 from 48 innings.

What does make me proud, however, when contemplating that 1965 season, is scoring more county championship runs than any other player that year. John Edrich, of Surrey and England, would probably have ended up with more than me had he not missed several games after being hit on the head by Peter Pollock, the South Africa fast bowler, during the first Test of England’s

INTRODUCTION

In 63 innings overall I went past fifty on 14 occasions. Again, like the inability to push on from fifty-plus into three figures, there were many times when a good thirty or forty-odd should have been converted into at least a half-century. This was probably because I was essentially an aggressive player. Of course, there were times when I could only score slowly but I was always happier playing shots, and if you are doing that you are giving the bowler a chance.

However, if I am honest, another reason for my getting out so often after establishing myself, was that I was at that stage an uncertain player of spin, tending to make brisk runs against the seamers before being undone when the twirlymen came on. This weakness was not so glaring after my move to Gloucestershire, where I had the benefit of skilled tuition on playing spin bowling from Arthur Milton and John Mortimore.

Learning the physical and mental skills required to play first-class cricket successfully was, in my era and that those that went before, a discipline that each individual player largely had to work out for himself. I tended to create selfsufficient cricketers, however, and I have never thought that a bad thing.

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PRE-SEASON Some counties now go to the Caribbean, or to South Africa or the Middle-East, as part of their pre-season preparation. A gaggle of accompanying back-room staff also packs its tubes of sun cream and pre-season, in effect, now sometimes starts in November. In 1965, when county cricketers were employed only for six months a year, we reported back on April 1 and spent most of that month readying ourselves for the long campaign ahead.

April Fools Day. It always seemed an appropriate day for digging out the kit from the year before and meeting up again with those you were destined to spend virtually every waking hour with until September. The County Championship didn’t start until the first week of May, but there was usually a match against either Oxford or Cambridge University to play before the championship got under way and – if the weather was kind – we would organise a number of inter-squad matches at Old Trafford to get some match practice under our belts.

Net practice was outside whenever the elements allowed, and fielding practice, but if it was raining we went into the Indoor School nets. There was also some physical training – some sprint work, and general running and exercising – plus a few games of football to get a bit of a sweat on. There wasn’t a gymnasium at Old Trafford, though; cricketers in the 1960s were not required to do any weight training or bench press the equivalent of a Harry Pilling or two.

CHAPTER ONE: MCC CALLS The summer of 1965 was a watershed for English cricket. Ted Dexter, who captained MCC in the first match I played that season, announced his retirement from the game not too long afterwards and, although he did return to cricket three years later, it proved to be only a brief comeback.

1960, when we were second to Yorkshire, and had finished ninth in 1961. In both those seasons the side was captained by Bob Barber, but he was then relieved of the job in favour of Joe Blackledge, an amateur.

Barber left for Warwickshire at the end of the 1962 season (in my view, he only played that season to show that he no personal animosity towards Joe), and the club had also lost the likes of Alan Wharton and Brian Booth, who went to Leicestershire, while Roy Collins dropped out of the game to go into business and to play Minor Counties cricket with Cheshire.

To all intents and purposes, Dexter’s time as a leading England batsman ended in 1965, and that year also proved to be the last hurrahs in Test match cricket for both Fred Trueman and Brian Statham, two of the greatest fast bowlers in English cricket history.

At Lancashire, it was also a year of further political infighting, following the upheaval at the end of 1964 when the club decided to dispense with the services of Ken Grieves, Peter Marner and Geoff Clayton. Mismanagement of playing resources was very much a feature of the early 1960s at Lancashire, especially when you remember that we had almost won the championship in

My first season as a professional had been in 1964 and I’d had a decent season, scoring 1,577 runs and generally enjoying myself after taking the decision to play the game for money after four years as an amateur from 1959 and a summer off from county cricket in 1963 when I thought I’d better try to get a proper job, and failed. I’d played a couple

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Derek Underwood in the two MCC line-ups. Indeed, there are only a few of us who never managed to go on to win Test recognition!

of particularly violent knocks in 1964, a season which had started terribly for me with four ducks in five innings, and I suppose it was those which had helped to get me noticed.

The opposition wasn’t bad, either. The Yorkshire line-up for the match played between April 28 and 30 is iconic: Boycott, Hampshire, Padgett, Sharpe, Close, Illingworth, Hutton, Binks, Trueman, Wilson and Nicholson. The Surrey side, meanwhile, included Ken Barrington, John Edrich, Micky Stewart and Pat Pocock but, sadly, both games were heavily interrupted by the weather, with the final day of the Surrey game, which was played on May 1, 3 and 4, rained off completely.

A match-winning 97 against Kent in a Gillette Cup tie earned a headline or two, even though I had got myself out with the scores level when that nice Mr Cowdrey brought himself on to bowl, saying ‘I will let you get the runs you need for your hundred’, only for me to splice one up to short mid-wicket, off a ball tossed high in the air and dropping either on my head or on the wicket, a type of delivery subsequently ruled as illegal..

So, when April 1965 arrived, I was in a positive frame of mind in terms of my own cricket, despite the ongoing political problems at Lancashire, and pleased to be selected by MCC for two three-day matches at Lord’s, against Yorkshire and Surrey, which served both as a kind of curtain-raiser for the county season and also as unofficial trials for a number of younger players who had attracted the attention of the England selectors the previous year.

I remember that I began my season by scoring 39 rather slowly, in a first wicket partnership of 62 with Brearley, when we got to bat in reply to Yorkshire on the second afternoon of the opening game, before being leg-before to Raymond Illingworth’s off breaks. Brearley went on to carry his bat for 90 in an MCC total of 197 – which was three runs more than Yorkshire got in their first innings – but John Murray’s 19 was the next best score to mine, so it was a reasonably solid way to start my own first-class campaign, and I certainly didn’t let myself down in that company.

At 25 years of age, it seemed that I was considered young enough to be one of those youthful thrusters who might yet get to wear the three lions on their chest in cricketing conflict, while Dexter (v Yorkshire) and Colin Cowdrey (v Surrey) were chosen as MCC captains in order that they should keep a close eye on the upcoming English talent.

A gentle second innings trundle with the ball ended my personal involvement in the Yorkshire game, as it petered out into a draw, and I only managed to score two when the match with Surrey began. Cowdrey’s 54, and an unbeaten 24 from a 19-year-old Knott, were the only contributions of note in an MCC first innings of 163, but Surrey didn’t fare too well either in what little further

Looking back at those team sheets now, it is interesting to see the names of Mike Brearley, Tony Lewis, John Snow, Keith Fletcher, Colin Milburn, Alan Knott and

CHAPTER ONE: MCC CALLS

play was possible. All in all, then, a bit of a damp squib for the young guns hoping to impress, although there was some fun to be had off the field during a week when we were installed in the Clarendon Court hotel near Lord’s.

Graham Hill, the racing driver, bowled phantom seamers with a very strange action. He wandered up off five or six paces, but the ball came out quite briskly and he was clearly a natural athlete. Hill was very pleasant socially, too, and he brought along his wife and his little boy Damon to watch the proceedings.

The Yorkshire team were staying there too, during the first match, and I recall getting fairly tired and emotional one evening in the company of Tony Nicholson, their estimable seam bowler and, like myself, a cricketer of burly build.

He was desperately trying to get one of the barmaids to give him more than just a steady succession of pints of beer, and legend has it that he might well have succeeded. Legend also states that, when the moment came for ‘Nick’ to get his kecks off, the said young lady allegedly announced: “Well, you won’t be pissing over too many high walls with that”.

On the Sunday of that week (May 2) there was a rest day in MCC’s game against Surrey and Ollie Milburn, Alan Jones and I trooped off to play in a charity cricket match instead. It wasn’t far away in north London and Ollie, who was a very sociable bloke, was friendly with one of the celebrities playing in the game, a chap called Tony Mercer who was a leading light in the Black and White Minstrel Show, a TV show that older readers will remember.

Anyway, of the other celebrities in attendance I recall that Colin Welland, the actor and scriptwriter, didn’t impress many people but that David Frost kept wicket very tidily and was also a very nice bloke to chat to in the bar, with no bullshit.

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Marylebone Cricket Club v Yorkshire

Marylebone Cricket Club v Surrey

Venue: Lord’s Cricket Ground, St John’s Wood on 28th, 29th, 30th April 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Toss not known Result: Match drawn Umpires: SH Moore, HPH Sharp

Venue: Lord’s Cricket Ground, St John’s Wood on 1st, 3rd, 4th May 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Toss not known Result: Match drawn Umpires: SH Moore, HPH Sharp

Yorkshire first innings Runs G Boycott c Lewis b Allen 46 JH Hampshire lbw b Allen 22 DEV Padgett c Murray b Pressdee 27 PJ Sharpe lbw b Snow 15 *DB Close c Murray b Snow 9 R Illingworth c Murray b Allen 1 RA Hutton c Snow b Bailey 17 +JG Binks c Pressdee b Snow 13 FS Trueman c and b Bailey 23 D Wilson not out 16 AG Nicholson b Bailey 0 Extras (2 b, 3 nb) 5 Total (all out, 85.2 overs) 194 Fall of wickets: 1-42, 2-97, 3-97, 4-123, 5-124, 6-124, 7-145, 8-173, 9-192, 10-194

Runs 22 66 58 2 25 4

Marylebone Cricket Club first innings Runs DM Green c Willett b Gibson 2 A Jones lbw b Gibson 9 KWR Fletcher b Pocock 21 *MC Cowdrey c Barrington b Gibson 54 C Milburn c Barrington b Pocock 15 BR Knight c Jefferson b Pocock 8 DA Allen c and b Gibson 5 +APE Knott not out 24 RNS Hobbs b Jefferson 5 DL Underwood c Stewart b Gibson 4 JCJ Dye b Jefferson 14 Extras (1 b, 1 lb) 2 Total (all out, 82.4 overs) 163 Fall of wickets: 1-9, 2-12, 3-36, 4-70, 5-89, 6-100, 7-122, 8-127, 9-146, 10-163

11 188

Surrey bowling Gibson Jefferson Harman Pocock Storey

Marylebone Cricket Club bowling

Overs Mdns Snow 17 5 Bailey 11.2 1 Watts 6 1 Allen 30 14 Pressdee 21 3

Yorkshire bowling Trueman Nicholson Illingworth Hutton Wilson Close Boycott

Overs Mdns 12 2 19 6 15 5 11.3 2 9 4 13 5 3 1

Runs Wkts 41 1 33 2 37 2 37 1 9 0 25 3 5 1

Yorkshire second innings G Boycott lbw b Allen JH Hampshire c Prideaux b Pressdee DEV Padgett not out PJ Sharpe retired hurt R Illingworth c Lewis b Watts RA Hutton not out *DB Close +JG Binks FS Trueman D Wilson AG Nicholson Extras (6 b, 1 lb, 4 nb) Total (3 wickets, 69 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-71, 2-95, 3-154

Runs Wkts 42 3 26 3 25 0 34 3 62 1

Marylebone Cricket Club first innings Runs M Brearley not out 90 DM Green lbw b Illingworth 39 AR Lewis c Sharpe b Illingworth 0 RM Prideaux c Illingworth b Close 16 *ER Dexter b Close 9 JS Pressdee b Close 0 PJ Watts b Trueman 12 +JT Murray b Boycott 19 DA Allen b Nicholson 2 JA Snow b Nicholson 0 RR Bailey b Hutton 0 Extras (8 b, 2 nb) 10 Total (all out, 82.3 overs) 197 Fall of wickets: 1-62, 2-62, 3-111, 4-121, 5-121, 6-134, 7-193, 8-196, 9-196, 10-197

Marylebone Cricket Club bowling

Overs Mdns Snow 6 3 Bailey 8 2 Watts 15 5 Allen 14 8 Pressdee 9 1 Dexter 8 2 Green 8 2 Lewis 1 1

Runs Wkts 7 0 53 0 45 1 10 1 25 1 11 0 26 0 0 0

Overs Mdns 30 5 27.4 14 2 1 16 8 7 2

Runs Wkts 70 5 49 2 4 0 33 3 5 0

Surrey first innings *MJ Stewart c Knott b Dye JH Edrich lbw b Knight SJ Storey c Knight b Dye KF Barrington c Hobbs b Underwood MD Willett not out RAE Tindall c Knott b Dye RI Jefferson not out D Gibson +A Long R Harman PI Pocock Extras (4 b, 2 nb) Total (5 wickets, 32 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-10, 2-10, 3-57, 4-69, 5-69

Runs 8 31 0 23 14 0 1

6 83

Marylebone Cricket Club bowling

Overs Mdns Knight 6 3 Dye 12 5 Underwood 13 6 Hobbs 1 0

Runs Wkts 13 1 24 3 38 1 2 0

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DAYS OF REST Until 1969, the year the John Player League was launched, Sundays were often a day of rest for the nation’s county cricketers. Championship matches, and other first-class games, including Tests, did not include Sunday play. The county circuit was, in effect, a six-days-a-week affair; matches either began on a Wednesday or a Saturday, with the latter contests resuming on a Monday morning.

Sometimes, on Sundays, there were county benefit matches to play – or at least to support by turning up to help with the collection buckets. Your own county’s beneficiary would often arrange games on a Sunday, hosted by local clubs, and if you were playing an away game then you might get asked to come along to that county’s benefit match.

Around 30 or 40 per cent of the time, though, your Sundays were a day off. During home games you would simply have a day with family or friends, and if you were engaged in an away fixture then it was either a spot of golf, a big Sunday lunch, a few pints in the pub, or a trip to the cinema. Theoretically, it was possible to do all four of those things in the one day – but I can’t say I knew anyone who did.

Lancashire did not have many regular golfers on the staff in 1965, although other counties such as Yorkshire, Middlesex and Kent did at that time. Ken Grieves and Peter Marner were two of the best and keenest Sunday golfers during my years at Old Trafford, while Brian Statham could hit it quite well and often used to hire some clubs for a game. He didn’t have any golf clubs of his own. I didn’t really play golf myself until after my cricket career.

Going to the cinema was probably the most popular pastime in the mid-1960s, for everyone. There wasn’t much television to watch at that time – indeed, many homes did not possess a TV set – and so cinema houses were very busy places on Sunday afternoons and early Sunday evenings.

At Lancashire, we never travelled back home on a Sunday if we were playing an away match – even at Derbyshire or Yorkshire That would just be committing yourself to unnecessary extra journeys on the roads, and we spent enough time doing that as it was. The chance to have a lie in, a bit of gentle socialising, and perhaps a bit of a kip in the afternoon, was a welcome one in an otherwise hectic schedule. It was also a privilege, in 1965, which was on borrowed time.

CHAPTER TWO: A DRUBBING AT TAUNTON It wasn’t the best of starts to a championship campaign. Defeat inside two days against Somerset meant that we Lancashire players left Taunton much as we had arrived: without any points on the board and fearful that our batting line-up was looking very vulnerable for the weeks and months ahead.

had taken his place in our Lancashire side, but also a better batsman. Poor Goodwin, who was at least four places too high in the order at No 7 in this match, bagged a pair on a seaming track that was never easy for batting – and especially so for the lower middle-order.

I shared a drink or two with Geoff on the first evening of the match, when it was already obvious that we were heading for a heavy beating with Somerset on 160 for three in reply to our 96 all out, and he said: “I don’t know, fancy me being sacked by a team as crap as you lot!” He also tried to wind me up by saying: “OK, you scored a few today, but you are only a slogger!”

The departures of Ken Grieves, Peter Marner and Geoff Clayton during the winter had left big holes to fill and, on the evidence of the nine-wicket loss suffered on May 5 and 6, we did not have too much to fill them with. For Clayton, who moved to Somerset when sacked by Lancashire, it was immediate and sweet revenge and he also had the pleasure of being at the crease when the winning runs were scored after being promoted to No 3 in Somerset’s brief second innings at, I imagine, his own request.

To be fair, however, when we shook hands at the end of the game, and I had added a second innings 42 to my 43 of the first innings, he made a point of telling me that he took back those words in the bar on the previous evening and said: “Without your runs in this match

Geoff was not only a better wicketkeeper than Keith Goodwin, who

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already warmed up, settled on the right length for the pitch and are in the groove. Opening the batting, if you get through the first few overs, allows you that little bit of extra time to become accustomed to the conditions and to execute something of a plan against the seaming ball and that, basically, is what I did in both innings. Anything up on leg stump, or middle-and-leg, I attempted to smear to the legside of straight, on the basis that if I connected I would get runs against reasonably attacking fields and, if I missed, it might move so much that it would miss the stumps as well.

I can’t imagine how bad it would have looked!”

Lancashire’s card did indeed make for miserable reading. There were eight ducks, four in each innings, with Ken Palmer, Bill Alley and Fred Rumsey running riot with the ball for Somerset.

Our second innings effort of 115 all out had left Somerset needing just twenty for victory, despite themselves collapsing alarmingly to 192 all out in their own first innings. Yet, before the carnage, we had won the toss and decided to bat first and, on that opening morning, had progressed quite steadily to 76 for one before wickets began to tumble as if on fast-forward.

At the height of my first innings progress to 43, and deliberately in my hearing, Palmer actually said in exasperated fashion to a teammate: “I don’t mind him playing and missing, but I’m still going for eight runs an over!” But Palmer got me in the end, thick-edging into the slips, and our last eight batsmen only mustered sixteen runs between them.

Why had we batted first? Well, in the days of uncovered pitches it was very rare to field first as you never knew how conditions might be changed by the weather over the three days of the game.

Taunton was always a bit green and tricky for the first hour, but you accepted that and hoped to flourish afterwards.

This, indeed, was a pattern that was repeated on the second morning, with Somerset losing their last seven first innings wickets for just twenty runs after Graham Atkinson, Peter Wight and Alley had batted them into a strong position, but our top order was then blown away

by Rumsey as our second innings failed to rescue a dire situation.

And, as my opening partnership with Duncan Worsley illustrated, it was not an impossible surface to bat on anyway.

Even after Duncan got out for 21 we were still able to make some additional progress through myself and Geoff Pullar before Palmer got to work with a skilful spell of seam bowling that finally brought him seven for 48. I recall Ken making the ball move quite sharply off the seam, with several balls pitching on leg stump and beating both my blade and off stump.

Mick Beddow added 39 to my 42 but Sonny Ramadhin, the last man, was the only other Lancashire batsman to reach double figures with 10, and Palmer picked up three more wickets in support of Rumsey’s five for 44 to finish with a ten-wicket match haul. It was a severe thumping for us, yet what I also remember about the game was

On such a surface it is much more difficult to make a start when you come in against bowlers as good as Palmer, Rumsey and Alley who have

CHAPTER TWO: A DRUBBING AT TAUNTON

KEN PALMER Ken Palmer’s career was dogged by minor but consistent injuries yet he nevertheless showed himself to be a quality all-rounder who contributed importantly to Somerset’s improved performances during the 1960s when they twice finished third in the championship.

Though not tall – he was around five foot nine or five foot ten – Palmer was strongly and athletically built. His pace was a lively fastish medium and he maintained a testing off stump line from which he would regularly make the ball move away off the pitch, presenting the right-hander with real problems.

As a batsman he was watchful and orthodox. As one would expect from such a competitive cricketer, he sold his wicket dearly. You never saw him give up a cause when he was batting, anymore than he ever chucked the towel in when he was bowling.

Although Ken made his debut as early as 1955, at the age of 18, he did not really establish himself he did not really establish himself until 1960 when he played 19 of Somerset’s 32 championship matches, scoring just under 500 runs and topping the bowling averages with 42 wickets at 22 apiece.

The following year he did the double in championship matches alone. On three further occasions he took 100 wickets or more in a season. His single Test cap came in 1964-65 in South Africa where he was coaching and was called up when an injury crisis struck the England touring party.

When injuries forced his own retirement in 1969 at the early age of 32 he had made 7,567 runs for Somerset, averaging 20.73, and taken 837 wickets at 21.11.

He later became a top-class umpire, officiating in 22 Test matches.

the number of times that Brian Statham, in particular, went past the bat without getting an edge, or induced a thick edge that didn’t go to hand. He could have had six or seven wickets at least, instead of having to settle for three for 49 from 28 overs, while Ken Higgs picked up five for 55 from 30.

Looking at the two sides that contested this match, it is clear how both were stronger in bowling than batting. Indeed, although we were nervous about our batting depth, we began that 1965 season fancying our chances of doing some proper damage with the ball and we also believed we could be at least competitive with the bat. Duncan Worsley and I had opened together

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Burnley, he was mainly a back foot player and a good cutter and puller.

with some success in the second half of 1964, when Duncan came down from Oxford University, and Geoff Pullar was an international-class No 3. Jack Bond, at four, had built a fair record by then.

In fact, he had batted a lot at No 3 and, in 1962 had scored more than 2,000 runs. His batting had, however, declined a little after he had suffered a broken arm playing against the 1963 West Indians.

Off the field, meanwhile, he soon earned himself a reputation for being very tight with a coin. His wallet didn’t seem to see daylight too often and, on one occasion in 1964, I remember Cyril Washbrook, who was then Lancashire’s team manager, remarking to me before one team lunch on a Sunday (which was a day off at that time) that Bob seemed to be hanging back from the knot of players gathering at the bar.

Worsley was known in our dressing room as ‘The Farnworth Plank’ on account of him being a typically slowtalking northerner from Bolton School.

Peter Lever, who joined the staff around 1959, was already known as ‘The Todmorden Plank’.Fast bowler Lever ended up being nicknamed ‘Plank’ throughout cricket, as he built a successful career at both county level and with England, but at Lancashire for a while we had two Planks, both of whom, incidentally, were very bright blokes.

Many of us had already noticed by this stage that Bob had made a habit of being one of the last in, and indeed he often hung around just outside the bar door in an effort to scuttle in just when one of the other players was in the process of buying a round. So I recounted this information to Cyril who, after listening intently, said: “Interesting!” He then beckoned at Bob to come over to join him, and said: “Ah, Robert, lovely to see you. I imagine you’ll be looking forward to buying some of your teammates, and myself, a drink. I’ll have a half of bitter beer and, David, what will you have? A pint of beer? Right, OK, and what about you two?”

Bob Entwhistle, who batted at No 5 at Taunton without very much to show for it, was in just his second full year on the Lancashire staff but had got a few runs during the 1964 season and had particularly impressed in a partnership with me against the Australians at Old Trafford.

By the time Cyril had gone around everyone in the room, the colour had drained from Bob’s cheeks, he was looking at me with accusing realisation in his eyes, and he was left to pay for a round of drinks that I recall cost him over a pound.

I was on my way to an eventual hundred, but we were wobbling a bit on 61 for four when I completed my fifty and Bob not only stayed around to support me but also went on to seventy-odd himself and played well. A thickset lad from

With Statham, Higgs, Tommy Greenhough and Ramadhin as our bottom four in the batting order at Taunton, we could have done with some more strength in

CHAPTER TWO: A DRUBBING AT TAUNTON

the middle-order, and that is not being unkind to those above them. And, as I have said, to have Keith Goodwin coming in at No 7 really was a sign of our batting weakness.

Wight always did better against Statham than against many other fast men, because Brian would pitch the ball up a lot more than most of his pace. As for Bill Alley, he was an all-rounder of some substance. As a seamer, he gave you nothing loose and he is rightly remembered for his exploits in 1961 when he scored 3,000 runs and took 60 wickets.

He had been around the club for a number of years – in fact, I first met him when I was about 17 or 18 and netted with the professional staff at Old Trafford while I was still at Manchester Grammar School – but he had always been ranked behind others. When he’d had a few drinks he’d talk you through his national service days, whether you wanted to hear about it or not, but he was OK as a bloke. What he wasn’t so OK at was keeping wicket, and particularly batting, even though he had cast-iron self-belief in his own ability. I wish I’d had it.

Though not many people remember it, he had another brilliant season in 1962 when he made 1,900 runs and took 112 wickets. Ken Palmer, too, was an allrounder good enough to do the double of a thousand runs and a hundred wickets in an English season, so Somerset were no mugs.

Moreover, as I nosed my faithful 1954 Austin Somerset out of Taunton, after a shorter stay in the town than I had anticipated when I had driven down from London to meet up with my Lancashire teammates on the evening of May 4, I was left to reflect on a game which had brought the home side ten points but ourselves precisely nothing. The omens were not good.

As for Somerset, and in slight mitigation of our defeat, they weren’t the worst.

Indeed, they finished seventh in the championship that season and, as long as Rumsey and Palmer stayed fit, they had a decent attack with Alley to support the new ball and Brian Langford to bowl his excellent off breaks.

If the likes of Jim Laker, Roy Tattersall and Bob Appleyard had not been around in the first half of Langford’s career, besides off spinners such as Ray Illingworth, David Allen, Fred Titmus and John Mortimore for the rest of it, then I reckon Brian would have played for England.

Graham Atkinson and Roy Virgin were a dependable, and successful, opening pair and although Peter Wight was coming to the end of his career he was still a fine batsman, especially against anyone without extreme pace.

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CHAPTER TWO: A DRUBBING AT TAUNTON

Somerset v Lancashire

LANCASHIRE’S CLASS OF ‘65

Venue: County Ground, Taunton on 5th, 6th May 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Lancashire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Somerset won by 9 wickets POINTS: Somerset 10; Lancashire 0 Umpires: C Cook, H Yarnold Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green c Langford b Palmer 43 DR Worsley c Robinson b Palmer 21 G Pullar c Clayton b Alley 14 JD Bond c Clayton b Palmer 3 R Entwistle lbw b Palmer 0 AM Beddow b Palmer 0 +K Goodwin b Palmer 0 *JB Statham c Langford b Palmer 11 K Higgs c and b Alley 1 T Greenhough not out 1 S Ramadhin b Alley 0 Extras (2 b) 2 Total (all out, 45.5 overs) 96 Fall of wickets: 1-56, 2-76, 3-82, 4-82, 5-82, 6-82, 7-82, 8-95, 9-96, 10-96

Lancashire second innings Runs DM Green b Rumsey 42 DR Worsley b Rumsey 0 G Pullar c Virgin b Rumsey 6 JD Bond lbw b Rumsey 0 R Entwistle c Palmer b Rumsey 2 AM Beddow b Alley 39 +K Goodwin b Palmer 0 *JB Statham b Palmer 0 K Higgs b Langford 8 T Greenhough not out 5 S Ramadhin c Alley b Palmer 10 Extras (1 lb, 2 w) 3 Total (all out, 57.2 overs) 115 Fall of wickets: 1-3, 2-27, 3-33, 4-50, 5-51, 6-52, 7-54, 8-75, 9-100, 10-115 (57.2 ov)

Somerset bowling Rumsey Palmer Alley

Somerset bowling Rumsey Palmer Alley Langford

Overs Mdns 9 4 20 7 16.5 8

Runs Wkts 24 0 48 7 22 3

Somerset first innings Runs G Atkinson lbw b Higgs 48 RT Virgin c Goodwin b Statham 5 PB Wight lbw b Ramadhin 63 WE Alley lbw b Statham 35 CHM Greetham b Higgs 12 KE Palmer b Higgs 1 *CRM Atkinson lbw b Statham 0 +G Clayton not out 10 BA Langford b Higgs 1 PJ Robinson b Greenhough 6 FE Rumsey b Higgs 0 Extras (1 b, 10 lb) 11 Total (all out, 82 overs) 192 Fall of wickets: 1-11, 2-108, 3-135, 4-172, 5-174, 6-174, 7-176, 8-178, 9-191, 10-192

Lancashire bowling Overs Mdns Statham 28 8 Higgs 30 7 Beddow 2 0 Greenhough 16 2 Ramadhin 6 2

Overs Mdns 22 10 20.2 6 9 4 6 2

Somerset second innings RT Virgin b Beddow BA Langford not out +G Clayton not out G Atkinson PB Wight WE Alley CHM Greetham KE Palmer *CRM Atkinson PJ Robinson FE Rumsey Extras (2 b) Total (1 wicket, 6.1 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-7

Runs Wkts 49 3 55 5 13 0 51 1 13 1

Lancashire bowling Overs Beddow 3 Green 3.1

Mdns 0 1

Runs Wkts 44 5 43 3 21 1 4 1 Runs 0 9 9

2 20

Runs Wkts 7 1 11 0

The squad of players which contested the County Championship and Gillette Cup in 1965 was a predominantly young and inexperienced one. At 25, I was still part of the younger group but, at the same time, and especially as vice-captain, I considered myself to be one of the senior players.

Overall, it was a thin squad in terms of batting, although our bowling resources were strong and with reasonable depth. It wasn’t the happiest of seasons, on the field, because we lost more championship games than any other county, and any run of defeats is always debilitating. There were a few individual successes, though, my own form notwithstanding, with Harry Pilling passing 1,000 first-class runs for the season for the first time and Peter Lever continuing his development into a top-class county performer.

As a team, however, we relied too heavily on Geoff Pullar and myself for runs, and on Brian Statham and Ken Higgs for wickets, although Lever’s form and Tommy Greenhough’s leg breaks both added consistent quality to our bowling armoury.

Lancashire’s squad, in that summer of ’65, was as follows: (Ages at May 1, 1965)

Batsmen: ww Jack Bond (age 32) – Lancashire 1955-72, went on to be captain of Lancashire from 1968-72, played 362 first-class matches ww

Bob Entwhistle (23) – Lancashire 1962-66, played 49 matches

ww

David Green (25) – Lancashire 1959-67, played 266 matches in career

ww

Gerry Knox (28) – Lancashire 1964-67, played 52 matches

ww

Harry Pilling (22) – Lancashire 1962-82, played 333 matches

ww

Geoff Pullar (29) – Lancashire 1954-68, played 400 matches in career, including 28 Tests

ww

Ken Snellgrove (23) – Lancashire 1965-74, played 106 matches

ww

John Sullivan (20) – Lancashire 1963-76, played 154 matches

ww

Duncan Worsley (23) – Lancashire 1960-67, played 113 matches

All-rounders: ww Mick Beddow (23) – Lancashire 1962-66, played 33 matches ww

David Lloyd (18) – Lancashire 1965-83, played 407 matches in career, including 9 Tests (continued over)

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Wicketkeepers: ww Keith Goodwin (26) – Lancashire 1960-74, played 124 matches ww

CHAPTER THREE: A DUCK AND ANOTHER DEFEAT

Geoffrey Hodgson (26) – Lancashire 1965, played 2 matches in career

Bowlers: ww

Tommy Greenhough (33) – Lancashire 1951-66, played 255 matches including 4 Tests

ww

Ken Higgs (28) – Lancashire 1958-69, played 511 matches in career, including 15 Tests

ww

Ken Howard (23) – Lancashire 1960-66, played 61 matches

ww

Peter Lever (24) – Lancashire 1960-76, played 301 matches including 17 Tests

ww

Sonny Ramadhin (36) – Lancashire 1964-65, played 184 matches in career, including 43 Tests

ww

Ken Shuttleworth (20) – Lancashire 1964-75, played 239 matches in career, including 5 Tests

ww

Brian Statham (34) – Lancashire 1950-68, played 559 matches, including 70 Tests

The life of the county cricketer in 1965 was a relentless one of matches and travel. Apart from the day off on Sundays, assuming there wasn’t a charity or benefit game to be played, it was a six-days-a-week circuit.

number of Lancashire and New Zealand players? When play on that Saturday was abandoned around noon, we headed for the bar.

By about 2pm, when the bars at Old Trafford were being closed (by then there were few other people around in the ground besides ourselves) , we had begun to get a taste for it and so a group of us wandered along to the nearby bowling alley and, for the rest of the day, continued our merry-making. Ironically, given what was to happen when the match finally did get under way on the Monday, one of the New Zealanders who joined us in the beer-drinking session at the bowling alley bar was Dick Motz, a burly bowler of brisk fastmedium who hit the seam and swung it away from the right-handers. He and I shared several pints and he was very sociable.

My car certainly needed to be a reliable one, given the miles it clocked up, and another long journey – during that season I often used to drive, with Bob Entwistle as my regular passenger in the early weeks of it – was required to get the Lancashire team from Taunton to Old Trafford where, on the morning of Saturday May 8, we were due to face the touring New Zealanders in a three-day contest.

It rained, all day, which meant no play and, in effect, a three-day break from cricket as we had been defeated inside two days by Somerset and so had enjoyed a Friday off. And, with Sunday being a nonmatch day, the game against the Kiwis was now unable to start until Monday morning. So, what was the reaction of a

Soon after 11.30am on Monday 10 May, however, I found myself walking back to the Old Trafford pavilion having been

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dismissed by the third ball of the match, after Lancashire had been asked to bat first. Green c Dick b Motz 0 was a truly sobering moment, after the jollity of 36 hours earlier, and it was also a highly unusual dismissal in that I had been caught by someone whose surname was the same as the bowler’s Christian name. It was like being c Fred b Trueman, although Motz didn’t give me the sort of witty send-off that Fred might have done in such a circumstance.

good enough to embarrass the tourists, and that their own batting line-up was very fragile. Ken Higgs and Mick Beddow picked up three wickets each as the Kiwis collapsed to 115 all out in 71.1 overs of struggle. Indeed, in a desperate bid to avoid the follow-on, Reid attempted to declare their first innings at 114 for eight – only to be reminded by the umpires that, as this was now a two-day game, his side would have to reach 126 before that could happen.

Aiming to crash it through or over extra cover, I nicked to Arty Dick, a very competent wicketkeeper-batsman who played 17 Tests for New Zealand, and that was that. Duncan Worsley also went cheaply but fortunately Geoff Pullar was able to play a very fine knock of 82 to anchor a Lancashire first innings which, eventually, reached 225 thanks to initial support from both Jack Bond and especially Bob Entwistle, who made 57, and a late burst of Trumperesque strokeplay from Tommy Greenhough, the last of Frank Cameron’s five wickets when he was bowled for 36.

When they fell eleven runs short of that target, we had no hesitation at all in sending them back in again and, this time, the New Zealand batting was simply no match in the conditions for Statham and Higgs. Brian was a month or so away from his 35th birthday but still a remarkable fast bowler. He was rarely injured, despite being an enthusiastic drinker and smoker, but he always ate carefully and just seemed to have the physiological make-up that meant he was able to stay loose and keep himself naturally fit. Sometimes he would report a little twinge in a muscle, or joint, and have a game off as a precaution, but I can’t think he missed more than a dozen matches in all the time he played for Lancashire.

I recall that John Reid, New Zealand’s best all-rounder before Richard Hadlee’s emergence, had a number of catches dropped off his quickish off-cutters. He was a strong man, and even shuffling in off about five or six paces he could zip the ball through. He took three wickets in his thirty accurate overs but it could easily have been more and, in damp seaming conditions, our total of 225 was not a bad one.

Higgs, meanwhile, was starting the season by showing the form that was to earn him his first England Test cap later in the summer, and between them these two international-class pacemen scuppered the New Zealanders for 104, leaving us victors by an innings and six runs. Statham returned five for 15 and Higgs three for 16, while Greenhough captured the 650th first-class wicket of his career when he had Motz caught for 35. Motz, by the way, had made 95 from

The New Zealanders made it to 50 for just one wicket in reply by the close, but on the last day it soon became very apparent that our score was more than

CHAPTER THREE: A DUCK AND ANOTHER DEFEAT

He was standing in one of my first games for Oxford University at The Parks when I was brought on to bowl as third seamer.

On that particular day I made the ball swing around a bit and I was getting very excited about beating the bat as it swung into the batsman’s pads. For my first two appeals for lbw he simply said, quietly but firmly: “Not out”. On my third appeal, shortly afterwards, he merely said: “That, David, was a very bad appeal”. I was hugely pleased, though, simply because this great man actually knew my name!

No 9 in the New Zealanders’ opening tour match, a weather-affected draw against Worcestershire at Worcester immediately before they came up to Manchester, and he was also to go on to be the leading bowler on tour with 53 wickets at 23 runs apiece.

Motz and Vic Pollard, who made 42 before being last out, at least rallied their team from the earlier desperate depths of 8 for 6 and 24 for 7, but it was still a poor display by them. Bert Sutcliffe was in his early 40s by this stage, having come out of retirement shortly before the tour of England, but even with him, one of their greatest-ever batsmen, in their lineup the New Zealanders didn’t look good enough as a team with the bat.

After beating the New Zealanders, it was soon time to get on the road again with a drive to Leicester for our second championship fixture of the season, which was to begin at 11.30am the following morning on Wednesday May 12. Again, Bob Entwistle was in the passenger seat and, as we made the journey across the Pennines and down into the East Midlands, we spoke about what our captain, Brian Statham, had said to us following the heavy defeat against Somerset at Taunton.

That was later confirmed when they lost the three-match Test series against England 3-0, and Sutcliffe hardly played again on the trip after being hit on the ear by Trueman during the first Test at Edgbaston. He did bravely return to score 53 on that occasion, but he only scored 7 and 4 in our game at Old Trafford and was clearly not the force he had been for most of his long international career.

Basically, ‘George’ had told us not to worry about one bad result. He said that Kenny Palmer had made the ball talk in that game and, in our first innings in particular, there was no disgrace in getting out to bowling like that. He had said it was too early to start worrying about our batting, and that we should stay positive about our prospects. And, of course, the win against the New Zealanders was something of a tonic as we prepared ourselves for Leicestershire.

The umpires in our match against the New Zealanders, Syd Buller and Eddie Phillipson, were both great characters and, in Syd’s case, one of leading English umpires in our cricket history.

He was a no-nonsense official, who later in the 1965 season was to no ball Harold Rhodes again for throwing, but I remember one incident from very early in my own first-class career that provides an excellent example of how he also tried to work with the players, as every good umpire does.

Two and a half days later, we were picking through the rubble of another heavy beating – this time by nine wickets as Leicestershire completely

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at No 7 and, with Statham at eight and Greenhough and Higgs at nine and ten, it was a tasty-looking tail for the opposition attack.

outplayed us on a pitch which began to take some turn on the first day and, by the afternoon on day two, was giving real grip for the spinners.

We had a fine spinner in our side in Tommy Greenhough, whose leg-breaks and googlies were always accurate and challenging, but Leicestershire trumped us with Tony Lock and John Savage. Lock, one of England’s best slow left-armers, had recently transferred his talents from Surrey to Leicestershire and Savage was an off spinner who, like Somerset’s Brian Langford, was certainly good enough to have played Test cricket.

For Lancashire supporters, too, the sight of Brian Booth then leading Leicestershire’s reply of 297 with an excellent innings of 80 was very hard to take. Peter Marner, who had left Old Trafford the previous winter, may have only scored three, but Booth steadied them after the early losses of the prolific Maurice Hallam and Marner and initially added 109 with Stanley Jayasinghe, a tall Sri Lankan right-hander. Jayasinghe made 60 and although his fellow countryman Clive Inman failed there were further good knocks from Birkenshaw, with 63, and Lock, who made 40.

Both he and Langford, for instance, were easily as good in my opinion as Pat Pocock, the Surrey off spinner who played 25 Tests for England. Moreover, in this game, so successful were Lock and Savage that Jack Birkenshaw didn’t bowl a single over. Birkenshaw went on to take 1,073 first-class wickets at 27 runs piece with his off breaks, besides playing five Tests on England overseas tours, so he wasn’t the worst!

Booth was a real loss to Lancashire. We called him ‘Clarrie’ because he bowled leg-spin with a low arm in the manner of the great Clarrie Grimmett, but had not been retained by Lancashire at the end of 1963. I remember putting on 198 with Brian for Lancashire’s first wicket in 1962, against Derbyshire, and then getting a terrible bollocking from Geoff Clayton, our wicketkeeper, for getting myself out on 98. Geoff was upset, not because I had thrown away a personal hundred but because a brewery was that season providing prizes of several cases of real ale for any partnership of 200 or more.

He didn’t let me forget about it, either, for about two months afterwards!

In this match, however, after we had won the toss and decided to bat, ‘Birky’ didn’t need to contribute at all with the ball.

I was bowled by Savage for 31 after an opening stand of 52 between Duncan Worsley and myself and, with Savage taking four wickets and Lock three, we were soon all out for 126 with Mick Beddow’s 44 being a lone hand in terms of resistance as, once again, our middle and lower order was swept away.

Our second innings effort was, frankly, worse than that of the opening day and it was only a very fine, fighting 112 not out

by Jack Bond which took the game into the final day and forced Leicestershire to bat again. This time I was out to Lock,

Keith Goodwin had been quickly dropped down to his natural position of No 11, but we still had Ken Shuttleworth – then a thrusting youngster just up from the second team – batting far too high

CHAPTER THREE: A DUCK AND ANOTHER DEFEAT

who was brought on early and soon had me edging to the keeper on 14 as I pushed forward. Geoff Pullar followed me back almost immediately, as another Lock victim, and thereafter it was only Bond’s valiant efforts at farming the bowling that repulsed Leicestershire’s bowlers for as long as they were.

Particularly, I remember batting against him when Oxford University played Surrey at Guildford in 1960. On the first night of the game I had got chatting to him in the bar after play and he invited me back to his family home in London for a meal and some more drinks. I was mightily impressed that someone of his stature would take the time to talk cricket with a 20-year-old undergraduate, but it was just brilliant at such an early age for me to be able to pick the brains of an international-class cricketer. Also, in our second innings in that game, I made 70-odd as Lock threatened to run through the Oxford batting and grab all ten wickets.

Jack was dubbed ‘Red Eye’ because of his penchant for earning himself not outs, or ‘red-inkers’ as they were called in county dressing rooms, but that is more than a little unfair and, in this match especially, he fought skilfully and unselfishly to keep us in the game. It was to no avail, however, as Lock and Savage shared another five wickets in support of the home seamers.

In the end Lock had to settle for nine as we were bowled out for about 150, Alec Bedser claiming our final wicket after bringing himself on and bowling deliberately wide in an effort to allow Tony to collect all ten. But Dan Piachaud, our Singhalese off spinner, chased one of these wides and nicked it to slip! My innings against Lock that day in 1960 remains one of the knocks I am most proud to have played.

