Cricket lovely cricket
Jul. 26th, 2004 01:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chickenfeetToday's rather abject surrender by the Windies had me reminiscing about personally significant cricket moments; good and bad, past and present.
The Windies "who gives a ^&*#" attitude today; two of the last four stumped going for the heave-ho when they were supposed to be batting to save the game, contrasts so sharply with my memory of Viv Richards storming up the pavilion steps at Lord's in a one dayer against England, furious that he had holed out in the deep after flaying the English bowlers for a super fast 80 or so.
Colin Cowdrey going down the track to drive in a Sunday league game, pulling up with a torn hamstring and lobbing the ball to mid off; an injury that pretty much finished his career.
A young Keith Pont playing for Essex under 18 against Herts U18 at Ilford scoring a hundred before lunch. One slog sweep hit the wood just under the scorers' box sending splinters in all directions. Trust me I know, I was the Herts scorer!
Australia vs South Africa at the MCG in 1994. I never thought I would live to see a democratic SA back in the international arena. I cried my eyes out.
Pele playing in a charity match at Sawbridgeworth.
Toiling away in the nets all afternoon on a half holiday while Zaheer Abbas accumulated 250 against England at Edgebaston.
Not noticing Derek Randall had accumulated 150 at a run a ball because Botham had hit a lightning fast 200 at the other end. It was at Tent Bridge but I don't remember when.
Alan Old tearing in like a man possessed on the last day at Headingley against the Australians.
My first Test Match; England vs India at the Oval c. 1970. John Jameson flayed the Indian bowlers all round the park in the morning. Chandrasekhar bowled England out in the afternoon.
Trevor Bailey playing for Old Felstedians against Old Stortfordians. He was seriously overweight and refused to run singles. He hit plenty of boundaries though.
Opening the innings for my school 3rd XI. I was promoted up the order (normally batting at 9 or 10) because of my solid defensive technique (trans: incapable of a true attacking shot). I fenced at a ball swinging across me (I'm a LHB) first ball and was caught at third slip. My sole lifetime appearance as an opening bat.
Going to see Lancashire play Essex at Ilford at about age 10. Clive Lloyd was out for a duck to my immense disappointment.
The Windies "who gives a ^&*#" attitude today; two of the last four stumped going for the heave-ho when they were supposed to be batting to save the game, contrasts so sharply with my memory of Viv Richards storming up the pavilion steps at Lord's in a one dayer against England, furious that he had holed out in the deep after flaying the English bowlers for a super fast 80 or so.
Colin Cowdrey going down the track to drive in a Sunday league game, pulling up with a torn hamstring and lobbing the ball to mid off; an injury that pretty much finished his career.
A young Keith Pont playing for Essex under 18 against Herts U18 at Ilford scoring a hundred before lunch. One slog sweep hit the wood just under the scorers' box sending splinters in all directions. Trust me I know, I was the Herts scorer!
Australia vs South Africa at the MCG in 1994. I never thought I would live to see a democratic SA back in the international arena. I cried my eyes out.
Pele playing in a charity match at Sawbridgeworth.
Toiling away in the nets all afternoon on a half holiday while Zaheer Abbas accumulated 250 against England at Edgebaston.
Not noticing Derek Randall had accumulated 150 at a run a ball because Botham had hit a lightning fast 200 at the other end. It was at Tent Bridge but I don't remember when.
Alan Old tearing in like a man possessed on the last day at Headingley against the Australians.
My first Test Match; England vs India at the Oval c. 1970. John Jameson flayed the Indian bowlers all round the park in the morning. Chandrasekhar bowled England out in the afternoon.
Trevor Bailey playing for Old Felstedians against Old Stortfordians. He was seriously overweight and refused to run singles. He hit plenty of boundaries though.
Opening the innings for my school 3rd XI. I was promoted up the order (normally batting at 9 or 10) because of my solid defensive technique (trans: incapable of a true attacking shot). I fenced at a ball swinging across me (I'm a LHB) first ball and was caught at third slip. My sole lifetime appearance as an opening bat.
