All Time XIs – South Africa

My latest variation on the all-time XI theme takes me on a wander through the minefield of South African cricket – did I manage it without blowing metaphorically blowing myself to smithereens en route? Probably not!

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the most difficult and controversial in this series of all-time XI themed posts. I am starting this post on Monday May 11 2020, and will finish when circumstances permit (see my previous post for why this is). I am looking at the most controversial of all international outfits, South Africa, and am well aware that in doing so I venture into a particularly densely populated minefield.

THE PARTICULAR DIFFICULTIES
AROUND SOUTH AFRICA

Peter Oborne in his biography of Basil D’Oliveira points out that no official South African side of their first period as a test nation, 1889-1971, can be regarded as in any way a representative XI as the vast majority of that country’s population were simply excluded from consideration. However, I will not disregard players from that era. I give due consideration to the white South Africans who had their international careers nipped in the bud by their country’s (IMO) long overdue international isolation, but I also make no secret of the fact I am rather more concerned about the non-white South Africans who with a few shining exceptions were airbrushed for many decades from cricket’s history, and they too feature in my thinking. Finally, there is one player in the team from my lifetime who has abandoned his native country after playing five tests for it, and I endeavour to explain and justify that inclusion. Also, I do not in my selection process acknowledge any kind of quota system, though I understand and accept the reasons why today’s South Africa continues to have one, and anyone thinking of using my approach to justify opposition to said quota system kindly take this as a preemptive ‘cease and desist’ notice. There are some goodies at the end of what will be a long post which should appeal to some of you.

SOUTH AFRICA IN MY LIFE

The readmission of South Africa, cleansed of apartheid, in the early 1990s, when I was in mid teens provides a natural cut off point for the start of my selections for this XI, and with due apology to some of the fine players from that country who showed what they could do at levels below full international, including against rebel tour sides some of whom were fairly strong I make it so.

*Graeme Smith – left handed opening batter, captain. A magnificent record, including scores of 259 and 277 in successive matches against England, and he was also a very successful captain. My fellow blogger the pinchhitter has described his appointments in his current role running the SA national team as ‘getting the band back together’ in tribute to that fine film “The Blues Brothers”, as he has surrounded himself with a coterie of former team mates.
Herschelle Gibbs – right handed opening batter. There were several possibilities for this role, but my choice of Gibbs is made because I think he is a perfect counterpoint to Smith.
Hashim Amla – right handed batter. His record as the rock at no3 makes its own case for his selection. I remember his triple hundred against England when he never looked like getting out.
Jacques Kallis – right handed batter, right arm fast medium. Another with an irrefutable case for selection. Had he been more enthusiastic about his bowling he would be a genuine challenger to Sobers’ title as the greatest of all all rounders, but as it is I have him as fourth seamer in this side.
AB De Villiers – right handed batter, sometimes wicket keeper, occasional medium pacer. He is the X factor player in this eleven – and if the front four give him a really good start to cash in on hard hats for the spectators might well be advisable!
Jonty Rhodes – right handed batter, brilliant fielder. Rhodes was the finest fielder I ever saw in action, and I have no hesitation in believing that like Gilbert Jessop of old he was worth 30 an innings to his side in that department, which is why I have given him the nod for this slot over others whose batting may suggest that they are more worthy and over Brian McMillan whose all rounder status might impress others.
+Mark Boucher – wicket keeper, right handed bat. His amazing record as a keeper over the course of 147 test matches and his very handy middle order batting make him an easy pick.
Shaun Pollock – right arm fast medium bowler, useful lower order batter. For this role he rates fourth out of all cricketers I have seen in my lifetime, with Wasim Akram, Malcolm Marshall and Richard Hadlee ahead of him.
Simon Harmer – right arm off spinner, useful lower order batter. He played five times for his native land and had some success before decamping for England, for whom he may yet also get to play (although I personally think it would be a mistake to select him at this juncture for reasons I have discussed elsewhere). I acknowledge the frustrations that caused him to take the course he did, because I have very little doubt that if you are selecting only one front line spinner he is a better bowler than Keshav Maharaj. I also get why South Africa took the approach they did, so this selection is simply an endorsement of Harmer, NOT a criticism of anyone.
Kagiso Rabada – right arm fast bowler. His record commands inclusion, and he is one of two ‘warheads’ I have given this South African attack along with…
Allan Donald – right arm fast bowler. The fact that he chose to wait for his home country to be readmitted rather than qualifying for England meant that he was a little later into the test arena than he might have been, which makes his magnificent record once the opportunity arrived even more outstanding

It is a reflection of South Africa’s cricketing strengths in my lifetime that I have given them an attack featuring only one front line spinner, but I do not think that manipulating an attack of Donald, Rabada, S Pollock an Harmer backed by Kallis to capture 20 wickets in a match would be considered unduly taxing by most captains! While I could see the appeal and in some circumstances recognize the necessity of going for a quick and decisive breakthrough by opening up with Donald and Rabada at full bore I could also see using one of Donald and Rabada in conjunction with Pollock as a new ball pairing and bring the other super speedster on first change, especially at a ground such as Headingley, where a less quick bowler who can run up the slight slope from the football stand end and use a wind blowing towards them to move the ball about is often extremely useful, and you could then give both speedsters a burst with the ball newish even at the end of the second one’s spell from the Kirkstall Lane end.

THE NEW PLAYERS IN THE ALL TIME XI

Barry Richards – right handed opening batter. One of those whose test career was ended by South Africa’s isolation. The word of Sir Donald Bradman (in Roland Perry’s “Bradman’s Best” that Richards was the finest opener he ever saw in action is good enough for me.
Herby Taylor – right handed opening batter. In 1913-14 when Syd Barnes tore South Africa to pieces with 49 wickets in four matches at 10 a piece before missing the fifth due to a dispute over terms and conditions there was one shining exception to the tale of South African batting woe: Herbert William Taylor emerged from the series with 508 runs at 50.80. In one of the early innings of that series 10 South Africans plus extras scraped up 73 between them, yet the all out total was a semi-respectable 182 because Taylor made 109 – and even at the end it was not Barnes but Johnny Douglas who actually dislodged him. Louis Duffus in a short piece titled “Herby Taylor Masters Barnes”, which appears in “The Faber Book of Cricket” describes Taylor’s performance in that innings thus: “with machine like precision he reduced Barnes to the ranks of the mortals.”
Graeme Pollock – left handed batter. His test average of 60.97 is only exceeded among those who have completed their careers and played 20 or more matches by Adam Voges who was lucky with his opponents (the one Ashes series he played was distinctly unimpressive, featuring only two fifties) and Bradman.
*Aubrey Faulkner – right handed batter, leg spinner. 25 test matches brought him 1,754 runs at 40.79 and 82 wickets at 26.58, the only person to have played over 20 test matches and achieved the double feat of averaging over 40 with the bat and under 30 with the ball. He was part of quartet who bowled googlies, along with Albert Vogler, Reggie Schwarz and Gordon White, the latter primarily a batter. It was the fact that two of the four were worth places as batters that enabled all four to be picked and pace bowling not totally neglected as it was by Indian teams in the 1970s when none of Venkataraghavan, Prasanna, Bedi or Chandrasakehar, the game’s other great spinning quartet, were remotely close to being front line batters. In line with my thinking about slow bowling all rounders being well equipped for the role I have named as captain of this side. Faulkner was part of the only team to defeat the 1921 Australians, an assemblage raised by former England skipper Archie MacLaren. After MacLaren’s XI were rolled for 43 in their first dig and the Aussies scored 174 in reply, MacLaren himself fell cheaply, but Faulkner made 153, supported by Hubert Ashton with 75, and then Faulkner, Michael Falcon and Clem Gibson bowled Australia out to fulfill MacLaren’s prophecy that “I could put together a side to beat Armstrong’s lot” (The 1921 Aussies were captained by Warwick Armstrong, then 6’3″ and 22 stone, probably the largest ever international cricketer).
Krom Hendricks – right arm fast bowler, could also bat. The first South African to miss out on international cricket due to his skin colour. He had many advocates for selection in the tour party being picked to go to England in 1894 (not a test tour, but who is to say that given the opportunity he would not still have been playing by the time of the 1907 tour). One attempt was made to include him by taking him along as scorer and baggage handler, a suggested arrangement to which Hendricks responded with outrage. Augustus Tancred, one the leading white South African cricketers of the day made an equally outraged counter response to Hendricks’ claims for equality, recorded in full in the Oborne book, and which basically amounted to ‘how dare a black man not know his place?’. I select Hendricks both for his own merits, which for the controversy in which he was involved to have arisen must have been very considerable and also as a kind of tribute to ‘the unknown black South African cricketer’ so many of whom performed over the years with poor/ no equipment and on the patches of wasteland with barely a blade of grass in sight that were the only ‘grounds’ and ‘pitches’ on which they were permitted to play. I considered Eric Petersen, a contemporary of Basil D’Oliveira for this position but opted for the more historic example of Hendricks.
Hugh Tayfield – off spinner. He was the leading wicket taker for the first incarnation of South Africa as a test playing nation, given his chance after injury brought Athol Rowan’s career to an end largely on the strength of a hunch by then springbok skipper Jack Cheetham (detailed by Louis Duffus in the chapter he contributed on Cheetham to “Cricket: The Great Captains”

With these players assigned their places in the batting order, and the necessary deselections to enable that to happen the All Time South Africa XI reads in batting order: Barry Richards, Herby Taylor, Hashim Amla, Graeme Pollock, Jacques Kallis, *Aubrey Faulkner, +Mark Boucher, Krom Hendricks, Hugh Tayfield, Kagiso Rabada and Allan Donald. This line up has a power packed top five, a genuine all rounder at six, a keeper who can bat st seven and four quality front line bowlers. The bowling attack with three genuine fast men in Donald, Hendricks and Rabada, an off spinner in Tayfield and a leg spinner in Faulkner backed up by Kallis if needed is both strong and well balanced. The southpaws are underrepresented with only Pollock among the front line batters featuring, and no left arm bowler of any kind. However, it looks every inch a serious force to be reckoned with.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

There is one very notable omission from this section because I am featuring him in a section to himself and one famous SA cricket name which I am deliberately not mentioning anywhere in this post for reasons readers should be able to work out, one of two such. Among the other recognized openers I could have named were Bruce Mitchell, Alan Melville, the adhesive Trevor Goddard, Jimmy Cook, the best South African opener of their period of isolation and good enough to at least increase the number of contenders for the title of best opener named Cook to two (Sir Alastair of course being the other) and Gary Kirsten. Eddie Barlow, Clive Rice, Ken McEwan (who did remarkable things for Essex in the 1970s and early 1980s) and Darryl Cullinan would all have their advocates for middle order spots. The considerable pool of fast bowling talents available for selection included JJ Kotze, ‘the timber shiverer’ who terrorized England in 1907 when the spinners did not have wet conditions to exploit, Neil Adcock, Peter Heine, Peter Pollock, Vintcent Van Der Bijl (Edmonds, a Middlesex colleague, in “100 Greatest Bowlers” suggests that Van Der Bijl’s test record had he got to play at that level would have looked quite similar to Brian Statham’s) and Garth Le Roux. More recently, without yet having enough of a record to merit consideration Anrich Nortje has been making waves. The spin department is easier to deal with, as with acknowledgement to Athol Rowan and Faulkner’s fellow googly bowlers (Reggie Schwarz learned the trick from its pioneer Bosanquet while at Middlesex and taught the others) the only other two who might merit consideration were Denys Hobson, a 1970s leg spinner, and Imran Tahir, one of those who were seen by Harmer as blocking his progress. Other than Boucher only two other wicket keepers were in the mix, Denis Lindsay and John Waite.

MIKE PROCTER

Mike Procter was unquestionably a great all rounder, a genuinely fast bowler who could also turn his hands to off breaks at need and an attacking middle order batter who no opponent dared treat lightly. However, with Donald, Hendricks and Rabada all nailed down for places, and Kallis also there to bowl fast medium I felt that the genuine all rounder of the side needed to be a spinner for the sake of balance, and I defy anyone to challenge my categorization of Faulkner as the most genuine of genuine all rounders.

