A Christmas Truce

As we approach the centenary of the First World War, I am proud to unveil this brief extract from the unpublished memoirs of my great grandfather, Algernon Shedd.  Prior to the War, he was a gentleman farmer in the somewhat bleak Northern county of Daleshire.  He led a long an eventful life, dying in 1965 at the age of 85.  However, his greatest claim to fame is that, for ten seasons prior to the War, he was the amateur captain of Daleshire County Cricket Club, leading them to the County Championship no less than seven times.

When War broke out in 1914, almost all of that great team joined the so-called Cricketing Pals Battalion of the Royal Daleshire Regiment. By Christmas 1916, they were serving together in France under my great grandfather, by then Major Shedd.  I will let him tell the story of what happened that Christmas in his own vivid words:

“Life in the trenches on the Somme was truly hellish.  The bone-numbing cold, the degrading squalor and the all-pervading stench of unwashed bodies brought irresistibly to mind the professionals’ dressing room at Derby.  Rats the size of W.G. Grace’s ego lurked in the latrines.  Many was the time my privates were badly bitten – as, indeed, was my sergeant-major.

Imagine the men’s collective delight when they received parcels from the good old county club on Christmas day.  How they appreciated the club’s generosity in sending presents of second hand cricket kit, together with the promise that the club would deduct the cost from the professionals’ wages in the first post-war season, applying an interest rate of no more than 10 per cent per annum in the meantime. It warmed my heart to know that the true spirit of Christmas lived on in the old club back in Blighty.

The men wasted no time in putting the gifts to use.  A Christmas ceasefire being in operation, they began an impromptu cricket practice in No-Man’s-Land, which was only halted when Slogger Robson belted a full toss from our medium-pacer, Lew Brush, into the German trenches.

The plaintive cry of “Please can we have our ball back, Fritz?” was greeted with a guttural “Come and get it, Tommy!”  Only after much begging by Lew – as fly as a bluebottle and an eloquent little pleader if ever there was one – was a deal struck.  We would play a match the following day against the Germans, one innings a side, with the winner having the right to keep the precious ball.

The Daleshire professionals in the platoon viewed the match with a confidence previously reserved for matches against one of the lesser southern counties such as Somerset.  This self-belief was tempered only by the knowledge that No-Man’s-Land, a morass of mud and slimy bomb craters, was likely to prove the most inappropriate venue ever for a serious cricket match.  How could any of us possibly have envisaged Old Trafford in 1956?

I am happy to report that the match was played in the most sporting spirit.  The Huns conceded the toss to us after the sixth consecutive penny had plopped irrecoverably into the thick mud.  Our assessment was that the pitch would be thoroughly untrustworthy and highly dangerous for the side taking first use of it.  So we chose to bat, knowing that it would be even worse after tea.

We ran up – or, rather, squelched up – an impressive total of 277.  Fortunately, our Teutonic adversaries applied the same technique to bowling that they used for lobbing grenades full toss into our trenches.  As a result, the vagaries of the pitch seldom came into play. And in the field, the butter-fingered Jerries had more drops than Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

When the enemy began their reply, a December sun the colour of a much-used jock-strap had partly dried the pitch.  It was made for our mean left-arm spinner Herb Patch.  Pushing the ball through with all the flight of a pregnant penguin, he reduced them to the brink of defeat at 33-7 before the tragic incident occurred.

A hefty Hun swung wildly at a good length ball which soared high off the edge towards the fine leg boundary.  From my place at leg slip, I set off for the catch, along with several of the other close fielders.  Nearing the short boundary, I was just about to make a dive for the ball when a loud cry of “Mine!” halted me so completely in my tracks that I pulled both hamstrings.  I fell to the ground in a heap, probably left there by one of the cavalry horses.

As the ball landed harmlessly and trickled over the boundary, I realised that the cry had come not from one of my fellow fielders claiming the catch but from a haughty, monocled German officer spectating on the boundary.  Such a partisan intervention caused the Christmas spirit of goodwill to be temporarily forgotten.