Lock, by this later stage of his career, had completely ironed out the problems with his action that had afflicted him several years before. His action was by now an orthodox one, although some said there was still a little kink of the elbow when he bowled his quicker ones, but he was a wonderful cricketer and also a lovely chap who was very generous with his advice and his opinions when you talked about the game with him.

In 1956, as a 16-year-old schoolboy, I had watched from the Old Trafford stands as Lock took just one wicket to Jim Laker’s nineteen in the Ashes Test against Australia, but I must confess I never had the nerve or the desire to tell him that.

I didn’t want to appear fawning in my regard for him as one of the leading England cricketers of my formative years, and I was just delighted to have the chance to play against him in first-class cricket and to talk with him socially.

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CHAPTER THREE: A DUCK AND ANOTHER DEFEAT

Lancashire v New Zealanders

Leicestershire v Lancashire

Venue: Old Trafford, Manchester on 8th, 10th, 11th May 1965 (3-day match) Toss: New Zealanders won the toss and decided to field Result: Lancashire won by an innings and 6 runs Umpires: JS Buller, WE Phillipson

Venue: Grace Road, Leicester on 12th, 13th, 14th May 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Lancashire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Leicestershire won by 9 wickets Umpires: R Aspinall, TW Spencer

Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green c Dick b Motz 0 DR Worsley c Dick b Cameron 6 G Pullar c Sutcliffe b Cameron 82 JD Bond c Morgan b Reid 22 R Entwistle b Cameron 57 AM Beddow c Dowling b Cameron 0 *JB Statham c Morgan b Reid 8 +K Goodwin b Reid 5 T Greenhough b Cameron 36 K Higgs b Pollard 2 S Ramadhin not out 0 Extras (2 b, 3 lb, 2 nb) 7 Total (all out, 90.1 overs) 225 Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-14, 3-69, 4-134, 5-158, 6-171, 7-181, 8-193, 9-225, 10-225

New Zealanders second innings (following on) Runs GT Dowling lbw b Higgs 0 BE Congdon lbw b Statham 0 RW Morgan c Worsley b Statham 0 *JR Reid b Statham 3 B Sutcliffe c Goodwin b Higgs 4 +AE Dick b Statham 0 BR Taylor b Statham 9 V Pollard b Higgs 42 RC Motz c Statham b Greenhough 35 FJ Cameron not out 10 GE Vivian absent hurt Extras (1 lb) 1 Total (all out, 49.5 overs) 104 Fall of wickets: 1-1, 2-1, 3-1, 4-8, 5-8, 6-8, 7-24, 8-74, 9-104

Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green b Savage 31 DR Worsley c Julian b Spencer 25 G Pullar c Julian b Savage 15 JD Bond lbw b Lock 1 R Entwistle lbw b Spencer 0 AM Beddow c and b Lock 44 K Shuttleworth c Spencer b Lock 2 *JB Statham c Jayasinghe b Savage 0 T Greenhough lbw b Savage 2 K Higgs lbw b Cotton 0 +K Goodwin not out 3 Extras (2 b, 1 nb) 3 Total (all out, 65.2 overs) 126 Fall of wickets: 1-52, 2-65, 3-66, 4-73, 5-79, 6-90, 7-90, 8-103, 9-111, 10-126

Lancashire second innings Runs DM Green c Julian b Lock 14 DR Worsley c Jayasinghe b Savage 14 G Pullar lbw b Lock 0 JD Bond not out 112 R Entwistle c Julian b Spencer 7 AM Beddow c Lock b Savage 1 K Shuttleworth hit wkt b Cotton 4 *JB Statham lbw b Cotton 13 T Greenhough lbw b Lock 1 K Higgs run out 2 +K Goodwin run out 3 Extras (4 b, 3 lb, 1 nb) 8 Total (all out, 81.3 overs) 179 Fall of wickets: 1-21, 2-21, 3-57, 4-88, 5-99, 6-113, 7-135, 8-146, 9-160, 10-179

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Ramadhin Greenhough Beddow

New Zealanders bowling

Overs Mdns Motz 16 2 Taylor 6 1 Cameron 21.1 3 Pollard 17 2 Reid 30 9

Runs Wkts 43 1 18 0 48 5 42 1 67 3

New Zealanders first innings Runs GT Dowling b Higgs 14 BE Congdon lbw b Statham 6 RW Morgan lbw b Higgs 33 *JR Reid b Higgs 2 B Sutcliffe b Beddow 7 +AE Dick b Beddow 38 BR Taylor b Beddow 1 V Pollard lbw b Greenhough 7 RC Motz lbw b Greenhough 6 FJ Cameron not out 1 GE Vivian absent hurt Extras 0 Total (all out, 71.1 overs) 115 Fall of wickets: 1-8, 2-53, 3-55, 4-58, 5-70, 6-74, 7-107, 8-114, 9-115

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Ramadhin Greenhough Beddow

Overs Mdns 15 10 21 7 16 3 8.1 4 11 6

Overs Mdns 10 5 9.5 5 10 3 15 6 5 2

Runs Wkts 15 5 16 3 33 0 19 1 20 0

Leicestershire bowling

Overs Mdns Cotton 14 5 Spencer 10 1 Lock 19.2 3 Savage 22 9

Runs Wkts 21 2 41 1 49 3 60 2

Leicestershire first innings Runs *MR Hallam b Statham 0 BJ Booth c Goodwin b Greenhough 80 PT Marner c Goodwin b Statham 3 S Jayasinghe c Shuttleworth b Greenhough 60 CC Inman c Goodwin b Greenhough 15 J Birkenshaw c Goodwin b Shuttleworth 63 GAR Lock b Statham 40 +R Julian b Higgs 9 CT Spencer not out 13 JS Savage b Higgs 0 J Cotton lbw b Higgs 0 Extras (13 lb, 1 nb) 14 Total (all out, 103.3 overs) 297 Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-6, 3-115, 4-137, 5-200, 6-254, 7-283, 8-283, 9-287, 10-297

Leicestershire second innings +R Julian c Goodwin b Beddow CT Spencer not out *MR Hallam not out BJ Booth did not bat PT Marner did not bat S Jayasinghe did not bat CC Inman did not bat J Birkenshaw did not bat GAR Lock did not bat JS Savage did not bat J Cotton did not bat Extras Total (1 wicket, 1.5 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-0

Lancashire bowling

Beddow Pullar

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Shuttleworth Greenhough Beddow

Runs Wkts 16 1 35 3 40 0 11 2 13 3

Leicestershire bowling

Overs Mdns Cotton 10 3 Spencer 19 3 Lock 28.3 12 Savage 24 9

Runs Wkts 23 1 21 2 41 3 38 4

Overs Mdns 18 1 28.3 6 21 4 29 8 7 0

Runs Wkts 55 3 62 3 74 1 60 3 32 0

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Overs 1 0.5

Mdns 0 0

Runs 0 10 2

0 12

Runs Wkts 2 1 10 0

CHAPTER THREE: A DUCK AND ANOTHER DEFEAT

BILL COPSON Bill Copson, who was a first-class umpire from 1958 to 1967, was a key member of the Derbyshire team which in 1936 won the County Championship for the first and so far the only time. In that season Copson took 160 wickets at 13.34 apiece, earning a place in the MCC party which toured Australia the following winter, and in which he was not selected to play in a Test.

Throughout his career he was subject to injury, in particular back problems, and overall his health was not good. When these factors are borne in mind, his record of 1,094 wickets at an average of 18.94 is an excellent one, especially as he only played for twelve seasons, retiring at the end of 1949.

About 5ft 11in tall, and sparely built, with bright red hair, he was a popular and respected umpire who did his job with a calmness that did not exclude the occasional shaft of humour. Cyril Washbrook, who I got to know well during his season as Lancashire’s team manager in 1964, had considerable respect for Copson, who was a near-contemporary of his. “He was pretty quick, made the ball bounce and he had a good out-swinger,” Washbrook told me. “He liked to get you on the back foot because this made his out-swinger more dangerous, though he was always likely to fire a few in at your ribs. He was certainly one of the more hostile performers.”

Copson played in three Tests. In the first, against West Indies at Lord’s in 1939, he took 5 for 85 and 4 for 67. In the second, against versus West Indies, at a rainaffected Old Trafford, he had 2 for 31 and 1 for 2. He played one Test after the War, the fifth against South Africa at the Oval in 1947 where his figures in a high-scoring draw were 27-13-46-3 and 30-11-66-0. He was clearly a bowler of high quality.

CHAPTER FOUR: RUNS AT LAST By the time 1965 came along a visit to Oxford to play the university was, for me, now more about using the match as an opportunity to get some runs than catching up with old chums in various public houses.

away from the different pressures of championship cricket, but Martin was a decent bowler of medium-fast pace with an ability to bowl the odd one a little sharper than that. He was an Oxfordshire lad, and I recall he also bounced me out on another occasion when I didn’t get over the ball, or hit it well enough, and was caught at mid-wicket. Then again, I was never that good as a hooker or puller.

Especially in 1962, the year after I had graduated with my third class honours degree, the Oxford University XI was still full of people I knew, but by the time the Lancashire team arrived in the City of Spires on the back of our dispiriting defeat at Leicestershire, I looked on our scheduled three-day game against the students rather in the manner of all county professionals. I could relax a bit at the crease and enjoy myself.

Martin also tore out ‘Noddy’ Pullar, which was more difficult than tearing me out, and Bob Entwistle, and his final figures in our first innings of 321 for eight declared were a very creditable 26-8-75-3. Pullar, however, did make 88 and Mick Beddow, who before that innings had never made a first-class fifty, scored 112 not out. After a fine first day, though, the rest of the match was badly affected by rain and Oxford could reach only 75 for five – from 50 overs of toil – in reply before the match was abandoned as a draw

The match started in good weather on Saturday May 15, but I had made only 19 when I was surprised by an excellent delivery by John Martin, who managed to knock over one of my poles with one that came back off the seam. It was certainly not what I was expecting from this little cricketing holiday in Oxford,

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elbow. It was a happy life, and a happy way of life, and everyone just got on with it.

Looking at the Oxford team, the names of Richard Gilliat and Peter Gibbs stand out. Gilliat, a tall left-hander, went on to captain Hampshire and lead the county to the county championship title in 1973.

He was a decent player and also won a soccer Blue. Gibbs, meanwhile, played county cricket for Derbyshire for many seasons and is now perhaps just as well known as a playwright.

Modern county fixture lists are drawn up more with the England team in mind than ever it was in the past, but I believe that county cricketers generally like to play.

You improve more by playing than by batting or bowling in the nets – although good practice does have its place and I was always an assiduous practiser, as were very many others in my time.

Don’t forget, too, with uncovered pitches there were often times when faster bowlers couldn’t stand up to bowl, so the weather ensured they got rest periods during games and that was when spinners were expected to do the bulk of the bowling.

Mike Groves, a South African, came charging down the pitch to Sonny Ramadhin and missed it by about a foot. Oxford also had two good left-arm spinners in Giles Ridley and Andrew Barker. Ridley, a Rhodesian, was a particularly good cricketer who was plumpish in figure and blond-haired but also flighted the ball cleverly and was just the better of the two spinners. Barker, who went to Shrewsbury School and was quite posh, was an affable lad. He was an unlikely-looking cricketer with thick-rimmed glasses and an almost permanent grin. He pushed the ball through much flatter, and so in style complemented Ridley.

I had captained against Oxford as Brian Statham was rested, but he was back in charge of the Lancashire team by the time we had driven up to Old Trafford on the evening of Tuesday May 18 for the start, the next morning, of a three-day championship match against Gloucestershire.

There was little scheduled rest in the fixture list in that era but, then again, why should there have been? The county schedule had largely stayed the same for seventy years or more, and we weren’t complaining despite often going back and forth across the country like a fiddler’s

CHAPTER FOUR: RUNS AT LAST

by torture on the rack, to 131 all out in 94 overs.

What also startles, when you look at the Lancashire bowling figures, is Ken Higgs’s 33 overs for no reward. Bowling often in tandem with ‘George’, he only went for 65 runs but he simply couldn’t buy a wicket. I remember Higgs beating the bat on numerous occasions; he might not have bowled as well as Brian but he could easily have picked up four or five wickets and, if he had, it would clearly have been a different game.

Batsmen, if they are in good nick, just want to keep on a roll and so, overall, the county game of the 1960s seemed to regulate itself very nicely, thank you very much. Three-day cricket, on uncovered pitches, produced a natural balance between bat and ball, testing and requiring the skills of different types of bowlers and always producing different challenges to batsmen.

Our spinners, too, Greenhough and Ramadhin, were extremely economical and I can still hear Tommy saying to me as we passed in the field during a change of overs: “F*** me, David, I’ve got to bowl at Art again. I’m sick to death of him down there, wandering about at the back of his blade!” It was an unusually hot day, too, and Milton, besides keeping a frustrated Greenhough at bay for over after over, took as much of Statham’s bowling as he could as Gloucestershire’s total inched higher and we grew wearier in the sun. And, when ‘George’ finally got Milton, ironically caught by Greenhough, Shepherd and Allen came together to take the innings away from us in the final session and, for a while longer, on the second morning, in an eighth wicket partnership of 74.

Gloucestershire’s first innings, of 286 all out in 136.1 overs, was built upon a very fine innings of 77 by Arthur Milton and good knocks down the order by both David Shepherd, who scored 51, and David Allen. The match, indeed, was won and lost on that opening day, when Gloucestershire battled to reach 249 for seven by stumps, because as Brian Statham’s return of 33.1-10-69-8 vividly illustrates it was not that easy a pitch on which to make runs.

Our reply was not a good one, and again we didn’t bat very well. I nicked an outfloater from Tony Windows to slip, on 20, and thus became one of his 46 first-class wickets that season at around 30 runs apiece, which for 1965 wasn’t that much to shout about. Tony, an amateur, wasn’t a bad new-ball bowler, though, as he could always wobble it about, but it is clear from the scorecard that it was John Mortimore, with his classy off-breaks, who really did for us as we declined, as if

Mortimore’s first innings analysis, of 39-21-35-4, neatly sums up the hold he had over us. With his accuracy and clever flight, he could be a mesmeric bowler.

The pitch was very dry, by now, as the sunshine had been hot on day one, and Gloucestershire sent us back in again well before the close of the second day.

We reached stumps that evening on 59 for one, but it had been a struggle and their two frontline spinners, Mortimore and Allen, had been brought on almost straightaway to turn the screw.

It was a real grind, both on that second evening and again the following morning, as Geoff Pullar and I put on 132 for the second wicket. Duncan Worsley had gone quite early, to Mortimore, but we got stuck in and we certainly wanted to make a fight of it and not just fold to a heavy innings defeat. It was important, after the start to the season that we had endured, to show that a Lancashire team could bat properly and build a total, and for myself it really was a confidence-lifting innings as playing spin, and especially when it was being purveyed by two masters like Mortimore and Allen, was never my strong suit.

I batted four and a quarter hours for my 81, which was an unusually long time for me for that sort of score, and it was not just my highest of my season to that point but also the first time I had passed fifty, even though I had felt in reasonable touch in the previous weeks. Duncan Worsley used to say that I used to block balls for four when I was in form, and that was because of natural timing when I was playing well as much as power.

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Defensive innings, however, were not my speciality and I am proud of the way I played in this match.

intending to leave out ‘Noddy’ Pullar from a match. That would have been laughable.

The second new ball undid me, caught in the slips off David Smith who was a very fine performer and finished his career with 1,250 first-class wickets at below 24 runs each. So there was no shame in getting out to him. Pullar reached 90, before succumbing to Allen’s off spin, but there was little else in the way of resistance as Mortimore took 5 for 73 from 44.1 overs to earn himself nine in the match at an economy rate of not too much more than a run an over.

Our defeat to Gloucestershire, on home soil, was deflating but at least we had put up a fight. The rest of the season, though, would have to be negotiated without Sonny Ramadhin, who had decided to go back into Lancashire League cricket. After his successful 1964, he had struggled to impose himself on batsmen in the first few weeks of the new season and, with just three championship wickets at 42 runs apiece and at 35 years of age, he lacked the further motivation to play county cricket.

We had managed to get to 235, and battled through almost 126 overs, but that left Gloucestershire needing to score only 81 for victory, and enough time to do it. Our eight-wicket defeat meant another game had gone with no points to show for it, and once again our lower order had contributed next to nothing with the bat. Indeed, numbers seven to eleven made just 29 runs in total in our two innings and, with Statham required to bat at No 7, the inadequacy and length of our tail was, frankly, embarrassing.

Ramadhin had also played a lot of cricket since he burst on to the scene in 1950 and he no longer bowled the ball as quickly as he did when he was at his peak with the West Indies. A lovely man, he was popular in our dressing room, and we respected his decision. He always turned his off-breaks, even at this late stage of his career, which brought the outside edge into play if he wanted the ball to go straight on, but perhaps he had lost a bit of his zip as a bowler as much as his enthusiasm for the demands of the county game.

Why Harry Pilling was not in the side by now, as an extra specialist batsman, is hard to fathom but Statham, as captain, was not one to badger the committee and fight for a certain player over another, and selection during that season was poor. I even recall on one particular occasion, when I was captain because Brian wasn’t around, having a strong word with Jack Wood, the secretary and one of the few you could reason with, about a rumour we’d heard about them

CHAPTER FOUR: RUNS AT LAST

Oxford University v Lancashire Venue: The University Parks, Oxford on 15th, 17th, 18th May 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Lancashire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Match drawn Umpires: C Cook, H Yarnold Lancashire first innings Runs *DM Green b Martin 19 DR Worsley b Watson 34 G Pullar c Gilliat b Martin 88 JD Bond b Watson 6 R Entwistle c Gilliat b Martin 24 AM Beddow not out 112 K Shuttleworth c and b Ridley 1 T Greenhough c Ridley b Barker 6 S Ramadhin b Ridley 8 K Higgs not out 14 +K Goodwin did not bat Extras (6 b, 3 lb) 9 Total (8 wickets, declared, 118 overs) 321 Fall of wickets: 1-38, 2-91, 3-99, 4-163, 5-182, 6-187, 7-210, 8-263 Oxford University bowling

Overs Mdns Martin 26 8 Watson 31 6 Guest 15 1 Barker 20 6 Ridley 26 11

Runs Wkts 75 3 81 2 50 0 61 1 45 2

Oxford University first innings PJK Gibbs c and b Greenhough RJA Thomas lbw b Greenhough RMC Gilliat not out MGM Groves st Goodwin b Ramadhin MRJ Guest c Worsley b Ramadhin AJ Ardington c Goodwin b Higgs AGM Watson not out +AW Dyer did not bat GNS Ridley did not bat AH Barker did not bat *JD Martin did not bat Extras Total (5 wickets, 50 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-30, 2-43, 3-50, 4-56, 5-72 Lancashire bowling

Higgs Shuttleworth Greenhough Ramadhin

Overs Mdns 12 4 10 4 15 4 13 3

Runs 28 6 33 0 1 6 1

0 75

Runs Wkts 14 1 20 0 19 2 22 2

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Lancashire v Gloucestershire Venue: Old Trafford, Manchester on 19th, 20th, 21st May 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Gloucestershire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Gloucestershire won by 8 wickets Umpires: T Drinkwater, TW Spencer Gloucestershire first innings Runs RB Nicholls lbw b Statham 9 SEJ Russell c Worsley b Ramadhin 35 CA Milton c Greenhough b Statham 77 DWJ Brown c Higgs b Ramadhin 35 M Bissex c Beddow b Statham 4 *JB Mortimore b Statham 0 AR Windows b Statham 7 DR Shepherd b Statham 51 DA Allen b Statham 33 +BJ Meyer not out 15 DR Smith c Green b Statham 8 Extras (8 b, 4 lb) 12 Total (all out, 136.1 overs) 286 Fall of wickets: 1-20, 2-62, 3-136, 4-161, 5-165, 6-168, 7-175, 8-249, 9-272, 10-286 Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Greenhough Beddow Ramadhin

Lancashire second innings (following on) Runs DR Worsley c Smith b Mortimore 9 DM Green c Milton b Smith 81 G Pullar c Windows b Allen 90 JD Bond c Bissex b Smith 10 R Entwistle c Nicholls b Mortimore 3 AM Beddow c Meyer b Mortimore 21 *JB Statham b Mortimore 4 T Greenhough c Brown b Allen 6 K Higgs not out 0 S Ramadhin c Meyer b Mortimore 0 +K Goodwin run out 0 Extras (7 b, 4 lb) 11 Total (all out, 125.5 overs) 235 Fall of wickets: 1-24, 2-156, 3-166, 4-179, 5-219, 6-224, 7-235, 8-235, 9-235, 10-235

Overs Mdns 33.1 10 33 11 31 11 14 2 25 10

Gloucestershire bowling

Overs Mdns Smith 21 6 Windows 11 4 Mortimore 44.5 13 Allen 41 20 Bissex 7 1 Nicholls 1 0

Runs Wkts 69 8 65 0 60 0 35 0 45 2

Lancashire first innings Runs DR Worsley c Mortimore b Smith 11 DM Green c Smith b Windows 20 G Pullar b Mortimore 19 JD Bond b Smith 35 R Entwistle b Mortimore 0 AM Beddow c Smith b Mortimore 26 *JB Statham b Mortimore 3 T Greenhough run out 0 K Higgs b Allen 4 S Ramadhin b Smith 7 +K Goodwin not out 5 Extras (1 lb) 1 Total (all out, 94 overs) 131 Fall of wickets: 1-31, 2-36, 3-70, 4-70, 5-100, 6-107, 7-113, 8-119, 9-119, 10-131 Gloucestershire bowling

Overs Mdns Smith 21 7 Windows 10 3 Mortimore 39 21 Allen 24 7

Runs Wkts 48 2 13 0 73 5 70 2 15 0 5 0

Gloucestershire second innings RB Nicholls not out SEJ Russell c Goodwin b Higgs CA Milton lbw b Higgs DWJ Brown not out M Bissex did not bat *JB Mortimore did not bat AR Windows did not bat DR Shepherd did not bat DA Allen did not bat +BJ Meyer did not bat DR Smith did not bat Extras Total (2 wickets, 25.1 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-12, 2-60 Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Ramadhin

Runs Wkts 34 3 21 1 35 4 40 1

Overs 6 12.1 7

Mdns 1 0 1

Runs 31 9 31 11

0 82

Runs Wkts 20 0 40 2 22 0

CHAPTER FIVE: CUT DOWN IN THE GILLETTE In 1965 the Gillette Cup was in only its third season, but by then it had certainly been welcomed and accepted by both county cricketers and the paying public.

Indeed, attendances at many of the games were terrific, and in Lancashire we had seen crowds of above 20,000 at Old Trafford; for the players it was a magnificent experience to perform in front of an audience as large at that and, for those of us who had not played international cricket, it was doubly exciting.

Not that the memory of that particular day, when we had also been beaten by Warwickshire, at Old Trafford on that occasion, was one to cherish. It was a controversial match, for a start, and a defeat which had provided the club with the final ammunition it needed to sack three senior players.

Ken Grieves, Peter Marner and Geoff Clayton had all left Lancashire at the end of the 1964 season and, as our batting fell away again on a fine May day nine months on it was easy to think of how much more solid our line-up would have been if Grieves, Marner and Clayton had all still been with us.

On May 22, however, following our defeat against Gloucestershire and an evening drive south from Manchester to Birmingham, we lost heavily by six wickets to Warwickshire in a Round Two tie in that season’s Gillette Cup.

The 1964 semi-final defeat had seen us frustrated by Warwickshire’s ultradefensive field settings. Chasing 295 to win, after Warwickshire had totalled an imposing 294 for 7 from their 60 overs, we had reached tea at 60 for no wicket from just ten overs and I was going along very nicely indeed on 44 not out. The Lancashire crowd was on its feet, even in

So that was us out of it, almost before we had even time to think about how nice it would have been to repeat, at least, our run of the previous season when we had made it to the competition’s semi-finals.

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Clayton, who was a stroppy little bugger at the best of times, decided simply to block the ball rather than make any attempt to score at what by then was an impossible rate. We ended up scoring only 209 for 7 from our own 60 overs, with Clayton 19 not out.

the so-called ‘Pit of Hate’ in front of the pavilion, but after the interval it suddenly became a different game.

Warwickshire began to employ the innerand-outer rings which made finding the boundary extremely hard work. There was no slip, even to the likes of Tom Cartwright, and an inner ring to stop the sharp single which had MJK Smith, their captain, at a shortish mid wicket and two others at a shortish cover and extra cover.

So we didn’t cover ourselves in glory, but what must be remembered was that at this early stage in the history of domestic limited-overs cricket in England ultra-defensive tactics like that were not looked upon very favourably by the vast majority of county professionals. It was widely felt that it was tantamount to cheating, or gamesmanship at best, and the mood in our dressing room that day was that we were being stuffed by Warwickshire’s dubious tactics.

The remaining six fielders were all pushed back on the boundary rope – at third man, cover point, long off, long on, deep mid wicket and long leg. With no restrictions on fielding positions, they were also able to push one or two of their inner ring back too, if necessary, and so strokes that you felt deserved four were only going for singles at best. The crowd, which had been roaring away at the boundaries we were scoring before tea, greeted the singles in virtual silence, though the strokes were of equal quality.

That is why there was so much anger, especially as the match also ended in the gloom as all their constant adjustments to the field, in the latter part of our innings, meant that the time it took to bowl the overs out was much longer than we thought acceptable.

In fifteen overs after tea I managed to score just another 25 runs, until I was out for 69, and steadily we fell further and further behind the asking rate until it became painfully obvious that we weren’t going to be able to get the runs in the overs which remained. I recall, when our score was something like 190 for five, Ken Grieves said to Tommy Burrows, the Lancashire chairman who was in our dressing room at the time, “If they want this game that badly, then we might as well call our batsmen in”.

Yet cricketers like Ted Dexter, who captained Sussex to the first two Gillette Cup titles, and Warwickshire seamer Jack Bannister, who was a bookmaker in his non-sporting life, were foremost among those in that era who simply looked at the one-day game as a logical exercise of run-denying in the field, whereas a lot of sides played Gillette Cup ties in a way that was recognisably that of the style – in terms of field settings and bowling lines and lengths – of the first-class or championship game.

I think we reacted very childishly as a team to the Warwickshire tactics, and in the end things got very nasty when Geoff

My view is that the authorities were incredibly slow on the uptake when it

CHAPTER FIVE: CUT DOWN IN THE GILLETTE

PETER MARNER Peter Marner made his Lancashire debut in 1952 as a precocious 16-year-old.

Thereafter, a combination of the existing powerful and experienced Lancashire batting order, his call-up for National Service and a rugby injury, which caused him to miss the 1957 season entirely, meant that he did not appear regularly until 1958.

This was a notably wet season in which bowlers prospered but Peter, given the chance of a regular place following John Ikin’s retirement, responded by scoring 1,685 runs at an average of 38, which gained him seventh place in the national averages.

Marner was an immensely valuable cricketer. Instinctively combative, as his bright red hair suggested, he was very strong with a deep chest and thick arms. He hit the ball with great power off either foot and on both sides of the wicket; his aggression perhaps too frequently caused early dismissals but the corollary was that he could and did change games in a few overs.

In addition, he was a high-quality slip fielder and a useful medium-pace bowler whose opportunities were limited by the seam bowling support that Brian Statham, having played a lone hand for most of the 1950s, received from 1958 onwards from Ken Higgs, Colin Hilton and Peter Lever.

Peter was a man who spoke his mind and had clashed with the committee more than once before his sacking at the end of 1964 along with Ken Grieves and Geoff Clayton. The loss of these players, following the earlier and wasteful departures of Roy Tattersall, Alan Wharton, Bob Barber and Brian Booth left us severely weakened.

Marner moved to Leicestershire and you may imagine our feelings when, in his first season for them, he scored 1,190 runs averaging just below 30, took 63 wickets at 22 apiece and held 31 catches. I was the top Lancashire catcher in 1965 with fourteen – God knows how many we dropped – so his absence, along with those of Ken and Geoff, was keenly felt.

In six seasons with Leicestershire he added seven and a half thousand runs to the 10,000-ofdd he had made for Lancashire. Despite possessing one of the shorter fuses in the game he was great company with a lively sense of humour and a sharp wit. Above all, he was a team player.

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came to realising that ultra-defensive fields, and the choking-off of strokeplay, were not what crowds came to watch when they bought their tickets for oneday cricket.

A restriction on the numbers of fielders that could patrol the boundary at any one time didn’t come in until much later, and it took South African domestic cricket to show the way forward on that issue. It wasn’t until Mike Brearley, as England captain in the late 1970s, put all his fielders – including David Bairstow, the wicketkeeper – back on the boundary rope to ensure Australia were beaten in a one-day international, that inner circle regulations were brought in across all professional limited-overs cricket.

What was allowed to happen at Old Trafford in that 1964 semi-final was just plain wrong, and it became such a controversial occasion because there was also 23,000 Lancashire fans there to witness it.

I recall having a moan myself after the game to MJK, as Warwickshire’s captain (and then England captain too, remember) was called throughout cricket, and sarcastically saying something to him along the lines of ‘Well, hope you’re happy but it wasn’t really a gallant effort, was it?’ And he replied: “It was your fault! If you hadn’t played silly buggers at the start, with all that showing off, it wouldn’t have happened!”

That was typical of MJK, a genuinely good man, trying to inject a bit of humour to defuse the situation, but he was also the sort of character we thought would have a bit more principle than to set

CHAPTER FIVE: CUT DOWN IN THE GILLETTE

such fields and so we were all very upset with how the match had been won, and lost. In our dressing room on that late afternoon, and even immediately afterwards before the two teams went their separate ways, I don’t think there was anyone in the Lancashire team who wouldn’t have punched a Warwickshire player in the eye; it was that fraught an atmosphere. There was some furious language, too, that’s for sure.

But, back to 1965. Seven counties had been drawn in six first round matches, with five minor county sides being eliminated – Cambridgeshire by Warwickshire – and May 22 was the day that sixteen counties were whittled down to just eight. Choosing to bat, however, we batted very poorly and from 37 for four were eventually all out for 166 with 9.5 overs of the 60-over allocation unused.

There was also a bit of black humour in our dressing room when our chairman asked me, after I’d got out, why I hadn’t simply hit the ball a little bit softer towards the boundary fielders so that I could come back for a second run.

“What I don’t understand is why you didn’t try to get two runs off every ball,” said Tommy Burrows, “and then that would have been twelve an over, well above our required rate!”

I had been going quite well when, on 22, I was run out in a silly mix-up and I remember the dismissal came soon after I had hit David Brown, Warwickshire’s England fast bowler, over mid off for four.

He used to say to me: “You don’t think I can bowl, do you?” But it wasn’t that, it was because he used to pitch the ball up a lot more than most quicks and I was quite happy, on occasions, to have a go at hitting through the line of the ball and trying to lift it over the infield.

“Yes, Mr Chairman,” I replied, with as much a lack of exasperation as I could manage in the situation, which I’m sure wasn’t very much, “but you’ve got to realise it’s Tom Cartwright and David Brown bowling out there, not somebody’s big sister.”

Brown’s length was, actually, a very good ‘fault’ to have in that he gave the ball more time to swing than most, and by tempting the batsman to come at him with a booming drive it also increased his chances of getting an edge if it moved a bit off the seam.

After the game MJK Smith was named man-of-match by Herbert Sutcliffe, the sponsor’s adjudicator, for his 58 of earlier in the day, three catches and obviously, too, for his captaincy in the field. When we went to play at Yorkshire, soon afterwards, Sutcliffe came up to me and the great England opener of the 1920s and 1930s said: “Mr Green, I owe you an apology. On reflection, I should have made you man-of-the-match for that innings you played.”

Mick Beddow, John Sullivan and Brian Statham all got 30s in the lower middle order, but it was still a fairly easy task for Warwickshire to knock off the runs required after Brown had nipped out our tail to finish with 3 for 36. Roger Edmonds, who bowled medium-paced off-breaks and was a useful all-rounder but didn’t play county cricket for that long before deciding to become a fulltime schoolteacher, took 4 for 33 but the man-of-the-match award went to Billy

Ibadulla for his half-century at the top of the Warwickshire order. A young Dennis Amiss then eased Warwickshire to their target with an unbeaten 53.

It was very disappointing, and knowing that you were out of the Gillette Cup competition so early in the season did put a real dampener on things, especially of course as we had been just one controversial step away from reaching the final itself in the previous year.

The Gillette Cup, brought in specifically to boost attendances and interest in the county game, had already caught the public’s imagination and the 60-over format, introduced for the 1964 competition after an initial experimentation with 65 overs per side in the inaugural season, worked extremely well and was liked by the players.

English cricket, which had been so well supported since the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, when the national team was the best in the world and players of the supreme talent of Hutton, Compton, May, Dexter, Trueman, Statham, Laker and Lock also played regularly for their counties, needed a financial boost because people had less leisure time and, with attitudes changing by the 1960s, had got into the habit of not attending threeday matches in the numbers that had been previously the norm.

In the Gillette Cup’s debut season it had proved to be difficult to get 130 overs into a day’s natural light, but 120 was more manageable – particularly if counties kept up their over rates and didn’t fiddle around with fields after every single ball – and, most importantly,

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CHAPTER FIVE: CUT DOWN IN THE GILLETTE

it was a long enough innings for teams to be able to recover if they found themselves in trouble early on, or in the middle overs. You had time to come back in a 60-over format, and it made for some superb cricket.

Warwickshire v Lancashire: Gillette Cup 1965 (2nd Round)

By and large, too, and notwithstanding the Old Trafford incident of ’64, teams played it straight in that they started with slips and a gully and tried to get people out with the new ball. Early wickets were seen as vital, and you didn’t get the 40 or 50-yard boundaries that now seem to be all the rage in Twenty20 cricket in particular.

Lancashire innings Runs DM Green run out 22 GK Knox c Khalid Ibadulla b Edmonds 7 G Pullar c Barber b Edmonds 4 JD Bond c Barber b Edmonds 0 AM Beddow run out 36 J Sullivan c Jameson b Barber 39 P Lever b Brown 16 *JB Statham c and b Edmonds 36 K Shuttleworth b Brown 2 K Higgs b Brown 4 +K Goodwin not out 0 Extras 0 Total (all out, 50.1 overs) 166 Fall of wickets: 1-29, 2-30, 3-30, 4-37, 5-107, 6-108, 7-124, 8-136, 9-166, 10-166

Venue: Edgbaston, Birmingham on 22nd May 1965 (60-over match) Toss: Lancashire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Warwickshire won by 6 wickets Umpires: A Jepson, WFF Price Man of the Match Khalid Ibadulla

I get quite cross when I see how the limited-overs game, and especially the shortest-form of it, has seemed to become merely an exercise in seeing how many sixes can be hit by players wielding huge bats on soporific pitches and with the ball disappearing over shorter and shorter boundaries.

Warwickshire bowling

Overs Mdns Brown 12.1 1 Bannister 11 3 Edmonds 8 3 Cartwright 13 1 Barber 4 1 Khalid Ibadulla 2 1

Indeed, when I stop and think, in terms of one-day cricket so many of the game’s authorities need doing to them what Basil Fawlty intended to do to with that gnome to the Irish builder Mr O’Reilly at the end of one episode of Fawlty Towers.

Personally, I wouldn’t use a gnome. I’d use the rough end of a giant revolving pineapple.

Lancashire bowling

Statham Lever Higgs Beddow Shuttleworth Green Sullivan

Runs Wkts 36 3 22 0 33 4 58 0 14 1 3 0

Warwickshire innings RW Barber c Goodwin b Higgs Khalid Ibadulla run out *MJK Smith c Goodwin b Lever JA Jameson lbw b Statham DL Amiss not out WJP Stewart not out TW Cartwright did not bat +AC Smith did not bat RB Edmonds did not bat DJ Brown did not bat JD Bannister did not bat Extras (7 lb) Total (4 wickets, 51.2 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-47, 2-49, 3-81, 4-133

Runs 33 58 0 8 53 11

7 170

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Overs Mdns 13 0 13 2 13 1 2 0 9 3 1 0 0.2 0

Runs Wkts 49 1 42 1 38 1 10 0 19 0 1 0 4 0

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CHAPTER SIX: SUCCOUR AT AIGBURTH Out of the Gillette Cup, and winless and pointless in the County Championship: that was the state of it when we pitched up in Worcester for Lancashire’s next three-day fixture, due to begin the following morning on Wednesday May 26, and sad to say it was about to get a whole lot worse.

glasses and came lolloping up to the crease with a mad grin, finished things off by taking 6 for 7 in 4.1 overs. This included the coup de grace of a hat-trick in which the victims were Ken Howard, Tommy Greenhough and Keith Goodwin.

As those three came and went, we truly resembled a side which had thrown in the towel.

By the time we left New Road on the Friday, to drive back up the A6, our frail batting had been humiliatingly exposed

by Jack Flavell and the Worcestershire seamers, and we were still stuck at the bottom of the championship table with nil points and four defeats from four.

We never reckoned Carter knew where the ball was going when it left his hand, but he did have his days as a bowler – including days when he didn’t just have a flabby Lancashire tail to skittle – and he was someone who, like Brian Edmeades of Essex, had an action which made it quite difficult to pick up the ball. He wasn’t quick, but his height also meant he got a bit of bounce, and somehow the ball seemed to come at you from the small of his back as he contorted himself through his strange-looking action.

Bowling with his customary hostility, Flavell took 7 for 40 in our first innings of 101, and then another three wickets in our second innings disintegration to 55 all out. We lost by the small matter of 251 runs. Brian Brain, Flavell’s new ball partner, picked up three wickets in the match and Bob Carter, a tall seamer with a thick mop of blondish hair and a weird action, who wore horn-rimmed

It was Flavell, however, ‘Mad Jack’ as he was affectionately called, who did all the real damage to us in this game. He got

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against someone like him, red-haired and rushing in at you with his eyes bulging?”

Even later in his career, when he cut his approach down to eleven running paces, he could generate nasty speed and bounce with his big body swing at the point of delivery and not for nothing was he also called ‘Jolting Jack’ by those wary of referring to him by his ‘Mad’ epithet for fear of rousing him to further fury.

me twice, caught behind in both innings for 12 and 5, and although I did score runs against him at other times in my career I was not alone among county batsmen in finding him an extremely testing proposition. Indeed, it is fair to say about Flavell during this era that he caused more people to soil themselves than any other fast bowler on the circuit.

The reason for this was not just his pace, which was genuinely quick even if it was not quite as fast as the likes of Trueman and Tyson at their peak, but his uncanny ability to get disconcerting bounce from just short of a length and also to make the ball dart back in at the right-handed batsman off the seam.

Flavell, who came from Stourbridge, also played football for West Bromwich Albion as a brutal half-back but although he was a hostile opponent on the field he was a lovely bloke off it. Flavell also frequently dug a pit in the crease as he repeatedly jammed his big bowling boots down and delivered his vicious missiles with a twisting motion that seemed to rip up the rolled turf as if he was some demonic earth-moving machine.

He was not particularly tall, perhaps a shade under six foot, but he was muscular and he bowled a wicket-towicket line from close to the stumps.

His natural shape was to run it away from the right-hander, which is how he dismissed me in this match, caught at the wicket on both occasions, but you were always looking too for the one which bounced and nipped in to hit you either in the box, abdomen or inner thigh or on the finger-end of your bottom hand.

The result, especially when you came out to bat in the second innings, was that you had to face whoever was bowling at the other end to Flavell standing on the edge of his pit. It was as if you were balancing on your toes on the bottom rung of a ladder, knowing that you would topple backwards if you allowed yourself to transfer your weight on to your heels.

This he seemed to be able to do with frightening regularity and it was often difficult to hold your bat with any confidence, or even focus properly on the ball, when your eyes were watering and the bruises were forming in uncomfortable and sometimes unmentionable places.

All in all, then, batting against Worcestershire in that era, with other seamers such as Len Coldwell and Jim Standen to back up Flavell as well as Brain and Carter, was not easy.

They also had Norman Gifford to bowl excellent left arm spin, and Basil D’Oliveira’s wobblers, so it wasn’t a bad attack and their bowling strength was clearly one of the main reasons they won

Indeed, it would have been entirely reasonable, when facing Flavell, to think: “What am I doing here? Why on earth am I opening the batting for Lancashire

chapter six: succour at aigburth

JACK FLAVELL His career with Worcestershire began in 1949 when he was 20. Flavell didn’t produce too many notable performances in the first seven years of his career when he was in and out of the side and paying around 30 runs for each wicket he took.

I saw him once or twice during this period when, as a schoolboy, I dropped in at Old Trafford for a couple of hours on my way home. His run-up was long in those days, fifteen or sixteen strides, and he seemed a bit wild to me. It must have been touch and go as to whether Worcestershire retained him. In the event their faith in him was rewarded when, having shortened his approach to around eleven paces with no perceptible loss of pace and greatly improved accuracy, he began to take a hundred wickets per season regularly, at increasingly economical rates.

When in 1961 he took 171 wickets at below 18 runs apiece he forced himself into the England side for two Tests against Australia, as he did when they returned three years later. Only moderately successful on these appearances Jack was never collared and famously gave Norman O’Neill a rough passage in the fourth Test of the 1961 series at Old Trafford. Wisden records: “O’Neill, never happy, was struck frequently on the thigh and body when facing Flavell and the game had to be held up occasionally while he recovered. Once he vomited when at the bowler’s end.” (I know how he felt!)

Indeed, O’Neill’s experience was a familiar one to English batsmen. Flavell, strong and solidly built, hit players regularly with his nip-backer which threatened the box, the upper thigh and the ribs. A few overs of this treatment would be followed by his well-pitched away swing, a thin edge resulting in the entry c Booth b Flavell which littered the scorebooks of Worcestershire’s matches.

For all his hostility on the field Jack was excellent company off it, distinctly genial and always happy to have a few beers with his opponents. He and his new ball partner Len Coldwell, another high quality bowler, were a vital part of the side which won successive championships in 1964 and 1965.

