Wisden EXTRA 9

150 editions of the world’s most famous sports book

WisdenEXTRA No. 9, October 2013

On tour Down Under

This touring life Is any sporting cliché more of a cop-out than “what goes on tour, stays on tour”? Is any more misleading? Because as the next few pages demonstrate, there’s not much point going on tour unless you can tell everyone about it. Even in the 1950s, very little was truly private.

The photos taken by the former Wisden editor John Woodcock during his four trips to Australia by boat (from 1950-51 to 1962-63) reflect a gentler age: Ted Dexter throws quoits, Colin Cowdrey takes a deep breath, John Murray goes for a jog. It’s not exactly strength and conditioning, and you shudder to think how they’d get on with bleep tests and skin-fold examinations.

But the look on Len Hutton’s face as he talks to Peter May after morning service one Sunday up on deck is the look perfected by captains throughout the ages: anxious, intense, brooding. And the cricket is still weeks away.

Just ask Nasser Hussain. Like Hutton, he regretted inserting Australia in Brisbane (though unlike Hutton his side did not recover to win the series). Hussain’s article about the pleasures and perils of touring life sums up its delicious torment. Yes, you’re being paid to travel to one of the world’s beauty spots, with all whims catered for and the prospect of immortality in the air.

But, honestly, will someone do something about those Australian bowlers?

Life on tour is nothing if not idealised by those who don’t live it. And it’s probably the case that it’s more straightforward for Hussain now that his only duty is to the Sky commentary box.

Eagar’s Eye

Elsewhere in the ninth edition of Wisden EXTRA – timed to coincide with the departure of the England squad – Vic Marks (Somerset, Western Australia, England and The Observer) brings Woodcock’s story up to date, most unexpectedly with the aid of Robin Jackman’s toothpaste. And we reprint an article from Wisden 2003 by Derek Pringle, who joined Marks on the 1982-83 Ashes trip and had a simple message that got to the heart of touring life: never marry a cricketer.

Australian writer Peter Lalor remembers the sights and sounds (and smells) of his first Test – and the astonishing events of the Centenary game at Melbourne in 1976-77; Tyers and Beach pack an imaginary bag to cover all eventualities.

And, Wisden being nothing if not fair, we’ve dug into our archive and paid more than lip service to the most traumatic Test of the most traumatic series: Adelaide 2006-07. It’s hard to think of two writers more adept at elegant elegy than Matthew Engel and Patrick Collins.

They needed to summon all their powers that day.

We also name our World XI from the last 150 years, as part of Wisden’s ongoing sesquicentennial celebrations. You may not agree with our back-ofan-envelope deliberations, but we always prefer constructive criticism: let us know if you can do better.

Above all, enjoy the read. And, when it gets going, the cricket.

Lawrence Booth

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Patrick Eagar, the doyen of cricket photographers, made his first Ashes tour almost 40 years ago, in 1974-75. Since then he has savoured the camaraderie, the competition and the conviviality of a trip Down Under. In the following pages, he picks ten favourites moments from the many thousands of images he has taken while touring Australia with the England team. © John Wisden & Company Limited 2013

Wisden is a trademark of John Wisden & Company Limited

WisdenEXTRA • On tour Down Under

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The Big Hit

Happy tourists: in 1994-95, Phil Tufnell and Darren Gough take to the rigours of Australian life like a surfer to the breakers.

Pic: Ben Radford, Getty Images

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WisdenEXTRA • On tour Down Under

It wasn’t the most successful of Ashes tours but, as Nasser Hussain explains, he rather enjoyed it, even down to the baby-care routine

On the crest of a wave

You would think that your enjoyment of a tour depends mainly on the results. But we lost 4–1 on my only trip to Australia as captain, in 2002-03 – and I loved it! The hotels are good, the flights efficient, the food great, and the facilities superb. It was just a shame we kept coming up against Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath.

Generally on tour you can get away from things more easily. If you’re captaining the team at home, continued overleaf

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there can be more confusion: there are more players to choose from, and you might be fielding a call from the chairman of selectors after a four-hour drive home through traffic when you’d much rather be spending time with your family again.

It was all a bit more self-contained on tour, although there were definitely more team meetings.

You’d discuss everything from whether or not to impose fines, how to handle the arrival of families, how much the players should net, how the one-day party would be incorporated, and so on.

That trip 11 years ago actually turned into a busier one than usual, because we had issues over whether Graham Thorpe would be coming or not, then injuries to Andrew Flintoff and Darren Gough. But, more often than not, you felt you could go under the radar a bit more when you were away from home.

One of my jobs as either a captain or senior player was to keep an eye on the lads on the fringes of the team. This time, for example, Alastair Cook and the guys will know that they need to make sure Monty Panesar is doing OK. That’s especially the case if you’re constantly leaving a bloke out, as could happen with Monty, because a tour can drag on if they’re never playing a Test.

I remember going to the Caribbean in 1993-94, and Mike Atherton kept telling me I wasn’t playing.

I missed all five Tests, and had to get used to ferrying drinks and working my nuts off in the nets. The toss would take place, and suddenly you had five days of nothing much to look forward to. There are ups and downs for all players, and it’s important you look after the ones who might be struggling – whether it’s homesickness, like with Steve Harmison, or just a lack of runs and wickets.

The public only really see the professional cricketer as he appears out in the middle. But they’re human beings too, and there’s often plenty bubbling under the surface. They’ll be missing their wives and kids, and sometimes it can affect performances.

I was never too prescriptive about the whole teamspirit thing. I do believe in it, and I always regarded it as important – especially when you’re spending two or three months away together. But I was relaxed about what some people might call “cliques”. I’d prefer people to spend an afternoon playing golf or tasting wine with two or three guys they really got on with than having to force chumminess with a load of blokes they didn’t necessarily see eye to eye with.

People ask how disruptive the arrival of families

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WisdenEXTRA • On tour Down Under

could be, but Duncan Fletcher and I had a pretty good system that seemed to work for most of the players: the first month of a tour would be for us, and then the wives and kids could come out after that. And because I was an intense cricketer, I found the presence of my littl’uns very helpful. Changing nappies in Perth was a great way to take my mind off what I did at the toss in Brisbane. It provided a certain perspective on life.

That said, you need to get the balance right. Jetlagged kids can keep you up all night, and if you’re grumpy and tired the next day, chances are you won’t be at your best on the field. But it was really a question of trusting international players to know what worked for them.

I liked to have a mixture of characters. The dressing-room can be a dark and lonely place at times, and guys like Darren Gough or Phil Tufnell could dispel the tension with a silly one-liner. I enjoyed the fact that Tuffers might come round to your room at midnight for a glass of wine and tell you what was what. As captain, you didn’t want to surround yourself with brown-nosers.

I’m occasionally asked which was my favourite place to tour. The Caribbean just oozed cricket in a way I loved, and I have fond memories of it because it was my first trip, in 1989-90. You’d have the taxi driver telling you that Curtly Ambrose was going to kill you, and that would really get you going. At least it got me going...

India is unbeatable for the chaos and the sense that cricket really matters. But I’d say that Australia always struck a happy balance. It never felt like hard work, and three months would just fly by. It’s true that they’d let you have it if they sensed any weakness – and I mean the fans as well as the players – but if you couldn’t enjoy an Aussie tour, you were probably in the wrong job.

As a player, my favourite city was always Sydney, because you were so close to everything: good shops, great golf courses, and the beach. Now that I only travel there as a commentator, I love Hobart in Tasmania, which is weird because the cold used to do my head in as a player. But now we stay in a lovely boutique hotel and we can get away from it all and go fishing. Oh, and there’s less chance of Warne or McGrath ruining your day…

Nasser Hussain played 96 Tests for England, 45 of them as captain – and ten in Australia, where he averaged 41.

