Tag: Birds

All Time XIs: Lancashire and Surrey Combined

A combined Lancashire and Surrey XI in honour of the match I am currently listening to in the 2023 County Championship, and a substantial photo gallery.

With my attention focussed on Lancashire v Surrey in the opening round of the 2023 County Championship I am today picking an all time combined XI for the two counties (tomorrow I will write about this match, when I know the result). In keeping with my policy in the original All Time XIs series of 2020 I am restricting myself to one overseas player. Have a look at the Lancashire and Surrey pieces, noting that since 2020 Foakes has displaced Stewart as keeper in the Surrey XI.

THE XI IN BATTING ORDER

  1. Jack Hobbs (Surrey, right handed opening batter, outstanding cover fielder, occasional medium pacer). The Master, scorer of 61,237 runs in FC cricket including 197 centuries (or 61,760 and 199 if you are a revisionist). Those centuries included 12 in the heat of Ashes battle.
  2. John Edrich (Surrey, left handed opening batter). Edrich’s left handedness enabled him to keep out several contenders for this slot. He is a member of the 100 FC hundreds club, and he had an excellent test record.
  3. Ken Barrington (Surrey, right handed batter, occasional leg spinner). Statisically England’s leading batter to have played exclusively post WWII, with a test average of almost 59 (6,807 runs, HS 256).
  4. Graham Thorpe (Surrey, left handed batter). Another with an excellent test record, and often achieved while he was trying to hold the innings together without adequate support.
  5. Peter May (Surrey, right handed batter). A test average of 46 achieved in game’s lowest and slowing scoring decade, 85 FC centuries in all, and that with a career cut short by ill health.
  6. +Ben Foakes (Surrey, wicket keeper, right handed batter). His only rivals with the gloves would be Duckworth (Lancashire) and Pooley (Surrey), and neither were as good with the bat as Foakes.
  7. *Percy Fender (Surrey, right handed batter, leg spinner, fine fielder, captain). An ideal type of player to have coming in at seven in a very strong line up, and a shrewd skipper.
  8. Wasim Akram (Lancashire, left arm fast bowler, left handed batter). One of the two best ever cricketers of his type (his rival, the Aussie ace Alan Davidson never played county cricket) and there are no other great left arm pacers in the mix, so he was the proverbial shoo-in for the overseas slot.
  9. Johnny Briggs (Lancashire, left arm orthodox spinner, right handed lower order batter, brilliant fielder). He was the first cricketer ever to reach the milestone of 100 test wickets (Charlie ‘Terror’ Turner of Australia got there later in the same match), while in FC cricket he claimed over 2,000 wickets. He was a good enough batter that he scored a test century and had a career tally of over 14,000 first class runs.
  10. Jim Laker (Surrey, off spinner, right handed lower order batter). 193 test wickets in 46 matches at 21 a piece. Two all-tens against Australia in 1956, one for Surrey in the first innings of that match (the county won by 10 wickets) and one for England in the second Australian innings of the Old Trafford test, this latter after having already taken 9-37 in the first innings.
  11. Sydney Francis Barnes (Lancashire, right arm fast medium bowler, right handed lower order batter). 189 test wickets at 16.43 in just 27 matches at that level. He didn’t play a huge number of games for the county, preferring Lancashire League cricket where the terms were more generous, but his status as arguably the greatest of all bowlers demands that he be included.

This XI features a very powerful top five, one of the all time great keepers who also bats well, an all rounder who happens to be a great captain at number seven, a left arm pacer who can bat and who rates as one of the two greatest ever cricketers of that type, two legendary spinners and arguably the greatest of all bowlers at number 11. The pace department is a little under stocked, with Hobbs being the third ranked seamer in the XI but I do not think this bowling unit will struggle to take wickets.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Two Surrey openers with over 100 first class hundreds each missed out: Tom Hayward and Andrew Sandham, while Lancastrians Archie MacLaren and Cyril Washbrook were also fine openers (Atherton’s negative attitude towards county cricket is enough to rule him out in my view).

Barrington’s chief rival for the number three slot was Johnny Tyldesley, but even allowing for the fact that the Lancastrian batted in a more difficult era the gap between their respective records was too wide. I wanted a left hander in the middle order, and with due respect to Neil Fairbrother, Thorpe was the stand out candidate. May at five was rivalled by a member of the 100 hundreds club, Ernest Tyldesley, but there is no question that the interwar period was paradise for batters (16 of the 25 leading scorers of first class runs played some or all of their cricket in this period and there is a reason for that), and May’s career was as I said shortened by ill health. Andrew Flintoff was a candidate for the aggressive all rounders slot at number seven, but I wanted Fender’s captaincy, so even though it meant the pace department being short staffed I went that way. Wasim’s slot was as non-negotiable in my view as Hobbs’ at the top of the order. Laker had no rivals for the off spinners slot (Murali played a bit for Lancashire but I had limited myself to one overseas player). Briggs did have a rival for the left arm spinner’s berth, but Tony Lock’s action was questionable at the height of his career, and besides Lancashire are a little under represented in the final XI. Various excellent seam and pace bowlers missed out: George Lohmann, Tom Richardson, Alec Bedser and Peter Loader for Surrey and for Lancashire Brian Statham and James Anderson. All of these players would adorn any side of which they were part of, but I had only 11 slots available which meant deserving cases missing out. Jack Crossland and Arthur Mold were both quick, but both had highly dubious actions.

Finally, a member of the 100 hundreds club who was NOT unlucky to miss out: Mark Ramprakash had a fine record for Surrey after moving across the Thames from Lord’s, but he was not a big occasion player, a fact emphasized by his poor test record (an average of 27 and a mere two tons from 52 matches), and for me being a big occasion player is one of the criteria for selection in an XI of this nature.

I will undoubtedly have missed some fine players, and feel free to mention them in the comments, but remember if advocating for inclusion to consider how their presence in the XI would affect its balance.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

All Time XIs: England One Cap Wonders

The definitive XI of England men one cap wonders, a petition and a large photo gallery.

Of the 700 or so players to have turned out for the England men’s test side approximately 100 have done so exactly once. This XI is picked from these players. Sidestream Bob commented on yesterday’s post indicating that he wanted to see such an XI, so here it is.