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the championship title in both 1964 and 1965.

as one of the victims of Carter’s hattrick reminds of the day – I think it was in 1964 – when Keith was also involved in another hat-trick and, in the changing rooms afterwards, turned on our captain, Ken Grieves, and said with mock seriousness: “Well, I blame you Grievesy – fancy sending in me in the middle of a hat-trick!”

Before Flavell and his chums got to work on us in this game, though, we did have Worcestershire struggling at 68 for five on the first day, and it took a fine partnership between Dick Richardson and Roy Booth to propel them into a position from which to boss the game.

Pitching up at Aigburth, Liverpool, for the three-day game against Sussex which began on Saturday May 29, was a blessed relief after the horrors of Worcester but we knew we had to start performing if our season was not to crumple into something even more harrowing.

Batting at Worcester was seldom straightforward, and looking at the scorecard it is clear to me that, once again, the Lancashire team selection was awry. Not only was our batting line-up too thin, with Brian Statham once more asked to bat at No 7, but we only had two frontline seamers in the team. At New Road, this was plain daft.

Fortunately, after winning the toss and choosing to bat, Sussex found our bowling attack too much for them and slid unceremoniously to 112 all out, with Ken Higgs and Brian Statham taking nine of the wickets between them. By stumps we were already ahead in the match at 125 for 3, with Jack Bond on 42 not out, and when he resumed on the Monday morning Bond took his score to a very fine 90. It was a superb knock, anchoring us to an eventual first innings of 250, and it won us the game.

Richardson, who like his elder brother Peter played Test cricket for England, was actually christened ‘Derek’ but at Lancashire we always thought it apt that he answered to Dick. He was a strutting left-hander, slightly flashy technically but a good player and also an exceptional close fielder, either in the slips or in the leg trap. In the Lancashire dressing room he was known as ‘Dick Edge’ because to have a ‘bit of edge’ is a Lancastrian expression for those who fancy themselves.

Statham collected another four wickets as Sussex fought hard through 97 overs to reach 211 in their second innings, but that left us needing just 74 to win. There was plenty of time left, too, and the match was over by lunchtime on the final day, with Gerry Knox and I scoring most of the runs required between us, for the first wicket, before Gerry was out.

There is no doubting that his batting made a difference in this game, though.

Besides Richardson’s first innings 82 there was another knock of 47 not out, which enabled Worcestershire to build enough of a total second time around to leave us nowhere to go when they declared overnight on the second evening.

Nevertheless, 55 all out was a woeful display, although seeing Keith Goodwin

Knox was a useful cricketer, hardworking and athletic at around 5ft 11in tall. He was a schoolteacher,

chapter six: succour at aigburth

from Northumberland, who taught at Stretford Grammar School over the road from Old Trafford and his main strength as a batsman was his concentration.

of light ales and it was good to be able to celebrate something as a team after the struggles we had endured during the previous month.

He didn’t have a wide range of shots, and he employed a short backlift, but he was a strong cutter and good off his legs and didn’t mind the new, swinging ball. He played some fine innings for Lancashire but, in amongst them, there were generally too many low scores.

I remember that an old university friend of mine, Dick Higham, who had been a rugby Blue at Oxford, turned up in the bar and – as he also liked a gargle – joined in enthusiastically. He was working in Liverpool, and it was good to see him.

I always enjoyed playing at Aigburth, a ground with a rich history. The supporters who came along in good numbers were always welcoming, and it was only around this time that the rows of huge houses in the area – which was very well-to-do, being the residential hub of many wealthy 19th century families – began to be redeveloped into flats or small hotels. We stayed as a team in a pleasant hotel about half-a-mile from the ground, so playing in Liverpool was a civilised affair. In 1965, our visit came along just when we needed it.

I batted well for my 44 not out and at last began to feel in some sort of order.

There had been a bit of juice in most of the early-season pitches we had played on up to that point and, apart from the thrash at Taunton and the long grind against Gloucestershire’s spinners at Old Trafford, I had not enjoyed much of my time at the crease during May. And so, on June 1, it was nice to build a bit of a score and to take us across the winning line. It was a victory that was badly needed, and far more important than just the ten championship points that it earned us. I had also felt in reasonable nick in the first innings, getting to 19 and thinking I was going to be around for a while, only for Tony Buss to produce and outswinger that nipped back to bowl me between bat and pad.

Buss, who opened Sussex’s bowling with the young John Snow, was a very good bowler but overall they did not have as strong an attack as ours and, in this game, that and Jack Bond’s innings proved decisive. As it was still early afternoon, we repaired to Aigburth’s old woodworked bar, in the lovely Victorian pavilion, and enjoyed a celebratory session. Even Bond, one of the gentle drinkers, had a couple

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Worcestershire v Lancashire

Lancashire v Sussex

Venue: County Ground, New Road, Worcester on 26th, 27th, 28th May 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Worcestershire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Worcestershire 10; Lancashire 0 Umpires: JF Crapp, F Jakeman

Venue: Aigburth, Liverpool on 29th, 31st May, 1st June 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Sussex won the toss and decided to bat Result: Lancashire won by 9 wickets Points: Lancashire 10; Sussex 0 Umpires: R Aspinall, AEG Rhodes

Worcestershire first innings Runs MJ Horton c Goodwin b Statham 0 CD Fearnley b Higgs 22 RGA Headley c Goodwin b Statham 15 *TW Graveney c Howard b Greenhough 19 BL D’Oliveira b Greenhough 4 DW Richardson run out 82 +R Booth c Sullivan b Statham 53 N Gifford not out 17 BM Brain not out 8 JA Flavell did not bat RGM Carter did not bat Extras (12 b, 10 lb) 22 Total (7 wickets, declared, 102 overs) 242 Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-34, 3-56, 4-65, 5-68, 6-190, 7-233

Sussex first innings Runs *ASM Oakman b Greenhough 26 KG Suttle lbw b Statham 0 LJ Lenham b Statham 7 RJ Langridge lbw b Higgs 47 GC Cooper b Higgs 1 PRV Ledden lbw b Higgs 1 FR Pountain b Statham 12 A Buss b Higgs 7 +T Gunn c Goodwin b Higgs 0 DL Bates not out 3 JA Snow c Green b Statham 5 Extras (3 lb) 3 Total (all out, 56.1 overs) 112 Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-22, 3-41, 4-42, 5-44, 6-61, 7-80, 8-82, 9-107, 10-112

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Greenhough Howard

Overs Mdns 29 9 30 10 21 5 22 10

Worcestershire second innings Runs MJ Horton lbw b Statham 19 CD Fearnley c Statham b Greenhough 31 RGA Headley b Howard 5 *TW Graveney c Howard b Greenhough 11 BL D’Oliveira c Howard b Greenhough 21 DW Richardson not out 47 +R Booth b Higgs 1 N Gifford lbw b Higgs 7 BM Brain b Higgs 14 JA Flavell did not bat RGM Carter did not bat Extras (9 lb) 9 Total (8 wickets, declared, 66.3 overs) 165 Fall of wickets: 1-28, 2-42, 3-64, 4-75, 5-130, 6-133, 7-145, 8-165

Runs Wkts 63 3 72 1 46 2 39 0

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Greenhough Howard

Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green c Booth b Flavell 12 GK Knox run out 1 G Pullar c Booth b Flavell 28 JD Bond b Flavell 3 J Sullivan lbw b Flavell 13 AM Beddow c Graveney b Brain 15 *JB Statham b Flavell 1 K Howard b Flavell 15 K Higgs c D’Oliveira b Flavell 5 T Greenhough b Brain 6 +K Goodwin not out 0 Extras (1 b, 1 nb) 2 Total (all out, 34.1 overs) 101 Fall of wickets: 1-11, 2-15, 3-27, 4-53, 5-60, 6-66, 7-80, 8-94, 9-101, 10-101

Overs Mdns 12 7 17.3 3 22 6 15 8

Runs Wkts 16 1 58 3 61 3 21 1

Lancashire second innings Runs DM Green c Booth b Flavell 5 GK Knox b Flavell 1 G Pullar c sub b Brain 3 JD Bond b Flavell 0 J Sullivan b Carter 15 AM Beddow c D’Oliveira b Carter 13 *JB Statham b Carter 11 K Howard c Booth b Carter 3 K Higgs not out 4 T Greenhough c Booth b Carter 0 +K Goodwin b Carter 0 Extras 0 Total (all out, 23.1 overs) 55 Fall of wickets: 1-3, 2-8, 3-8, 4-14, 5-32, 6-41, 7-50, 8-51, 9-51, 10-55

Worcestershire bowling

Overs Mdns Flavell 17.1 2 Brain 17 1

Runs Wkts 40 7 59 2

Sussex second innings Runs *ASM Oakman lbw b Statham 22 KG Suttle lbw b Higgs 47 LJ Lenham c Bond b Statham 5 RJ Langridge c Howard b Beddow 13 GC Cooper b Greenhough 41 PRV Ledden c Statham b Greenhough 9 FR Pountain c Goodwin b Greenhough 12 A Buss c Goodwin b Statham 16 +T Gunn lbw b Higgs 11 JA Snow b Statham 17 DL Bates not out 3 Extras (11 b, 4 lb) 15 Total (all out, 97 overs) 211 Fall of wickets: 1-33, 2-39, 3-78, 4-105, 5-126, 6-151, 7-170, 8-185, 9-193, 10-211

Worcestershire bowling

Overs Mdns Flavell 12 4 Brain 7 0 Carter 4.1 2

Runs Wkts 29 3 19 1 7 6

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Greenhough

Overs Mdns 24.1 8 26 6 6 5

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Greenhough Beddow Howard

Runs Wkts 48 4 60 5 1 1

Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green b Buss 19 GK Knox c Gunn b Bates 23 G Pullar c Gunn b Buss 7 JD Bond c Gunn b Pountain 95 J Sullivan c Langridge b Snow 29 AM Beddow c Cooper b Snow 4 K Howard run out 23 *JB Statham c Oakman b Bates 6 K Higgs not out 15 T Greenhough b Pountain 2 +K Goodwin c Gunn b Bates 10 Extras (11 b, 6 lb) 17 Total (all out, 84.1 overs) 250 Fall of wickets: 1-25, 2-35, 3-79, 4-125, 5-139, 6-201, 7-208, 8-228, 9-233, 10-250 Sussex bowling

Snow Buss Bates Pountain Suttle

Overs Mdns 19 7 18 5 23.1 3 23 6 1 0

Overs Mdns 23 6 27 4 26 7 6 2 15 4

Runs Wkts 53 4 60 2 42 3 9 1 32 0

Lancashire second innings DM Green not out GK Knox c Lenham b Cooper G Pullar not out JD Bond did not bat J Sullivan did not bat AM Beddow did not bat K Howard did not bat *JB Statham did not bat K Higgs did not bat T Greenhough did not bat +K Goodwin did not bat Extras (2 lb, 1 w) Total (1 wicket, 26.1 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-63

Runs Wkts 44 2 48 2 70 3 62 2 9 0

Sussex bowling

Snow Buss Pountain Oakman Cooper

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Mdns 1 0 1 2 1

Runs 44 25 3

3 75

Runs Wkts 14 0 20 0 17 0 13 0 8 1

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chapter seven: in dread of fred

TOOLS OF THE TRADE Cricketers of the 1960s were often craftsmen in the way they went about their business, but unlike today their employers, the county clubs, did not think it was their job to provide the players with the equipment they needed – or much in the way of kit, for that matter.

Lancashire, for instance, would give all their first team and Second XI players on the staff both a long-sleeved and short-sleeved sweater, and a cap (I received my county cap in 1962), but we had to buy our own cricket flannels, shirts, socks, boots, jockstraps, and any other items of match or practice gear we felt we required.

In addition, it was only the recognised batsmen who got free bats, pads, batting gloves and boxes from suppliers. Jock Livingston, representing Gray-Nicolls, had first approached me in 1960 when I was playing for Oxford University in The Parks, to ask me if I wanted to accept bats and other equipment from them. Of course, I was very happy to do so – and I never had to buy another bat, or pads and gloves, again in my career.

Other players, and especially the poor bowlers, did not get such help. They had to provide their own bats and pads, and I often used to think it was pretty unfair that often quite famous bowlers did not get any free gear! They might get a discount in the shops – say, a few quid off an £8 bat – but that was about it.

My Gray-Nicolls bats were made to my specifications – in my case either 2lb 4oz, or 2lb 5oz if the pick-up was very good. I didn’t like a bat that was too heavy.

Geoff Pullar and Peter Marner used to have bats that were around 2lb 6oz, and I remember that the young Dennis Amiss would use 2lb 8oz or even 2lb 9oz bats, but they were too big for me – even though I was a burly bloke.

These days, bats are often 3lb-plus railway sleepers and batsmen can even mow the ball – often when mis-hitting it – over the ropes for six. But cricket’s administrators, having allowed the bat to get heaver and heavier without limiting its weight like any sensible person would have done, also refuse to allow the bowlers to operate with a heavier ball.

It is not doing the game any service at all. If the ball cannot be more than a certain weight, why can the bats?

CHAPTER SEVEN: IN DREAD OF FRED In the county cricket of the mid-1960s you came up against high-quality bowlers virtually every week, normally on pitches and in overhead conditions that gave them more than a little assistance in terms of seam, swing or spin. Often, though, it was just their sheer natural ability that was too much for unfortunate batsmen like myself.

even a tiny proportion of what might be called ordinary folk began to own cars. But it was still a long way from the North West to the capital, and I dare say a stop or two for sustenance and refreshment at a public house may have been required before we reached St John’s Wood.

Middlesex, captained by Titmus, had put us in and he clearly fancied an early bowl as Gerry Knox and I put on 29 for the first wicket. On 17, I pushed forward at what was an arm ball from Fred, played for some turn that wasn’t there and departed when it hit the outside of my off stump. If I had gone back I would have been fine, but I had thought the ball was of fuller length than it was and I had been done, as so many were, in the air.

Even buoyed by our win at Aigburth, indeed, I found Middlesex’s England off spinner Fred Titmus too good for me at Lord’s when – after a long evening journey from Liverpool to London – I faced up to him on the morning of Wednesday June 2. We had travelled by road, and I went with Noddy Pullar in his two-and-a-quarter litre shooting brake.

Usually, I would be one of those charged with driving, but on this occasion I could sit back and enjoy the ride.

That was why Titmus was a great bowler, and I use that word carefully. In that innings he did not get another wicket, but his 33 overs included 21 maidens and he conceded only 30 runs. He rarely got any tap, and he held up an end for those

Roads at that time were not very busy, as private motor cars for the common man were still quite few and far between.

It was only in the early 60s, indeed, that

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swing it from a middle-and-leg stump line – which some couldn’t – and that was dangerous because you would then be aiming to hit it away to mid on or wide of it and you could still be legbefore, or bowled, if you missed. Those who couldn’t swing it away from that line were just meat-and-drink to any half-decent batsman, but Hooker needed watching. I clearly didn’t watch him closely enough on this occasion.

bowling in tandem with him to exploit any attempted aggression against them.

Bowled out for 174 on a slowish surface, we were given some hope overnight

by Brian Statham reducing them to 23 for three at the close, including the nightwatchman Don Bick. But, the next morning, Bob Gale and Peter Parfitt went on to add 97 for the fourth wicket and, try though Brian did with six for 38, Middlesex still earned themselves a useful first innings lead of 32.

Our 193 all out, with John Price taking six for 68, left Middlesex needing 161 to win and they got there comfortably with Eric Russell getting 44 and Gale and especially Parfitt both batting well again. Parfitt’s unbeaten 67 completed a fine match for him and underlined what a class act he was; his first-class career average, indeed, was close to 40, which is very good for that era, and he also had a good Test record. He was an aggressive player, and he didn’t let people bowl at him.

Parfitt’s 76 and Gale’s 49 were significant knocks in the context of the game, and once again in our second innings we could find no one to go on and get the 70 or 80 that would have made such a difference. Five of our top six got good starts, but only John Sullivan made it to 50 – and then he, too, got out.

My 24 was ended by Ronnie Hooker, a strong and athletic bloke with hairy arms and premature baldness who liked bowling, was a good close fielder, and could also bat well enough to score firstclass hundreds. Indeed, he had begun his career with Middlesex batting at No 5 but as his bowling developed he slipped down the order. His batting position in this game, down in the tail, also shows how much deeper Middlesex batted than us – we had Peter Lever at No 7 and then either Statham or Ken Higgs at No 8!

There were two excellent bowling attacks in this game but once more we had not scored enough runs, while the likes of Parfitt had made the difference in that regard. Titmus and Hooker had done for me, but Price was sharp and Don Bennett, who took four first innings wickets, was a steady performer with the new and older ball.

Don had been a bit of a boy wonder, making his Middlesex debut at 16 and so quick for his age then that some had said he was destined to be the next Larwood.

But, as happens to many of that age, he just didn’t get any quicker as he grew into his twenties.

Hooker swung the ball consistently away from the right-handers at medium pace and he was also capable of a nipbacker. Whether it was one of those which pinned me lbw I can’t recall, but Ronnie was also one of those awayswing merchants, such as Tony Buss and especially Fred Trueman, who could

chapter seven: in dread of fred

FRED TITMUS In a career that extended over a period of 34 years, Fred Titmus, who played his first game for Middlesex as a 16-year-old, has several massive achievements to his name. His career tally of 2,830 wickets is exceeded only by Tony Lock among postWar spinners, of whom none has matched his feat of taking 100 wickets in a season sixteen times.

Of post-War cricketers only Trevor Bailey equalled his record of eight doubles. Fred’s batting was somewhat pawky but he watched the ball carefully, would not attempt anything too exotic and made bowlers work hard to get him out. As a bowler he had a gentle trotting approach of five or six paces and delivered the ball with a high arm, his action being easy and fluid. It all looked very innocent and straightforward but behind this façade lay great skills and a very shrewd cricket brain.

Fred was not a particularly big spinner of the ball, though when there was a little in the wicket for him he would turn it enough to disconcert the best. The main difficulty when batting against him was to work out when the ball was going to reach you.

This was not easy for Fred was a master of flight and subtle changes of pace. The batsman’s task was further complicated by Fred’s natural drift in the air away from the right-hander (I lost count of the number of times that I was c Parfitt b Titmus, having got a nick to slip on his away-floater).

I remember to talking to Mike Brearley on the problems I had with Titmus. Mike replied: “It’s maddening, isn’t it? I batted against him in the nets from the age of sixteen onwards. He would bowl a batch of away-floaters and I would think ‘He’s not turning it so it must be safe to late cut him. But inevitably, when I did aim to cut, it turned and hit off stump’.”

Titmus was undoubtedly a great bowler, as well as a more than useful batsman. It always surprised me that someone who possessed such a Machievellian brain as a bowler should be such good company on a golf course or in a four-ale bar.

Price is perhaps best-remembered for his run-up, or at least the start of it. Bafflingly,

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though, without him and the middle order contributions of Sullivan and Mick Beddow, we would have been in deep trouble.

he faced away from the batsman – he wasn’t looking at you at all – and then began a little curving run, which at Lord’s often looked as it he was about to dive off into the Tavern for a quick pint, before he straightened and came pounding to the crease. Until you got to know it, it was quite off-putting. But he was a fine, strong bowler.

Yorkshire replied with 262, with halfcenturies for Geoff Boycott and Phil Sharpe, and on what was a very sluggish pitch – something which, in the end, saved us – I was out again cheaply when, on 3, I was taken at bat and pad by Brian Close off Tony Nicholson. At least Fred didn’t get me.

I never really got many runs at Lord’s, unlike at the Oval, but I still much enjoyed playing there with its lovely buildings and great history, plus one of the best practice net areas in the country on the Nursery Ground. There was always a bit of grass on the pitches at Lord’s in the 60s, and so it usually did a bit off the seam and gripped for Titmus and the spinners.

Looking back, it was a minor miracle that we survived for a draw against that Yorkshire bowling attack, grinding it out through 91.5 overs for 187 and then preventing them from chasing down 144 in the final session. Beddow’s 42 and Higgs’s 43 – then a career-best score – were only slightly more heroic than Tommy Greenhough’s 15.

Beaten by seven wickets, we trooped back up to Manchester that night for the start the next day of one of the biggest tests of our summer, the first of two Roses Matches against Yorkshire and, at 19 for three after being put in, things were looking pretty bleak for us.

Tommy helped Higgy to add 40 for the ninth wicket after Beddow and Higgs had put on 49 for the eighth, and Yorkshire’s attempts to accelerate towards their victory target meant the loss of five wickets – two of them the promoted Close and Trueman – and, ultimately, the decision to take the draw.

Fred, of course, had got me again, for 4, besides both Pullar and Jack Bond, for a duck, and by this stage of my career I was resigned to Trueman claiming my wicket. This Fred, the fiery one, was by far the most difficult bowler I faced in my time and that we got to 218 in our first innings was much to the credit of Gerry Knox, who survived the Trueman new ball burst and went on to make 108, his maiden first-class century.

chapter seven: in dread of fred

On the whole, and despite my tribulations against Trueman, I enjoyed playing in Roses Matches. I got on with a lot of the Yorkies, for a start, as generally speaking they were jovial off the field as well as hard on it.

They enjoyed a natter at close of play, and ‘Tony Nick’ liked his grog. Jimmy Binks was also good company, and would stand there quietly giggling, while PJ Sharpe was also keen at the bar. We regularly got crowds of 8,000 or 9,000 at LancashireYorkshire jousts, and that added a lot to what were already big occasions.

As a footnote to this match, it is interesting that Trueman took his 1,950th first-class wicket (me) in the game, and Statham his 1,900th. Throughout their great careers they remained neck-andneck when it came to wickets taken, and their impressive cost, and although Brian had the odd match off with sore hamstrings it was just remarkable how Trueman kept fit.

They both had tremendous, repeating actions that minimised the strain they put on their bodies but Fred, in particular, never seemed to break down. My batting average, for one, could have done with him having regular absences on the treatment couch.

In the Roses Matches of those days – indeed, throughout most of its history – it was the prime target of both teams not to lose. Winning was all well and good, but you didn’t want to lose to your Roses rival. Brian Close was an aggressive captain of Yorkshire, too, but in this instance he made only a slight gamble in terms of trying to chase down the runs on a pitch that was not straightforward for batting.

Gerry was a strange sort of batsman in that he was very well-organised and sound, but only occasionally played the sort of innings to shape a match. Here,

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chapter seven: in dread of fred

Middlesex v Lancashire

Lancashire v Yorkshire

Venue: Lord’s Cricket Ground, St John’s Wood on 2nd, 3rd, 4th June 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Middlesex won the toss and decided to field Result: Middlesex won by 7 wickets Points: Middlesex 10; Lancashire 0 Umpires: J Arnold, AE Fagg

Venue: Old Trafford, Manchester on 5th, 7th, 8th June 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Yorkshire won the toss and decided to field Result: Match drawn POINTS: Lancashire 0; Yorkshire 2 Umpires: JS Buller, WH Copson

Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green b Titmus 17 GK Knox c Parfitt b Hooker 22 G Pullar b Bennett 2 JD Bond b Bennett 34 J Sullivan c Russell b Price 14 AM Beddow c Titmus b Hooker 27 P Lever b Bennett 8 *JB Statham c Parfitt b Bennett 16 K Higgs c Russell b Price 15 T Greenhough b Price 7 +K Goodwin not out 2 Extras (5 lb, 2 nb, 3 w) 10 Total (all out, 97.5 overs) 174 Fall of wickets: 1-29, 2-32, 3-63, 4-90, 5-101, 6-110, 7-146, 8-152, 9-165, 10-174

Lancashire second innings Runs DM Green lbw b Hooker 24 GK Knox b Price 9 G Pullar b Hooker 26 JD Bond lbw b Bick 28 J Sullivan c Titmus b Bick 50 AM Beddow c Murray b Price 22 P Lever b Price 1 K Higgs not out 18 *JB Statham b Price 8 T Greenhough b Price 1 +K Goodwin c Murray b Price 0 Extras (4 b, 2 lb) 6 Total (all out, 74.5 overs) 193 Fall of wickets: 1-17, 2-51, 3-68, 4-125, 5-142, 6-143, 7-173, 8-189, 9-193, 10-193

Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green c Padgett b Trueman 4 GK Knox run out 108 G Pullar c Padgett b Trueman 4 JD Bond lbw b Trueman 0 J Sullivan c Taylor b Hutton 45 AM Beddow b Wilson 31 K Howard b Hutton 5 *JB Statham run out 2 K Higgs b Hutton 0 T Greenhough c Binks b Hutton 2 +K Goodwin not out 1 Extras (4 b, 8 lb, 4 nb) 16 Total (all out, 82.3 overs) 218 Fall of wickets: 1-11, 2-15, 3-19, 4-88, 5-204, 6-208, 7-214, 8-215, 9-215, 10-218

Lancashire second innings Runs DM Green c Close b Nicholson 3 GK Knox c Binks b Wilson 39 G Pullar c Illingworth b Trueman 1 JD Bond c Binks b Trueman 24 J Sullivan c Boycott b Wilson 7 AM Beddow c Close b Illingworth 42 K Howard c Binks b Trueman 0 *JB Statham b Trueman 0 K Higgs c Boycott b Illingworth 43 T Greenhough c Hutton b Illingworth 1 +K Goodwin not out 0 Extras (5 b, 4 lb, 4 nb) 13 Total (all out, 91.5 overs) 187 Fall of wickets: 1-7, 2-18, 3-52, 4-64, 5-98, 6-98, 7-98, 8-147, 9-187, 10-187

Middlesex bowling

Price Bennett Titmus Hooker Clark

Middlesex bowling

Price Bennett Titmus Hooker Clark Bick

Yorkshire bowling

Trueman Nicholson Hutton Boycott Illingworth Wilson Close

Yorkshire bowling

Trueman Nicholson Hutton Illingworth Wilson Close

Overs Mdns 19.5 5 22 2 33 21 18 6 5 0

Runs Wkts 42 3 52 4 30 1 30 2 10 0

Overs Mdns 22.5 4 7 1 10 1 23 8 1 1 11 5

Runs Wkts 68 6 36 0 28 0 47 2 0 0 8 2

Middlesex first innings Runs WE Russell lbw b Statham 4 JM Brearley lbw b Statham 4 RA Gale b Statham 49 DA Bick b Statham 0 PH Parfitt lbw b Lever 76 EA Clark lbw b Higgs 16 +JT Murray lbw b Greenhough 8 *FJ Titmus c Goodwin b Statham 20 D Bennett c Goodwin b Higgs 12 RW Hooker b Statham 7 JSE Price not out 1 Extras (9 lb) 9 Total (all out, 99.2 overs) 206 Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-16, 3-18, 4-115, 5-158, 6-158, 7-179, 8-188, 9-198, 10-206

Middlesex second innings WE Russell b Lever JM Brearley b Higgs RA Gale lbw b Lever PH Parfitt not out EA Clark not out DA Bick did not bat +JT Murray did not bat *FJ Titmus did not bat D Bennett did not bat RW Hooker did not bat JSE Price did not bat Extras (4 b, 10 lb, 1 nb) Total (3 wickets, 37.3 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-62, 3-91

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Greenhough Lever Beddow

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Lever Beddow Green

Overs Mdns 25 6 25.2 7 18 6 16 3 15 2

Runs Wkts 38 6 53 2 24 1 46 1 36 0

Overs Mdns 6 3 10 0 13 1 3 0 5.3 0

Runs 44 4 22 67 12

15 164

Runs Wkts 9 0 33 1 53 2 17 0 37 0

Overs Mdns 12 3 16 4 12.3 1 3 0 16 2 20 9 3 1

Runs Wkts 23 3 52 0 38 4 6 0 46 0 34 1 3 0

Overs Mdns 27.1 8 32 6 31 12 20 4

Runs Wkts 59 4 33 1 27 0 29 3 18 2 8 0

Yorkshire second innings G Boycott b Howard K Taylor b Higgs DEV Padgett b Statham *DB Close c Howard b Higgs FS Trueman c Bond b Higgs D Wilson not out PJ Sharpe not out R Illingworth did not bat RA Hutton did not bat +JG Binks did not bat AG Nicholson did not bat Extras (3 lb) Total (5 wickets, 30 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-22, 2-94, 3-100, 4-101, 5-101

Yorkshire first innings Runs G Boycott b Howard 53 K Taylor lbw b Higgs 7 DEV Padgett lbw b Statham 3 PJ Sharpe b Howard 60 *DB Close c and b Howard 7 R Illingworth b Statham 36 RA Hutton c Statham b Howard 8 +JG Binks run out 41 FS Trueman lbw b Higgs 18 D Wilson c Higgs b Statham 22 AG Nicholson not out 1 Extras (6 lb) 6 Total (all out, 110.1 overs) 262 Fall of wickets: 1-18, 2-31, 3-107, 4-125, 5-132, 6-160, 7-220, 8-220, 9-244, 10-262 Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Howard Greenhough

Overs Mdns 27 3 18 4 9 0 20.5 7 15 9 2 0

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Howard

Runs Wkts 64 3 86 2 62 4 44 0

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Overs Mdns 11 1 12 1 7 1

Runs 40 13 43 0 2 6 4

3 111

Runs Wkts 35 1 43 3 30 1

chapter seven: in dread of fred

CHAPTER EIGHT: CAPTAIN OF A SHIP IN DISTRESS I had just about got one pad off, after making a very chancy 39 in the first innings of our return match against Middlesex, when into the Old Trafford dressing room burst our coach, a clearly agitated Charlie Hallows.

I got to 39 in no time, mostly in fours, and was feeling a little sheepish about it when Ted Clark, a left-arm seam bowling all-rounder who we called ‘Ted Bonk’ on account of his power with the bat and his propensity for hitting the ball very hard over mid on, bowled me with a terrific conker that went further away from me off the seam and hit my off stump.

He banged the door open and announced in his broad Bolton accent: “As for them that calls themselves batters, I calls it bloody disgusting!” This bollocking was not unexpected, for I had played several injudicious shots, thereby adding weight to Charlie’s view that I was too loose a player to open and would be better at No5..

Brian Statham in action against Surrey in 1954

I was playing only a defensive bat to that one, but it didn’t get me off the hook as far as Charlie Hallows was concerned.

Yet, when you look back, our batting that summer, as a team, would have been enough to drive even the most mildmannered coach to the odd outburst.

On this specific occasion, though, the pitch had a lot of bounce in it early on, and John Price was an opening bowler who made it bounce on most surfaces, I had thumped him through point a couple of times early on for fours, off the back foot, and then carved him high over the slips on several occasions for further boundaries – these were undeniably wild strokes.

Anyway, I’m getting a little ahead of myself because, before we lost to Middlesex for the second time in a matter of weeks, we first had a home defeat against Hampshire to get through. At least, with three consecutive championship matches at Old Trafford, the travelling up and down the country was over for a little while – although

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broken finger or two you might instead get one right up the hooter.

home comforts did not seem to be doing us much good as those two defeats followed the Roses draw which, to Lancashire supporters, must have felt like some sort of victory in itself given our poor overall results in the first half of the season.

We weren’t young girls out there, of course, but neither chest protectors nor arm guards were around in those days and some batsmen didn’t even bother with a thigh pad. Brian Booth, the Lancashire and then Leicestershire batsman, used to stick two rolled-up socks in his leading pocket to act as some sort of ‘protection’ for the flesh of his thigh, and I myself had a thin towel which I would hang from the ties of my jock strap down the inside of my left trouser leg. I found a traditional thigh pad too tight and restrictive, because of my fat thighs.

After holding the might of Yorkshire, we were beaten in little more than two days

by Hampshire and then, with myself as captain in the injury absence of Brian Statham, suffered another reverse in the following game against Middlesex. From an individual point of view, however, if not from a leadership perspective, those two games brought me three of the innings of which I was most proud that summer.

Anyway, when I saw how the pitch had misbehaved in Hampshire’s first innings, I decided that I should alter my usual technique. Rather than looking to play off the front foot, I favoured the back foot, looking to attack anything just short of the dangerous length – as it then sort of sat up and became a long hop as, mercifully, it wasn’t that quick a surface – while still being able to launch myself at those few deliveries that were overpitched.

The Hampshire game was played on a very poor pitch, and it was a surface which saw Bert Flack, our head groundsman, taking none too kindly to the moans of both Lancashire and Hampshire players. He must have made errors in its preparation, though, because from very early on in the match it disintegrated on a patch just short of a good length at one end. Balls simply started to explode from it nastily, rearing up to endanger batsmen’s well-being or else scuttling along the floor and thus becoming equally unplayable.

It seemed to work and myself and Noddy Pullar put on 68 for our second wicket after we had bowled out Hampshire for 174. That had been a real slog for them, because run-scoring was difficult and only Geoffrey Keith’s watchful defensive innings of 41 from No 7 had enabled them to get that far.

Indeed, his effort made a vital difference in the end because, had we bowled them out for 130 or 140 instead of 174, which would have been the case from 110 for six but for the stubborn Keith, I reckon

From the Stretford End, the quicker bowlers soon discovered that there was an area of the pitch so dry that it broke up and, when they hit the right length, the ball would misbehave quite violently.

It was not as life-threatening as a wet flyer, but it was pretty unpleasant all the same and, it must be remembered, in those unhelmeted days it was all but impossible to plunge forward on pitches like that because if you didn’t get a

chapter eight: captain of a ship in distress

VICE-CAPTAINCY I have no idea why I was appointed as vice-captain by Lancashire for the 1965 season. Obviously the county’s committee, in its estimable wisdom, felt I was someone who could do the job in the field, if called upon because of any Brian Statham absence with injury or – as indeed happened – England selection, but there was no official reason communicated to me. I was simply phoned up by Jack Wood, the secretary, during the winter months, and invited to take the position. I said I would do it, and that was it.

Nor did Statham pull me to one side at any stage and tell me how he expected me to do the job if he was absent. That’s no criticism of Brian, by the way, because he was the least didactic person you could meet. It would not have been in his character to instruct me in such a manner. We spoke often anyway, as I enjoyed his company and would often share a beer or two with him after play. He was a lot older than me, but we both liked to talk cricket and, I suppose, anything that might loosely be described an ‘instruction’ in terms of captaincy style would have been passed to me by a kind of osmosis as we chatted about the game.

I was an orthodox captain, as Statham was. There were no real flights of fancy from either of us; the new ball would be a time to attack, and you might bring up an extra slip or close fielder if you were striving for a breakthrough late in the day, but otherwise the bowlers would know what they were trying to do and you supported them. Conditions, and the state of the game, would decide your strategy in most cases.

Statham trusted me to do the job, and to know what was going on, and in the field you had to lead. I ended up captaining Lancashire in quite a number of matches in ’65, and I didn’t lean on any of the other senior players when he was not playing.

It was up to me to captain, not to seek the permission of a quorum before making every decision. I’m afraid one of the main reasons for the slow over-rates of firstclass cricket these days is the apparent need for captains to have a committee meeting virtually every time they think about changing the field, or changing the bowling. It’s absurd. In the 1960s we would bowl around 115 overs in a day, in six hours of play; today, they struggle to bowl 96 in a six-and-a-half hour day.

I enjoyed the experience of captaining Lancashire on the field, but as vice-captain you were spared most of the politics that goes on at every club. That makes being

(contined over)

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second-in-command a much easier role, simply because you are dealing only with the cricket. I remember Arthur Milton, at Gloucestershire, telling me this same thing and citing it as the reason he did not want to be a county captain. He did not want the overall responsibility that came with the job.

I was also interested to listen to Bob Barber, some years after his playing career, talking about the agonies he went through off the field when he captained Lancashire in the early 1960s. For instance, the committee apparently always wanted to step up what they considered to be necessary team discipline – such as wearing blazers and ties for lunch and tea, and Barber himself being told he should stay in a different hotel to the rest of his players.

My experience of captaincy had been limited before 1965. I did one summer as captain at Manchester Grammar School and I led Lancashire for one day of a match against Cambridge University in 1962 when, as I recall, Joe Blackledge needed to miss the day for business reasons. I had been sounded out for the Oxford University captaincy, in my last year there and after Alan Smith had left, but I didn’t fancy it and the Nawab of Pataudi was appointed.

I was also vice-captain at Lancashire in 1966 but the job was taken away from me towards the end of that season after I had been involved in a heated discussion with the chairman about the committee’s decision to sack Tommy Greenhough.

I considered it a crass, misguided and insensitive decision – and said so. I was relieved of my vice-captaincy duties a couple of days later.

In that first innings he bowled his natural length, which was absolutely the right one for the pitch, and he got his rewards.

Being inexperienced – he was only 21 he then bowled too short in our second innings and went wicketless! Sadly for us, both Derek Shackleton and ‘Butch’ White got it right second time around and, after we had whipped out Hampshire again for just 77, with Statham and Higgs rampant, we could only make 102 despite my own best efforts and lost by 13 runs.

we would have won the game reasonably comfortably.

From 102 for one in our reply, however, and with a young Bob Cottam taking the remarkable figures of 9 for 25, we were bowled out for 136 and, in the end, my 61 and Noddy’s 37 were excellent efforts that proved to be in vain. Pullar, always a good leaver of the ball with a fine technique, had a different approach to me in that match, but while we both flourished our teammates found Cottam – or Cob Bottam as I called him – next to unplayable.

I had given White a bit of pongo in our first innings but Colin Ingelby-Mackenzie,

chapter eight: captain of a ship in distress

Despite my own juvenile behaviour, and it was no wonder the Lancashire committee always had their doubts about me, I was the official vice-captain of the club and, as such, was required to lead us into the next game, the return match against Middlesex which began the next day on Saturday June 12, when Statham pulled out with injury along with Tommy Greenhough and Geoff Pullar.

the Hampshire captain, had bowled Butch from the Manchester End – as Statham did for us – because he said he was worried that Butch, with his extra pace, might cause serious injury when bowling from the Stretford End. That is, of course, until it seemed that we might actually win the game, with me getting to 53 in our second innings and adding 67 for our first wicket with the dogged Gerry Knox. White was then switched to the Stretford End (which was the right thing to do – we couldn’t believe Ingleby-Mackenzie hadn’t done it before) and he ended up with 6 for 46 while the metronomic Shackleton took four wickets and proved largely unhittable at the other end.

Into our XI came Peter Lever, for Statham, Harry Pilling, for Pullar, and a 17-year-old David Lloyd, in place of Greenhough. It was young Bumble’s firstclass debut, too, and he didn’t know his arse from his elbow in those days. Indeed, he’d only just learned how to wipe his own bottom.

He used to look at you wide-eyed as if you were talking another language, and it wasn’t much of a surprise when – batting at No 7, he bagged a pair with Fred Titmus and Don Bick proving too much for the young lad. He did have talent with the bat, as he was to show in his subsequent career, but at that time he had been selected more for his slow leftarm bowling.

Butch was their quickest bowler, and our lower order players couldn’t handle him.

He could be quite fierce and nasty on the field, but off it he was a lovely bloke and very genial company. He liked to have a pint in his hand, and I got on very well with him. That was why, during my 61 and when I was giving him a bit of tap, and he was getting a bit cross, I caused him to ‘bowl’ something that was called ‘no-ball’ by Syd Buller, the umpire.

Sadly, though, neither he nor Ken Howard, who was a decent spinner who flighted it nicely but never seemed to bowl it any quicker in helpful conditions, could match the high-class skills of Titmus in Middlesex’s ranks. On a pitch which turned, Titmus took nine wickets for only 59 runs in 47 overs of wonderful craftsmanship.

As Butch came hurtling in, I began to knock my knees together in mock terror and then stuck my tongue out at him.

In his delivery stride by now, he started laughing and, running clean through the crease, he lobbed the ball down at me shot-putt style at about 12 miles per hour. “I’m sorry, Butch,” said Syd, who was one of the most-respected umpires on the circuit, “but I’m going to have to no-ball you for throwing”. “No problem, Syd,” came White’s reply, “It was my fault for playing the fool.”

The result for us was defeat by nine wickets, again in just over two days, and while we had considered ourselves unfortunate to lose against Hampshire,

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where we had bowled especially well and in a game in which the state of the pitch and their winning the toss had proved crucial, we were thoroughly outplayed by Middlesex despite my 39 and 69.

My glorious 69 was mere consolation in the wider sense of the game, though, as Titmus tormented us and we were bowled out cheaply enough for them needing to reach only a very modest target for victory.

Bowled out for 120 in our second innings, with Titmus taking 5 for 26 from 22 overs, we were ultimately punished for not scoring another 60 or 70 runs in our own first innings of 203, and for allowing them to score 60 or 70 runs too many for the conditions in their reply of 280.

I also nicked Peter Parfitt’s occasional off-spin to slip, too, to give ‘Parf ’ his only wicket of the innings, so it wasn’t a glorious end. I almost wish I’d got out to Titmus as I usually did – there would have been more honour in it.