BASIL D’OLIVEIRA

Given what he achieved when he got to don the blue cap of England at an age well past cricketing prime, what I have read about his deeds in coloured cricket in South Africa and for the SACBOC XI, the nearest thing South Africa had to a truly representative team before 1992 (there were no whites involved, but not because they were excluded but because none chose to participate – had any done so and been good enough to get selected it would have been fully representative, and it was in any case far more so than the teams that were openly drawn from only a tiny minority of that country’s population) I am going to go right out on a limb and say that had D’Oliveira’s test career started in his early twenties for South Africa he would stand not merely as one of the finest cricketers of his generation but as one of the game of cricket’s greatest ever players. The first stage of SA’s isolation began when the MCC, in an attempt to avoid an awkward situation declined to name D’Oliveira in the 1968-9 tour party to South Africa, but then when Tom Cartwright, primarily a bowler, pulled out citing injury (but actually because he was not prepared to go to South Africa) they then named D’Oliveira as his replacement, knowing from the reaction to his initial non-selection that anything else would have been unacceptable. The then South African leader John Vorster decided this gave him the opportunity for a spot of jingoistic posturing and declared that D’Oliveira would not be allowed into South Africa. The MCC responded in the only way they could by cancelling the tour forthwith, although they tried to continue with the 1970 series in England, but soon found that that was not going to be possible either. The final curtain rang down on South Africa’s first incarnation as a test nation when they were due to tour Australia in 1971-2. Anti-apartheid protesters in Australia did not want this tour to go ahead, but others, initially including Bradman who would ultimately make the final call. Bradman made contact with protest organizers, as documented by Roland Perry, including Meredith Burgmann with whom he had an exchange of letters, in which to Burgmann’s own surprise she found Bradman coming round to her way of thinking. Then Bradman bearded the dragon in its den – he went to South Africa and had a private meeting with Vorster. Vorster, making the same kind of misjudgement about Bradman that Burgmann had when she assumed that he was ‘one of them’ assumed that Bradman was ‘one of us’ and during that private discussion gave vent to some unvarnished and apparently exceedingly crass racism and it was that that finally settled the issue for Bradman, and he not only cancelled the tour, but made a famous statement that “We will not play them again until they select their team on a non-racist basis.” From then until readmission post apartheid in 1992 South Africa did not play another official test match. Vorster who like certain hard right racists of more recent vintage (recognize anyone, USian followers?) did not take kindly to being crossed and had a tendency to throw tantrums proceeded to produce a classic in which he publicly berated Bradman because the Aussie had proved not be ‘one of us’ or ‘one of them’, but his own person, making decisions based on the evidence presented to him. While I could not name D’Oliveira in the squad because of his long association with England and English cricket I felt that a section about him was appropriate and I end with the little note that test series between England and South Africa are now played for the D’Oliveira trophy, which at the time of writing is in English hands.

A SUMMATION

When I set out on this little expedition through South African cricket I viewed it rather akin to strolling through a densely planted minefield because of the controversial nature of the subject matter. Feel free to comment if you so wish on how many times I metaphorically blew myself to pieces during the journey, but bear in mind that at least I made the journey myself rather than sending a minion, or recording video footage with the mines safely deactivated! I hope I have done justice to my subject matter, and that my selections are at least intelligible, and I conclude the cricket part of this post by repeating a point made in an earlier post in this series that with these international side selections no two people would be likely to arrive at the same set of answers.

A SOUPCON OF SCIENCE AND A MEASURE OF MATHEMATICS

For those interested in astronomy, a piece about the mapping of the surface of a Neutron Star from physics-astronomy.com, accompanied by this video:

The ‘measure of mathematics’ comes from brilliant.org, from where I present the following problem:

I am feeling generous, perhaps because of the continued improvement in my health, and perhaps because this post has been such fun to create, so I will give the four available answers: a)9 b)15 c)21 or d)27. I will reveal all tomorrow.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Well, our African Adventure (yes, many years ago in my youth, I did read the series of books by Willard Price that included one with that title) is done, and we have seen a soupcon of science and a measure of mathematics, so all that remains is the final photographic flourish:

P1320605 (2) — Deep geological time (from “The Ancestor’s Tale” by Richard Dawkins)

P1320606 (2) — Ernst Haeckl anticipating modern evolutionary biology in the mid 19th century by placing hippos as the closest relatives of whales (same book).

P1320612 (2) — This curious bug is not pictured in my bug book.

P1320616 (2) — This one (five pics in total)…

P1320617 (2) — …is probably by a Western Honeybee…

P1320618 (2) — …although European Hornet is a possible…

P1320619 (2) — …there are two arguments against the latter: 1) the hornet usuall has some red in its head (cephalon technically)…

P1320619 (3) — …and 2) hornets of whatever type are normally aggressive or at least have that reputation, where as this critter was docile – after photographing I was able to open a large window in front of it and it gratefully flew off into the open air where it belonged.

The teams in tabulated form with abbreviated comments.

PS I have spaced the construction of this post out over most of a day, with breaks when needed, and I am feeling fine and only a little tired – for all the size of this post in total starting from 10AM I have probably given four hours to it, meaning that closer to five have been spent doing other things.

All Time XIs – Niners v Party Themed

This latest variation on the #all time XI’ cricket theme marks an aspi.blog landmark that you will have to read the full post to find out about!

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest variation on the ‘all time’ XI cricket theme. The current still slightly iffy state of my health precludes a serious attempt at doing a full blog post in one go, so I am aiming at publishing this one day after starting it, for a reason that I will make clear later in the post.

THE BRIEF

This post has a central aim celebrating a landmark which will be revealed later, and to that end I have created two XIs, one of whom have associations with the number nine and one of whom have associations with parties. As always class is by no means discounted even in these circumstances. The day on which I started work on this post, May 9th, was the day in 1895 on which WG Grace launched the first successful assault on 1,000 first class runs in the month of May, but I deemed that connection a tad too tenuous to include him.

THE NINERS XI

David Lloyd – left handed opening batter, occasional left arm orthodox spinner. He played nine test matches, in one of which he scored 214 not out, his only 50 plus score at that level (the record holder in this curious department is Karun Nair of India whose 303 not v England last time England toured there accounts for over four fifths of his tally of test runs).
Herbert Sutcliffe – right handed opening batter, excellent outfielder. Nine of his 149 first class hundreds were amassed in Roses matches – at one stage big scores in such fixtures were so common with Sutcliffe that Neville Cardus of the Manchester Guardian took ro describing him as “keeping his appointment with a century”. .
*Frank Worrell – right handed batter, left arm medium fast, occasional left arm orthodox spin. He scored nine test centuries (his conversion rate from 50s to hundreds was not especially good) in the course of a distinguished career that saw him become the West Indies first ever black captain.
Clem Hill – left handed batter, brilliant fielder. In the 1901-2 Ashes series Hill had a unique series of test innings, 99, 98 and 97 in succession (he did amass eight centuries in his test career, and was at one point until overhauled by Hobbs the leading career run scorer at that level).
Jess Jonassen – left handed part, left arm orthodox spinner. Scored 99 in a recent test match, which is her highest international score to date.
Arthur Chipperfield – right handed bat, leg spinner. He scored 99 on test debut. Unlike Jonassen who has yet to do so he did eventually score a test hundred.
Richard Hadlee – right arm fast bowler, left handed attacking middle order bat. He has the best innings figures ever recorded by a fast bowler at test level, 9-52 vs Australia in the 1984-5 series.
+Gil Langley – wicket keeper, right handed bat. He was the first keeper ever to make nine dismissals in a single test match – he tallied 98 overall in 26 test matches (83 catches and 15 stumpings).
George Lohmann – right arm medium pacer, attacking right handed lower order bat. He has the cheapest nine-for in test history, 9-28 versus South Africa (in another match in that same series he took 8-7 as SA were rolled for 30, the joint second lowest innings total in test history, shared by the 1924 South Africans who were dismissed by Tate and Arthur Gilligan for that same score). He has the lowest average of any taker of 100 or more test wickets, 10.75, the best strike rate, a wicket every 34 balls and was joint quickest to 100 wickets in 17 matches). He once played an innings of 62 not out in a test match that only included one single!
Arthur Mailey – leg spinner. He took 99 test wickets in all, including the first ever nine wicket innings haul by an Aussie, 9-121 in the 1920-1 Ashes series won 5-0 by Australia (Mailey took 36 wickets in that series, a record at the time). He is one place above his regular batting slot, but I deemed a more worthy candidate for promotion than…
Devon Malcolm – right arm fast bowler and genuine no11. He has the best test innings figures ever recorded by an England fast bowler, 9-57 vs South Africa at The Oval in 1994.

This team contains a solid looking opening pair, a good 3 and 4, all rounders at 5,6 and 7, a great wicket keeper who was no mug with the bat, and three quality specialist bowlers. The bowling, with a front four of Hadlee, Malcolm, Lohmann and Mailey backed up by Jonassen, Chipperfield and if needed Frank Worrell looks even more impressive than the batting (sorry, Bumble, you are definitely eighth choice bowler). Even with my decidedly unusual selection criteria it is unquestionably a strong and balanced unit that should give a good account of itself.

THE PARTY XI

Jack Lyons – right handed attack minded opening batter. The Aussie had some remarkable high speed knocks to his credit, often opening the batting with Harry Trott. He is here courtesy of the ice cream makers Lyons.
Tim Robinson – right handed opening batter. The Nottinghamshire opener made an extraordinary start to his test career against India away and then Australia at home, before being found out in the West Indies in 1986, an experience from which Robinson the batter never fully recovered. His international involvement ended for good in 1989 when he signed up for what turned about the last of the rebel tours of South Africa. He is in this team courtesy of Robinson’s Barley Water.
Alf Dipper – right handed batter. A regular opener for Gloucestershire I have moved him one place down here.
Kevin Pietersen – right handed batter, occasional off spinner. He is here not just for his likely contribution with the willow, but also because his nickname, ‘KP’, is the name of manufacturer of snack foods.
Andrew Symonds – right han ded batter, occasional right arm medium pacer. He is here courtesy of Symonds Scrumpy Jack, a brand of cider that is not actually a genuine scrumpy – it is fizzy, but a less sweet than most such, as well as for his big hitting batting and fine fielding.
Ellyse Perry – right handed bat, right arm fast medium, brilliant fielder. The most complete all rounder currently playing the game in my book. In addition to her immense cricketing merit, perry is of course a variant of cider made from pears rather than apples.
*FHB Champain – right handed batter, right arm slow bowler. Full name Francis Henry Bateman Champain, sometimes shown as hyphenated but I have seen scorecards from the period with it not hyphenated. His first class career began in 1895 and ended in 1914, and he amassed 4677 runs at 24.61 with five hundreds and took 17 wickets at 24.58, the latter figure suggesting that his bowling was underused. I have named as captain as none of this team are full time captains, and I think that his performances are least likely to be adversely affected by the captaincy.
Will Beer – leg spinner, capable lower order batter. Although left arm spinner Michael Beer has a test cap and Will does not I remember how impotent Beer was in that match – other than Collingwood who holed out to ‘raging against the dying of the light’ type smear down the ground essayed when two metres from the pitch of the ball he got no other wickets, and I never sympathise with bowlers of no balls, especially slow ones, so for me his ‘denied wicket’ of Alastair Cook is an irrelevance, mentioned only to dismiss it. Will Beer, our chosen Beer, has played for Sussex for a number of years, and during the 2019 championship season they used him up the order when they were lacking options in that area.
Robert Crisp – right arm fast bowler, right handed batter. The only bowler to have twice captured four wickets in four balls in first class matches (the second instance occurring in an innings haul of 9-64). He was a very adventurous type, and a multiply decorated war hero as well as a top level cricketer.
+’Punch’ Phillipson – wicket keeper, right handed bat. Played for Middlesex and England the 1890s. Played the last four matches of the 1894-5 Ashes after Leslie Gay had a disaster in the first at Sydney.
Doug Bollinger – left arm fast medium, genuine no11. Had it arisen it would have been rather harder to decide who got the promotion out of him and Malcolm than it was in the actual case of Malcolm and Mailey. He had his moments at test level before his unqualified disastrous performance at Adelaide in 2010 when he was lacking in pace or threat and quite blatantly obviously not fully fit.

This team has a fine top five, a magnificent all rounder at six, Champain at seven is admittedly something of a punt, but the the keeper and the three guys selected as bowlers all have fine records. The big decision is whether your trust ‘Doug the rug’ with the new ball or open up with Crisp and Perry (my inclination would be the latter).

THE CONTEST

I would say that the ‘Niners’ are not quite as strong in batting as the ‘Party Themed’ XI but their bowling is unquestionably stronger. The ‘Party Themed’ XI would probably need Perry to ‘come to the party’ in a big way to have a serious chance, but of course that cannot be ruled out. My prediction, borne out by the evidence of cricket’s long history that sides with better bowling and somewhat less good batting are more likely to win (see Yorkshire in the 1900s and the 1930s and Surrey in the 1950s as positive examples and the bowler-light but batter-heavy and never close to winning Sussex of the 1900s as a negative example of this), is that ‘The Niners’ would win a five match series, with the most likely margins for such being in my book 3-2, 3-1 with one draw, 2-1 with two draws and 4-1 in that order.

EPILOGUE

What was this little exercise all about (apart from obviously some fun)? Well today, my envisaged day for publishing this post is a landmark in aspi.blog’s history. It is my ninth ‘blogiversary’ (hence the team with the associations with the number nine). Click here to view the first post that ever appeared on this site way back in 2011. Since then this blog has truly gone global, which as an internationalist I am delighted by, with a follower count just topping the thousand, and visitors from the majority of our planet’s 192 recognized countries, as the map below shows – only the completely unshaded countries have yet to provide this sit with a visitor:

Incidentally for a real life example of XIs marking a special occasion I refer you to David Kynaston’s book “W.G.’s Birthday Party”, referring to the scheduling of the 1898 Gentlemen versus Players match so that its third and final day coincided with “The Champion’s” 50th birthday. On that day, WG, carrying an injury, took part in a last ditch resistance with Charles Kortright ‘the Demon of Leyton’ which almost saved the game for the Gentlemen. Precisely eight years later in 1906 WG playing in the same fixture marked his 58th birthday was last major innings in top level cricket, a match saving 74.

