The Arundel Festival of Cricket Programme 2016

JUNE 22-26, 2016 £2

The Arundel Festival

Cricket Presented by Irwin Mitchell

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Zac Toumazi, Chief Executive

May I offer a warm welcome to the Castle Ground for the 2016 Arundel Festival of Cricket, presented by Irwin Mitchell.

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We’re delighted to be able to return to Arundel once again this season and I’d like to formally thank Irwin Mitchell for their support in hosting this festival, and hope that their staff and their guests enjoy a fantastic week with us at one of the most idyllic grounds in the country.

The annual Arundel Festival is a stand out fixture of any season. It highlights the importance of history and community within our club.

Every year the festival engages with the local community of Sussex and uses cricket to bring people together. We remain committed to taking cricket around the county of Sussex and I’ve said many times that despite us not being able to take a festival to Horsham this season, due to financial constraints, the door is not closed on a return to Cricket Field Road.

This season, we’ll be taking on Northamptonshire in the Specsavers County Championship before welcoming Gloucestershire in the NatWest T20 Blast on Sunday afternoon, so a switch in the scheduling from last year’s games here.

The clash with Northamptonshire will begin at 12.00pm every day.

This is due to the Goodwood Festival of Speed taking place at the same time as the festival, and we hope that the later start affords our members and supporters enough extra time to make the journey to Arundel. We thank Northamptonshire and the ECB for their co-operation with this request.

We hope that the NatWest T20

Blast game this year doesn’t end the same as last summer. A shocking clash of heads between Surrey’s Rory Burns and Moises Henriques resulted in the match being abandoned which was absolutely the correct decision, and we as a club were extremely thankful for the 8,500-strong crowd for being as understanding as they were. We’re pleased that both players made a full recovery from the incident.

For the NatWest T20 Blast match against Gloucestershire, we welcome flagbearers from Haywards Heath CC junior section. There will also be a bucket collection in aid of the Sussex Cricket Foundation carried out by members of West Chiltington & Thakeham CC. Please give generously!

Please enjoy the unique English outground atmosphere at this week’s fixtures, gets behind the team and has a fantastic time in what we hope will be some beautiful weather, competitive cricket and lasting memories.

GOOD OLD SUSSEX BY THE SEA!

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First of all, on behalf of the players and backroom staff I’d like to welcome you to the Irwin Mitchell Arundel Festival of Cricket.

We all love Hove and playing by the seaside, but we also look forward to Arundel week. I can remember falling in love with the place the first time I played here and I still feel the same sense of excitement now, when I drive through the stable yard and see the ground and the trees for the first time. It is the quintessential English setting for the summer game and we hope to produce two performances this week that match the surroundings and are worthy of the excellent support we always get here.

Our Championship opponents are Northamptonshire, whom we met back in April in the opening game of the season, a match which Ben Duckett will always remember after scoring a double hundred against us.

My impressions from the first two months of the Championship campaign is that there is not a lot to choose between a lot of the teams. All six of our games so far have been extremely competitive and hard fought but it was vital that we went into the block of one-day cricket at the start of June with a victory in our last four-day match against Derbyshire and I was thrilled we were able to do so.

I thought we played some very good cricket on all four days and deserved to win. It was a pretty relentless performance from us.

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We bowled them out cheaply in the first innings to set the game up and then our batsmen cashed in. Chris Nash and Ed Joyce gave us such a good start and we built from there.

Luke Wells was very patient, batted for a long time and got his rewards with another hundred.

I must admit it was a massive relief to get that first win. There was an expectation on us to do well this season from outside the club, but inside the camp we feel exactly the same. So I am pleased that the work the players have put in since the start of the season was rewarded. We now have to build on it, starting this week here at Arundel.

Although it was our first win after five draws I think we’ve played some good red-ball cricket this year. The weather probably cost us one, possibly two victories but in other games we have had to fight really hard to come away with a draw, Worcestershire away comes to mind. We batted for two days there to save the game which shows the resilience there is in the squad as well.

During the Derbyshire game it was a pleasure to award Luke Wells, who scored a hundred here last year, his county cap. Luke has always had great potential which I feel he is now starting to fulfil.

He’s mentally strong and is able to bat long periods time but now he’s added another string to his bow with his leg spin bowling which has come on tremendously because of the hard work he put in during the winter. He has also made a couple of technical adjustments to his batting that have helped him push on. Having someone like Luke allows us to balance the side and gives us more flexibility in terms of selection game

by game, depending on the conditions we’re playing in.

If you are unable to get to Hove too often then a couple of the youngsters who could be in our squad this week might be unfamiliar to you. Stuart Whittingham is a fast bowler who is learning fast. I’m glad to have given him the opportunity to play because he deserved it after good performances in preseason and in the second XI. He’s quick and he’s a bowler I feel who can get better and better the more experience he gains.