Eight players got well into double figures in our first innings, but no one converted those starts into a decent end result; indeed, my aforementioned 39 was the top score.Compare that to Middlesex, for whom both Eric Russell and Don Bick got past fifty. Eric was a good bloke and a very fine player, as he would tell you in the bar after a few pints if you let him, and we were as surprised as he probably was that he only won 10 Test caps.

chapter eight: captain of a ship in distress

Lancashire v Middlesex

Venue: Old Trafford, Manchester on 12th, 14th, 15th June 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Lancashire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Middlesex won by 9 wickets Umpires: R Aspinall, RSM Lay POINTS: Lancashire 0; Middlesex 10 Lancashire first innings Runs *DM Green b Clark 39 GK Knox lbw b Clark 15 AM Beddow c Murray b Price 28 JD Bond c Bick b Titmus 34 J Sullivan run out 12 H Pilling c Hooker b Titmus 8 D Lloyd b Titmus 0 P Lever c and b Titmus 16 K Higgs not out 22 K Howard b Clark 21 +K Goodwin run out 0 Extras (4 b, 2 lb, 1 nb, 1 w) 8 Total (all out, 83 overs) 203 Fall of wickets: 1-53, 2-60, 3-121, 4-121, 5-140, 6-141, 7-142, 8-161, 9-199, 10-203

Lancashire second innings Runs *DM Green c Titmus b Parfitt 69 GK Knox c Hooker b Titmus 3 AM Beddow st Murray b Titmus 8 JD Bond c Russell b Titmus 0 J Sullivan c and b Titmus 1 H Pilling c Parfitt b Bick 20 D Lloyd c Murray b Bick 0 P Lever c and b Titmus 1 K Higgs c Murray b Price 8 K Howard not out 6 +K Goodwin b Price 0 Extras (1 b, 3 lb) 4 Total (all out, 47 overs) 120 Fall of wickets: 1-16, 2-52, 3-52, 4-62, 5-92, 6-105, 7-106, 8-106, 9-118, 10-120

Middlesex bowling

Price Bennett Clark Titmus Hooker Bick

Middlesex bowling

Price Clark Titmus Hooker Bick Parfitt

Overs Mdns 18 4 12 1 11 1 25 9 15 3 2 2

Runs Wkts 53 1 53 0 21 3 33 4 35 0 0 0

Middlesex first innings Runs WE Russell c and b Howard 65 RA Gale c Beddow b Higgs 21 DA Bick st Goodwin b Lloyd 55 JM Brearley b Howard 5 PH Parfitt c Goodwin b Lever 26 EA Clark c Goodwin b Lloyd 15 +JT Murray c Sullivan b Higgs 24 *FJ Titmus lbw b Higgs 13 D Bennett not out 16 RW Hooker c and b Lever 10 JSE Price c Goodwin b Higgs 17 Extras (10 b, 3 nb) 13 Total (all out, 111.3 overs) 280 Fall of wickets: 1-42, 2-114, 3-146, 4-153, 5-189, 6-206, 7-226, 8-237, 9-255, 10-280

If my cavalier 39 had not been to the liking of the Lancashire coach, then my second innings 69 was a proper knock.

Hallows himself said so, telling me: “That were a better type of a bloody knock!”

I played Titmus, in particular, as well as I ever did in my career and I managed to get my feet moving – always my biggest problem – and chipped him over mid on a few times. I remember ‘Lord’ Ted Dexter once saying to me after a day’s play against Sussex, when my footwork at the crease had been almost non-existent: “Greeny, you’re supposed to move your feet as if you’re standing in a bath, not in a piss-pot!”

Lancashire bowling

Lever Higgs Beddow Howard Lloyd

Overs Mdns 31 6 34.3 9 6 1 20 3 20 6

Overs Mdns 9 2 2 0 22 12 4 0 6 2 4 1

Middlesex second innings WE Russell not out RA Gale c Knox b Lever JM Brearley not out DA Bick did not bat PH Parfitt did not bat EA Clark did not bat +JT Murray did not bat *FJ Titmus did not bat D Bennett did not bat RW Hooker did not bat JSE Price did not bat Extras Total (1 wicket, 14 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-17 (Gale) Lancashire bowling

Lever Higgs Green Bond

Runs Wkts 70 2 55 4 14 0 63 2 65 2

David Lloyd

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Overs 6 6 1 1

Mdns 1 1 1 0

Runs Wkts 33 2 6 0 26 5 21 0 21 2 9 1 Runs 17 12 15

0 44

Runs Wkts 19 1 22 0 0 0 3 0

chapter eight: captain of a ship in distress

chapter eight: captain of a ship in distress

Lancashire v Hampshire

ON THE ROAD

Venue: Old Trafford, Manchester on 9th, 10th, 11th June 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Hampshire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Hampshire won by 13 runs POINTS: Lancashire 0; Hampshire 10 Umpires: JS Buller, WH Copson Hampshire first innings Runs RE Marshall c Knox b Higgs 3 HM Barnard c Knox b Higgs 15 H Horton b Statham 30 DA Livingstone c Goodwin b Statham 27 PJ Sainsbury c Goodwin b Higgs 11 *ACD Ingleby-Mackenzie b Howard 22 GL Keith c Pullar b Statham 41 +BSV Timms run out 14 D Shackleton not out 8 DW White c Beddow b Statham 0 RMH Cottam lbw b Statham 0 Extras (3 lb) 3 Total (all out, 96.1 overs) 174 Fall of wickets: 1-10, 2-23, 3-75, 4-76, 5-108, 6-110, 7-158, 8-172, 9-174, 10-174

Hampshire second innings Runs RE Marshall c Statham b Higgs 7 HM Barnard hit wkt b Statham 30 H Horton b Higgs 11 DA Livingstone c Howard b Higgs 0 PJ Sainsbury c Beddow b Statham 2 *ACD Ingleby-Mackenzie b Higgs 0 GL Keith not out 13 +BSV Timms lbw b Statham 6 D Shackleton lbw b Higgs 0 DW White b Statham 8 RMH Cottam lbw b Higgs 0 Extras 0 Total (all out, 32.3 overs) 77 Fall of wickets: 1-11, 2-40, 3-40, 4-43, 5-44, 6-52, 7-62, 8-63, 9-76, 10-77

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Howard Greenhough

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Howard

Overs Mdns 24.1 5 27 9 24 5 21 8

Runs Wkts 41 5 49 3 48 1 33 0

Overs Mdns 16 6 15 3 11.1 4

Runs Wkts 41 4 33 6 3 0

Lancashire second innings Runs DM Green c Marshall b Shackleton 53 GK Knox c Barnard b Shackleton 25 G Pullar lbw b White 0 JD Bond lbw b White 1 J Sullivan c Livingstone b White 0 AM Beddow c Timms b Shackleton 1 +K Goodwin b White 1 K Howard c Ingleby-Mackenzie b Shackleton 4 K Higgs c Shackleton b White 12 *JB Statham c Livingstone b White 1 T Greenhough not out 1 Extras (2 lb, 1 nb) 3 Total (all out, 47.3 overs) 102 Fall of wickets: 1-67, 2-67, 3-69, 4-69, 5-72, 6-83, 7-87, 8-91, 9-99, 10-102

Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green b Cottam 61 GK Knox c Ingleby-Mackenzie b Shackleton 10 G Pullar c Livingstone b Cottam 37 JD Bond b Cottam 4 J Sullivan c Sainsbury b Cottam 2 AM Beddow c Sainsbury b Cottam 3 K Howard hit wkt b Cottam 11 K Higgs c Keith b Cottam 0 *JB Statham c Timms b Cottam 0 T Greenhough c Timms b Cottam 4 +K Goodwin not out 1 Extras (1 lb, 2 nb) 3 Total (all out, 42.1 overs) 136 Fall of wickets: 1-34, 2-102, 3-115, 4-116, 5-117, 6-125, 7-125, 8-125, 9-133, 10-136 Hampshire bowling

Shackleton White Cottam

Overs Mdns 16 4 15.3 4 1 0

Hampshire bowling

Shackleton White Cottam

Runs Wkts 38 1 70 0 25 9

Overs Mdns 12 8 22.3 2 13 4

Runs Wkts 15 4 48 6 36 0

Sharing rooms was normal practice for county cricket teams in the mid-1960s and, indeed, for some time after that. It led to close friendships, and shared experiences, and at Lancashire I shared with most of my teammates at one time or other.

There were some players who always wanted to share. Geoff Pullar and Tommy Greenhough, for example, were inseparable off the field and their careers had run along almost parallel. For myself, I didn’t mind who I was put with – indeed, that way, there was always some variety and you got to know different people. Most of the players were happy to be paired off and to get what they were given.

Brian Statham, as captain and senior professional, had his own room throughout the 1965 season, however, and as far as I can remember it was a privilege he had enjoyed for some years previously. In 1962, when we were playing Somerset at Glastonbury, it led to an amusing incident that Brian told against himself.

We were staying, during that match, at a 15th century hotel called the George and Pilgrim in the centre of town, and after a convivial evening at the bar – at which I recall Harold Stephenson, the Somerset wicketkeeper, was also present – Brian strode into his four-poster room… only to fall flat on his face. Thinking he must be worse for wear, he clambered up on to his canopied bed, and fell asleep. It was not until he awoke in the morning that he realised what had happened. In the semidarkness, he had not seen that the floor in his room sloped crazily. He had tumbled because he had walked in as if it was on the level!

Almost all the places we stayed were small hotels, and they were clean and tidy for the most part. Some, like the Clarendon Court near Lord’s, were close enough to the ground that you could walk up in the mornings, which was a pleasant way to start the day after a leisurely breakfast, although that particular hotel became a hostel for the dispossessed a number of years later.

We always enjoyed going to Blackpool, where we stayed in some excellent places, while if we were especially lucky, such as when we played at Taunton, we would get billeted in a pub close to the ground. But, then again, one of the requirements of all the hotels we stayed in was that it had a bar which would be made available in the evenings to the residents.

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CHAPTER NINE: FESTIVAL FROLICS Readers of my first book, A Handful of Confetti, were given something of an insight into the sort of fun that could be had in the mid-1960s at county cricket’s outposts with a couple of stories from Lancashire matches at Tunbridge Wells and Buxton.

at The Nevill Ground in Tunbridge Wells and The Park in Buxton which were both badly affected by the weather.

Rain, indeed, delayed the start of our meeting with Kent in the delightful setting of The Nevill, a beautiful ground enclosed by trees and rhododendron bushes which traditionally flower in purples and reds during a festival week which is now more than a century old.

The first tale recounted when I was bowled for nought by an equally hungover Alan Brown of Kent after we had both enjoyed a heavy night at the bar, and the second story told of when Jim Cumbes, the Lancashire fast bowler, set off some stink bombs in the dressing rooms area of the intimate Buxton pavilion during a prolonged rain break – prompting Arthur Jepson, the umpire, to round on his rather lugubrious colleague, Ron Lay, and loudly accuse him of passing particularly unpleasant wind.

There was also two-thirds of the scheduled last day lost to rain, and not even a challenging second innings declaration by Brian Statham, leaving Kent to make 150 at around six-an-over on a slow, seaming pitch that had made run-scoring difficult throughout, could manufacture a result.

As it was, Brian Luckhurst played a brilliant innings of 62, once smearing a ball from Peter Lever over long on for six, to give Kent a bit of a sniff before Statham and Ken Higgs, who finished with three wickets apiece, put a stop to

Those two life-enhancing incidents occurred within days of each other in June 1965, with Lancashire emerging with two points (for achieving a first innings lead) from back-to-back drawn games

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Kent, who were to finish fifth in the championship, were a decent side.

Their batting was strong, and deep, and in Derek Underwood and Alan Knott, who had emerged in county cricket in 1963 and 1964 respectively, they had two soon-to-be world-class cricketers destined to be England’s leading slow left-armer and wicketkeeper for a decade and a half.

any of that malarkey. I remember, though, how that knock changed my opinion of Luckhurst’s batting.

Up until then I had thought of him as a rather dour, defensive-minded batsman but on that damp afternoon he showed just the kind of improvisation and shotmaking ability, even in bowler-friendly conditions, that underlined the skills that were to bring him belated Test recognition in the early 1970s and, before the 1960s were out, to mark him down also as one of the most effective limitedovers players of that era. His partnership at the top of Kent’s order with Mike Denness was one of the central planks of that county’s great success in the decade following their Gillette Cup win of 1967.

Bob Wilson, their No 3 batsman and captain in the absence in this game of Colin Cowdrey, was a very fine lefthander. Stuart Leary was a fine cricketer, a gifted batsman, useful leg spinner and excellent close catcher. In Brown, my drinking partner, they also possessed a top class new ball bowler.

He was very strong, was quick enough to let you have a nasty bouncer and he swung it away. He was an opponent to be respected, and was among a group of top-class county quicks who were unlucky – in an England sense – to see their careers overlap with those of Trueman and Statham, and Frank Tyson.

The game had begun, after its initial weather delay, with Mick Beddow and myself adding 77 for our second wicket but thereafter only Harry Pilling, still coming in at No 6, flourishing against a Kent seam attack of Brown, Alan Dixon and John Dye, who ended up with 5 for 44 courtesy of blowing away the flimsy Lancashire tail.

John Prodger, Kent’s No 6, was one of those batsmen who carried himself like he was a master bladesman, with sleeves rolled up just above his wrists like Len Hutton used to have them, and he would certainly have been a fine player if he had been even half as good as he thought he was, while it is interesting to see that Leary was leg-before to Statham for 1 and 0 in this match.

Dye was a big, burly left-armer who looked as if he should be quick, but wasn’t really, while Dixon was a skinny, almost skeletal looking fellow who, had he been a catchweight wrestler, would surely have been broken across someone’s knee.

He bowled a lot of overs, however, so he clearly had a good motor and was a good competitor. I also used to rate him as a batsman, and he scored useful runs from No 8 in this game to haul Kent up to within forty of our eventual first innings total of 178.

Like a lot of overseas-reared batsmen, South African-born Leary liked to go back and across his stumps, irrespective of length, and so ‘George’ merely used to bowl near-yorkers to players like

chapter nine: festival frolics

BRIAN STATHAM Brian Statham’s tally of 2,260 first-class wickets puts him ahead of any other Lancashire bowler. His career average of 16.36 runs per wicket is bettered by no bowler of his pace in the modern era. His Test record of 252 wickets is imposing, as is his average of 24.84, particularly considering that when Frank Tyson or Fred Trueman was bowling with him, they tended to get choice of ends which meant that Statham was frequently operating uphill and into the wind.

He remained a top class bowler to the very end of his career, by which time he was 38. His final season, in 1968, was truncated by his decision to retire in early August in accordance of the wishes of his new employers. At that point he had taken 67 wickets at 17 runs apiece. In his final match, which was Ken Higgs’s benefit game against Yorkshire at Old Trafford, his figures in Yorkshire’s first innings were 17.5-434-6.

Because Brian never indulged in the fusillades of bouncers fashionable with some of his contemporaries his pace was not always apparent from the spectator seats.

He was, though, genuinely fast from the time of England’s tour of the West Indies in 1953-54 when he bowled brilliantly and was a major factor in England’s recovery to draw the series having lost the first two Tests, right up to around 1960.

A few years ago I asked Roy Marshall, the brilliant West Indian who opened the batting for Hampshire from 1955 to 1972, whether he had looked to drive Statham.

Marshall, who was noted for his cavalier treatment of the new ball, replied: “No,” adding laconically, “there wasn’t time”.

Statham’s accuracy was legendary and he never gave less than his best, unlike some Test bowlers who tended to ‘coast’ when playing for their counties. In summary, I hope I may be forgiven for quoting from my contribution to the book compiled and edited by Lancashire’s historian, the Reverend Malcolm Lorimer, in tribute to Brian.

That excerpt reads: “His great stature as a player never distanced him from less gifted cricketers. He was easy-going (except when the ball was in his hand), always approachable, and had a lovely dry sense of humour. Because he was chivalrous as well as tough and because he was highly-competitive but entirely without rancour, he was something more than a great cricketer; he adorned the game as few men have done.”

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a challenging pair of new ball bowlers to face and, in 1965, they were to push Statham into third place in the national bowling averages – even though Statham ended up with 137 wickets at 12.4 runs apiece. Rhodes finished with 119 and Jackson 115.

him and pin them with his movement into the right-handers. Leary was also a talented all-round sportsman who played 376 matches as a forward for Charlton Athletic, and another 94 for Queen’s Park Rangers.

After a long Friday evening journey from the Kent-Sussex borders up to the Peak District, we began our next match the following morning against Derbyshire by electing to bat and being tumbled out for 88. My 23 was Lancashire’s top score. Yet, by the end of that opening day, we had a first innings lead of 27 after brushing aside the hosts for just 61 in reply.

Rhodes liked to come down the hill at Buxton, which some fast bowlers didn’t feel comfortable doing, and he was very quick. Unlike some of my contemporaries, I didn’t think he threw it. Indeed, it was one of the few things I ever disagreed with Arthur Milton about during our careers.

Statham and Higgs, who bowled unchanged through a couple of little stoppages for rain, shared all ten wickets and Statham, in particular, was almost unplayable as he cut down his approach from 13 running paces to nine and, when the ball got a bit older and didn’t swing as much as it did first up, showed just how important control is as much as pace.

Arthur thought Rhodes threw every ball, but I never had a problem seeing the ball from his hand and, with those that did chuck, you would be looking for the ball to come out from above the bowler’s ear and it would seem to come at you from right next to the ear. That was truly disconcerting, but although Harold was not a nice man to face from 22 yards away I was never of the opinion with him that the ball flew at you from where you weren’t expecting it.

The footholds and run-ups were also a bit greasy, and Statham didn’t want to be travelling too quickly when he came through the crease. I still recall a couple of near-wides by Statham early on in Derbyshire’s first innings, when the new ball’s shine made it hoop around in the conditions far more than it usually did for ‘George’, simply because it was so rare to see him bowling anything that was not exactly where he wanted it to be.

Jackson, just over six feet tall and lean, had come to county cricket quite late.

He had played for Cheshire until his midto-late twenties but he used to swing it away from the right-handers in the air and also hit the seam every ball.

That meant it could dart in or out, and in the second innings of this game he did me good and proper through the gate.

Another duck for Green, that was. Yes, Brian Jackson was a fine bowler and, I think, he ended up with more than 600 first-class wickets at an average of around

That Statham and Higgs outbowled even Brian Jackson and Harold Rhodes, of Derbyshire, on that dramatic first day, says everything about their class.

Jackson and Rhodes were themselves

chapter nine: festival frolics

20, despite his late start at county level, so that says plenty. He liked a gargle, too.

Their two opening bowlers provided a real cutting edge, yet Derbyshire were never a run-drunk side in those years, and after Gerry Knox had made a 45 that was worth a hundred in the conditions and we had set up what I am sure would have been a comfortable win by grinding our way through 81 overs to reach 123 for nine on a rain-interrupted second day – for a lead of 150 – the final day was washed out completely to leave us frustrated that our two visits to two lovely outgrounds had been so dogged by bad weather.

Part of the deal with festival grounds like Buxton and Tunbridge Wells was that covering was much more rudimentary than on the major grounds, where big tarpaulins would often get hauled right across the square and where rainwater rarely got underneath the covers and on to the pitch itself. At Buxton, if the wind blew, the rain used to get under the highwheeled main cover they used to put over the pitch.

Brian Statham with Nottinghamshire, which provided us with our second victory of the season against the county destined for that summer’s wooden spoon.

A week without a championship fixture followed that rained-off Tuesday, and Lancashire’s coaches organised a oneday practice match at Old Trafford to fill the void and to get all the first team squad and some Second XI players together – bar the rested Statham – for a competitive match that the putative ‘first team’, in which I played, won by 94 runs.

A very young Frank Hayes made 28 for the ‘second team’, I notice.

And, hallelujah, it was a game which we won properly, by which I mean we won the toss and batted first, posted a decent total, bowled out the opposition for significantly less, batted again to stretch our lead to match-winning proportions as batting conditions became trickier, and then bowled our opponents out for a second time. The win, by 108 runs, was another triumph for Statham, who took eleven wickets in the match and finished Notts off in some style by taking 6 for 36 on the third day.

On Wednesday June 30 we turned up again at Old Trafford, this time for the start of a three-day championship game

I had a couple of decent knocks in this game, without going on, but Geoff Pullar’s 100 on day one, when the pitch played

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well, was followed by unbeaten halfcenturies from both John Sullivan and Harry Pilling which allowed us to declare overnight on 302 for four.

Kent v Lancashire

Bryan ‘Bomber’ Wells ended my first innings 40. :He was a great character and an excellent off spinner who had played for his native Gloucestershire from 1951 to 1959 before deciding he couldn’t compete any more there for a spin place against John Mortimore and David Allen, his fellow off-spinners, and moving to Notts where he spent another six seasons.

Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green c Luckhurst b Dixon 37 GK Knox b Brown 3 AM Beddow c Knott b Brown 59 JD Bond c Richardson b Brown 8 J Sullivan c Dye b Dixon 5 H Pilling not out 48 P Lever b Dye 7 K Higgs c Knott b Dye 0 K Howard c Knott b Dye 0 *JB Statham b Dye 7 +K Goodwin c Dixon b Dye 0 Extras (3 lb, 1 w) 4 Total (all out, 80.3 overs) 178 Fall of wickets: 1-13, 2-90, 3-108, 4-111, 5-119, 6-139, 7-143, 8-149, 9-172, 10-178

Venue: The Nevill Ground, Tunbridge Wells on 16th, 17th, 18th June 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Lancashire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Match drawn POINTS: Kent 0; Lancashire 2 Umpires: JF Crapp, CS Elliott

This was to be his final summer of county cricket, but less than a month away from his 35th birthday he showed he was still a steady performer by taking four wickets very economically in this game. Wells was to end his career with 998 first-class wickets at just over 24 runs each; I did my best to get him to 1,000!

Kent bowling

Brown Dixon Dye Underwood

Overs Mdns 31 11 18 6 19.3 5 12 6

Lancashire second innings Runs DM Green b Brown 0 GK Knox b Dixon 13 AM Beddow b Brown 2 JD Bond c Denness b Dixon 8 J Sullivan lbw b Dixon 18 H Pilling b Dixon 13 P Lever c Wilson b Dye 12 K Higgs c Knott b Underwood 4 K Howard not out 13 *JB Statham not out 12 +K Goodwin did not bat Extras (12 b, 3 lb) 15 Total (8 wickets, declared, 54 overs) 110 Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-2, 3-23, 4-24, 5-50, 6-66, 7-70, 8-96

Kent bowling

Brown Dixon Dye Underwood

Runs Wkts 67 3 36 2 44 5 27 0

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Lever Howard

Not for nothing, however, was Corran also nicknamed ‘The Oracle’, because he had firm opinions on a wide range of subjects and was not loathe, either, to express them.

Overs Mdns 18 3 15 6 9.4 0 14 6

Runs Wkts 17 2 42 4 8 1 28 1

Kent second innings Runs MH Denness lbw b Higgs 20 BW Luckhurst b Higgs 62 *RC Wilson c Goodwin b Higgs 21 PE Richardson c Goodwin b Statham 11 SE Leary lbw b Statham 0 AL Dixon c Green b Statham 3 JM Prodger not out 1 +APE Knott did not bat DL Underwood did not bat A Brown did not bat JCJ Dye did not bat Extras (2 lb) 2 Total (6 wickets, 25.4 overs) 120 Fall of wickets: 1-28, 2-60, 3-90, 4-90, 5-106, 6-120

Kent first innings Runs MH Denness b Howard 30 BW Luckhurst c Bond b Howard 17 *RC Wilson c Howard b Statham 14 PE Richardson b Statham 9 SE Leary lbw b Statham 1 JM Prodger c Green b Howard 5 +APE Knott c Lever b Statham 11 AL Dixon c Sullivan b Higgs 37 DL Underwood b Higgs 1 A Brown c Bond b Lever 7 JCJ Dye not out 0 Extras (4 b, 2 lb) 6 Total (all out, 56.4 overs) 138 Fall of wickets: 1-49, 2-50, 3-63, 4-67, 5-76, 6-79, 7-96, 8-97, 9-138, 10-138

In our second innings, after a rapid start I fell just before the close of day two when Andrew Corran had me caught for 28. I knew Corran from our days together at Oxford University, and his second innings haul of 6 for 72 took him past the 50-wicket mark for the season.

He was another strong opening bowler, who swung it away, hit the seam and could also bowl an inswinger to the righthanders.

Overs Mdns 9 3 22 10 4 1 19 11

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Lever

Runs Wkts 33 4 44 2 29 1 26 3

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Overs 9 12.4 4

Mdns 0 4 1

Runs Wkts 36 3 65 3 17 0

chapter nine: festival frolics

chapter nine: festival frolics

Derbyshire v Lancashire

Lancashire v Nottinghamshire

Venue: The Park, Buxton on 19th, 21st, 22nd June 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Lancashire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Match drawn Points: Derbyshire 0; Lancashire 2 Umpires: A Jepson, RSM Lay

Venue: Old Trafford, Manchester on 30th June, 1st, 2nd July 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Lancashire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Lancashire won by 108 runs POINTS: Lancashire 10; Nottinghamshire 0 Umpires: PA Gibb, H Yarnold

Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green c and b Jackson 23 GK Knox c Taylor b Jackson 0 AM Beddow c Morgan b Rhodes 6 JD Bond c Allen b Rhodes 2 J Sullivan b Morgan 12 H Pilling b Buxton 7 D Lloyd c Taylor b Jackson 19 K Higgs lbw b Rhodes 1 K Howard b Jackson 12 *JB Statham c Eyre b Jackson 2 +K Goodwin not out 1 Extras (3 nb) 3 Total (all out, 57.5 overs) 88 Fall of wickets: 1-1, 2-11, 3-17, 4-45, 5-47, 6-72, 7-72, 8-75, 9-82, 10-88

Lancashire second innings Runs DM Green b Jackson 0 GK Knox lbw b Jackson 45 AM Beddow b Rhodes 15 JD Bond c Smith b Buxton 25 J Sullivan c Taylor b Jackson 0 H Pilling c Hall b Rhodes 15 D Lloyd not out 15 K Higgs c Taylor b Jackson 2 K Howard c Taylor b Jackson 0 *JB Statham b Rhodes 1 +K Goodwin not out 0 Extras (3 lb, 2 nb) 5 Total (9 wickets, 81 overs) 123 Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-30, 3-70, 4-70, 5-98, 6-105, 7-111, 8-113, 9-120

Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green b Wells 40 G Pullar c Millman b Johnson 100 GK Knox c Millman b Taylor 16 AM Beddow c NW Hill b Wells 18 J Sullivan not out 67 H Pilling not out 51 K Howard did not bat K Higgs did not bat *JB Statham did not bat T Greenhough did not bat +K Goodwin did not bat Extras (4 b, 4 lb, 2 nb) 10 Total (4 wickets, declared, 116 overs) 302 Fall of wickets: 1-74, 2-135, 3-175, 4-181

Derbyshire bowling

Overs Mdns Jackson 20.5 8 Rhodes 17 4 Morgan 13 9 Smith 4 0 Buxton 3 3

Derbyshire bowling

Overs Mdns Jackson 26 12 Rhodes 23 9 Morgan 9 2 Smith 2 2 Buxton 21 9

Runs Wkts 26 5 37 3 12 1 10 0 0 1

Higgs

Overs 18.5 18

Mdns 9 5

Nottinghamshire bowling

Overs Mdns Corran 24 4 Forbes 15 6 Johnson 7 0 Wells 11.2 6

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Greenhough Howard Beddow

4

Overs Mdns 27 8 27.3 4 24 5 11 1 12 1

Runs Wkts 72 6 35 2 26 0 17 2

Nottinghamshire second innings Runs NW Hill c Beddow b Howard 29 JB Bolus lbw b Statham 13 *+G Millman b Statham 13 HI Moore c Goodwin b Statham 12 NB Whittingham c Goodwin b Statham 6 M Hill b Statham 0 MNS Taylor b Howard 12 C Forbes c Sullivan b Greenhough 13 AJ Corran c Goodwin b Statham 0 AA Johnson lbw b Greenhough 4 BD Wells not out 0 Extras (5 b, 2 lb) 7 Total (all out, 62 overs) 109 Fall of wickets: 1-17, 2-41, 3-61, 4-67, 5-67, 6-87, 7-94, 8-105, 9-105, 10-109

Runs Wkts 16 6 44

Runs Wkts 59 0 60 0 65 1 44 1 64 2

Nottinghamshire first innings Runs NW Hill c Goodwin b Higgs 1 JB Bolus b Statham 16 *+G Millman b Greenhough 79 HI Moore b Statham 0 NB Whittingham b Statham 68 M Hill c and b Beddow 2 MNS Taylor b Statham 0 AJ Corran b Higgs 28 C Forbes b Statham 12 AA Johnson b Higgs 19 BD Wells not out 5 Extras (5 b, 5 lb, 1 nb) 11 Total (all out, 101.3 overs) 241 Fall of wickets: 1-7, 2-25, 3-25, 4-146, 5-157, 6-158, 7-183, 8-213, 9-234, 10-241

Derbyshire first innings Runs JR Eyre b Statham 1 IW Hall c Goodwin b Higgs 4 MH Page lbw b Statham 14 HL Johnson c Bond b Higgs 16 IR Buxton b Statham 10 *DC Morgan c Howard b Higgs 11 E Smith b Higgs 2 +RW Taylor c Goodwin b Statham 0 MHJ Allen c Lloyd b Statham 0 HJ Rhodes b Statham 2 AB Jackson not out 0 Extras (1 lb) 1 Total (all out, 36.5 overs) 61 Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-5, 3-29, 4-44, 5-57, 6-57, 7-57, 8-57, 9-59, 10-61 Lancashire bowling

Statham

Runs Wkts 33 5 39 3 18 0 0 0 28 1

Nottinghamshire bowling

Overs Mdns Corran 22 5 Forbes 27 7 Johnson 17 2 Taylor 16 2 Wells 34 15

Lancashire second innings Runs DM Green c Taylor b Forbes 28 G Pullar c Johnson b Forbes 0 GK Knox c Millman b Corran 20 AM Beddow c NW Hill b Corran 11 J Sullivan b Corran 11 H Pilling c Millman b Corran 30 K Howard c Millman b Corran 0 K Higgs b Wells 26 *JB Statham c Moore b Corran 6 T Greenhough c Moore b Wells 18 +K Goodwin not out 0 Extras (6 nb) 6 Total (all out, 57.2 overs) 156 Fall of wickets: 1-6, 2-43, 3-51, 4-71, 5-81, 6-81, 7-111, 8-125, 9-153, 10-156

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Greenhough Howard

Runs Wkts 52 5 64 3 61 1 33 0 20 1

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Overs Mdns 18 4 12 1 15 11 17 8

Runs Wkts 36 6 34 0 12 2 20 2

chapter nine: festival frolics

LOST GROUNDS County Championship cricket, in 1965, was played on 46 grounds that are no longer first-class venues.

That list is: Bath, Blackheath, Blackpool, Bournemouth, Bradford, Brentwood, Burton-on-Trent, Buxton, Cardiff Arms Park, Clacton, Coventry, Dartford, Dover, Dudley, Eastbourne, Ebbw Vale, Folkestone, Gillingham, Glastonbury, Gravesend, Harrogate, Hastings, Hull, Ilford, Ilkeston, Imperial Ground Brislington, Kettering, Leyton, Llanelli, Loughborough, Lydney, Maidstone, Middlesbrough, Neath, Newport, Nuneaton, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Romford, Sheffield, Southport, Wagon Works Gloucester, Wellingborough, Westcliff, Weston-super-Mare, Worksop.

The general policy of county clubs in that era was that they needed to take their product around the county as much as possible in order to keep existing audiences happy and also to help to generate new audiences. It was a policy which continued, indeed became stronger still, when the John Player Sunday League was introduced in 1969.

I understand the reasons why so much county cricket is now played exclusively at the main grounds, but it would be much to the benefit of the game if clubs could find ways to play more matches away from their headquarters – with perhaps Twenty20 providing the vehicle of opportunity to take cricket to more outgrounds. Though few of them have survived, festival weeks such as those held at Cheltenham, Scarborough, Arundel and Tunbridge Wells remain as popular as ever, and attract a wider audience to domestic cricket.

One of the grounds listed above, Dudley, holds an affectionate place in my heart as I scored 146 there for Gloucestershire, against Worcestershire, in my last full season in 1970. I also played first-class matches on around thirty of the 46 ‘extinct’ grounds listed. With stricter protocols on pitches, and with health and safety issues further compromising the significant additional set-up costs required at non-headquarters’ grounds, there will never again be the great variety of county venues that staged first-class domestic cricket fifty summers ago:

chapter ten: DEFEAT IN WEST WALES If the Lancashire team arrived in Swansea during that first week of July with a collective spring in its step, following the win against Nottinghamshire and despite the long Friday evening drive down from Manchester, then by the end of our four days in West Wales we were sloping home again with our tails firmly between our legs.

At St Helen’s, the Swansea ground which is but a six-hit away from the sea – as Ken Howard was to find out when Alan Jones hit him on to the beach during Glamorgan’s first innings – we were actually quite pleased to restrict the Welsh county to 239 all out after they had batted first.

It was a typical Swansea pitch, a slow sandy turner, with a little bit in it for the seamers first thing in the morning as they always tried to leave some grass on it too, but I thought it was an excellent cricket wicket as there was a good even bounce and, if you got in, runs could be made even though there was always some spin and you had to battle hard for them.

Defeat against Glamorgan certainly knocked us back again, confidencewise, and when it was followed by failures to beat either Leicestershire or Nottinghamshire, although in our defence the return fixture at Trent Bridge was ruined by rain, we had reached mid-July in real need of some inspiration from somewhere.

Indeed, after Glamorgan had ground their way through 118 overs with Len Hill, a small but strongly-built player who also played football at inside-forward for Newport County, making a good 70 against the accuracy of Statham, Higgs and Greenhough, who all finished

Even my achievement of reaching 1,000 runs for the season on July 10, on the first day of the weather-wrecked Notts game, was overshadowed by the general frustration and disappointment being felt by the players.

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to play at Test level because didn’t flight it enough, and that other off-spinning contemporaries like Titmus, Allen, Mortimore and Illingworth could all beat batsmen in the flight, as well as with spin and general guile.

with three wickets at niggardly cost, we reached 122 for two before the game began to slip away from us.

The loss from 1964 of Ken Grieves and Peter Marner in the middle-order, plus the absence of Sonny Ramadhin from our spin attack, was very evident – once again – in this match. Our middle-order was just not getting enough runs while Ken Howard’s five wickets in this game came at a price of 162 runs, which was simply not up to standard in conditions in which others, notably Don Shepherd and Euros Lewis, Glamorgan’s two offspinners, were major forces.

As far I am concerned, having batted against him on many occasions, he was difficult enough to read because, even without noticeable flight, it was difficult to tell when the ball would reach you.

He spun the ball hard, too, so he almost always got good turn off the pitch, while his subtle changes of pace were brilliantly concealed.

Don was also very confident in his own ability; I remember him telling me that Len Hutton, at whom he bowled a lot in the 1950s, when he bowled seamers before switching to spin towards the end of the 1955 season, was the only batsman he reckoned he couldn’t get out.

The great Shepherd did not even bowl in our second innings, because of a muscle injury as I recall, but Peter Walker, who could bowl inswingers over the wicket as well as being a capable slow left armer, then stepped up to take three wickets in his spinning mode in support of Lewis, while Ossie Wheatley chipped in with my own wicket – I was caught at short leg – and two more scalps.

Even when talking about Garry Sobers he used to say that he felt he had a good chance if he went over the wicket, got close the stumps and kept attacking the line of left-hander Sobers’s leg stump.

He had iron self-belief. Don also bowled it quite quickly. He was up there with Derek Underwood in terms of pace through the air and off the pitch, and he certainly didn’t have to worry about people dancing down the pitch against him.

Wheatley bowled from close the stumps, kept a testing line just on or inside off stump and was an excellent new ball bowler of medium-fast pace, as his career haul of 1,099 first-class wickets at 20.84 runs each well illustrates, let alone that season’s tally of 82 at 19, but in our first innings he gave himself only three overs before Shepherd and his fellow spinners took over.

They said Roy Tattersall didn’t turn it much, and they used to criticise Underwood too for not flighting it much, but when conditions were in their favour Shepherd, Tattersall and Underwood all turned it off the surface and the latter two in particular also make the ball spit

You couldn’t get the ball off ‘Shep’ once he was in the groove and to my mind he was unquestionably a great bowler. It is astonishing that he did not play a single Test match for England. There was an argument at the time that Don didn’t get

chapter ten: defeat in west wales

ALAN JONES Alan Jones, the Glamorgan left-hander, has strong claims to be the best batsman never to play Test cricket. In a career that stretched from 1957 to 1983 he made 36,049 runs at an average of 32.89, with 56 centuries. He scored 1,000 runs or more in 23 consecutive seasons.

In fact, Jones was capped by England when he appeared for the national side against the Rest of the World in 1970.

These matches were billed at the time as Tests but the authorities at Lord’s later stripped the series of Test status, participants being required to surrender the caps and blazers they had been awarded. The passing of the years does not diminish what has always seemed a spiteful and petty-fogging act.

Jones began his career batting in the middle order but soon slotted in at No 3, behind the established opening partnership of Gilbert Parkhouse and Bernard Hedges. When Parkhouse retired early in 1964, Jones moved up to open and did so for the rest of his career.

Few batsmen are equally comfortable against both fast bowling and spin but Alan was one of them. He had the left-hander’s expected facility off his legs but he was well-equipped on the off-side too, driving solidly and cutting both square and late.

Shortish in stature, and light on his feet, he liked to advance to the slow bowlers and smack them back over their heads.

Though his range of strokes meant that he was rarely tied down, Jones could show great patience when the circumstances demanded it. He was an unselfish player and also very good company with a smile never far away.

His best season, statistically, was 1966 when he made 1,865 runs though his performances the previous season, when he made 1,837 and averaged nearly 37 in a damp summer favouring bowlers, were probably more meritorious.

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quarter hours. All very frustrating, but we simply had not batted well enough in our first innings and had not bowled well enough in their second innings.

up at you. But Shepherd (pictured right) I would rate as being right up there with the best of his type.

got out and joined me back in the dressing room, I had to tell him not to blub about it.

The stand of 100 in Glamorgan’s second innings between Walker and Alun Rees, who both made 60s, was the final nail in our coffin, and after that not even the absence of Shepherd from the home attack when we batted again could save us.

It was a real shame, though, as not only was a hundred in the offing for me, as I felt in such good order at the crease and was batting well and confidently, but if I had gone on I am sure we would have got the 300 total we needed to put Leicestershire right out of the game.

Glamorgan were a good side at that time – indeed, they were to go on to win the championship title in 1969 and even without Bernard Hedges in their batting line-up they had enough all-round strength – and especially in spin bowling, with the left-arm of Walker and Jim Pressdee and the leg-spin of Brian Lewis to support Shepherd and Euros Lewis – to see us off.

As it was, a collapse from 138 for one to 201 all out gave them more than a little chance of saving the match, and they duly grabbed the opportunity to bat far better second time around and, eventually, to declare on 341 for nine just before the end of their 119th over.

Leicestershire out for a paltry 59 – seven batsmen were clean bowled and two of the other three caught behind on a day when everything went right for our bowlers, of whom Ken Higgs was quite outstanding – and we then reached 154 for four by stumps.

We enjoyed Swansea though. It was a nice sociable place to go, and the Welsh lads were always ready to come out for a pint or two after play. In the case of Euros Lewis, who was a notable socialiser, he was quite happy to stay out all night; a number of the Glamorgan boys would also stay in Swansea if they were from east Wales. Before the M4, it was not really possible to commute from Cardiff or Newport, so they were hanging around for the evening like we were.

Late in the final session, after Geoff Pullar and I had put on 113 for the opening wicket, I was going along really nicely on 78 when Mick Beddow hit one and gave me the classic ‘Yes, no, wait, sorry’. It was a tight run, and I was attempting to get my 16 stones down the other end as fast as possible when the ‘No’ and the ‘Wait’ came along.

A late Tuesday afternoon drive back to Manchester saw us ready to take on Leicestershire at Old Trafford from the Wednesday morning and, by that evening on July 7 we thought we had the match in the bag. I was also captaining the team, as Brian Statham had a strain, so despite my own run out for 78 I couldn’t have been happier. We first bowled

There was no getting back for me, and Mick was very cut up about it. But he was a very nice lad, no one does these things on purpose and, when he soon

To add to the growing sense of frustration in and around the Lancashire team, we then went pointless in our next game, against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, when rain blighted the affair and washed away the entire final day.

When I reached 53, in our first innings, however, I got to my 1,000 first-class runs for the season, and my eventual 66 kept up my good form. I was playing well and, though I had no actual targets in terms of runs for the summer, I knew that I was building significantly on my 1964 form, when I had made 1,570 runs and also scored a hundred against the touring Australians as well as playing some dominant innings in the Gillette Cup oneday competition.

It had been a long, frustrating slog in the field for us, and especially for me as captain, with several catches dropped too, and Higgs just could not replicate the way he bowled to take his remarkable seven for 19 on the first morning.

Life was good on a personal level, but if I was thinking anything at that time other than just to go out and bat as well as I could then my thoughts would have been about trying to get a few wins for the team. We fancied beating Notts, who were to finish bottom of the championship, and we were well on the way to a big first innings total when weather interruptions forced us to declare.

Without Statham we lacked our prime cutting edge, and Peter Lever – as a young guy – always thought he could bounce people out and didn’t find it easy to listen to those of us advising him to concentrate more on length and line.

We had drafted Sonny Ramadhin back into the team for this game, from the Lancashire leagues, and it was to be his last championship appearance.

Then, with Notts 125 for six in reply, with Statham, Higgs and Lever all in the wickets, we were making good progress with the ball when the final day’s play was rained off. All in all, it was more than disappointing.

