Wisden Extra 11

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WisdenEXTRA No. 11, June 2014

England v Sri Lanka Test series

Our favourite extroverts If, like me, you were young or youngish in the 1990s, the chances are you’ll feel a special bond with Sri Lankan cricket. Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana’s method of seeing off the new ball – hoisting it into the stands – was pretty unheard of, and Aravinda de Silva oozed coolness in winning the 1996 World Cup final against the favourites Australia. Back then England refused to offer Sri Lanka more than one Test, and even declined a tour of the island. Well, they got their comeuppance at a sunny Oval in August 1998 – when Murali exposed England’s hard-handed orthodoxy to the tune of 16 wickets. Somehow it’s easy to believe that Sri Lanka have always played with two fingers to convention.

Kumar Sangakkara is in many ways a grittier player than much of that 1996 generation. But, when he decides to retire from international cricket, he will probably go down as his country’s greatest batsman.

Sangakkara comes into his farewell series in England at ease, and talks freely to Richard Gibson about his experiences and aspirations for the next stage of his life.

Minus Murali, Sri Lanka are less likely to win a Test in England – but this still remains a golden opportunity.

Quite aside from a batting order in flux, England suddenly look vulnerable in the crucial positions of spinner and wicketkeeper. Vic Marks, who counts the cricket chairmanship at Somerset among his duties, considers the chances of two possible Test keepers: Jos Buttler, England’s limited-overs keeper, and Craig Kieswetter, the man he displaced. Except that it was Kieswetter who displaced Buttler at Somerset last year…

All will hopefully become clear.

Eagar’s Eye

We should count ourselves lucky to be able to enjoy this kind of debate. For Wisden on the Great War, an astonishing book published last month, Andrew Renshaw spent four years researching the lives of the cricketers who fought and died in the First World War. Among the fallen were 289 first-class players, which leads Scyld Berry to wonder what the England Test side might have looked like had so many not paid the ultimate price. We are grateful to Scyld for allowing us to reproduce his article.

For the third year, we invite you to enter Wisden’s annual writing competition. It’s your chance to join Brian Carpenter (2013) and Liam Cromar (2014) in seeing your article published in Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. Murrell Osborne was 2014’s runner-up, and he has his vivid account of Bush cricket in Australia featured in this edition of Wisden EXTRA. In a similarly personal vein is My First Test, crafted by the American writer Benjamin Markovits, who attended last summer’s Ashes Test at Chester-le-Street as the ground’s official writer-in-residence. That was when England retained the Ashes with a day and a Test to spare. (Yes, that did actually happen.)

This edition of Wisden EXTRA is the first in association with our new sponsors, Hardys. In our next issue, we’ll be celebrating the five-Test series against India by launching a competition to win a case of their wines. We’ll keep you posted about it via Twitter and Facebook. In the meantime, please let us know what you think about Wisden EXTRA. James Coyne p16

Patrick Eagar, the doyen of cricket photographers, has been capturing England–Sri Lanka encounters since 1984, when Duleep Mendis’s team surprised some by giving a very good account of themselves. Like many, Patrick has always found something vibrant and exciting about the Sri Lankans’ distinctive breed of cricket. In the following pages, he picks ten favourite moments from the thousands of images he has taken over the last 30 years. © John Wisden & Company Limited 2014

Wisden is a trademark of John Wisden & Company Limited WisdenEXTRA • England v Sri Lanka Test series

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The Big Hit Few contemporary cricketers are as respected as Kumar Sangakkara – but should he be ranked among the game’s batting greats? Richard Gibson, who went to meet him before his last Test series in England, certainly thinks so…

A smile and a shake of the head On top of the world: Kumar Sangakkara is jubilant after guiding Sri Lanka to glory in the 2014 World Twenty20.

Pic: Scott Barbour, Getty Images 2

WisdenEXTRA • England v Sri Lanka Test series

Kumar Sangakkara is entering the beginning of the end of his international career. Having recently retired from the shortest form, he has plans to wind down in the other two, and then, a little surprisingly, finish up with a couple of seasons in county cricket.

When mapping out his future beyond Sri Lanka’s two Tests in June, Sangakkara, now 36, talks with a boyish enthusiasm for the English domestic game.

So far, mainly due to international commitments and the IPL, he has had just a couple of bite-sized chunks seven seasons apart. But he sells the chill of Chesterle-Street, his temporary home for a fortnight in May, like it’s the sunshine of the Seychelles.

Twelve months from now, he could be talking as an ex-international: the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand offers the opportunity, if not the easiest conditions, to exit the 50-over game as he did the 20-over version: at its very top. It is uncertain whether he will attract future interest from the IPL – being slicker rather than slogger, Twenty20 has never been his primary suit.

Put simply, to recruit Sangakkara is to recruit a true great of the game. His Test average going to Lord’s is a jaw-dropping 58.07. Not since Graeme Pollock (60.97) was stymied in his prime by South Africa’s sporting isolation 44 years ago has a player ended with such a high return. Sangakkara’s pursuit of excellence has been unrelenting. In addition to his Test acumen, he is one of only four players to have scored over 12,000 runs in one-day internationals.

Not bad for a guy who keeps wicket. Just imagine his influence on young players.

“My end in one-day cricket will be the 2015 World Cup, if I get there fit and in form,” he says.

“They are unpredictable things, so you cannot take them for granted. That will be my last ODI assignment, and then we’ll sit down and see whether continued overleaf

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I am needed for Test cricket after that. We’ll need to make a call on it, but I don’t see myself playing much [for Sri Lanka] beyond 2015.”

The announcement by old friends Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene – within a few hours of each other – that the World Twenty20 would be their swansong in the international form caused anger among the authorities back home. Sangakkara has since smoothed things over, and recognises the need to schedule future departures. “Getting to the finishing line is sometimes hard when you begin to make plans for it. But it’s healthy to think about it, so I will be sitting down this year with my family and working out what to do in the future. Who knows whether a county will have me for a season or two? I would like to wind down slowly, as it can be a bit of a shock to the system if you stop completely. But I don’t believe you can go through life being defined only as a cricketer. It is one part of my life, and once that is done I will have to find a different phase.”

For obvious reasons, few retired internationals now view the county cricket treadmill as their preferred pasture – unless they are genuinely Twenty20-averse.