George Garton, our young left-armer, has had his chance in both the Championship and Royal London One-Day Cup and their involvement just reinforces our message to the young players: if you perform consistently you will get opportunities in the side. We’re not afraid to give youngsters a chance, but they must earn it with performances first.

The Festival ends with a visit from Gloucestershire in the NatWest T20 Blast. Like ourselves, they have started the T20 season well and while they might not have as many big names as other counties they consistently punch above their weight and have a fantastic team work ethic. Like Northamptonshire, we know we are going to be in for a tough game.

I hope the cricket this week matches the surroundings. Arundel has been a pretty good ground for us over the years and it’s important that continues as we reach a critical stage of the summer.

Thanks for your support, mark

Head Coach Mark Davis welcomes you to the Arundel Festival and reflects on the Specsavers County Championship season so far

Teen Gar t age left -ar on Cha has im mer Ge mpi pres orge on se cric ship an d in bot ket t d on h his s e easo -day n

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five days to savour John Barclay, Director of Cricket at Arundel Castle, welcomes you to the 2016 Festival

Welcome, everyone, to Arundel. Welcome of course to the many Sussex supporters who will, I’m sure, converge upon this lovely town in West Sussex and find their special area around the ground from which to watch the cricket.

And, a special welcome to those who have travelled from Northamptonshire and Gloucestershire to savour the joy of the game away from the hurley-burley and bustle of major County grounds.

I never played on an outground in Northamptonshire, always rooted we were to that famous town ground just outside Northampton on the Wellingborough Road and associated with ‘The Cobblers’.

Many an hour I fielded there at third man or fine leg on that bumpy football field, fearful of conced-

ing two runs after a misfield and receiving a loud admonishment from Tony Greig, my captain.

David Steele, maroon cap upturned somewhat, Peter Willey of open stance, Geoff Cook, George Sharp, Wayne Larkins, Alan Lamb, Sarfraz and, a little earlier, Bishan Bedi made up the team. I never made many runs at Northampton, nor do I ever remember getting a bowl.

The goalmouths needed reseeding I noticed and we usually lost. Oh, the joys of the past.

But here we are at Arundel, the

only surviving outground in Sussex for the moment. I hope it makes a happy change for everyone.

The sausage rolls are good (I’m told). There are not many of these grounds left. Like the spottedflycatcher and spin bowlers, they’re becoming something of an endangered species. I believe that half the counties have now dispensed with them altogether (the grounds, that is) and only a few remain. Cheltenham was one of my favourites and, indeed, is one of the very few grounds where I completed a century. It took nearly 90 overs. Crowds were more easily pleased in those days. Moretonin-Marsh was another – a wet day sadly – it lived up to its name. And then there was the Wagon Works ground in Gloucester with a pitch that actually encouraged spinners – Allen, Mortimore and Cook. I did get a bowl there but, whilst I didn’t actually take a wicket, I think I prompted Roger Knight to play and miss – once. Lydney was another - I bet everyone’s forgotten about Lydney - a charming little place in the Forest of Dean that is on the other side of the Severn, whose

influence upon Gloucester cricket has been so profound, and indeed has not infrequently flowed past the precincts of the Cathedral, encompassing the ground in the process.

Very wet. But only Cheltenham now remains.

So long as the finances work and the grounds match up to the 21st century, I’m a great believer in outground cricket – in fact, I love it. It creates variety for both player and spectator and takes us away from regulation, standard pitches into a world of mystery and uncertainty. I like that. The audience too is a little different from Southport to Scarborough, Chesterfield to Colchester.

Remember Ebbw Vale and all those sheep or Blackpool in holiday time? I confess that Colwyn Bay was a long trek from Tunbridge Wells and back, but oh so worth it, despite a thumping loss.

But now we’re just left with a handful. Arundel, of course, which now takes on greater importance without its neighbour, Horsham, on the agenda. Last year, as many of you will know, Sussex brought all the component parts of its cricket together under one new banner –

Sussex Cricket Limited. Amongst its many responsibilities is one which will seek to spread the game through its clubs and schools and street cricket, the lot, all over the county responding to the challenge of reaching out to as many people as possible from all backgrounds and cultures – diversity, I think it’s called. Essential, in this pattern of things, is outground cricket – getting ourselves out and about.

Showing our colours and spreading the word. Naturally, Arundel is hardly perceived as being amidst the heart of deprivation; only a few pockets of Sussex are but if Sussex Cricket Limited is there to show its teeth in the future, it will need to get itself out into the highways and byways of the county. And indeed it will.

And now to Arundel for this year.

Let’s hope it is an enriching and joyous experience for us all, and blessed with sunshine too.