We were normally pretty tolerant of the enemy’s excesses.  It was expected that Zeppelin crews would fly behind our lines to spy on us.  We accepted that if they spotted British Tommies in haystacks with French peasant girls indulging in a little entente cordiale they would hover overhead and attempt to pour water on them.  At least, we all fervently hoped it was water.  It was one thing for the Hun to indulge in gas attacks and aerial bombardments and to post secret snipers who would take pot shots at honest Tommies’ todgers as they relieved themselves at the open air latrine.  All’s fair in love and war.  But to cheat so blatantly at cricket was a clear breach of the Geneva Convention.

Whilst I lay writhing on the ground in agony, the whole team advanced on the offending German, oblivious to his cries of protest.  Before they reached him, the awful explosion did its worst.  As he wiped spattered mud, blood and brains from his coat, the German’s only comment was: “Well, that I did not warn them they cannot say. Deadly things, mines.”

So perished the flower of Daleshire cricket.  And so I now pay my tribute to them before I am gone and they are completely forgotten.  I may have been their leader on and off the cricket field but they were my heroes and I am proud that they died heroic deaths playing the game they loved.  Who now remembers Shortarms Stidworthy, stonewaller extraordinaire and renowned as the meanest man in cricket?  Who now recalls the consummate ease with which he achieved the double in each of the last ten seasons before the war?  What an all-rounder! Every year, he clocked up at least 100 rounds of drinks not paid for and 1000 cigarettes “borrowed” but never returned.

And what of Trumper Bullivant?  He was named not after the legendary Australian batting star but in recognition of his own special ability, in his delivery stride, to startle batsmen with an unexpected anal eruption.  Maybe his descendants still recall his sterling deeds – Bullivants never forget – but to the world at large, it is as though he had never trumpeted triumphantly across Edwardian cricket fields.

I could go on.  But my emotions prevent me from writing more.  Suffice it to say that I have never forgiven myself for heeding that call.  Had I continued to go for the catch, I should, of course, have perished but those brave Daleshire lads would have survived.  How stupid, how foolish, how crassly naïve I was.  Why did I not ignore that call? For when did a Daleshire fielder ever call “Mine!” if there was a chance of someone else taking a tricky catch?

I can hardly bear, in conclusion, to tell of the ultimate tragedy.  Yet I must do so.  It was not just ten good Daleshire men and true that were lost that day.  The Germans claimed the match by default.  And I never did get our ball back.”

Review - the Great Tamasha

The Great Tamasha, by James Astill

James Astill’s The Great Tamasha is a real tour de force.  A tamasha is a Hindi word meaning an entertainment, a performance or a show; and the book is about what Astill calls the conquest of India by the tamasha that is modern Indian cricket.  The book’s sub-title is Cricket, Corruption and the Turbulent Rise of Modern India and the author, as the political editor of The Economist and previously their South East Asia Bureau Chief, is well placed to paint on a large canvas in covering all of these topics and more.

What makes the book so readable is that Astill is able to cover the broad sweep of history whilst at the same time creating all sorts of fascinating vignettes along the way, bringing to life the personalities and incidents behind the names.  Consider, for example, the Maharajah of Vizianagram (known as Vizzy) who captained the 1936 tour of England, arriving in the country with 36 pieces of luggage, two personal servants and a team that already despised him.  His later career as a broadcaster is dealt with in equally damning terms – he allegedly hunted tigers by placing a radio in the jungle and boring the beasts to death with his commentary.

The book links the growth of cricket in India to the rise of the independent Indian nation.  Astill tackles the religious sensitivities between Muslims and Hindus, which takes him into the topic of relationships between India and Pakistan, both on and off the cricket field.

He touches also on the delicate subject of caste in India, describing the influence this has had on the nation’s cricket, from the Palwankar brothers a century ago, now largely air-brushed out of India’s cricketing history, to the sad tale of the massively talented Vinod Kambli.  His career could have rivalled that of Sachin Tendulkar but for his personal frailties and also, maybe, some ancient and hidden prejudices against his lowly caste. 