The great sport keeps coming on Sky Sports with live and exclusive coverage of the Ashes which are part of an unrivalled autumn of live sport available in HD and via Sky Go

Eagar’s Eye

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Colin Cowdrey asked me to take this one of him and The Don. I was providing the photography for a book he was writing, and Cowdrey wanted to illustrate the contrasting grips used by him and Bradman. There isn’t much difference with the top hand, but look at the index finger and thumb on the bottom hand. You’d think it might have made Bradman stronger on the leg side, but he could manoeuvre the ball wherever he wanted.

Bradman, easily the most famous living cricketer at the time, was very friendly, and shrewd too. He loved talking about the technical aspects of the game. This was on the 1974-75 tour, when Cowdrey answered England’s SOS call: a few days before turning 42, he flew out from London to face the Australian opening pair, Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, who had just broken the hands of Dennis Amiss and John Edrich.

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The business of touring Australia has evolved hugely over the past three decades – as the much-travelled Vic Marks can testify

Room for another They seemed to drink a lot more 30 years ago. Don’t ask for chapter and verse – I can’t remember chapter and verse – although a vague recollection of a whisky-andice-cream evening (Ian Botham’s idea to raise morale after a Test defeat in Adelaide on the 1982-83 tour) comes to mind. Back then, there was more drinking and more fraternisation with the opposition. Actually, there may have been more fraternisation full stop.

A key moment on tour was the announcement of the rooming list. Only the high and mighty in the tour party – or the extremely incompatible – were entitled to a single room. England cricketers always shared rooms until 1997. Malcolm Ashton, once England’s scorer and general factotum, has explained to me how they gave Lord MacLaurin, the all-powerful chairman of what was then known as the TCCB, a guided tour of their digs on the ill-fated Zimbabwe trip of 1996-97.

They shrewdly decided to take MacLaurin to the room occupied by Jack Russell, who had carted all bar the kitchen sink with him. There were cases, pads, gloves, hats, paintbrushes and teabags everywhere. It looked impossible to house one person in his room, let alone two. MacLaurin was taken aback, and immediately decreed that in future England cricketers would have single rooms.

Thus the players acquired greater comfort, but they may have lost something as well. In the archaic days, a good room-mate could be a wonderful asset. In Australia I might have Chris Tavaré one week with his neatly folded pyjamas, and Botham the next (I don’t recall seeing him in pyjamas).

In fact my first room-mate was Robin Jackman.

Aaargh, not Robin Jackman! I knew him only as that obstreperous Surrey fast(ish) bowler who never stopped blethering on when you missed one of his outswingers.

Within an hour or so I’d had a rethink. Here was a worldly-wise, generous companion, who was so much more fun to play with than against.

I soon learned about his long-term “marriage” to Pat Pocock at Surrey – they had roomed together for years, despite certain incompatibilities. They got on famously, and it is hard to imagine a moment when one of them 6

WisdenEXTRA • On tour Down Under

was not jabbering away. But Jackman was a night owl, who liked a drink or two before retiring; Pocock was generally early to bed.

So what happened? In the room each evening, Pocock would move all the furniture out of the Jackman slipway in anticipation of another wobbly, late-night return. Then in the bathroom Pocock would lovingly place the Jackman toothpaste on to the Jackman toothbrush. Thus his return was smooth and silent, and it left Pocock asleep. They lived happily ever after.

In the 1980s the Ashes yo-yoed. It was great fun playing for Western Australia in 1986-87, when England were overcoming their three deficiencies – batting, bowling and fielding – and beating Australia in the process. I could be unbearably sympathetic when Geoff Marsh, Bruce Reid and Tim Zoehrer returned to the WA dressing-room after another defeat.

But in the 1990s, now as a cricket correspondent, I witnessed England being routinely trounced. Each tour, prior to the Brisbane Test, it seemed possible to chisel out the odd reason for optimism. Usually by the time we left the Gabba, and certainly after leaving Perth, we asked how we had allowed ourselves to be so easily duped. “We should play no more than a three-Test series against you Poms,” said the locals. “Isn’t this the second-best team in the world?” they asked, looking at a photograph of the Australia A side.

Gradually the work routine changed with the advent of the web. In the ’90s, a journalist had about ten hours between the close of play and his deadline to file copy. After a good evening out, some struggled to recall whether they had filed or not, while others were still patrolling the hotel corridors at midnight in pursuit of the perfect intro. It is much simpler now, and in some ways preferable: they always want the copy five minutes ago.

The relationship between the players and the press has changed considerably over the last 30 years. Once upon a time they would automatically meet in the hotel bar, since both parties were usually billeted in the same place. However, even in 1982 those relationships were becoming more strained

and confused. Botham had gained such celebrity status that he was a magnet for newshounds. The old chestnut of “what goes on tour, stays on tour” could no longer be applied so rigorously.

Today’s media corps see a fair amount of the players as well, but only at yet another dead-day press conference, the likes of which never happened in the ’80s. The news is minutely managed. Each day some player is paraded out, often reluctantly, to deliver those coveted quotes. It is not always obvious how anyone benefits from this charade.

But one should not complain too much. Touring Australia remains the highlight for any player and any journalist. Specifically there has in recent years been one

vital change for the better – the simple fact that England might easily win.

Believe it or not, the press are happier when England are winning, especially against Australia. After two decades traipsing around watching them being thrashed in Brisbane and beyond, there were greybeards among the hacks having to pinch themselves as they reported the 2010-11 series. They would be happy to do the same this time, too.

Vic Marks is cricket correspondent of The Observer.

He has toured Australia once as a player, chuckled his way through an Ashes winter with Western Australia in 1986-87, and visited six times as a journalist

Eagar’s Eye

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Photographing fireworks and photographing cricket are actually more similar than you might think. It’s a question of finding a good vantage point and getting the timing right. With fireworks, you also have to get the length of exposure correct: too short and you end up with pinpricks; too long and the streaks of colour lose their form. This is New Year at Sydney, part of the rhythm of an Ashes tour that starts at Brisbane and takes in Christmas at Melbourne. Perhaps less welcome is the inevitable late-night walk back to the hotel – no taxis for love or money!

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Eagar’s Eye

Well, what can you say about this one? This is the debris collected after one day at the SCG in January 1975. And as a graphic representation of how much beer has been drunk, it would seem to go down quite well… Perhaps the modernday equivalent is the length of the beer snakes that twist their way across the stands.

I’d wondered what happened to the cans, so one day I got to the ground quite early, and found them, in a colourful heap, by the Bradman Stand.

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WisdenEXTRA • On tour Down Under

From the Archive

Wisden 2007

After a pummelling at Brisbane, England needed runs at Adelaide to settle their nerves.

They declared on 551 for six, convinced of their safety. But, as Matthew Engel recounts, a leg-spinner had other ideas

Shane the sorcerer Scorecard: click here

Australia v England, Second Test, at Adelaide, December 1–5, 2006.

Australia won by six wickets. Toss: England.

Great Man theory, originally associated with the philosopher Thomas Carlyle, holds that the whole of human history has been determined by a handful of people. In cricketing terms, it has always been hard to dispute, especially when you’re sitting at Don Bradman’s home ground.

For four days and 43 minutes of this Test match, there was plenty of time to think about such matters, and also whether it might be more amusing to spend the final afternoon hiring a pedalo on the River Torrens instead of watching this turgid contest dribble away to its inevitable draw. Then came the Great Man. Shane Warne conjured up perhaps the most astounding victory of even his career. Here was a pitch that, all along, had offered the possibility to a batsman with sufficient stamina and perseverance of staying at the crease until the 2010-11 Ashes. Suddenly the placid earth began to crack and crumble and boil and bubble, as if the San Andreas Fault had opened directly underneath.