Finally, although I have avoided honourable mentions I must explain one omission: Mohammed Azharruddin played 99 test matches which I could have used to include him, but I took note of the reason why his tally of test caps did not reach the century: he was embroiled in a match fixing scandal.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Our two ‘blogiversary’ XIs have been introduced, the topped and tailed by explanations of the brief and the reason for the choice of theme. There is of course one last ingredient needed to complete an aspi.blog post – the signing off flourish…

P1320576 (2) — Multiple birds, multiple species of bird.

P1320578 (2) — A prowling on garage roofs across the private and hence rather poorly maintained road behind my bungalow (it is an unisgned turning off Raby Avenue and leads to nowehre other than the garages and the backs of the bungalows).

P1320581 (2) — My Fuchsia holding out the promise of glories to come.

P1320586 (2) — A rather splendid little bug crawling on my outside table.

P1320590 (2) — This world map, included by **Patricia Fara** in “Science: A Four Thousand Year History”, is designed to challenge northern hemisphere chauvinism by reversing the conventional polarity. In doing so, it shows New Zealand where it deserves to be ranked for its response to Covid-19: on top of the world.

Blogiversary — The two teams in tabulated form with abbreviated comments.

All Time XIs – Teams of the Talents

My latest variation on the all-time XI theme.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to today’s piece of whimsy on the theme of ‘all time XIs‘. I will set out the brief in full detail before launching into the main body of the post.

TEAMS OF THE TALENTS EXPLAINED

The two teams consist of one chosen from players who I have witnessed in action, and one chosen from players I have only read about but would dearly love to see in action. While class has most emphatically not been ignored my two principal criteria for creating these teams was to encompass the maximum breadth of skills within 11 players and that the teams should be jam packed with entertainment value. Of course no two cricket fans would arrive at similar conclusions following this brief – indeed I would probably not come up with the same set of teams twice. Please feel free to comment with your own views on my creations!

TEAM OF THE TALENTS – HISTORIC XI

Victor Trumper – right handed opening bat. This is the man who at Old Trafford in 1902, with England’s primary aim as stated by skipper MacLaren being to ‘keep Victor quiet before lunch’ was 103 not out by lunch on that first morning, having absolutely splattered MacLaren’s carefully set fields. On another occasion against South Africa he taunted the Saffer skipper Percy Sherwell as follows: every time Sherwell rearranged his field Trumper would hit the next ball somewhere a fielder had just been moved away from! Later, when commiserated on over being made to look foolish while Trumper hit 214 not out Sherwell responded “don’t worry, we have seen batting today”.
*WG Grace – right handed opening batter, right arm bowler of varying type. I could name no one else as captain of this team. He once said of his own approach to batting “I never liked defensive shots – you can only get three for them.”
Frank Woolley – left handed batter, left arm orthodox spinner, brilliant close catcher. The “Pride of Kent” as Peebles subtitled his biography of Woolley. ‘Crusoe’ Robertson-Glasgow once wrote of Woolley that he was “Easy to watch, difficult to bowl to and impossible to write about” before going on to make a noble effort at doing the latter.
Denis Compton – right handed batter, left arm wrist spinner. A running theme through his book “Playing for England” and demonstrated in practice by the way he played cricket is that cricket is a game and should be fun.
Charles Townsend – right handed bat, right arm leg spinner. My choice from various options for the leg spinning all rounder – he was the second after WG to achieve the season double of 2,000 runs and 100 wickets in first class matches.
Garry Sobers – left handed batter, left arm bowler of every type known to cricket, brilliant fielder. The most complete cricketer there has ever been and incapable of being other than highly entertaining.
Gilbert Jessop – right handed batter, right arm fast bowler, brilliant fielder. The sort of cricketer for whom the phrase ‘worth the admission money on his own’ was invented, and a shoo-in for a team of this nature.
+Jack Blackham – wicket keeper, right handed lower order bat. The game;s first great keeper.
George Simpson-Hayward – right arm off spinner (under arm). 23 wickets at 18 in five test matches. The notion of him foxing international batters with his methods is irresistible to me.
FR Spofforth – right arm fast bowler (later added considerable variations). The ‘Demon’ must have been seriously compelling to watch.
Sydney Barnes – right arm fast medium bowler. My pick for the greatest bowler ever. A new ball pairing of him and Spofforth would test anyone.

This team features a splenid opening pair, a wonderfully entertaining and contrasting pair at 3 and 4, three genuine all rounders at 5,6 and 7, with Townsend and Jessop flanking the incomparable Sobers, a great wicket keeper who could bat, and a splendidly varied trio of specialist bowlers. The bowling also looks rich in depth and variety, with nine of XI recognized bowlers, commanding between them a minimum of 11 styles (eight plus Sobers’ three).

TEAM OF THE TALENTS MODERN XI

Sanath Jayasuriya – left handed opening batter, left arm orthodox spinner. The Sri Lankan was the star of the 1996 ODI World Cup, but also did the business plenty of times at test level.
Virender Sehwag – right handed opening batter, occasional off spinner. The only cricketer ever to have scored over 100 runs in each session of a day’s test cricket (nb Don Bradman at Headingley was 220 not out at tea, but only added 89 in the final session of that day).
Brian Lara – left handed batter.
Sachin Tendulkar – right handed batter, holder of a raft of records at test and ODI level.
Viv Richards – right handed batter, occasional off spinner.
Ben Stokes – left handed batter, right arm fast bowler.
+Adam Gilchrist – left handed batter, wicket keeper.
Wasim Akram – left arm fast bowler, left handed lower middler order batter.
*Shane Warne – leg spinner, right handed lower order bat. I have chosen him as captain of this side. His arrival in the scene, commencing with the ‘Gatting ball’ at Old Trafford in 1993 was the trigger for an international revival of spin bowling.
Malcolm Marshall – right arm fast bowler, right handed lower order batter.
Muttiah Muralitharan – right arm off spinner. I watched transfixed as he destroyed England at The Oval in 1998, taking 16 wickets in the match either side of a huge Sri Lankan total.

This team has an excellent top five, x factor players at six and seven and a suoerb quartet of front line bowlers. With Stokes and Jayasuriya also significant as bowlers this team has most bases covered bowling wise, although there is no left arm wrist spinner, and of course no under arm option.

THE CONTEST

The XI from my lifetime have a stronger batting line up, with Marshall listed at no10, but the historic XI have greater depth and variety in bowling. This contest would be a spectacular one, and I cannot call a winner.

PHOTOGRAPHS

This post was interrupted by illness, and I am still by no means well – we shall see whether I can manage another tomorrow or whether it has to be wait until Sunday, when I will come up with something. Now for my usual sign off…

Teams of the talents — The teams in tabulated form.

All Time XIs – The Cricketing United Nations

A whimsical look at cricket as a world game, as two multinational sides are pitted against each other in an imagined battle for The Midwinter Trophy.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to another variation on the ‘all time XI‘ cricketing theme. Today we look at two teams of cricketers with multinational connections. For our first side we focus on people who play for or in a different country to that which their surname points to, while our second side features players whose stories take in multiple countries. After I have introduced the teams there will be some honourable mentions.

THE FOREIGN NAMES XI

Andrew Strauss – left handed opening batter. The opener and former England captain was a perfect fit for the three lions except for his surname, which is of Austrian origin. Famous Strausses include the two Waltz Kings Johann Strauss I and II, light opera composer Richard Strauss and a few other musical figures of varying significance. Strauss made 112 and 83 on his debut, falling victim to a dreadful call by Nasser Hussain in the second innings, and never really looked back. As a skipper, although he is one the select band to have guided England to a series victory down under he was sometimes overly defensive in approach which is why I have not awarded him that role in this team.
Thomas Klose – right handed opening batter (for South Australia). The least impressive record of any cricketer I have included thus far in this series of posts, partly because of World War II. He did once share a century opening stand with Ken Ridings, who was killed in that war, which set the stage for his captain and no3, Don Bradman, to utterly dominate the rest of proceedings with 267 not out. That Kl start to a surname is of Polish origin – German footballer Miroslav Klose, the best known possessor of this particular surname being of Polish ancestry.
Mike Veletta – right handed batter. He did on occasion don the wicket keeping gauntlets as well but I have thought it best to draw a veil over his efforts in that department. Though his test record was unimpressive, the Westralian had a fine first class record. That surname is of Italian origin.
Kevin Pietersen – right handed batter, occasional off spinner. One of England’s finest in their greatest period of the 21st century. The surname is of Danish or possibly northern German origin (more on this -sen name ending to come later).
Scott Styris – right handed batter, occasional medium pacer. The Kiwi, who also played county cricket for Middlesex, has a surname of Greek origin.
Marcus Stoinis – right handed batter, right arm medium fast bowler. Best known for his deeds in limited overs cricket where his figures are outstanding. Stoinis is another surname of Greek origin.
+Ricardo Vasconcelos – left handed batter, wicket keeper. The Northamptonshire man was born in South Africa but is of Portuguese descent and his possession of a passport from that country enables him to play as a non-overseas player. He has a double century to his credit, albeit in a match in which 19 wickets fell for over 1,300 runs. England may have a decision coming up as to whether or not they wish to make space for him at international level. Personally with a relative abundance of batter/keepers already available I would not do so, but England selectors have rarely seen eye to eye with me on such matters!
Ray Lindwall – right arm fast,right handed attacking lower order batter. That surname is anglicized from a Swedish original – Lindvall – with the v changed to a w. Briefly, before being overhauled by Benaud, Lindwall was Australia’s leading test wicket taker. Don Bradman picked him in his all-time World XI.
*Xenophon Balaskas – leg spinner, useful lower order batter. I wrote about him in detail yesterday. Both surname and given name are of Greek origin, though he was actually born in South Africa.
Buster Nupen – right arm fast medium bowler. Rated as one of the best ever on matting wickets (various countries over the years have used matting pitches, the South African version involved a base of hard packed rubble over which coir matting was stretched tight, a surface that gave a uniform bounce somewhat higher than standard on a turf pitch, but could also allow large amounts of sideways movement – the three most destructive operators ever on these pitches in South Africa, Briggs, Lohmann and Barnes all relied on generating such movement in one way or another, as did Fazal Mahmood who did brilliantly on jute matting when such surfaces were in vogue in Pakistan). Eiulf Peter Nupen to give him his full name does not merely have a name of Norwegian origin, he was actually born in Norway, near a place called Alesund (I have visited Norway, a very beautiful country, but I do not recollect seeing Alesund – a search of google maps reveals that it is southwest of Trondheim).
Jack Iverson – right arm wrist spinner whose stock delivery was the off break! A genuine no11 and hopeless in the field, but 21 wickets at 15 each in the one test series he played. Gideon Haigh has written a biography of him titled “Mystery Spinner”. Iverson;s grandfather, a northern German musician named Ludwig Iversen emigrated to Australia hoping to improve his fortunes, and in the years running up to World War I he anglicized his name to Louis Iverson, making the change just before a law banning such practices was passed! Anti-German sentiment was so strong for a time that to give just one example Matilda Rockstroh, a postmistress with 33 years of unblemished service to her credit was dismissed from her job purely on account of that surname. John Monash was targetted at this time by enemies who were wont to render his name as ‘Monasch’, inventing a German connection that was not there. A quarter of a century later our Iverson fought in another World War, suffered serious illness while serving, and found himself accused of cowardice once when recuperating – he was wont to visit the beach near his home, and one occasion found a white flag planted at his usual spot.

