Railwayana – aspiblog

Brilliant Bray Bosses Sydney Smash

A look back at today’s ‘Sydney Smash’ – Thunder v Sixers – in the WBBL, including a historic performance from Caoimhe Bray and a photo gallery featuring pictures taken with three cameras.

Today in the Women’s Big Bash League saw the Sydney Smash – Thunder hosting Sixers at Drummoyne, just west of Sydney. This post looks back at a bizarre game that ended up being dominated by the youngest player involved.

SIXERS SLUMP AFTER STRONG START

Sydney Thunder skipper Phoebe Litchfield won the toss and chose to bowl first, a decision that her cross-city counterpart Ashleigh Gardner would also have made had she been the one to win the toss. Each side had a youngster in the ranks, Thunder giving a debut to 18 year old all rounder Lucy Finn, while Sixers had 16 year old bowling all rounder Caiomhe Bray (that given name is pronounced like ‘Keeva’ just for the record).

Ellyse Perry was out fairly early, pinned LBW by Georgia Voll with just 16 on the board. Thereafter, with Sophia Dunkley in prime form, and Alyssa Healy taking full toll of a few loose balls things initially looked bright for the Sixers. Their innings took a dramatic turn when Healy tried to go after one from Shabnim Ismail and succeeded only in picking out Samantha Bates who made no mistake with the catch. That was 76-2, and off the last ball of the tenth over Dunkley fell for 43, pinned LBW by Sri Lankan veteran Chamari Athapaththu to make it 80-3 at the halfway stage of the innings. In the second half of the Sixers innings wickets tumbled regularly, with the shining exception of English spin bowling all rounder Mady Villiers who emerged as third top scorer of the innings, with an unbeaten 24. A final total of 142-9 looked on the meagre side, especially from that high water mark of 76-1 after 8.4 overs…

THUNDER TUMBLE

…Sixers needed to start well, and veteran seamer Lauren Cheatle struck with the fourth ball of the Thunder innings, having Voll caught by Villiers to make it 2-1. Then the other new ball bowler, Maitlan Brown, struck twice more, first accepting a soft return chance to dismiss the other opener Tahlia Wilson for 7, and then having the vastly experienced Heather Knight feather one through to Healy for 6 to make it 19-3 in the fourth over. Neither Phoebe Litchfield nor Anika Learoyd played fluently, but they held the fort together until the last ball of the seventh over, bowled by the youngster Bray. Litchfield, who had reached 8 from 14 balls tried to attack against Bray and succeeded in being caught by Gardner to make it 33-4. The next over yielded nine runs, before it was back to Bray, and the biggest events of the night. The first ball of the ninth over did for Learoyd, bowling her for 11 to make it 42-5. That brought the explosive Laura Harris to the crease. Harris tried to do her thing off her first ball and was brilliantly caught by a diving Erin Burns for 0 to give the 16 year old Bray a hat trick comprising three front line batters, some 175 years after All-England skipper Heathfield Harman Stephenson caused the term to be coined by dismissing three batters with successive balls in a match in Sheffield, which led to the crowd, impressed by the performance, to pass round a hat for a collection and present both hat and contents to Stephenson. Incidentally, though this match was flawless in this regard this edition of the WBBL had not overall been notable for catches being held. That was 42-6, and Lucy Finn came to the crease. Four balls into the second half of the innings Athapaththu holed out to Gardner to give Bray her fourth scalp of the innings and make it 49-3, the Sri Lankan managing only 3 (6). Bray had two balls of her allocation left to make it a five-for, but was not able to do so. However, her final 4-0-15-4 including the hat trick had settled who would be named Player of the Match. Thunder’s own youngster, Finn, now took centre stage, as she, with good support from tail enders Taneale Peschel and Shabnim Ismail (number 11 Samantha Bates not being required in the end) proceeded to produce an innings that exposed just how badly her supposed betters had handled their duties. She just missed on reaching 50, but her 49 not out, in the course of which she never looked in any trouble was the highest score of the match on either side – quite something for a debutant who came into the match considered more of a bowler than a batter (and though, like all else, it was overshadowed by Bray’s performance 3-0-27-1 on professional T20 debut is no one’s idea of a failure). Thunder with this late revival reached 118-8, beaten by 24 runs.