But he could not find a wicket as Tommy Greenhough’s spin partner, and in the end after my 37 had given us a decent enough start – we were quite lucky to see out the draw at 147 for seven after being set to make 200 in two and a

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Glamorgan v Lancashire

Venue: St Helen’s, Swansea on 3rd, 5th, 6th July 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Glamorgan won the toss and decided to bat Result: Glamorgan won by 110 runs points: Glamorgan 10; Lancashire 0 Umpires: J Arnold, OW Herman Glamorgan first innings Runs A Jones c Howard b Greenhough 42 AR Lewis b Greenhough 26 PM Walker b Howard 11 LW Hill b Higgs 70 JS Pressdee c Goodwin b Statham 39 AHM Rees lbw b Statham 2 EJ Lewis b Statham 5 +DGL Evans b Greenhough 20 B Lewis c Greenhough b Higgs 9 DJ Shepherd b Higgs 3 *OS Wheatley not out 2 Extras (4 b, 4 lb, 1 nb, 1 w) 10 Total (all out, 118 overs) 239 Fall of wickets: 1-60, 2-77, 3-94, 4-192, 5-195, 6-203, 7-203, 8-231, 9-235, 10-239

Glamorgan second innings Runs A Jones lbw b Statham 0 AR Lewis c Knox b Howard 19 PM Walker c Knox b Howard 62 LW Hill lbw b Howard 5 JS Pressdee st Goodwin b Howard 0 AHM Rees c Higgs b Greenhough 64 EJ Lewis c Sullivan b Greenhough 12 +DGL Evans not out 3 B Lewis not out 0 DJ Shepherd c Higgs b Greenhough 5 *OS Wheatley did not bat Extras (1 w) 1 Total (8 wickets, declared, 64 overs) 171 Fall of wickets: 1-1, 2-35, 3-45, 4-45, 5-145, 6-155, 7-164, 8-170

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Howard Greenhough Green

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Howard Greenhough

Overs Mdns 25 9 31 13 28 7 31 15 3 0

Runs Wkts 39 3 45 3 83 1 55 3 7 0

Overs Mdns 3 0 33.5 13 21 10 14 3 15 3

Runs Wkts 18 1 20 0 79 4 53 3

Lancashire second innings Runs DM Green c Hill b Wheatley 28 G Pullar c Pressdee b EJ Lewis 33 GK Knox lbw b Wheatley 5 AM Beddow c AR Lewis b Walker 1 J Sullivan c AR Lewis b Walker 0 H Pilling b EJ Lewis 20 K Howard c Pressdee b Walker 3 K Higgs not out 22 *JB Statham c Evans b EJ Lewis 0 T Greenhough lbw b EJ Lewis 0 +K Goodwin c B Lewis b Wheatley 23 Extras 0 Total (all out, 49.1 overs) 135 Fall of wickets: 1-15, 2-44, 3-45, 4-49, 5-75, 6-86, 7-90, 8-90, 9-94, 10-135

Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green c Evans b Pressdee 35 G Pullar b Shepherd 60 GK Knox c B Lewis b Shepherd 0 AM Beddow run out 30 J Sullivan c Wheatley b Shepherd 14 H Pilling c Pressdee b Shepherd 8 K Howard c Evans b Shepherd 1 K Higgs c Evans b EJ Lewis 2 *JB Statham not out 11 T Greenhough b Shepherd 1 +K Goodwin c B Lewis b Shepherd 0 Extras (2 lb, 1 w) 3 Total (all out, 86.5 overs) 165 Fall of wickets: 1-52, 2-57, 3-122, 4-129, 5-141, 6-150, 7-152, 8-164, 9-165, 10-165 Glamorgan bowling

Wheatley Shepherd EJ Lewis Pressdee B Lewis

Overs Mdns 5 2 13 5 22 3 24 6

Glamorgan bowling

Wheatley EJ Lewis B Lewis Walker

Runs Wkts 14 0 60 7 26 1 19 1 43 0

Overs Mdns 15.1 1 12 4 3 1 19 6

Runs Wkts 59 3 32 4 9 0 35 3

Lancashire v Leicestershire Venue: Old Trafford, Manchester on 7th, 8th, 9th July 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Leicestershire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Match drawn POINTS: Lancashire 2; Leicestershire 0 Umpires: N Oldfield, CG Pepper Leicestershire second innings Runs *MR Hallam c Green b Higgs 10 BJ Booth c Sullivan b Greenhough 46 J Birkenshaw c Goodwin b Higgs 68 S Jayasinghe c Sullivan b Lever 12 CC Inman b Higgs 89 PT Marner lbw b Lever 0 S Greensword lbw b Lever 57 +R Julian b Lever 19 CT Spencer c Goodwin b Lever 32 JS Savage not out 5 J Cotton did not bat Extras (3 lb) 3 Total (9 wickets, declared, 118.5 overs) 341 Fall of wickets: 1-11, 2-113, 3-130, 4-140, 5-140, 6-285, 7-287, 8-318, 9-341

Leicestershire first innings Runs *MR Hallam b Higgs 7 BJ Booth c Goodwin b Lever 2 J Birkenshaw b Lever 17 S Jayasinghe b Higgs 14 CC Inman b Higgs 0 PT Marner c Green b Higgs 3 S Greensword b Lever 4 +R Julian b Higgs 3 CT Spencer b Higgs 0 JS Savage not out 0 J Cotton c Goodwin b Higgs 5 Extras (4 lb) 4 Total (all out, 34.4 overs) 59 Fall of wickets: 1-11, 2-15, 3-39, 4-41, 5-47, 6-47, 7-54, 8-54, 9-54, 10-59 Lancashire bowling

Lever Higgs Beddow

Overs Mdns 12 3 16.4 5 6 0

Lancashire bowling

Lever Higgs Beddow Greenhough Ramadhin

Runs Wkts 25 3 19 7 11 0

Lancashire first innings Runs *DM Green run out 78 G Pullar b Savage 46 GK Knox lbw b Greensword 11 AM Beddow c Julian b Greensword 4 J Sullivan lbw b Spencer 13 H Pilling c Birkenshaw b Cotton 22 P Lever c and b Cotton 3 K Higgs c Jayasinghe b Cotton 2 +K Goodwin c Julian b Spencer 4 T Greenhough not out 8S Ramadhin b Cotton 0 Extras (6 b, 4 lb) 10 Total (all out, 79 overs) 201 Fall of wickets: 1-113, 2-138, 3-139, 4-152, 5-165, 6-174, 7-184, 8-189, 9-194, 10-201 Leicestershire bowling

Overs Mdns Cotton 19 5 Spencer 20 1 Marner 4 2 Greensword 20 6 Savage 16 8

Overs Mdns 36.5 7 33 3 1 1 28 8 20 7

Runs Wkts 131 5 94 3 0 0 67 1 46 0

Lancashire second innings Runs *DM Green c Booth b Spencer 37 G Pullar run out 25 GK Knox lbw b Greensword 13 AM Beddow c Hallam b Greensword 0 J Sullivan b Cotton 6 H Pilling c Marner b Savage 16 P Lever not out 35 K Higgs c Marner b Booth 0 +K Goodwin not out 4 T Greenhough did not bat S Ramadhin did not bat Extras (8 b, 3 lb) 11 Total (7 wickets, 45.4 overs) 147 Fall of wickets: 1-46, 2-77, 3-78, 4-78, 5-92, 6-104, 7-121

Leicestershire bowling

Overs Mdns Cotton 9 0 Spencer 7 1 Greensword 4 0 Savage 12 7 Booth 9 4 Birkenshaw 4.4 2

Runs Wkts 44 4 74 2 4 0 42 2 27 1

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chapter ten: defeat in west wales

Nottinghamshire v Lancashire

Venue: Trent Bridge, Nottingham on 10th, 12th, 13th July 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Lancashire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Match drawn POINTS: Nottinghamshire 0; Lancashire 0 Umpires: AE Fagg, LH Gray Lancashire first innings DM Green c and b Corran G Pullar c Forbes b Corran AM Beddow c and b Corran JD Bond c Taylor b Corran J Sullivan not out H Pilling not out P Lever did not bat K Higgs did not bat +K Goodwin did not bat *JB Statham did not bat T Greenhough did not bat Extras (2 lb, 2 nb, 1 w) Total (4 wickets, declared, 94 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-93, 2-102, 3-148, 4-189 Nottinghamshire bowling

Overs Mdns Corran 39 14 Forbes 27 7 Wells 20 13 Taylor 8 0

Runs 66 33 36 21 31 4

5 196

Runs Wkts 71 4 73 0 25 0 22 0

Nottinghamshire first innings Runs NW Hill c Beddow b Higgs 23 A Gill b Higgs 33 MJ Smedley c Green b Lever 8 JB Bolus b Lever 29 HI Moore b Statham 10 *+G Millman not out 14 MNS Taylor b Statham 2 AJ Corran not out 1 C Forbes did not bat IJ Davison did not bat BD Wells did not bat Extras (1 b, 2 lb, 1 nb, 1 w) 5 Total (6 wickets, 48 overs) 125 Fall of wickets: 1-39, 2-50, 3-70, 4-106, 5-110, 6-120 Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Lever

Overs Mdns 16 4 16 0 16 3

CHAPTER ELEVEN: HIGH SUMMER, LOW POINTS

Runs Wkts 38 2 49 2 33 2

We were now more than half way through the County Championship campaign of 28 three-day matches, with the return game against Glamorgan, at Old Trafford, which started on Saturday July 17, our sixteenth fixture in the competition. Stuck near the bottom of the table, we badly needed to turn our fortunes around; sadly, but not surprisingly, we got thumped by ten wickets.

which concerned the time he hit him a nasty blow amidships. Gardner, who was a big and burly man, went down and was in obvious pain, and Fred bustled up and crouched over him, most concerned.

“Are you OK, Fred?” “Yes, not so bad,” came the reply from the crumpled heap.

“Can I get you anything?” “Well, I think a brandy would be useful.” “What, for you?” asked Fred. “No, for those lads who are going to have to carry me off!”

Fred Gardner and Ron Aspinall were the umpires in this contest, and both had been more than useful cricketers.

Fred was an opening batsman for Warwickshire in the immediate post-War years and Ron, tall and red-faced and keen on a drink – especially if someone else was buying – had got close to England selection in the same era as a tall medium-fast bowler before bad knees brought a premature end to his county career.

Anyway, the two umpires were kept busy with four leg-before and three caughtbehind decisions as we were bowled out by Glamorgan for an inadequate 132. From 115 for three we fell away in embarrassing fashion with Don Shepherd cleaning up our tail with 5 for 19 after Ossie Wheatley had taken three and Hamish Miller and Jeff Jones one each.

Miller’s strike had removed me, legbefore for 24, and it was to be the ginger-haired medium-pacer’s only wicket in the game. Indeed, in our second innings he hardly got a bowl as Jones and

I recall one lovely story that Fred Trueman used to tell about Fred Gardner,

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FRED GARDNER I have written elsewhere that from 1949, when I was a nine-year-old boy, right through until I was sixteen or seventeen, I spent a lot of time watching cricket at Old Trafford, never suspecting that I might one day play against some of these remote figures, or playing games in which they umpired. In both these categories was Fred Gardner who I recall opening Warwickshire’s innings, first with wicket-keeper Dick Spooner, an effective left-hand bat, and later with Norman Horner, a Yorkshire exile whose dashing strokeplay contrasted sharply with Fred’s more deliberate methods.

Fred became a first-class umpire who I remember standing, in company with Ron Aspinall, during 1965 in successive Lancashire matches, namely our defeat by Glamorgan at Old Trafford and our victory over Derbyshire at Southport.

His entry into county cricket was comparatively late. He was rising 25 when he made his debut in 1947. By 1949 he had secured a regular place in the side and was awarded his county cap. He had a very solid defence and played particularly strongly to the on-side and, despite a burly build, was an excellent runner between the wickets and a fine fielder.

Fred’s best season was 1950, when he made 1,801 runs and averaged 48.67, and three years later he became the first batsman to score a century for Warwickshire against the Australians when he made 110. In a comparatively short career – he last played regularly in 1958 – he was a consistent scorer, with a career tally of 17,905 runs at an average of 33.71.

He was also an excellent umpire and very popular with the players, who appreciated both his calm approach and his wry sense of humour.

Wheatley ran through us and Shepherd picked up another tail end scalp. In the bar, I probably reminded Don of his capacity for taking lower order wickets after the quicker bowlers had done the hard work up front because, if you understand me, you could tease ‘Shep’ and he would rise to the bait.

Try as they did, Brian Statham and Ken Higgs could not get us back into the match as Alan Jones and Peter

Walker batted well to put on 101 for Glamorgan’s second wicket and then enough of their remaining order chipped in to earn them a lead of 89. We couldn’t even put up much a show with the bat second time around, either, falling away to 109 all out as Jones took five and Wheatley four.

Jones, left arm and decidedly quick – he was up there with the fastest of his

chapter eleven: high summer, low points

At least, though, before more misery set in, we had a win against Derbyshire in our next match to lift the clouds a little. The game was played at Southport, an outground which in years to follow became something of a batting paradise.

generation – was, however, not one of those who top order players soiled themselves about facing, because he rarely swung it, but he bowled from an awkward angle and could be difficult enough even for the best. Tailenders didn’t fancy him much.

In 1965, however, the pitch was a bit like the ones we used to get at Bradford Park Avenue, whenever we played Yorkshire there. It moved around off the seam, and it also turned, but if you batted well and got stuck in you could still get runs. So, not a great pitch, but playable. It looked pale gold in colour, and quite sandy yet with a bit of grass on it.

He was too good for me in our second dig, although I can remember feeling quite good at the crease and getting to 20 before he hit my splice and I was caught at backward short leg.

Jeff ’s son Simon, who also played for England and was a star of the 2005 Ashes series win before, very sadly, never playing another Test due to constant injury problems, was probably the better bowler of the two.

Simon, who played in 18 Tests, could swing the ball both ways, conventionally and even more dangerously with reverse swing, and he was also very sharp in pace. But Jeff Jones also had his moments for England, despite playing a number of his 15 Tests against the very fine West Indies batting sides of the 1960s.

I certainly batted well in our first innings.

I got 53, as Noddy Pullar and myself put on 89 for the first wicket, and I recall feeling in real nick. Harold Rhodes bowled me in the end, but we had given the side an excellent start and good runs at numbers five and six by John Sullivan and Harry Pilling meant that we got to 240. That was a decent score and it began to look even better when Brian Statham shot out two of them before the close to leave Derbyshire on 22 for two overnight.

Perhaps the only consolation of our drubbing by Glamorgan was the assured first-class debut of Ken Snellgrove, a 23-year-old batsman who had played for a couple of seasons in the Second XI and marked his maiden innings in the first team by scoring 39 and 18 amid the general struggle. Snellgrove held his place in the side, thereafter, playing thirteen games in all that summer and scoring 440 runs. Not spectacular, but enough to keep being selected in a batting line-up that just did not perform anything like adequately across the campaign.

Statham took two more early the next day and, with Mick Beddow also snapping up three cheap wickets when Brian brought his medium pace into the attack to give himself a rest, Derbyshire were soon all out for 80. Enforcing the follow on was what modern corporate-speak refers to as a ‘no-brainer’ and Statham added three more Peakite scalps to his first innings haul of 5 for 27 while Tommy Greenhough helped to mop things up with 4 for 30. Only Mick Page and Laurie Johnson held us up for long and a third day was unnecessary.

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Indeed, our unscheduled day off allowed us to tootle off down to Hove at our leisure on Friday July 23, where we were to start against Sussex the following morning. A hard-fought three days were to follow, with a Sunday off during the game to enjoy, but once again we came out on the wrong end of the result. The eventual margin was only 38 runs, but we only got that close because of an exceptional innings by Harry Pilling, who ended up 88 not out.

one of John Snow’s four victims – was followed by a lower order disintegration.

Sussex, on the opening day, and even missing Jim Parks, who was away on Test duty, got to 286 for nine before declaring to give us half-an-hour or so before the close, in which I’m pleased to say we reached 27 without loss. Their first innings was a workmanlike affair, given extra gloss in the late middle order by half-centuries from a young Peter Graves and the veteran Ian Thomson.

I did manage to add 42 with Snellgrove, before Snow had me caught for 34 at short leg, and at 94 for six we were in deep trouble. Snow, then 23, made his Test debut that summer. At that time he bowled inswingers from wide of the crease, and was not quite the great bowler he later became when he moved in closer to the stumps and ratcheted up his pace by a good few notches.

chapter eleven: high summer, low points

Even then, with Statham showing that class could solve his Hove problems by taking 5 for 38, and with both Higgs and Lever lending superb support, we dismissed Sussex for 131 to leave ourselves requiring 247 for victory. By stumps on day two, though, we were 14 for two and, in the opening minutes of the third day, we were 14 for three.

Pilling, coming in stupidly low at No 7 due to the fact we had used Keith Goodwin as a nightwatchman, then played one of the Lancashire’s innings of the season, first in company with Peter Lever and then, in a stand of 39 with Statham for the ninth wicket, hitting out strongly to give Sussex a scare. When Thomson knocked out last man Tommy Greenhough’s poles, for nought, Pilling was left proud but frustrated that his fine counter-attacking innings had ultimately been in vain.

Statham, our spearhead, never seemed to find Hove to his liking, and was outbowled here by both Peter Lever and Ken Higgs. It was not as if Brian felt he bowled badly at Hove, where he opted to come down the slope, but he said he never got the best of fortune there.

It happens with cricketers and certain grounds, even with the greatest players.

In reply, I got another fifty before going back to Tony Buss instead of forward and edging chest high to Alan Oakman in the slips. Perhaps I should even have left it, but I never left that many, and from 143 for three we subsided in pathetic fashion to 171 all out. Buss got six, propelling him further towards the tally of 108 first-class wickets he was to claim that season, and Ken Snellgrove’s 52 – before he became

Thomson, who was coming to the end of his highly-successful county career, had taken 100 wickets in all twelve of the previous seasons (he was to take 72 in this one) and offered excellent support to the new ball pair of Snow and Buss.

Tall and well-built, he bowled chest-on,

Tony Buss in action for Sussex

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swinging the ball mainly into the righthanders but also getting bounce, even though he was not by then operating at the pace of his pomp in the 1950s, and cutting the odd one away off the pitch. All in all, it was a dangerous seam attack and it is sobering to think that Sussex finished sixteenth in that season’s championship. I think that in itself is a mark of the quality of some of the teams around at that time.

Higgs, by the way, was quite a good close catcher despite adopting a catching technique I can best describe as looking like the jaws of a crocodile. Cricketers usually catch with both palms turned down or, in the Australian style for catches above waist high, with both palms turned up. Ken caught with one palm pointing up and one pointing down, with his hands closing on the ball like a trap. It mostly worked, though, so who were we to criticise?

Back to Manchester we went, after our fruitless sojourn on the south coast, and our collective mood was not helped when it rained for two days, allowing us only to play a one-innings game against Surrey at Old Trafford on Friday July 30.

chapter eleven: high summer, low points

Lancashire v Glamorgan Venue: Old Trafford, Manchester on 17th, 19th, 20th July 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Lancashire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Glamorgan won by 10 wickets Points: Lancashire 0; Glamorgan 10 Umpires: R Aspinall, FC Gardner Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green lbw b Miller 24 G Pullar b Wheatley 17 AM Beddow lbw b Shepherd 30 JD Bond c Evans b Shepherd 5 KL Snellgrove b Wheatley 39 H Pilling lbw b Wheatley 0 D Lloyd c Evans b IJ Jones 3 P Lever lbw b Shepherd 0 K Higgs c Evans b Shepherd 9 +K Goodwin not out 0 *JB Statham b Shepherd 0 Extras (4 b, 1 lb) 5 Total (all out, 63.4 overs) 132 Fall of wickets: 1-40, 2-48, 3-60, 4-115, 5-115, 6-115, 7-116, 8-124, 9-132, 10-132

Lancashire second innings Runs DM Green c EJ Lewis b IJ Jones 20 G Pullar c Walker b IJ Jones 7 AM Beddow c Evans b IJ Jones 6 JD Bond lbw b Wheatley 3 KL Snellgrove b Wheatley 18 H Pilling c Evans b IJ Jones 8 D Lloyd c Walker b IJ Jones 14 P Lever b Shepherd 4 K Higgs c Shepherd b Wheatley 6 +K Goodwin c sub b Wheatley 15 *JB Statham not out 5 Extras (2 b, 1 nb) 3 Total (all out, 57.3 overs) 109 Fall of wickets: 1-19, 2-30, 3-37, 4-37, 5-49, 6-72, 7-81, 8-81, 9-97, 10-109

Glamorgan bowling

IJ Jones Wheatley Miller Shepherd Walker

Put in, not surprisingly, on a pitch that was still wet and from which the ball flew quite disconcertingly until it dried out when they batted later in the day, we were tumbled out for 96 and Surrey, reaching 100 for the loss of just one wicket in reply, picked up six points for topping our first innings score in a match that was recorded as a draw. As at Hove, we received no points.

Overs Mdns 13 4 23 8 13 3 13.4 6 1 1

Glamorgan bowling

IJ Jones Wheatley Miller Shepherd EJ Lewis

Runs Wkts 32 1 29 3 47 1 19 5 0 0

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Lever Lloyd Beddow

Overs Mdns 37.1 15 42 12 21 5 2 0 7 2

Runs Wkts 49 5 30 4 8 0 19 1 0 0

Glamorgan second innings Runs A Jones not out 12 AR Lewis not out 8 PM Walker did not bat EJ Lewis did not bat JS Pressdee did not bat AHM Rees did not bat HDS Miller did not bat +DGL Evans did not bat DJ Shepherd did not bat IJ Jones did not bat *OS Wheatley did not bat Extras (1 b) 1 Total (no wicket, 13.4 overs) 21

Glamorgan first innings Runs A Jones c Goodwin b Higgs 37 AR Lewis c Goodwin b Statham 0 PM Walker c Goodwin b Higgs 75 EJ Lewis b Statham 4 JS Pressdee lbw b Higgs 27 AHM Rees c Pullar b Lever 12 HDS Miller lbw b Statham 12 +DGL Evans not out 16 DJ Shepherd c and b Statham 11 IJ Jones b Statham 1 *OS Wheatley b Statham 21 Extras (1 b, 3 lb, 1 nb) 5 Total (all out, 109.1 overs) 221 Fall of wickets: 1-1, 2-102, 3-117, 4-119, 5-157, 6-163, 7-173, 8-185, 9-189, 10-221

David Gibson, who was called ‘Hoot’ on the circuit after the cowboy Hoot Gibson from the days of Hollywood’s silent films, included me for 36 in his 5 for 42 although I did manage what Wisden records as “a number of bold strokes” before going down attacking. Called up by Statham for some exploratory off-spin, as Surrey neared their modest target, I also had Bill Smith, the lefthanded opener, caught by Ken Higgs at slip after getting one to turn from around the wicket.

Overs Mdns 21 4 20.3 8 4 0 11 6 1 1

Lancashire bowling

Higgs Lever Lloyd Beddow Pullar

Runs Wkts 78 6 76 3 36 1 9 0 17 0

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Overs 1 1 5 6 0.4

Mdns 0 1 2 2 0

Runs Wkts 2 0 0 0 4 0 13 0 1 0

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chapter eleven: high summer, low points

Lancashire v Derbyshire

Sussex v Lancashire

Venue: Trafalgar Road, Southport on 21st, 22nd July 1965 (3-day match Toss: Lancashire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Lancashire won by an innings and 14 runs Points: Lancashire 10; Derbyshire 0 Umpires: R Aspinall, FC Gardner

Venue: County Ground, Hove on 24th, 26th, 27th July 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Sussex won the toss and decided to bat Result: Sussex won by 38 runs Points: Sussex 10; Lancashire 0 Umpires: J Arnold, CS Elliott

Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green b Rhodes 53 G Pullar c Johnson b Rhodes 38 AM Beddow c Buxton b Smith 6 KL Snellgrove c Hall b Rhodes 13 J Sullivan c Taylor b Jackson 38 H Pilling c Taylor b Morgan 46 P Lever c Taylor b Jackson 12 K Higgs c Harvey b Rhodes 11 +K Goodwin c Taylor b Buxton 4 *JB Statham b Rhodes 6 T Greenhough not out 1 Extras (3 b, 4 lb, 5 nb) 12 Total (all out, 86 overs) 240 Fall of wickets: 1-89, 2-93, 3-112, 4-118, 5-171, 6-193, 7-227, 8-232, 9-235, 10-240

Derbyshire second innings (following on) Runs JR Eyre b Statham 3 IW Hall lbw b Higgs 6 MH Page c Goodwin b Statham 33 HL Johnson c Sullivan b Beddow 33 IR Buxton lbw b Greenhough 1 *DC Morgan b Statham 5 JF Harvey lbw b Greenhough 16 +RW Taylor b Greenhough 7 E Smith b Greenhough 19 HJ Rhodes not out 3 AB Jackson b Lever 10 Extras (4 b, 4 lb, 1 nb, 1 w) 10 Total (all out, 74.3 overs) 146 Fall of wickets: 1-9, 2-9, 3-60, 4-74, 5-83, 6-86, 7-98, 8-118, 9-131, 10-146

Sussex first innings Runs KG Suttle c Beddow b Statham 49 ASM Oakman c Goodwin b Higgs 11 *Nawab of Pataudi b Higgs 49 RJ Langridge c Goodwin b Lever 16 GC Cooper c Green b Higgs 3 FR Pountain lbw b Greenhough 31 PJ Graves c sub b Statham 53 NI Thomson b Lever 58 A Buss b Lever 4 JA Snow not out 1 +T Gunn did not bat Extras (3 b, 8 lb) 11 Total (9 wickets, declared, 104 overs) 286 Fall of wickets: 1-17, 2-109, 3-115, 4-120, 5-142, 6-189, 7-248, 8-283, 9-286

Sussex second innings Runs ASM Oakman lbw b Statham 0 KG Suttle b Statham 14 *Nawab of Pataudi c Snellgrove b Lever 23 RJ Langridge c Goodwin b Statham 39 GC Cooper c Beddow b Lever 30 FR Pountain b Higgs 6 PJ Graves b Statham 4 NI Thomson b Higgs 1 A Buss not out 1 JA Snow b Higgs 4 +T Gunn lbw b Statham 0 Extras (9 lb) 9 Total (all out, 44 overs) 131 Fall of wickets: 1-1, 2-20, 3-44, 4-105, 5-118, 6-125, 7-126, 8-126, 9-130, 10-131

Derbyshire bowling

Overs Mdns Jackson 19 6 Rhodes 25 3 Buxton 18 3 Morgan 10 0 Smith 14 6

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Lever Beddow Greenhough

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Lever Beddow Greenhough

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Lever

Runs Wkts 41 2 75 5 47 1 37 1 28 1

Overs Mdns 14 4 14 3 16.3 1 10 5 20 9

Runs Wkts 22 3 27 1 43 1 14 1 30 4

Overs Mdns 27 5 28 3 20 7 17 1 12 2

Runs Wkts 80 2 86 3 40 3 45 0 24 1

Derbyshire first innings Runs JR Eyre b Statham 4 IW Hall c Goodwin b Statham 14 +RW Taylor b Statham 0 MH Page c Goodwin b Statham 8 HL Johnson c Sullivan b Lever 14 IR Buxton c Sullivan b Statham 2 *DC Morgan c Goodwin b Beddow 8 JF Harvey b Beddow 0 E Smith b Beddow 3 HJ Rhodes not out 7 AB Jackson b Higgs 17 Extras (2 b, 1 nb) 3 Total (all out, 50.1 overs) 80 Fall of wickets: 1-7, 2-7, 3-23, 4-30, 5-40, 6-51, 7-51, 8-54, 9-55, 10-80

Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green c Oakman b Buss 50 G Pullar c Gunn b Buss 16 AM Beddow c Graves b Buss 0 KL Snellgrove c Gunn b Snow 52 J Sullivan c Gunn b Snow 23 H Pilling c Gunn b Buss 14 P Lever c Cooper b Buss 4 K Higgs not out 7 +K Goodwin c Gunn b Snow 1 *JB Statham c Oakman b Snow 0 T Greenhough c Pataudi b Buss 2 Extras (1 lb, 1 w) 2 Total (all out, 54 overs) 171 Fall of wickets: 1-50, 2-50, 3-93, 4-143, 5-144, 6-158, 7-163, 8-164, 9-164, 10-171

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Lever Beddow

Sussex bowling

Snow Buss Thomson Suttle

Overs Mdns 14 1 17.1 7 12 5 7 5

Runs Wkts 27 5 23 1 17 1 10 3

Overs Mdns 21 4 22 4 8 2 3 1

Overs Mdns 18 3 16 3 10 0

Runs Wkts 38 5 40 3 44 2

Lancashire second innings Runs DM Green c Langridge b Snow 34 G Pullar b Buss 3 +K Goodwin b Buss 0 AM Beddow b Buss 0 KL Snellgrove c Oakman b Snow 21 J Sullivan c Gunn b Thomson 24 H Pilling not out 88 P Lever c Graves b Buss 25 K Higgs b Buss 1 *JB Statham b Snow 10 T Greenhough b Thomson 0 Extras (1 b, 1 lb) 2 Total (all out, 69.3 overs) 208 Fall of wickets: 1-12, 2-12, 3-14, 4-56, 5-63, 6-94, 7-161, 8-168, 9-207, 10-208 Sussex bowling

Snow Buss Thomson Cooper

Runs Wkts 58 4 72 6 29 0 10 0

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Overs Mdns 21 2 28 5 14.3 1 6 1

Runs Wkts 69 3 97 5 31 2 9 0

chapter eleven: high summer, low points

Lancashire v Surrey Venue: Old Trafford, Manchester on 28th, 29th, 30th July 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Surrey won the toss and decided to field Result: Match drawn (single innings match) Points: Lancashire 0; Surrey 6 Umpires: WFF Price, H Yarnold Lancashire innings Runs DM Green c Long b Gibson 36 G Pullar b Sydenham 4 AM Beddow c Tindall b Sydenham 9 KL Snellgrove c Storey b Sydenham 5 J Sullivan lbw b Gibson 30 H Pilling c Long b Gibson 0 R Entwistle c Smith b Gibson 0 P Lever b Gibson 2 K Higgs c Edwards b Arnold 1 *JB Statham not out 0 +K Goodwin b Arnold 0 Extras (4 lb, 5 nb) 9 Total (all out, 37.5 overs) 96 Fall of wickets: 1-21, 2-52, 3-58, 4-65, 5-75, 6-75, 7-89, 8-96, 9-96, 10-96

Surrey bowling

Arnold Sydenham Gibson

Overs Mdns 8.5 2 15 4 14 2

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Lever Beddow Green

Overs Mdns 5 0 10 3 8.1 1 6 2 3 1

Brian Close was (and still is, happily, at the time of writing) a very good bloke indeed, and someone with whom I have always got on well – despite him being almost a decade older than me.

Runs Wkts 17 2 28 3 42 5

Surrey innings *MJ Stewart not out WA Smith c Higgs b Green MJ Edwards not out KF Barrington did not bat RAE Tindall did not bat SJ Storey did not bat D Gibson did not bat +A Long did not bat GG Arnold did not bat R Harman did not bat DAD Sydenham did not bat Extras (5 lb, 1 w) Total (1 wicket, 32.1 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-88 (Smith)

CHAPTER TWELVE: CLOSEY AND A ROSES THRASHING

Runs 47 46 1

One such occasion was in Rhodesia (as it was called then) in 1972, when I was invited to tour with a team captained by Close and put together and organised by Frank Twistleton. The travelling party was full of internationals, and I was thrilled to be asked to join it – especially as I had by then stopped playing regular county cricket.

He was also a tremendous cricketer, and a top-class captain and leader of men who, I’m sure, would have made a fine long-term England skipper had he not fallen foul of the establishment for alleged crimes of time-wasting in a county match between Yorkshire and Warwickshire at Edgbaston in 1967.

6 100

I remember we were playing a match in Gwelo, and were invited to a party being held in a colonial-style house some 60 miles or so out in the bush. It rapidly descended into a huge piss-up and we were all soon enjoying the delights of a warm African evening in a large garden bedecked with colourful lights. Then the music came on and an outdoor dance floor was suddenly created on the patio area.

Appointed as Yorkshire’s captain in 1963, he always led by example and had the strength of character, as well as the obvious natural ability, to keep under control a dressing room full of players with equally strong opinions and probably far grander senses of self-worth.

Runs Wkts 22 0 21 0 29 0 11 0 11 1

Closey, by now in his early 40s and completely bald, was quickly into the spirit of the occasion and found himself dancing alongside a girl who couldn’t have been more than about eighteen.

Closey was very genial company off the field, too, although he did have a fuse that either didn’t light at all or on rare occasions lit up alarmingly.

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It was a piss-hole performance from us, to borrow an apt phrase from the cricketers’ lexicon, and only the loss of approaching a whole day’s play on the Monday – the second day of the game – saved us from a defeat that would have been even more crushing than the ultimate, and still emphatic, seven-wicket margin.

The sight of Close attempting to throw some disco moves was quite an alarming one, as he hopped up and down and waved his arms about, and I’m not sure what the locals thought. He was also grinning away to himself, and I couldn’t resist a witty quip as I passed.

“Hey, Closey!” I called, attracting his attention. “Yes, lad?” he replied, barely slowing the jigging and jiving. “How are the varicose veins?” I knew it had been a mistake from the moment I said it.

His expression turned from slightly embarrassed, fixed beam to a ferocious frown, and he glowered at me through his shaggy eyebrows. I beat a hasty retreat.

The whole deflating experience began, as it so often did in my career, with Fred Trueman getting amongst us on the opening day after we had been put in on a steamy morning and quite a moist pitch and, from 31 for four, with three of our top order wickets, including mine, falling to Fred, we actually did quite well to get to 175 all out.

“I bloody nearly thumped you!” he told me later. The thought of this chilled my blood, for Brian was almost certainly the strongest man on the county circuit. If he had bashed me, I’m perfectly sure I would have stayed bashed.

I was caught at the wicket by Jimmy Binks, nicking yet another Trueman outswinger, and it used to amuse me when Ray Illingworth, another Yorkshire player I got on well with, tried to wind me up by saying how often he used to get me out.

“I always get you out, Greeny,” he would say by way of a greeting.

That was Closey. If something irked him, and obviously being teased in front of an attractive young lady was one such rare example, it was like a portcullis coming down. His mood could be thunderous, but it only happened on a few occasions.

We all knew not to cross him, though.

Now, I know the Yorkies worked out quite early that I was a bit of a twitcher at the crease, and could therefore be tempted into all sorts of indiscretions, but I would reply to Raymond: “How the hell can you ‘always’ get me out when Fred actually always gets me out? You can’t BOTH always get me out!” At that, Illy would just chuckle his mirthless chuckle.

Close, in 1965, was also very much in charge of a very fine Yorkshire team and, when Brian Statham was again sidelined with a muscle strain, I was the Lancashire captain given the task of going up against him after we had made the short journey across the Pennines to Bramall Lane, Sheffield, for the second Roses Match of the summer. It began on Saturday, July 31, and we got a hammering.

Both John Sullivan and Harry Pilling made half-centuries but Fred returned to bowl Sullivan and later removed Tommy Greenhough to finish with 5 for 47. Richard Hutton and Don Wilson each took two wickets and, although

chapter twelve: closey and a roses thrashing

KEN HIGGS The summer of 1965 was the season in which Ken Higgs, having lost form between 1961 and 1964, recovered it emphatically enough to earn his Test debut in the third and final match of the South Africa series, at the Oval, the first of 15 Tests for which he was selected. In these he captured 71 wickets at below 21 apiece, which makes one wonder why he was not chosen by England more frequently.

Ken, born in Stoke-on-Trent, joined Lancashire in 1958 and was immediately successful. However, he fell away in 1961 when, though taking his hundred wickets for the summer, he paid thirty runs for each of them. For the next three seasons his wickets cost him around 28 apiece and he was not always sure of his place in the side.

Cyril Washbrook, Lancashire’s team manager in 1964, consulted Jack Mercer, the Northamptonshire scorer, during a match against them. Mercer had been a good enough medium-paced bowler to take over 1,400 wickets for Glamorgan before the Second World War when Washbrook had played against him regularly. Mercer spotted that Ken was not following through fully so that too many balls drifted down the legside.

This solved the problem, as figures clearly proved. Between 1961 and 1964 Ken took 307 wickets at 29 each. In the five seasons to 1969, when he retired to run a boarding house in Blackpool, he took 487 at below 19 each. In 1972 he joined Leicestershire, for whom he bowled effectively until 1979 when he took over as county coach.

Ken was very strong, and though his pace, off a nine-stride approach, was no more than medium-fast, he hit the pitch hard and regularly caused the batsmen pain when his movement off the seam, bounce and nip off the pitch caused the ball to connect painfully with the inside of the batsman’s thigh or the fingers of his bottom hand.

In 1986, aged 49, he was recalled to play for Leicestershire against Yorkshire at Grace Road owing to an injury crisis. Though he was not called on to bowl until Yorkshire had reached 96 for none, he then took three wickets for one run in 28 balls and finished with figures of 11-4-21-5. He was a great man to have on your side. In addition to his high skills he had a fierce sense of purpose and did not know how to give less than his best.

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mustered only 74 all out and Yorkshire were left with a modest victory target.

Geoff Boycott, with 31 not out, guided them home but the pitch was doing a bit and I remember catching Padgett at gully off David Lloyd’s left-arm spin as he prodded forward to one that turned.

Closey then came in at No 4 in an effort to finish things off quickly, only also to perish to young Bumble, and that was typical of Brian! He always wanted to do the job himself.

Yorkshire lost two early wickets to the new ball, they moved quickly on the final morning from an overnight 76 for two to a declaration at 194 for three in order to have another crack at our creaky batting.

Doug Padgett and John Hampshire, who remained 110 not out, had put on 180 by the time Closey declared just nineteen runs ahead, with Padgett falling to a desperate Lancashire skipper for 72.

Moments later, that same unfortunate was walking out to bat again and, this time, there was no partial recovery from 31 for three.

As Lancashire captain, I was expected to sit at top table at lunch with the Yorkshire committee – as was Close, as Yorkshire captain, of course – and Brian Sellers, the chairman of Yorkshire and himself a former skipper, was in charge of that particular part of proceedings.

John ‘Pongo’ Waring, a tall and skinny seamer who was only playing for Yorkshire because of the injury absence of Tony Nicholson, was not even required

by Close to bowl in our second innings.

After an initial burst from Trueman and Hutton, we were subjected to a pitiless strangling by the spin pair of Wilson and Illingworth.

Despite the result, it was an honour to captain Lancashire in a Roses Match for the first time. My first Roses appearance had been in 1959, in my debut season, and here I was six years later being entertained to lunch by the Yorkshire committee. Life really is a rich tapestry.

My 16 was only a ten-run improvement on my first innings effort, and I became one of four scalps for Wilson, a slow left armer of skill and accuracy whose 1,189 first-class career wickets came at 21 runs apiece.

Bramall Lane, too, was an atmospheric ground – if hugely gloomy, as it always seemed to be murky or rain-affected when we played there – and also a big ground, as it had the Sheffield United football pitch at the far end of the arena.

The fine old Victorian cricket pavilion lent the place a little bit of style, however, and I quite liked playing there – not that I ever made many runs.

Illingworth’s parsimonious off breaks brought him three for 20, from 25 overs, and Trueman was chomping at the bit for the chance to get at our tail long before Closey threw him the ball so that he could complete Peter Lever’s pair and also take Greenhough’s wicket for the second time in the match. Good captaincy to keep Fred happy, for sure.

I wasn’t the sort of captain who made big speeches in the dressing room so I didn’t harangue my troops like some latter-day Montgomery of Alamein before we turned our attention to

We had thought we could block it out for the draw, but in 55.5 overs we had

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playing Surrey at the Oval from August 4- 6, following a Tuesday evening journey to London. I did, however, need to have a strong word with Jack Wood, the Lancashire secretary, when I was given my team for the Surrey match on the morning of the third day of the Roses game and saw that Geoff Pullar was not in it.

UNCOVERED PITCHES

County cricket in 1965 was played on uncovered pitches and, like most players of my generation, I will always believe that they produced better, more-rounded cricketers in terms of technique and mental strength. Pitch ends have to be protected from rainfall, but not the bowlers’ run-ups, nor the ‘business area’ of the pitch, and that is for a simple reason.

Pitch ends should be kept dry so that batsmen can manoeuvre in the crease without slipping around and, most crucially, so that spinners can bowl normally and move through the crease in their delivery stride. The game is all the richer when you have spinners operating on a drying pitch. It means a different test of technique and resolve for batsmen, it encourages spinners (and usually means that a team needs to include at least two good-class slow bowlers to be ready for such an eventuality) and it gives the faster bowlers natural periods of rest.

What you have today, in County Championship matches, is uniform pitch conditions and fast bowlers often being endlessly rotated with (continued over)

I told Jack that we weren’t the strongest side in the world with Noddy in it, let alone without him and, after he asked me if I felt strongly about that, which I said I did, he told me he would have another word with the Lancashire selection committee and come back to me. “I have got him back in for you,” he reported soon afterwards. That was the trouble with the Lancashire committee in those days: there seemed to be about 74 of them, and none of them knew anything about it.

Suffice to say, once I had won the toss, that Pullar and myself put on 125 for the first wicket and, after I had fallen for 64 to Geoff Arnold, that my opening partner went on to reach 112. Those Lancashire selectors – they really knew what they were doing!

Anyway, after that, Noddy probably put his feet up and settled down to read one of his JT Edson westerns – he loved those books and it certainly beat fielding in his opinion. I notice, too, that he didn’t bat in our second innings, and after making his century he probably had a bit of a strain that prevented him from fielding! From 209 for two, though, with Harry Pilling deservedly promoted to No 3 and, in effect, swapping with Gerry Knox in the batting order, we still managed to get bowled out for 265.

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often hardly a spinner worthy of the name in sight. It does not make for the best viewing, for spectators, but it also does not help our domestic game to produce the best cricketers it can. The nature of the cricket is too often too ‘samey’.

It also doesn’t rain every day. Many days on the domestic calendar would be played out quite without influence from the weather. But that is not the point. First-class cricket is a game that evolved in the way it did – having begun in England centuries ago – precisely because weather conditions, and therefore pitch conditions, could often change markedly over a number of days. As a result, most of the cricketers in the game’s history – from the club and school arena up to first-class cricket – had continually to adapt to different pitch and atmospheric conditions if they were to reach the zenith of the sport. Now, once you get to county cricket, those constantly differing challenges are taken out of the equation.

As a batsman, once you get to face international-class bowlers in the English domestic game, you do so knowing that pitch conditions will only change hour-tohour if the surface markedly deteriorates. That is now a rarity, unless the pitch is abnormally dry and begins to crumble.

In my era, it was also a challenge to spinners to bowl on drying pitches after rain had fallen. It tested out their technique and mental strength, too, because unless you were capable of putting the ball consistently into the right area of the pitch then any help you might get from the drying surface would be frittered away. Uncovered pitches, in short, created variety in terms of playing conditions – and that, in turn, built knowledge and maturity into players who had to be good enough to adapt to those often-changing conditions.