JOHN BARCLAY, DL

Outgrounds are sadly an endangered species, so Festivals such as Scarborough need to be savoured

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Sussex Speedsters

RIGHT Whittingham celebrates with his team-mates BELOW RIGHT

That’s out! Hamish Rutherford loses his leg stump to Whttingham at Hove last month.

It’s the third time he has dismissed the New Zealand international

Nothing excites cricket fans more than raw pace and Sussex fans have been spoilt this season when it comes to the speedsters.

Full pelt. “You can’t coach the ability to bowl fast that Stuart has,” says Sussex Head Coach Mark Davis

Tymal Mills’ thrilling bowling in the NatWest T20 Blast, when he consistently hit speeds of more than 90mph and made Chris Gayle, arguably the best batsman there is in that format, look like a novice was great to see.

Mills’ Sussex team-mate Stuart Whittingham is not quite capable of bowling at that sort of speed yet at least not yet.

The 22-year-old has made quite an impact since making his Championship debut against Derby last month. In three games he has taken 11 wickets, which is a more than respectable return. But it’s the way he’s taken them, by bowling quickly, that has got his coaches, team-mates and Sussex supporters excited.

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“He’s got something which you can’t coach which is the ability to bowl quickly,” said

Sussex coach Mark Davis. “He’s still raw, but there is a lot to work with.”

The irony that he was the only Derby-born player in either team in two of his early games against Derbyshire was not lost on Whittingham. He saw his first cricket at the Racecourse Ground “It was against West Indies, I got Brian Lara’s autograph” and

he is a massive Derby County fan.

The family moved to Sussex when he was eight when his Dad Terry got a job as bandmaster at Christ’s Hospital School. When he made his Championship debut Stuart became the first Christ’s pupil to

play for Sussex since John Snow, who knew a thing or two about fast bowling of course.

He was quickly spotted by Sussex and from the age of ten was part of the youth system. A few years later, though, he nearly gave up the game. “I played

all the way to under-15s but then when I was 16 I fell out of love with the game a bit.

I didn’t enjoy it for a year but then Keith Greenfield, who was in charge of the Academy, got me down for a training session, where I bowled really well, and I started playing again. I got in the Academy but then had a couple of years where I didn’t progress. It was only in my final year when I was studying at Loughborough University

that I kicked on again and started to bowl consistently well.”

By then Whittingham had come under Jon Lewis’s watchful eye and he credits Sussex’s bowling coach for helping turn him into a first-team cricketer. “If it wasn’t for Jon Lewis I wouldn’t be here. He took me from a place where I wasn’t bowling that well and put his trust in me, he’s been a massive influence. I played in a second team game last year and he saw that I had a bit of pace. He told me that if I worked with him I’d get a chance and that hard work for the past two years has paid off. He tweaked a couple of things with my action that has given me better rhythm.

He believes in me and that’s

given me a lot of confidence.”

Fourteen second-team wickets against Somerset and Worcestershire persuaded Davis and Lewis to throw him into the first team with one bit of advice: “just bowl as fast as you can.”

“I’m still a bit raw but they have given me the fourth seamer’s role and I guess it’s been a surprise to the opposition batsmen when I come on and bowl quickly at them. The coaches and senior players tell me to bowl quickly and not worry about conceding runs, just try and take wickets.”

to the guys now,” says Davis.

“They have had opportunities and got a taste for it. It’s up to them to keep working hard, improving and make us want to pick them.

Whittingham said “I know it’s going to be hard to keep my place when we have people like Chris Jordan available and it’s a full strength side but it’s a case of trying to keep improving and see where it takes me,” Sussex

fans will be hoping he goes all the way.

Head Coach Mark Davis wants to give youngsters an opportunity and after George Garton, Whittingham is now getting his chance. “It’s up www.sussexcricket.co.uk 9

ALL’S WELLS Luke Wells has always had talent, now he is finding consistency as well

By Bruce Talbot

The cap fits Luke with Dad Alan after receiving his county cap

the coaches backed me to get runs from that position and that was good for my confidence.

Luckily I have delivered for them and the team.”

The hard part will be maintaining that form. Wells admits he has struggled to put together a consistent season in the past but having a key role with both bat and now ball seems to have infused him with self-belief.

A few weeks ago Luke Wells was worried that there might not be a place for him in Sussex’s Championship side.

How things have changed for the 25-year-old. He arrives at Arundel this week – a ground where he has scored a half-century and 108 in his last two games – a capped player and a key member of the team, albeit in a role he couldn’t have envisaged not so long ago.

His county cap was awarded after he made his 104 against Derbyshire in Sussex’s last Championship game. It came three weeks after he’d taken 116 off the same attack and shared in a county record stand of 310 with Ed Joyce.

