1974 Wisden gave Kev something to get his Teeth into
By Barmy Kev
January 25 2015
Barmy Kev describes his trip down memory lane. Anyone who was watching cricket in the early 70's will have memories revived. Those who weren't will receive a taster of cricket life in those good old days.
Over the Christmas period we were visiting some friends up North. It was the day after the day after Boxing Day after yet another heavy meal. As we slumped to the sofa, my friend Terry, who is as a book collector or hoarder depending on your view, mentioned he had some old Wisdens. He is not a cricket fan and he offered them as a belated seasonal gift. I decided to take the 1974 edition featuring the 1973 season, the year I started following Middlesex CCC. As everyone was pursuing their slumped sofa self indulgence, I picked up this edition, which totally captivated me and bought back many memories of my formative years of watching cricket.
There are 1142 pages and I skipped very few. Having read about the end of the Ray Illingworth test era and the start of Mike Denness, I saw a long list of Young Cricketer’s of year noting Mike Brearley had this honour in 1964.
Every single first class game was covered with full scorecards, match reports, including tourist, and university matches. What stood out reading the team sheets was they were all full strength sides regardless. Some of these sides were really strong with 2, sometimes 3 world-class overseas players in each side. (Unless you were Yorkshire) e.g. Glous Sadiq Mohammad, Zaheer Abbas and Mike Proctor, Warwickshire Rohan Kanhai, Alvin Kallicharan and Derrick Murray. Hants (the County Champions) opening with Greenidge and Richards. Lanky with Clive Lloyd and Faroukh Engineer, Glamorgan had Roy Fredricks and Majid Kahn in top order. Seeing Sir Garfield Sobers top of, bottom side, Notts averages was a sight to see. I also felt a sense of nostalgia reading of not so well known cricketers whose names came back to me like Jim Foat, Jim Yardley and Mike Smedley. There were also professional footballers like Chris Balderstone who were able to mix the two careers.
I enjoyed reading a report of my first ever game against Northants in a John Player league victory, which was a bit of a blur looking back. Not alcohol related at age of 10. This match will be subject to another report.
The 3 days matches scorecards often had an odd look about them. Lots of 1st innings declarations once max bonus points 300 score was met. Then contrived 2nd innings declaration to achieve a result. There were no points for a draw and of course no relegation. There was also a concept of Sunday league games sandwiched between a County Championship match. Benson and Hedges and Gillette Cup (55 and 60 overs respectively) would often be on the Wednesday the day after a test match finish featuring Minor Counties 1st round and no international players being rested at any stage.
We made the semi finals of the Gillette Cup losing by 5 runs to Sussex with the late Dennis Marriot expensive for us. Gloustershire won the final against Sussex with by all accounts thanks to a one man an all round on man show by Mike Proctor, Just as I thought the season was over, there was a report on a 4 random team Fenner Trophy played at Scarborough in front of crowds of up to 15,000.
This year we finished 13th out of 17 in the (not sponsored) County Championship. This was just before our glory years, which made sense as we won the Under 25 competition for the second year running, thanks to contributions from West Indies Test star Larry Gomes. We finished 6th in 2nd X1 competition in a strange looking table which Essex won having played 8 games, while Warwickshire were mid table having played 23. In the summary of our season Philippe Edmonds was singled out by Wisden as the one to watch and they believed we were a fast bowler short from making an impact in the Champioship. This was pre Wayne Daniel.
I’ll finish report here, unless you want to hear about the Public Schools competition, University results and the Australian domestic scene, There was so much more from yesteryear I could mention. It was a fine read, until I eventually slumped to my slumber on the sofa thinking, aaaahh those were the days.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015:02:08:12:58:11 by BarmierKev.
And always good when Photo gets a mention- so named because of the number of times the scorecard read J C Foat 0.
Barmy Kev
I'm only here for the tele
Waiting for a fast bowler? Let no one forget that, when we won the championship in 76 and Wayne Daniel was with the WIndies on tour here, A.A.Jones did the business.
One match I remember was on the final day against the touring West Indians. The young Andy Roberts was qualifying for hants that season, and was making his debut. I have never seen such a long run-up, and in his opening over he broke Steve Camacho's arm. In came Clive Lloyd who for the next hour hit Roberts all round the ground, seemingly without effort. Roberts, though undeniably fast, looked very raw then, though he was to terrorise the county circuit the following year.
Hampshire, without Richards and Greenidge, then collapsed ignominiously and lost by an innings. One point of interest for Middlesex fans is that Tim Murtagh's uncle, Andrew Murtagh, was making one of his occasional appearances for Hants, though sadly he was out first ball (and possibly competed a pair). Andrew had been a Southampton Uni student before joining Hampshire, but he never really made it in the first class game.
My other big memory from 1973 was being at Lord's for the final Test against the Windies, when a suspicious package in the Mound Stand led to play being interrupted due to a bomb scare. At least it delayed the inevitable England defeat.
That's a long time ago so it might have been a different occasion altogether. At the time I was doing a vacation job at GKN. After I had been recruited it emerged that they wanted me to look at German steel company accounts. Pity they forgot to ask me beforehand whether I had any German or familiarity with company accounts. Needless to say, German company accounts contain some very long technical words which had somehow failed to find their way into the German dictionary on hand.
As for A A Jones - his delivery grunt would have given modern tennis players a run for their money.
Adelaide
Jim Foat was one of those players nearly always played for his fielding; I wonder if he would still be outstanding today or whether the general standards have caught him up?
Before the Test we had attended the Sorry v Middx game at the Gasworks. From memory Larry Gomes got hit flush on the nose and got carted off. I think JT came in and got a quick ton but then wickets fell and in the last over poor Larry had to come back in but stayed at the non-strikers end as an edged catch to slip lost it for us.