THE XI IN BATTING ORDER

  1. *Edward Mills Grace (right handed opening batter, right arm lob bowler, daring close fielder). Eclipsed by his brother WG and already 39 by the time he made his sole test appearance he still scored 36 in the first innings, sharing an opening stand of 91 with WG. He was towering prodigy in the late 1850s and early 1860s, and it was only near the end of the 1860s that WG, seven years his junior (the same age gap coincidentally as that between Mycroft Holmes and his more gifted younger brother Sherlock – and Conan Doyle was a cricket fanatic and a fine player in his own right) definitely overhauled EM. Test cricket came too late for EM, though he should probably have been picked for the Oval test of 1882 – AN Hornby never delivered against Australia with the bat and his captaincy helped cost England that match, when he held CT Studd, scorer of two centuries against the Aussies that season, back until number 10, and Studd ended up not facing a ball in the innings.
  2. Alan Butcher (left handed opening batter). One solitary test cap was scant reward for a long and productive county career first with Surrey and then with Glamorgan.
  3. Mark Benson (right handed top order batter). He was a regular opener, and scored large numbers of runs for Kent in the course of long career. His one and only test appearance, against India in 1986 yielded scores of 21 and 30.
  4. Alan Wells (right handed batter). His paucity of test caps was partly self inflicted since he signed up for the last rebel tour of South Africa, but he was very successful at county level, and his call up for the last test of the 1995 series against the West Indies was scant reward for so good a career, especially when an Ambrose snorter ensured that his test career would yield no runs.
  5. Paul Parker (right handed batter, excellent fielder). Mike Brearley was told that if he wanted to captain England in the final test of 1981 at The Oval he had to accept an experimental line up. Picking folk for the last test of a series seems silly to me because unless the do something remarkable they are likely to end as one cap wonders. Paul Parker was one of those capped at The Oval in 1981, he did little in the match and was promptly forgotten about by the selectors, though he continued to perform well for Sussex.
  6. Fred Grace (right handed batter, right arm medium pacer, excellent outfielder). In the 1870s only big brother WG did significantly better with the bat than Fred, and he took his FC wickets at 20.06 a piece. His sole test call up, at The Oval in 1880, saw him collect a pair and not do much with the ball, though had the ‘Champagne Moment’ been a thing in 1880 his catch to dismiss the big hitting George Bonnor, held as the batters were crossing for their THIRD run (Frederick Gale chain measured the distance and worked out that Fred Grace was 115 yards – approximately 105 metres – from the bat when he took the catch) would have won it. Fred Grace was not a victim of selectorial caprice – two weeks after this match he caught a chill, which turned into a fatal chest infection.
  7. *Aubrey Smith (right arm fast medium bowler, right handed lower middle order batter, captain). The only person to captain an England men’s test team on his only appearance at that level, there could be no other captain of this XI. He took seven wickets in that one match, the first of two on an early tour of South Africa which were granted test status retrospectively. He was unavailable for the second match, and Monty Bowden took the captaincy. Smith took to acting first on stage and then on screen once his playing days were done, and he founded Hollywood Cricket Club, for whom he turned out even into his eighties.
  8. Arnold Warren (right arm fast bowler, right handed lower order batter). He did once share a ninth wicket stand of 283* with one J Chapman. His sole test cap came in 1909, and he took 6-113 in the match including an innings haul of 5-57. For Derbyshire he was one half of an excellent though hard to handle new ball duo alongside Billy Bestwick.
  9. +Leslie Gay (wicket keeper, right handed batter). Finding a keeper who was one cap wonder was a challenge, but this guy, who also kept goal for the England men’s football team played the first match of the 1894-5 Ashes and was dropped for Hylton ‘Punch’ Philippson after a poor game, and never got another England cap.
  10. Charlie Parker (left arm orthodox spinner, right handed lower order batter). The third leading wicket taker in first class history, with 3,278 scalps, but just one appearance for England, in which he took 2-32.
  11. Charles ‘Father’ Marriott (leg spinner, right handed lower order batter). A natural number 11 if ever there was one, and an excellent fit for this side. His career as a teacher limited his cricket playing but in the course of an FC career that spanned 17 years he claimed 724 wickets nevertheless, and his sole test appearance, against the West Indies in 1933, yielded match figures of 11-96, the best ever achieved by a one-cap wonder.

This side has decent top six, a bowling all rounder at seven, a bowler who could bat at eight, a keeper who was not a total incompetent with the bat and two genuine tail enders. The bowling, with Smith and Warren to share the new ball, Fred Grace as a back up seam option and C Parker, Marriott and EM Grace as three different slow options is both strong and varied.

EXTRAS

Stuart Law, a one cap wonder for Australia, qualified by residence (he played county cricket for many years, first for Lancashire and then for Essex) for England in 2006, but I felt that given that his sole appearance was for another country it would be a stretch to include him in this XI.

Mike Smith of Gloucestershire and Simon Brown of Durham each got picked on a ‘horses for courses’ basis for test matches at Headingley in the 1990s, and in each case did little and were never picked again. Their overall records are not good enough for them to displace any of my chosen specialist bowlers.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Before my usual sign off I have a petition to share with you. It calls for ‘Swift bricks’ to be a requirement for all new build houses to combat the decline in numbers in the swift population, and is on the cusp of the 100,000 signatures needed for a debate in parliament – if you are a UK citizen you could be the one to send it over the line: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/626737

Time for my usual sign off…

All Time XIs: County Stars Who Never Played Test Cricket

To mark the start of another championship season I pick an XI of county stalwarts who somehow escaped the attention of the England selectors of their day. I also have my usual photo gallery at the end.

A new county championship season is under way (I have commentary on Lancashire v Surrey on in the background), and in honour of this I am putting together an XI of the best English county cricketers who never got the call up for England. Players whose careers took place before test cricket was played are ineligible.

THE XI IN BATTING ORDER

  1. John Langridge (Sussex, right handed opening batter and excellent close fielder). Over 34,000 FC runs, 76 centuries and hundreds of catches taken in the field but never an England call up for the Sussex stalwart.
  2. Alan Jones (Glamorgan, left handed opening batter). More FC runs than anyone else not to get an England cap, 36,049 of them including 56 centuries. He was selected for the series against The Rest of the World that replaced the South African visit of 1970 when that was cancelled but those games are not officially classed as test matches.
  3. Percy ‘Pete’ Perrin (Essex, right handed batter). Almost 30,000 FC runs at 36, with 66 centuries including an HS of 343* and no England cap. Ironically having been continually passed over as a player he did get to serve as chairman of selectors.
  4. James Hildreth (Somerset, right handed batter, occasional right arm medium fast bowler). Not far short of 20,000 FC runs at an average of 44, but the England call never came.
  5. David Sales (Northamptonshire, right handed batter). I first heard the name when I was listening to a test match commentary and Christopher Martin-Jenkins mentioned that a 17 year old had just scored 210* on FC debut. I thought that he was certain to become an England regular and sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, not only did he not get fast tracked, he never got an England cap, although his FC output was consistently impressive, including a triple century and a 276*.
  6. *Darren Stevens (Leicestershire, Kent, right handed batter, right arm medium pacer, captain). An aggressive middle order batter and a highly successful swing bowler. He missed out partly because in the first part of his career at Leicestershire he hardly bowled and his batting record did not merit selection on its own. He was already in his thirties when at Kent he became a serious bowler, and age always told against him, even though Stevens in his 40s was playing the best cricket of his life.
  7. Ernie Robson (Somerset, right handed batter, right arm medium pacer). He played for Somerset for 28 years (1895-1923), comfortably managed the career double of 10,000 runs and 1,000 wickets in FC games. In his last season, at the age of 53, he hit a six in the last possible over of a match to win it for Somerset. Jack Hobbs rated him one of the most difficult bowlers he ever faced. Incidentally he and Stevens are well matched as bowlers – Stevens’ main weapon was the inswinger, whereas Robson’s specialism was outswing.
  8. +David Hunter (Yorkshire, wicket keeper, right handed batter). A rare example of a top class Yorkshire player being ignored by the England selectors, he made 1,200 dismissals in a long and distinguished career and featured in several important lower order partnerships as well.
  9. Tom Wass (Nottinghamshire, right arm fast medium, right arm leg spin, right handed lower order batter). A magnificent county record in the Edwardian era, but never an England call up.
  10. Don Shepherd (Glamorgan, off spinner, right handed lower order batter). It is telling of the frequency with which England selectors have been unable to see what happens west of the Severn that Glamorgan, home to the leading run scorer never to have played for England also boasts the leading FC wicket taker not to have played for England. Shepherd took over 2,200 wickets at a very cheap average, and was part of the 1969 team which won the County Championship without losing a match.
  11. George Dennett (Gloucestershire, left arm orthodox spinner). 2,151 FC wickets at 19.82. He missed out in part because England were very strong in the left arm spin department during his career – Rhodes and Blythe were ahead of him in the pecking order pre-WWI, and the all round skills of Roy Kilner often got him the nod in the 1920s. Also Frank Woolley, who could bowl left arm spin, was an England regular throughout Dennett’s career.