It’s the sort of consistent form that Wells has struggled to produce in the past. It’s six years since he made his Championship debut against Worcestershire and when he emerged quite a few wise judges felt he might one day emu10 www.sussexcricket.co.uk

late Alan and become the latest father and son from Sussex to play for England.

Last season he averaged a modest 27.95, his only hundred coming against Durham at Arundel.

But while his batting seemed to have regressed he was emerging as a more than useful leg-spinner, having switched from bowling off breaks in 2013. He finished the season with 23 wickets. In some teams he might be regarded as an all-rounder.

“It’s been an interesting time for me, I felt there was some uncertainty during the winter about my role and position in the team. If Luke Wright and Chris Jordan had been available, I could have been at 6 or 7 because my bowling has improved and I wasn’t sure whether I was going to turn into an all-rounder who batted down the order.

Now I have two-fold responsibilities of batting at three and being the No.1 spinner and I feel I have responded pretty well. I have settled down at No.3. I feel I am a natural top order player.

Before the game at Derby,

Luke has scored two hundreds this season, both against Derbyshire and his leg-spin, right, is improving all the time

“I did a lot of soul searching last winter, I don’t think I have lived up to my potential so I was determined to change. 80% of my dismissals were ‘nick offs’ so I have found a way to try and eliminate that as much as I can and hopefully create more opportunity to score runs.

I talked to my Dad a lot. It was mainly about looking at myself, not going through the motions. The uncertainty about whether I’d be in the team gave me a kick up the backside and made me knuckle down and become really hungry again. I want to be a consistent performer throughout the whole season, not just do it in patches.”

Wells has become Sussex’s No.1 spinner in the Championship and already has eight wickets this season and of their regular bowlers, only Steve Magoffin has a better economy rate so far than his 3.08.

“I do think I am more than a part-time bowler,” he says.

“It’s a new and exciting aspect to my game but one which is still developing. I’m glad I made the decision to stick with leg spin because there is definitely potential there. I got quite a few wickets last year when we were under pressure in games and I’ve done the same this season, when there has definitely been a bit more turn.”

Wells’ hundred at Derby was his 10th in first-class cricket and he also has 20 fifties. Having ticked off one milestone he will move confidently onto the next. “I have played 88 first-class games and I know I can play at this level,” he says.

“When I first started I was prone to getting too far ahead of myself. I’ve changed. All I want to do now is play well, improve as a batsman and bowler and help Sussex win games of cricket. One thing at a time.”

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AT ARUNDEL CASTLE CRICKET CLUB

‘OUR FIRST DEAF DAY IN SUSSEX’ • • • • •

‘A CHANCE TO MEET NEW FRIENDS’

Sussex Cricket Foundation Inflatables Coaching/activity stations set up on outfield Pitches set up on outfield for friendly matches Sid the Shark attending Teas and coffees available

For more details and to sign up please contact Matt.Parsons@sussexcricket.co.uk or 07864 818957

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‘FIND OUT ABOUT THE DEAF OPPORTUNITIES ACROSS THE COUNTY’

In Partnership with:

Home from Hove BBC Sussex cricket commentator Adrian Harms has lots to do just to get on air at Arundel, but he wouldn’t miss Sussex’s visit to the Castle Ground So its that’s time of year again, time to pack up the broadcast equipment and temporarily vacate the comfort of the commentary box at Hove.

Goodbye to the air-conditioning, or heating depending on the weather outside, the comprehensive lunch menu, not to mention the excellent afternoon cake, and move to the open-air studio which is Arundel.

The written press lads are lucky,

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at least they get a tent to sit in normally behind the bowlers arm, a hot water urn to make tea and coffee, a fridge with cold drinks, sandwiches at lunchtime, and most of the time they also enjoy the luxury of Wi-Fi, although admittedly that can be intermittent The radio broadcaster has no such luxuries. We are open to the elements and much toil and yards and yards of cable are needed just to get on air. Add in the frustration of the lap top buffering for most of the four days and a trek across the outfield for a cuppa and sandwich at lunchtime- if there are any left!

Added to that, the view over third

man isn’t the best for having any opinion on a leg-before appeal, and looking over your shoulder at the main scoreboard for four days is certain to leave a crick in the neck!

So perhaps after all my moaning you might find it surprising that I love the annual pilgrimage to Arundel as do my fellow commentators from around the circuit. They scour the fixtures as soon as they are released to see if they are the lucky visitors. Northamptonshire, in the Specsavers County Championship, and Gloucestershire, in the NatWest T20 Blast, have hit the jackpot this time round.

So why is Arundel so popular

despite the fact that so few of the home comforts at Hove are available? the answer is simple, it’s just Arundel, the charm, the history, the magic!

Sitting on our lofty perch at the top of the bank, we have a magnificent view, enjoy great banter with the crowd around us and we can look on with envy as the groaning picnic baskets slowly get unpacked.