But the fault was all England’s. In the first innings, they had convinced themselves the Wizard of Oz was no great magician but just a cunning illusionist. Now they thought he could make the earth move. And so he did.

He was given a shove by the first bad umpiring decision of the match: Steve Bucknor gifted Warne the wicket of Strauss, caught off his pad. From that moment, every demon that has haunted English cricket started to play inside the batsmen’s heads. And the greatest of those demons was bowling at them.

From 69 for one, England withered to 129 all out.

Australia’s task – 168 in 36 overs – was no certainty. But the force was with them, and they won with 19 balls to spare. You could replay the final day a hundred times, and the game might be drawn every time. But it won’t be replayed. Such a day could never happen quite like this again.

To understand the drama of the turnaround, it is necessary to loll awhile amid the languor that came before. There was a shock at the start: both teams were unchanged, which meant England were defying public and pundits alike by again omitting Panesar and keeping both Anderson and Giles. There was a second shock too, in the sense that English fatalists presumed such an important toss was bound to be won by Australia.

In fact, Flintoff correctly called heads, and he did not attempt a third shock by fielding. There have been better batting pitches – some England players said it was the slowest they had seen all year – but few more disheartening for bowlers. Warne did get some first-day turn, which was remarkable. But it was soon clear this was unlikely to be one of McGrath’s Tests and, when the second new ball came, it was handed to the wholehearted Clark. The only good news for Australia was that the Adelaide weather was unusually cool and breezy.

It took a while for England to establish any kind of command. Though Bell and Collingwood dug in, Bell wrecked his good work by mishooking on 60.

That brought in Pietersen, but even he could not assert himself. Collingwood reached his hundred off the eighth ball of the second day; Pietersen followed him before lunch. And though the stand easily surpassed the 153 they had put on in adversity at Brisbane, England still had trouble upping the rate. This was due partly to the pitch, partly to the batsmen’s caution, and partly to Warne opting for negative round-the-wicket bowling, which Pietersen could only kick away. He later claimed this showed he had Warne beaten.

Relentlessly, though, both men kept climbing.

Collingwood’s determination had never been in continued overleaf WisdenEXTRA • On tour Down Under

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doubt; but he also soared above his presumed limitations as a primarily leg-side player, cutting and cover-driving, and then dancing down the track to straight-drive Warne to reach 150. Shortly before tea, he became the first England player to score a Test double-century in Australia since Wally Hammond 70 years earlier. Not Hutton, not May, not Boycott, not Gooch, not Atherton… Collingwood. Moments later, he wearily fell for 206, after 515 minutes, 392 balls and 16 fours. The stand was worth 310, England’s fourth-wicket record against Australia.

Pietersen, however, failed to reach the strange landmark he craved: 159. He was out for 158 for the third time in his 20 Tests. Since he was run out, going for a twitchy single trying to get off his own personal version of 99 or Nelson, we may assume this was no coincidence.

The runs kept coming afterwards, not as fast as England wanted, but quickly enough for Flintoff to declare once the total had hit the 550 mark. Some thought at the time he should have batted on longer; Australia lost here with 556 only three years earlier.

As it was, England soon found out what Australia had learned the hard way: it was no fun bowling on this. But they did make inroads with the new ball, and worried

an unusually scratchy Ponting, who flirted with the exit several times. The most notable was on 35: he hooked Hoggard to the deep square boundary where Giles, in from the rope, misjudged the trajectory, and (some said) dropped the Ashes.

Ponting left scratchiness far behind but settled for a mere 142, his tenth hundred in the last 13 Tests, and a stand with Hussey of 192. Hussey hustled most impressively but narrowly missed his hundred; Clarke, playing only because Shane Watson was injured, asserted squatter’s rights and made his. Gilchrist returned to form, and there was 43 from Warne – important in lots of ways, not least in helping England coach Duncan Fletcher justify his insistence on retaining Giles as a decent No. 8.

Hoggard finished with his third seven-for in Test cricket, a remarkable performance, bearing in mind that Warne (the 13th wicket of the match on the stroke of fourth-day tea) was arguably the first batsman who had not been dismissed by either the new ball or his own impetuosity.

Australia were just 38 behind, and only the TV commentators – paid to make the cricket sound interesting – and the English gloompot Geoff Boycott even tried to pretend there was any prospect of

There was a second spinner in that Adelaide Test. And, as Patrick Collins describes, he also played a pivotal role in the drama…

Adelaide, Black Tuesday, 11.55pm Five minutes before midnight, and the lobby bar of the Hyatt Regency, Adelaide, was distinctly subdued.

The cricket writers of England were assembled in morose conclave. Misfortune was no stranger to them, but the latest collapse had been singularly wretched.

They reflected on the words they had written, and wondered if they had been sufficiently savage.

Across the bar, a dozen pink-faced punters were being told by their tour leader, a distinguished former player, that defeat was a national disgrace, that abject surrender was a symptom of the prevailing national malaise and that, yes, another drop of Sauvignon Blanc would go down very nicely.

And over there in the corner, three men sat in a world of their own. In the course of the Test match, Matthew Hoggard had taken seven wickets in a single innings and Paul Collingwood had compiled a memorable double-century. In time, they would remember what they had achieved. But the third man was Ashley Giles. That Ashley Giles. The Man Who Dropped Ricky Ponting On 35.

Poor Giles will for ever remember how, two days earlier, he had put down the simple chance that would have reduced Australia to the tatters of 78 for four.

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WisdenEXTRA • On tour Down Under

On this evening in Adelaide, he evoked John Arlott’s description of Dickie Bird on a bad day: “He looks for all the world like a man who seeks the solace of an empty hotel room and a six-chambered revolver.”

It seemed quite unfair that this sensitive soul should be burdened with most of the blame. Less than a fortnight later, when his wife became seriously ill, he at least would gain perspective. In any case, other sports are far less censorious. Indeed, failure is positively embraced. I have seen English footballers miss crucial penalties and capitalise on their ineptitude with a pizza advertisement. I was there when Eddie the Eagle redefined Olympic ski-jumping. And I once knew a resourceful British heavyweight boxer who, prior to fighting Mike Tyson, sold the advertising space on the soles of his shoes. As he lay unconscious on the canvas, his sales pitch flashed across a million screens.

But cricket likes to point a stern finger at failure, and Giles was its victim of choice. Yet for more than four days, the idea that England would need a victim had seemed absurdly far-fetched. Session by session, we had revelled in England’s recovery from the horrors of Brisbane. As Collingwood chipped out his runs and Kevin Pietersen played his nervelessly extravagant shots

anything happening on the final day. Still, 20,000 turned up, but the weather was warmer now, and the Adelaide Oval an agreeably summery place to sit. They got their money’s worth.

From the start, England’s cricket seemed suddenly tentative. After Bucknor gave out Strauss (even the appeal sounded only three-quarter-hearted), the doubts turned into blind panic. Warne was turning the ball, but mainly out of the footmarks. And Lee was getting reverse swing. A few good hits, though, would have made England safe. They hit three fours in four hours.

Bell dithered disastrously over a single; Pietersen swept Warne and was bowled round his legs (the ball hit the outside of off stump). Mastery, eh? Then Flintoff swished aimlessly. Collingwood stood firm but was completely constricted and, though the tail did better

than the body, England were gone by 3.42.