I think it is a forlorn hope now, but it is my unwavering view that England would produce far better cricketers, and far more of them, if pitches were left uncovered to the elements during playing hours.

There were even three run outs in the innings, such was the level of selfdestruction. Nevertheless, with Surrey at 109 for eight in reply, Lancashire’s inspirational skipper felt he had the ‘Brown Caps’ by the gonads. He should have known better!

Mike Edwards, an exact contemporary of mine and later to become a dependable opening partner for John Edrich at Surrey, found unlikely support from Roger Harman. Neither Harman nor David Sydenham, the No 11, really knew which end of the bat to hold, but Harman finished on 24 not out, after Edwards had

chapter twelve: closey and a roses thrashing

reached 83 in a ninth wicket stand of 61, and Sydenham then somehow got to 12 as another eighteen runs were garnered for the last wicket.

of a helicopter than me. On this occasion, he flayed our bowling to all parts and I was starting to get very worried when he pressed the accelerator. Peter Lever, in particular, was hooked and pulled on an Oval pitch with even bounce – Pete didn’t bowl that badly, but in his younger days, as I have said, he liked the bouncer a bit too much.

Ken Higgs kept going manfully for us despite the huge disappointment of a number of dropped catches – I recall we threw Edwards on the floor quite early in his innings – and finally wrapped things up to earn himself figures of six for 58.

Ironically, it was Lever who eventually got Storey, caught close in on the legside by Bumble Lloyd, who was fielding about 45 degrees on the angle. They wanted 14 from the final over in the end, but Higgs held his nerve and they finished five runs short.

By the end of day two we were 93 for one in our second innings and in control of the game, but we could and should have been in an even better position. If we had caught Edwards when we had the chance, we might have made them follow on despite our own wastefulness with the bat on the opening day.

It had been a game we should have won, but Surrey fought hard and, as Lancashire captain, it was a relief in the end that we managed to get out of it with a draw and two points for winning on first innings.

But there was no rest for the wicked – as soon as we had showered and changed, it was back on the road for a Friday night journey back north to Manchester. Essex at Old Trafford was up next, starting the following day, and it was a boost to hear that Brian Statham would be fit again to resume his duties as captain as well as opening bowler!

As throughout the summer of 1965, we paid a heavy price that day for the absence of our three best catchers from previous seasons – Ken Grieves, Pete Marner and Geoff Clayton, the wicketkeeper – who had all been sacked by the far-sighted Lancashire committee at the end of 1964.

The last day against Surrey produced an excellent game of cricket, with both sides in with a shout of winning but, eventually, Higgs took two wickets in a tense final over to prevent them from chasing down a target of 282 in 68 overs. I had declared on 204 for six, after Knox – opening in place of the injured Pullar – had made 101 and Pilling a good 41, but Surrey’s top order constructed a fine chase and Stuart Storey injected real dynamism in a whirlwind innings of 96.

Storey had lots of shots and was always looking to play them. He was even more

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Yorkshire v Lancashire

Surrey v Lancashire

Venue: Bramall Lane, Sheffield on 31st July, 2nd, 3rd August 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Yorkshire won the toss and decided to field Result: Yorkshire won by 7 wickets Points: Yorkshire 10; Lancashire 0 Umpires: JF Crapp, WFF Price

Venue: Kennington Oval, Kennington on 4th, 5th, 6th August 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Lancashire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Match drawn Points: Surrey 0; Lancashire 2 Umpires: J Arnold, JS Buller

Lancashire first innings Runs *DM Green c Binks b Trueman 6 G Pullar c Binks b Waring 1 GK Knox c Binks b Trueman 3 KL Snellgrove c Waring b Trueman 12 J Sullivan b Trueman 53 H Pilling c Hampshire b Hutton 60 D Lloyd c Close b Wilson 0 P Lever c Waring b Wilson 0 K Higgs c Binks b Hutton 18 T Greenhough c Binks b Trueman 11 +K Goodwin not out 1 Extras (2 b, 2 lb, 6 nb) 10 Total (all out, 71.2 overs) 175 Fall of wickets: 1-2, 2-10, 3-13, 4-31, 5-108, 6-111, 7-113, 8-149, 9-169, 10-175

Lancashire second innings Runs *DM Green c Hutton b Wilson 16 G Pullar run out 9 GK Knox b Wilson 4 KL Snellgrove c Close b Illingworth 36 J Sullivan c and b Illingworth 2 H Pilling c Waring b Wilson 2 D Lloyd c Close b Wilson 0 P Lever c Binks b Trueman 0 K Higgs c Sharpe b Illingworth 1 T Greenhough c and b Trueman 2 +K Goodwin not out 0 Extras (2 lb) 2 Total (all out, 55.5 overs) 74 Fall of wickets: 1-21, 2-31, 3-31, 4-42, 5-45, 6-71, 7-71, 8-72, 9-74, 10-74

Lancashire first innings Runs *DM Green c Edwards b Arnold 64 G Pullar b Gibson 112 H Pilling lbw b Harman 11 KL Snellgrove b Arnold 27 J Sullivan b Sydenham 3 GK Knox run out 35 D Lloyd run out 6 P Lever b Gibson 0 K Higgs b Gibson 1 T Greenhough not out 3 +K Goodwin run out 1 Extras (1 lb, 1 w) 2 Total (all out, 116.4 overs) 265 Fall of wickets: 1-125, 2-165, 3-209, 4-214, 5-218, 6-246, 7-249, 8-261, 9-263, 10-265

Lancashire second innings *DM Green c Long b Arnold GK Knox c Stewart b Storey H Pilling b Storey KL Snellgrove c Edwards b Storey J Sullivan st Long b Harman D Lloyd st Long b Harman K Higgs not out G Pullar did not bat P Lever did not bat T Greenhough did not bat +K Goodwin did not bat Extras (4 lb, 2 nb) Total (6 wickets, declared, 69.3 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-60, 2-153, 3-181, 4-192, 5-202, 6-204

Yorkshire bowling

Trueman Waring Hutton Close Wilson Illingworth

Yorkshire bowling

Trueman Hutton Close Wilson Illingworth

Surrey bowling

Arnold Sydenham Harman Tindall Storey Gibson

Surrey bowling

Arnold Sydenham Harman Storey Gibson

Overs Mdns 21.2 5 11 1 23 6 5 1 7 4 4 2

Runs Wkts 47 5 37 1 61 2 10 0 4 2 6 0

Yorkshire first innings G Boycott c Goodwin b Lever PJ Sharpe lbw b Higgs DEV Padgett c Lever b Green JH Hampshire not out *DB Close did not bat R Illingworth did not bat RA Hutton did not bat +JG Binks did not bat FS Trueman did not bat D Wilson did not bat JS Waring did not bat Extras (3 lb) Total (3 wickets, declared, 57.4 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-4, 2-14, 3-94 Lancashire bowling

Lever Higgs Greenhough Knox Green

Overs Mdns 20 2 22 4 5 2 4 0 6.4 0

Overs Mdns 4.5 0 2 1 4 3 20 10 25 18

Runs Wkts 12 2 4 0 1 0 35 4 20 3

Yorkshire second innings G Boycott not out PJ Sharpe b Higgs DEV Padgett c Green b Lloyd *DB Close c Goodwin b Lloyd R Illingworth not out JH Hampshire did not bat RA Hutton did not bat +JG Binks did not bat FS Trueman did not bat D Wilson did not bat JS Waring did not bat Extras (8 lb, 1 nb) Total (3 wickets, 15.4 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-28, 2-34, 3-34

Runs 8 1 72 110

3 194

Lancashire bowling

Lever Higgs Lloyd

Runs Wkts 52 1 63 1 19 0 27 0 30 1

Overs 4 7.4 4

Mdns 0 2 0

Runs 31 10 3 0 3

9 56

Runs Wkts 23 0 9 1 15 2

Overs Mdns 19 1 22 9 27 13 17 6 18 5 13.4 2

Runs Wkts 60 2 36 1 52 1 33 0 42 0 40 3

Overs Mdns 16 4 23.4 6 24 5 8 2

6 204

Runs Wkts 48 1 34 0 9 2 41 3 66 0

Surrey second innings Runs *MJ Stewart c Lever b Lloyd 48 WA Smith c Sullivan b Lloyd 37 MJ Edwards b Lever 34 SJ Storey c Lloyd b Lever 96 RAE Tindall c Knox b Lever 28 D Gibson c Pilling b Higgs 22 GG Arnold c sub b Higgs 4 R Harman not out 2 +A Long not out 0 IW Finlay did not bat DAD Sydenham did not bat Extras (4 b, 2 lb) 6 Total (7 wickets, 68 overs) 277 Fall of wickets: 1-70, 2-94, 3-174, 4-228, 5-267, 6-273, 7-275

Surrey first innings Runs *MJ Stewart c Goodwin b Higgs 9 WA Smith b Lever 16 MJ Edwards c Goodwin b Higgs 83 RAE Tindall lbw b Higgs 1 SJ Storey lbw b Greenhough 1 IW Finlay b Greenhough 19 D Gibson b Lever 3 +A Long b Higgs 7 GG Arnold b Higgs 0 R Harman not out 24 DAD Sydenham b Higgs 12 Extras (4 b, 8 lb, 1 w) 13 Total (all out, 71.4 overs) 188 Fall of wickets: 1-16, 2-32, 3-33, 4-42, 5-78, 6-82, 7-109, 8-109, 9-170, 10-188 Lancashire bowling

Lever Higgs Greenhough Lloyd

Overs Mdns 17 1 19 4 4 0 9.3 0 20 2

Runs 32 101 41 8 6 10 0

Lancashire bowling

Lever Higgs Greenhough Lloyd

Runs Wkts 44 2 58 6 59 2 14 0

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Overs Mdns 21 0 22 2 13 4 12 0

Runs Wkts 108 3 76 2 36 0 51 2

chapter twelve: closey and a roses thrashing

GEOFF PULLAR Geoff Pullar made his Lancashire debut as an 18-year-old in 1954. By 1957 he had gained a regular place, passing 1,000 runs both that season and in 1958, averaging around 30. I remember watching him during those years.

At that time he struck me as favouring the off side, where he drove and cut gratefully. He had established himself at No 3 and was clearly a player to watch.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: BACK-TO-BACK VICTORIES

It was therefore a surprise when, in 1959, after England’s opening pair of Arthur Milton and Ken Taylor had failed to produce in the first two Tests against India, Pullar was selected to open, despite never having done so previously in a first-class match, with Glamorgan’s Gilbert Parkhouse. Both made scores of 70-plus in the third Test while Geoff scored 121 in the fourth match of the series at Old Trafford, becoming the first Lancastrian to make a Test century on his home ground.

Pullar was to hold his England place for 28 Tests, scoring 1,974 runs at an average of 43.86, including four centuries. He scored heavily for Lancashire from 1959 to 1964 but thereafter, though holding his place, he was less prolific, perhaps having become unnerved by the number of his colleagues being axed by the committee.

Having secured his release from Lancashire he joined Gloucestershire in 1969, playing several match-changing innings, thriving on the wet pitches prevalent that year.

I greatly enjoyed batting with him. He was always calmness personified, never panicking even in the most awkward situations or on pitches helpful to bowlers, being content to rely on patience, watchfulness and a fine technique to see him through. Off the field he was sociable, enjoying a chat and a joke. He liked a drink, too, though rarely to excess. His recent death, at the age of 79, has saddened his many friends and admirers.

Lancashire’s 1965 season reached its high point with wins in successive games during the second week of August. The fact that Brian Statham was off the physio’s couch and back in the team probably had a lot to do with this sudden burst of success, as both Essex and Warwickshire were brushed aside by the rampant Red Rose.

one back at me. It was going some way down the legside, and I was stretching a long way forward! Not that I’m a bitter man, of course, and nor do I harbour a grudge.

Well, rampant is laying it on a bit thick, but morale was definitely in need of a lift by that stage of a long, hard campaign – and those results certainly provided a welcome change from the general struggle we had been forced to endure.

At least I managed to avoid Pepper’s raised finger long enough in our first innings to reach 62 before giving Barry Knight a return catch. Duncan ‘Winkle’ Worsley had come in as my opening partner, replacing the injured Geoff Pullar, and I dominated a first wicket stand of 73 which set us on our way to a hardworking 309 for nine declared in reply to Essex’s first innings of 184.

For my own part, I had been in decent nick for some time and felt confident in my ability to make runs, although the passing of half a century has not diminished the astonishment I felt when Cec Pepper, the umpire, gave me out leg-before wicket for eight in our second innings against Essex, as victory loomed.

I still remember that decision, awarded in Trevor Bailey’s favour after he nipped

That set us up for the subsequent win, and Statham finished off what he had started on the opening day, when he took five for 51, by again topping and tailing the Essex second innings of 182 to finish with another four for 42. The difference a world-class opening bowler makes to a team is unquantifiable, really, but suffice to say that Essex’s top order, and tailenders, were blown away by

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was quick enough to bowl one if he felt it necessary. He was also an excellent, aggressive batsman, and a good catcher and fielder – in short, a complete allround package as a cricketer.

Statham in this match, leaving Tommy Greenhough – with a little bit of help from our other bowlers – to chip out those in the middle.

Essex were a difficult side to beat, although they lacked a decent third frontline seamer. Brian Edmeades became a very useful seamer but at this stage in his career he was not really good enough to bowl first change.

A funny story from this game features Gordon Barker, the Essex opener who made a painstaking 61 in four and a half hours to try to hold their first innings together after Bailey had chosen to bat.

That was very slow for him, as he usually liked to go for his shots, but perhaps he was not quite feeling himself in this game after going out to a club in Manchester and meeting what he thought was a very pleasant young lady.

Essex didn’t win many, but they didn’t lose many either and they had a lengthy batting order which you had to work hard to dislodge. Players like Brian ‘Tonker’ Taylor, the wicketkeeper, were dangerous customers coming in as low as No 8 or No 9, and they could all bat.

Stuart Turner, although then just starting out on his career as an effective county all-rounder, was a good player to come in at No 10 and Robin Hobbs, at No 11, was the scorer of two first-class hundreds – the second of them coming in 1975, his final season, against the Australians in only 44 minutes.

It was only after getting back to the Essex team hotel, however, which was not too far away from the city centre, that Gordon discovered that ‘she’ was not quite what ‘she’ seemed. He was ashen-faced as he recounted this tale in the bar on the following evening, and unsurprisingly.

Roger Wrightson, an earnest youth with a blond crewcut and pebble glasses, also batted pluckily for 26 not out as Statham ran through the tail and, as a result, he was promoted up the order in Essex’s second innings, as was Edmeades. That was one of the things about Essex: you never knew who was going to come in next.

Bailey was by then at the end of his career as one of England’s premier all-round cricketers since the War, but in Knight they had perhaps the leading genuine all-rounder in English cricket at that time.

Barry was a very fine cricketer who played 29 Tests for England in the 1960s and, as a medium-fast bowler, he was good enough to bowl you out even if you were only looking to block it. When he started he bowled mainly inswingers but he learned to swing it away from the right-handers and, not being that tall, he skimmed the ball off the pitch. His bouncer didn’t frighten people, but he

But Statham, who went past 100 wickets for the season in this match, Greenhough and company didn’t let them off the hook, and we travelled down to Birmingham on the evening of August 10 feeling quite pleased with ourselves for once.

chapter thirteen: back-to-back victories

Nevertheless, with Statham determined to get better results than in Warwickshire’s first innings, when Ken Higgs finished with four wickets to his solitary one, we were soon right in amongst them. Brian was superb, quickly claiming their first three wickets and later returning to add the scalps of Stewart and Alan (AC) Smith to earn himself figures of five for 59.

Over the next three days, we were to feel even better. Warwickshire won the toss, and batted, Mike Smith playing with his customary finesse for 82, but our bowlers worked hard and, by the close, Geoff Pullar and myself had taken us to 62 without loss in reply to their first innings of 236. It was a good effort, and indeed it proved to be good enough to set us up for a second successive ninewicket victory.

Only Barber held us up, following his 30 on the first day with a spectacular 77 that was full of flamboyant attacking strokes as wickets tumbled around him.

Bob, a tall left-hander who played 28 Tests between 1960 and 1968, batted lower down the order for much of his early career at Lancashire, although I remember opening with him once during the 1962 season, when we beat Surrey with a last-day run-chase in which we both scored 80-odd.

David Lloyd took four for 48, his best figures in county cricket at that point, and I remember we talked at length to him at lunchtime about concentrating on bowling his left-arm spinners straight at Smith, and not going wider and wider of off stump as MJK kept lapping him to leg.

Young Bumble took a bit of persuading that it was actually easier for MJK to lap him from outside off stump, because that line took lbw out of play.

But it was only when he left Lancashire for Warwickshire at the end of that 1962 summer that he really flourished as an attacking opening batsman. He did win Test caps when still a Lancashire player, but the bulk of his England career came after he had been encouraged to go for his strokes by MJK and AC Smith, both easy-going and free-thinking blokes, and the Warwickshire management. I think he felt much less inhibited at Edgbaston, and his cricket benefitted hugely from feeling freer at the crease.

It was, therefore, a sweet moment for all of us when Lloyd eventually got Smith out, leg-before to a straight ball, as he tried another shovel to leg, and also grabbed the valuable wicket of Jimmy Stewart, for 41, as Warwickshire fell away from 161 for four.

Pullar and I put on 132 in all, before I was caught and bowled by Bob Barber as I attempted to hit his leg-spin wide of mid on and got a thick leading edge. It was a familiar dismissal for me, against the ball which turned or swung from leg to off, but I could never really resist trying to smack it past mid on. From such a great start, however, and despite Pullar’s 75 and useful 30s from both Harry Pilling and Ken Snellgrove, we only just managed to secure the first innings lead.

Bob first played for Lancashire in 1954, after a prolific schoolboy record built as a punishing batsman with a penchant for violent strokeplay. But, marked as he was

by Lancashire as the natural successor to Cyril Washbrook, both as batsman and captain, a job which he did in 1960 and

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1961, he became cautious and careworn.

As his Warwickshire days subsequently amply illustrated, when he just reverted to type, caution wasn’t his natural game – but Old Trafford in the early 1960s was an uneasy place to be as a cricketer.

I am sure that was the gist of the message the two Smiths gave to Barber when he arrived at Warwickshire, and he clearly responded although his overall figures were never spectacular. I think around 1,700 runs was his best season return at his second county, which isn’t bad of course, but he was always a big threat to opposing bowlers because of the way he played, as much as the weight of his run-scoring. He could take a game away from you very quickly.

Lancashire finished second under Barber in 1960 but in 1961, after leading the championship early on, the team faded to mid-table and he was replaced as captain

by Joe Blackledge – the cousin of former England rugby captain Bill Beaumont – who had up to that point played only Second XI cricket besides representing Chorley in league cricket.

As for his bowling, Bob spun his legbreaks hard but he didn’t have enough variety in his armoury to be a frontline threat. He didn’t bowl a lot at Lancashire, because Roy Tattersall and Malcolm Hilton were the senior spinners in his time there and sent down a lot of overs, but he was awkward to face if there was a bit of turn in the pitch and he was a more than useful bloke to bring on if a captain needed a wicket or wanted to ask some different questions of the batsmen.

Joe was a nice enough bloke, but he really didn’t know anything about the game at professional level. Being sacked as captain, and replaced by such a moderate cricketer, was a real smack in the face for Bob, and I think he left after 1962 because he felt humiliated at his treatment by the club.

It was a good win against Warwickshire.

They were a decent team, strong in batting and, especially when Tom Cartwright was not away playing Tests, as he was in this match, also better than average in bowling. Jack Bannister, whose first innings figures of four for 43 from 27 overs were typical of his miserly approach to bowling, was a canny new ball operator who consistently hit the seam.

Warwickshire simply encouraged Barber to play his shots, much in the same way Ken Grieves once advised me – during a barren spell of form – not to go into my shell just because I wasn’t getting any runs.

Ken, quite rightly, told me I was in the Lancashire team precisely because I played a certain way at the top of the order and that there were other players coming in later who could block it out and occupy the crease if that was what was needed. “We, as a team, want you to play in your natural way,” said Grieves, and that underlined to me the importance of seeing the wider picture.

He also swung it in a bit, but could also run it away from the right-handers and, although by this latter stage of his career he was not very sharp in pace, he bowled with a high arm and was very accurate. He hated giving away runs so

chapter thirteen: back-to-back victories

TOMMY GREENHOUGH Tommy Greenhough was a quality leg spinner who took over 700 wickets for Lancashire at an average of 21.98 and played in four Test matches, three against India in 1959 and one against South Africa a year later. He bowled it quicker than most wrist spinners. His leg break turned just enough to find the edge but he relied a good deal on his googly, which meant that, unlike more orthodox leg spinners, he never bowled without a backward short leg.

With Roy Tattersall and Malcolm Hilton, both Test bowlers and respectively off spinner and slow left armer, established in the side by 1950, Tommy had few opportunities but tended to take wickets regularly whenever he was selected. By the end of 1958 both Tattersall and Hilton were out of favour. Tommy, who had recovered from the effects of a bad fall when working on a building site during the winter of 1957-58, in which he broke bones in both feet, took his chance.

He had over a hundred wickets in both 1959 and 1960. In the Lord’s Test against India he took 5 for 35 in their first innings. In his four Tests he took sixteen wickets at an average of 22, figures respectable enough, one would have thought, to merit further opportunities.

Tommy’s subsequent performances, though pretty useful, were handicapped by the make-up of the Lancashire side. With only Ken Higgs comfortable bowling up-wind, Tommy found himself increasingly bowling against the elements. This limited his effectiveness, since his googly, a key weapon in his armoury, is difficult to propel into the wind.

He strove on, uncomplaining, until being unceremoniously sacked at the of the 1966 season after nearly twenty years of loyal and often highly effective service for Lancashire. (Another sensitive piece of work by the Lancashire committee!)

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Another burly customer was Jameson, and I notice with something of a chuckle that he was run out for 20 in their second innings – a damaging wicket for them, as he and Barber had rallied Warwickshire somewhat after Statham’s lethal new ball burst. As I knew to my own cost, it is relatively easy for us burly fellows to put our heads down and sprint for a single, but it is a quite different matter if we are asked to turn quickly for a second.

much that, in fact, he should have been born in Yorkshire.

Roly Miller, slow left arm, and Roger Edmonds, with quickish off-breaks, supplied the frontline spin while AC Smith, who usually kept wicket, was such a multi-talented cricketer that he could also bowl useful leg-cutters, off the wrong foot, if the need arose.

Michael Mence, who took the new ball for Warwickshire in this game, was one of those seam bowlers who thought he was quicker than he was; he had been a terrific schoolboy bowler but he didn’t really train on in the professional arena.

Nevertheless, he had all the gestures of the fast bowler who expected to get you out with every ball, and he could get up your nose a bit by throwing his arms into the air in exasperation, or staring at you with arms on hips, if you didn’t manage to hit the ball squarely in the centre of the bat.

Warwickshire’s second innings struggle to 135 all out – Barber’s strokeplay apart – was also notable for two unusual incidents. The first came when Brian Statham suddenly had to leave the field, leaving me in temporary charge. “I think I’ve swallowed a bluebottle,” said Brian. “I did it when I was running into bowl just now, and I can feel it buzzing about inside me!” Fortunately, after either forcing it fatally further down with a glug of water, or fetching it up, ‘George’ was able to return to the field four or five overs later.

AC could also bat, having a lot of shots both sides of the wicket off back and front foot, and he was a useful man to have in the lower middle order after a top six which included the likes of Barber, MJK, Stewart, John Jameson and a very young Dennis Amiss, for whom 1965 was his first big season.

The other incident occurred when, towards the end of his innings and with partners running out, Barber hit one up in the air trying to mow away a ball from Tommy Greenhough.

Now, before I tell you what happened next, I must record that some time previously both Geoff Pullar and myself had started to call each other ‘Bill’.

This was in homage to Bill Greensmith, of Essex, who was notable in county cricket for possessing what most people regarded as an unusually large head.

Stewart appeared a little careworn as a player by this time, and had given up opening the batting, but in 1959 he had thumped Lancashire’s attack for a then world record seventeen sixes in a match during a game at Blackpool. Eleven came in the first innings, and six more in the second, and most of them were hit straight. Jimmy was a big, strong bloke.

chapter thirteen: back-to-back victories

shock of dark hair in those days but, even so, it struck me that his swede was on the large side and so I told him and referred to him as ‘Bill’. Not to be outdone, Geoff grabbed my cap and informed me that mine was seven and a quarter inches in size, so I could talk. He also started to call me ‘Bill’ too.

Inevitably, of course, when Barber didn’t pick one of Tommy’s googlies, which had been delivered just that little bit slower, and consequently skied it back over the bowler’s head, Greenhough shouted out: “Yours, Bill!” Both Pullar, at mid on, and myself, at mid off, thought the shout was aimed to the other and, as neither of us moved an inch towards it, the ball plopped harmlessly into the turf.

Thankfully, Barber was bowled by Tommy soon afterwards.

With 131 to win, we took our time and certainly did not set out thinking the result was a foregone conclusion as the pitch had a little bit in it by now, as our own bowlers had demonstrated. But, by the time Noddy and I had put on 76, any nerves in the dressing room had been soothed and I recall, during my 40, that I felt I was playing really well. Pullar went on to score an unbeaten 73, seeing us home alongside Pilling, and another ten points for victory were ours.

I had noticed one day, in the dressing room, that Pullar wore a cap sized seven and a half inches. ‘Noddy’ had a sizeable

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chapter thirteen: back-to-back victories

Lancashire v Essex

Warwickshire v Lancashire

Venue: Old Trafford, Manchester on 7th, 9th, 10th August 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Essex won the toss and decided to bat Result: Lancashire won by 9 wickets Points: Lancashire 10; Essex 0 Umpires: WH Copson, CG Pepper

Venue: Edgbaston, Birmingham on 11th, 12th, 13th August 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Warwickshire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Lancashire won by 9 wickets Points: Warwickshire 0; Lancashire 10 Umpires: F Jakeman, AEG Rhodes

Essex first innings Runs G Barker b Greenhough 61 MJ Bear b Statham 0 GJ Smith lbw b Statham 5 GJ Saville c Sullivan b Higgs 13 *TE Bailey run out 13 BR Knight lbw b Greenhough 33 +B Taylor b Greenhough 0 RW Wrightson not out 26 BEA Edmeades b Statham 18 S Turner lbw b Statham 2 RNS Hobbs lbw b Statham 1 Extras (1 b, 9 lb, 2 nb) 12 Total (all out, 98.1 overs) 184 Fall of wickets: 1-3, 2-9, 3-35, 4-67, 5-128, 6-128, 7-137, 8-174, 9-182, 10-184

Essex second innings Runs G Barker lbw b Statham 4 MJ Bear b Statham 0 RW Wrightson lbw b Greenhough 12 GJ Saville b Greenhough 34 BEA Edmeades b Greenhough 30 *TE Bailey b Lloyd 13 BR Knight b Lloyd 28 GJ Smith lbw b Higgs 13 +B Taylor b Statham 27 S Turner not out 11 RNS Hobbs b Statham 2 Extras (2 b, 4 lb, 2 nb) 8 Total (all out, 87.3 overs) 182 Fall of wickets: 1-1, 2-11, 3-32, 4-63, 5-96, 6-104, 7-140, 8-143, 9-180, 10-182

Warwickshire first innings Runs RW Barber c and b Higgs 30 Khalid Ibadulla c Statham b Greenhough 21 DL Amiss c Goodwin b Statham 7 *MJK Smith lbw b Lloyd 82 JA Jameson c Knox b Higgs 1 WJP Stewart c and b Lloyd 41 +AC Smith b Higgs 10 MD Mence c Higgs b Lloyd 15 RB Edmonds not out 26 R Miller b Higgs 0 JD Bannister st Goodwin b Lloyd 1 Extras (2 lb) 2 Total (all out, 84.1 overs) 236 Fall of wickets: 1-35, 2-46, 3-75, 4-76, 5-161, 6-194, 7-200, 8-223, 9-235, 10-236

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Knox Greenhough Lloyd

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Greenhough Lloyd

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Greenhough Lloyd Green

Overs Mdns 25.1 5 27 8 8 4 29 13 9 4

Runs Wkts 51 5 46 1 9 0 45 3 21 0

Lancashire second innings DM Green lbw b Bailey DR Worsley not out H Pilling not out GK Knox did not bat KL Snellgrove did not bat J Sullivan did not bat D Lloyd did not bat K Higgs did not bat +K Goodwin did not bat *JB Statham did not bat T Greenhough did not bat Extras (3 b) Total (1 wicket, 25 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-11 (Green)

Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green c and b Knight 62 DR Worsley c Knight b Edmeades 21 H Pilling b Turner 22 GK Knox lbw b Turner 74 KL Snellgrove c Saville b Edmeades 50 J Sullivan lbw b Bailey 14 D Lloyd not out 28 K Higgs c Taylor b Turner 2 +K Goodwin c Edmeades b Hobbs 20 *JB Statham st Taylor b Bailey 8 T Greenhough did not bat Extras (2 b, 5 lb, 1 nb) 8 Total (9 wickets, declared, 118.2 overs) 309 Fall of wickets: 1-73, 2-94, 3-111, 4-193, 5-223, 6-262, 7-265, 8-294, 9-309 Essex bowling

Knight Bailey Hobbs Edmeades Turner Smith

Overs Mdns 23 4 33.2 11 25 4 16 0 16 3 5 0

Overs Mdns 13.3 2 21 8 31 12 22 9

Essex bowling

Knight Bailey Hobbs Turner

Runs Wkts 51 1 61 2 69 1 60 2 39 3 21 0

Overs Mdns 9 2 10 3 4 1 2 0

Runs Wkts 42 4 32 1 57 3 43 2 Runs 8 27 21

3 59

Runs Wkts 16 0 18 1 15 0 7 0

Warwickshire second innings Runs RW Barber b Greenhough 77 Khalid Ibadulla c Pullar b Statham 1 *MJK Smith c Goodwin b Statham 1 DL Amiss b Statham 2 JA Jameson run out 20 RB Edmonds lbw b Greenhough 0 WJP Stewart c Knox b Statham 6 +AC Smith b Statham 4 MD Mence c Higgs b Greenhough 16 R Miller lbw b Greenhough 5 JD Bannister not out 0 Extras (1 b, 2 lb) 3 Total (all out, 51.3 overs) 135 Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-6, 3-8, 4-55, 5-55, 6-71, 7-75, 8-122, 9-128, 10-135

Overs Mdns 21 6 28 9 11 1 16.1 5 8 1

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Greenhough Lloyd

Runs Wkts 60 1 57 4 41 1 47 4 29 0

Runs Wkts 59 5 53 0 20 4 0 0

Lancashire second innings DM Green b Edmonds G Pullar not out H Pilling not out GK Knox did not bat KL Snellgrove did not bat J Sullivan did not bat D Lloyd did not bat K Higgs did not bat T Greenhough did not bat *JB Statham did not bat +K Goodwin did not bat Extras (2 b, 1 lb) Total (1 wicket, 49.3 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-76 (Green)

Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green c and b Barber 55 G Pullar c AC Smith b Bannister 75 H Pilling c AC Smith b Khalid Ibadulla 35 GK Knox c Jameson b Edmonds 2 KL Snellgrove c AC Smith b Bannister 37 J Sullivan lbw b Bannister 5 D Lloyd b Edmonds 18 K Higgs b Bannister 2 T Greenhough not out 1 *JB Statham did not bat +K Goodwin did not bat Extras (9 b, 1 lb, 1 w) 11 Total (8 wickets, declared, 107.1 overs) 241 Fall of wickets: 1-132, 2-139, 3-148, 4-214, 5-220, 6-220, 7-237, 8-241 Warwickshire bowling

Overs Mdns Bannister 27 11 Mence 16 1 Edmonds 28.1 13 Miller 15 6 Barber 14 4 Khalid Ibadulla 7 3

Overs Mdns 20 2 20 5 8.3 2 3 3

Warwickshire bowling

Overs Mdns Bannister 6 2 Mence 9 1 Edmonds 8 3 Miller 15 5 Barber 9 3 Khalid Ibadulla 2 0 Amiss 0.3 0

Runs Wkts 43 4 53 0 53 2 33 0 30 1 18 1

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Runs Wkts 8 0 40 0 19 1 27 0 21 0 8 0 8 0

chapter thirteen: back-to-back victories

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: SEASON’S BEST A two-day drubbing by Northamptonshire, a fine team in the mid-Sixties who were to finish as championship runners-up that summer, brought us back to earth in an undignified heap in mid-August, but in the very next game my own personal fortunes continued to rise with an innings of 85 in a wonderful match against Warwickshire at Blackpool.

of batsmen were being lowered everywhere you looked. A good 40, 50 or 60 was winning games, and my weight of run-scoring went largely unnoticed by many as I didn’t get the bigger scores that caught the eye when bowlers dominated most games. Indeed, I remember Syd Buller, the umpire, expressing his surprise – quickly followed by his congratulations, I might add – when I casually mentioned to him during my penultimate innings of the season, for MCC against Yorkshire at Scarborough, that I thought I had completed my two-thousand.

Little then was I to know that this would remain my highest innings of the campaign, nor that getting out fifteen runs short of a hundred would also lead, fifty years’ later, to the idea which prefaced the writing of this book.

Ken Higgs

But, back to Saturday August 14, and the grim reality of being stuffed by Northants.

The Old Trafford pitch, again, started very dry and, gratefully, Keith Andrew won the toss for Northants and took very little time to decide to take first hit.

This was not a surface which exploded in our faces, as it had done when we had played Hampshire, but for some reason Bert Flack, the Lancashire groundsman, produced pitches which deteriorated much quicker in 1965 than they had

Not once during that season, however, did any colleague at Lancashire (or even any committee man) bemoan my failure to get to three figures despite form good enough, eventually, to top 2,000 first-class runs for the summer. Why? I think it was because, in a season so bedevilled by bad weather, and with so many teams being rolled over for very little, expectations

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done in previous seasons and were to do in subsequent years.

This one began to take spin very early and, despite Brian Statham’s heroic seven for 47, well supported by Ken Higgs, the Northants first innings was boosted to 231 by a combative seventh wicket stand of 124 between Albert Lightfoot and Brian Crump. At 85 for six they looked destined for a low score, but Statham and Higgs couldn’t bowl all day and both Lightfoot and Crump were considerable cricketers.

Lightfoot, left-handed and also a capable medium-pacer in the early part of his career, had experience of opening the batting and made 64 while all-rounder Crump, only five foot four inches tall and with such a little screwed-up face that he looked like a garden gnome, scored 73 before Higgs had him caught at the wicket.

Crump, who bowled medium-paced off-cutters and was despite his lack of stature a very effective county cricketer, followed up his batting effort by reducing us from a healthy 39 for no wicket to 39 for two by clean bowling both myself and Harry Pilling, and from there the Lancashire first innings fell away quite alarmingly in the face of Haydn Sully’s off breaks.

now took three for 37 from 34.1 overs, strangled us out for 179. We did stuggle on through 105 overs but we did not get far in front and the Northants openers, Brian Reynolds and Roger Prideaux, merely had to tuck into some gentle offerings from David Lloyd and Duncan Worsley to complete a comprehensive, ten-wicket victory.

was no doubting his ability when he did manage to run in. He took almost 800 wickets at 18 runs apiece in his career, fine figures considering the fact that pitches at Northampton offered little encouragement to fast bowlers. In 1965 hetopped the Northants bowling averages with 71 at 13.5 runs each in seventeen matches.

Sully, who had earlier played for Somerset, his native county, without making the grade at county level, was an interesting character. Tall, and swarthylooking like a gypsy, he spun the ball hard and, while fashioning a kind of second coming at Northampton, he caused us problems on a few occasions. Scott was the senior of the two Northants spinners, but Sully went past 50 championship career wickets in this match and showed he could bowl.

Talking of ‘different’ characters, mention of David Steele always makes me smile.

With his prematurely grey hair, and his glasses, he seemed an odd sort of cricketer, and the game will chiefly remember him as the batsman “who looked like a bank clerk going to war” when he made his Test debut at Lord’s in 1975 at the age of 33 and captured the public imagination by doing so well against the fury of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson.

David Steele, who took a wicket with his left-arm spinners, wasn’t the worst slow bowler in the country, either, and he was mainly responsible for bowling us out for 120 or so in 1966 in an innings in which I made 79, but it is sobering to see that Northants knocked us over so easily in this game even without David Larter, their strike bowler, who played three Tests for England in 1965 and gave them a real cutting edge.

For myself, I recall the times, which were often, when he used to drop the ball in his run-up. He only took three or four paces but he had this propensity for allowing the ball to slip from his hand and we would all chuckle when he had to apologise to the batsman and go and pick it up and start his approach all over again. The Gloucestershire team used to call him ‘Palm Olive’ because, with him, the ball seemed to be like a piece of soap.

Not that Larter was the complete package as a fast bowler. Indeed, I found him something of a strange cove, who sometimes lacked the necessary resolve; on the 1962-63 Ashes tour, for example, under Ted Dexter, he apparently found the hard grounds of Australia were bad for his feet, and so he didn’t want to bowl much. There often seemed to be an excuse for not bowling, but there

Bowled out for 80, with Sully finishing with six for 20, we were soon following on and, even though we batted better second time around on a pitch that was by now far harder to bat on than in our first innings, there was no escape as Sully, with a further five for 67, and Malcolm Scott, the slow left-armer who had not even managed to get a bowl earlier but

chapter fourteen: season’s best

sought me out and congratulated me on the words I had used. “I liked that,” he said. “I always see myself as a tigerish opponent”. Priceless.

A good friend of mine in the Northamptonshire team was Colin ‘Ollie’ Milburn, who was to go on and win his first England cap in 1966. Sadly – tragically even, in a sporting sense – Milburn only played nine Tests after suffering in early 1969 the loss of his left eye in a car accident. That he scored 654 runs in those nine England appearances, at an average of 46.71 and with two centuries, only underlines his sheer talent. A big man, and an even bigger personality, his ability as a socialiser was legendary and he was terrific company; we enjoyed several pints together over the years.

I first played against Milburn when I was an amateur and, indeed, my first championship hundred was against Northants, at Wantage Road, in 1961. I was batting in the middle-order at that time, which as an amateur was fine but, when I turned professional, I was too much of a fretter not to open. Anyway, on that day in 1961 at Northampton I batted from just after the start of play on the final day until just after tea, scoring 138 in four and a quarter hours to help to save the match for Lancashire. We had been about 40 for three when I went in so it had been a fair effort and, if I say so myself, I batted well.

I also remember a game at Derby, long after I had finished playing and was reporting for the Daily Telegraph. Steele, in the final years of his county career, kept getting no-balled. In my report, I couldn’t resist observing that the greyhaired veteran Steele, “in his eagerness to get at the batsmen”, kept over-stepping and, in the press box the next day, he

On my return to the Lancashire dressing room, feeling a bit of a hero, I had said to no one in particular as I wearily took off my pads: “Well, we shouldn’t lose this one now.” Nothing, initially, was said in reply, but then Geoff Clayton piped up:

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would often stay for a few drinks there at the end of a day’s play before wandering off to find one or two of our favourite pubs.

“Yes, and if you hadn’t been pissing about out there all day, while we’ve had to sit here and watch, we could all have been up at Blackpool by now for a night on the grog!” I didn’t try to look for praise after that!

The three-day match played at Blackpool that year was one of the best played there and, although Warwickshire chose to field first because there was quite a bit of grass on the pitch at the start, it never played badly and, with the sun shining for most of the game, it flattened out nicely and produced an excellent contest. In the end, all four results (including the tie) were possible going into the final overs and the Blackpool holiday-makers couldn’t really have asked for much more – unless they were desperate to see a Green century, of course.

As four years’ earlier, when we had indeed driven up to Blackpool for our annual August visit to the seaside holiday town after that draw against Northants, our next port of call was again Stanley Park. At least, this time, our two-day thrashing by Northants – in which my aggregate of 55 runs was good in the context of the overall Lancashire batting performance but still nowhere near good enough to take the match into its scheduled third day – we did have an opportunity for an evening out in ‘Blackie’ following a leisurely, and relatively short, drive from Manchester on the suddenly spare Tuesday.

chapter fourteen: season’s best

HARRY PILLING Harry Pilling came on to the Lancashire staff in 1959, at the age of 16. Even then, when he was good deal less than five feet tall, he was clearly a quality player with plenty of strokes. He did not make his debut until three years later when, though he had grown a fair bit, he was still barely five foot three.

In 1962 he made only a few appearances but in 1963, given more opportunities, he scored 765 runs at an average of 27 and made his maiden century, 133 not out, against Hampshire at Portsmouth. In 1965 he passed a thousand runs for the first time. That season he spent some time batting at No 6 but eventually moved up to his preferred position of No 3.

Mid-August in Blackpool was always good fun and, if you got away from the more hectic areas along the Golden Mile, there were some excellent pubs in the back streets and good, lively company in most of them as people enjoyed their summer holidays. And Stanley Park wasn’t the worst ground to play county cricket on, either, as it usually had good pitches and was full of runs and goodsized crowds would turn up to watch.

In my first innings, however, I fell for just 15 – caught at the wicket off David Brown, the England fast bowler – and Duncan Worsley did his best to hold us together with 43 before, remarkable to behold, Tommy Greenhough came out at No 10 to smite an unbeaten 30 and, with our No 11 Keith Goodwin, added 43 for the last wicket to propel us to 162 all out. Tommy had few pretensions as a batsman but, very occasionally, and bizarrely, he could look like Victor Trumper. Normally, with blade in hand, he was just Percy Puzzled.

By 1967, when he scored 1,606 runs for Lancashire at an average of 36.50, he had become a key player for the county in one-day competitions as well as in the championship. He continued to give good service until his retirement in 1980, his best season being 1976 when he made 1,659 runs and averaged 52.30.