The players are also at close quarters and often available for a chat. Luke Wright and the players have been magnificent this season in giving interesting, informative interviews and I’m sure this will continue during the festival.

Tymal Mills is becoming a regular on our county commentaries this season, he adds an insight into not only the game being played but also his preparations for T20 matches coming up and other cricket issues. He also takes a bit of stick from me since his team

Luke Wright, seen here being interviewed by Adrian, is a regular visitor to the commentary table at Arundel

Norwich City will now be playing in the Championship next season.

Mark Davis has also been a regular visitor to the commentary box this season, Ed Joyce has joined me for a T20 game played in arctic conditions against Somerset last month, and Jim May and Zac Toumazi are regular visitors.

So there will hopefully be plenty of expertise around to supplement the commentary, and provide that professional insight into the game which the listeners enjoy so much.

So roll on Arundel, and if you’re passing our commentary position next to the scoreboard, please come and say hello and don’t forget please bring us a cuppa and even a sandwich!

There is commentary on every Sussex game on BBC online throughout the summer with radio commentary for all Sussex Sharks’ matches in the NatWest T20 Blast.

To find out more go to www.bbc.co.uk/ cricket

Enjoy the Festival

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Having scored 282 in the opening Championship game of the season, Sussex know all about Northamptonshire opener Ben Duckett.

Here, team-mate Alex Wakely gives an insight into a player finally fulfilling his undoubted talent

Duckett celebrates reaching 200 against Sussex in April

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When Ben Duckett first arrived in the Northampton first team he was a pampered schoolboy and not serious enough about his cricket.

That might sound harsh, but I think even he would admit that it’s a fair assessment.

ARUNDEL VISITORS NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

He was the kid with all the talent. He’d soared through the age groups, played for England Under-19s. He knew he was good, because everyone had told him.

But somehow he didn’t fully realise the extent of his talent.

Now, though, we’ve got a different person in the dressing room. Someone hungry, someone committed to the game, someone mature. Someone who’s breaking records and has all the tools to play for England.

Ben – or ‘the Duke’ as we’ve taken to calling him - is having a phenomenal season, as evidenced by his 189 against Essex last month. Of course he started with that wonderful 280 against Sussex and I’m sure he’ll go on and on now. There isn’t a more talented player anywhere in England, first division or second.

His personal problems over the last two or three years have been well documented. Perhaps when he was kicked off the Under-19 tour back in 2013 he should have taken that as a warning and grown up. But it took another couple of glitches to straighten him out.

Now, though, I can safely say he’s a pleasure to play with. He takes his fitness training more seriously now, really throws himself about. In the past he relied on his natural talent to steer him through, but he’s realised that to reach the top in cricket, in any sport, you have to work as hard as the less talented players.

Away from the playing field, he’s got a lovely girlfriend who’s been a great influence on him and in January he moved out of his parents’ house and moved in with Rob Keogh and Ben Sanderson in Northampton. That’s been a big step. He’s having to fend for himself and you can see it’s making him grow up.

Duckett and Keogh are thick as thieves, but Sanderson, the old man of the trio, is a real calming influence on the pair of them. Sando still has plenty of work to do though – I don’t think Keogh or Duckett know how to turn on any domestic appliance literally. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in that house.

He’s also seriously untidy. Keogh and I are both really fastidious about our kit and we’re trying to change him, but it’s like trying to push water uphill. And I guess you might say he’s not the most intellectually curious person in the world. A couple of days ago he recently corrected Steven Crook’s grammar on Twitter, which took us all by surprise.

But he’s got a razor-sharp cricket brain, one I’m always picking when we’re in the field together. He knows how to make big scores and you can tell he’s gutted when he gets out. Once the game’s over, though, he knows how to relax and he really lifts the mood with his banter – him and Seeku Prasanna have some bizarre chat, made all the stranger by the language barrier.

Right now, I’m really proud to be captaining such a talented young player. His knock against Essex oozed class and I’m sure he’s on England’s radar. We see him as an opener in four-day cricket and a middle-order batter in the white-ball game. But England may see it differently. his wicket-keeping is a great string to his bow and his career may develop in a different direction. For now, though, he’s just enjoying his cricket at Wantage Road and I don’t think he could be in a better place for his long-term development. www.sussexcricket.co.uk 17

25 CELEBRATING

YEARS

RECORDS AT ARUNDEL

Murray Goodwin has been involved in the top two partnerships on this ground

HIGHEST TEAM TOTALS •

566-8 dec

Leicestershire v Sussex 1999

Jointing Technologies are the proud sponsor of

Sussex County Cricket Club

•

550

Sussex v Yorkshire 2006

LOWEST TEAM TOTALS •

71

Sussex v Worcestershire 1997 •

87

Middlesex v Sussex 1994 •

93

Durham v Sussex 2012

HIGHEST WICKET PARTNERSHIPS •

HIGHEST INDIVIDUAL SCORES

235 MW Goodwin

Sussex v Yorkshire 2006 •

Sussex v Yorkshire 2006 •

216 DS Lehmann

Sussex v Hampshire 2008

Yorkshire v Sussex 2002 •

192 CJ Adams

•

Sussex v Derbyshire 2001

We look forward to sharing another electrifying season in 2016 as part of the Sussex County Cricket Club family.