This team has a powerful top five, two swing bowling all rounders, a great keeper and trio of contrasting specialist bowlers. Between them the available bowlers tick every box save sheer pace. Many an actual England XI would struggle against this side.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Opening batters: Daryl Mitchell of Worcestershire had a fine county record without ever attracting selectorial attention. Chris Dent of Gloucestershire is not yet officially qualified for this team, but if he does not get a call up for England before retiring he will be a challenger to Alan Jones for the left handed opener’s role.

Middle order batters: Edgar Oldroyd of Yorkshire was Perrin’s chief rival for the number three slot – 15,000 FC runs at 36 a piece, and probably as regular number three behind Holmes and Sutcliffe more time spent padded up waiting to bat than anyone else in FC history. Tony Cottey (Glamorgan and Sussex) had an excellent county record and often scored his runs when the team really needed them, and given the struggles of 1990s England middle orders can be considered particularly unlucky to have been overlooked.

All rounders: Two potential imports who England ultimately decided not to pick, Frank Tarrant (born in Australia, played for Middlesex for many years as a left handed batter and left arm slow medium bowler) and Sydney Smith (born in the West Indies, not then playing test cricket, played for Northamptonshire as a middle order batter and left arm spinner), doing the double in his first season for the county and ultimately averaging 31 with the bat and 18 with the ball in FC cricket. Digby Jephson (Surrey) was a very distinctive all rounder, an aggressive middle order batter and a fast underarm bowler, who fell short of international recognition.

Wicket keepers: Wally Luckes (Somerset) and Colin Metson (Glamorgan) are the two most obvious challengers to Hunter.

Fast bowlers: bowlers of genuine pace rarely miss out altogether on selection, though Charles Kortright (Essex) and Billy Bestwick (Derbyshire) both did. William Mycroft (Derbyshire) only just overlapped with the start of test cricket, so I felt I could not include him, while George Freeman’s retirement in 1875 to concentrate on his auctioneering business definitely ruled him out.

PHOTOGRAPHY

I have a fine gallery for you today…

Australia 1963-83

A look at the best Australian cricketers of the period 1963-83 and a photo gallery.

I continue my look through Australia’s cricket history with a look at the best men’s cricketers of 1963-83, which brings us into the era covered in this post.

THE XI IN BATTING ORDER

  1. Bill Lawry (left handed opening batter). He averaged 47 with the bat over a long test career, which ended with him being dropped from the team when the Aussie selectors decided they wanted a new captain in Ian Chappell and that they did not think Lawry should play under his successor. This resulted in a first and only test appearance for Ken Eastwood, another dour left hander of similar age to Lawry but possessed of about half his skill.
  2. Bobby Simpson (right handed opening batter, ace slip fielder, occasional leg spinner). He took until his 30th test match to reach three figures at that level. In that first three figure innings he went on to 311, batting until the third morning of a match that Australia only needed to draw to retain the Ashes. Simpson scored nine further test centuries, one of them in the Ashes (a score of 225). He and Lawry also became the first pair of openers to score double centuries in the same test innings, their opening stand against the West Indies being worth 382 on that occasion.
  3. *Ian Chappell (right handed batter, captain, occasional leg spinner). A fine test match number three and a great skipper who took Australia to the top of the cricket world before the rise of Lloyd’s West Indies with their pace battery.
  4. Greg Chappell (right handed batter, ace slip fielder, occasional medium pacer, occasional leg spinner). The best Aussie batter to play his cricket exclusively in this era. Leg spin was his first style of bowling, but he learned to bowl medium pace while playing for Somerset as an overseas player.
  5. Allan Border (left handed batter, occasional left arm orthodox spinner). Although he had another ten years of test cricket ahead of him in 1983 he had done enough by then to warrant his place, and by the time of his retirement he would be remembered as an all time great, the first ever to score 11,000 test runs.
  6. Doug Walters (right handed batter, occasional medium pacer). Averaged in the mid-40s in test cricket, though he never quite cracked batting in England. His career best was 250 against New Zealand, and he also had a match in which he scored 242 and 103. He twice scored 100 runs in a single session of play in test cricket. As a bowler at test level he was mainly used to break awkward partnerships, though he was good enough as a youngster to take a seven-for on FC debut.
  7. +Rod Marsh (wicket keeper, left handed batter). At the time of his retirement he had made more test dismissals than any other wicket keeper and had also scored two test centuries. His departure left a hole in Aussie ranks that took a few years to properly fill, the search for decent test keeper only ending with the emergence of Ian Healy.
  8. Ashley Mallett (off spinner, expert gully fielder, right handed lower order batter). Very valuable in a supporting role when Australia had some serious fast bowling talent in the 1970s.
  9. Dennis Lillee (right arm fast bowler, right handed lower order batter). 71 test appearances yielded him 355 wickets, including 164 in Ashes matches, breaking a record that Hugh Trumble had held for three-quarters of a century. Lillee’s own tally was beaten in turn by Shane Warne.
  10. Jeff Thomson (right arm fast bowler, right handed lower order batter). The fastest bowler of the era, and possibly the fastest Australia has yet produced (Shaun Tait and the 2013-14 incarnation of Mitchell Johnson are possible rivals for this one). 200 test wickets in all, in spite of injury problems disrupting his career.
  11. Rodney Hogg (right arm fast bowler, right handed lower order batter). The 41 wickets he took in his debut series in 1978-9 were at the time an Australian record for an Ashes series. Injuries subsequently spoiled his career.