Sangakkara has a decent record in T20 internationals – comparable to Graeme Smith, who chose London life and the Surrey captaincy with which to wind down his career. It seems that Sangakkara, a trainee lawyer who should not be short of options in retirement, is seeking something similar.

“A couple of seasons [in England] would be fantastic,” he says. “I really enjoyed my time in 2007 with Warwickshire, and Durham have been great.

I like the feel of county dressing-rooms. There is a huge amount of ability in them, and a huge amount of hunger. Durham have been exceptional in that sense.

For a side that’s won the County Championship three times in six years, they seem to have a fantastic attitude, both towards each other and wanting to achieve more.

It’s something I would like to experience again once I’ve stepped down from Sri Lanka. I always say that learning is a two-way street, but once I’ve finished my international career it will be about trying to do a proper job for the county I’m in.

“Cricket brings out who you are as a person. It requires mental strength but also strength of character.

But it’s only a game. There’s a lot more to life that you can also experience, and it will actually enhance what you do out there in the middle. I have been pretty lucky that way in my life, so anything I can do to share my experiences would be welcome.”

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WisdenEXTRA • England v Sri Lanka Test series

Sangakkara has already left a legacy back home in Sri Lanka, where his records decorate the island’s shores.

And since Sangakkara and Jayawardene matured, the new boys on the block have become hoggers of the podium in white-ball cricket. Jayawardene believes that, ever since Sri Lanka were granted Test status back in 1981, there has been an inherent desire among his countrymen to prove themselves worthy of their status and more.

Sangakkara’s take is slightly different. “What’s been my drive to keep going? On the field it’s about ensuring that I’m the best I can be. It’s not about being merely good. Everyone [in international cricket] has got talent, but you have to try to reach a level of performance and consistency that you can see in black and white. Your aim is to reach a standard of excellence you are happy with, and leave the game a bit better for you having played it.

“All the time you are striving to meet your goals – trying to get as many Test hundreds as you can, trying to get into the 10,000-run club [which he achieved in the 2012 Boxing Day Test at Melbourne]. These are things that I did not think possible at one time in my career. As I got accustomed to international cricket those became goals I set for myself.”

In April, Sangakkara was finally able to emulate the “1996 generation” he played alongside as a young man – the likes of Sanath Jayasuriya, Aravinda de Silva, Chaminda Vaas and Muttiah Muralitharan – by winning a global limited-overs trophy. Before this year’s World Twenty20, Sangakkara and Jayawardene had played in five finals without winning any (discounting the rainruined 2002 Champions Trophy, which Sri Lanka shared with India). This time, in Dhaka, it was Sangakkara’s unbeaten 52 off 35 balls which steered Sri Lanka away from another agonising near-miss.

“I was batting with Mahela, and when he got out [caught at midwicket for 24] he walked off, shaking his head and actually apologised. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said.

I was a bit nervous because he is a fantastic player. He’s won so many games for us and is such a good player in finals, but it was my turn to try to see the team home, and it was great to be able to do that.”

Colombo’s streets were transformed into a sea of people that night, a scene repeated days later when the team returned to a heroes’ welcome. Few should underestimate the impact in a country beset over the past decade by tsunami and civil war. “If anyone can get their hands on the pictures from our reception they will continued overleaf

Eagar’s Eye

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What an extraordinary action! I knew Lasith Malinga was a bowler to watch, so when I caught up with him at Edgbaston in 2006, I was determined to get a decent image of his unique style. It took a few attempts to get it right, and there’s always the danger that while you’re concentrating on the moment the ball is released, something important happens at the other end…

It is an utterly amazing bowling style – I remember reading once that a batsman facing Malinga lost sight of the red ball against the umpire’s black trousers, and requested that a sweater be worn as a cross between a skirt and a makeshift personal sightscreen! But I’m pleased with this one: not only does it capture his bizarre action, it also shows the splayed fingers of his left hand as well as his singular hair. It’s a shame, though perhaps not a surprise, that his body can’t cope with the stresses of five-day cricket.

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see an unbroken line of supporters from the airport stretching 40km to Galle Face Green,” Sangakkara smiles, brushing a hand through hair now flecked with grey. “It was just packed. Firecrackers were going off and everyone was shouting, from young infants to those being brought out in wheelchairs. It meant an awful lot to the country. It was a great reminder for us players that no matter how high you reach, your privilege to play is based on the fans. If they don’t watch, the game dies.”

Sri Lanka remain many neutrals’ favourites, owing to their singular playing style and freedom of expression. To widespread astonishment, they even promoted the extrovert fast bowler Lasith Malinga to captain during the latter stages of the World Twenty20 when the appointed man, Dinesh Chandimal, dropped himself because of poor form. “The brand of our cricket is a celebration of cricket itself,” says Sangakkara. “We enjoy what we do, we play fairly but very hard and with a lot of variety, a lot of colour. There is a lot of ability, some great skill too, and when you have that in the pot you have some ups and downs. We don’t so much make statements as express who we are, and we do that in many ways.

“We did it in the one-day series in England in 2006, by chasing 322 at Leeds with 12 overs to spare [Sri Lanka won 5–0]. Once, in Australia [during the 2002-03 VB Series], we got bowled out for 65 by their A-side, so they asked us to play another game, which we lost as well. Then we came back a couple of days later and smashed 343 to beat Australia. We always bring a smile, but a shake of the head sometimes too!

As a country, from school cricket to club cricket to international cricket, we celebrate the game.”

Sangakkara thinks highly of Test and one-day captain Angelo Mathews – the son of a Tamil father and Burgher mother, who, he says, “deals with the pressures of the national captaincy far better than Mahela or I did” – and also of Paul Farbrace, the Englishman who spent four months as Sri Lanka head coach up to the World Twenty20 win before controversially being headhunted by the ECB to become the new assistant to Peter Moores.

“From Paul’s time in 2007, as assistant to Trevor Bayliss, he proved to be a fantastic human being and a really great, rounded coach,” affirms Sangakkara.

“Caring about players, and being able to express that, elicits a far better response than chunks of strategy and analysis. His tenure was fantastic. One loss in 18 games and a World Cup win!