•

184 MW Goodwin

Sussex v Hampshire 2008 •

•

161* JM Bairstow 160* A Habib

•

T: 01483 747747 (W T ( oking) T: 01543 450555 (Norton Canes) T T: 01454 322555 (Bristol) T

151* MG Bevan Sussex v Essex 2000

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There have been a total of 30 Championship hundreds at Arundel

126

(2nd) Paul Prichard & Darren Robinson

Essex v Sussex 2000

Leicestershire v Sussex 1999 •

176

(6th) Chris Adams & Matt Prior

Sussex v Derbyshire 2001

Yorkshire v Sussex 2014 •

194

(5th) Murray Goodwin & Carl Hopkinson

116

(9th) Graham Napier & Ryan ten Doeschate

Essex v Sussex 2003

County Championship matches only

•

254

(4th) Murray Goodwin & Chris Adams

BEST BOWLING PERFORMANCE •

15-83

Chris Cairns

Nottinghamshire v Sussex 1995 www.sussexcricket.co.uk 19

glos finish

Tom Smith has become a crucial bowler for Gloucestershire in T20 CENTRE:

An away out-ground might be unfamiliar territory, but it won’t faze Sunday’s Arundel visitors Gloucestershire

Only one batsman scored more T20 Blast runs in 2015 than Michael Klinger

RIGHT:

By Bruce Talbot

BLAST UPDATE

Gloucestershire won two and lost two of their first four games in the NatWest T20 Blast.

Having already been beaten by the Sharks at Bristol, they lost their second home game three weeks ago when Glamorgan chased down a target of 169 with seven balls to spare.

Meanwhile, Sussex went into last week’s away matches at Lord’s and the Ageas Bowl with three wins out of four.

As well as beating Gloucestershire, they also defeated Somerset before losing to Surrey.

They returned to winning ways on June 10 with a four-wicket win over Kent Spitfires at Hove. Chris Jordan and Tymal Mills both took three wickets as Kent were dismissed for 40 before Ross Taylor hit 62 to set up victory, which was sealed when David Wiese struck successive boundaries in the final over.

20 www.sussexcricket.co.uk

Playing away from home on an unfamiliar outground shouldn’t hold too many fears for Gloucestershire, when they arrive for Sunday’s NatWest T20 Blast encounter.

After starting their tournament with a one-run defeat to the Sharks at the end of May, the ‘Glorious’ kickstarted their campaign with away wins on successive nights against Middlesex and Kent.

In both games they had to contend with batting in fading light but did so impressively as Middlesex were beaten with a ball to spare by four wickets at Northwood and Kent with four deliveries in hand by seven wickets at Beckenham.

Ahead of today’s game, they were due to meet Essex at Chelmsford on June 16 hoping to continue their impressive form on the road.

Although they might not have a team full of household names or stars of the world game, Gloucestershire are certainly an opponent to be respected as those two results and their general form in

white-ball cricket would attest. Last season they won their first one-day trophy since 2004 when they lifted the Royal London One-Day Cup at Lord’s after beating Surrey by six runs in the final.

The prolific Australian Michael Klinger scored 654 runs in last season’s Blast when Gloucestershire just missed out on a place in the quarter-finals and they seem to have recruited well with their second overseas player this year in Andrew Tye, a 29-year-old bowling all-rounder from Perth.

Tye took five wickets in those wins over Middlesex and Kent in what is his first taste of county cricket. Earlier this year Tye played three T20 internationals for Australia and as well as his skill in the crucial closing overs he is a handy lower-order batsman as well.

Tye’s arrival has been welcomed by former Sussex and Middlesex left-arm spinner Tom Smith, who has become a crucial figure in Gloucestershire’s T20 team since joining the county in 2013. “It’s a really

Sussex between 2007-09 before spells with Surrey and Middlesex.

“Having an experienced guy used to bowling at the back end of an innings will be great and we look forward to having him in the starting line-up for the Middlesex match.”

Smith was the leading wicket taker after the group stage of last year’s T20 Blast and after the win over Kent needed just one more wicket to become the first Gloucestershire spinner to take 50 in the format.