This side has a powerful top six, most of whom could also contribute something with the ball, a great keeper, a good off spinner and three genuinely fast bowlers.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

The only other opening batter from this period who might have justified breaking the Lawry/ Simpson combo at the top was Keith Stackpole, but although his attacking approach may have made him a better foil to Lawry than Simpson, Simpson had the better record.

In the middle order there were two very near misses, Kim Hughes and Graham Yallop, but good as they were neither could realistically challenge either the Chappells or Border.

The main spin bowling challengers were two leg spinners, Terry Jenner and Kerry “Skull” O’Keeffe, but bearing in mind the spin bowling capacities of my front line batters I wanted on off spinner, and the only close challenger to Mallett on that basis was Bruce Yardley.

The pace bowling department was much more difficult. My decision to go for all out pace, with Hogg accompanying Lillee and Thommo meant that three guys with solid claims all missed out: Graham McKenzie was Australia’s best seamer between the retirement of Alan Davidson and the rise of Dennis Lillee, claiming 246 test scalps. Max Walker, the regular third seamer when Lillee and Thommo shared the new ball was also a candidate. Finally, brought into the picture by the fact that he bowled left arm fast medium which would have added variation and that he would have strengthened the lower order batting there was Gary Gilmour. In the ‘what might have been’ category is Bob Massie, who claimed 16 scalps on test debut, but then had a disastrous tour of the West Indies in which an attempt to generate extra pace led to him permanently losing his ability to swing the ball.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

Best Partnerships For Each Wicket – England

What I consider to be the best partnerships for England for each wicket – not all of them huge, but all of them playing crucial roles in the matches in question, plus a photo gallery.

In this post I look at the best stands for each wicket by English pairs in test cricket – the stands are not necessarily numerically huge, it is what they mean in the context of the match and series in which they happened that sets them apart.

THE PARTNERSHIPS IN WICKET ORDER

1st: 172 by Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe vs Australia at The Oval, 1926. England had not won an Ashes series since the resumption of cricket after WWI, and indeed had won only match in the three series between the old enemies in that period, while Australia had won 12 and drawn two in those three series. The first four matches of the series in 1926 had all been drawn, with the weather intervening frequently, and the powers that be had therefore decreed that this match would be played to a finish. England trailed by 22 runs on first innings and the pitch at the start of their second innings looked a very difficult one. Hobbs and Sutcliffe survived the tough early stages, helped by Aussie skipper Collins trusting the accurate Arthur Richardson over the more expensive but also more dangerous Arthur Mailey. Hobbs reached 100 in front of his home crowd before he was finally dismissed to make it 172-1. Herbert Sutcliffe kept on going, eventually tallying 161, and England reached 436, an advantage of 414. The match, and with it the series, was as good as settled, and a dispirited Australia managed only 125 in the final innings, 49 year old Wilfred Rhodes taking 4-44, while a 21 year old speedster named Larwood claimed three scalps. The final wicket was taken by Leicestershire work horse George Geary. I have rated this stand of 172 ahead of the same pair’s 105 at Melbourne in the fourth innings two and a half years later because although that contributed to a series win down under, even if England had lost that match they would have been 2-1 up with two to play and still favourites for the series, whereas this was a one-shot deal.

2nd: 329* by Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott, Brisbane 2010. It had been 24 years since an England men’s side had won a series down under, and when England trailed by over 200 on first innings in the opening match not many would have bet on this series bucking that trend. Even when skipper Strauss and Cook started the second innings with a stand of 188, England were still behind. By the close of the penultimate day Cook and Trott had put on an unbroken 121, and England had given themselves an opening. When the pair were still in residence by lunch on the final day the match was as good as saved. The partnership was ended when skipper Strauss decided to declare to see if England could claim a few early wickets. In the event the Aussie second innings was a solid effort, highlighted by a rapid 50 from Ponting, which would prove to be his only decent score of the series. England, boosted by their escape in this match won three of the four remaining matches of the series by innings margins.

3rd: 262 by Wally Hammond and Douglas Jardine, Adelaide 1928. England were in a bit of trouble when this pair joined forces in the second innings of this match, although the series was already secure. By the time Jardine was out for 98 England were back in control, and they went on to win the match.

4th: 411 by Peter May and Colin Cowdrey, Edgbaston 1957. England trailed by 288 on first innings and were 113-3 when skipper May was joined by Cowdrey. Sonny Ramadhin with his spinners had been England’s nemesis, and in ten hours this pair not only saved England, they effectively finished Ranadhin as a bowling force – by the time May declared, with himself on 285*, Ramadhin had bowled 98 overs in the innings, still an FC record. West Indies lost seven wickets in their own second innings and ended up grateful to escape with a draw.

5th: 163 by Willie Watson and Trevor Bailey at Lord’s, 1953. England had been set 347 to win, and when wickets started to fall early survival became the order of the day. The pair to arrest a seemingly fatal slide were Watson and Bailey. Watson made 109, Bailey 71 and England saved the match. The series opener at Trent Bridge had been drawn, highlighted by Alec Bedser’s 14 wickets, and the third and fourth matches were also drawn. However at The Oval in the final game England won by eight wickets to claim the Ashes for the first time since Woodfull had wrested the urn back for Australia in 1934.

6th: 119* by Mike Atherton and Jack Russell, Johannesburg 1995. This was the second match of the series, the first having been a very dull draw. SA dominated most of the game and England found themselves with 11 hours to bat and a target of 479. Atherton dug in to lead England’s resistance, but wickets fell regularly at the other end, and when Robin Smith, Atherton’s best partner to that point was fifth out 232 there were over four and a half hours left in the match. At this point Jack Russell, England’s wicket keeper, with 11 catches in the match already, joined Atherton. South Africa did not claim another wicket in the match, Atherton finishing on 185* and Jack Russell 29* (this latter in 274 minutes and 235 balls).

7th: 30 by Gilbert Jessop and George Hirst, The Oval, 1902. This remarkable partnership occupied just eight minutes, but was absolutely pivotal in turning the match – during it Jessop completed his century, an innings that had begun with England 48-5 chasing 263 to win and Hirst established himself. Jessop was out shortly after reaching the landmark, but Hirst, with varying degrees of support from Lockwood, keeper Lilley and Rhodes guided England to a one wicket victory, Hirst 58*.

8th: 13* by Ashley Giles and Matthew Hoggard at Trent Bridge in 2005. The series was tied at 1-1 going into this match, with England having had considerably the better of a draw at Old Trafford in the preceding match. England had scored 477 batting first, Australia 218 in response, and then 387 following on. England needed 129, a target that should have posed few challenges. However, Shane Warne and Brett Lee rattled England, and at 116-7 with genuine tailender Hoggard joining Giles, a bowler who could bat, and Simon Jones injured, things were looking dicey for England. The over that settled it for England was ironically enough bowled by the destroyer Lee – Hoggard somehow wellied a fast full toss through cover for four and took two off the next ball. A few moments later Giles scored the winning run, putting England 2-1 up in the series and meaning that a draw at The Oval would see England regain the Ashes. That draw was duly achieved, with Giles adding to his batting credits by staying with Pietersen for two and a half hours on the final day, putting the target beyond Australia’s reach.