The boundaries on either side were relatively short, but the straight ones were longer. The banked seating consisted mainly of wooden planks laid on cut soil. The sale of those soft leather seat covers was always good at Stanley Park, for otherwise you could get quite a numb bottom if you sat there all day. The pavilion, too, was a sociable place and we

At 136 for two in reply, with both Mike Smith and John Jameson going well, Warwickshire were in position to turn the screw but, instead, it was Greenhough the bowler who brought us back into the game with a brilliant five for 46. Warwickshire’s 221 all out meant we were very much in it, if we could post a decent second innings score in still

Harry was also a fine fielder in the saving-one positions, being quick over the ground, with sure hands and a powerful and accurate throw. He contributed greatly to Lancashire cricket, his partnerships with Clive Lloyd giving particular pleasure.

There is a well-known photograph of Harry and Clive having a conference between overs during one of their stands, with Clive towering over Harry. The Lancashire injoke went as follows. Question: “Which one’s Clive Lloyd?” Answer: “He’s the one with the glasses.”

Harry was not easy to bowl to. His lack of height did not appear to handicap him, rather the reverse, for bowlers found it difficult to find a testing length against him.

He was surprisingly strong and also a fine timer of the ball, so anything near a full length would be driven in the arc between mid off and cover point. Readjustment to a shorter length allowed Harry to tuck, a stroke with which he was most proficient, so there was very little margin for error. I remember Alan Brown, while Harry and I were putting on 80-odd together against Kent at Old Trafford in 1965, saying to me: “I don’t know. I’m bowling him yorkers and he’s still cutting them!”

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good batting conditions and, despite the early loss of Pullar, caught at short leg, a second wicket stand of 153 between Harry Pilling and myself helped us to reach 221 for two by stumps on day two.

Pilling, who reached his hundred just before the close, went on to 132 the next morning and we were able to declare at 318 for six, setting Warwickshire 260 to win in what proved to be 59 overs. With good contributions from six of their top seven, and in particular a typically busy 69 from Billy Ibadulla, they got mighty close – within a mere eight runs, indeed.

In this match I was using, for the first time, a new Gray-Nicolls bat which Richie Benaud had given to me during the Charrington single-wicket competition at Lord’s, in which we both played. Although it had a super-short handle, which I didn’t really like because my hands were slightly too big for it, it was a superb piece of wood. I normally liked a bat in which a bit of the handle stuck out above my top hand, but I remember in this innings that the ball came beautifully off the middle and that Harry and I were really enjoying ourselves in the Blackpool sunshine.

To be honest, because we kept taking wickets, we thought that we were going to win it, but – in the end, and with Tom Cartwright batting at No 11 because he was still nursing the thumb he had broken during England’s second Test defeat against South Africa, at Trent Bridge, a week or so earlier, we failed to complete the victory we all felt we deserved because we couldn’t get Bannister out.

Did I think about the hundred, and especially the fact that I’d yet to reach three figures that season? I’m sure I was aiming for one, and that it was in the back of my mind, but in truth my memory of that warm afternoon, on August 19, 1965, was that I was simply batting.

He survived on 11 not out, with Cartwright bravely blocking at the other end, and for four or five overs Jack, a genuine tailender, either played a dead bat or got a streaky edge for runs or played and missed. Very frustrating, and for us a hard three days’ cricket for no tangible reward (Warwickshire took the two draw points for winning on first innings, and we got nothing); but bums very much stayed on seats – whether cushioned by soft leather, or not – until the bitter end. It had been a fine match.

Both Harry and I felt comfortable at the crease, and we were just intent on scoring runs and staying in the rhythm of it. But I do remember how I got out.

I was shaping for an attacking shot and, having got to 85, I think I was perfectly entitled to be doing so, but Jack Bannister – who usually seamed the ball into the right-handers – made one go away off the pitch and I nicked it through to Alan Smith behind the wicket. It was the only one I faced from Jack that day which did go away, so there you have it.

chapter fourteen: season’s best

Lancashire v Northamptonshire Venue: Old Trafford, Manchester on 14th, 16th August 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Northamptonshire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Northamptonshire won by 10 wickets Points: Lancashire 0; Northamptonshire 10 Umpires: T Drinkwater, N Oldfield Northamptonshire first innings Runs BL Reynolds c Knox b Statham 6 C Milburn b Higgs 35 RM Prideaux b Statham 1 DS Steele c Greenhough b Statham 5 PD Watts b Higgs 4 PJ Watts b Statham 29 A Lightfoot c and b Statham 64 BS Crump c Goodwin b Higgs 73 ME Scott lbw b Statham 0 *+KV Andrew not out 6 H Sully b Statham 1 Extras (2 b, 5 lb) 7 Total (all out, 92.2 overs) 231 Fall of wickets: 1-9, 2-13, 3-23, 4-30, 5-85, 6-85, 7-209, 8-211, 9-229, 10-231

Lancashire second innings (following on) Runs DM Green c Steele b Scott 37 G Pullar c Andrew b Sully 14 H Pilling c Steele b Scott 30 DR Worsley c Steele b Sully 1 GK Knox c and b Steele 19 KL Snellgrove c Andrew b Sully 10 D Lloyd c Andrew b Crump 44 K Higgs c PD Watts b Sully 4 *JB Statham c PD Watts b Sully 0 T Greenhough st Andrew b Scott 13 +K Goodwin not out 1 Extras (3 b, 3 lb) 6 Total (all out, 105.1 overs) 179 Fall of wickets: 1-24, 2-67, 3-68, 4-102, 5-102, 6-119, 7-155, 8-157, 9-163, 10-179

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Knox Greenhough Lloyd

Northamptonshire bowling

Overs Mdns Crump 21 5 PJ Watts 5 0 Sully 35 13 Scott 34.1 20 PD Watts 4 0 Steele 6 5

Overs Mdns 26.2 10 29 5 7 1 17 4 13 0

Runs Wkts 47 7 69 3 24 0 36 0 48 0

Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green b Crump 18 G Pullar c Andrew b Sully 24 H Pilling b Crump 0 DR Worsley c PD Watts b Sully 5 GK Knox run out 21 KL Snellgrove b Sully 3 D Lloyd c Milburn b Sully 2 K Higgs c PD Watts b Crump 3 *JB Statham not out 2 T Greenhough c PJ Watts b Sully 1 +K Goodwin b Sully 0 Extras (1 lb) 1 Total (all out, 44.2 overs) 80 Fall of wickets: 1-39, 2-39, 3-45, 4-48, 5-52, 6-66, 7-77, 8-77, 9-80, 10-80 Northamptonshire bowling

Overs Mdns Crump 21 5 PJ Watts 8 1 Lightfoot 2 0 Sully 13.2 7

Northamptonshire second innings BL Reynolds not out RM Prideaux not out C Milburn did not bat DS Steele did not bat PD Watts did not bat PJ Watts did not bat A Lightfoot did not bat BS Crump did not bat ME Scott did not bat *+KV Andrew did not bat H Sully did not bat Extras Total (no wicket, 4 overs)

Runs Wkts 29 1 22 0 67 5 37 3 16 0 2 1 Runs 17 15

0 32

Lancashire bowling

Lloyd Worsley

Runs Wkts 35 3 22 0 2 0 20 6

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Overs 2 2

Mdns 0 0

Runs Wkts 10 0 22 0

chapter fourteen: season’s best

Lancashire v Warwickshire Venue: Stanley Park, Blackpool on 18th, 19th, 20th August 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Warwickshire won the toss and decided to field Result: Match drawn Points: Lancashire 0; Warwickshire 2 Umpires: CG Pepper, TW Spencer Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green c AC Smith b Brown 15 G Pullar b Bannister 15 H Pilling b Cartwright 12 DR Worsley c AC Smith b Edmonds 43 GK Knox c Stewart b Cartwright 0 KL Snellgrove b Edmonds 5 D Lloyd b Edmonds 4 K Higgs c AC Smith b Brown 6 *JB Statham c MJK Smith b Edmonds 18 T Greenhough not out 30 +K Goodwin b Cartwright 11 Extras (3 lb) 3 Total (all out, 72.5 overs) 162 Fall of wickets: 1-28, 2-39, 3-39, 4-44, 5-71, 6-84, 7-101, 8-117, 9-119, 10-162 Warwickshire bowling

Overs Mdns Brown 15 1 Bannister 14 4 Khalid Ibadulla 6 2 Cartwright 16.5 7 Edmonds 21 7

Lancashire second innings Runs DM Green c AC Smith b Bannister 85 G Pullar c MJK Smith b Bannister 2 H Pilling c Stewart b Barber 132 DR Worsley c AC Smith b Edmonds 37 GK Knox c Barber b Brown 7 KL Snellgrove c AC Smith b Cartwright 34 D Lloyd not out 6 K Higgs did not bat *JB Statham did not bat T Greenhough did not bat +K Goodwin did not bat Extras (4 b, 10 lb, 1 nb) 15 Total (6 wickets, declared, 97.5 overs) 318 Fall of wickets: 1-4, 2-157, 3-271, 4-271, 5-286, 6-318 Warwickshire bowling

Overs Mdns Brown 17 0 Bannister 14 5 Cartwright 10.5 2 Edmonds 28 9 Barber 28 3

Runs Wkts 43 2 34 1 14 0 28 3 40 4

Warwickshire second innings Runs RW Barber b Greenhough 39 Khalid Ibadulla b Higgs 69 JA Jameson c Goodwin b Greenhough 37 *MJK Smith c Green b Statham 26 DL Amiss lbw b Greenhough 9 WJP Stewart b Greenhough 19 +AC Smith c Goodwin b Statham 30 RB Edmonds b Statham 0 DJ Brown b Statham 2 JD Bannister not out 11 TW Cartwright not out 0 Extras (4 b, 5 lb, 1 nb) 10 Total (9 wickets, 59 overs) 252 Fall of wickets: 1-89, 2-140, 3-156, 4-185, 5-188, 6-227, 7-228, 8-234, 9-241

Warwickshire first innings Runs RW Barber c and b Higgs 10 Khalid Ibadulla lbw b Statham 25 *MJK Smith c Statham b Lloyd 53 JA Jameson lbw b Greenhough 54 WJP Stewart run out 1 DL Amiss c Green b Greenhough 35 +AC Smith lbw b Greenhough 3 RB Edmonds lbw b Greenhough 4 DJ Brown b Greenhough 7 JD Bannister not out 21 TW Cartwright run out 3 Extras (4 lb, 1 nb) 5 Total (all out, 93.5 overs) 221 Fall of wickets: 1-17, 2-71, 3-136, 4-137, 5-154, 6-158, 7-162, 8-184, 9-203, 10-221 Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Greenhough Lloyd

Overs Mdns 26 5 30.5 8 21 8 16 7

Runs Wkts 60 1 43 2 41 1 74 1 85 1

Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Greenhough Lloyd

Runs Wkts 55 1 78 1 46 5 37 1

Overs Mdns 17 3 17 3 22 1 3 0

Runs Wkts 64 4 54 1 103 4 21 0

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: A BOWLERS’ GAME When the rain fell as frequently as it did in the summer of 1965, leaving pitches juicy and ripe for exploitation by seamers of the calibre of Derek Shackleton, David Smith and Tony Brown, three of the bowlers we had to face in the last ten days of that watery August, it was a tough business being a batsman.

morning and, although there were bits of motorways around in 1965, it was still a six to seven-hour journey that required negotiating before we could flop into our Bournemouth hotel beds in the early hours of Saturday morning. Somehow, Geoff Pullar had the energy to score 105 after we had won the toss and batted first.

On occasions just being a county cricketer was hard enough, though at the time this seemed to us to be a small price to pay for the opportunity to earn a living as a cricketer. Take the logistical challenge which faced the Lancashire team on the evening of Friday, August 21. We had been in the field for 59 overs, as the three-day game against Warwickshire at Blackpool reached an exciting, and tense, finish, and after showering and changing, we were faced with the small matter of driving 300 miles to Bournemouth.

He was probably one of the lucky ones who hadn’t driven the night before.

Yes, we shared cars but it was almost unheard of for players to share the driving duties. Those who owned the cars usually drove them for the entire journey.

The passengers could therefore put their heads back for a sleep, if they wanted.

Looking back, it is remarkable to me that there were not more accidents because of drivers nodding off, or losing concentration. Playing cricket all day and then driving for several hours to get to the next venue was exhausting, but it was just the way it was and we did not question it.

Out next match, against Hampshire, was due to start at 11.30am the following

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by then was going to be an inevitable draw. For us, of course, that meant no points at all.

Car travel was preferable to going by train, simply because it was easier to transport your kit around – you just threw it in the boot, or in the back seat – and because you could stop when you wanted for a pie and a pint, or to have a stretch of the legs. Some players, because of the counties they represented, would face regular journeys of daunting length – Don Shepherd, of Glamorgan, who lived near Swansea, would complain that sometimes it even took him a couple of hours to get to Cardiff, for home games – but it is worth stressing that, as a group, we had a remarkably sanguine approach to all the travelling required. It was just part of our routine.

And we had come a long way for nowt!

In the 33 overs of play possible on the final day, we reached 77 for four, and I boosted my season’s tally by another ten runs before Butch White sent me packing.

White, who could bowl a quick ball, was nevertheless the only member of that Hampshire attack who you felt might give you something; the others, led by Shackleton and also including the consistent, in-drifting left-arm spin of Alan Wassell, gave absolutely nothing away. Indeed, glancing at the scorecard, I think we did extremely well to plunder as many as 83 runs from Shackleton’s 32 first innings overs; why, that’s almost three runs an over, which was very profligate for ‘Shack’.

Blackpool to Bournemouth was an unusually long journey, however, especially at a time when there was hardly any motorway linking north and south, and it was probably a good thing when bad weather interrupted the first day’s play, and then the last, too, enabling us all to get a bit of extra kip in the changing rooms at Dean Court.

The last of Shackleton’s seven Tests for England had come in 1963 and, less than a month earlier, he had turned 41. But he was still some bowler. In 1965 he was to become the leading wicket-taker in the country for the fourth year running, and his 144 scalps that summer came at a mere 16.08 runs apiece.

It was a pleasant ground and another seaside venue which aimed to maximise the number of holidaymakers around England and Wales who could combine watching county cricket with lazing on the beach or crowding into the pubs.

He had been a bit quicker in his younger days, but even at medium pace he was a handful. Basically, he swung it away and nipped it back in to the right-handers, but he could also bowl a straight one that nibbled away off the pitch and often he would go a little wider on the crease so as to angle it in at you, too.

We were 136 for two at the end of the truncated opening day, with Pullar on 72, and after declaring on 232 for seven, after 100 overs of toil against the nagging accuracy of Shackleton and Peter Sainsbury, whose briskish left-arm spin had closed my own account on 21, we were unable to prevent Hampshire from getting past our first innings total, thus gaining the two points available for what

In short, Shackleton was always doing something with the ball, either in the air

chapter fifteen: a bowler’s game

Ted, “because he always seemed to finish with figures of 34-17-54-6, or something similar, and so we all decided we would go out and give him the charge. Well, he still ended up with six for 54, but this time it only took him twelve overs to get it!”

or off the pitch, and his accuracy meant he was very difficult to get away. If the pitch was helping him, which in 1965 it often did due to the moisture that was never very far away from the surface – even on warm days – he was a master.

The ball came down at you as if there was some sort of force field around it, and it seemed as if it had a buzzing power as it honed in on its target, which was more often than not just short of a good length.

Dexter added that most of Shackleton’s victims on that occasion were caught off highish parts of their bats, and in strange parts of the field. His bounce, with the ball kicking up off just short of a length, had made slogging him very difficult, with shots intending to deposit him out of the ground only succeeding in lobbing it up in the air.

Wicketkeepers would always stand back to him, too, despite his lack of speed, because he was as likely to hit the inside edge as he was your outside edge; for keepers, the inside nick is the most difficult catch to take, standing up.

On one famous occasion, against Somerset at Weston-super-Mare in 1955, Shackleton took eight wickets for four runs from 11.1 overs, seven of which were maidens. It remains one of the best analyses ever recorded in first-class cricket worldwide and the mere fact that even E. R. Dexter couldn’t slog him tells you all you need to know about Shackleton’s supreme skill as a bowler.

His pace, I suppose, was similar to a Tom Cartwright or a Bob Woolmer, but he also had an ability to flick his wrist at the moment of delivery and this seemed to be the reason he always got bounce.

Often, even at his medium pace, he would hit the splice of the bat. Batting against him could be a trial, and with his one brown eye and one blue eye he would simply fix you in his sights with a gentle grin.

From the South Coast delights of Bournemouth we travelled, on the evening of Tuesday August 24, up to Bristol and a meeting with another pair of high-class exponents of seam and swing. It did not go well. Between them, David Smith and Tony Brown took sixteen of the twenty Lancashire wickets to fall during the next two and a half days and we were roundly beaten, by nine wickets.

After he had retired from first-class cricket, he played two seasons of 40-over John Player League cricket for Hampshire, in his mid-40s, and he had little trouble keeping batsmen relatively quiet even in that hurly-burly forerunner of Twenty20.

Ted Dexter once told me a story about Shackleton which, I think, sums up how difficult it was to bat against him. Dexter said his Sussex team had grown tired of blocking out ‘Shack’ for year after year, and usually suffering a slow death as a result. “We got fed up with him,” said

Without both Brian Statham and Ken Higgs, who had been called up by England to play in the third and final Test against South Africa – Brian to win a swansong cap two years after his

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reaction that Smith received from many a batsman in the 1950s and 1960s.

previous Test appearance, taking seven wickets in the match, and Ken to make a highly successful eight-wicket debut – we were obviously not at full strength, but again it was our batting and not our bowling which let us down in this game.

Many good judges thought Smith’s action the best in the English game at that time, better even than those of Fred Trueman and Derek Shackleton. It was a lovely sideways-on action, fluid and with a big body turn and long follow-through. I can well recall how he could shock you, 22 yards away, by the pace of the ball as it spat up at you when he dug it in. He troubled the very best with his short ball.

We got to 68 for two after I had won the toss and both Geoff Pullar and myself had fallen to the new ball, but then came yet another headlong collapse and, dismissed for 102, we were already facing up to the prospect of defeat when Gloucestershire reached 147 for three in reply by the time play on August 25 was done.

Athletic, with broad shoulders but narrow at the hip, Smith also played league football and, when we had the misfortune to come up against him and Brown on a pitch giving them a bit of nip off the seam, as well as their usual movement in the air, he was nearing the 1000-wicket mark in his career and was at the peak of his powers.

At stumps the following evening, we were 68 for six in our second innings, and only a robust 70 from Peter Lever on the third morning – I remember he hit a number of particularly strong shots down the ground and played superbly in a lost cause – forced Gloucestershire to bat again in search of a modest win target.

On very flat pitches Smith was often clipped through mid wicket and mid on by good players because he wanted to bowl a middle-and-leg line and drift it away from the right-handers towards off stump. If he didn’t get much of that natural away-curve he could be milked off the pads but if the ball was doing a little bit then he was difficult to face.

Smith got me on the first morning, and Brown on the second afternoon. David Sayer had told me, during our Oxford University days, that Smith was a bowler to be watched carefully, and indeed to be feared. David’s main warning was that Smith was quicker than he looked, and he was quite right in that respect: on one occasion, at Cheltenham, when I was playing with him for Gloucestershire and Smith was coming to the end of a career which brought him five England Test caps and 1,250 first-class wickets at 23 runs each, I saw him knock John Edrich’s bat out of his hands with a rearing ball. Edrich, a world-class batsman and a fine player of fast bowling, had only got halfway through his intended stroke, but his look of surprise that day was a

An out-swinging nip-backer did for me in our first innings, a good conker that made a mess of my poles, while Brown also produced a fine delivery to end my 33 in the second dig. I was batting well in that innings, and feeling in good form, but Brown found one that held up and left me, with the resulting nick pouched by Barrie Meyer behind the stumps.

chapter fifteen: a bowler’s game

SAM COOK Tetbury-born (Sam was known to his Gloucestershire colleagues as the ‘Tetbury Twirler’), Cook was a talented slow left arm bowler from 1946 to 1964. Having retired as a player he immediately became a first-class umpire and served for 22 years from 1965 until his retirement in 1986. I remember that one of his first games as an umpire was Oxford University versus Lancashire in the Parks.

Sam made an early impact on the game, taking 133 wickets at 18 apiece in his debut season. In all, he took 1,782 in first-class cricket at an average of 20, taking 100 wickets or more nine times. He was immensely accurate, conceding runs at a miserly 2.02 per over during his whole career.

He made only one Test appearance, in 1947 in the first Test against South Africa at Nottingham. In a high-scoring draw he failed to take a wicket and thereafter was blocked by competition from three notable slow left armers in Jack Young, Johnny Wardle and Tony Lock.

Cook was not a big spinner of the ball but got enough turn to beat the righthander’s bat or finds its edge. He made the ball drift in to the right-hander and though his trajectory was quite flat he had a cleverly concealed change of pace and it was never easy for the batsman to work out just when the ball would reach him.

Sam was a most sociable man, who enjoyed a glass or two of beer at close of play and relished a chat with teammates or opponents. This affability did not prevent him from being an unyielding performer on the field. Hittable deliveries from Sam were as rare as hen’s teeth.

Brown, not as sharp as Smith but still a fastish medium, bowled mainly inswingers at that time but he still had an ability to shape it away off the pitch. In fact, it was me who taught Browny to bowl the outswinger or, rather, provoked him into bowling it when I joined Gloucestershire in 1968.

never needed it! My riposte was to tell him that he was getting older and that, as his natural nip left him, he would need a new trick or two. To that, he simply replied: “Yes”.

We ended up in the nets, where I showed him how I bowled my outswinger, albeit at a gentler pace than his. Tony very quickly picked it up, practised it for a few days and after that was bowling it in the middle. Even

When I said to him that I saw no reason why he couldn’t add the away-swinger to his armoury, his reply was that he had

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chapter fifteen: a bowler’s game

Hampshire v Lancashire

without the out-swinger, though, in 1965, he was still able to take six for 37 and then three for 44, while Smith’s four for 41 and three for 48 completed our misery.

Venue: Dean Park, Bournemouth on 21st, 23rd, 24th August 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Lancashire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Match drawn Points: Hampshire 2; Lancashire 0 Umpires: PA Gibb, LH Gray Lancashire first innings Runs DM Green c Ingleby-Mackenzie b Sainsbury 21 G Pullar c Timms b White 105 H Pilling b Sainsbury 32 DR Worsley c Keith b Shackleton 2 KL Snellgrove b White 34 D Lloyd not out 13 P Lever b Shackleton 8 K Higgs c Sainsbury b Shackleton 0 *JB Statham did not bat T Greenhough did not bat +K Goodwin did not bat Extras (14 lb, 3 nb) 17 Total (7 wickets, declared, 100 overs) 232 Fall of wickets: 1-61, 2-136, 3-153, 4-190, 5-211, 6-232, 7-232

Peter Lever and Ken Shuttleworth, who picked up a highly creditable five for 38 in Gloucestershire’s first innings, did their best with the ball but, in truth, this was a match dominated by Smith and Brown.

The scorecard itself starkly illustrates that – and nothing more so than confirmation that a remarkable nine of our ten first innings wickets to fall were clean bowled.

Hampshire bowling

Shackleton White Sainsbury Wassell Caple

Overs Mdns 32 11 19 4 31 10 16 4 2 2

Lancashire second innings DM Green c Caple b White G Pullar lbw b White H Pilling b Sainsbury DR Worsley c Wassell b Sainsbury KL Snellgrove not out D Lloyd not out P Lever did not bat K Higgs did not bat *JB Statham did not bat T Greenhough did not bat +K Goodwin did not bat Extras (1 b, 2 lb) Total (4 wickets, 33 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-27, 2-38, 3-75, 4-76 Hampshire bowling

Shackleton White Sainsbury

Runs Wkts 83 3 48 2 57 2 27 0 0 0

Hampshire first innings Runs RE Marshall c Goodwin b Higgs 33 BL Reed c Higgs b Statham 3 H Horton c Snellgrove b Lloyd 49 RG Caple b Greenhough 28 GL Keith c Higgs b Lloyd 28 PJ Sainsbury c Statham b Greenhough 37 *ACD Ingleby-Mackenzie not out 34 DW White b Lloyd 2 +BSV Timms not out 12 AR Wassell did not bat D Shackleton did not bat Extras (10 lb, 5 nb) 15 Total (7 wickets, declared, 76 overs) 241 Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-55, 3-122, 4-138, 5-187, 6-195, 7-203 Lancashire bowling

Statham Higgs Lever Greenhough Lloyd

Overs Mdns 9 1 16 1 9 1 27 8 15 2

Runs Wkts 26 1 41 1 28 0 88 2 43 3

David Green is bowled against Middlesex at Lord’s

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Overs Mdns 17 7 12 0 4 0

Runs 10 23 31 9 0 1

3 77

Runs Wkts 32 0 25 2 17 2

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Gloucestershire v Lancashire Venue: Ashley Down Ground, Bristol on 25th, 26th, 27th August 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Lancashire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Gloucestershire won by 9 wickets Points: Gloucestershire 10; Lancashire 0 Umpires: AE Fagg, JG Langridge Lancashire first innings Runs *DM Green b Smith 8 G Pullar b Brown 2 H Pilling b Smith 43 DR Worsley b Brown 33 KL Snellgrove b Smith 2 GK Knox b Brown 8 D Lloyd c Meyer b Brown 2 P Lever b Smith 1 K Shuttleworth b Brown 1 T Greenhough not out 2 +K Goodwin b Brown 1 Extras (2 b) 2 Total (all out, 56.3 overs) 105 Fall of wickets: 1-8, 2-10, 3-68, 4-73, 5-94, 6-98, 7-101, 8-102, 9-103, 10-105

Lancashire second innings Runs *DM Green c Meyer b Brown 33 DR Worsley lbw b Brown 3 H Pilling lbw b Brown 5 KL Snellgrove b Smith 11 G Pullar b Smith 11 GK Knox c Brown b Smith 5 D Lloyd b Bissex 7 P Lever c Mortimore b Bissex 70 K Shuttleworth c Bevan b Bissex 15 T Greenhough not out 12 +K Goodwin b Mortimore 4 Extras (10 b) 10 Total (all out, 63 overs) 186 Fall of wickets: 1-10, 2-28, 3-47, 4-55, 5-67, 6-68, 7-102, 8-138, 9-175, 10-186

Gloucestershire bowling

Overs Mdns Smith 23 3 Brown 19.3 5 Windows 7 1 Mortimore 7 2

Gloucestershire bowling

Overs Mdns Smith 18 1 Brown 21 4 Mortimore 14 2 Bissex 10 4

Runs Wkts 41 4 37 6 16 0 9 0

Runs Wkts 48 3 44 3 57 1 27 3

Gloucestershire first innings Runs RB Nicholls c Goodwin b Shuttleworth 72 CA Milton c Knox b Lever 21 SEJ Russell c Goodwin b Shuttleworth 33 *JB Mortimore c Goodwin b Shuttleworth 4 M Bissex lbw b Shuttleworth 38 DG Bevan c Goodwin b Lever 2 DR Shepherd lbw b Greenhough 23 AS Brown c and b Lever 1 AR Windows b Lever 1 DR Smith b Shuttleworth 1 +BJ Meyer not out 4 Extras (3 b, 15 lb, 2 nb) 20 Total (all out, 100.1 overs) 238 Fall of wickets: 1-43, 2-136, 3-144, 4-155, 5-160, 6-207, 7-216, 8-227, 9-234, 10-238

Gloucestershire second innings RB Nicholls not out CA Milton c Lever b Lloyd SEJ Russell not out *JB Mortimore did not bat M Bissex did not bat DG Bevan did not bat DR Shepherd did not bat AS Brown did not bat AR Windows did not bat DR Smith did not bat +BJ Meyer did not bat Extras (1 b, 1 lb, 1 w) Total (1 wicket, 21.3 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-10 (Milton)

Lancashire bowling

Lever Shuttleworth Lloyd Worsley Green Pilling

Lancashire bowling

Lever Shuttleworth Knox Lloyd Greenhough

Overs Mdns 28.1 7 26 8 12 3 17 4 17 4

Runs Wkts 60 4 38 5 28 0 58 0 34 1

Overs 3 2 7 6 2 1.3

Mdns 1 1 3 0 0 0

Runs 27 5 21

3 56

Runs Wkts 6 0 4 0 19 1 11 0 8 0 5 0

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: CAMPAIGN’S END It was fitting, indeed, in such a wet summer, that a rain-affected match should bring an end to our County Championship campaign. A last journey, from Bristol north to Manchester, had been negotiated on the evening of Friday, August 27, and at Old Trafford the following morning we began our final championship fixture, against Kent.

as you felt he should be with his long run-up, strong frame, deep chest and broad back. He hit the deck quite hard and could swing it in to the right-hander.

Despite his problems with injury he took his wickets cheaply and quickly when you compare his record to others.

Kent were a strong team, even without Colin Cowdrey who, like Statham and Higgs, was playing for England at the Oval, and they were to finish fifth in the championship table with only Worcestershire, the champions, Northants, Glamorgan and Yorkshire above them. The two points we earned on winning first innings, in what was to become a weather-ruined draw, went towards securing our thirteenth place.

Leicestershire, Essex, Sussex and wooden spoonists Nottinghamshire were the four counties who ended up below us.

Only the equivalent of a session and a bit of play was possible on that Saturday, however, and I was 56 not out when we started again on Monday. I was captain again, in Statham’s continued absence with England, but Lancashire’s leader could not add to his score when the game resumed and a ball fired across me

by John Dye, the burly Kent left armer, was touched to Alan Knott behind the stumps.

They called Dye ‘The Doctor’ in the Kent dressing room, because ‘The Doc’ always seemed to be in need of the physiotherapist’s table. He was an effective bowler, although not as quick

Our overnight 99 for one was translated into 220 all out on the Monday, with Harry Pilling and Peter Lever following me to the half-century mark but failing

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and a very fine player – one of those on the county circuit at the time who, you felt, would not have let England down had the national selectors ever come calling.

to go very much further. Kent’s seamers shared all ten wickets, with Alan Brown clean-bowling four of our top six to show that there was still something for the bowlers in what was essentially an easy-paced surface.

I recall, too, batting fluently for my second innings 48 and even giving Derek Underwood a bit of tap. I seemed on that day to be able to hit him over mid on, or straight back over his head, although the pitch was damp and turning, and although he had started by bowling from around the wicket my assault forced him to go back over and, in so doing, to fire the ball in at or just outside the line of my leg stump and cramp me for room.

In reply, Kent had gone quite smoothly to 165 for five by the close of play on that second day, but we had managed to remove both Bob Wilson and John Prodger for 57 towards the end of the final session, after they had added 108 for the third wicket, and it was no surprise when Wilson, captaining them in place of Cowdrey, sought to breathe fresh life into the contest by declaring early on day three, following the loss of four further wickets to a rampant Lever and Shuttleworth, thus conceding on first innings, in an effort to allow me to set them a fair target.

Underwood, in 1965 don’t forget, had only just turned 20 and, though he was already a fine bowler and clearly destined for a long Test career, he wasn’t as crafty then as the fully-fledged, battle-hardened world-class operator he became, and so I was able to play some shots against him. However, this became much more difficult to do after he had developed rapidly in 1966, taking over 150 wickets.

In 1965 I had the confidence borne of bruising his figures the season before, when my rapid 97 had propelled Lancashire to a crushing Gillette Cup win after Statham, Higgs and Lever had bowled Kent out for 166.

With the limited amount of time left in the game, that was not a straightforward thing to do, and I remember thinking that I didn’t want simply to give Kent something that was very plump and tempting. In the end, after I had declared our second innings at 121 for four, after 27 overs’ batting, Kent were offered the chance to reach 165 in ten minutes short of two hours for victory – which, in fact, wasn’t a bad deal.

It all became academic when the rain returned at just 14.1 overs had been bowled, and with Kent on 31 for one having lost Mike Denness to Shuttleworth during the new ball overs.

I said to Wilson afterwards that I was sorry I hadn’t been more generous in my declaration, but he replied that in my position he would have done exactly the same as I had done. He was a good man,

Still, in this final championship game of the ’65 season, it was Underwood who got me out in the end, so perhaps he didn’t come out of that little encounter too badly either. Pushing forward, I got a thick outside edge and Brian Luckhurst, who didn’t miss many close to the wicket on either side of the bat, pouched it at gully. Underwood picked up three for

chapter sixteen: campaign’s end

PETER LEVER Peter Lever made his Lancashire debut in 1960 as a 19-year-old. Around six feet tall, lean and strong, he had the ideal build for a fast bowler. However, Lancashire’s strength in seam bowling during the 1960s (Statham, Higgs, Colin Hilton) meant that his opportunities were not too frequent.

Up to and including 1965 he had taken 160 first-class wickets, averaging thirty runs per wicket. These modest results did not reflect his ability. They did, though, reflect the fact that in his youth his control frequently wavered when he sought extra pace, inducing in particular a tendency to bowl too short.

By the mid-1960s Peter had clearly improved. The 556 first-class wickets that he took for Lancashire from the end of 1965 up to his retirement in 1976 cost him below 23 runs apiece. Sure of his Lancashire place, following Statham’s retirement towards the end of 1968, he was selected to tour Australia in 1970-71 and contributed to England’s success with a useful 13 wickets in the series.

He was to play 17 Tests in all, his best performance coming in the final Test of the 1974-75 tour of Australia when England, having lost four of the first five Tests and been battered by Lillee and Thomson, won the sixth by an innings, Peter taking 6 for 38 and 3 for 65.

Lever was an immensely valuable bowler for Lancashire in one-day cricket. During his career Lancashire won the Sunday League twice, in 1969 and 1970, and the Gillette Cup four times, in 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1975. His career contribution in these two competitions was exactly 160 wickets at 18 runs each.

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in his three-wicket haul at miserly cost – especially for a leg spinner. Tommy got the left-handed Pollock caught at first slip, driving at a googly which I’m pretty sure he picked but which turned a little more than he thought it would.

25 from his six overs, as we tried to accelerate towards our declaration, and I am sure he would have gladly traded those blows I managed to land on him for that useful little analysis.

I was very happy with the way my form was holding up right through until the end of the summer, however, and was looking forward to the start of our three-day match against the touring South Africans, beginning the next day on Wednesday September 1. I was also to captain the Lancashire side, and that in itself made it quite an occasion for me.

I remember, on the stroke of lunch, bringing on young David Lloyd for a bowl at Pollock and the great man lapping the youthful Bumble for five fours in the over. As we walked off for our lunch, Tommy Greenhough ambled over to me and said ‘Is that really the time to be bowling young Lloydy at him?’, to which gentle admonishment I replied ‘If he can’t bowl the last over before lunch then when can he effing bowl?’ The truth was, of course, that forty-nine out of fifty batsmen would have been looking to play for lunch when Lloyd’s left-arm spin was offered up to tempt them into an untimely indiscretion; Pollock was the odd one out in that fifty.

South Africa had won the three-Test series against England, by a 1-0 margin following their second Test victory at Trent Bridge, although the series had been denied an exciting finish – and England, potentially, a series-levelling win – when rain arrived at the Oval with Cowdrey on 78 not out, his captain Mike Smith on 10 not out, and England, at 308 for four, requiring another 91 runs in 70 minutes.

His elder brother, Peter, also got runs in that innings to frustrate us further after we had fought hard to restrict them to 193 for seven. Batting at No 9, he played sensibly and well for 51 not out and the South Africans finally got to 273 all out.

Soon I was facing Peter Pollock with the new ball, in a short little session of batting before the close, and he could be hostile. He was quicker than his son, Shaun, although I think Shaun was the superior bowler, technically, and he could also send down a sharp bouncer. Father and son would have been a terrific new ball partnership: Peter could test you physically and Shaun would go on to get the better of even the best batsmen of his era in his own great Test career. They would have complemented each other perfectly!

Eddie Barlow was skippering the South Africans, who were playing us in their last county fixture before finishing their tour further north in Scarborough, and after he had chosen to bat a three-wicket new ball burst by Ken Higgs, fresh from his successful Test debut at the Oval, left them reeling at 34 for three. It was as good as it got for us, though, because Graeme Pollock then played a wonderful innings of 75 and, in the company of Tiger Lance, rallied them with a fourth wicket partnership of 105.

Higgs bowled well for his four for 46, and Tommy Greenhough also performed excellently with the ball, including Pollock

chapter sixteen: campaign’s end

our spinners in making just 169 in their second innings on the second afternoon.

Young Bumble bagged three for 44 after catching Graeme Pollock off Peter Lever for 40. Getting Pollock for 40 was a deal most captains would have struck in any match against South Africa, but I’m afraid in this instance it didn’t do us any real good because, chasing 284 to win on the final day, we were bowled out for 117 and I could get no more than 19 before tickling Henry Bromfield’s off spin to the keeper.

Resuming on 11 not out, after a night’s sleep to dream of what I might do to the South African attack and, perhaps, enhance my own international prospects, I was quickly into my stride and dominated an opening stand of 59 with Duncan Worsley, who fell to Norman Crookes, the off spinner, for 13.

I was in good form, and it was very irritating to get out. On 46, and a couple of overs after I had hit Crookes over mid on for four, I went for the shot again but – halfway through – I checked it and Lance, at straight mid wicket, plucked the ball out of the air at shoulder height. If I had gone through with the stroke, which I should have done, it would have flown for four and I would have had fifty, and who knows what could have happened then? If I didn’t want to hit a full shot, I should have blocked it. As I stomped off, I knew I had been a fool.

It was disappointing, all round, and there was also a sense of anti-climax as our season – as a county team – came to a low-key end. The South Africans didn’t mingle much, either, opting to shoot off pretty quickly each night at the close of play, and they certainly weren’t as sociable as the New Zealanders had been at Old Trafford earlier in the summer. Still, they had defeated the cream of Lancashire by 166 runs, so they must have been pleased with that.