Going to see Lancashire play Essex at Ilford at about age 10. Clive Lloyd was out for a duck to my immense disappointment.
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Oh, I can't resist this idea
Date: 2004-07-27 07:36 am (UTC)Starting with the summer of 1991, where England drew with the West Indies in one of those summer-long series they had back then, and I remember making my father go back from the beach to the car constantly to check the score. He was ecstatic as we bowled the West Indies out cheaply once, amazed by the chain of 0s and 2s. I never forgot it. Neither did I forget Ian Botham, in one of his last innings, a figure peripheral and framing to my cricketing experiences, scoring the winning runs that made the series 2-2.
Shane Warne's ball to beat Mike Gatting, which I heard first on radio at age nine, and saw on television later. The revelation that in cricket, as in all sports, the opposition can provide something beautiful- the difference from other sports that you are encouraged to applaud and enjoy.
My first first-class natch live: where Yorkshire annihilated Somerset on a beautiful day at Weston-super-Mare. The groans of the hard-core Thursday members under a blameless sky.
My first Test match live, and the odd balance of Event and actual experience. It was South Africa's first day playing cricket back at Lord's, and, aged eleven, I didn't grasp the full significance. Now I treasure the ability to say that I revelled in the end of apartheid, even unknowingly. We arrived five minutes late, and saw Graham Gooch take a catch right in front of us. Kepler Wessels made a violently boring century. Cricket matches seemed to last for an enervating forever.
Back at Lord's in '97, watching England's obliteration by the weather and the Australians. The misery of it all, and the timeless ring of Glenn McGrath's eight wickets, the best ever by a foreigner at Lord's.
The greatest one-day match I have ever witnessed, live or on television, though delightfully I was there; the Natwest series final 2002. England make an unbeatable 325. Trescothick, beautiful hundred. Hussain's bloody-mindedness and three-finger salute. A Flintoff 40, hors-d'oeuvring what is to come. And then Sehwag, Ganguly, Yuvraj and Kaif make them. Make 326 with three balls to spare. Knight misses a run-out which would almost certainly have won the match. The taste of perfection saddened only by the absent lead-ness of Tendulkar.
Two months later, the fruits of churlishness as Dravid makes 220 at a downtrodden Oval. Then Trescothick and Vaughan remind us why we love the game. All that, and in my first non-parent visit to a Test Match, oodles of beer.
2003, and an annihilation of the South Africans. Home by six to potato salad and barbecued sausages, tasting of summer.
Last September and Flintoff's Bothamesque innings which twisted the whole test Match on its axis and buried the irritatingly prodigous Graeme Smith. That 95, so much more memorable than a century would have been.
Fleming's awesome captaincy and batting, and an All Black side like a coiled spring at Lord's just a few weeks ago.
Just moments caught on television. Hussain's final century. Just a few yesterday, justice for Harmison against Gayle, and big David Giles beats little Goliath Lara. Moments I missed entirely, thereby enhancing their legend. Malcolm's 9-57. Atherton's 185*. Gooch's 333, just a year before I started, but always just that inch out of reach...
TCH
PS
Date: 2004-07-27 07:47 am (UTC)TCH
Re: PS
Date: 2004-07-27 07:59 am (UTC)A diminutive Alan Knott inventing a whole new way of defending a ball that rises head high off a length against the fearsome Lillian Thomson at Perth.
Bob Massie at Lords bowling the most ourageous outswingers; so huge he had to bowl around the wicket to the right handers.
Sir Garfield's six sixes at Sophia Gardens.
Conrad Hunt getting a first ball duck in a club game against Bishop's Stortford.
Things I would most likely to have seen but was too young:
Bradman in his pomp.
Grimmett and O'Reilly.
Laker against the Australians at Old Trafford.
Hedley Valentine bowling on a 'sticky'. I once read a wonderful description of his bowling by Neville Cardus.