9th: 67 by Ian Botham and Chris Old at Headingley in 1981. England had been made to follow on 227 runs adrift and then slumped to 135-7 in their second innings. Ian Botham, just replaced as skipper by Mike Brearley, was joined by Dilley at that point. The pair added 117 in 80 minutes, but England were still only 25 to the good, and although Chris Old, the new batter, was a decent ball striker on his day few would have expected him to last long against fast bowlers on a dodgy pitch. In the event he helped the ninth wicket to raise 67, and then last man Bob Willis resisted for long enough that Australia needed 130 to win. With Willis, nearly omitted from the England team before the match, bowling for his future Australia succumbed for 111 in the fourth innings, Willis 8-43, to give England victory by 18 runs. England then won the next two matches at Edgbaston and Old Trafford to retain The Ashes.

10th: 76* by Ben Stokes and Jack Leach, Headingley 2019. When Australia could do no better than 179 in the first innings things looked good for England. England themselves then crashed for 67 in response. Australia built a lead of 358. At 286-9, with Leach joining Stokes it looked all over, but Stokes was finding his very best form, and Leach resisted stoutly. As England closed on the target Australia became panicked. Australia sacrificed their last review on an LBW that was never getting overturned – it was obviously pitched outside leg and missing in any case. This proved crucial a few moments later when a much better LBW shout was turned down and Australia were unable to review it. The scores drew level, and then Stokes hit a boundary to complete the Headingley Heist. Leach had scored possibly the most important 1* in cricket history at the other end. There was an earlier rival to this partnership, also involving a left arm spinner batting at no 11, the 15 that Hirst and Rhodes added to give England a one wicket win at The Oval in 1902, but that series was already lost, whereas this one was still live, and indeed it finished level. Also worthy of mention in this context is a third partnership involving a left arm spinner at no11, the Anderson and Panesar act of defiance, holding out for an hour to save the match at Cardiff in 2009.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

Australia 1946-62

A look at Australia in the period 1946-62 and some photographs.

Today’s post looks at Australia immediately after WWII (for the significance of 1962 as a dividing year check this post). Please note that in this XI positions 7-10 in the order are flexible – Australia in this era was well equipped with bowlers and keepers who could bat well in the middle and lower order. Australia have not had so many multi-dimensional test players in later eras, and the mighty side of the late 1990s and early 2000s tended to rely on six specialist batters, a keeper and four specialist bowlers.

THE XI IN BATTING ORDER

  1. Arthur Morris (left handed opening batter). Picked by Don Bradman as the left handed opening batter in his all time world XI. His peak series came in England in 1948 when he scored 696 runs at 87.00.
  2. Sidney George Barnes (right handed opener). Like his English near namesake of an earlier era, Sydney Francis Barnes, he often failed to see eye to eye with authority figures, which along with WWII was one reason his appearances at the highest level were limited. In the few appearances he did get to make art the top level he averaged 63 with the bat, with a highest score of 234 at Sydney in 1946.
  3. Don Bradman (right handed batter). Not quite the overwhelming force with the bat that he had been before WWII, but still the best around, albeit he benefitted from a controversial call in the first match of the 1946-7 Ashes when he sent a shoulder high catch to Jack Ikin at second slip, stood his ground and was given not out.
  4. Neil Harvey (left handed batter). The only 1940s test cricketer still alive (95 years old as I write this), he was part of the Invincibles of 1948, on which tour he scored his maiden test century. He scored over 6,000 test and averaged 48 in his career.
  5. Norman O’Neill (right handed batter, occasional leg spinner). His debut was in the Brisbane 1958 snoozefest. In the final innings of that match, immediately after Trevor Bailey had snailed his way to 68 in 458 minutes (428 balls faced, of which 388 were dots) he scored 71* in less than two and a half hours to see Australia to victory. He would average 46 overall in test cricket, and he retained his commitment to playing his shots throughout his career.
  6. Keith Miller (right handed batter, right arm fast bowler, occasional right arm off spinner). A superlative all round cricketer and possibly the best captain Australia never had (Rod Marsh and Shane Warne of later eras are also in the mix for this one).
  7. Ray Lindwall (right arm fast bowler, right handed batter). One of the greatest of all fast bowlers, and in an example of how cricket transcends national boundaries he modelled his run up and action on Harold Larwood, Australia’s nemesis in the 1932-3 Ashes.
  8. Alan Davidson (left arm fast bowler, left handed batter, occasional left arm spinner). His greatest match performance came in the first ever tied test match at Brisbane in 1960: 5-135, 44, 6-87, 80, becoming the first male test cricketer to score 100 runs and take 10 wickets in the same match. 186 wickets at 20.53 places him among the greatest ever masters of his type of bowling, and he was also a superb fielder, referred to as ‘the claw’ for his habit of grabbing unlikely catches.
  9. *Richie Benaud (leg spinner, right handed batter, captain). In the first phase of one of the most outstanding careers connected with cricket he was the first player to achieve the test career of 2,000 runs and 200 wickets, and the time of his retirement he was Australia’s leading wicket taker at that level with 248 scalps. He was also a superb skipper, hence why I gave him that job, rather than Bradman who had it for the interwar team. He went on once his playing days were done to establish himself as ‘the Bradman of TV Commentators’ (yes, that far ahead of the rest IMO).
  10. +Don Tallon (wicket keeper, right handed batter). Named by Bradman as keeper in his all time world XI. A combination of selectorial politicking which denied him a place on the 1938 tour of England and WWII meant that he was past his very best by the time he got the opportunity at test level, but his only rival as a keeper in that era was Godfrey Evans of England.
  11. Bill Johnston (left arm fast medium bowler, left arm orthodox spinner, left handed tail end batter). Australia’s leading wicket taker in three series immediately postwar, when he was very effective at sweeping up after Lindwall and Miller had made early inroads. He was injured on the 1953 tour of England, but with the connivance of some his team mates (who when they realized the possibility was there got themselves out to preserve his average) he became only the second person to average over 100 with the bat for a full season in England (102.00, with 16 of his 17 innings being not outs), after Don Bradman’s 115.66 in 1938.