Selection criteria notwithstanding, we have an opening pair, one of whom can definitely by described as top class, a respectable 3,4 and 5, one of whom is authentically a great player, a good keeper/batter and four excellent front line bowlers. Lindwall and Nuoen, backed by the spin twins Balaskas and Iverson and with Stoinis as fifth bowler looks a decent attack. It is now time to meet the opposition…

THE MULTINATIONAL LINKS XI

Charles Bannerman – right handed opening batter. Born in Woolwich, then in Kent, now in Greater London, scored 165 for Australia in the inaugural test match.
Bransby Cooper -right handed opening batter. Born in what is now Dhaka, Bangladesh, was then Dacca, India, raised in England and opened the batting in that inaugural test match alongside Bannerman for Australia.
*Douglas Jardine – right handed batter, captain. Jardine was born in India to Scottish parents, and played for and captained England. His grandfather and father had both lived and worked in India, and only a Raj tradition that no more than two successive generations of any given family could do so prevented Jardine from following in their footsteps. This tradition was based on explicit fears that continual presence of a family in India might cause them to develop native customs and habits, and an unstated but definitely felt fear that it might cause them to develop darker skin. Jardine did visit India a year after the 1932-3 Ashes tour, with another England team. This trip marked the end of Jardine;s involvement with international cricket.
Kepler Wessels – left handed batter. In general I have avoided products of South Africa’s period of international isolation for this squad, but I make an exception for the only person to have scored over 1,000 test runs for two different countries. Wessels made a career for himself in Australia during the period of isolation, and subsequently returned to his native land in time to play for them when they gained readmission.
Billy Murdoch – right handed batter, wicket keeper. Australia’s second ever test skipper after Ned Gregory, he later played county cricket for Sussex and was also involved with the brief and unsuccessful London County experiment, captained by WG Grace with whom he became friends. In 1891-2 when Grace captained Lord Sheffiekd’s team to Australia, Murdoch travelled to South Africa in another England tour party, his last involvement in international cricket. In the inaugural test on English soil in 1880 he topped Grace’s 152 with 153 not out in the Aussie second innings, not quite enough to save his side, but enough to win him a sovereign from Grace, a trophy he had put on chain which he wore round his neck for the rest of his life. Betting on cricket is as old as organized cricket itself by the way – there are stories from the 18th century that make Cronje look a model of probity!
Sammy Woods – right handed batter, right arm fast bowler. Born in Sydney, settled in Somerset. He played a couple of times for Australia against England and later turned for England against South Africa.
Albert Trott – right handed bat, right arm spin bowler. I covered him in my ‘what might have been XI’ and in the ‘under-appreciated ashes’. He played two tests for Australia against England and later turned our for England against South Africa.
+Sammy Guillen – wicket keeper, right handed batter. Born in Trinidad, went on tour of New Zealand with the West Indies, stayed there and ultimately turned out for his new home country as wicket keeper, the only person to play for this particular combination of countries.
Jack Ferris – left arm medium fast bowler. Part of the second great Australian bowling partnership, with ‘Terror’ Turner, he also went on the 1891-2 tour of South Africa for England.
Clarrie Grimmett – leg spinner. He was born in New Zealand, crossed the Tasman in search of cricketing fulfilment, finally established himself in the third state he sought to make home, South Australia, after being baulked in both NSW and Victoria. 33 when called up his test debut, he played 37 times at that level, capturing 216 wickets, and it could have been more except for Bradman developing a mistrust of him. Grimmett, a keen experimenter, was believed by Bradman to have lost his leg break because he spent so much time on his latest creation, a new variation of the googly. Then, in a joint benefit game for himself and Vic Richardson, Grimmett produced a classic leg break that cleaned Bradman up just before the lunch interval. Grimmett was delighted to have proved his point, Richardson aware of the effect that Bradman’s dismissal would have on attendance was less so. Such was Grimmett’s obsession with his craft that when his mate Bill O’Reilly was part of a group on HMS Victory who were shown the musket ball that killed Nelson that worthy said “for goodness sake don’t show it to Clarrie – he’ll try to bowl it.” His cunning was reflected in some of his nicknames, notably ‘Fox’ and ‘Scarl’. the latter derived from “The Scarlet Pimpernel”, and giving rise to the chapter heading “Pimpernel of Spin” for the chapter about him in Roland Perry’s “Bradman’s Best Ashes Teams”
Athanasios John Traicos – off spinner. This man is the champion of cricketing multinationalism. He was born in Egypt, to parents of Greek ancestry and played for South Africa immediately before their isolation, and then, after a test record hiatus of 22 years and 222 days he turned out for Zimbabwe in that country’s first four official test matches!

This team has a pair who opened together in test cricket, a solid 3,4 and 5, two genuine all rounders in Woods and Trott, a good keeper and three varied specialist bowlers. The attack of Woods and Ferris with the new ball and Grimmett, Traicos and Trott to follow also looks pretty impressive.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Billy Midwinter, the only player to have played for both England against Australia and Australia against England is the most obvious miss. Philippe-Henri Edmonds, half-Belgian, born in Zambia and an England regular at one time was another to merit consideration. Among others were two South Australians with the surname Nitschke, Jack and Shelley, separated by about 70 years. Shelley in particular might have been accommodated at the expense of Stoinis. Albert Hartkopf, a one-cap wonder for Australia in the 1920s (he made 80, but the leg spin for which he got the honour proved expensive at test level) was another, while more recently Ben Hilfenhaus (Dutch) and Nathan Hauritz (German) have surnames that reflect ancestry far removed from their own countries. Finally, just failing to qualify because the ancestry is on the wrong side to be reflected in his surname, Shane Keith Warne’s mother was born in Germany – Warne and Iverson as spin twins would be one for the connoisseurs.

CONTEST FOR THE MIDWINTER TROPHY

Though I could not get him into either side I have honoured Midwinter’s unique status by provisionally naming the trophy for this contest in his honour. It is a fine looking contest, but my money would be on the ‘Multinational Links’ team to emerge victorious.

PHOTOGRAPHS IN TWO PARTS

We have met the contenders and a few honourable mentions in the battle for The Midwinter Trophy, and now it is time for my usual sign off, but on this occasion it comes in two parts:

PART ONE: THE MOON AS DAY FADES

Yesterday I had a glorious sight of the moon through my front windows as evening moved towards night, and I thought the series of photographs I captured over the course of approximately an hour warramted a bit of extra showcasing, so here we are:

P1320509 (2) — A first glimpse in a still light sky.

P1320510 (2) — The tree featured in these pictures is the same tree all the way through – in this one the moon is off to one side…

P1320516 (2) — While here the branches partially obscure it.

P1320518 (2) — Here it is just separated from the branches.

P1320519 (2) — By now it has moved to a position above the tree.

P1320520 (2) — Overlapping with the highest part of the tree.

P1320521 (2) — Fully separated from the tree,

P1320525 (2) — A final close-up as the sky was darkening.

PART TWO – THE REST

Finally, we these:

P1320528 (2) — A bug running across the pages of my book (Hugh Aldersey-Williams’ “Periodic Tales”).

All Time XIs – The CLR James Trophy

A variation on the ‘all time XI’ cricket theme inspired by CLR James’ great question “What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?” – contrives to touch on a huge variety of topics.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to another variation on the all-time XI theme. This one requires a little preliminary explanation to set the scene, but first before getting into the main body of the post it is time for a…

CORRECTION AND APOLOGY

Some observant readers will have observed, as did one James Carroll on twitter that in yesterday’s post about New Zealand I somehow contrived to leave out Kane Williamson. So, following my usual ‘reverse tabloid’ policy in such matters I take this opportunity to redress the wrong: Williamson replaces Rutherford in the NZ My Time team and if absolutely mandated to do so I could accommodate him in the NZ All Time by dropping Martin Crowe. My thanks to Mr Carroll for being civil about making the correction and my apology to Mr Williamson for an inexcusable oversight.

EXPLAINING THE CLR JAMES TROPHY

The CLR James Trophy gets its name from the question at the heart of that classic cricket book “Beyond a Boundary”, “what do they know of cricket who only cricket know?” I pit two teams against each other of top level cricketers whose names give me non-cricketing links, with brief explanations of those links. I did consider honouring a former cricketer with a famously broad range of interests, Ed Smith and a polymath in Peter Medawar, but decided to stick with the CLR option. It is time to meet the first of our two XIs…

WG GRACE’S XI

*William Gilbert Grace – right handed opening batter, right arm bowler of various types. The scorer of 54,896 first class runs and taker of 2,876 first class wickets, his parents’ eighth child and fourth son was named in honour of William Gilbert, Royal Physician to Queen Elizabeth I. He was among other things a pioneer in the field of magnetism, author of “De Magnete”, and subject of “Latitude” by Stephen Pumfrey. Another Gloucestershire physician, Dr Jessop, named his 11th child Gilbert, because it was WG’s middle name, while ‘The Champion’ had several cricketing cousins surnamed Gilbert as well.
Alec Stewart – right handed opening batter. His average when picked for England in this specific role was 45 per innings. Here he gets in in order to publicize Professor Ian Stewart, author of a stack of books about mathematics, including a series of books of curios “Professor Stewart’s Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities”, “Professor Stewart’s Hoard of Mathematical Treasurers” and “Professor Stewart’s Casebook of Mathematical Mysteries”, and many others such as “Does God Play Dice?”, “Nature’s Numbers” and “Taming the Infinite”.
Kepler Wessels – left handed batter. The only man to score over 1,000 test runs for each of two different countries. In his case the connection is by way of his given name, to ground breaking astronomer Johannes Kepler.
Bill Bruce – right handed batter. A successful Aussie of the 1890s. His analogue is Colin Bruce, author of “The Strange Case of Mrs Hudson’s Cat” and “Conned Again Watson”. These two books use stories featuring Baker Street’s most famous duo to explore mysteries of science, mathematics and logic.
Merv Wallace – right handed batter. The Kiwi averaged 44 in first class cricket, but his few appearances at test level were not so successful. The non-cricketing link is Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverer of the theory of evolution by natural selection. The Wallace line, which runs (among other places) between Lombok and Bali marks the geological and zoological divide between Asia and Australia.
David Hookes – right handed batter. The scorer of the fastest first class hundred by any Australian batter, in just 43 minutes. He is the only one whose name needs altering to create the non-cricketing links – deleting the final s gives Hooke, as in Robert Hooke, the great 17th century scientist, author of Micrographia, and well covered in John Gribbin’s “Science: A History 1543-2001”, while deleting the e from that surname provides a connection to philosopher Bell Hooks, who I learned a little bit about while studying philosophy as one of the modules of my degree.
Franklyn Stephenson – right handed batter, right arm fast medium bowler. Our all rounder, one of only two since the reduction of first class fixtures in 1969 to have done the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in an English season, and appropriately he is doing double duty. George and Robert Stephenson were both eminent engineers, among the pioneers of railway development. The most famous Stephenson design with a railway connection was of course ‘The Rocket’. Robert Louis Stephenson, a relative of the engineers, is famous as a novelist. I have read most of his books, the first one I read being “Kidnapped”, while I studied “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” at degree level.
+Jack Russell – wicket keeper, left handed lower middle order batter. His ‘alter ego’ is philosopher Bertrand Russell, author of many books, and one of the writers featured in “Portable Atheist”, edited by Christopher Hitchens.
Xenophon Balaskas – leg spinner, capable right handed batter. His brief test match career does not look that impressive, but in 75 first class matches he scored 2,696 runs at 28.68 with a best of 206 and took 276 wickets at 24.11 with a best of 8-60. The original Xenophon was an Athenian who went to Sparta when his situation in his home city became untenable, signed up as a mercenary solider there and travelled to Persia as part of an army attempting to overthrow King Artaxerxes and place his brother Cyrus on the throne. After a battle in which Cyrus was killed, Xenophon and his men found themselves in deepest Persia under sentence of death, but managed to escape, and Xenophon eventually returned to Greece, writing up his adventures in a book he called Anabasis. This has been novelized by Conn Iggulden as “Falcon of Sparta”. Much later one Xenophon of Cos served as physician to the Roman Emperor Claudius, being mentioned in Suetonius’ “The Twelve Caesars” and also in the fictional setting of Robert Graves’ “I Claudius” and “Claudius The God”. Finally, to complete Balaskas’ ancient historical links his middle name was Constantine, linking him the first christian Roman Emperor.
George Dennett – left arm orthodox spinner. Over 2,100 first class wickets and no England cap. He claims his place as second spinner by virtue of his surname, shared by philosopher Daniel C Dennett, among whose books are numbered “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” and “Breaking The Spell”, both of which adorn my shelves.
Danny Morrison – right arm fast medium bowler. He was one of the Kiwis best bowlers of the 1990s and his presence creates two splendid links. Toni Morrison won the Nobel prize for Literature for “Beloved”, and is also the author of a number of other hard hitting books – anything with her name on the cover will be worth reading. Boyd Morrison writes novels that combine action, adventure and elements of science and history – I have a copy of “The Noah’s Ark Quest” and can also recommend “The Tsunami Countdown”.

This team features a good top six, a genuine all rounder in Stephenson, a keeper who can bat, and three varied specialist bowlers. With Grace also worth his place as a bowler the bowling has depth and variety, with Stephenson and Morrison to take the new ball and Dennett, Balaskas and Grace to provide alternatives.