PHOTOGRAPHS

This gallery features images taken with three cameras – the Nikon Coolpix B500 that was my first choice camera until it died on Tuesday morning, the Canon EOS 4000D that is my reserve camera, and the Panasonic DC-FZ82D which I ordered on Wednesday and arrived yesterday and is now my new first choice camera…

This gallery consists of the last pictures with the Nikon.

The pictures in this gallery were taken with the Canon…

50th Birthday Holiday 13: Portuairk Walk

Continuing my series about my holiday in the far west of Scotland around my 50th birthday with the first of two posts about the day itself.

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in Scotland around the time of my 50th birthday. We have arrived at the day itself, the last full day of the holiday.

THE BIRTHDAY MORNING

Saturday May 31st started with heavy rainfall. I had brought my sister’s present to me with me so I would have something to open on the day, and my mother had brought a card from an aunt. This card is splendid, and now has its place in my collection of railwayana. The present from my sister was an incomplete scorecard from the legendary 1926 test match at The Oval, where England secured their first Ashes series win since before WWI. From the parts of the scorecard that were pre-filled in and the additions by its original owner I deduce that whoever it was attended days two and three in person but was not there for Australia’s final collapse on day four, though they definitely knew about it since at the bottom of the scorecard there is in big red characters (probably by way of a marker pen) the result: England won by 289 runs. There is a detailed account of this match written pretty much contemporaneously since England chairman of selectors at the time Pelham Warner wrote a book about the 1926 Ashes, “The Fight For The Ashes 1926”, a copy of which is in my cricket library.

PORTUAIRK

In the afternoon the weather cleared up, and we walked to Portuairk and did some exploration of the seaside there. This helped us work up an appetite for the birthday meal, which will be the subject of the next post in the series.

PHOTOGRAPHS

To view pictures at full size click on them/ If you open the first picture in the gallery you can view all of them, including an option to do so as a slide show. Here are the photographs that relate to this post…

James and Sons April Auction

A look back at James and Sons’ April Auction, a brief mention of County Championship action and a photo gallery.

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week James and Sons had its April auction, 1,000 stamp and postal history lots across the two days. On day one I was at work, one floor above where the auction was taking place, but had left bids on two lots, the fate of which would decide my approach to day two where I would be following from home.

A MODESTLY SUCCESSFUL AUCTION

The opening day of the auction went well overall for the company, and well for me personally – I got both lots I had left bids on, and both sufficiently cheaply that I was still in a position to bid on more items on day two. Lot 193 was the first of my lots:

Lot 398 was five pages of Russian steam locomotive stamps:

DAY TWO

This could have been a very quiet day, but fortunately it wasn’t completely so. The biggest success of the day was lot 762, which went for £140. My first bid of the day was on lot 701, and I was successful:

Lot 728 was my next success…

Lots 785 and 840 also went to me…

COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP

Another round of County Championship fixtures got underway today. Due to a meeting this morning I missed the first session of play, and I will be missing most of tomorrow as it is the West Norfolk Autism Group’s annual outing to Pensthorpe. However I have got to enjoy Somerset having superb afternoon and evening against Essex at Taunton. Essex were 115-2 at the high water mark of their innings, but since then it has been one-way traffic – they are now 180-9 with Noah Thain having just gone for 41, caught Rew bowled Pretorius. I am not entirely sure about Kasun Rajitha;s batting credentials, though the fact that he is below Sam Cook, sometimes adhesive (as indeed he was today) but unquestionably a tail ender, tells one something, but Jamie Porter is an absolutely blown in the glass genuine number 11.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

These coasters (seven images in total) are an early birthday present from my boss.

An Auction Purchase

A detailed look at my latest auction purchase, one which I am inclined to regard as a spectacular bargain. This is even my standards a very image heavy post.

After the travails detailed in my last two blog posts, both created of necessity on library computers I am now fully back up and running at home. Yesterday the February auction of James and Sons took place. I am not in a position to describe much of the proceedings, since I was one floor above where the auction was taking place, imaging items for the March sale. However, this post is devoted to one particular lot from that February sale.

IMAGING/ INITIAL ACQUAINTANCE

The sale was entirely devoted to stamps/ postal history. From lot 551 there were about 70 lots in albums, and one of these was lot 575, a two album collection of ‘Railway Heritage’. Some of the items within these albums had been flagged for imaging, and I added a couple (but only a couple) of choices of my own to those flagged. The gallery that was available for this lot was thus:

Not unnaturally given my tastes I was quite eager to get my hands on this lot. I therefore placed a bid on Easylive, one of the two online platforms James and Sons use, for the maximum I could afford to part with, since I knew that work would prevent me from bidding live.