The left armer from Seaford says his success in the shortest format is down to his ability to stay calm under pressure.

“In T20 cricket it is also about trying to be one step ahead all the time,” he said.

“If you bowl two dot balls you know the next one will be a big shot so it’s about trying to work out what to bowl in order to get them to hit to a certain area.

“You have to accept that sometimes you will go for sixes so you just try to stay calm, stay relaxed, keep positive and try to nail that next ball all the time.”

exciting signing for the club,”

said Smith, who played for www.sussexcricket.co.uk 21

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The one to win

Rain stops play: More than 500 overs were lost to the elements in Sussex’s early-season games.

A rain day would be a welcome innovation to the Championship schedule

A Championship title is valued above all others

by English players but Times cricket writer Mark Baldwin asks if continued tinkering is devaluing our premier competition...

Even now, in an era dominated by the growth of Twenty20, every English professional cricketer will tell you that winning County is the prize they covet most.

A Test match cap is still prized above a T20 international appearance, too, or an Indian Premier League contract for that matter, and despite what it might say in a player’s bank account.

At Sussex, former players like Mike Yardy, James Kirtley and Murray Goodwin still speak of the championship-winning moments in 2003, 2006 and 2007 as being the pinnacles of their careers. Yes, 24 www.sussexcricket.co.uk

they all played for their country on the international stage – and in Yardy’s case becoming a world champion at the 2010 World T20 – but lifting the championship trophy, alongside your teammates and after six months of hard slog, was the sweetest feeling of all.

In recent years, however, the County Championship has suffered some grievous attacks. Too many fixtures have been pushed into the outer margins of the domestic season. Too few of its games take place in the warmest months, further putting at risk the staging of out-ground festivals such as this one. Too few centrally-contracted England players have been made available for games or, rather, too many four-day matches have been scheduled for times when they have not been able to take part.

The quality of overseas players appearing in the Championship

has also been compromised by the scheduling.

Next year, the assault on a historic and much-loved competition steps up yet another notch. Indeed, some would liken it to sporting vandalism. Where once there was 32, 28, or 24 three-day championship matches for spectators to enjoy, and where since the advent of two divisions in 1999 there has been 16 four-day matches each summer, a cull to 14 games has been implemented.

The reasons? Officially, it is to allow more rest and match preparation, and to raise standards. It has also been deemed necessary to have a Division One of eight counties in which everyone can therefore play everyone else home and away seven times. It is, of course, no matter that irrelevant old Division Two will not have such uniformity; with ten teams

and fourteen games, each county will only play four others once. If Sussex remain in Division Two, therefore, there will be two of their Championship opponents who will not be seen on Sussex soil.

I believe the move to two divisions of unbalanced size, and reducing the number of matches to 14, for all, will result in still greater and more damaging divisiveness on our domestic circuit. More firstclass cricketers will be treated as if they are second-class, the gap between the bigger, richer clubs and the rest will grow wider, more of the smaller counties’ best young players will be forced to move on to the bigger ones – especially with England’s management entreating them to ‘play first division cricket’ – and it will become ever harder to climb out of Division Two into Division One and stay there. How long, too, before two-up and two-down

turns into one-up and one-down?

Will an eight-county elite be happy for a quarter of its number to be relegated every year?

And, of course, it rains in England. It rains regularly, and especially in the time of year that the County Championship now finds most of its games being played.

Even snow disrupted the start of this campaign. The reduction to 14 games will, inevitably, merely result in a bigger percentage of playing time being lost to the weather than is already the case. Will this really help to drive up standards? Cricketers need to play to improve, and cutting the amount of time they get on to the field is simply barmy.

From April 10 to June 1 this summer, when the first eight rounds of matches were scheduled, more than a quarter of the 11,520 overs that could have been bowled in Division Two fixtures were lost to

bad weather. In 30 matches, there were 21 draws. Sussex’s first six matches included five draws, and the games against Derbyshire, especially, and Essex could both have been won had the full complement of overs been available.

More than 500 overs were lost in those early-season Sussex games.

It would have helped if an extra rain day had been scheduled, to be used to bowl up to 96 overs lost over the previous four days, and next season, with only 14 games, that is even more of a requirement.

But no one now seems interested in adding days to the structure – so that players, as much as spectators, do not end up being short-changed.

Less is more, apparently, unless it is Twenty20. www.sussexcricket.co.uk 25

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The essence of Arundel Cricket has been played here since 1897. Paul Weaver, of the Guardian, offers a personal appreciation of the Castle Ground’s charms

EW Swanton called Arundel “the perfect setting” for cricket and who would disagree?

This picture was taken in 1997 when the touring Australians visited.

Even without its cricket Arundel demands our attention. This fairy tale town, perched on a steep hill above the valley of the Arun, crowned by its medieval castle, is a place of wonder.