Astill charts the rise in the financial fortunes of Indian cricket and of the players. The great spinner Bishan Bedi tells Astill that he was a Test cricketer on a bicycle because that was the only form of transport he could afford at the start of his Test career.  Much of the change of fortune since Bedi’s heyday in the 1970s is related to television and the deals that have been struck.  In 1982, there were around two million TV sets in India.  By 1992, this had risen to 34 million; and now the figure is around 160 million.  Largely through television deals, India now generates 80% of cricket’s worldwide revenue.  Tellingly, Astill points out that, from its vast revenue, the Indian Board of Control, the BBCI, spends a paltry 8% on the development of the game.  That, if nothing else, explains why India on the field is not the overwhelmingly dominant force on the international stage that it is off the field.

In India, corruption seems endemic in life, not just in cricket.  As Astill points out, Indian cricket is badly run but India the country is run even worse.

In cricket, there is corruption even at a junior level where, for example, in Delhi, a selector was alleged to be demanding sex from mothers in return for their sons being selected for age-group teams.  One father is reported to have hired a prostitute to masquerade as his wife and provide the requested favours.

It is not just in the administration of the game that corruption is rife.  There is the whole issue of match-fixing.  Astill gets to interview a young bookmaker in Mumbai who claims, in what one can only hope is a wild exaggeration, that 99% of international matches are fixed.  Fingers are pointed in the direction of Dawood Ibrahim as the mastermind of corruption and fixing.  This is hardly a revelation in that Ibrahim is currently on the run from Interpol and is number three on the Forbes World Top 10 most dreaded criminals.  This is maybe the weakest part of the book, in that the evidence of the extent of match-fixing is contradictory and inconclusive.

And so we get into the messy history of the last few years, with the rise of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and the juggling and jousting between the key power figures, with Lalit Modi and Sharad Pawar, in particular, looming large.

Modi is presented as a modern-day Phineas Barnum.  Barnum created a travelling circus filled with freaks and frauds.  Modi created the IPL.  Like Barnum, Modi is obviously a brilliant entrepreneur, with a fantastic ability to pull off unlikely deals.  Unfortunately, unlike Barnum, he seems to have a unique capacity for upsetting people and creating enemies.  His downfall was inevitable when he achieved the unique hat-trick of alienating the BCCI, the Indian government and, maybe worst of all, the Mumbai mafia.  Nevertheless, before he retreated to London in disgrace, he managed to devise and launch the IPL, a massively successful, if precariously financed, cricket tournament.

The IPL, based on Twenty20 (T20) cricket is the ultimate tamasha, a brash mix of sport and entertainment.  Whether a game based around a constant barrage of fours and sixes is good cricket is another matter.  Those interviewed by Astill who are involved with the tournament are understandably reluctant to criticise the quality of the product.  It could be that the closest we get in the book to an honest opinion is from ex-Indian cricketer W.V. Raman, who says: “T20 is like a porn movie.  I mean, it’s OK for a bit, but how long can you watch the bonking?”

Astill is clearly a perceptive and probing interviewer, getting more from his subjects than maybe they wished to reveal.  Sharad Pawar, government minister and top cricket administrator,  skilfully manoeuvres his way around his interviewer’s questions, speaking out of the corner of his mouth because his face has been half-frozen by cancer. He deflects the issue of whether or not he is the richest politician in India, but merely succeeds in creating the impression that he might be. The reader is left to decide whether “richest” is a euphemism for “most corrupt”.  Astill knows his boundaries.

At a much more humble level, Astill interviews cricketers playing in the slums. And next time Chintu Pujara scores a hundred for India, spare a thought for his proud father Arvind who taught the game to his son.  More than that, for the last twenty years he has coached the young cricketers of Rajkot, not just free of charge but at his own expense, paid for out of his modest salary as a railway clerk.  Astill’s portrait of him provides a moving insight into the selfless dedication that keeps the game alive.  Maybe Indian cricket has needed the likes of Pawar and Modi to take it to its current dominant position as the financial powerhouse of international cricket.  But it is the likes of Arvind Pujara that keep the game alive and healthy on the field despite all the corruption and in-fighting off it.