“It was unfortunate that Farby was poached by England. I think they saw the value of having him on board and, of course, we understood that it was a very difficult thing to refuse work in your home conditions.

I can see why it happened, but at the same time it was bitterly disappointing for the side to lose him because we had just started a very positive and very fruitful relationship. We would have liked it to continue for a lot longer.”

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WisdenEXTRA • England v Sri Lanka Test series

Sangakkara’s recent stint with Durham was an exercise in tightening technique. Combating the moving ball in England will be paramount to Sri Lanka’s chances, on what is traditionally one of the toughest tours for Asian cricketers. Having struggled against Yorkshire on debut, Sangakkara responded by taking 159 off Sussex’s attack, his highest score in England to date.

“Playing in England is a challenge, but not an insurmountable one,” says Sangakkara. “The real key is for guys like me to get the runs on the board to put pressure on the opposition. That’s something we’ll have to work really hard at because they’re not the conditions we’re brought up in. One thing you accept with experience is that getting out in the first couple of overs is all right, really. But getting to 20 or 30 and making a silly mistake is not. You are always going to get a good ball that will get you out, whether it’s at the start, the middle or the end of an innings. The key is to be able to delay that ball long enough to score runs.”

England are clearly in transition: only a handful of players remain from the Test side that shared the short series in Sri Lanka two years ago. Most notably, Kevin Pietersen (ostracised) and Graeme Swann (retired) have gone. Sangakkara, though, is mystified that any international team would seek change in a bid for uniformity.

“Accommodating difference and valuing individuality are the most important things in a dressing-room,” he says. “For us, it’s been like that with Lasith. He is very different in the way he looks, and as a person. Not everyone gets on well with each other in a team. There are certain people you might not have dinner with, but that doesn’t take away from the fact they will be valuable players in a national cause, going out trying to win matches. I don’t know the reasons for KP’s exclusion but the fact remains that he’s an amazing player. I’ve watched him, admired him and he is undoubtedly an out-and-out match-winner.

“Of course, as an opposition player I’m not disappointed he’s not around. We know what damage he could have done to us, and the damage he has done to us before. To not have him walk in – that presence he has – is a bit of a relief.

“Without going into details, we’ve had our own issues and difficulties over the years inside the dressing-room and outside it. We’ve dealt with that very well as a side, and having 11 similar players is definitely not a positive thing. Having different players, different attitudes, different individuals and bringing that difference into the mix but being able to commit 100% to a team cause – that’s the beauty of cricket.”

Like many left-handers, Sangakkara was discomfited by Swann’s searching off-spin. On three occasions in their five Tests against each other, Swann drew Sangakkara forward and into a nick to keeper or slip. “Swann was an exceptional spinner, especially to left-handers with his drift and turn,” he acknowledges.

“That’s a big loss. But players go and others step in. They will be different, and some might not think they’re as good but you never know. They become legends in their own right, and there is now a spot open for someone who wants it.”

That is effectively what Sangakkara did when, as a fresh-faced aspiring lawyer from Kandy, he became a beneficiary of a post-1999 World Cup clear-out as

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the national icons of three years earlier were gradually nudged aside. Few could have predicted how high the boy from the hills would climb. Statistically, he is three notches below Pollock and four above the venerated Sachin Tendulkar, his nearest rival from Asia. English cricket is fortunate to play a part in his farewell.

Richard Gibson is a freelance journalist

Eagar’s Eye Sadly, I’ve only ever been to Sri Lanka once, back in early 2001, when the three-Test series was a cracker. England lost heavily at Galle, before fighting back to win 2–1. As in much of the subcontinent, you can see cricket being played anywhere and everywhere, so I did get the chance to watch one or two more impromptu games. This was shot across the bay from the balcony of my hotel in Galle. The beach, and the houses behind, would have been devastated in the tsunami of December 2004. The scale of destruction was appalling, but within three years international cricket had returned to the city – testament to the resilience of the Sri Lankan people.

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Whether or not Matt Prior is fit for the First Test, England have a decision to make about their long-term wicketkeeper. Vic Marks, cricket chairman at Somerset, has seen two of Prior’s likeliest successors at close hand

The hunt for a safe pair of hands The parallel between goalkeepers and wicketkeepers is obvious but genuine. There is only one in every team, which can easily hinder the career paths of young keepers in either sport. No one else really understands the craft involved, which is why two glovemen are often seen huddled together in some enclave after the close of play discussing something crucial in hushed yet animated tones (we always assume it’s to do with webbing or inners – it may well be the fate of the euro for all we know). Keepers of either persuasion are reckoned to be a bit mad, but often lovable. They are, by nature, loners, and in the field they are more exposed than anyone.

Quite where Jos Buttler (pictured) fits into all this is hard to assess. For he represents the new breed of wicketkeeper whose greatest asset is his ability with the bat. He is at heart a batsman, and in his early county days he was a breathtakingly good fieldsman. He can throw the cricket ball like a howitzer; even without gloves he catches flies. Those who have kept all their continued overleaf

Pic: Gareth Copley, Getty Images 8

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lives can rarely field or throw like that. All of which leads to the assumption that Buttler is not so dotty as some of his predecessors behind the stumps.

Think of Keith Andrew, Bob Taylor, Alan Knott, Bruce French or Jack Russell. All had an endearing quirkiness because they were a breed apart. It feels as if they probably donned keeping gloves when they were in nappies – and the ball has been melting gently into their hands ever since. They were born to keep. And if they scored some runs, well, that was a jolly good bonus.

The outlook has changed a bit in the 21st century.

The wicketkeeper has to bat well; indeed he must at the very least be good enough to bat in the first seven. If he is essentially a batsman who like a harassed student is belatedly trying to mug up before the ultimate examination, then so be it.

Consider the debate about England’s Test keeper this spring. Matt Prior’s position has been under scrutiny.

After a poor year at international level (which means, of course, that he scored a very disappointing number of runs) he was dropped for the Boxing Day Test against Australia. Since then his Achilles has been giving him jip, so his fitness has been in doubt as well as his form (this injury probably has nothing to do with his recent passion for cycling, but it makes you wonder).