This XI is awesomely strong in batting, with a powerful top five, one of the all time great all rounders at six, and a collection of players in slots 7-10 who while batting was the second string to their bows were all capable of match winning knocks on their day. The bowling has two great right arm fast bowlers, one of the greatest of all left arm fast bowlers, a left armer who could bowl seam or spin according to team necessity, a great leg spinner, and Miller could turn his hand to off spin if needed. This side ticks every box and would take a lot of beating, especially with Benaud captaining them.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Colin McDonald was a gritty right handed opener in the 1950s, and Bobby Simpson made his debut near the end of the era in question. Most of the bowlers who bowled Australia to a 4-0 series win in 1958-9 had dodgy actions, being either throwers, draggers or both of the foregoing, ruling them out of serious consideration. Ernie Toshack did a useful job as a fill-in bowler while Lindwall and Miller were resting in the immediate postwar era. Australia had three other fine keepers besides Tallon in this era: Gil Langley, Len Maddocks and Wally Grout. Ken ‘Slasher’ Mackay, a left handed blocker and workaday medium pacer had a respectable test record but was hardly a challenger to any of those I included. Ron Archer might have become a great fast bowling all rounder, but he suffered a career ending injury in Pakistan in 1956-7 at a very young age.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

Three muntjac and a hare.

Australia Interwar Years XI

A look at Australia’s best cricketers of the interwar years and a photo gallery.

Today I look at the best Australian cricketers of the period 1919-39. Australia were strong for much of this period, although English desperation to atone for the perceived sins of the 1932-3 Ashes contributed to their excellent Ashes record – Larwood never played another test match after the end of that series, Voce was not picked at home in 1934, though he did tour in 1936-7, while the last pre-WWII Ashes series in 1938 was halved, with one game washed out without a ball bowled, two high scoring draws, Australia narrowly winning a thriller at Headingley and England totally bossing the last match at The Oval.

THE XI IN BATTING ORDER

  1. Bill Woodfull (right handed opening batter). One half of Australia’s best opening pair of the period.
  2. Bill Ponsford (right handed opening batter). The first megascorer, possessor for almost three years of the two highest scores in FC history, 437 for Victoria v Queensland in 1927 and 429 for Victoria v Tasmania in 1922. He had two other triple centuries in FC cricket and achieved a unique double in test cricket of scoring centuries in each of his first two test matches and in each of his last two.
  3. *Don Bradman (right handed batter, captain). Quite simply the most consistent run scorer the game has ever known. It was he who topped Ponsford’s individual FC record with 452* for NSW v Queensland. He also had two test match triple centuries and a 299* v South Africa when his last partner was run out trying to get through for the crucial run. Australia lost only two Ashes series with him in the side – 1928-9 when he was trying to establish himself and was actually dropped for the second match of the series, and 1932-3 when Jardine’s strategy halved his usual output.
  4. Charlie Macartney (right handed batter, left arm orthodox spinner). His batting hit the heights in the first seven years after the war – in the 1926 Ashes at the age of 40 he hit three centuries in successive test matches, while in 1921 he blasted Nottinghamshire for 345 in 232 minutes at the crease, still the highest FC score for a member of an Australian touring party.
  5. Stan McCabe (right handed batter, right arm medium fast bowler). Two of the most famous of all Ashes innings, his 187* at Sydney in the face of fast leg theory as conceived by Jardine and bowled by Larwood in the first match of the 1932-3 Ashes and the 232* he scored at Trent Bridge in 1938 when Bradman called the rest of the Aussie team out on to their balcony to watch the action because “you will never see anything like this again”.
  6. Warwick Armstrong (right handed batter, leg spinner). A dominant force in both of the first two Ashes series after WWI, and undoubtedly Australia’s best all rounder of the period.
  7. Jack Gregory (right arm fast bowler, left handed batter, ace slip fielder). Under the captaincy of Warwick Armstrong he and Ted McDonald provided the first example in test cricket of a bowling side opening their attack with express pace from both ends – received wisdom had been to open with one fast and one slow bowler, though in 1911-12 and at home in 1912 Sydney Barnes and Frank Foster, both above medium pace, had opened the bowling for England with considerable success.
  8. +Bert Oldfield (wicket keeper, right handed batter). One of the greatest keepers ever, I believe he still holds the record for men’s test stumpings (52).
  9. Bill O’Reilly (leg spinner, left handed batter). 144 wickets in 27 test matches, bowling at something above medium pace and possessing a superbly disguised googly.
  10. Ted McDonald (right arm fast bowler, right handed batter). He played the first two post-war Ashes series before decamping to play Lancashire League cricket and ultimately to turn out for Lancashire and bowl them to several championships with Cecil Parkin and Dick Tyldesley in support.
  11. Clarrie Grimmett (leg spinner, right handed batter). He had to cross one national border and two state boundaries to find cricketing fulfillment, and still managed to become the first ever to claim 200 test wickets (216 in 37 test matches). Even 80 odd years after the end of his career he probably ranks second among cricketers born in New Zealand (Sir Richard Hadlee being #1).

This XI has a powerful batting line up, though left handers are under represented. The bowling is also strong, with Gregory and McDonald an outstanding new ball duo, O’Reilly, Grimmett and Armstrong being three very dissimilar leg spinners, McCabe a handy medium pacer and Macartney sometimes useful with his left arm spin.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Warren Bardsley, the left handed opener I selected in the prewar Aussie XI, played on until 1926, but a remarkable 193* at Lord’s that year apart he was a fading force, and therefore I felt I could not break the Woodfull/ Ponsford pairing for the sake of balance. No Australian middle order left handed batter of this period was good enough to merit selection.

Vic Richardson was a remarkable all round athlete and grandfather of two Aussie test skippers, but his test batting record was quite ordinary. Arthur Richardson, a middle order batter who bowled off spin, was not good enough in either department to merit more than an acknowledgement.

There were two other candidates for the number six slot I gave to Armstrong, Jack Ryder and Hunter ‘Stork’ Hendry, forceful batters who bowled right arm fast medium.

This period featured the tail end of Hanson Carter’s career as a keeper, but he was not the equal of Oldfield. The one Aussie to play FC cricket in this period who probably was a match for Oldfield as keeper and a better batter, Don Tallon, did not make his test debut until after WWII, so I felt I could not pick him.

Other than Gregory and McDonald, who came as a partnership the only other Aussie fast bowler of the era who might have demanded selection was Thomas William Wall, usually known as ‘Tim’ Wall, whose record suffered from the fact that he was often the only quick in the side. Ernie McCormick, ‘Bull’ Alexander, Jack Scott and Laurie Nash were all quick but erratic, while Eddie Gilbert never played test cricket.

The only Aussie specialist finger spinner of the period with a really good test record was Bert Ironmonger, and he was never selected for a tour of England, possibly because of fears that his action would not stand up to the scrutiny of English umpires. Left arm wrist spinner Leslie ‘Chuck’ Fleetwood-Smith was too expensive to merit a place, while Arthur Mailey was unlucky in that Grimmett was clearly ahead of him as a conventional leg spinner and O’Reilly’s distinctive method and provenly effective partnership with Grimmett qualified him for a place. Hans Ebeling’s seam bowling did not qualify him for a place, but he deserves a mention because the 1977 Centenary Test Match, which Australia won by the same margin, 45 runs, as they had won the inaugural test match 100 years earlier, was his brainchild.

PHOTOGRAPHS

The weather here continues to be dull and grey, but I do have a photo gallery to share…

Should Bairstow Keep Wicket For England This Summer?