As for the book, it manages to be both a tamasha in itself, a great entertainment, and also a deadly serious work, carefully researched and lovingly compiled. Because of India’s dominating influence over the international game of cricket, even the most parochial and partisan supporters of the game outside India should read it. Its message is clear.  In the world of international cricket, India will be supplying most of the money to pay the piper and so will be very much calling the tune.  It is a tune that the rest of us will have to dance to, whether we like it or not.

Warwickshire End-of-Season Review

Here is my end-of-season review of Warwickshire in 2013 as published on Deep Extra Cover

http://deepextracover.com/2013/10/14/warwickshire-season-review-2013/

Introducing – Ateeq Javid – the Little Streetfighter

A cut-down version of this article appeared in Deep Extra Cover in September 2013.  Here it is as I had hoped it would appear.

Warwickshire will almost certainly look back on 2013 as a year when injuries and international calls have hampered their ability to field their best eleven, so that results have been unsatisfactory in all competitions.

One consequence of these problems has been an increase in opportunities for players who were previously on the fringes of the team.  Laurie Evans is one example of a player who has benefited from increased opportunities.  The other player who has taken his chances and established himself in the team is Ateeq Javid. 

Ateeq has scored steadily in four-day cricket, culminating in a maiden first-class hundred against Somerset in late August.  His 133 lasted all of seven hours and 309 balls.  Coming in at a precarious 38-3, he shared in a stand of 269 with the aforesaid Evans.

In addition, he has discovered a new role for himself as an off-spinner in one-day cricket.  He has regularly bowled the first over in T20 games and, in combination with fellow spinner Jeetan Patel, has often kept things tight in mid-innings.

Born in Aston and educated at Aston Manor School, Ateeq has no strong family connections in the game, other than cousins with whom he played in the back garden when he was aged about seven.  Now twenty one, Ateeq has come through the youth teams with Warwickshire, starting at age nine.  He was in the Warwickshire Academy at 15.  “I did really well,” says Ateeq.  “I got some chances in the second team and then I was called into the office by Ash (Ashley Giles).  He said that he wanted me to sign a professional contract.  I was 16 by this time so I left school and signed on.”

Ateeq played a couple of first-class games in 2009 when still only 17.  “I didn’t get too many runs but I did spend time in the middle against Durham.”  Then he served his apprenticeship in the second team.  In addition, he played for England at under-19 level including the 2009/10 under-19 World Cup in Bangladesh.  In the next three seasons, however, he played less than half a dozen first-class games.

Ateeq used the time to develop his skills.  He was helped by a winter in Melbourne where, as he says, “I toughened up my game.”  So when the injuries struck Warwickshire early in the 2013 season, he was ready to take his chance.  He did well on the pre-season tour of Barbados, putting together several useful scores and, when the opportunity came, he seized it with both hands.

With his bowling performances in the T20 competition, does Ateeq see himself as an all-rounder?  “Yes, definitely I do now,” he says. “I wasn’t too sure before but it just shows what happens if you keep working at things.  It keeps me in the game, which I like.  Jeetan Patel has been a great help.  Every time I see him, I try to get some information from him.  Sometimes he gets a bit irritated if I won’t leave him alone but I’m trying to learn all the time.”

As his century against Somerset demonstrates, Ateeq’s natural game is to dig himself in and bat for a long time.  Increasingly, however, he is able to adapt his tempo to the situation, as is demonstrated by the fact that his first-class strike rate is only around 35 but it increases to 88 for List A games.

Ateeq nominates Warwickshire’s Director of Cricket  Dougie Brown as the biggest influence on his career to date. “He’s known my game since I was 15. He’s seen me express myself in the second team so he’s given me the confidence to go out and do the same in the first team.”

I asked Ateeq to comment on the fact that Dougie recently described Ateeq as a “little streetfighter”.  “Actually,” he says, “the Sussex coach Mark Robinson said the same thing when he was coach to the England under-19s.  I think they mean that I’m smart on the pitch, can read situations and can take care of myself.  Come to think of it, I guess that’s how Dougie himself played so I feel pretty good about that.”

Dougie is unstinting in his praise of Ateeq. “One of the great things about Teeqy is if you ask him to do something with the bat he basically follows it to the letter.  He doesn’t give his wicket away and he is a brilliant character with a great attitude towards everything he does – batting, bowling and training.”