Those in the frame to succeed him have been modernists: they are essentially batsmen who have learned to keep. Steve Davies at Surrey might be an exception, but then in May he stopped keeping wicket in order to concentrate on his batting – a curious career move given the possible vacancy in the England side a month later. There was the incumbent Jonny Bairstow of Yorkshire, who began his international career as a specialist batsman; Buttler, now established as England’s white-ball keeper; and Craig Kieswetter of Somerset, who did not keep for his school side, but did for South Africa Under-19. (At Millfield in a very strong XI, Adam Wheater, now of Hampshire, did most of the keeping, not Kieswetter.) Down the road at King’s College, Taunton, a couple of years later, Buttler was usually behind the stumps.

However, Buttler was not greatly enthused by the prospect of keeping when he began his Somerset career.

He shone as a young batsman who could hit the ball with breathtaking power and gauge a run-chase with astonishing maturity. Then a dizzying wicketkeeping merry-go-round began.

Almost as soon as he qualified for England in early 2010, Kieswetter was picked to open the batting in limited-overs internationals, and soon replaced Prior 10

WisdenEXTRA • England v Sri Lanka Test series

in the team. Buttler deputised behind the stumps at Somerset, but it was his remarkable batting in one-day cricket that caught the eye. (It still does: at Lord’s at the end of May, he hit England’s fastest one-day hundred, taking his average in List A cricket to almost 50, at a strike-rate of 124; in ODIs, his average is lower, at 33, but his strike-rate is a remarkable 130.)

Buttler demonstrated how he could hit with power down the ground, but these conventional strokes were augmented by a series of flicks and scoops behind the wicket which had everyone gasping. Understandably England’s selectors grew interested and, since they love “multi-dimensional” cricketers, were attracted by Buttler’s capacity to keep. By now Buttler’s attitude had changed; he was shrewd enough to realise that it could be a passport to a more permanent and more immediate slot in the England team. And on the 2012-13 tour of India, he replaced Kieswetter as England’s keeper in both shorter formats.

All these developments left Somerset, Buttler and Kieswetter with a problem, which came to a head last season: one team, two keepers. Somerset naturally wanted to retain both since they were prodigious talents.

However, the club could not offer either a guaranteed place behind the stumps for a guaranteed period of time. Essentially, Kieswetter was the man in possession, having been the club’s first-choice keeper since 2007.

After much agonising, Somerset merely undertook to give Buttler some glovetime to prepare for his England duties. Realistically, nothing more could be promised.

Hence he made the understandable decision to move to Lancashire, where he could be guaranteed the gloves in pursuit of expanding his England career to encompass Test cricket.

Buttler has the capacity to succeed in any form of the game, though some space and patience will be required. He remains a raw talent. French, now England’s wicketkeeping coach, noted early on that Buttler has “good hands”, but he has not spent much time behind the stumps in his professional career. As a batsman he has sparkled against the white ball. He has had less opportunity to evolve against the red ball, though, and there is still a balance to be found. He needs a solid defence as a foundation, and that may yet require work, but he should never stifle his instincts to attack; nor should he shun his unique range of shots. For this is what makes him so exciting to spectators, and so dangerous to opponents.

Vic Marks is cricket correspondent of The Observer

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WisdenEXTRA • England v Sri Lanka Test series

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Eagar’s Eye

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WisdenEXTRA • England v Sri Lanka Test series

If ever a picture reveals how the world has changed, this could be it. Not that back in August 1984 I thought it was anything unusual – I just wanted to illustrate how the toss before a Test match was its own little drama involving two captains and a coin. Wind forward 30 years and there’s a cast of thousands: the match referee, radio, TV, sponsors, mascots – plus endless others. Now I look at it again, it occurs to me that this photograph is actually about what’s not there: no clutter, no hangers-on, no advertising on the grass, apparently not even any stumps at the far end. David Gower called correctly and asked the Sri Lankans to bat. Duleep Mendis’s team had never played a Test at Lord’s before, and I’m not sure I was expecting too much from them, but we were all about to discover that we underestimated the tourists at our peril.

From the Archive

Wisden 1985

Thirty summers ago, England had just been on the wrong end of a 5–0 blanking (to West Indies, rather than Australia), and were expected to take out their frustration on Sri Lanka, who had never played a Test in England before. It didn’t quite turn out that way, as Michael Carey reported

A brave new world in 1984

Scorecard: click here

At Lord’s, August 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 1984. Drawn. Test debut: P. A. de Silva.

Sri Lanka marked their inaugural appearance at Lord’s with a splendid performance, especially with the bat, which won them a host of new admirers and in only their 12th match at this level left few in any doubt about their right to Test status. None of them had played at Lord’s before, yet three of their batsmen, Sidath Wettimuny, Amal Silva and Duleep Mendis, all made centuries. Indeed, Mendis, the captain, was only six short of a second rapid century when he fell to a Botham off-break as the game was drifting to a draw on the final day.

England, by contrast, had many dreadfully inept moments, with both bat and ball, and Gower’s leadership was short of imagination. Ironically, the match was expected to give England some respite after their battering by West Indies; instead, it produced more moments of embarrassment, and if Lamb, whose fourth century of the summer made him one of the few successes, had been caught behind when 36, England might even have had to follow on.

All went wrong for England from the moment the selectors named exactly 11 players, with only one spinner, the weekend before the match. This left Gower with what proved to be an ill-balanced attack for the mildest of pitches. His decision to bowl first, made in anticipation of the ball swinging on a hazy morning, then proved to be the wrong one, and after two early breakthroughs by Botham and Ellison, Sri Lanka ended the first day at 226 for three, Wettimuny reaching three figures despite being restricted by an attack of cramp.

Wettimuny batted throughout the second day as well, when England took only one wicket and Mendis made an unbeaten 100 from only 112 deliveries with glorious strokes, including three hooks for six off Botham.

England contributed to their problems with inefficiency and mismanagement in the field. Despite the ineffectiveness of their quicker bowlers, Pocock was

not seen until mid-afternoon when the score was 366 for four. Three catches went down, and Sri Lanka completed England’s humiliation by twice refusing offers from the umpires to go off for bad light.

Wettimuny and Mendis received standing ovations at the end, and Sri Lanka’s progress was checked only on the third morning when Pocock and Allott, the most accurate of the England bowlers, were used in harness and the batsmen deserted their more orthodox methods to try to accelerate.