GREVILLE STEVENS XI

Harold Dennis ‘Dickie’ Bird – right handed opening batter. Best known as an umpire, but he was a successful opening bat for Barnsley, and ultimately amassed two first class hundreds, with a best of 181 not out. David Bird is a prolific writer of books about Contract Bridge. He is particularly noted for his humorous stories featuring the monks of St Titus, the nuns of St Hilda’s and latterly staff and pupils alike at Cholmeley and Channing schools, located at opposite ends of the same village.
Alan Melville – right handed opening batter. The South African had a splendid test record, including four successive centuries straddling World War II. His ‘alter ego’ is Herman Melville, author of “Moby Dick”.
Hugh Massie – right handed attacking top order batter. He scored 55 in the original ‘Ashes’ test at The Oval in 1882, made out of 66 in under an hour – and had kicked off that tour with an innings of 206, a record first innings in England for an Aussie until 1930 when Bradman opened his English account with a score of 236. His non-cricketing counterpart is historical novelist Allan Massie, author of a series of Roman history themed books including “Augustus”, “Tiberius”, “Caesar” and “Nero’s Heirs”. “Augustus” features a wonderful spoof foreword taking on the persona of master of Michaelhouse College, Cambridge, one Aeneas Fraser-Graham, and declaring that ‘even a glimpse of a photostat is sufficient to assure one of the authenticity of these memoirs’.
HJH ‘Tup’ Scott – right handed bat. Scott was one of three Aussie centurions at The Oval in 1884. He is not in fact here as an analogue for Captain Scott, although I commend to your attention the books about the ‘Captain Scott Invitational XI’ by Marcus Berkmann (“Rain Men” and tangentially “Zimmer Men”) and Harry Thompson (“Penguins Stopped Play”). No he has two ‘alter egos’ for my purposes, Walter Scott, prolific 19th century novelist and someone from whom Emily Bronte of “Wuthering Heights” fame drew inspiration, and Eugenie Scott of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, who was one of the contributors to “Scientists Confront Creationism”, edited by Andrew Petto and Laurie Godfrey and highly recommended by me.
Colin Munro – left handed big hitting batter. The Kiwi averages over 50 in first class cricket, though he has only played a couple of tests and those unsuccessfully. He owes his place in this XI to Hector Munro, aka ‘Saki’, a master writer of short stories.
*Greville Stevens – right handed batter, leg spinner. 10,376 first class runs at 29.56, 684 wickets at 26.84. At the close of the 1920 season it was he who ensured that the curtain would descend on Plum Warner’s career with an appropriately grand finish, by clean bowling Herbert Strudwick to settle the destiny of that year’s County Championship. He is here as a tribute the detective work of Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong, and the writing of their amanuensis Robin Stevens, who has created the ‘Murder Most Unladylike’ series to chronicle their exploits.
Alonzo Drake – middle order batter, left arm orthodox spinner. The first Yorkshire bowler ever to take all ten wickets in an innings – 10-35 v Somerset in 1914, the outbreak of World War 1 finished his career. Although he is a namesake of Sir Francis Drake who famously played bowls on Plymouth Hoe it is actually another Drake, Frank Drake of SETI fame who gets him into this team. Frank Drake co-authored with Dava Sobel a book titled “Is Anyone Out There?” about the search for extra-terrestrial life. Sobel has a stack of other credits, including “Longitude”, “A More Perfect Heaven”, “The Planets” and “Galileo’s Daughter” all of which I recommend.
+Ian Gould – wicket keeper and right handed lower order batter, later a successful umpire. ‘Gunner’ Gould just about merits his place as a keeper/batter, which makes it possible for me to bring in Stephen Jay Gould, USian scientist, science writer and master essayist. I own a number of his books, including “Questioning The Millennium”, “The Richness of Life”, “Life’s Grandeur”, “Bully for Brontosaurus”, “Ever Since Darwin”, “Dinosaur in a Haystack” and “Urchin in a Storm”. Given the amount of baseball that features in Gould’s oeuvre it seems quite appropriate to find a way a slipping him into a cricket themed post.
Mitchell Johnson – left arm fast bowler, left handed attacking lower order bat. The Aussie’s claims for a place need no further elaboration, and he allows me two connections. Samuel Johnson, author of the first recognized dictionary is one. There was a road not massively far from where I lived as a child in south west London called Dr Johnson Avenue, and it had that name because he used to cycle that way when going to visit his friend Mrs Thrale, who also has a road named in her honour that is even closer to my old family home. I used to walk along Thrale Road very frequently because if one was using either Streatham or Streatham Common stations it was the natural way to go. The second connection is Charles Johnson, an African American writer whose books include “Oxherding Tale” and “Dreamer”, the latter based on the life of Martin Luther King.
Max ‘Tangles’ Walker – right arm fast medium. He was a magnificent third string to Lillee and Thomson in the mid 1970s, gaining big movement in the air and off the pitch on occasions. At Edgbaston in 1975 when Mike Denness put Australia in and they scored 359 Walker matched Lillee’s five wickets in the first England innings with five of his own, before ‘Thommo’ turned chief executioner in the second dig. His ‘alter ego’ for my purposes is Alice Walker, well known as author of “The Color Purple”, and also the author of a collection of what she calls “Womanist Prose”, both of which come highly recommended. She became radicalized by her experiences as a student at Spelman College (although she left that institution and moved north the New York where she studied at Sarah Lawrence College), where she met the historian Howard Zinn, someone any of whose books will be worth reading. There is a quote from her which appears on the back cover of “The Zinn Reader”: “What can I say that will in any way convey the love, respect and admiration that I feel for this unassuming hero who was my teacher and mentor, this radical historian and people-loving ‘troublemaker’, this man who stood with us and suffered with us? Howard Zinn was the best teacher I ever had and the funniest.”
Harry Boyle – right arm medium pacer. FR Spofforth’s regular bowling partner. He earns his place as one half of the first great Australian bowling duo. His ‘alter ego’ is Robert Boyle whose contribution to science is covered on pages 126-42 of John Gribbin’s “Science: A History 1543-2001”.

This team has a decent top five, a couple of genuine all rounders, a keeper who can bat, and three fine and varied bowlers. Johnson, Walker, Boyle, Drake and Stevens is a bowling attack that should not struggle overmuch to take 20 wickets.

THE CONTEST

WG Grace’s XI are the stronger in batting of the two, although no side who can send Johnson in at no9 can be considered deficient in that department. But I suspect that the bowling resources of Greville Stevens’ XI are stronger overall. However countering that is the undeniable fact that WG Grace’s XI have the better keeper. I believe this would be a very close and highly compelling contest, and I cannot pick a winner. Note that the presence of Mr Bird notwithstanding I have not selected players solely on the basis of their names – it is always what they offer as cricketers that comes first.

PHOTOGRAPHS

The correction has been made and due apologies issued, the CLR James Trophy has been introduced and the contending XIs have been put through their paces, so all that now remains is my usual sign off:

P1320475 (2) — The best picture I have seen of ‘The Champion’ – this is the first page of the section on Batting in the Badminton Book of Cricket.

P1320483 (2) — At about 11:30AM this muntjac put in a fleeting appearance.

CLRJT — And the whole bolted together ready for public consumption.

All Time XIs – New Zealand

It being Monday, today’s exploration on the ‘all time’ cricket XI theme looks at an international unit, in this case New Zealand.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest in my series of ‘all time XI’ themed posts. Today being a Monday we are looking at an international outfit, and under the spotlight today is the land of the long white cloud (actually more often the land of the the thick black cloud) New Zealand.

NEW ZEALAND IN MY LIFETIME

John Wright – right handed opening batter. He was the first Kiwi to reach the landmark of 5,000 test runs. He was at one time successful for Derbyshire as well.
Bryan Young – right handed opening batter. He came late to this role but performed it conscientiously and successfully when the time came.
*Stephen Fleming – left handed top order batter, excellent captain. A successful captain and a big run scorer, though a stickler would point the relative dearth of centuries in his record.
Martin Crowe – right handed middle order batter. He scored almost 20,000 first class runs. His elder brother Jeff also played for NZ, though not so successfully. The other family link is that world famous actor Russell Crowe is a cousin. Martin Crowe’s maiden test century, against England in the 1983-4 series was the key innings that inspired his team to save a game that England has been bossing – Coney then made 174 not out and Lance Cairns played a useful supporting knock at the end. Against Sri Lanka, facing a huge first innings deficit he shared a New Zealand record partnership for any wicket with Andrew Jones, making 299 himself as the Kiwis reached safety on 671-4. He was unfortunate to find himself in the midst of a vicious controversy when Somerset named as overseas player in preference to either of the two West Indians Viv Richards and Joel Garner, which prompted the acrimonious departure from the club of Ian Botham.
Ken Rutherford – right handed batter – his test batting career got off to a start that might have made a tail ender blush, but he ended up with a fine record, and was also a good captain for a period.
+BJ Watling – wicket keeper and gritty middle order batter. He is the pivot of this side, and I have good cause to know just how dangerous he is – it was a long innings by him that out New Zealand in control of England’s last series there, a position they never relinquished.
Amelia Kerr – leg spinner and right handed middle order bat. My pick is the genuine all rounder. As is all too common with the best female players she has not had the opportunity to show what she can do in long form cricket, but a 232 not out in a 50 overs a side international match plus her leg spin bowling is recommendation enough for me.
Richard Hadlee – right arm fast bowler, left handed attacking lower middle order bat. Quite simply his country’s GOAT (Greatest Of All Time). What makes his performances at the highest level all the more impressive is that his support cast was generally speaking pretty ordinary. Graham Gooch, scorer of 183 not out against the 1986 Kiwis, the first to win a test series in England, described facing New Zealand as being like “facing a world XI at one end and Ilford 2nds at the other.” He became the first person knighted specifically in connection with cricket to play a test after acquiring the ‘Sir’ in front of his name (Bradman played his final first class match as Sir DG Bradman, while the Hon Sir FS Jackson was not knighted for reasons to do with cricket).
Daniel Vettori – left arm orthodox spinner, useful lower middle order batter. At the age of 20 he helped consign England to the bottom of the world test rankings not long after they had been shown the door of the World Cup they were hosting, and from then until his retirement he was an essential part of New Zealand’s plans. In later years the captaincy and the fact that he also had to do a lot of batting somewhat reduced his effectiveness as a bowler, but the 1999 version bowled left arm orthodox spin as well as I have seen it bowled.
Trent Boult – left arm fast medium bowler. The ‘conductor’ has been an effective leader of New Zealand’s pace attack for some years now, and just a few months ago he caused England considerable problems. He also gives my chosen pace attack an extra element of variety, bowling with his left hand.
Danny Morrison – right arm fast medium. Danny ‘the duck’ (hence his position at no11) was New Zealand’s outstanding pace bowler of the 1990s, and could be relied on to provide excellent back up in that department for Messrs. Hadlee and Boult.

This team has a solid opening pair, an excellent no 3,4 and 5, a fine keeper at six, Amelia Kerr the x-factor all rounder at seven and a fine bowling line up. The bowling attack, with a varied pace trio of Hadlee, Boult and Morrison backed by the contrasting spin styles of Vettori and Kerr also looks pretty impressive.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Had it not been for Stephen Fleming’s claims, and my desire that he should be captain, Andrew Jones would have been a strong contender for the no3 slot, and some would say that I should have picked him as an opener anyway. Nathan Astle, an explosive batter and sometimes useful purveyor of slow-medium would definitely have his advocates, as would big hitting all rounder Chris Cairns. ‘Two Metre Peter’ Fulton would have his advocates for an opening slot. Among the seam/swing/pace options I have overlooked were Shane Bond, the quickest his country has ever produced but sadly blighted by injuries, Tim Southee the ever reliable and Neil ‘the composer’ Wagner whose bouncers sometimes confound opposition batters. Colin De Grandhomme, a magnificent limited overs player, might have had the number seven slot I gave to Kerr, but his bowling offers less. I also considered another big hitting female all-rounder, Sophie Devine, but decided I wanted the extra spin option offered by Kerr. Brendon McCullum would have his advocates for the wicket keeping slot, as would Adam Parore, while I also thought about Ian Smith, but he will have to make do with being part of the commentary team, for which role he is a ‘shoo-in’. Finally, combative off spinner John Bracewell would have been the obvious choice had I wanted a third spin option.

THE NEW NAMES IN THE ALL TIME XI

Bert Sutcliffe, a left handed attack minded opener, who averaged just over 40 in a test career that began at Christchurch in 1947 and ended at Edgbaston in 1965 comes in at the top of the order. For Otago against Canterbury he once scored 385. Otago’s all out tally in that innings was precisely 500, and in their two efforts Canterbury scored 382 runs off the bat – three fewer than Sutcliffe managed on his own! One over, bowled a chap named Poore, had Sutcliffe in two minds in the way bowlers don’t want – he hit three deliveries for four and three for six.
Glenn Turner, a right handed opening batter, the only Kiwi to score a hundred first class hundreds. During the Kiwis 1973 tour of England he reached his thousand first class runs before the end of May, one of only two to do that in an English season since World War II, the other being Graeme Hick in 1988.
Martin Donnelly, left handed middle order bat, scorer of Lord’s centuries in The Varsity Match, for The Gentlemen against The Players and in a test match for New Zealand. Also, in a 1945 match for The Dominions against England he made a century, considered by observers the outstanding innings in a game that also featured a ton by Keith Miller and one in each innings by Wally Hammond.
+Stewie Demspter – right handed batter, wicket keeper. Charles Stewart Dempster played a mere 10 test matches for New Zealand, before devoting himself to county cricket with Leicestershire. In this 10 test matches he scored 723 runs at 65.72, assisted it is true by four not outs, but even not taking the not outs into account that average would still be 48.20. Selecting him as keeper, a role he did on occasion perform, was the only way I could fit him in.
Jack ‘Bull’ Cowie – right arm fast bowler. He took his test wickets at 21 each, and one contemporary writer was moved to comment “had he been English or Australian he would no doubt have been termed a wonder of the age.” His last test series was in 1949 at the age of 37, and even then on flat pitches (all four test matches were drawn) he caused plenty of problems.