With such words ringing in his ears, it’s not surprising that Ateeq’s ultimate aim is to play for England. “What I’ve done so far is only the beginning.  At under-19 level, I played with guys like Joe Root and Ben Stokes so if they can make the step up to the full England team, I don’t see why I can’t do the same.  I just have to keep working on my game, scoring runs and taking wickets. Ideally, I want to bat at four or five for Warwickshire so that I get the opportunities to show what I can do but it’s tough working your way up the order when there are so many all-rounders in the team. I don’t want to play just for the sake of it.  I want to contribute massively to the team effort.”

This winter, Ateeq aims to go abroad again and work on his game.  “I’m starting to mature now so I know where I need to improve.  I just have to get my head down and work on some key areas.  With the ball, I need to understand my action a bit more, apply what I’ve learnt from Jeetan and improve both tactically and technically. With the bat, I need to convert more half-centuries into hundreds.”

So there you have it.  Ateeq’s combination of talent and attitude make him a strong bet for future success for Warwickshire and, quite possibly, for England.  If either team find themselves in a tight corner, they could do a lot worse than send for the little streetfighter.

Two Days at the Cricket

“I love it when a plan comes together.”  So said the third most famous Hannibal.

This well-worn catchphrase sprang to mind last week.  I realised that I could combine a visit to the second day of the Ashes Test at Old Trafford with a trip to Headingley the following day to report for Deep Extra Cover on the second day of the vital Championship match between Yorkshire and my own county of Warwickshire.

I seem to recall that, for the A Team’s  Hannibal Smith, the plan always did come together, despite a few scary moments.  And so it proved for me.  Mind you, I don’t suppose that the cigar-chomping Hannibal ever had to queue for a tram outside Old Trafford for an hour with a mob of noisy drunken supporters with bursting bladders and loud voices. Nor will he have experienced the joys of trains that don’t quite connect, followed by signal failures so that a 45 mile journey from Old Trafford to Colne took six hours.

Never mind.  There were some good bits too, both at the cricket and elsewhere.  Here are the many highs and a few lows from my two day trip:

1.    HIGH - Michael Clarke’s innings brought back memories of Greg Chappell’s ruthless elegance.  Maybe he and Darren Lehmann are managing, more by chance than careful planning, to create a half-decent team.  Certainly, their pace attack of Siddle, Harris, Starc and Watson were able to maintain a challenging line and length throughout the second day.

 

2.    LOW – at Old Trafford I realised just how out of tune I am with the norms of modern Test Match crowd behaviour.  We sat with a walkway right in front of us, so no problems of leg-room.  But it soon became obvious that these days, the average spectator has a sitting time of around ten minutes before feeling compelled to stand up and walk across our eye-line to buy beer, visit the toilet or create a beer snake. Oh well, I’m getting old and I guess it’s case of autres temps, autres mouers as they say at the Statham End.

 

3.    HIGH - After the horrors of returning from Old Trafford by public transport, it was a delight to drive across the moors to Headingley in my good friend Keith’s Aston Martin DB9 Volante with the top down on a sunny morning.  Many years ago, Keith and I worked together as very junior HR and training people in Birmingham.  Now Keith drives the said Aston Martin and I have a Skoda Fabia.  Now where was it that I went wrong?

 

 

4.    LOW - if you are looking for somewhere to spend your Friday night, I can personally recommend that you avoid the area around Blackburn railway station.  If last Friday is anything to go by, you will have the opportunity to enjoy the company of a large number of big, aggressive, hairy, drunken Lancastrians.  And the men are pretty scary too.

 

5.    HIGH - at Headingley, there were parallels with the Test match in that Yorkshire’s pace bowling attack of Sidebottom, Brooks, Plunkett and Patterson bowled the same unrelenting line and length as their Australian counterparts.  It has to be said that Warwickshire came back later in the game and were, like the Australians, unlucky that the rain ruined their victory hopes.