A detailed answer to a question posed by talk sport radio on twitter this morning in the form of a look at the resources available to the England test team at the moment plus a photo gallery.

Another English cricket season is around the corner (some pre-season warm up fixtures are already taking place), and it is a biggie – the Aussies will be touring later this summer. My title comes from a question that talk sport radio put out on twitter this morning, and I am using this post to give it a detailed answer – the brief answer is the single word “no”.

ENGLAND’S RESOURCES

Since Ben Stokes took over the captaincy the England test team has fared exceedingly well, and the side’s unprecedented 3-0 sweep of the series in Pakistan plus the subsequent 1-1 draw in New Zealand (with the second game lost by one run, Stokes going uncompromisingly for the win rather than shut the game down to secure the series) were both achieved without Bairstow. The only real vacancy in the batting order is at the top, where Crawley’s returns continue to be utterly inadequate for a test match opening batter. Foakes, the current keeper, played important roles with the bat in several of the wins and is without any shadow of a doubt well clear of Bairstow as a keeper. The bowling is also strong, although the spin department remains a concern. Even there, with Rehan Ahmed showing positive signs in Pakistan, the trend is upwards.

BAIRSTOW IN TEST CRICKET

While in the period immediately before injury forced his withdrawal from the side Bairstow was in absolutely white hot form with the bat, his test history, which dates back to 2012, is of blowing hot and cold, with the latter more frequently the case. He is apparently not happy with the notion of opening in test cricket, though he does so in both forms of limited overs cricket. For me the middle order is strong with the question being who to leave out. One way to accommodate Bairstow is to have Stokes, who certainly has the technical wherewithal to do so move up to open the batting, creating a middle order slot for Bairstow (WG Rumblepants suggested this on twitter in response to the talk sport radio query). None of Pope, Root, Brook or Stokes are dispensable, and I regard the notion of dropping Foakes, already on the receiving end of scurvy treatment from England selectors since his international debut in 2018, as an outrage.

THE ENGLAND TEST SIDE GOING FORWARD

With the powerful batting outlined above, plus Foakes as keeper, a slew of fine seamers available, plus outright pacers in the form of Wood, Archer and possibly Stone in the wings, and Leach and Ahmed available to bowl spin, plus Will Jacks on the fringes as a batter who bowls spin on the side, and a few county players knocking on the doors (a good start to the season for Ben Compton would certainly force the selectors to sit up an take notice to name but one) the truth is that the England test side does not need to perform mental gymnastics to find a way to accommodate an ageing middle order batter with a history of inconsistency at the highest level – they would do better to move forwards without him.

PHOTOGRAPHS

To put it mildly the weather these last few days has been less than ideal for photography, but I do have a small gallery of recent captures to share…

Photographed through the window of a bus, a pair of goldfinches using a cable (obviously very well insulated) as a perch.

Australia Prewar XI

A look at Australia’s best test cricketers of 1877-1914 and a large photo gallery.

Having just finished a brief look at England men’s test cricket through the ages I now turn England’s oldest adversaries in international cricket, Australia. I start with the best players of 1877-1914 inclusive.

THE XI IN BATTING ORDER

  1. Warren Bardsley (left handed opening batter). Until Don Bradman came along and blew all such records out of the water he had scored more FC centuries than any other Australian batter and more than half of those centuries were scored on tours of England (compare and contrast a left hander of much more recent vintage in David Warner). At the Oval in 1909 he became the first ever to score a century in each innings of a test match.
  2. Victor Trumper (right handed opening batter). One of cricket’s immortals. In the wet summer of 1902 he scored 2,570 FC runs for the tour including 11 centuries. In the Old Trafford test of that series, where an Australian win by three runs ensured that they kept the Ashes he reached a century before lunch on day one.
  3. *Billy Murdoch (right handed batter, captain). In 1880 at The Oval he won a sovereign from WG Grace by scoring 153* in Australia’s second innings to top the bearded Doctor’s 152 on the opening day of the match. Four years later at the same ground he scored test cricket’s first ever double century, 211.
  4. Clem Hill (left handed batter). Until Hobbs overhauled his tally he held the record for test career runs. He amassed eight test tons in total, including the only century of the only test ever played at Bramall Lane, Sheffield in 1902. He also had a unique sequence of near misses in the 1901-2 series, making 99, 98 and 97 in successive knocks.
  5. Charlie Macartney (right handed batter, left arm orthodox spinner). He had only just begun his rise to the top before WWI, but did enough, including taking his one and only match haul of ten wickets, to claim his spot in the XI.
  6. George Giffen (right handed batter, off spinner). Australia’s first great all rounder. In the 1894-5 Ashes he scored 475 runs and claimed 34 wickets.
  7. +Jack Blackham (wicket keeper, right handed batter). The ‘Prince of Wicket Keepers’, and enough of a batter to have been the first keeper to score two fifties in the same test match. He played in each of the first 17 test matches ever contested, before missing one due a dispute over pay, and then returning and playing on until the 1894-5 Ashes.
  8. Hugh Trumble (off spinner, right handed batter). Good enough in his secondary department to have done the season’s double on the 1899 tour of England and to have been Australia’s highest individual scorer at The Oval in 1902. He took 141 test wickets all against England, including doing the hat trick twice in his career. His 141 wickets against England remained a record for almost eight decades after his retirement, until Dennis Lillee overtook him at Headingley in 1981.
  9. Fred ‘Demon’ Spofforth (right arm medium-fast). A master of changes of pace, he took the first ever test hat trick, and it was his bowling that won the 1882 match at The Oval that led to the creation of the Ashes.
  10. Charlie ‘Terror’ Turner (right arm medium fast). He succeeded Spofforth as leader of Australia’s attack, and reached the milestone of 100 test wickets in just 17 matches.
  11. Ernest Jones (right arm fast). Australia’s first authentic test match quick bowler. He once sent a ball through WG Grace’s beard. Like the later Harold Larwood of England he was a miner before establishing himself as a cricketer.

This side has a powerful top five, an all rounder at six, a keeper who could bat and four formidable front bowlers. The bowling is also very powerful, though it lacks either a left arm seam option or a leg spin option.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Charles Bannerman missed out on an opening slot partly because of being right handed – Trumper had to be picked and I felt that left handed Warren Bardsley was a better foil for him than Bannerman. Two other specialist batters who could not be accommodated were Joe Darling and Syd Gregory, the latter playing more test matches than anyone else whose entire career happened before WWI.

I could have got around the leg spin problem by naming Warwick Armstrong as the all rounder, but I felt that Giffen’s case was unanswerable. Monty Noble was the other candidate for the all rounder’s role and would have been a natural for the captaincy had I gone for him. Frank Tarrant never played test cricket, otherwise he would have been a shoo-in (England toyed with the idea of picking him based on his years at Middlesex but felt that such a move would cause problems with the Aussies, who don’t appear to have ever considered picking him).

There were two other keepers of the era of something approaching comparable stature to Blackham, Jim Kelly and Hanson Carter.