The gates were thrown open, and spectators began to arrive as they used to do when they heard Bradman was batting. Instead, it was his successors, Ponting and Hussey. There was a wobble when Ponting and Martyn went in quick succession; and Flintoff, leading the charge on his damaged ankle, nearly bowled what would have been the first maiden of the innings. But a wild Pietersen throw turned a last-ball three into a seven, and then for England there was only deflation.

Afterwards, the ageing Australian players galloped and danced with delight round the field before retreating into the evening shadows. Summed up the series, really.

and Hoggard worked for his wickets, we knew just how the news would be received in those faraway wintercold kitchens; how proud they would be to find that a genuine battle had broken out.

In truth, the technical reasons for such a transformation are not always obvious to those of us who love the game dearly while understanding it imperfectly. Accordingly, we formulate a selection of bland remarks which hint at shrewdness. Thus, at tea on the second day, with England at 468 for four, I mumbled: “That’s more like it, isn’t it?” Messrs Pringle (Essex, England and Telegraph) and Marks (Somerset, England and Observer) were wondering if they should explain the pivotal significance of McGrath’s decision to shave half a stride off his run. To me, they replied: “Too bloody right.”

On the morning of day four, I met Geoffrey Boycott behind the Bradman Stand. “More like it, eh?”

I ventured. “Up to a point,” said the sage. “England won’t win, though. Not on this pitch,” he added. I nodded, perceptively. “Still, it’s more like it, isn’t it?” I persevered.

Geoffrey nodded. “Aye,” he said. “A bit.”

And then the sky fell in. It was Warne, of course, who brought it down, with his grotesque repertoire of grunts and grimaces. His supporting cast, hovering around the bat, played its pantomime part: “Bowled, Shayyyne!

Noyce stuff, Warney!” When Pietersen was bowled around his legs, his father left the ground, scratching his head. Warne cackled at the chaos. As The Guardian’s Mike Selvey observed: “Cricket against Australia is never over

till the fat boy spins.”

The match slipped away. I recalled Gelsenkirchen and England’s soccer World Cup capitulation. This was worse. I recalled batting collapses against the likes of Walsh and Ambrose, Lillee and Thomson. This was far worse.

And so the unthinkable became the inevitable.

The so-called Barmy Army seemed not to notice that the end was nigh as they toiled through their choreographed capers. They were bawling a dirge about “the migh-ty, migh-ty Ing-lund!” when a ball from McGrath tore into James Anderson’s pad, and Australia came home by six wickets.

Walking back to the hotel, I met a portly man of mature years. His blazer, tie and the band around his panama hat bore the flame-and-mustard stripes of MCC. And he was clearly distressed. “Can’t believe it,” he said. “Just cannot believe it! One thing getting beaten, but to give up so bloody easily…” As we reached the banks of the Torrens River, he found a bench and sat there forlornly, fanning himself with his panama.

I left him staring at the water, and thought I had never seen a soul made so miserable by a game of cricket. Until I wandered into the lobby bar of the Hyatt Regency, at five minutes before midnight. And spotted The Man Who Dropped Ponting.

Man of the Match: R. T. Ponting. Attendance: 136,761

Patrick Collins is chief sports writer of the Mail on Sunday WisdenEXTRA • On tour Down Under

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Eagar’s Eye

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This is a favourite image, but maybe not for the obvious reason. A real bugbear of mine is how the modern-day photographer has to stay in one position for pretty much the duration of a Test.

I guess that makes it easier for the authorities, but the downside is that many shots have a sameness I’ve always striven to avoid. When I went to a ground, I’d search out the nooks and crannies so I could take shots with an unusual angle or arresting backdrop.

The Oval used to be brilliant for them, but not any more. At the MCG in December 2010, though, I’d made a point of sitting with a friend in the members’ seats so that the background would include part of the Barmy Army. And I got lucky. Tim Bresnan uprooted Ricky Ponting’s middle stump, and the crowd erupted. Or at least some did. The locals in the front seats were less impressed.

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Between 1950-51 and 1962-63, the former Wisden editor John Woodcock took the boat four times to Australia to cover the Ashes for The Times. And his camera went with him. Here, he talks us through a few of his favourite snaps

Life on board “Deck quoits was one of the popular pastimes, and this one was taken on the last of the voyages I made by boat to Australia, for the 1962-63 tour. Ted Dexter is in the middle, with Colin Cowdrey to the left and Alec Bedser to the right. The players used to while away hours playing the game, but it wasn’t quite as popular as “padder” tennis, which was played on a half-court, with large, ping pong-style bats and netting all around to prevent balls going overboard. The best tennis player was Godfrey Evans, who had the agility of a cat, but Alec was pretty good too – he had these giant hands and a long reach. Colin was a good racquets player; Trevor Bailey on the defensive side. Brian Statham had some serious talent, but he could be a little idle.”

“The trips to Australia by boat generally lasted three and a half weeks, and there would always be a fancy-dress party, involving the passengers too – some of whom can be seen in the background here. Godfrey Evans’s party piece was to dress up as Carmen Miranda, and he’d generally win first prize.

This one was from 1950-51, my first tour. I remember a lot of drink going down. My press-box colleague Jim Swanton would put on a pair of dark glasses and a fake moustache and pose as King Farouk of Egypt.”

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“I can’t take the credit for this one – it’s a postcard of the boat we took to Australia in 1958-59. She weighed in at about 28,000 tonnes, which seemed big enough to us, but tiny compared to the liners of today. It was a great life, really. We got billeted in first-class, though some of the players might venture into tourist class if they heard there was a pretty hairdresser down there. The food was wonderful, and the weather almost always lovely. I was of an age with the players, and we got to know each other very well – especially as we’d then go on and stay in the same hotels. They were long trips in those days. In 1950, we left Tilbury on September 14, arrived in Australia on October 9 and didn’t play the first Test in Brisbane until December 1. In all, we were away for seven months.”

“This was the 1954-55 trip, when Len Hutton’s team would come from behind to win 3–1.

Len and Peter May had just been to morning service on a Sunday. It would last about 45 minutes, and gave us all something to do.

Len and Peter, who were both quite reserved people, were probably talking about cricket.

I don’t remember them being especially religious. This was Peter’s first Ashes trip, but the previous year – on the banana boat out to the West Indies – he’d asked Len about batting in the Caribbean. Len told him: “Just keep boogering on.” I liked both men, though Len had a difficult time on that tour, with some people saying he shouldn’t have been captain because he was a professional. Peter was self-effacing. I think he was about to head off after this chat and write a letter.”

“The longdistance runner Gordon Pirie was on board in 1962-63, and he was put to use by the players.

Well, most of them. Freddie Trueman pointed out in no uncertain terms that, as he’d just bowled 1,500 overs in three months (or whatever his complaint was), he intended to put his feet up. The upper photo shows Pirie (stripped to the waist) giving breathing exercises to (left to right) Dexter, Cowdrey, Fred Titmus and Geoff Pullar.

In the shot of them running around deck, John Murray is the figure keeping pace with Pirie (in black shirt). I don’t recall how many times they went around the ship, but it was at a very gentle pace. Any comparison with the training they do today would be quite absurd. The most technical the training ever got was a slip-catching machine, or perhaps the bowling Johnny Wardle used to do on deck to Godfrey’s deputy, Brian Taylor, so that Taylor could get used to picking his Chinaman.”