 

6.    HIGH - I can’t say that the sandwiches delivered to the Headingley press box excited my taste buds.  So at lunchtime, we followed in the footsteps of the legendary John Arlott and took a brief walk to Bretts Fish Restaurant to sample their equally legendary fish and chips.  In homage to Mr. Arlott, we felt obliged also to sample their wine list.  OK, I admit that we missed the first twenty minutes of the afternoon session but we made the right decision with no need for a review.

 

7.    HIGH - it was good to see Laurie Evans of Warwickshire batting so confidently for his 88.  His opportunities have been limited since he joined the Bears from Surrey; and this season, when his place seemed assured, he suffered a broken hand early in the season.  Now, despite having dislocated a finger dropping a key catch in Warwickshire’s final T20 Group match against Somerset, he was in fluent form.

 

8.    LOW – my friend Keith (yes, the one with the Aston Martin) is the least pretentious of men but he did manage, accidentally, to achieve the ultimate in one-up-manship.  On our journey to Headingley, he embarked upon a long anecdote about cars, in the course of which he dropped in the killer line, “when I had my first Ferrari.”  I could have tried to counter this with something like “when I was on my first date with Sophia Loren” but he knows me too well.

 

9.    HIGH – it’s a bonus when you discover pleasures in the most unlikely places.  So it was when, within a cricket ball’s throw or two from Headingley  we discovered Meanwood Park and a memorial to Laurence Oates, he of the famous last words, “I am just going outside and may be some time.”  Meanwood  was the Oates family seat and the memorial was put in place in 2012 on the centenary of the ill-fated Scott expedition.

10. HIGH – I had never even heard of a Panopticon before I was introduced, again on the return journey from Headingley, to Pendle’s Atom Panopticon, a piece of art that stands above the village of Wycoller.  The original Panopticon was apparently designed by the 18^th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham as a kind of roundhouse that would enable guards to watch inmates of prisons, asylums, hospitals or other institutions.  Or, as he so charmingly put it, “a mill for grinding rogues honest”.  The Pendle version has the less ambitious aim of providing some visual stimulation to visitors.

There you have it, many more highs than lows.  Yes, Hannibal, I do love it when a plan comes together.

Reflections from Taunton

Last week, I spent a couple of days in the Press Box at Taunton when Warwickshire were playing Somerset.
I wasn't there for the last day when there was an exciting finish - yes, in  cricket, a draw can be exciting.
Watching the two teams battling it out caused me to have some thoughts about the different ways they are run off the field.
Deep Extra Cover were sufficiently interested in my thoughts to publish them -see:
http://deepextracover.com/home/reflections-from-taunton/
Although I said at the end of the article that I wasn't passing any judgments, I guess the truth is that I am concerned about the rather abrasive style of management at Edgbaston compared with the more friendly style down at Taunton.
Maybe if I owed £20 million I might be a bit abrasive but when you're that much in debt, it's best to adopt a style that makes you friends rather than enemies.
Anyway, I wish both teams success on the pitch this season - and plenty of sunshine.

Dougie Brown

Cricket lovers will know that Dougie Brown has been appointed as Warwickshire County Cricket Club's new Director of Coaching.

Years ago, when he was at the height of his playing career, I interviewed him for The Cricketer magazine.  I was delighted, in the last few weeks, to have the opportunity to write another article on him.  I wasn't able to do the interview but I wrote it up for Deep Extra Cover website - see here

I remember that when I did the original interview, Dougie invited me to sit on the players' balcony at Edgbaston during a match whilst he talked to me.  As I sat there, I couldn't help but look across at what is now the Eric Hollies stand.  It used to be called the Rea Bank and was just an area of rather basic open wooden seating.  In my imagination, I could see a little 9 year old boy sitting there with his mother, enthralled at seeing his first ever proper game of cricket. The weather was cloudy, the cricket was slow but he didn't care. That little boy was, of course, me; and I concluded that, had he been able to see his older self sat on that balcony, he would have turned cartwheels with joy.

I'm looking forward to the coming cricket season and the opportunity to write more Warwickshire-based articles for Deep Extra Cover.  I just hope that, in doing so, I can, in my senior years, re-create at least a little of that sense of wonder and excitement that consumed me as I sat on the Rea Bank on that day so long ago.