Wettimuny’s tremendous effort ended after ten hours 42 minutes, the longest innings in a Test match at Lord’s. His 190 was the highest score by any batsman on his first appearance in a Test in England and had been bettered by a visiting player at Lord’s only by Sir Donald Bradman (254), Gordon Greenidge (214 not out), Martin Donnelly (206), Bill Brown (206 not out), Mohsin Khan (200) and Warren Bardsley (193 not out). The only surprise was that, with three bowlers carrying injuries and an attack which on their tour had bowled out only one county side in 11 innings, Sri Lanka did not go beyond 491 for seven, which was their highest Test total.

But it scarcely mattered, for England continued with the bat as modestly as they had performed in the field. From 27 overs between lunch and tea, the focal point of a Saturday at Lord’s, Tavaré and Broad scored only 49 runs. The ground now rang with shouts of derision after the cheers for Sri Lanka, and Gower even apologised to spectators at his Saturday evening press conference, saying: “That kind of cricket is no fun to watch and it is certainly worse to play like it.”

If there were extenuating circumstances, they concerned Tavaré’s general lack of form all season, plus his reluctance to push the quick single and keep continued overleaf WisdenEXTRA • England v Sri Lanka Test series

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Eagar’s Eye

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If the guiding force behind the triumphant 1996 World Cup campaign was Arjuna Ranatunga, then the hero in the final was the diminutive Aravinda de Silva, who hit 107 not out against Australia. He seems to have been a fixture at the crease whenever I was shooting Sri Lanka – and sometimes when I wasn’t! This image is actually from Lord’s in 1998, when he was given the honour of representing the Rest of the World against MCC. He liked the big stage, and made 82, helping steer his team to victory. I think he felt the cold rather a lot, and was often drowning in sweaters. I reckon he’s got several on in this photo, even though it’s mid-July.

Always friendly, jolly and a delight to deal with, Aravinda is my favourite Sri Lankan cricketer.

the scoreboard moving. Broad, having been pushed into the firing line against West Indies, was all too aware of the need to make runs, with a tour place at stake, and though out of touch he at least did not sell his wicket cheaply.

England avoided the follow-on with five wickets down on the fourth day, although Lamb’s escape and two near things for Ellison, before he had scored, illustrated how hard they found the going against bowling that was no more than workmanlike on a pitch which remained good. D. S. de Silva, a leg-spinner, was able to complete 45 economical overs, despite an ankle injury which had needed an X-ray, and with a lead of 121 Sri Lanka then overcame the loss of two early second-innings wickets to Botham on the last morning and kept England at arm’s length afterwards. Mendis narrowly failed to become only 14

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the second man, George Headley being the other, to make two centuries in a Lord’s Test, and Botham, in his last Test match before taking a winter off from cricket, bowled well to take six wickets and become, with 312, the third highest Test wicket-taker after Dennis Lillee (355) and Bob Willis (325).

The draw, however, meant that England had gone 12 Test matches without a win, equalling the two most barren spells in their history – 1980-81, and between June 1963 and December 1964.

Man of the Match: S. Wettimuny.

Attendance: 32,248; receipts: £120,289.

Michael Carey was cricket correspondent of the Daily Telegraph

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The Test at The Oval in late August 1998 was full of big numbers. Despite winning the World Cup a couple of years earlier, Sri Lanka were disdainfully given just a single match, tacked on at the end of the summer. Arjuna Ranatunga won the toss and decided to field but, thanks to hundreds from Graeme Hick and John Crawley, England made a healthy 445. Sri Lanka also had two centurions – Sanath Jayasuriya made a double and Aravinda de Silva 152 – as they gained a useful lead. And then Muttiah Muralitharan set to work. For a photographer, watching a spinner running through a side is great fun, though you do need to think on your feet. Maybe the back views spoil this shot a fraction, but it’s a big moment – Crawley struck an unbeaten 156 in the first innings – and Murali looks quite pleased to have got him for 14 in the second, doesn’t he? Say what you will about his action, but few cricketers have played the game with half his joie de vivre. He took 16 wickets here, and was denied all ten in the second innings by a run-out. Amazing! Sri Lanka knocked off their target in just five overs.

Eagar’s Eye

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One hundred years since the opening shot was fired, Scyld Berry ponders who might have been in England’s Test XI, had it not been for the appalling losses on the killing fields in the Great War

The team that never was Imagine that all the cricketers who have played in the County Championship so far this season – and a few more in addition – have been wiped out. Completely obliterated. This was what happened in the Great War that began 100 years ago. The appalling number of 289 first-class cricketers died in the course of it, mostly on the battlefield, a few in the accidents and illnesses that result from war. And there was Somerset’s Percy Hardy, who had to return to the Western Front after leave, went into the toilets at King’s Cross station and slit his throat.

He was one of several to commit suicide – whether as an act of insanity, or a very rational one.

Most of the first-class cricketers who died were English, Scottish and Welsh – although there were Australians, South Africans and others besides – and so the England Test team after the First World War was a far cry from what it would have been. England toured Australia in the winter of 1920 and lost 5–0. They had rather more of an excuse than the England teams of 2006-07 and last winter that were whitewashed. In 1920-21 England did not have any “death bowlers”, or excellent bowlers of any kind, because they were dead.

So what would the England team have been like if there had been no Great War? A remarkable new book – Wisden on the Great War – can supply the facts on which to base an answer. Jack Hobbs, Frank Woolley and the wicketkeeper Bert Strudwick would have been in the England team of 1920-21 come what may – alongside perhaps eight cricketers of that lost generation, the youth who were wiped out.

Geoffrey Davies died in action in France aged 22, an all-rounder for Cambridge University and Essex: “there can be little doubt that, but for the War, he would have developed into an England player,” said Wisden’s obituary.

Sydney Askham was good enough to play five firstclass matches for Northamptonshire as a 17-year-old allrounder. He did not live to be 20 as he too died in action.

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Frank Chester of Worcestershire did not die but lost his right arm in action. “Probably no cricketer of 18 had shown such promise since the days of W. G. Grace,” said the county’s president Lord Cobham – an extraordinary statement. Becoming an umpire after the Great War was not so fulfilling for Chester.