“This shot, taken on the 1958-59 tour, includes Peter Loader, Arthur Milton, Brian Statham and Tom Graveney. Loader and Statham were inseparable, in a manner I only ever saw with two other pairs of England cricketers: John Murray and David Allen, and Graham Gooch and John Emburey. On that trip, Peter got the flu in Brisbane, and Freddie Brown, the tour manager, asked me if I’d mind “George” [Statham] moving from Peter’s room into mine to avoid him picking it up too. I said of course not – we were old friends, and in any case George went out every night with his chums. He was a very laid-back man, but come the first morning of the Test I was reminded of something John Arlott had once said about how it’s not just batsmen who get nervous. He was suddenly a different man – on edge. It was remarkable to see the change.”

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My First Test An eight-year-old Peter Lalor was barely tall enough to get a decent view of the Centenary Test of 1976-77. But what he saw, he loved

A sensory awakening Scorecard: click here

To the cricket tragic, first Tests are as memorable as the first sexual experience is to everyone else. Mine, alas, turned out to be counterfeit, so it is the second that shall have to be recorded here. The first? That can be put down to experience.

Let me explain. I was born in Bendigo, Victoria, a few hours along the old Calder Highway from Melbourne, and it wasn’t until January 2, 1972 that the old man threw me in the back of a mate’s tradesman’s van to watch my first game of cricket, up the road at the MCG. There were no seats for me and the tradesman’s son, but there was plenty of room to engage in a few intense bouts of the Test-match board game as we wended our way south to the old stadium. Alas, it was not a Test match that awaited, for it had been denied such status.

In scenes reminiscent of the recent stand-off between the Indian and South African boards – but for reasons far nobler – Don Bradman had withdrawn the offer for South Africa to visit that summer, after being convinced of the merits of the apartheid bans by a young leftwing political activist. At the last minute, the wily old Bradman had assembled a World XI that included some South African players, arguing wisely that the ban should not extend to individuals.

So, although the sight of the exotic Bishan Bedi – surely the first man I had ever seen in a patka – catching Dennis Lillee is burned on my young brain as surely as any first sexual fumblings, I could not yet say I’d seen a Test match. Still, I did see Lillee steaming in late that day, and Hylton Ackerman give up his wicket to the young demon. Although only eight, I was so satisfied I almost craved a post-coital cigarette.

Lillee was the god of my youth. A couple of weeks

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earlier I had seen him take eight for 29 against the World XI in glorious, low-definition black and white images captured by a single camera and beamed across the continent from the WACA to our weatherboard home in Bendigo. An infatuation with fast bowling and Test cricket was born in that televised spell.

Most cricket in the intervening years was observed on television where possible, but in the summer of 1977 the Lalors found themselves holed up with a kindly couple in the suburbs of Melbourne and holding tickets to the first two days of the Centenary Test. If one memory stands out, it’s the crowd. When you’re yet to attain full height, the experience of being in a pressing, heaving group of (mostly) men is rather intimidating. All you can see, feel and know of the moment is a closing forest of large, hot bodies. There is is little air, and no landmarks, no open space or sense of direction.

The trains were one thing, but the pilgrimage from platform to street level was intense, broken only by the good humour of the crowd and one of the most extraordinary farts ever emitted in a public place. I am sure there would have been a stampede if there had been anywhere to stampede. As it was, we edged forward slowly, stewing, eyes watering. I was asphyxiated, wondering if the air was cleaner up there with the big folk.

We had tickets for the Southern Stand. Of means too meagre to afford seats, dad, little brother, our host and I took up a position behind a chain-link fence to watch the opening day. Taller fans kindly let us forward and, as the day passed, the empty tin cans that gathered round the drinkers’ feet were employed to create a platform from which to view the action.

Did I mention action? John Lever, Bob Willis, Chris Old and Derek Underwood ensured that all we saw was a steady progression of colonials making their way back to the pavilion. A young Greg Chappell fashioned some resistance, but the most memorable moments were all in the stands. What a strange and simple mob we were back then. Australians had embraced the moustache, the shirtless beer gut and a yobbo humour that was captured perfectly by comedian Paul Hogan, a former Sydney Harbour Bridge painter. Little did we know at the time that the comedian’s offsider, John “Strop” Cornell, was busy behind the scenes signing up players for Kerry Packer’s World Series. But that’s another story.

The day was marked by an evolving series of chants along the lines of “Will-is weak as piss” (presumably weak English piss, not the robust stuff Aussies drink), and “X is a wanker”, where X equals whoever wandered close to the fence or was in the act of bowling. Where the value of X could not be specified, X equalled Pom, and all Poms were wankers, a fact that could apparently be proved by simple mathematics.

Oh how the wit of my broad-bellied countrymen captured my young mind! I could not wait for the day when I, too, could arrive with so much beer that it

took four men to carry in each fan’s supply and four to carry him out at the end of the day. I anticipated equally the day my voice would break and I, too, could boom out witticisms. As it was, I sounded like a puppy’s squeaky toy.

Australia were done before stumps for 138, with Rick McCosker in hospital with a broken jaw, but Lillee came through that evening, knocking over Bob Woolmer on his way to six first-innings wickets. The roar when Max Walker got Tony Greig was the loudest of the following day as England were removed for 95.

We watched the rest of action on the television as the match, fittingly, unfolded into one of the more extraordinary of the era. McCosker defying the injured jaw to bat, David Hookes’s succession of fours off Greig, and Derek Randall’s outstanding second-innings knock.

Australia won by 45 runs, the exact margin of their victory over England a century earlier.

To this day I can see Randall accepting his match award and hear him thank Lillee for the “boomp on the head”. I was 100 years late to this game, but figured there was still a bit to come.

Peter Lalor is a cricket writer for The Australian

Everyone in the England dressing-room was so euphoric after England retained the Ashes at Melbourne in 1986-87 that no one cared what was happening! I think Mike Gatting had inadvertently spilt some beer on Elton John’s shiny suit – and possibly on his hat too – so he decided to take full-scale revenge. Quite a few England players were into their pop music, and of course Elton John was and is a huge cricket fan. In an intimate setting like this, I try not to use flash, which can be very intrusive, but since there was a TV crew there too, I took advantage of their lighting. In the background are Bill Athey, Phil DeFreitas, Neil Foster (obscured), and Liam and Ian Botham.

Eagar’s Eye

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Eagar’s Eye

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Ah, the much-missed rest day! This, would you believe, was taken in the middle of the Third Test of the 1982-83 series. After three days slogging it out at Adelaide, the players, media and officials were all invited to the Yalumba winery, about 50 miles away, by its owner, Wyndham “Windy” Hill-Smith. You can see a bottle of white on the left. Windy was extremely generous, and the turn-out for a day of swimming, chatting, mooching, tennising and barbecueing was always impressive. Bliss. Here Dennis Lillee and Ian Botham chat through the previous three days. England were up against it: they were 90 for one in their second innings after following on 222 behind, and would lose heavily on the fifth morning. Botham probably needed a rest day rather more than Lillee, who was recuperating after a knee operation that ruled him out of all but the first match of the series.

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From the Archive

Wisden 2003

Over a decade ago, in the 2003 edition of Wisden, Derek Pringle mulled on the question of whether a leading player could also be a family man. His conclusion was simple...

Don’t marry a cricketer Cricket and family life have never been easy bedfellows. A relationship which was at odds long before women were given the vote appears to have reached a crisis of late.

Within the game, there has been a spate of well-publicised marital break-ups; outside it, the world is adapting to new rules of engagement between the sexes. The leading players are finding that cricket is making greater demands on them than ever before – and so are their wives.

Even though a successful Test career is now shorter than it used to be, at six to ten years, wives and girlfriends are no longer tolerating their lot as cricket widows and virtual single parents. A high-profile husband may have his allure but, once the cachet fades, many are swapping them for men who spend their weekends at home washing the car and mowing the lawn – or even cooking the lunch and bathing the kids.

