Magnificent Display

A magnificent display by England to win the second test against Australia.  Time to crow, but only for a few days. Next stop Perth.  The Aussies may be down, but they are not out...yet.

Another cricket tale

A local cricket league I umpired for was a hot-bed of intrigues, hostilities, vendettas and the black art of mind games - and that was off the field!

Some clubs had a mutual loathing going back decades and the paramount duty of their players was to win at all costs. The concept of something not being 'cricket' was alien.

The gamesmanship, indeed outright cheating, engaged in by clubs and players could make life very difficult for umpires. I was appointed to stand at a match between two clubs who were very hostile towards each other. The reason for this had something to do with an affair between the wife of the wicket-keeper of one club and the secretary of the other club. Matches had been known to end prematurely in fights. Bowling beamers, appealing for catches when the ball had gone to ground and tampering with the ball was to be expected.

On arrival my heart sank, my fellow umpire had failed to turn up. I would have to stand at both ends and the square leg umpire would have to be a person agreed by the two captains. Par for the course, the captains would not agree. My response was to ask each captain to nominate one person and I would toss a coin to determine who would undertake the square leg duty. The 'winner' was the secretary of the home club.

The captains tossed and the home side decided to field. After a few uneventful overs the home side brought on their spin bowler and the wicket-keeper stood up to the stumps. The bowler was spinning the ball prodigously and has the batsmen groping. However accuracy was not a strong point, so we had quite a few wides.
Then the bowler sent down a ball, it spun, went behind the batsman and the next thing that happened was the bails fell. Unfortunately I did not see the ball hit the wicket. I glanced to the square leg umpire who had his finger up. I must admit I had thought the ball had spun so much it would have gone between the batsman and the wicket and popped out on the leg side.

The same events happened for the next four wickets. The visiting team vented its fury. What was happening was that as the ball passed the stumps the wicket keeper flicked off the bails with his pads. This I could not see, but the stand in umpire at square leg could.

Coming off the field at the end of the visiting team's innings I was accosted. The visitors accepted that I had had to rely on the square leg umpire for the decisions. Tea was tense.

When the visitors fielded retribution was quick and effective. Five times the ball hit the pads of home team batsmen. Five times my finger was raised. Were they lbw? Of course, the umpire said so.

Cricket Tales (7) Keeping mum

One hot sunny Saturday I was umpiring in the semi-final of a cup competition. The game was played at Alfreton Park . One batsman, who also happened to be the vice-chairman of the league, was on 96 when the bowler, a left-hander coming round the wicket sent down a corker of a ball. Big appeal for lbw which I declined as I thought the ball would miss the stumps. At the end of the over I sauntered down the wicket, as one does, when a bowler is straying close to running on the wicket, and was greeted by the batsman who congratulated me on hearing the very faint snick of bat on ball.

When I resumed at the bowler's end the same bowler, still bowling round the wicket, sent down an absolute beauty and I had no hesitation in giving the batsman out lbw. He was on 98. He looked at me and walked off.

Later, in the pavilion enjoying a few pints, the batsman came up to me and said he was somewhat perplexed in that having heard the first faint snick I had not heard the even louder snick on the ball when I had given him out.

I didn't have the heart to tell him I had heard no snick on either ball!

Cricket Tales (6) A day of tragedy

One ground I visited often as an umpire was close to a lake. When standing at the non-pavilion end the lake was on the off side. When the umpire moved to square leg the lake was behind him.

It is important that the umpire at square leg does not follow the movement of the ball when it goes behind him. His job is to watch the batsmen and check they ground their bats behind the crease to complete a run, as well as looking for run-outs when the ball comes in from the outfield.

Part way through the first team's innings a batsman stuck the ball past me. Suddenly, all the players on the field started running towards me. I turned round and saw a man thrashing about in the water on the far side of the lake. Some of the players swam across the lake towards him, others ran round the lake. All to no avail. the man drowned and the inquest verdict was that he took his life whilst the balance of his mind was disturbed.

The umpires had to decide if the match should be abandoned. We decided to ask the captains what they wished to do. It was agreed to play on after a further half-hour break to give the players time to recover from their physical exertion. To this day I think some of the players suffered mental scars which took a long time to heal, so probably playing on was the correct course of action.

Cricket Tales (5): A Day at Lords

A friend was a member of MCC and could get tickets for test matches and one-day finals. Although tickets wouldn't admit us to the pavilion, it didn't really matter as a day at a cricket match at Lords is an experience to savour.

I recall one match when we were seated near a charming country parson who was accompanied by his middle-aged, single, very well padded daughter wearing a straw hat and an ill-fitting floral dress. At the tea interval my friend suggested we visit a nearby delicatessen which we duly did, bringing back a sumptuous spread.

The food attracted the attention of said parson's daughter and we spent a couple of happy hours plying her with food in return for bottles of Beefeater gin & tonic, of which she had a seemingly inexhaustible supply.

Another friend acquired tickets for a test match against Australia. He worked for the police in the West Midlands and knew the landlord of the Lords Tavern. We parked in the pub's garage and naturally went in to repay the landlord for his kindness. During the course of our drinking session, the doors flung open and in walked members of a West Midland police serious crime squad. More drink followed. I became curious about the role of one member of the squad who seemed a bit slow on the uptake, so I asked him what he did. What he did, he said, was knock the door in when the squad was raiding premises.