There are times, especially in early morning when the mists rise from the valley and play around the castle and the cathedral like a dancer’s veil, that you suspect the place must have been stolen from the pages of the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen.

Tim Locke, in his most evocative book, Slow Sussex, says “this most pleasing of small towns has a French look from a distance.” The cricket, though, in that part of West Sussex that is associated with the game’s ancient origins, is very English.

This is one of the loveliest cricket 28 www.sussexcricket.co.uk

grounds on the planet. And on top of that the cricket played here is infused with the notion of festival fun.

It might be very professional now but even today there is a frisson of the carefree, of dashing amateurs, benefit jamborees, unfurling international teams and picnic food washed down by lemonade and Tizer or even a bottle of bubbly.

Parchment-dry historians will inform you that the first county championship match was played here in 1990. But this tree-lined field has witnessed bat on ball for more than a century.

The first match played here, of which there is any record, was that between the Castle Works XI and the West Sussex Gazette XI on June 12, 1897; the county newspaper, with a staff of more than 50, was the biggest employer in the town at the time.

We should all thank Henry. It was the 15th Duke of Norfolk who had the ground carved out of this sheer slope in the Sussex Downs. The work was completed in 1895. Then came Bernard, the 16th Duke,

and Duchess Lavina and the first international cricket in the 1950s.

The first touring team to play here was Canada, in 1954. Then, more famously, the Australians came in 1956.

Lyle Turnbull of the Melbourne Sun wrote: “England gave the Australians a great welcome on Saturday. Even the Duke of Norfolk’s deer came up from the forest at Arundel Castle to watch them arrive. Cricket has never been played in a more pleasant atmosphere.

Everything of old England was there – an ancient English castle, spreading chestnut trees, rolling downs and a village green atmosphere. It was essentially a picnic match with broadcast announcements about lost dogs, lost children and even one lost wife.”

Even our very own EW Swanton was bowled over by the “perfect setting.” He added: “The ground has everything. For most of the circumference, a deep, broad bank makes a natural amphitheatre. Except for one small gap cut to reveal the superb downs and panorama

RIGHT:

Sunil Gavaskar is one of the famous names to have played here.

away to the east, the arena is encircled with trees now coming to leaf. The whole scene was a symphony in green with a vivid scarlet splash made by the uniforms of the Grenadier Guards whose band took over the entertainment during the intervals.”

A slightly younger hack, yours truly, put in his first shift here (I think) in 1971. The Duke of Norfolk’s XI included Roy Marshall, Eric Russell, Peter Parfitt, Ken Barrington and those famous twins Alec and Eric Bedser. The Sussex side included Ted Dexter, Jim Parks, Tony Greig and John Snow.

And I can’t remember who won because it didn’t matter.

We moved from duke to duchess, from Colin Cowdrey to John Barclay, but nothing really changed in this timeless, sylvan setting. In 1987 (shortly after the Quidnuncs played the Harlequins there) I watched Sunil Gavaskar open the batting with Desmond Haynes as the Rest of the World warmed up for their match at Lord’s to mark the bicentenary of the MCC. Dean

Jones, Allan Border, Kapil Dev and Paul Dujon were also on view and, for Lavina, Duchess of Norfolk’s XI there was Bob Woolmer, Basil D’Oliveira and Graeme Hick.

That first championship match at the ground three years later, when Sussex played Hampshire, petered out into a draw but it was a financial success, with 3,500 spectators on the first day. There were centuries for Colin Wells and Chris Smith.

In 1993 I watched a thriller of a 50-over game, featuring the Australians. The Aussies made 203 for 9, thanks mainly to Steve Waugh and Ian Healy. Ian Botham, making one of his last appearances, took a couple of wickets.

Lavinia, Duchess of Norfolk’s XI, looked out of it when they needed 22 from the final over. But Paul Parker was still there and 14 came from the first four balls – not shabby in those distant, pre-Twenty20 days. But Australia got home by seven runs.

The scores and results, however, have always mattered less than

the essence of cricket at Arundel.

The game has rarely looked as beautiful as this. The crowds have come to enjoy themselves, and the players have been happy to indulge them.

Arundel, for me, is what Sheffield Park must have been like 120 years ago. Lord Sheffield was one of the great benefactors of Sussex cricket. Australia, too, should be grateful to the man who in 1892 donated £150 for a trophy to be contested between New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. The Sheffield Shield was born.

Towards the end of the 19th century a number of famous cricket matches were played here and in 1896 25,000 turned up to watch the Australians play Lord Sheffield’s XI. And they did so for free. Lord Sheffield never charged people to watch cricket at his ground.

You will have to pay at Arundel. But it is one of the wisest purchases a cricket watcher can make.

www.sussexcricket.co.uk 29

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