The sheer time taken by the game, especially at weekends, has rarely been popular with families: up to ten hours a day, often seven days a week, if you include journeys and preparation time. Normal folk who receive an invitation to a christening from a professional cricketer have to look at it twice because it tends to be during the week. Add lengthy tours of three or four months to the load and it amounts to a huge strain, particularly on those who have come to expect more of husbands and fathers than previous generations.

The problems appear both generational and cultural, with the majority of divorces occurring in England, though a quick check reveals that nowhere is immune.

India, to pick a country with different social mores, has its marital casualties: before he was ever accused of matchfixing, Mohammad Azharuddin caused a scandal by walking out of an arranged marriage and settling down with a Bollywood actress. Javagal Srinath’s marriage broke up and Sourav Ganguly’s touched breaking point when he was photographed at a temple with another film star.

Other cricketers caught in the full glare of Indian celebrity have been tempted, though many feel it is a honey-trap

used by underworld figures hoping to blackmail players into fixing matches.

The absenteeism is felt far more in England, where little more than a few weeks separate the hectic sixmonth home season from the moment wives wave their husbands off on tour in October. It would not be sanctioned now, but on the 1982-83 tour of Australia and New Zealand, Chris Tavaré, who had recently married, brought his wife Vanessa along for the entire 148-day trip.

What none of the team knew at the time was that Vanessa had phobias about flying and heights, both of which required heavy sedation. With 23 flights and most of the hotels set in downtown skyscrapers, a lot of sedative was needed. If Tavaré was unhappy he never showed it. It wasn’t until the Fourth Test in Melbourne that he played his first shot in anger.

Once a relationship becomes strained, cricket rarely seems able to offer a compromise. Recently, Darren Gough, Graham Thorpe, Mark Butcher and Dominic Cork have all seen their marriages break up while on England duty. In Thorpe’s case, the public saw it too: he flew home from India at the beginning of a Test match in an attempt to save his marriage, appeared on his doorstep in Surrey to talk frankly about it, and later played for England at Lord’s when clearly not himself during a custody battle over his two small children. He retired from one-day internationals with the World Cup looming to spend more time with the children, giving up a sizeable income as a result.

Others are doing the sums, and players who spent last winter [2002-03] with both the Test and one-day sides in Australia and the World Cup in South Africa did not see their own beds for 140 nights. Missing the kids growing up is a regret many cricketers cite as a downside of their job, but it is one that most do little about. On the same 1982-83 tour as the Tavarés, the England team continued overleaf WisdenEXTRA • On tour Down Under

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were sponsored by JVC. Getting some of their product was part of the deal; while most of the players chose hi-fi, Derek Randall picked a fussy-looking video camera. He said it was “for the missus”, so she could film the kids growing up for him.

Keith Fletcher’s playing career with Essex and England lasted more than 20 years from tentative newcomer to wise old guru. He was married throughout, and still is, to Sue, and they have two grown-up daughters, Sarah and Tara. Sue doesn’t feel she or the children suffered unduly as a result of his absence. “I certainly don’t look back with resentment, and the girls grew up thinking it was the norm,” she says. “I don’t feel it has affected them in any way and they both have a great relationship with their father.”

An itinerant father can confuse young children. In his diary of the 1997-98 West Indies tour, Phil Tufnell’s last entry tells of arriving back at Heathrow to be greeted by his three-year-old daughter Poppy waving and shouting: “Bye-bye, Daddy.”

Being away for long periods does not just affect wives and children. Players spending half their year in hotel rooms become lonely and frustrated. When that happens, temptation to stray can be hard to resist, and public disclosures of affairs have in some cases precipitated the split. Fame has always been a potent aphrodisiac.

In England, marital break-up among cricketers has increased steadily, a trend in step with a wider society that has seen the divorce rate treble in a generation. Research recently commissioned by the Lord Chancellor’s Department found many of today’s generation “selfishly pursue careers and other interests at the expense of marriage or long-term relationships”.

Cricketers, like most professional sportsmen, have probably just been selfish for longer. Before the 1990s, the situation was largely tolerated, though not by Phillip DeFreitas’s first wife, who made it clear she considered her own career far more important – thanks to its relative longevity – then her spouse’s. These days, wives with children expect husbands to contribute more than a pay packet. Many cricketers struggle to deliver, and not only because of their absence. Cricket dressingrooms act as quasi-family units, though ones where responsibility, beyond the immediate task of scoring runs or taking wickets, is often lacking. The laddish bonhomie and sporting drama that come with the job do not prepare players for the raw emotions of life. But while an upset on the pitch can be sorted in the nets or by having a chat with the coach, a failing relationship with a loved one is not so easily remedied, especially when the player is a few time zones away.

The fact that players now move county more frequently than in the past means that traditional support networks for wives, such as aunts and grandmothers, may no longer be within easy reach. Where children are settled at school, many simply refuse to move, leaving players to live like the blokes in Men Behaving Badly for virtually the whole season. Part of the problem stems, as one wife of a well-known player confirms, from the women not 20

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thinking the whole deal through before they settle down with a professional cricketer. Often they meet their man before he has been picked for international duty. Only when the merry-go-round of touring meets the treadmill of county cricket does the antisocial nature of the whole business hit them.

There is a distinct generation gap. Sue Fletcher, a stoic by nature, recalls the England wives of the late 1960s and early 70s being a close-knit group that was more like a self-help collective than a bunch of disillusioned housewives. “We knew what the form was about looking after the kids; our husbands made that clear from day one,” she says. “When they were on tour, and they were long tours in those days, the wives used to visit each other back in England. It helped that we all got on well and had children roughly the same age. But we rallied round and got on with it because that’s how it was.”

In those days, families were allowed to tour but were not encouraged. As at the gentlemen’s clubs of the time, women were seen as a distraction and rather too civilising for cricketers sent to win important battles on foreign soil.

The Test and County Cricket Board used to control visits, which players had to pay for, including flights and hotel rooms.

“I remember going to visit Keith on tour and being allowed to spend 21 nights with him,” Sue Fletcher says.

“We had to pay every penny, and often it took up the entire tour fee so you’d make nothing. Because of those financial constraints, wives on tour, especially with kids in tow, were the exception rather than the rule.”

These days, there are still limits, but they are less strict.

Providing a player is abroad for more than 60 days, the England and Wales Cricket Board allow 30 days’ family provision for players who are in both the Test and oneday sides and 16 for those in one or the other. The board also pay for return flights (in economy) for wives and children under 18, all accommodation, some internal travel and a modest daily meal allowance.

The timing of visits is still controlled and has to be agreed in advance by the captain and coach. Usually the period falls around Christmas and New Year, just as the Test series is coming to a climax, a situation that can add to the tension, especially when families come to realise that Daddy is not on holiday too.

Occasionally, special cases are allowed. Not wanting to miss the birth of his second child, Nasser Hussain settled his wife Karen and toddler Jacob in Perth just before the start of the 2002-03 tour of Australia, a first for an England captain. He flew out ahead of the team and was given a few days off after the First Test so he could be there for the birth, which was even timed to fit into his schedule: as he chivalrously put it in his newspaper column, “we had her induced”. This prompted much huffing and puffing from the old guard, led by Ray Illingworth, who accused Hussain of leaving a sinking ship. Put it down to the David Beckham effect if you like, but such instances are likely to rise, along with the costs, continued overleaf

If ever a pic illustrates how Ashes tours have changed, it’s this. For decades, the players and the media would get together to celebrate Christmas, and here are Robin Hood (aka Mike Atherton) and the Fairy Godmother (the England physio David “Rooster” Roberts). What usually happened was that the media put on a panto watched by the players, who had turned up in fancy dress; this year everyone must have looked rather similar as the fancy-dress theme seems to have been pantomime characters. After the performance, we would chat for a while, with us photographers allowed to mingle and snap as we liked. Then the players would go off for their lunch and we for ours. There was complete trust between the two groups, and no one abused it. This was 1994-95, and I reckon it was probably the last time it happened in Australia. It’s a shame it stopped, but we inhabit a different world now. Looking back, I think it was the 1983-84 tour of New Zealand when the change began: Ian Botham had become enough of a celebrity for the news desks – as opposed to the sports desks – to send out journalists who were prepared to report stories the cricket writers wouldn’t touch.