With these players coming in our All Time New Zealand XI reads: B Sutcliffe, GM Turner, *S Fleming, MD Crowe, MP Donnelly, +CS Dempster, AC Kerr, RJ Hadlee, DL Vettori, T Boult, J Cowie. This combo, with a great opening pair, Dempster in for Watling and Cowie looking a distinct cut above Morrison looks like a superb unit.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Merv Wallace, who came close to 1,000 first class runs before the end of May on that 1949 tour was considered for a batting place. John Richard Reid, a man whose range of cricketing skills was huge, was also a big miss. Middle order batters Geoff Howarth and Bevan Congdon both had good records at a time when New Zealand collectively had little to shout about. Two keepers, Eric Petrie and Ken Wadsworth, were both outstanding practitioners, but neither could offer much with bat, Petrie in particular being a genuine ‘bunny’ in that regard. Brian Taylor, who scored a century and bagged a five wicket haul on his test debut earned consideration as an all rounder, but there is no shortage of pace options. Of the cricketing Hadlees, other than Richard the only one who many would seriously consider was Dayle, a fast bowler who at one time was rated higher than his brother, but ended up many leagues behind. New Zealand have had few class spinners play for them, which leads neatly on to…

THE ONES WHO GOT AWAY

One name dominates this category, that of leg spinner Clarrie Grimmett, who crossed the Tasman to better himself. He failed to claim a place in either the NSW or Victorian state sides, but eventually managed to establish himself for South Australia, and at 33 made his test debut for his adopted country, bagging 11 England wickets for 82 runs. In 37 test matches he took 216 wickets, a wickets to matches ratio outstanding for anyone not named Sydney Barnes. He was dropped for the 1938 Ashes tour, a decision that Bill O’Reilly for one considered to be crazy – Frank Ward who travelled in his place did little, while Chuck Fleetwood-Smith had his moments but was as erratic, unpredictable and expensive as anyone familiar with his approach would have expected.

Two others who would have merited consideration had they not abandoned the possibility of playing for their country were leg spinner Bill Merritt whose first class victims (mainly for Northamptonshire) cost 24 each and fast bowler Tom Pritchard who had an impressive record for Warwickshire (818 wickets at 23.30 in all first class cricket, and he lived – just – long enough to celebrate the most impressive of all centuries, dying 165 days after reaching that landmark birthday).

PHOTOGRAPHS

We have concluded our virtual tour of the home of The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit movie series, and it remains only to apply my usual sign off…

All Time XIs: No Surname v All Surname

My latest variation on an ‘all time XI’ cricket theme. Also features photographs. Read and enjoy!

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to today;s variation on the ‘All Time XI‘ theme. In this post a team who appear deficient in the surname department pit their wits against a team who seem to be all surname.

THE NO SURNAME XI

Bobby Abel – right handed opening bat. We have met the Surrey man before in this series, playing for Davids v Goliaths among others. Abel as a given name of course goes all the way back to the beginning of the Bible. In my more recent times two fictional Abels are Abel Whittle who has a bit part in Thomas Hardy’s “The Mayor of Casterbridge” and Abel Fearon, villain in “Steps To The Gallows”, the second book in a series by Edward Marston that currently runs to four books.
Alec Stewart – right handed opening batter. We met him in the very first post in this series, dedicated to Surrey. Stewart spelt that way does sometimes feature as a given name, even of Stuart is the more common version. A cricketing Stewart is the illustrious Stewart ‘Stewie’ Dempster, who we will be making the acquaintance of in tomorrow’s post.
Ian Craig – right handed batter. The Aussie was a mere 17 years of age when selected for the 1953 Ashes tour. He never quite delivered at the very highest level, though at Old Trafford in 1956 he battled over four hours for 38 in the second Aussie innings.
Harry Graham – right handed batter. He made his test debut at Lord’s in 1890 and marked the occasion with a ton. The next person to make their debut at Lords with a ton was John Hampshire v West Indies in 1969.
Syd Gregory – right handed batter, excellent fielder. Between his debut in 1890 and has retirement in 1912 Gregory made a record eight tours of England. His finest batting hour came at Sydney in 1894 when he scored 201, helping Australia to a score of 586. Australia ended up losing that one by 10 runs however. In the 1902 match at Old Trafford, which his side won by three runs he took a crucial catch in the England second innings to account for Stanley Jackson.
*Johnny Douglas – right handed batter, right arm medium fast. Douglas took over from Pelham Warner, rendered hors de combat by illness as captain of the 1911-2 Ashes side and guided them, with some important assistance from the sick Warner, to a 4-1 series triumph. 21 years later under the captaincy of a man with the given name Douglas, Mr Jardine, England would duplicate that 4-1 winning margin in Australia.
+Dennis Lindsay – wicket keeper, middle order batter. The stumper once scored over 600 runs in a series versus Australia, in which he also effected over 20 dismissals.
Ashley Giles – left arm orthodox spinner, useful right handed lower order batter. Before the 2005 Ashes series began Terry Alderman stated that “if any Aussie batter gets out to Giles they should go hang themselves.” By the end of that series Giles had accounted for each of the top eight in the Aussie order at least once and intervened twice crucially with the bat. At Trent Bridge he kept his nerve in a very tense finish to put England one up with one to play, and then at The Oval he played a crucial support role while Pietersen was destroying the Aussie bowlers, holding up his end for over two hours and amassing 59 runs of his own. This meant the Australia needed 342 from 18 overs when the England innings ended, an impossible chase even had the weather not intervened one last time (of course given the difference between losing and drawing the series Australia would but for the weather have been obliged to throw everything at attempting this crazy run chase, the draw being valueless to them, and 1-3 very little worse than 1-2).
Shannon Gabriel – right arm fast bowler. The West Indian, part of a cricketing revival in that part of the world after a dreadful period in the early 2000s, is the heir to a great fast bowling tradition. For those who feel that he properly belongs in the other XI, most of the names that come up when I search cricinfo using the name Shannon are of players with forename Shannon, and I also give you current US politician Shannon Bearman. Gabriel is well documented as a given name, going back to the archangel, but I offer you as further examples composer Gabriel Faure and one of the principal characters in Thomas Hardy’s “Far From The Madding Crowd”, Gabriel Oak.
Matt Henry – right arm fast medium bowler. The Kiwis have produced a lot of purveyors of pace/ seam and/or swing over the years (contrary to what some may think, New Zealand is actually an even cloudier country than England, so there is even more natural encouragement for that kind of bowling), and Henry is part of the current crop along with such luminaries as Lockie Ferguson, Trent ‘the conductor’ Boult and Tim Southee (Neil ‘the composer’ Wagner does not wholly count, since although a Kiwi he is actually a product of South Africa).
Devon Malcolm – right arm fast, genuine no11. In the immortal words of then England chairman of selectors Ted Dexter “Who could forget Malcolm Devon?”.

This then is the ‘no surnames’ XI, with a solid top five, an all rounder, a keeper who can certainly bat, and four specialist bowlers. It is short in the spin department, with only Giles as a front line option there, but it still looks a decent side, especially given the actual selection criteria!

THE ALL SURNAME XI

Bransby Beauchamp Cooper – right handed opening bat, born in what is now Bangladesh but was then part of India, raised in England and played his two test matches, the first two ever contested, for Australia. He and WG Grace playing for the Gentlemen against the Players shared a then first class record opening stand of 283, Cooper 101, Grace 180.
Easton McMorris – right handed opening bat. He churned out runs in domestic cricket in the Caribbean, but his test returns were disappointing.
Everton Weekes – right handed batter, lends some much needed class to this side. Everton is not a hugely common surname, but some of my readers may remember snooker commentator Clive Everton, and additionally Weekes’ middle name of De Courcy is the surname of a former Australian batter James De Courcy, who toured England in the 1950s.
Seymour Nurse – right handed batter with a fine record.
*Warwick Armstrong – right handed batter, leg spinner. Although George Giffen, whose playing days overlapped with those of the Gloucestershire legend, was dubbed ‘The WG Grace of Australia’, this man was in many ways a better fit for that moniker. He once tallied 2,000 first class runs and took 100 first class wickets on a tour of England. He captained Australia to a 5-0 triumph in the 1920-1 Ashes, a scoreline not duplicated in Ashes series until 86 years later, when Ponting and company exacted a devastating revenge on England for 2005, and secured retention of the urn by guiding his team the victories in the first three matches of the 1921 series, before the final two games were both drawn. His eventful life can be read about in full in Gideon Haigh’s “The Big Ship”, a title derived from one of Armstrong’s nicknames. At the end of his career he weighed in at 22 stone. I am aware that Warwick is a recognized forename, but I also give you singer Dionne Warwick as an example of it as a surname.
Digby Jephson – right handed bat, right arm fast (under arm). Digby Loder Armroid Jephson to give him his extraordinary full name started the brief revival of under arm bowling in first class cricket that was taken into the test arena by George Simpson-Hayward. Again, Digby is not entirely unknown as a given name, but I can also point to Fraser Digby, former goalkeeper for Swindon Town FC and Andrew Wingfield-Digby, former captain of Dorset in mim. nor counties cricket and briefly chaplain to the England cricket team. Also of course there was the 17th century courtier Kenelm Digby who had a later cricketing namesake who played eight first class matches between 1855 and 1859.
+Ridley Jacobs – wicket keeper, left handed middle order batter. Many years ago there was a government minister named Nicholas Ridley, while in a cricket context Arthur Ridley played in the 1870 Varsity Match (‘Cobden’s Match’) and also played for the MCC in the 1878 match against the Australians that was done and dusted in a day.
Mitchell Johnson – left arm fast bowler, left handed lower order bat. We met him when I turned the spotlight on Australia. This is a player who can form an intermediary in cricket linkages – Yorkshire player and later coach Arthur Mitchell, or commentator Alison Mitchell being obvious starts and West Indian opening batter Johnson Charles being the next link.
Anderson Montgomery Everton Roberts – right arm fast bowler, right handed lower order batter. The first Antiguan to play test cricket, being selected just before Viv Richards gained the honour, and the original leader of the four pronged pace assault that propelled the West Indies to the top of the cricket world.
Nixon MccLean – right arm fast bowler, left handed lower order batter.
Beaumont Cranfield – left arm orthodox spinner for Somerset. 137 matches yielded him 621 wickets at 23.98. Of course Beaumont is very well documented surname, the most obvious cricketing example belonging at the other end of the batting order – Tammy of that ilk.

The all surname team has a solid top six, two of whom are genuine all rounders, a keepr who can bat and four bowlers. Johnson, Roberts, MacLean, Cranfield, Armstrong and Jephson is an attack should not struggle to take 20 wickets.

THE CONTEST

Notwithstanding the question marks over both openers for the ‘All Surname’ XI I still reckon they have a clear edge – their bowling attack looks much the stronger and has greater variety. On a turning pitch Giles on his own would not be a match for Cranfield and Armstrong, while if the pitch offers pace bowlers assistance Johnson, Roberts, MacLean and Jephson clearly offer more than Malcolm, Gabriel, Henry and Douglas. I am not going to take my prediction from the ‘Pidge’ McGrath handbook, but I would confidently predict that the ‘All Surname XI’ would win a five match series 4-1.

A BRIEF NOTE ABOUT THE
COMPOSITION OF THESE ELEVENS

I compose these XIs mentally, jotting them down in a notebook preparatory to then creating the tables with abbreviated comments that I use to advertise the contents of the teams and ultimately typing up the blog posts. I use cricinfo to find out details about players, but not in general as a selection tool – sometimes if I am a player or maximum two players short of a full XI I will do a bit of hunting, but most of the players I select are players I have across in my thirty-odd years of being a cricket fan and reading about the game – no game has a greater wealth of literature than cricket. I am already prepped in terms of selections for further posts up to and including Wednesday, plus a post which for reasons I will reveal on that day has to appear a week today.

THE FINISHING LINE

The pinchhitter has reached 300 not out – yes, today’s offering in which I get yet another mention, is the 300th post that blog has produced. A little etymological note: the term pinch hitter originated in baseball, where it referred to sending in a batter who adept at getting on base in preference to a regular batter who may be less reliable, it was pressed into cricket service in the 1990s to refer to batters who did not regularly open in long form cricket but were asked to do so in one day cricket in an effort to get their teams off to a fast start. The first successes with this method were Ian Botham and Mark Greatbatch, deployed in this manner by their countries in the 1992 World Cup, but it was four years later, when Kaluwitherana of Sri Lanka, Mark Waugh of Australia, Sachin Tendulkar of India and various others were used in the same fashion that the term became popular. Certain teams overdid it by using lower order batters rather than actual recognized batters (Zimbabwe tried it with Paul Strang, England with Neil Smith as opposed to Robin ‘Judge’ Smith who they should have used and there were probably others. And now it is time for my usual sign off…

P1320418 (2) — This muntjace put in an appearance last night – more pics in tomorrows post, as I had a surplus.

All Time XIs – Day In The Sun vs Supporting Cast

My latest variation on the all-time XI theme in which a team of players who had a day in the sun take on a team of supporting acts.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest in my series of ‘All Time XI’ posts. This one pits a team of players who produced one glorious performance that set them apart from the common run of cricketers but never succeeded in duplicating it against a team representing the best of cricket’s supporting cast (yes cricket needs its supporting cast too, and the folk I have picked were superb examples).