So many all-rounders died, like Major Booth of Yorkshire (Major was his Christian name not military rank). He went over the top on the first day of the Somme, was hit by a shell and died in the arms of another Yorkshire cricketer, Abe Waddington. Booth had already represented England, but was only 29.

Another all-rounder was Percy Jeeves of Warwickshire. He achieved a kind of immortality after P. G. Wodehouse watched him playing – with his immaculate appearance – in 1913. But it would have been nicer if he had fulfilled Wisden’s prediction that he could be “perhaps one of the great bowlers of the future.” Jeeves, like Booth, was a medium-pacer of a type we do not see today so is hard to envisage: “he came off the ground with plenty of spin.” Now we shall never know.

Perhaps the most promising batsman to be killed was John Howell, who fell in Flanders, aged 20. “Judging from his wonderful record at Repton it is not too much to say that he was potentially an England batsman.” Wisden added that he was the best schoolboy batsman just before the war.

Lt Hubert Du Boulay was another fine batsman, for Cheltenham College, before he died in action aged 19. Wisden suggested he might become “a very great cricketer.” A photograph of a war memorial in this book conveys the extent of the carnage: Du Boulay was one of 675 Old Cheltonians who died.

Take your pick, from so many fallen, for the 11th player who could have made up England’s Test team after the war. Patsy Hendren survived to play for England,

The 6ft 3in Arthur Jaques (centre, front row), with his Hampshire team during their match against Worcestershire at Dudley, starting on June 27, 1914; next day, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo. In the 1914 season, Jaques took 112 wickets at 18 with his swingers and cutters. He became a captain in the West Yorkshire Regiment, in which his older brother Joseph was a major. On September 27, 1915, both were killed in the same action. Their names are on the Loos Memorial, which commemorates 20,000 men who have no known grave.

and score the second most first-class centuries of all time (170). But it could have been his equally talented brother, Cpl John Michael Hendren, who fell in action.

The first-class counties survived, just about, because most members still paid their subscriptions. But Gloucestershire had to sell their ground – the existing county ground at Nevil Road – to Fry’s to make their ends meet. When peace at last arrived, and cricket resumed, Lancashire proposed two-day Championship matches in 1919. It was an experiment never to be repeated: on a decent pitch, against bowlers enervated by war, there was no chance of a conclusive result.

Rather meanly, batsmen who had lost parts of their leg in the war were initially allowed a runner but then denied. That was the end of the first-class careers of

A. C. Johnston of Hampshire and A. D. Denton of Northamptonshire. And the person who bowled the first ball in first-class cricket after the Great War, Patrick Rucker, back at the Oxford Parks in the summer of 1919, was to die at Dunkirk. He escaped one World War only to die in another.

Let us count ourselves fortunate 100 years on.

Scyld Berry is cricket correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph and a former editor of Wisden. This article first appeared on www.telegraph.co.uk and is reproduced with kind permission.

Wisden on the Great War is published by Bloomsbury, priced £40, and is available here

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ELK STOPPED PLAY AND OTHER TALES FROM WISDEN’S ‘CRICKET ROUND THE WORLD’ It can’t be often that Fidel Castro, the gangs of Los Angeles, Biggles and an agitated Finnish Elk appear together in a book, especially one about cricket. All feature in Elk Stopped Play, a collection of tales garnered from two decades of the Cricket Round the World section of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack.

CLICK HERE TO BUY AT DISCOUNT

www.wisden.com

Eagar’s Eye

6 When David Gower won that toss at Lord’s in 1984, I guess he chose to bowl in the belief that his attack would quickly dismantle the Sri Lankan batsmen. If so, he was quite mistaken.

Jonathan Agnew shared the new ball with Ian Botham, and a couple of early wickets did fall, but not Sidath Wettimuny’s. He really put England in their place, hitting a Boycottian 190 from almost 11 hours, while Duleep Mendis hit a brisker hundred – both were an absolute pleasure to watch. In their first Test at Lord’s, Sri Lanka declared at 491 for seven, and then bowled England out for 370. The game petered to a draw, but my, Sri Lanka had made it clear they were no pushovers.

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Back in the 1920s, Wisden branched out by publishing a rugby football almanack. Once again, as Hugh Chevallier explains, the company has an interest beyond the confines of cricket…

In the starting gate Meet Wisden. Forget for a moment Flintoff, Athers or Boof, and think fetlock, withers and hoof, because Wisden is a two-year-old thoroughbred colt tipped to do well at Newmarket, Goodwood or Thirsk.

OK, it’s in the job spec of every young racehorse to be tipped, but those in the know suggest Wisden really might be one to watch, and not just by those with a love of the summer game.

His parentage will appeal to cricket followers. His sire is Intikhab (that’s the winner of the Queen Anne Stakes run at Ascot in 1998, by the way, and not the former Pakistan Test captain), while his dam – Cayman Sunrise – arguably has a tenuous cricket link thanks to her Caribbean connection.

Indeed it was Wisden’s parentage that prompted Alex Smith, director of Highclere Thoroughbred Racing, to ring the Almanack office last autumn. Would it be OK, he wondered, if he called his new chestnut yearling Wisden?

It seemed appropriate: after all, here was a perennial chestnut favourite that had run and run. The powers that be at Wisden Towers quickly gave their blessing.

There’s another reason why the name might go down well. Now that he has recovered from a minor injury, Wisden (the four-legged one) has bowled up at the Newmarket yard of Sir Michael Stoute, who also manages the Queen’s racehorses. Sir Michael, who was born in Barbados, has an abiding passion for cricket.

Before heading for Suffolk, Wisden underwent some light pre-training at the Wiltshire yard of Malcolm Bastard, who broke him in over the winter.

And it was there, on Wednesday April 23, that he met some of his owners – Highclere enable punters with some spare cash to form a small syndicate of around 20 people – plus a complete racing novice from Wisden (the book).

Wisden wowed his owners by posing for photographs as if to the manner born, but the proof of the pudding will come on the turf. We hope to keep you informed of his progress.

Hugh Chevallier is co-editor of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack

Four fine legs?