Eagar’s Eye

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as the board try to keep players and their wives happy.

Family visits, even when the cost to players is minimal, are often fraught. Denise Fraser, wife of Angus, was one of the generation of England wives after Sue Fletcher.

They have been together since before Fraser became an England regular, fitness permitting, in 1989. They had a son, Alexander, in 1993, a daughter, Bethan, in 1995, and got married in 1996. Denise had mixed feelings about her times on tour. “Before the children were born, trips to the West Indies were great fun, especially when players like David Gower and Allan Lamb were about.

But in my experience, we were not always made to feel welcome and, although the wives and kids often lifted morale when we arrived, we also added to the stress.”

Denise Fraser remembers the 1995-96 tour of South Africa as particularly blighted. England’s tour party grew from 20 to over 70 as families arrived for Christmas in Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. The team manager, Illingworth, was so incensed by the chaos that he blamed it for England’s defeat in the series – the Fifth Test, at Newlands, was the only one with a result.

“It was disastrous,” Denise Fraser says. “We stayed in a city-centre hotel that had no facilities for the kids, and players had to give up their seats for us on the team bus.

We felt unwelcome, especially when Illingworth blamed us for the defeat, which was unfair. I remember England winning in both Barbados and Melbourne just after the wives had come out.”

According to Denise Fraser, the situation could have been avoided with a bit of foresight and planning.

The board tacitly acknowledged as much after that tour, when they began to send Medha Laud, the international teams administrator and one of their most senior women employees, ahead of the team, to vet hotels for their suitability.

Families on tour need to be looked after. South Africa make their team bus available to ferry them to and from the game, though at different times from the players, or to the shops or sights. Bob Woolmer, South Africa’s coach from 1994 to 1999, got the idea from Kerry Packer’s World Series in the 1970s, where the wives were given a manager who organised shopping trips and sightseeing for them. “Players didn’t have to worry about whether the wife was being looked after or not and could get on with playing cricket,” Woolmer says. “You’d then meet up in the evening for supper like couples leading normal lives.

It’s simple and effective, but few teams bother.”

South Africa’s enlightened approach extends further, and players have been allowed to miss tours to spend time with their families. Jonty Rhodes skipped the tour of India in 2000, with the board’s blessing, to be present at the birth of his first child – the first recorded case of a cricketer being given more than a day or two’s paternity leave. In the past, leading England players would pick and choose, as Graham Gooch did when he missed the 1986-87 Ashes tour and half the next winter, but that is almost unheard-of now; after Alec Stewart, who chose not to tour India in 2001-02, mentioned that it would be nice to be around for the Christmas shopping, he faced 22

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criticism from the England management. Competition for places is keener and, Bangladesh apart, there are no longer opponents who allow you to get away with fielding a sub-strength side.

Australia’s home series are much like a succession of tours, with every game bar one a flight – and maybe a time zone or two – away. And so the Australian board are proactive in getting the families involved. Wives and kids are always invited to the Melbourne and Sydney Tests, where they are put up in apartment-style suites with the players. When the men go overseas, there is usually a dedicated period of two weeks when their other halves can visit, but if a wife wants to come away for the entire trip, she can. On the 2001 Ashes tour, Steve Waugh rented a flat in London for the summer as a base for his wife Lynette, then pregnant, and their two children.

Waugh warmed up for the First Test by taking them all over to Disneyland Paris for a few days.

The paradox of all the time away from home is that the problems can start when it finishes. A player comes off an arduous tour, expecting to be greeted like a conquering king (or a defeated one), and may find that he no longer fits into the rhythms of home life. “You become so used to their absence,” Denise Fraser says, “that Angus would upset my routines when he got back.

Suddenly there is another body in the equation and you have to get used to living together again.

“Let’s face it, most players are a selfish breed who, if not too tired to help out around the house, bring their problems home with them. They are used to getting everything put on a plate and there were times when I couldn’t wait to get him on his way again.” Angus is now doing it all over again as cricket correspondent of The Independent. “He seems to be away more than ever.”

Top-level sport is accompanied by self-analysis and narcissism, which do not lend themselves to the giveand-take required in most long-term relationships. The endless insecurity tends to propel most cricketers up the aisle by their early twenties, before life skills have been acquired. Some, like Imran Khan, David Gower and Mike Atherton, wait until their careers are all but over before starting a family, but they are unusual.

Darren Gough, who moved out of the family home last year [2002] into a bachelor pad in Milton Keynes, said he felt playing cricket for England was becoming a single man’s game. Given that the international programme has doubled in the last decade, he may be right, but it would be sad if the game’s player-power were further compromised. The hike in matches has come at the behest of television, which bankrolls the modern game. Until that is addressed, something the ICC have yet to do despite the pleas of senior Test captains like Nasser Hussain and Steve Waugh, cricket’s biggest battle will be on the home front.

In 2003, Derek Pringle had recently been made cricket correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, and was unmarried.

Neither his employer nor his marital status has changed since this article was first published

Winner of the Cricket Writers’ Club 2013 Book of the Year

‘A wonderful account – impeccably researched and vividly told – of the deening role cricket has played in the making of modern India' Michael Atherton

‘Astill has written a fascinating book about cricket ... But he has also written a serious book about India’ Philip Collins, e Times ‘Ambitious and excellent … Astill is a lean and elegant writer … above all, e Great Tamasha is a cricket-lover’s book’ Gideon Haigh, e Cricketer

On a Bangalore night in April 2008, cricket and India changed for ever. It was the rst night of the Indian Premier League, which involved big money, glitz, prancing girls and Bollywood stars.

It was not so much sport as tamasha: a great entertainment.

Crossing the subcontinent and meeting the people who make up modern India – from faded princes to back-street bookmakers, slum kids to billionaires – James Astill tells how cricket has become the central focus of the world’s second-biggest nation. e Great Tamasha is a fascinating examination of the most important development in cricket today and essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the workings of modern India.

Life on tour QUIZ 1 2

Who made six Ashes tours of Australia between 1954-55 and 1974-75?

3 4

In what way was the 1968 Australian tour of England different from all its predecessors?

5

And who made five Test-playing tours there between 1978-79 and 1990-91?

Which prolific Hampshire batsman toured Australia in 1911-12, and not again until 1928-29, when he met a man who said: “I remember your father coming here before the war”?

Who toured Australia as a player in 1932-33, as captain in 1950-51, and manager in 1958-59?

By Steven Lynch

Answers on page 29

6 7

What was unusual about Australia’s voyage to England in 1902?

8 9

Which brothers were Australia’s captain and vice-captain on the 1975 tour of England?

10

Which Australian made eight Test-playing tours of England between 1890 and 1912, the last as captain?

Which two players were fined after taking an aeroplane joyride over the ground they were playing at during England’s 1990-91 tour?

When Harold Larwood emigrated to Australia in 1950, he sailed on the ship that had taken the Bodyline tourists Down Under in 1932-33. What was she called?