THE ‘DAY IN THE SUN’ XI

Charles Bannerman – right handed opening bat. He completely dominated the first test ever played in March 1877, scoring 165 out of Australia’s first innings 245, in a match in which only one other person, England’s Harry Jupp topped fifty in a single innings. This not only accounted for three quarters of his entire test run tally, it was his only first class hundred. Minus this astonishing performance the Woolwich born Aussie amassed 1522 runs in first class cricket for 78 times out, giving an average of 19.64 (with his one big innings included that average was 21.62).
David Lloyd – left handed opening bat, occasional left arm orthodox spinner. He played nine test matches for England and 14 of his 15 innings at that level brought him 338 runs at an average of 26.00, a very modest looking record. The one innings I have excised from that reckoning was sole 50 plus score at that level, a mere bagatelle of 214 not out that earned him his place in this XI and means that his actual test average was 42.46. For his native Lancashire Lloyd played a curious role in one of most extraordinary first class games ever. On day 1 Warwickshire declared at 523-4 in their first innings, Humpage 254, Kallicharran 230 not out, and has captured Lloyd’s wicket by the close of play. On the journey home that evening Lloyd told his passenger Graeme ‘Foxy’ Fowler “I reckon we’ll win this one”. The following day Fowler injured himself and Lloyd was sent in to act as his runner. Fowler scored 128, Lancashire declared at 414-6 just in case something curious was going to happen. On the third morning a sea fret (the match was being played at Southport) covered the ground and West Indian swing bowler Les MacFarlane found it to his liking, recording a career best 6-59 as Warwickshire slumped to 111 all out in their second dig. Lloyd decided he wanted a few runs of his own second time round rather than settle for running Fowler’s, so Ian Folley, a left arm spinner and tailend batter was deputed to act as runner for Fowler. Fowler was 126 not out, and Lloyd 88 not out when Lancashire completed an astonishing victory by ten wickets, the winning hit being a six off Asif Din, and Lloyd’s throwaway line on the journey home on day 1 was vindicated in some style. Lloyd went on after his playing days were done to become a fine commentator and a decent coach. After a draw, which Zimbabwe had secured with the assistance of some fairly blatant time wasting and some deliberately wide bowling, the then England coach Lloyd had a public meltdown declaring “We flippin’ murdered ’em”.
*Heather Knight – right handed bat, occasional off spinner, fine captain. Heather Knight spared England’s blushes in one test match with a magnificent 157. Other than that marvellous knock her test record reads 229 runs at 20.82, and she has only two other fifties to her name at that level. The women do not get to play nearly enough test cricket, and having just turned 29 Knight is still young enough to render herself ineligible for this team, especially if the amount women’s test cricket increases. Her record in ODIs is impressive for a non-opener, with an average of 37.83. She is a shoo-in for the captaincy of this side, and if and when she plays the test innings that renders her ineligible for it no one will be more delighted than me.
Tip Foster – right handed batter, 287 in his first innings as a test batter, at Sydney in 1903, increasing the record individual score at that level by 76. The Worcestershire ace, the only player to captain England men’s sides at both cricket and football, scored only 315 further test runs 13 more innings at that level, with one solitary fifty, a very fortuitous 51 against South Africa. His average with his virtuoso effort removed is therefore a very mortal looking 24.23 – as opposed to 46.30 with it included.
Faoud Bacchus – right handed batter. Sheik Faoud Ahamul Fasiel Bacchus to give him his astonishing full name played 19 tests for the West Indies, making 30 visits to the crease. 29 of those of 30 knocks brought him 532 runs at 19.34, while the innings missing from that reckoning, his lone foray into three figures at the highest level, was worth a cool 250, increasing his average to 26.06.
+Taslim Arif – right handed bat, wicket keeper. Picked for Pakistan in six test matches, in which he took six catches and executed three stumpings, the wicket keeper played 10 innings. In nine of them his tally was 291 runs with a single red inker to boost the average to a respectable 36.375, including two half centuries. The missing innings was a gargantuan 210 not out, giving him a full test record of 501 runs 62.625. In his case, given his perfectly respectable record outwith the double hundred that gets him into this team, the question seems to be why was an apparently competent keeper who could definitely bat only picked six times for his country?
Ted Alletson – right handed batter, right arm medium pace bowler. When the players broke for lunch on day three of the Sussex v Nottinghamshire match at Hove in 1911 Sussex would have been anticipating a comfortable victory – Notts at 260-9 were less than 90 to the good, and although Alletson, 47 not out in his fifty minutes at the crease to date, had struck some meaty blows the end of the Notts resistance could not be long delayed. It was delayed for 40 minutes of that post lunch session, which was enough for Alletson to write himself into the record books. By the time he finally holed out off the bowling of George Cox, those 40 crazy minutes had seen Alletson increase his score by 142 to 189, with Bill Riley the no 11 batting sensibly for 10 not out. Tim Killick had been smashed for 34 in one over, having hindered himself by sending down two no balls, and had gone for 22 in another. There was a skating rink across the road from the Hove ground in those days and by the time Alletson had finished five cricket balls were on the roof of that building. Having been anticipating a comfortable victory a shell shocked Sussex lost some early wickets and ended up being grateful to escape with a draw. That 189 in 90 minutes remained Alletson’s only three figure score in first class cricket, and he finished with a first class average of 18.59, while his medium pacers netted him a mere 33 wickets in his 119 matches. Alletson benefitted from his innings to the tune of £100, then a significant amount of money, from his father’s employer and his mentor the Duke of Portland (Portland is on the southwestern tip of Dorset, but the main Portland estate is (or was) in Nottinghamshire). His Grace was not the only one to have expected big things from Alletson – Gilbert Jessop who knew a thing or two about big hitting batting had also reckoned that there were likely to be big scores as well as big hits from Alletson’s bat.
Denis Atkinson – right handed bat, off spinner. A respectable but far from outstanding cricketer who contributed with both bat and ball but did not set the world alight save once. The West Indies were six wickets down against Australia when Clairmonte Depeiaza joined Atkinson, and the Aussies were probably already thinking about batting, but they were in for a rude shock. By the time the seventh wicket fell the West Indies score had advanced by 347 runs. Atkinson scored 219, Depeiaza 122, and neither of them had previously made a test ton. nor ever would again. Setting that 219 to one side Atkinson’s record in test cricket reads 703 runs at 25.11 and 47 wickets at 35.04. The 219 raises that batting average to 31.
Bob Massie – right arm fast medium bowler. England had won the first match of the 1972 Ashes series, and Massie came into the Australian side for his debut at Lord’s. The ball swung crazily in that match, and the chief beneficiary was Massie who finished his debut with 16-137. Massie made five further test appearances, and they brought him a combined 15-510, 34.00 per wicket, meaning that he finished with 31 test wickets at 20.87. Immediately after the 1972 Ashes the Aussies headed for the West Indies, and with the ball not moving under Caribbean sunshine Massie attempted to alter his action so as to increase his pace and ended up losing his ability to swing the ball.
Devon Malcolm – right arm fast bowler. The Derbyshire, Northamptonshire and Leicestershire speedster and genuine out and out tail ender played 40 test matches for England between 1989 and 1997, being like many of his contemporaries in and out of the side frequently. Against South Africa at The Oval in 1994 he was hit on the helmet by a bouncer from Fanie De Villiers, and when South Africa batted again he produced a quite awesome response of his own with the ball – he took 9-57, the best figures ever by an England fast bowler in a test match, and just five runs worse than the all-time fast bowler’s test record analysis, Richard Hadlee’s 9-52 v Australia. 18 months after this ultimate day in the sun Malcolm and then England supremo Ray Illingworth had a decisive falling out during a tour of South Africa, although Malcolm did come back into the England team briefly after Illingworth had departed the scene. Malcolm took 128 wickets in test matches at 37.09, but he was handled poorly at England level, and was never given a second genuine out and out speedster to support him.
Narendra Hirwani – leg spinner. Against the West Indies at Chennai in 1988 he burst onto the test scene by destroying them in both innings to record match figures of 16-136. 16 further test matches brought him precisely 50 more wickets for 1851 runs, 37.02 per wicket.

This team has a strong top five, a keeper-batter at six, a big hitting no seven, an off-spinning all rounder at eight and three specialist bowlers. There is a good range of bowling options, and all 11 could produce the match winning performance if it is their day.

THE SOLID SUPPORTERS XI

Percy Holmes – right handed opening batter. No 2 to Herbert Sutcliffe at Yorkshire, and denied England opportunities by the presence of Jack Hobbs. He averaged over 40 at a time when few managed that, and at the time of his retirement had five of the ten highest individual scores ever made for Yorkshire under his belt. In a curious coincidence he and Sutcliffe were eight years apart in age to the day.
Andrew Sandham – right handed opening batter. The southern equivalent of Holmes, opening the Surrey batting alongside Hobbs, and like Holmes not getting many opportunities at England level.
Larry Gomes – left handed batter. The West Indies in the 1980s were noted for fast bowlers and stroke making batters. However, one key piece of the jigsaw at that time was a solid, dependable number three who without tearing up record books was frequently at the heart of a big West Indies score. Hilary Angelo Gomes made two centuries during the 1984 ‘blackwash’ series and was at the other end on 92 not out playing the quiet support role when Gordon Greenidge’s pyrotechnics won the Lord’s match after West Indies had been set 344 in less than a full day. There is a post about him here, which I urge you to read. If cricket had ever had an equivalent to the Oscar for ‘best supporting actor’ Gomes would have had a shelf full of them. 60 test matches brought him 3,171 test runs at 39.63 with nine centuries and a best of 143 – just compare with ‘Dependable Denly’ and his average of 30.00 in a similar role.
*Herby Collins – right hand bat, occasional left arm orthodox spin. Australian captain after Warwick Armstrong, 19 test appearances brought him 1,352 runs at 45.06.
Wilf Barber – right handed bat. An unobtrusive but vital cog in the Yorkshire machine that dominated the 1930s. He was picked twice for England, but it his first class record of 16,402 runs at 34.38 with 29 centuries that gets him in here.
Bertie Buse – right handed bat, right arm medium fast. 10,623 first class runs, including seven centuries, 657 first class wickets including 20 five fors. For many years Somerset would never dream of taking the field without him.
Ernie Robson – right arm medium fast, right handed bat. 1,147 wickets with his bowling (his out swinger was still an effective weapon after he had turned 50 – are you reading this Jimmy?) and 12,620 runs with his batting in a career that ebgan in 1895 and ended in 1923.
+Colin Metson – wicket keeper, right handed bat. Over the years England selectors have seemed to be afflicted by a curious visual handicap that restricts how far west they are capable of seeing, and one victim of this was the stalwart Glamorgan wicket keeper who took 561 catches and executed 51 stumpings in the course of 232 first class appearances. Yes, he was a limited batter, but he did tend to score his runs when they were most needed, and may well, as Ian Healy did for Australia, have proved better at international level than he was at first class level. For me, especially given some of the performers who did don the gloves for England in that period, it stands as a travesty that we never saw him do the job at that level.
Ellis Robinson – off spinner. He played 301 first class matches, first for Yorkshire, then for Somerset, collecting 1,009 wickets at 22.58 with his off breaks. He never got the chance for his country.
Horace Hazell – left arm orthodox spinner, one of the first names on the Somerset team sheet throughout his career. He frequently did useful work supporting senior partners as a lower order batter. Like Robinson he could never attract the attention of the England selectors, but 957 wickets at 23.97 is a more than respectable first class record.
Tony Nicholson – right arm medium fast bowler. Nicholson was the best of the various individuals who opened the bowling with Fred Trueman for Yorkshire (although Melville Ryan also had a decent record doing that job), collecting 879 wickets in 283 first class appearances at 19.76 each, a record that is particularly impressive given that he always got the end Fred did not want to bowl from. However, it was not quite sufficient to gain him an England place, so he had to settle for being the best supporting act in county cricket.

This team has a solid top five, two unobtrusive but effective all rounders, a superb keeper, two high quality spinners and a splendid specialist new ball bowler in Nicholson. The bowling has three fine seam/swing bowlers and two quality spinners.

THE CONTEST

Obviously in any game any one of the ‘Day in the Sun’ XI could produce the match winning performance, but in the long haul I would expect the Solid Supporters XI to produce on a consistent basis, and would reckon that in a five match series the latter would definitely start favourites.

A SOLUTION

Yesterday I set you this teaser from brilliant.org:

This is a test of visualisation. The dotted square surrounding the shaded shape has side length 5m. If you look closely you will see that the sides of the dotted square can be ‘pushed and pulled’, or deformed, into shape to make the shaded figure which therefore has the same perimeter as the dotted square. Thus the answer is the the shaded shape has a perimeter of 4 x 5 = 20m.

LINK AND PHOTOGRAPHS

Our two contending teams have appeared on the pavilion balcony, we have seen the answer to the mathematical teaser set yesterday, which leaves but one more thing to do before applying the photographic flourish: Phoebe has invited people to share their blogs, and I recommend that you head over there and join me in doing so. Now for my usual sign off…

Day In Sun v Supporting Cast — The teams in tabulated form with abridged comments.

All Time XIs – Pioneers v Developers

Some cricket history in today’s twist on the ‘All Time XI’ theme as ‘The Pioneers’ take on the ‘The Developers’, a couple of bonus cricket links, a measure of mathematics, some important stuff about the NHS and of course photographs.