Wisden surveys the field at Malcolm Bastard’s yard in April. pic: Alison Begley

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Wow, this is a ground and a half! The Asgiriya Stadium in Kandy is one of the loveliest places in the world to watch cricket, and because it’s quite high, it’s cool – well, not as hot as Galle or Colombo, anyway. The circling mountains are spectacular, and you can see a couple of the flame trees that grow beyond the boundary, too. It’s unique, so far as I know, for being the only Test venue owned by a school, Trinity College, which boasts Kumar Sangakkara as one of its old boys. There’s a Buddhist Research Institute at one end, as well as a view of a huge statue of the Buddha if you look the other way. Sadly, though, the new ground at nearby Pallekelle means that international cricket is unlikely to return. The bowler – giving a decent impression of Jeff Thomson – is Craig White, who in March 2001 took four wickets en route to a narrow victory for England.

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Back in 2000-01, I suspect this sight was the stuff of Mike Atherton’s nightmares – maybe it still is! On their tour of Sri Lanka, England were so preoccupied with the threat of Murali that they relaxed their guard against the other bowlers. In fact, there were two Sri Lankans who claimed more wickets in the series than him, and both were leftarmers. One was the captain and spinner Sanath Jayasuriya, and the other was the opening bowler, Chaminda Vaas. He had an effortless action, and his late swing could trouble the best in the world. Poor Atherton started to lose the plot in those Tests: Vaas got him five times out of six, either lbw or caught behind. This was taken during the First Test, at Galle, one of the hottest places I’ve ever photographed cricket.

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Half a century ago, Murrell Osborne immersed himself in the distinctive world of country cricket in his native Victoria

Men of the soil Bush cricket is deeply embedded in the Australian psyche. Don Bradman, Bill O’Reilly, Mark Taylor, Michael Slater and Peter Siddle are just a few of Australia’s Test cricketers who honed their early skills in rural areas. School readers featured some wonderful stories in this vein – none better, in my opinion, than “The Batting Wizard from the City” by Dal Stivens.

Cricket grounds could be found in the most unusual places, from stone-strewn Birdsville in western Queensland, to the sawn-off mountain ground above the old gold-mining town of Walhalla, Victoria.

Warwick Armstrong once boasted he could land a ball in the hotel at the bottom of the hill, but was caught by a fielder stationed in the trees beyond the boundary.

Freddie Brown’s MCC tourists of 1950-51 played matches at Renmark, Lismore and Euroa.

In the early 1960s I was given the chance to sort the myth from the reality of country cricket. Many of the teams were clearly dynastic in composition. One had ten players with the surname Preston; the 11th told me he was a brother-in-law. I arrived early for my first match, expecting to put up the stumps or sweep the pitch, but was asked to help remove the sheep from the ground. It was just as well that sliding and diving in the field were not so developed back then.

The opposition, drawn from the local youth prison, played with a red ball but in coloured clothing, years before the Packer revolution. Two warders, each armed with a rifle, umpired the match, and their formidable presence killed the DRS half a century before it was introduced.

Our opening bowler arrived, jumped from his night-soil truck, removed a pair of very dirty overalls to reveal his cricket whites, licked his fingers vigorously and commenced bowling. My mother’s early advice – “wash your hands after going to the toilet” – ran through my head as I waited to field the ball. With 50 dunnies on the back of his truck I reckon even Lady Macbeth, wandering the halls, would have been challenged.

The nearby Korweinguboora team had 11 lefthanded batsmen until the education department, with no sense of occasion, appointed a new teacher who batted right-handed. Fortunately he was a competent player. All these experiences were a far cry from Lord’s or the MCG, but the essential spirit was there.

As I return to the area half a century later, the sheep have been replaced by a motor-mower, the prison is now maximum-security with no outside sport permitted, and the town has sewers, leaving our night-cart fingerlicking bowler twiddling his thumbs – or plying his trade in some celestial XI. Over at Korweinguboora, the sawmills, pub and school have gone, and ghosts occupy the cricket ground on Saturday afternoons. Given the current obsession with football in all its forms, I hope country cricket doesn’t go the way of the dodo. Maybe there will be a renaissance before I am summoned to the land of my fathers.

Murrell Osborne’s article was runner-up in Wisden 2014’s writing competition. For information about how to enter this year, click here

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www.wisden.com 26

WisdenEXTRA • England v Sri Lanka Test series

pic: Clare Skinner At Lord’s in April, Middlesex unveiled an honours board celebrating their 29 Wisden Cricketers of the Year – including their current captain, Chris Rogers, named in 2014.Yorkshire (50 Cricketers of the Year) and Surrey (49) have similar honours boards, while Nottinghamshire (also 29) will unveil theirs in August. Click here for a complete list of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year.

England v Sri Lanka

by Steven Lynch

1 2 3 4

When did Sri Lanka play their first official Test match?

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QUIZ

Answers on page 31

6 7 8

Who were the England openers who knocked off a victory target of 50 in just five overs to win the 2002 Old Trafford Test with six balls to spare?

Which wicketkeeper, kept on the sidelines as others were considered better batsmen, finally made his Test debut against Sri Lanka at Lord’s in 1988 – and scored 94?

9

On which ground did England pull off a spectacular victory in May 2011, skittling Sri Lanka inside 25 overs on the final afternoon to win by an innings?

Who hammered 82 from 44 balls as Sri Lanka thrashed England in the 1996 World Cup quarter-final?

10

Who was England’s captain in that inaugural Test?

Who played in Sri Lanka’s first Test – and also, uniquely, their 100th?

Muttiah Muralitharan and which other Sri Lankan have taken more than 300 Test wickets?

Who has scored most runs (2,038) and centuries (eight) in Tests between England and Sri Lanka?

Who scored 151 in the most recent Test between the sides, as England squared the series in Colombo in April 2012?

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My First Test Growing up in Texas, Benjamin Markovits thought golf was the most indulgent sport there was. Then he moved to England...