Crookes ended up with five for 54 as we predictably folded to 159 all out and the South Africans also struggled against

COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP 1965: FINAL TABLE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Worcestershire Northamptonshire Glamorgan Yorkshire Kent Middlesex Somerset Surrey Derbyshire Gloucestershire Warwickshire Hampshire Lancashire Leicestershire Essex Sussex Nottinghamshire

P 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28

W 13 13 12 9 8 8 8 7 7 7 5 5 5 5 4 4 3

L 3 4 4 3 5 7 9 3 7 7 4 4 13 9 7 8 8

LWF 1 0 2 1 0 0 2 1 2 1 1 0 0 2 0 2 3

Source: Cricket Archive

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DW1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

DL1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0

DWF 6 5 4 11 8 7 4 7 6 5 9 8 5 2 7 4 6

DLF 4 4 4 3 6 5 4 7 5 6 9 9 3 9 9 10 7

ND 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 0 2 1 1 1 0 1

Pts 144 140 132 114 96 94 92 92 86 82 70 66 60 58 54 52 48

chapter sixteen: campaign’s end

chapter sixteen: campaign’s end

Lancashire v Kent

LANCASHIRE IN 1965: COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP AVERAGES

Venue: Old Trafford, Manchester on 28th, 30th, 31st August 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Lancashire won the toss and decided to bat Result: Match drawn Points: Lancashire 2; Kent 0 Umpires: F Jakeman, TW Spencer Lancashire first innings Runs *DM Green c Knott b Dye 56 DR Worsley b Brown 6 H Pilling b Brown 50 GK Knox lbw b Dye 13 KL Snellgrove b Brown 5 J Sullivan b Brown 6 D Lloyd c Wilson b Dixon 12 P Lever b Dye 58 +G Hodgson lbw b Sayer 1 K Shuttleworth not out 10 T Greenhough b Dixon 0 Extras (3 nb) 3 Total (all out, 87.4 overs) 220 Fall of wickets: 1-24, 2-105, 3-127, 4-127, 5-138, 6-141, 7-175, 8-176, 9-219, 10-220 Kent bowling

Brown Dye Sayer Dixon Underwood

Overs Mdns 22 3 25 7 19 4 16.4 2 5 3

Kent bowling

Brown Dye Sayer Dixon Underwood

Runs Wkts 68 4 56 3 38 1 46 2 9 0

Overs Mdns 17 3 18 6 10 0 13 4 14 1

Overs 9 7 2 3 6

Mdns 0 1 0 1 1

Lancashire bowling

Shuttleworth Lever Lloyd Worsley

Runs Wkts 32 3 36 5 40 1 38 0 29 0

Overs 3 4 4.1 3

Mdns 1 1 2 0

Runs 48 39 0 0 21 10

3 121

Runs Wkts 43 0 28 0 7 0 15 0 25 3

Kent second innings MH Denness c Hodgson b Shuttleworth BW Luckhurst not out *RC Wilson not out JM Prodger did not bat SE Leary did not bat +APE Knott did not bat AL Dixon did not bat A Brown did not bat DM Sayer did not bat JCJ Dye did not bat DL Underwood did not bat Extras (1 b, 2 lb) Total (1 wicket, 14.1 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-4 (Denness)

Kent first innings Runs MH Denness b Lever 20 BW Luckhurst b Shuttleworth 14 *RC Wilson c Worsley b Lever 57 JM Prodger c Green b Knox 5 SE Leary c Snellgrove b Shuttleworth 14 +APE Knott c Hodgson b Lever 2 AL Dixon c Green b Shuttleworth 2 A Brown c Snellgrove b Lever 1 DM Sayer not out 8 JCJ Dye c Hodgson b Lever 0 DL Underwood not out 0 Extras (2 lb) 2 Total (9 wickets, declared, 72 overs) 177 Fall of wickets: 1-25, 2-35, 3-143, 4-155, 5-161, 6-166, 7-169, 8-169, 9-170 Lancashire bowling

Shuttleworth Lever Knox Lloyd Greenhough

Batting and fielding

Lancashire second innings *DM Green c Luckhurst b Underwood DR Worsley c Knott b Underwood H Pilling c Denness b Underwood GK Knox run out KL Snellgrove not out J Sullivan not out D Lloyd did not bat P Lever did not bat +G Hodgson did not bat K Shuttleworth did not bat T Greenhough did not bat Extras (1 lb, 2 nb) Total (4 wickets, declared, 27 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-87, 2-87, 3-87, 4-95

Runs 4 10 14

3 31

Runs Wkts 7 1 7 0 5 0 9 0

Name AM Beddow JD Bond R Entwistle K Goodwin DM Green T Greenhough K Higgs G Hodgson K Howard GK Knox P Lever D Lloyd H Pilling G Pullar S Ramadhin K Shuttleworth KL Snellgrove JB Statham J Sullivan DR Worsley

Matches 19 13 4 27 28 23 26 1 9 19 14 12 20 23 3 3 13 22 20 9

Inns 34 24 7 40 53 32 42 1 16 36 21 21 37 42 5 5 22 32 34 18

Not out 0 1 0 15 1 10 8 0 2 0 1 5 6 2 0 1 2 5 3 1

Runs 558 456 12 117 1784 158 288 1 117 699 267 204 963 1103 17 32 443 164 579 306

HS 59 112* 7 23 85 30* 43 1 23 108 70 44 132 112 10 15 52 18 67* 43

Ave 16.41 19.82 1.71 4.68 34.30 7.18 8.47 1.00 8.35 19.41 13.35 12.75 31.06 27.57 3.40 8.00 22.15 6.07 18.67 18.00

100 50 Ct 0 1 9 1 1 5 0 0 0 0 0 56 0 13 13 0 0 3 0 0 11 0 0 3 0 0 11 2 1 10 0 2 6 0 0 3 1 4 1 3 4 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 4 0 0 9 0 3 12 0 0 2

Bowling Name AM Beddow JD Bond DM Green T Greenhough K Higgs K Howard GK Knox P Lever D Lloyd H Pilling G Pullar S Ramadhin K Shuttleworth JB Statham DR Worsley

Overs 129 1 32.2 603.3 953.4 227 41 356.2 191.2 1.3 1.3 58 69 692.4 11

Mdns 26 0 4 183 222 68 8 67 53 0 0 20 17 178 0

Runs 306 3 133 1337 2235 539 128 996 548 5 11 126 155 1540 42

Wkts 8 0 2 54 102 19 1 40 17 0 0 3 10 124 0

BB 3-10

1-11 5-46 7-19 4-62 1-40 5-36 4-47

2-45 5-38 8-69

Source: Cricket Archive

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Ave 38.25

66.50 24.75 21.91 28.36 128.00 24.90 32.23

42.00 15.50 12.41

5wI 0

0 1 5 0 0 2 0

0 1 12

10wM 0

0 0 1 0 0 0 0

0 0 1

St

3

chapter sixteen: campaign’s end

Lancashire v South Africans Venue: Old Trafford, Manchester on 1st, 2nd, 3rd September 1965 (3-day match) Toss: South Africans won the toss and decided to bat Result: South Africans won by 166 runs Umpires: C Cook, A Jepson South Africans first innings Runs *EJ Barlow c Lloyd b Higgs 25 +D Gamsy b Higgs 3 A Bacher c Goodwin b Higgs 5 RG Pollock c Worsley b Greenhough 75 HR Lance c Pilling b Greenhough 39 NS Crookes b Lever 34 DT Lindsay c Sullivan b Lloyd 23 R Dumbrill c Lloyd b Greenhough 1 PM Pollock not out 51 MJ Macaulay b Shuttleworth 11 HD Bromfield b Higgs 0 Extras (1 b, 5 lb) 6 Total (all out, 92.4 overs) 273 Fall of wickets: 1-16, 2-29, 3-34, 4-139, 5-152, 6-187, 7-193, 8-230, 9-268, 10-273

South Africans second innings Runs *EJ Barlow c Higgs b Shuttleworth 2 +D Gamsy b Higgs 19 A Bacher run out 39 RG Pollock c Lloyd b Lever 40 HR Lance b Greenhough 24 DT Lindsay c and b Lloyd 17 R Dumbrill c and b Lloyd 6 NS Crookes not out 18 PM Pollock run out 0 MJ Macaulay c Green b Lloyd 1 HD Bromfield b Greenhough 1 Extras (2 lb) 2 Total (all out, 48.5 overs) 169 Fall of wickets: 1-2, 2-46, 3-84, 4-106, 5-143, 6-145, 7-154, 8-155, 9-159, 10-169

Lancashire bowling

Shuttleworth Higgs Lever Greenhough Lloyd

Lancashire bowling

Shuttleworth Higgs Lever Greenhough Lloyd

Overs Mdns 17 2 20.4 4 16 0 24 8 15 2

Runs Wkts 49 1 46 4 57 1 49 3 66 1

Overs Mdns 11 1 7 0 8 2 8.5 2 14 2

Runs Wkts 46 1 22 1 24 1 31 2 44 3

Lancashire first innings Runs *DM Green c Lance b Crookes 46 DR Worsley c Lance b Crookes 13 H Pilling c Gamsy b Bromfield 25 KL Snellgrove b Crookes 6 J Sullivan c and b Crookes 6 D Lloyd c Gamsy b PM Pollock 16 P Lever c Gamsy b Bromfield 8 K Higgs not out 20 K Shuttleworth b PM Pollock 10 T Greenhough b Crookes 7 +K Goodwin c RG Pollock b Bromfield 0 Extras (1 b, 1 lb) 2 Total (all out, 73.3 overs) 159 Fall of wickets: 1-59, 2-60, 3-66, 4-80, 5-102, 6-114, 7-129, 8-143, 9-152, 10-159

Lancashire second innings Runs *DM Green c Gamsy b Bromfield 19 DR Worsley b Bromfield 15 H Pilling c PM Pollock b Macaulay 15 KL Snellgrove c Lindsay b Bromfield 0 J Sullivan c Lindsay b Bromfield 0 D Lloyd c PM Pollock b Crookes 42 P Lever b Bromfield 4 K Higgs c Dumbrill b Crookes 0 K Shuttleworth c Lance b Crookes 18 T Greenhough run out 1 +K Goodwin not out 0 Extras (1 b, 2 w) 3 Total (all out, 54.3 overs) 117 Fall of wickets: 1-29, 2-36, 3-40, 4-40, 5-67, 6-72, 7-73, 8-109, 9-117, 10-117

South Africans bowling

Overs Mdns PM Pollock 17 2 Macaulay 13 3 Dumbrill 1 0 Crookes 28 9 Bromfield 14.3 8

South Africans bowling

Overs Mdns Macaulay 12 5 Dumbrill 6 1 Crookes 17.3 2 Bromfield 19 7

Runs Wkts 42 2 32 0 2 0 54 5 27 3

Runs Wkts 17 1 8 0 47 3 42 5

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: TWO THOUSAND UP It had been a long and predominantly wet summer, and an especially hard one for batsmen with the ball continually darting around off the seam on damp pitches.

progress during the summer, and nice too that they obviously thought I could play a bit and add something to what were two strong sides.

Indeed, Tom Pearce’s XI contained not just the present England captain, MJK Smith, but also a former England skipper in Colin Cowdrey, who had led the side first in the West Indies in 1959-60, after Peter May had fallen ill, and subsequently at home to South Africa in 1960 and Australia in 1961. In addition to Smith and Cowdrey, there were four other players in our side who had played Tests that summer: Bob Barber, Peter Parfitt, Fred Titmus and Fred Rumsey.

The invitation to play for TN Pearce’s XI and for MCC at the traditional end-of-season festival at Scarborough came, therefore, as a significant fillip.

The weather and pitches there were excellent, and the two first-class games I played that September at Scarborough also, of course, enabled me to claim my own little piece of cricket history.

I was pleased, and proud, to be called up. A letter had arrived at Old Trafford about three weeks earlier, addressed to me, asking if I would be available for the games against the South Africans and Yorkshire. Jack Wood, the Lancashire secretary, had brought me the letter, saying it had a Scarborough postmark and it would probably be a good little extra earner for me. But it was also nice to think people had been watching my

I was keeping august company, then, and looking back at the make-up of both the Pearce XI and the MCC XI, I see that myself and Glamorgan’s Alan Jones were the only players selected that week who do not have Test caps to our names. And Jones, of course, did play for England in the summer of 1970 in a five-Test series against a Rest of the World side,

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such as Cheltenham or Canterbury, and a ground that could hold 12,000 or so used to fill up quite rapidly.

following the cancellation of South Africa’s scheduled tour that year. Those games were counted Tests at the time, and Jones is not the only man – though probably the angriest – to disagree with the subsequent decision to downgrade their status.

Indeed, it was so warm during the MCC v Yorkshire game that I remember there being a bit of a row. The dining tent was down behind long leg at one end of the ground with the pavilion at the other end. At lunchtime, the players in the field just wandered off straight into the tent – gasping for a cool drink as much as the very fine lunches that used to be laid on – but the Yorkshire president, the formidable Brian Sellers, caused something of an ugly scene by insisting that all players had to wear their blazers to lunch and, therefore, had to go into the pavilion first before doubling back to the tent.

Was I close to England recognition in 1965? Well, I suppose I couldn’t have been very far away, and selection for Scarborough, and for MCC at the start of the season, was an honour that I knew meant something. I also know that my name came up in selectorial chats later in my career, and even early in my last first-class season, in 1970, when I started like a train for Gloucestershire and got to a thousand runs in July. I batted well in those first months, and got hundreds at Dudley and at Bristol, against Middlesex, which never did you any harm.

A number of the more surly types – such as Fred Rumsey, Butch White and myself – took umbrage at this and, instead, decided to order some fish and chips through the good offices of our dressing room attendant and stay in the pavilion to eat them.

In truth, however, it was difficult to get picked for England as a top-order batsman in the mid-to-late 1960s.

Specialist opening batsmen included the likes of Boycott, Barber, Edrich, Russell, Milburn, Prideaux, Alan Jones and Luckhurst, and after that you had to contend with not just Smith and Cowdrey but Dexter, Barrington, Graveney and younger thrusters such as Amiss and Fletcher. I’m not sure I was as good as them.

When Brian Sellers heard about this he decided, at tea, to come in and have a conciliatory word about the situation but, unbeknown to him, Fred Trueman was in our dressing room and we were all slagging Sellers off for being so insistent on the dress code on such a hot day.

Fred was just in the middle of letting us know his thoughts, saying “Well, I’ll tell you what I’d do to him……” when Brian walked in and Fred, without missing a beat, said: “…..I’d, I’d…..oh afternoon, Mr Sellers!”

Anyway, I was delighted to be at North Marine Road that week, and by and large the sun also shone which was a real bonus for us players as much as for the large crowds which always flocked in to watch those end-of-season matches.

People used to book up holiday weeks so they could attend, as they did earlier in the summer for big county festivals

But I digress. Before we get to that Yorkshire game, I’d better give the details

chapter seventeen: two thousand up

of how the T.N. Pearce’s XI inflicted on the South Africans only the second defeat of their tour. In fact, after we had beaten them inside two days, a 40-over match was then arranged in place of the first-class game’s scheduled third day, and we beat them again.

Now it was our turn and there was disappointment for me, bowled for 2 by a nip-backer from Jackie Botten, before Smith’s 65 and Knight’s 45 hauled us to 165 for five by the close and to an eventual 241 all out before lunch the next day. South Africa’s second innings was even more frantic than their first, and with 48 from Denis Lindsay and 64 from Richard Dumbrill they made it to 224 all out in a mere 32.2 overs. I scored 24 second time around but neither Barber nor I could go on after getting in and it was left to Parfitt, with 87 not out, and Cowdrey, who finished unbeaten on 39, to ease us quickly to an eight-wicket victory.

Trevor Bailey captained the Pearce XI, despite the presence of MJK Smith and Cowdrey, and there was always an understandably strong Essex connection within Tom Pearce’s teams, Pearce having captained Essex before and after the Second World War. Keith Fletcher, Robin Hobbs and Barry Knight were all involved that week.

This wasn’t the strongest of sides that South Africa could put out, especially in bowling, but it was still full of excellent cricketers. Graeme Pollock, even though he was still only 21, was already a worldclass batsman and his elder brother Peter, at 24, Eddie Barlow, at 25, and Bacher, who had turned 23, were part of a younger generation of players who, with the emergence soon afterwards of Mike Procter and Barry Richards, were to take South Africa to the top of the world game by the time they thrashed Australia 4-0 in 1969-70 just prior to their international isolation.

It was a bit of a closed shop, in some ways, and no wonder because the Scarborough week was always a glorious piss-up as well as featuring a very good standard of cricket. It was serious enough out on the field, but the festival atmosphere, and the obvious requirement to entertain the large crowds, understandably loosened things up quite considerably.

The South Africans, asked to bat first by Bailey, were clearly of the opinion that they were not supposed to hang about in such festival surroundings. Wisden records that their approach to batting in this match was “light-hearted to the point of recklessness” and, after moving swiftly to 127 for two with Ali Bacher getting 60 and Graeme Pollock 42, they collapsed to 207 all out, in just 37.3 overs, with Rumsey bagging four for 35 with his sharp left-arm in-swing and both Bailey and Bob Barber picking up two cheap wickets.

Lindsay was slightly older, at 26, but also a fine player who could keep wicket well when required and whose best years were towards the end of the 1960s. He, Pollock and Colin Bland hit the ball very hard – they used to cream it – whereas Bacher watched the ball closely and worked it around more. Dumbrill, who also batted well in the one-day game which we ended up playing on Tuesday September 7, was a shortish and thick-

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set all-rounder who batted decently in orthodox, mainly front-foot fashion and bowled seamers which predominantly moved away from the right-handers. As a bowler, he was a bit quicker than he looked.

I saw Cowdrey play Brian Statham as well as I’ve seen anyone and, at his best, it was even in first-class cricket a bit like watching a father playing on the beach with his young boys when Cowdrey was in top gear. He was that good a batsman.

I recall having one good evening out with Tiger Lance and Peter Pollock, plus a couple more South Africans who weren’t playing in the game, and our own ranks were fairly full with sociable types: Butch White liked a gargle and our skipper, Bailey, was a surprisingly keen drinker when he got the taste.

When I look back on my presence, as a 25-year-old, among all the great cricketers – on both sides – playing in those games at Scarborough, I recognise in my younger self someone who was not at all overawed by the personalities around me. I might be gob-smacked by seeing their talent up close like that, but I was not a character to be intimidated by reputation. My insecurities were about technique, and mental strength, not about mixing it – or sharing dressing rooms – with big name players. I did not feel I didn’t deserve to be there – not at all, because I was always self-confident in my ability to score runs off good bowlers when I was in good form.

I thought he was very pompous when I first met him, but that was mainly because he was shy and mannered.

Trevor, when you got to know him, was very knowledgeable and affable and a very funny man. Rumsey, meanwhile, who got me out a few times when we played Somerset and was a handful to righthanders with his ability to move it back into you in the air, was another player who enjoyed the social side.

Knight liked a night out and MJK was very affable, as I also found Parfitt and the other two Middlesex seniors, Titmus and JT Murray, to be in my dealings with them. Some of the younger Middlesex players, though, used to complain about a bit of a senior players’ clique in their dressing room, but that was always a bit of a surprise to me when I heard it said.

One on-field conversation I remember from the first game against the South Africans at Scarborough was with Barry Knight. We had known each other for years, since playing against each other when I was still at school, and I had always thought his bowling action was very like Ray Lindwall’s in that it had a complicated little arm action as he gathered himself at the crease. It was a writhing, snake-like wrist movement before his bowling arm came over.

Of the Pearce’s XI, indeed, the only bloke I didn’t like very much was Cowdrey. He always seemed to be off somewhere, with something else to do other than sitting around a table with us and insisting: “No, no – I’ll get these!” What a player, though. On a number of occasions

As we were waiting for the next South African batsmen to walk out, at the fall of a wicket, I wandered over and said: “Knighty, when you were a lad did you copy Ray Lindwall’s action?” “No,” he replied, “it wasn’t Ray I copied, it was Ron Archer.” Well, that made sense to

chapter seventeen: two thousand up

landmark, does underline just how under the radar my achievement had been.

me because Archer was known to have himself copied Lindwall. So I said: “You must have admired Archer as a bowler, then?” “Not particularly,” said Knight, “but I just liked the way he kept hitting batsmen behind the left ear!” That made me laugh, because although Knighty was quite sharp he was a skidder of a bowler and, unlike Archer, he couldn’t really hit batsmen on the head very often or put the wind up them. As sportsmen, we all want to be what we can’t do, don’t we!

There were no newspaper headlines screaming about Green’s feat, nor had there been anything in the way of previews looking ahead to it. There were no reporters lining up to secure an interview with me, after my 79, nor had my late-season form led to suggestions in the press that I would be a good pick for that winter’s Ashes tour of Australia under MJK Smith’s leadership. I just scored my runs, got out, and walked off to the warm applause of another excellent crowd.

The hastily-arranged one-day game against the South Africans also attracted a good crowd of around 5,000 and the punters saw an exciting finish after Cowdrey’s 75 – and some useful 20s and 30s from several others, including my own 23 – enabled T. N. Pearce’s XI to reach 213 for seven from our 40 overs.

What I recall with most pleasure about that innings was batting with Colin Milburn. That really was a joy, as we added just over a hundred runs together in the warm, soft September sunshine, and being only 22 yards away from ‘Ollie’ made me realise what a superb player he already was at the age of 23.

In reply, with Knight taking two early wickets, the South Africans had Peter van der Merwe and Dumbrill to thank for rallying to 195 for seven with four overs remaining, and thus becoming favourites to win, before being bowled out for 200 as Bailey returned to take two of their last three wickets, the last one falling to a run out, all within one over.

Alan Jones, the prolific Glamorgan lefthander, had retired hurt in the opening overs after being hit on the head by a bouncer from Fred Trueman. Jones was a fine player of fast bowling, and I had never seen him inconvenienced by the quicks before, but there was a bit of life in the pitch after a late start, following an overnight storm, and perhaps he misjudged that particular delivery. He wasn’t badly hurt, but decided to go off and he eventually came in to bat again.

Saturday September 11 saw the start of the second three-day match at Scarborough – and the last action of the 1965 first-class season – and the opening day of MCC’s match against Yorkshire was a memorable one for me.

In reaching 79, I completed my 2,000 runs for the season, and when I was batting I knew I needed 65 runs to get there. But Syd Buller’s surprised response, when I told the umpire out in the middle that I thought I had just completed the

Milburn replaced him and soon we were feeding off each other as we both went for our strokes. It was the sort of freedom at the crease that I had not experienced with Lancashire during that year’s championship campaign; we

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were never too far away from a batting collapse and it had been a long struggle, batting-wise, throughout the summer.

Now, though, batting with Milburn, the shackles were off.

and he matched Hampshire stroke for stroke in their partnership of 141.

That also became a match-winning stand, because in our second innings we played poorly. I was one of those who got out to a rash shot, caught for 23 at mid-on trying to hit Wilson over the top and thus giving him two of the nine wickets he was to collect in the match. Milburn also suffered a similar fate and, after we had been bowled out for 214, with John Murray batting superbly for 80 not out to get us up beyond 200, it was soon just a question of when Yorkshire would win – and if Geoff Boycott would complete his hundred.

Yorkshire’s seam attack of Trueman, Richard Hutton and Tony Nicholson wasn’t the worst, and it was backed up by the spin of Don Wilson and Ray Illingworth. But Milburn and I ended up playing almost a shot a ball, until he was bowled by Hutton for 54. He had this popular image of being a rotund, village blacksmith type of cricketer, but that was very wide of the mark. His offside play, especially off the back foot either side of cover point, was sublime. He really hit the ball hard, and it fired me up. I wasn’t in Ollie’s class, but I started to play shots too and it was most enjoyable.

Boycott, indeed, was absolutely desperate to get a ton, because – like me – he had not scored a single one that damp summer. But, unlike me, he didn’t get close to 2,000 runs and, as Yorkshire got closer and closer to their victory target, it became touch and go whether he would get to three figures. When Fred Titmus bowled Brian Close for 13 the Yorkies needed another 14 runs to win, and Boycott was on 88 not out.

Eventually, I was caught and bowled by Wilson as I went to drive but didn’t get on top of the ball and he held on to it well low and to his left. Don was a good catcher, and he flighted his left-arm spinners cleverly rather than tweaking them hard. Fletcher had failed, but the rest of our middle order got runs and Knight also batted briskly in hitting 58.

Replying on the second day to our 277, Yorkshire were initially in trouble at 113 for five before John Hampshire played a tremendous innings of 149 not out.

Enter Wilson, promoted up the order to No 5 with, clearly, just one thing on his mind. The first three balls he faced, from Titmus, all went high for six as Wilson swung the bat with gusto to close out the match in style. With 18 not out to his name, he took off his batting gloves with a grin to shake us all by the hand.

The summer of ’65 was over. I never did find out whether Don had actually been sent in by the Yorkshire dressing room to make sure Boycott didn’t get to a hundred, but it would be nice to think that he was.

Brian Close helped him to steady things before Jimmy Binks, the Yorkshire wicketkeeper, arrived to thump 72 and help Hampshire to take them into a lead of 35. Binks, in such a strong team, was only rarely required to get stuck in and play a long innings but he was very capable and well-organised with the bat

chapter seventeen: two thousand up

TN Pearce’s XI v South Africans Venue: North Marine Road, Scarborough on 4th, 6th September 1965 (3-day match) Toss: TN Pearce’s XI won the toss and decided to field Result: TN Pearce’s XI won by 8 wickets Umpires: N Oldfield, TW Spencer South Africans first innings Runs DT Lindsay lbw b Rumsey 25 +D Gamsy c Cowdrey b Rumsey 4 A Bacher b Bailey 60 RG Pollock c Barber b Titmus 42 KC Bland retired hurt 5 *PL van der Merwe b Rumsey 4 R Dumbrill lbw b Bailey 14 NS Crookes b Rumsey 0 JT Botten not out 23 MJ Macaulay c Knight b Barber 7 AH McKinnon b Barber 13 Extras (4 lb, 5 nb, 1 w) 10 Total (all out, 37.3 overs) 207 Fall of wickets: 1-10, 2-65, 3-127, 4-147, 5-164, 6-164, 7-165, 8-192, 9-207

South Africans second innings Runs DT Lindsay b Rumsey 48 +D Gamsy b Knight 21 A Bacher run out 26 RG Pollock b Titmus 9 KC Bland run out 6 R Dumbrill c Knight b Barber 64 *PL van der Merwe c Knight b Titmus 5 NS Crookes c Knight b Barber 16 JT Botten c Rumsey b Barber 15 MJ Macaulay c Green b Barber 12 AH McKinnon not out 0 Extras (1 b, 1 w) 2 Total (all out, 32.2 overs) 224 Fall of wickets: 1-62, 2-90, 3-105, 4-112, 5-113, 6-129, 7-154, 8-200, 9-224, 10-224

TN Pearce’s XI bowling

Overs Mdns Rumsey 11 0 White 7 0 Knight 5 0 Bailey 9 1 Titmus 3 0 Barber 2.3 0

TN Pearce’s XI bowling

Overs Mdns Rumsey 6 1 White 4 1 Knight 3 0 Titmus 12 0 Barber 7.2 0

Runs Wkts 35 4 52 0 30 0 48 2 15 1 17 2

TN Pearce’s XI second innings RW Barber b Botten DM Green c van der Merwe b Crookes PH Parfitt not out MC Cowdrey not out MJK Smith did not bat BR Knight did not bat *TE Bailey did not bat +JT Murray did not bat FJ Titmus did not bat DW White did not bat FE Rumsey did not bat Extras (8 b, 6 lb, 2 nb) Total (2 wickets, 43.5 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-33, 2-65

TN Pearce’s XI first innings Runs RW Barber b Macaulay 3 DM Green b Botten 2 PH Parfitt c Lindsay b McKinnon 38 MC Cowdrey c sub b McKinnon 18 MJK Smith c Bacher b Dumbrill 65 BR Knight c Lindsay b Macaulay 45 *TE Bailey not out 33 +JT Murray b Dumbrill 7 FJ Titmus b Bland 3 DW White c Botten b Dumbrill 5 FE Rumsey c Botten b Dumbrill 7 Extras (3 b, 6 lb, 4 nb, 2 w) 15 Total (all out, 62 overs) 241 Fall of wickets: 1-4, 2-6, 3-62, 4-67, 5-157, 6-182, 7-218, 8-221, 9-232, 10-241 South Africans bowling

Overs Mdns Macaulay 7 1 Botten 3 0 McKinnon 13 2 Crookes 20 3 Pollock 5 0 Dumbrill 8 1 Bland 5 0 Bacher 1 0

Runs Wkts 46 1 14 0 26 1 86 2 50 4

South Africans bowling

Overs Mdns Macaulay 5 0 Botten 4 0 McKinnon 15 2 Crookes 10 0 Pollock 1.5 0 Dumbrill 8 0

Runs Wkts 14 2 7 1 33 2 88 0 30 0 31 4 18 1 5 0

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Runs 25 24 87 39

16 191

Runs Wkts 29 0 19 1 49 0 36 1 22 0 20 0

chapter seventeen: two thousand up

chapter seventeen: two thousand up

Yorkshire v Marylebone Cricket Club

MOST FIRST-CLASS RUNS IN 1965

Venue: North Marine Road, Scarborough on 11th, 13th, 14th September 1965 (3-day match) Toss: Toss not known Result: Yorkshire won by 7 wickets Umpires: JS Buller, WE Phillipson Marylebone Cricket Club first innings Runs A Jones c Hampshire b Wilson 5 DM Green c and b Wilson 79 C Milburn b Hutton 54 KWR Fletcher lbw b Hutton 0 BL D’Oliveira c Binks b Wilson 23 BR Knight b Illingworth 58 +JT Murray b Wilson 21 *FJ Titmus c Boycott b Illingworth 20 RNS Hobbs c Boycott b Illingworth 8 DW White c Padgett b Wilson 4 FE Rumsey not out 2 Extras (3 lb) 3 Total (all out, 54.5 overs) 277 Fall of wickets: 1-110, 2-110, 3-151, 4-172, 5-182, 6-243, 7-243, 8-257, 9-265, 10-277

Marylebone Cricket Club second innings Runs A Jones c Binks b Trueman 18 DM Green c Nicholson b Wilson 23 C Milburn c Nicholson b Wilson 10 KWR Fletcher lbw b Illingworth 16 BL D’Oliveira c and b Wilson 15 BR Knight c Nicholson b Illingworth 30 +JT Murray not out 80 *FJ Titmus c Boycott b Wilson 8 RNS Hobbs run out 3 DW White b Illingworth 1 FE Rumsey b Illingworth 0 Extras (2 b, 7 lb, 1 nb) 10 Total (all out, 62 overs) 214 Fall of wickets: 1-30, 2-54, 3-55, 4-82, 5-88, 6-164, 7-176, 8-192, 9-198, 10-214

Yorkshire bowling

Trueman Hutton Nicholson Wilson Illingworth

Overs Mdns 7 1 10 0 5 0 19 1 13.5 0

Yorkshire bowling

Trueman Hutton Nicholson Wilson Illingworth

Runs Wkts 37 0 40 2 32 0 80 5 85 3

Yorkshire first innings Runs G Boycott b Rumsey 8 DEV Padgett c Rumsey b White 20 JH Hampshire not out 149 R Illingworth lbw b Hobbs 22 PJ Sharpe c Knight b Hobbs 6 RA Hutton b Knight 3 *DB Close c D’Oliveira b Hobbs 23 +JG Binks st Murray b Hobbs 72 FS Trueman not out 2 D Wilson did not bat AG Nicholson did not bat Extras (1 b, 4 lb, 2 nb) 7 Total (7 wickets, declared, 76 overs) 312 Fall of wickets: 1-18, 2-31, 3-65, 4-104, 5-113, 6-163, 7-304

Runs Wkts 23 1 16 0 9 0 75 4 81 4

Yorkshire second innings G Boycott not out DEV Padgett b Titmus RA Hutton c Jones b D’Oliveira *DB Close b Titmus D Wilson not out JH Hampshire did not bat R Illingworth did not bat PJ Sharpe did not bat +JG Binks did not bat FS Trueman did not bat AG Nicholson did not bat Extras (8 b) Total (3 wickets, 53.5 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-83, 2-131, 3-166

Marylebone Cricket Club bowling

Overs Mdns Rumsey 7 1 White 10 1 Knight 11 3 Hobbs 20 2 Titmus 17 1 D’Oliveira 9 0 Green 2 0

Overs Mdns 11 3 5 1 3 0 20 3 23 4

Marylebone Cricket Club bowling

Overs Mdns Rumsey 4 2 White 4 0 Knight 3 1 Hobbs 17 1 Titmus 20.5 0 D’Oliveira 5 2

Runs Wkts 11 1 49 1 13 1 107 4 80 0 38 0 7 0

Runs 88 36 21 13 18

8 184

Runs Wkts 4 0 18 0 3 0 59 0 83 2 9 1

J H Edrich M C Cowdrey D M Green W E Russell A Jones P H Parfitt T W Graveney B L D’Oliveira M J Stewart K G Suttle M H Denness B J Booth B W Luckhurst R G A Headley H Horton R E Marshall J H Hampshire K W R Fletcher G Boycott D L Amiss

Runs 2139 2093 2037 1930 1837 1774 1768 1691 1588 1578 1575 1567 1562 1537 1524 1524 1513 1483 1447 1433

Average 62.67 63.42 32.85 39.38 36.74 50.68 49.11 43.35 31.13 28.17 28.12 31.97 31.87 32.70 33.86 30.48 32.19 29.66 35.29 28.09

John Edrich scored eight first-class hundreds in 1965, and Basil D’Oliveira six. Of the others in the top 20 run-getters for the summer, both Colin Cowdrey and Alan Jones made five centuries while Eric Russell and Tom Graveney completed four apiece.

It was a difficult rain-plagued season for batsmen, especially on frequently damp county pitches, and – like myself – neither Geoffrey Boycott nor Dennis Amiss made a three-figure score despite almost reaching 1,500 first-class runs. Boycott’s best score was 95, and Amiss’s was 86. No one bettered, or indeed matched, my fourteen innings of between 50 and 100; Cowdrey was the next best in that category, with twelve.

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index

index

INDEX Buller, Syd 29, 69, 123, 151 Burrows, Tommy 42, 44 Buss, Tony 53, 58, 96, 98

Allen, David 23, 36, 37, 38, 80 Alley, Bill 20, 23 Amiss, Dennis 45, 56, 118, 148 Andrew, Keith 123 Appleyard, Bob 23 Archer, Ron 150, 151 Arnold, Geoff 107 Aspinall, Ron 93, 94 Atkinson, Graham 20, 23

Cameron, Frank 28 Carter, Bob 49, 52 Cartwright, Tom 42, 44, 116, 128, 133 Clark, Ted 65 Clayton, Geoff 13, 19, 30, 41, 42, 43, 109, 125 Close, Brian 60, 103-104, 106, 152 Coldwell, Len 50, 51 Collins, Roy 13 Cook, Sam 135 Copson, Bill 34 Corran, Andrew 80 Cottam, Bob 68 Cowdrey, Colin 10, 14, 76, 139, 142, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151 Crookes, Norman 143 Crump, Brian 124 Cumbes, Jim 75

Bacher, Ali 149 Bailey, Trevor 59, 113, 114, 149, 150, 151 Bannister, Jack 42, 116, 128 Barber, Bob 13, 43, 68, 115-116, 118, 119, 147, 148, 149 Barker, Andrew 36 Barker, Gordon 114 Barlow, Eddie 142 Barrington, Ken 148 Beaumont, Bill 116 Beddow, Mick 10, 20, 25, 28, 30, 35, 45, 60, 76, 88, 95 Bedser, Alec 31 Benaud, Richie 128 Bennett, Don 58 Bick, Don 58, 69, 70 Binks, Jimmy 61, 104, 152 Birkenshaw, Jack 30 Blackledge, Joe 13, 68, 116 Bland, Colin 149 Bond, Jack 21, 25, 30-31, 52, 53, 60 Booth, Brian 13, 30, 43, 66 Booth, Roy 52 Botten, Jackie 149 Boycott, Geoff 60, 106, 148, 152 Brain, Brian 49 Bromfield, Henry 143 Brearley, Mike 14, 44, 59 Brown, Alan 75, 76, 127, 140 Brown, David 44, 45, 126 Brown, Tony 131, 133, 134, 135, 136

Denness, Mike 76, 140 Dexter, Ted 13, 14, 42, 70, 124, 133, 148 Dick, Art 27 Dixon, Alan 76 D’Oliveira, Basil 10, 50 Dumbrill, Richard 149, 151 Dye, John 76, 139 Edmeades, Brian 49, 114 Edmonds, Roger 45, 118 Edrich, John 10, 108, 134, 148 Edwards, Mike 108, 109 Entwhistle, Bob 22, 25, 27, 28, 29, 35 Flack, Bert 66, 123 Flavell, Jack 49-50, 51, 52 Fletcher, Keith 14, 148, 149, 152 Frost, David 15

Gale, Bob 58 Gardner, Fred 93, 94 Gibbs, Peter 35, 36 Gibson, David 98 Gifford, Norman 50 Gilliat, Richard 35, 36 Goodwin, Keith 19, 22, 26, 30, 49, 52, 96, 126 Graveney, Tom 10, 148 Graves, Peter 96 Greenhough, Tommy 22, 26, 28, 30, 37, 49, 60, 68, 69,, 73, 85, 89, 95, 96, 104, 106, 114, 117, 118, 119, 126, 142 Greensmith, Bill 118 Grieves, Ken 13, 19, 41, 42, 43, 52, 86, 109, 116 Groves, Mike 36

Ibadulla, Billy 45, 128 Illingworth, Ray 23, 104, 106, 152 Ingleby-Mackenzie, Colin 68, 69 Inman, Clive 30 Jackson, Brian 10, 78 Jameson, John 118, 126 Jayasinghe, Stanley 30 Jepson, Arthur 75 Johnson, Laurie 96 Jones, Alan 15, 85, 87, 94, 147-148, 151 Jones, Jeff 93, 94-95 Jones, Simon 95 Keith, Geoffrey 66 Knight, Barry 113, 114, 149, 150-151 Knott, Alan 14, 76, 139 Knox, Gerry 25, 52-53, 57, 60, 69, 79, 107, 109

Hallam, Maurice 30 Hallows, Charlie 65, 70 Hampshire, John 106, 152 Harman, Roger 108 Hayes, Frank 79 Hedges, Bernard 87, 88 Higgs, Ken 9, 21, 22, 26, 28, 30, 36, 43, 52, 58, 60, 75, 77, 78, 85, 88, 89, 94, 96, 98, 105, 109, 115, 117, 124, 133, 139, 140, 141, 142 Higham, Dick 53 Hill, Graham 15 Hill, Len 85 Hilton, Colin 43, 141 Hilton, Malcolm 116, 117 Hobbs, Robin 114, 149 Hodgson, Geoffrey 26 Hooker, Ronnie 58 Horner, Norman 94 Howard, Ken 26, 49, 69, 85, 86 Hutton, Len 76, 86 Hutton, Richard 104, 106, 152

Laker, Jim 23, 31 Lance, Tiger 142, 150 Langford, Brian 23, 30 Larter, David 124-125 Lay, Ron 75 Leary, Stuart 76, 78 Lever, Peter 22, 26, 43, 58, 69, 75, 89, 96, 106, 109, 134, 136, 139, 140, 141, 143 Lewis, Brian 88 Lewis, Euros 86, 88 Lewis, Tony 14 Lightfoot, Albert 124 Lindsay, Denis 149 Lindwall, Ray 150 Livingston, Jock 56 Lloyd, Clive 137 Lloyd, David 25, 69, 106, 109, 115, 124, 142, 143 Lock, Tony 30, 31, 135 Lorimer, Reverend Malcolm 77 Luckhurst, Brian 75, 140, 148

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index

Pullar, Geoff 9, 20, 21, 25, 28, 30, 35, 37, 38, 56, 57, 60, 66, 68, 69, 73, 79, 88, 95, 107, 109, 112, 113, 115, 118-119, 128, 131, 134

Marner, Peter 13, 19, 30, 41, 43, 56, 86, 109 Marshall, Roy 77 Martin, John 35 May, Peter 147 Mence, Michael 118 Mercer, Jack 105 Mercer, Tony 15 Meyer, Barrie 134 Milburn, Colin 14, 15, 125, 148, 151-152, Miller, Hamish 93 Miller, Roly 118 Milton, Arthur 10, 36, 68, 78, 112 Mortimore, John 10, 23, 37, 38, 80 Motz, Dick 27, 28, 29 Murray, John 14, 150, 152

Ramadhin, Sonny 20, 22, 26, 36, 37, 38, 86, 89 Rees, Alun 88 Reid, John 28 Reynolds, Brian 124 Richards, Barry 149 Rhodes, Harold 10, 29, 78, 95 Richardson, Dick 52 Ridley, Giles 36 Sainsbury, Peter 132 Savage, John 30, 31 Sayer, David 134 Scott, Malcolm 124 Sellers, Brian 106, 148 Shackleton, Derek 68, 69, 131, 132-133, 134 Sharpe, Philip 60, 61 Shepherd, David 36, 37 Shepherd, Don 86, 88, 93, 94, 132 Shuttleworth, Ken 26, 30, 136, 140 Smith, Alan (AC) 68, 115, 118, 128 Smith, David 37, 131, 133, 134, 135, 136 Smith, Mike (MJK) 42, 44, 115, 118, 126, 142, 147, 148, 149, 151 Snellgrove, Ken 25, 95, 96, 115 Snow, John 14, 53, 96, 97 Sobers, Garry 86 Spooner, Dick 94 Standen, Jim 50 Statham, Brian 2, 10, 13, 20, 22, 23, 26, 28, 29, 30, 36, 38, 43, 45, 52, 58, 61, 66, 67, 69, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 85, 88, 89, 94, 95, 96, 104, 109, 113, 114, 115, 118, 124, 133, 139, 140, 141, 150 Steele, David 124, 125 Stephenson, Harold 73 Stewart, Jimmy 115, 118 Storey, Stuart 109 Sullivan, John 25, 45, 58, 79, 95, 104

Nicholson, Tony 15, 60, 61, 106 Oakman, Alan 96 O’Neill, Norman 51 Padgett, Doug 106 Page, Mick 96 Palmer, Ken 20, 21, 23, 29 Parfitt, Peter 10, 58, 70, 147, 149, 150 Parkhouse, Gilbert 87, 112 Parks, Jim 96 Pataudi, Nawab of 68 Pepper, Cec 113 Phillipson, Eddie 29 Piachaud, Dan 31 Pilling, Harry 25, 38, 69, 76, 80, 95, 96, 104, 107, 109, 115, 119, 124, 127, 128, 139 Pocock, Pat 30 Pollard, Vic 29 Pollock, Graeme 142, 143, 149 Pollock, Peter 10, 142, 150 Pollock, Shaun 142 Pressdee, Jim 88 Price, John 58, 65 Prideaux, Roger 124, 148 Procter, Mike 149 Prodger, John 76, 140

Sutcliffe, Bert 29 Sutcliffe, Herbert 44 Sydenham, David 108, 109 Tattersall, Roy 23, 43, 86, 116, 117 Taylor, Brian ‘Tonker’ 114 Taylor, Ken 112 Titmus, Fred 23, 57, 58, 59, 60, 69, 70, 147, 150, 152 Thomson, Ian 96, 97 Trueman, Fred 13, 29, 50, 58, 60, 61, 77, 93, 104, 106, 134, 148, 151 Turner, Stuart 114 Twistleton, Frank 103 Tyson, Frank 50, 76, 77 Underwood, Derek 14, 76, 86, 140 Van der Merwe, Peter 151 Virgin, Roy 23 Walker, Peter 86, 88, 94 Wardle, Johnny 135 Waring, John 106 Washbrook, Cyril 21, 34, 105, 115 Wassell, Alan 132 Welland, Colin 15 Wells, Bryan ‘Bomber’ 80 Wharton, Alan 13, 43 Wheatley, Ossie 86, 93, 94 White, Butch 68-69, 132, 148, 150 Wight, Peter 20, 23 Wilson, Bob 76, 140 Wilson, Don 104, 106, 152 Windows, Tony 37 Wood, Jack 67, 107, 147 Woolmer, Bob 133 Worsley, Duncan 20, 21, 25, 28, 30, 37, 113, 124, 126, 143 Wrightson, Roger 114 Young, Jack 135 *Bold type denotes profile page

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a handful of confetti David Green’s first book, A Handful of Confetti, was published in 2013 and is still available by mail order (£12.99 including P&P). Unique in style, it is a compilation of stories, anecdote, reminiscence, profile and analysis - combining autobiography, keen insight, tall tales and an ever-present, irreverent humour.

Please email: sales@mbpsportsmedia.co.uk to request a copy.

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In the cool and wet summer of 1965 a 25-year-old opening batsman for Lancashire, David Green, did something no cricketer before or since has managed: he scored more than 2,000 first-class runs in an English domestic season without once reaching a century. Fifty years on, Green recalls the events of that summer with candour, humour and affection. In doing so, in a sort of diary of a county season, he also remembers many of the cricketers he played with and against.

His is a cricketing record unlikely to be beaten, although Green doesn’t quite know how he should feel about that. As he writes: “My final tally was 2,037 runs from 63 innings at an average of 32.85 and a top score of 85. If I am to remain the only player in cricket history to have achieved such a feat, and despite the passing of so many years I remain unsure if achievement is exactly the right word to describe it, then writing a book about my unique statistical claim to fame is the least I can do.”

David Green played first-class cricket from 1959 to 1970, for Oxford University, Lancashire and Gloucestershire, before writing on county cricket for the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph for 27 years. Now retired, he lives in Devon. His first book, A Handful of Confetti, was published in 2013.

ISBN 9780956654298

90000 >

9 780956 654298

£12.99