INTRODUCTION

A new month starts today, and in keeping with the theme of beginnings my latest ‘All Time XI’ variation features various milestones from the beginning of cricket’s history. For those of a geological turn of mind it can be thought of spanning the cricketing equivalent of Cambrian to Cretaceous. The scene thus set, we can introduce the teams, beginning with…

THE PIONEERS XI

Jack Brown – right handed opening batter. Brown scored two triple centuries for his native Yorkshire in the course of his career, but his greatest innings came for England. The 1894-5 Ashes saw England leap out of the blocks by winning a thriller in Sydney and then more comfortably in Melbourne (this was the first ever five match Ashes series, and Sydney and Melbourne each got two games, with the middle match being played at Adelaide) before Australia hit back by winning in Adelaide and in the second Melbourne game. In the final match of the series (all tests in Australia at the time were played out until a definite result was gained, so a draw was not a possibility, and in any case England needed to win the series to recapture the Ashes, held by Australia) England were set 297 to win, lost two very early wickets, which brought Brown and Albert Ward together. Brown responded to crisis by reaching 50 in 28 minutes (still the fastest in time times by an Englishman in test cricket), and though he could not main this hectic pace he reached his hundred in a then test record 95 minutes, and his stand with Ward (93) was worth 210. Brown ultimately scored 140 in that innings, falling as victory beckoned, but the Australian resistance had been well and truly broken, and England won by six wickets to win the series and the Ashes. In travelling to Australia without the urn and returning with it England’s captain for that series, Andrew Stoddart, had achieved a feat since duplicated among England captains only by Warner (1903-4), Douglas (1911-2, with a sick Warner masterminding from his sickbed), Jardine (1932-3) and Illingworth (1970-1). In addition to his own role as a stalwart opener, Brown was one half of the game’s first recognized great opening pairs along with…
John Tunnicliffe – right handed opening bat, brilliant slip fielder (667 catches in 408 first class games). Tunnicliffe was the first Pudsey product to open the innings for Yorkshire, and as such a forebear to more illustrious Herbert Sutcliffe and Len Hutton. In 1898, against Derbyshire, he and Brown shared an opening stand of 554, accumulated very rapidly. This was the record first class stand for any wicket until Herbert Sutcliffe and Percy Holmes opened up with a stand of 555 against Essex in 1932. After he had retired from playing Tunnicliffe became a coach, working at among others, Cirencester Grammar School where his charges included a certain Walter Reginald Hammond. Unusually for a long serving Yorkshire opener he never got to play for England.
James Aylward – left handed bat. In 1777, a mere eight years after John Minshull scored the first century recorded at any level of cricket, in a local derby match between Wrotham and Sevenoaks, Aylward playing against an England side racked up 167 in an innings which saw him occupy the crease for two whole days. This score stood as the first class record for 43 years, and the fixture in which William Ward who beat it scored his 278 would not today be regarded as first class.
William ‘Silver Billy’ Beldham – right handed batter. I covered him in detail in my ‘one cap wonders v nontest stars‘ piece earlier in this series. He was the first to be anything approaching a consistently big scorer.
William Lambert – right handed batter, brilliant close fielder and sometimes wicket keeper. In 1817 William Lambert, playing for Sussex, became the first ever to score twin centuries in a match, a feat next achieved by WG Grace over half a century later. His fielding skills are attested to by his partner in more than one double wicket game…
George Osbaldeston – right handed batter, right arm fast bowler (underarm). The first acknowledged great all rounder. In his autobiography, which did not see the light of day until 1926, Osbaldeston describes a couple of matches in which he teamed up with Lambert, and mentions that the latter took catches and executed stumpings off his bowling, the fastest around at the time. In one of these encounters Osbaldeston and Lambert got the better of the decidedly ignoble Lord Frederick Beauclerk, one of the most unsavoury characters from that period of cricket’s history.
+Jack Blackham – wicket keeper, right handed bat. The Aussie stumper who appeared in the first 17 test matches ever played, before missing a game due to a dispute and then returning to the side for another 10 years, was the first to habitually do without a ‘long stop’ fielder behind him – and he pulled of stumpings of the bowling of Fred ‘The Demon’ Spofforth on occasion. Blackham was also the first keeper to score fifties in both innings of a test, a record that remained solely his for half a century before Dilawar Hussain equalled it.
*William Clarke – right handed (under arm) bowler, captain. Clarke established Trent Bridge (he was landlord of the Trent Bridge inn as well as a cricketer), and also founded the first of the great itinerant XIs who flourished until the mid 1870s. The MCC were sufficiently worried by the travelling elevens that WG Grace was proposed for membership of that club at the age of 21 (by the treasurer, with the secretary seconding) in an effort to secure the game’s biggest drawcard. Grace duly joined the MCC, but also until 1879 captained the United South of England XI, and earned good amounts of money from doing so. Clarke played high level cricket until his mid-fifties, continuing to bag hatfuls of wickets right up to the very end.
William Lillywhite – right arm fast bowler (round arm). ‘The Nonpareil’ featured in my post about nicknames, and is here is the fast half of the first recognized great bowling partnership, along with…
James Broadbridge – right arm fast bowler (round arm). His partnership with Lillywhite as pioneers of the then new craft of round arm bowling enabled Sussex to take on and beat The Rest of England.
David Harris – right arm fast bowler (under arm). The first universally acknowledged master bowler, I included him in my T20 Clash post.

This team features a solid opening pair, a magnificent looking three, four and five, a genuine all rounder, a keeper who can bat and four varied bowlers. Clarke can provide the craft to go with the pace of the others, and the differing angles of attack offered by these bowlers will also pose a problem. Osbaldeston, as the all rounder and a very quick bowler will be used in short bursts as a shock weapon, while the front four will bowl more overs.

THE DEVELOPERS XI

*WG Grace – right handed opening bat, right arm bowler of multiple types, captain. I covered him in my Gloucestershire post.
Victor Trumper – right handed opening bat, fine fielder. The first to score a hundred before lunch on day 1 of a test match, the Aussie opener revolutionized batting in his own country.
Frank Woolley – left handed batter, left arm orthodox spinner. He defined the image of Kent cricket, based on attacking batting and slow bowling, throughout his long career.
Charles Macartney – right handed batter, left arm orthodox spinner. The second batter ever to score a hundred on the first morning of a test match, what made Macartney’s performance even more extraordinary is that he was a blocker in his early years, before becoming more expansive and aggressive in approach as he grew older.
Kumar Shri Ramjitsinhji – right handed batter, occasional right arm slow bowler, slip fielder. I covered him in my Sussex post, and he is in this squad as the pioneer of the leg glance.
Bernard Bosanquet – right handed batter, right arm leg spinner. I covered the inventor of the googly in my Middlesex post.
Gilbert Jessop – right handed batter, right arm fast bowler, brilliant fielder. This man has been in a number of my previous XIs, and he is here for his unique approach to batting, based on “doing everything we are taught not to – with consummate success”.
+Ted Pooley – wicket keeper, right handed bat. Pooley (Surrey) should have been England’s keeper in the first ever test match, except that he was cooling his heels in a Kiwi prison at the time. He had got into a fracas with one Ralph Donkin over a bet. Pooley had bet Donkin at a shilling to a penny that he could nominate the scores for match England were playing in. Donkin took the bet, and Pooley simply wrote a duck against each batters name, which even in a first class match would have seen him a comfortable winner, while in a game against odds, which this one was it was even more of a certainty. Donkin refused to pay, and heated words and ultimately blows were exchanged. There was some sympathy for Pooley on the grounds that “a bet is a bet” and also because Donkin was notorious for being a trouble maker. Pooley set a first class match record while keeping for Surrey that stood unchallenged for over a century when he caught nine and stumped three of the opposition in a single game.
Sydney Barnes – right arm fast medium, right handed bat. Never has a piece of cricket terminology been more unfit for purpose than that standard descriptor of Barnes’ bowling method. The truth is he bowled every type of delivery then known save the googly, and that his special weapon, of his own creation, was a fast-medium leg break. Ian Peebles, in a chapter called ‘Barnes the Pioneer’ which appeared originally in “Talking of Cricket” and reappears in “The Faber Book of Cricket”, where it starts on page 12 and ends on page 15 explains Barnes’ methods in some detail. I have previously covered Barnes in the Lancashire and ‘Staffordshire Born‘ posts in this series.
George Simpson-Hayward – right arm off spin (under arm). I mentioned him, and the possibility of reviving under arm, both slow in his manner and fast in the manner of the likes of Harris and Osbaldeston in my ‘Eccentrics‘ piece. The brief revival of under arm that he was the star of was initiated by Digby Jephson of Surrey who bowled fast under-arm, and must have come close to being picked for England. However, the crafty Simpson-Hayward (Worcestershire) not only did get to play test cricket, he was one of the stars of a series in South Africa (1909-10), when he took 23 wickets at 18 in the five matches, so it is he who I honour with a place in this XI. No one took up the cudgels on behalf of under arm after him.
William Mycroft – left arm fast bowler. The first bowler ever to take 17 wickets in a county game, for Derbyshire v Hampshire in 1876, a game that I featured in my Derbyshire post, he rounds out this XI.

This XI features a power packed and all attacking top five, a fine and innovative all rounder at six, the inimitable Jessop at seven, a class keeper who was no mug with a bat in Pooley and a splendidly varied trio of specialist bowlers in Barnes, Simpson-Hayward and Mycroft. The bowling is equally varied, with left arm speed, the all-purpose maestro Barnes, right arm speed for Jessop, leg spin from Bosanquet, under arm off spin from Simpson-Hayward, two purveyors of left arm orthodox spin in Woolley and Macartney (each had a ten wicket haul in a test match in their day) and the types of bowling pursued by Grace in his day, which included fastish round arm at the start of his career.

THE CONTEST

This contest would be a splendid affair, red blooded in the extreme (Grace and Osbaldeston on opposing sides would guarantee that even of the other 20 players were all anodyne, which they are most certainly not) and featuring a vast range of skills. I cannot even attempt to pick a winner.

A COUPLE OF BONUS CRICKET LINKS

The pinchhitter blog has honoured me not just with a mention, but with the official title of their post this morning – check out their offering here.

The above blog introduced me to cricblog who have a post up analysing the England men’s ODI revival post 2015. I recommend you have a read.

ANOTHER TEASER

I give you another problem from brilliant.org, one which I solved very easily this morning:

In it’s original setting this was a multiple choice question, but I reckon that makes it far too easy.

TWO FINAL LINKS AND PHOTOGRAPHS

Our two teams, dubbed ‘pioneers’ and ‘developers’ have made their appearances, there have been a couple of bonus cricket links, and a mathematical teaser. Before proceding my usual sign off I have a couple of related links to share:

David Allan Green, a well known lawyer and legal writer, has produced this in depth analysis of Richard Branson suing the NHS.
We Own It have a petition running calling for all private involvement in the NHS to cease, which I strongly urge you to sign and share.

And now, here is my closing flourish:

	Thomas on 49
	Shaun Bradford on 49
	Thomas on Reaching Back to WG Grace Twic…
	Elena Delle Selve on Reaching Back to WG Grace Twic…
	Thomas on Two Contrasting Routes to…

INTRODUCTION

THE PARTICULAR DIFFICULTIES AROUND SOUTH AFRICA

SOUTH AFRICA IN MY LIFE

THE NEW PLAYERS IN THE ALL TIME XI

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

MIKE PROCTER

BASIL D’OLIVEIRA

A SUMMATION

A SOUPCON OF SCIENCE AND A MEASURE OF MATHEMATICS

PHOTOGRAPHS

INTRODUCTION

THE BRIEF

THE NINERS XI

THE PARTY XI

THE CONTEST

EPILOGUE

PHOTOGRAPHS

INTRODUCTION

TEAMS OF THE TALENTS EXPLAINED

TEAM OF THE TALENTS – HISTORIC XI

TEAM OF THE TALENTS MODERN XI

THE CONTEST

PHOTOGRAPHS

INTRODUCTION

THE FOREIGN NAMES XI

THE MULTINATIONAL LINKS XI

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

CONTEST FOR THE MIDWINTER TROPHY

PHOTOGRAPHS IN TWO PARTS

PART ONE: THE MOON AS DAY FADES

PART TWO – THE REST

INTRODUCTION

CORRECTION AND APOLOGY

EXPLAINING THE CLR JAMES TROPHY

WG GRACE’S XI

GREVILLE STEVENS XI

THE CONTEST

PHOTOGRAPHS

INTRODUCTION

NEW ZEALAND IN MY LIFETIME

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

THE NEW NAMES IN THE ALL TIME XI

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

THE ONES WHO GOT AWAY

PHOTOGRAPHS

INTRODUCTION

THE NO SURNAME XI

THE ALL SURNAME XI

THE CONTEST

A BRIEF NOTE ABOUT THE COMPOSITION OF THESE ELEVENS

THE FINISHING LINE

INTRODUCTION

THE ‘DAY IN THE SUN’ XI

THE SOLID SUPPORTERS XI

THE CONTEST

A SOLUTION

LINK AND PHOTOGRAPHS

INTRODUCTION

THE PIONEERS XI

THE DEVELOPERS XI

THE CONTEST

A COUPLE OF BONUS CRICKET LINKS

ANOTHER TEASER

TWO FINAL LINKS AND PHOTOGRAPHS

THE PARTICULAR DIFFICULTIES
AROUND SOUTH AFRICA

A BRIEF NOTE ABOUT THE
COMPOSITION OF THESE ELEVENS