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Choosing a Test team of the finest players from 150 years was not always straightforward, as James Coyne recounts

AWisden World XI As a light-hearted diversion during Wisden’s 150th anniversary celebrations, we invited readers to name their all-time Test XI – more a friendly bar-room debate than Wisden’s definitive selection. The 12 competition entrants who most closely matched the selection made by the Almanack editorial team won bundles of books from our publishers, Bloomsbury. The winners (see page 29) will be notified by the end of October.

Back in 2000, when there were a mere 137 editions squeezed on to the shelves, Wisden chose its Five Cricketers of the (20th) Century, and they – Hobbs, Bradman, Richards, Sobers and Warne – virtually picked themselves. Malcolm Marshall, who was the complete fast bowler, was a near-unanimous choice to lead the attack. And Sachin Tendulkar’s case – he owns more runs than anyone and far more Test caps than John Wisden has Almanacks – was pretty watertight too.

WG, despite just two centuries in 22 Tests, held off the opening claims of Hutton and Gavaskar.

From then on it was more contentious. To bowl long spells alongside Warne we selected S. F. Barnes, whom many consider the greatest of all English bowlers; it would be fascinating to see (and hear) his reaction to the chief executives’ pitches of today. The fiercest competition was for Marshall’s new-ball partner: Dennis Lillee and Richard Hadlee were narrowly beaten to it by Wasim Akram, given the nod for his left-arm angle and mastery of reverse swing.

“Stumpers or stoppers” is an age-old debate, and the choice of keeper was the most heated in the Wisden offices. Adam Gilchrist turned countless games for Australia with his electrifying range of shots at No. 7.

The question, though, was whether his batting would be needed in a World XI with six of the greatest batsmen of all time above him? After fevered debate, we decided we could afford the luxury of perhaps the finest gloveman, Alan Knott, who would work wonders standing up to Warne, Barnes and – when he was bowling spin – Sobers.

XI from 150 J. B. Hobbs (England, Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1909)

61 Tests, 5,410 runs at 56.94

W. G. Grace (England, CY 1896)

22 Tests, 1,098 runs at 32.29

*D. G. Bradman (Australia, CY 1931)

52 Tests, 6,996 runs at 99.94

S. R. Tendulkar (India, CY 1997) I.V. A. Richards (West Indies, CY 1977) G. S. Sobers (West Indies, CY 1964) †A. P. E. Knott (England, CY 1970)

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198 Tests, 15,837 runs at 53.86 121 Tests, 8,540 runs at 50.23 93 Tests, 8,032 runs at 57.78, 235 wickets at 34.03 95 Tests, 4,389 runs at 32.75, 250 catches, 19 stumpings

Wasim Akram (Pakistan, CY 1993)

104 Tests, 414 wickets at 23.62

S. K. Warne (Australia, CY 1994)

145 Tests, 708 wickets at 25.41

M. D. Marshall (West Indies, CY 1983)

81 Tests, 376 wickets at 20.94

S. F. Barnes (England, CY 1910)

27 Tests, 189 wickets at 16.43

WisdenEXTRA • On tour Down Under

This is one of just two photographs I’ve selected from my last Ashes tour, and it’s one that gave me a lot of pleasure. I’d lost count of the number of buoyant Aussie captains – Allan Border, Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting and a few others – who came close to gloating after yet another season of Pom-bashing, so it was, I admit, gratifying to see the boot on the other foot in 2010-11. Jonathan Agnew never led England, of course, but the sprinkler dance became synonymous with English success on that tour, and he rashly promised to perform it if England won the Ashes. It’s also good to acknowledge the excellent work that the Test Match Special team do, so well done England – and Aggers!

8

Eagar’s Eye

WISDEN CRICKETERS OF THE YEAR A celebration of cricket’s greatest players

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Another England collapse! Back in 1979-80, long before the days of media liaison officers and the like, if you wanted a team photo you had to contact the team manager or his assistant, get permission, and then organise it.

So I traipsed around the MCG gathering chairs and benches. We all collected on the outfield and eventually we got everyone arranged. And then there was some trouble on the backbenches… I think David Gower was the main culprit, and several were toppled in the jostling.

The full cast list is: (back row, at least in theory) Peter Willey, Graham Stevenson (invisible), John Emburey (invisible), Geoffrey Saulez (scorer and also vanished), Graham Dilley (partially obstructed), Ian Botham, Peter Lever; (middle row) Derek Randall, David Bairstow, David Gower, Graham Gooch (picking himself up), Wayne Larkins, Bob Taylor; (seated, and largely untroubled) Bernard Thomas (physio), Derek Underwood, Bob Willis, Alec Bedser (manager), Mike Brearley (captain), Geoff Boycott, Ken Barrington (assistant manager).

A little-known fact about Bernard Thomas is that he had a taste for Rolls-Royces after doing rather well from the personal-fitness business in and around Birmingham. And when he decided to replace his Rolls, he would offload the old model on to a cricketer with an interest in luxury cars: Freddie Trueman.

Eagar’s Eye

26

WisdenEXTRA • On tour Down Under

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England’s touring party heads to Australia, a far-off land famed for its creepy crawlies, bristly moustaches, and bristly moustaches that are actually creepy crawlies on closer inspection. Alastair Cook’s brave lads have packed for all eventualities on the trip and know that whatever they meet on the pitch (or in the country’s rowdier watering holes) they will be well served by their ECB official England Player Tour Survival Kit, as revealed to Tyers & Beach.

Passport holder Gum shield (if meeting opposition players for post-match drink)

Funnel-web spider jar

Dual passport holder

Emergency rations for players missing the food back home

Cleft stick ECB official beach towel (only £199.99 at participating Esso stores or free with a sausage roll at Lord’s) Insect repellent Journalist repellent

Bottle top

iPod Loaded with inspirational songs including Ashes To Ashes To Ashes, We’ll Meet Again (For Another ODI Series) and Money, Money, Money (It’s A Rich Ad Man’s World)

Mints

Orbital sander

X-Box To help the lads to get the most out of this wonderful country and meet its inhabitants (to play online games with them)

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WisdenEXTRA • On tour Down Under

Inflatable potty For post-match celebrations and in case of hostile bouncers Bandage roll In case of giant fast bowlers hitting heads on doorframes

One thing you can’t avoid in Australia is a lot of travel. This was back in 1974-75 on my first Ashes trip, and the plane is heading from Perth to Adelaide. It all looks a bit cramped, but no one flew anything except economy – indeed there might have been no alternative on an internal flight. I think we used Ansett, a long-defunct domestic airline, and the Bedsers – that’s Alec in the middle of the front row and Eric, who had no official capacity on the tour, beside the window – are perusing a team photo. Alec, who was the tour manager, looks as if he’s about to add his signature. Closest to the camera is A. C. Smith, the assistant manager, while in the row behind are a sleepy Brian Luckhurst, Derek Underwood (I think, though it’s not typical) and Geoff Arnold, while behind them are David “Bumble” Lloyd, Peter Lever and Alan Knott.

Eagar’s Eye

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QUIZ ANSWERS See page 23 1 Colin Cowdrey 2 David Gower 3 The team flew to England for the first time, rather than going by ship 4 Philip Mead 5 Freddie Brown

6 T hey sailed on the same ship as the England team, who were returning home after the 1901-02 Ashes 7 Syd Gregory 8 Ian and Greg Chappell 9 David Gower and John Morris 10 SS Orontes

Competition winners: First prize: Ray Beer. Second prize: Christian Kelly. Third prizes: Howard Jones, Tom Gauterin, Chris Lang, George Roberts, Tony Bennett, Joel Lamy, David Luttrell, Athul Ganesh, Hemant Brar, John Peeling WisdenEXTRA • On tour Down Under

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