The nearest any left arm bowler who actually played for Australia came to claiming a place were Jack Ferris, Turner’s regular new ball partner, and Jack Saunders, but neither quite did enough.

Frank Laver and Albert ‘Tibby’ Cotter were right arm seam/ pace bowlers who came close.

Australia only had one specialist leg spinner of note before WWI, Herbert Hordern, and his career was brief.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

The five images, starting with this one are of a present from my parents who have recently been in Florida. It hangs just inside my front door, on the left side.

England XI 1963-83

A look at the best England players of 1963-83, including a mention of the rebel tour of Apartheid SA in 1982, since I refused to pick any of the players involved in that for my XI. A large photo gallery.

I continue my mini-series looking at England men’s players through the ages with a post covering 1963-83. This will end this series as I from that point on we are dealing with cricketers from my time following the game, and I covered that era here. Also, this post will be regarded as very controversial in some quarters – the first rebel tour to Apartheid South Africa happened in 1982, and I refuse to select any of the participants in that disgraceful venture.

THE XI IN BATTING ORDER

  1. John Edrich (left handed opening batter). Had a fine test record, with a best of 310* vs New Zealand and scores of 175 and 164 against the old enemy among his other successes.
  2. *Mike Brearley (right handed opening batter, captain). Has the least impressive playing record of anyone selected in one of these XIs, but he was a splendid captain, and three of the best England openers to play in this period were involved in the rebel tour mentioned in the introduction (Amiss, Boycott and Gooch) which means that this slot was going to go someone not quite in the top bracket as a batter, so I might as well secure an excellent captain.
  3. Ted Dexter (right handed batter, right arm medium fast bowler). A fine attacking batter and one at home in a slot that has often caused England problems over the years.
  4. Ken Barrington (right handed batter, occasional leg spinner). Statistically one of England’s best ever, with an average of almost 59 for 6,800 test runs. His highest test score was 256 at Old Trafford in 1964.
  5. David Gower – left handed batter. When he first started, before a long term shoulder problem made itself felt, he was one of England’s finest fielders as well. He scored 58 on test debut, racked up hist test century later that same summer, scored his maiden Ashes century at Perth on that winter’s tour, hit 200* v India at Edgbaston in 1979 and confirmed his arrival among the great with a match saving 154* at Jamaica in 1981 against the most powerful bowling unit in the world at that time, that of Clive Lloyd’s West Indies. He played on for another nine years after the end of the period under discussion and might well have gone on a good while longer had the England selectors of the early 1990s treated him decently.
  6. Tony Greig (right handed batter, right arm medium fast bowler and right arm off spinner). He averaged 40 with the bat and 32 with the ball in test cricket, and the fact that he could bowl spin as well as seam got him this slot over the alternative candidate.
  7. Ian Botham (right handed batter, right arm fast medium bowler). The period under discussion includes the earliest and best years of his international career, either side of an ill-starred spell as captain. The Ian Botham of 1977-83 was unequivocally one of the greatest cricketers ever to play the game. Thereafter he had occasional great moments but was largely a fading force.
  8. +Bob Taylor (wicket keeper, right handed batter). Made more dismissals than any other wicket keeper though his test appearances were limited by the presence of Alan Knott (who went on that rebel tour and who I therefore regarded as unavailable). He was also a much better batter than he was often credited with being, with his 97 at Adelaide in the 1978-9 Ashes a clearly defined match winning knock.
  9. Philippe-Henri Edmonds (left arm orthodox spinner, left handed lower order batter). With Greig able to bowl off spin (and England’s best specialist off spinner of the period ineligible as a rebel tourist) I wanted my specialist spinner to turn the ball the other way, and England had no class leg spinners in the period under discussion and the best left armer, Underwood, was another rebel tourist. Therefore Edmonds, whose test record places him next in line gets the slot.
  10. John Snow (right arm fast bowler, right handed lower order batter). A fine overall test record, highlighted by his stellar performance on the 1970-1 tour of Australia, when he joined Larwood (1932-3) and Tyson (1954-5) in the select club of England quicks to have blitzed Australia on their own pitches.
  11. Bob Willis (right arm fast bowler). A man whose career nearly ended in 1981 but who became England captain in 1982 such was the extent to which he revived his cricketing fortunes. The key moment came at Headingley in 1981, when with Australia seemingly cruising to a victory target of 130 Brearley brought him on at the Kirkstall Lane end, with an early breakthrough required to save his career. By lunch, courtesy of a sharp bouncer that accounted for Trevor Chappell (a misguided selection – he resembled a proper test match number three in name only), a slip catch by Botham that got skipper Hughes and a catch at short leg by Gatting to account for Yallop had turned 56-1 into 58-4 and suddenly the match was revitalized. Australia continued to implode after the interval, and one stage they were 75-8, before Lillee and Bright added 35 in four overs, but then Lillee miscued a drive and was well caught by Gatting and Willis found a yorker to polish off Bright. England had won by 18 runs and Willis had taken eight of the last nine wickets to fall giving him innings figures of 8-43.

This side features one great opener, one ordinary one who compensates by being an extraordinary captain, a powerful 3-5, a batting all rounder at six, a bowling all rounder at seven, a great keeper who was better with the bat than he was given credit for being, a left arm spinner who could bat a bit and two fine fast bowlers to round out the order. A bowling unit of Snow, Willis, Edmonds, Botham, Greig (either as fourth seamer or second spinner depending on conditions) plus Dexter and Barrington as back up options if needed should not struggle to take 20 wickets either.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Firstly there is a person who merits a paragraph to himself:

BASIL D’OLIVEIRA

Had he been able to play international cricket for his native land when in his mid 20s instead of finally getting the opportunity in his mid-thirties after moving halfway round the world to find cricketing fulfillment I have little doubt that he would have been one of the game’s all time greats. As it was he averaged 40 with the bat and had moments as a medium pacer without doing enough in that department to be classed as a test all rounder (which is why Greig got the number six slot).

OTHER HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Colin Cowdrey played a lot of his cricket in the period under discussion, but having included him in the XI for the earlier period I felt able to leave him out, and as you will have noted, even with the rebel tour creating problems there was no shortage of batting options available to me. Tom Cartwright and Geoff Arnold, two very fine seamers who played in this period would have their advocates. Had I need an off spinner the only option of sufficient class not rendered ineligible by rebel touring was Ray Illingworth (Geoff Miller’s record looks respectable at first glance, but he only took an average of two wickets per match, which counts against him). Derek Randall had his moments for England, especially against folks in baggy greens, but his overall test record falls short of the required standard. Allan Lamb who became eligible for England near the end of the period under discussion made a fine start to his test career, but he was never comfortable against spin, and for all his southern hemisphere birthplace he never delivered away from home. Mike Hendrick and Chris Old were stalwarts for England in the late 1970s and early 1980s but while acknowledging their qualities I preferred the extra pace of Snow and Willis for my specialists.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…