Cricket Tales (4) Trigger happy umpire

After a few seasons umpiring I agreed to become the umpires' fixtures secretary. Basically I had to allocate umpires to matches. Easy I thought. Wrong. Some umpires demanded they had the same partner for every match. Some wouldn't travel more than a few miles. Others believed they had a right to umpire only first division matches. Clubs sent in comments about umpires to the Management Committee which wanted the best umpires to stand at the most important matches.

I decided I had to forgo umpiring and instead spent my Saturdays travelling round grounds to look at umpires, particularly those who had come in for caustic criticism! I was accused in no time at all of spying on umpires. However, using my diplomacy skills sic, most problems were smoothed over and in any event I had the Management Committee backing me to the hilt.

Umpires got to know club secretaries well. Not only did this fine body of people hand you your match fee, they also had to deal with any problems you might bring to their attention: boundary not marked out, crease required painting, pitch not prepared to the required standard and so forth.

I visited usually three grounds each Saturday to cast an eye over the umpires. I visited one ground, stayed for about ten overs, then moved to the next ground where I would normally expect to see up to ten overs before/after tea and then on to a third ground for a few overs.

On one afternoon I arrived at the second ground and was surprised that so few runs had been scored and overs played until on closer inspection of the scoreboard I noted that the first team to bat was all out and the second team was batting, yet it was no-where near the usual tea-time.

One club secretary came up to me in a highly animated state. Apparently one of the umpires had given a lot of lbw decisions in favour of the bowlers. Indeed whilst I watched, a ball clearly going down the leg side hit the batsman on the pads and the lbw appeal was upheld.

The match ended at tea-time and the umpire in question made a quick getaway before either I or the club secretaries could interrogate him.

The other umpire was as bemused by the events of the afternoon as the club secretaries. Then the light dawned. The offending umpire enjoyed horse-racing and he had booked to go on a coach trip to an evening meeting at Pontefract racecourse. He needed an early finish if he was to catch the bus and keep his match fee!

Cricket Tales (3) All a blur

One year the League Management Committee decided to appoint me to stand in the Division 2 Knock-out Final. The two teams were from a mining village and rural village and there was no quarter asked or given between miners and farmers.

There was a big crowd at the match which exacerbated the nervousness I felt about the day. The match was at MCC - Marehay Cricket Club. The ground has a major advantage over many other grounds. The local pub is by the side of the ground, indeed french windows lead from the bar onto the ground.

Umpires have to arrive early to inspect the wicket, ensure the boundary is marked and that there are sufficient cricket balls of appropriate quality. This we did and we adjourned to the bar. About ten minutes before the match started there was a bit of a stir, as who should arrive but none other than the League's President, the Duke of Rutland. He insisted on buying the umpires a large stiffener as it was a cold overcast day. Big mistake. Come the start of the match I wobbled out to the middle in more or less a straight line.

The rest of the day is a bit of a blur. I recall one run-out decision greeted with approbation, indeed acclamation, by the crowd and a not out to an appeal for a catch which resulted in some rather rude banter!

Cricket Tales (2) Pavilion punch up

I spent a few years umpiring in a Derbyshire cricket league. It was most enjoyable - you had the best view of the game, received a free tea and payment. In the event of your fellow umpire not turning up the fee was doubled as you had to officiate at 'both ends', rather than marching off to square leg alternate overs.

One match I stood at was a cup tie which brought together Hundall First XI against the same club's second XI. My fellow umpire that day was Cliff Gladwin who had been a fine bowler of cutters for Derbyshire CCC. Cliff eyed me up and said something along the lines of:

Now then lad, first team has a bowler called XXXX. Thinks he's good, but needs bringing down a peg or two. Make sure you no-ball him early in the first over.

Well, what could I say! Needless to say Cliff knew which end XXXX would bowl from and made sure I got that end. Third ball in XXXX oversteps the crease, out comes my arm and a shout of
no ball just as the ball hits the middle stump and sends it cartwheeling towards the pavilion.

At the end of the over Cliff saunters towards me and exclaims: well done lad. You learn fast.

XXXX went on to have a miserable game. However the fun was not over. A Second XI batsman was out of his crease tapping the wicket, when in comes the ball from a fielder who had been inspecting said object. Off come the bails. Decision had to be 'run out' as the ball was not dead.

The tea interval arrived and wily Cliff suggested we hang back. Good job we did. A fight erupted in the pavilion between the two teams. We never got our teas, but we had pocketed our fees before the match started!

Cricket Tales (1) Gone for a Burton

I enjoy watching cricket. Unfortunately I was not very good at playing the game, although I held on to a few catches at first slip: dropped a few as well!

In the 1970s I was employed as a lecturer and had plenty of time during the summer holidays to watch cricket.

I used to take my friend Dennis Webster, who was the paid agent for the Labour Party in Chesterfield, to watch matches at the county ground in Derby. The stand at Derby is an old racecourse stand. Games were often brought to a premature close in the evenings by sunlight reflecting off the glass roofs of factory buildings on the opposite side of the ground.

We would visit Trent Bridge and spend some time in the Trent Bridge Inn, strategically located between Trent Bridge and the cricket ground.

Our favourite trip was to Burton-on-Trent, which was always made by train. The cricket was sponsored by one of the breweries and a fine time was had by all drinking the excellent local brew. One year we set off in rain for Burton and when we reached the ground play had been abandoned for the day. Nothing daunted Dennis set course for a street-corner pub (there were a lot of these in Burton) at which he was greeted like a long lost friend. The rest of the day was spent visiting a host of pubs all run by members of the same family. I met grandfathers, uncles, nieces, sisters, nephews, mothers: you name it we met them! Best day not watching cricket I had spent in a long time!