Northern exposure Scorecard: click here

Even as a kid, I had a strangely passionate relationship with England. It was a country I had lived in and knew first-hand, but this was also a romance conducted long-distance from Austin, Texas, where I spent most of my childhood. On Thursday nights, American Public Television aired the best of British mysteries, shows like “Rumpole of the Bailey” and “Inspector Morse”; then on Sundays, Masterpiece Theatre broadcast BBC drama – you can find the wonderfully uber-English opening credits on YouTube. Morse, in one of the novels, reflects on what he considers to be the saddest lines in English verse: “Not a line of her writing have I, / Not a thread of her hair,” from a poem by Thomas Hardy. But I had dived deep enough into Anglophilia to replace them with another, by John Betjeman: “And we were seventysix for seven, / And they had C. B. Fry…” A big part of what I liked about cricket was its Englishness. The ground in summer is so hard in Texas that you have to douse the crease to hammer in the stumps. But we played sometimes, in the park by the fire station, using those bright orange rubber balls, which my dad bought from Lillywhites during our visits to London. I never played in a real match until I was in my mid-thirties, by which point I was living in the city full-time. A friend invited me to join his village side, so I drove up on a Saturday and parked by the green. A small road ran through the outfield. Women in hats picnicked by the boundary throughout the afternoon. I waited all day to get in, walked to the crease, faced two balls, was called out for a nick I never felt, and walked back again.

Then we ate some sandwiches and went home.

I had seen a County Championship match at Lord’s and spent a day at The Oval during the 2005 Ashes, but the first proper Test match I ever witnessed, from start to finish, was last year in Durham. For an American who isn’t a golf fan, it’s hard to get your head around the idea of a sport that takes all day – and not just all day, of course, but most of a week. I showed up early to catch the first over. The taxi dropped me off near the ground, when the traffic, of pedestrians and cars, became too heavy, and I wandered along in that happy, 28

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chaotic, unhurried, casual tide of people who wash up on the shores of a sporting occasion. The beer lines were busy when I reached the ground. I found my seat, at the windy top of the Chester-le-Street stands. We were surrounded by bosky hills, there were sunshine and clouds, a castle glowed in the distance – whoever was responsible for the scenery had laid the Englishness on pretty thick.

And yet I have to admit I spent a lot of time comparing what I saw to a baseball game. Or didn’t see.

One of the odd things about both sports is that most of the action happens on a scale and at a distance that make it impossible for someone in the crowd to follow closely. I could see the bowler running in, I could see the batsman move his feet, play a stroke – but it was all a little like that scene in Blow-Up, when the hip young things pantomime playing tennis without a ball. And then, suddenly, the ball would appear again, as if by magic – ploughing through a patch of outfield grass or tossed lightly in the air by the wicketkeeper. People in the stands applauded accordingly.

So I found myself noticing other things. The American novelist Michael Chabon once described baseball as “nothing but a great slow contraption for getting you to pay attention to the cadence of a summer day”. Measured on those lines, cricket is obviously greater and slower. I watched the clouds come and go and shift the trees and send their shadows over the outfield. A friend of mine, a Yorkshireman, who joined me for a couple of days, said the point of Test cricket was to allow grown men to talk to each other without looking at each other. It was a day out – and not just that, a day away. In one of the beer queues I overheard someone saying, sort of proudly, that his wife never let him sleep at home after a day at the Test. He needed a couch to kip on.

On the fourth day, which turned out to be the last, I watched some of the action from the media centre.

I remember seeing all the journalists typing away at their laptops, filing and then refiling their stories over the course of the afternoon. First it seemed clear that

England would stroll to victory and retain the Ashes, as they wrapped up their big second innings – Bell cutting the Australians to ribbons with his third century of the series, before Swann whacked a quick 30 not out. The outcome seemed just doubtful enough for the home crowd to enjoy it; they didn’t really have to worry.

Then Rogers and Warner opened with a century partnership, Khawaja and Clarke continued briskly and, with eight wickets in hand, Australia needed just 132. Everybody figured they had it in the bag. I liked talking to the sports reporters, listening to them very subtly adjusting their explanations of the Test to account for a totally opposed conclusion. Until the Australian middle collapsed and the reporters had to make their adjustments again. By teatime it was only a question of whether the light would hold out for England to finish them off. And then the clouds blew over and the sun came back and they did. I walked out afterwards through

the early-evening crowds, happy and a little drunk.

A baseball game lasts three hours. Maybe you skip school, and your dad bunks off work to take you to the ballpark. It’s an afternoon off. But Test cricket seemed to me like a holiday – for a week you can live a different life. And not even a holiday, exactly, more like a second job. A good job, that gets you out of the house, and lets you shoot the breeze with people who share your interests, people you see for a drink or a cup of tea in between the sessions of more or less pleasant concentration – as your attention fades in and out over the course of the day. But I’ll admit that after it was over I was ready for a long weekend.

Benjamin Markovits, a former professional basketball player, is a writer and novelist who teaches creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.

He was writer-in-residence at the Fourth Ashes Test, at Chester-le-Street, last summer

“I noticed this family at the end of the Oval Test in 1998, just after Murali had ransacked England, and they make such a colourful group. The Sri Lankan flag is so vibrant, it’s always good to include it in a crowd shot if you can – in this instance it’s being worn by the mother!

For me, though, the image is made by the little girl, her umbrella, and her smile.”

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First published in 1697, the famous Old Moore’s Almanack contains weather forecasts, information about the cosmos, astrological observations and tide tables. Its predictions are legendary – and may even shed light on the New Moores Era in English cricket…

As discovered by Tyers and Beach

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This must be Sri Lanka’s finest achievement in cricket – when Arjuna Ranatunga lifted the World Cup at Lahore in 1996. He’s talking to Ian Chappell, with the Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto on the right. It was a long, hot competition, but Ranatunga’s singular and uncompromising captaincy meant Sri Lanka deserved to win.

There are few episodes in cricket more chaotic than the presentation ceremony at the end of a World Cup: we photographers are herded together until the last moment, whereupon a mad scramble ensues to climb on to the podium – a nightmare! Maybe I was tired, but I wasn’t quick enough to make the steps, so I was left looking up at the group. As it turned out, though, it suited me rather well, as most of my rivals’ photos were dominated by enormous red-and-white banners advertising the sponsors, Wills. All the same, I might not have chosen for an umbrella pole to be emerging from Benazir Bhutto’s head!

QUIZ ANSWERS See page 27 1 2 3 4 5

February 1982, against England in Colombo Keith Fletcher Arjuna Ranatunga Jack Russell Sanath Jayasuriya

6 Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan 7 Chaminda Vaas 8 Mahela Jayawardene 9 Cardiff 10 Kevin Pietersen (remember him?)

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