A BIT OF GOOD FORTUNE

It was about 1:30PM when I got official confirmation that I had won the lot, and as it happens for less than I was willing to pay. I paid my dues, and was able to take the two albums home with me on the day. Much of today has been dedicated to photographing my new possession and then editing those photos (with a backdrop of the opening match of the ICC Champions Trophy, Pakistan v New Zealand, won comfortably by New Zealand). I end this section with the pictures from the first album…

THE SECOND ALBUM

The second album was just as treasure laden as the first had been, and by the time I had finished photographing everything therein and editing the pictures I was in do doubt whatsoever that this has to rank as my finest ever auction purchase. Here to finish off this post are the pictures from the second album…

The albums in their new location atop the cabinet of curiosities.

Cricket and an Auction

A look at developments in the Women’s Ashes, an account of an auction and a look at the state of play in the BBL, plus a photo gallery.

There has been a lot of cricket this week and my employers had an auction on Wednesday. This post looks at both things.

AUSTRALIA IN COMMAND OF WOMEN’S ASHES

The One Day Internation segment of the Women’s Ashes multi-format series is now over, and Australia have won all three matches, giving them a 6-0 lead with ten further points to play for. England have to win all three T20Is and the test match that ends the series to regain the Women’s Ashes.

I covered the first match in an earlier post. The second match was from an England perspective the most disappointing of the series – the bowlers did superbly to dismiss Australia for 180, only for the batting to fold miserably to 159 all out and defeat by 21 runs.

The third match, which took place overnight UK time, started well, with four Australian wickets down fairly quickly, but the middle and lower order wrested the initiative back, Ash Gardner leading the way with her maiden international ton – 102 off 102 balls – with Beth Mooney and Tahlia McGrath each scoring 50s and Georgia Wareham giving the total a final boost with a spectacular 38* off 12 balls. This led to a final total of 308-8 for the Australian Women. England were never really in the hunt, and ended up losing by 222 runs. Player of the Match Gardner was involved in the most spectacular moment of this innings, the dismissal of Sophie Ecclestone. Ecclestone went big, and looked for all the world to be scoring six when Gardner leaped high to catch the ball, and then had the presence of mind to realize she was about to land beyond the boundary, throw it back up, run in and catch it again. A video of this dismissal can be seen here.

THE AUCTION

The January auction, a small one of 386 lots, featuring vintage radios and clocks, militaria, some very well preserved 1970s posters and a few other bits got underway at 10AM sharp on Wednesday. A malfunction on the part of easyliveauction, one of the two online platforms we use, caused an early halt – the problem, which was definitely at their end, was not resolved for some hours – after just over 300 of the lots had gone under the hammer. However, up to that point it had been very successful, with many items exceeding estimates by considerable amounts. Along the way, lot 169 went to me. This lot was a collection of stuff relating to a trip to Normandy run by the Southern Railway in 1934, in a tour company paper wallet. It used to be commonplace for railway companies to also operate ferry services, enabling the whole route to be booked through themselves, and ensuring that the boat departure would mesh well with the arrival of the train at the nearest station. I end this section with a gallery devoted to this item…

I always try to produce detailed galleries for items I am thinking of bidding for, to avoid any suggestion that I might be hiding things from potential rival bidders.

In this case it stretched to ten images.

THREE BBL KNOCKOUT SLOTS CONFIRMED

There are just three group fixtures left in this year’s BBL. With today’s match between the two Sydney outfits, Sixers and Thunder, ruined by the weather we now know that Hobart Hurricanes (played nine, 15 points) are winning the league stage, whatever happens in their final group fixture against Melbourne Stars. Sydney Sixers are second and Sydney Thunder are third, both sufficiently clear of fourth for these spots to be certain. None of the remaining five teams are entirely ruled out of qualifying yet, although tomorrow’s two matches will winnow down the possibilities. It will be Sunday’s match between Stars and Hurricanes that will finally settle it. There is nothing at stake in that game for the Hurricanes – they as mentioned are qualifying as winners of the league stage even if they lose that match, whereas for Stars it will be a chance to complete a Houdini act – they started with five straight losses and they have a legitimate chance of qualifying.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

Birds flying in an approximate V formation…

The Match of WBBL10

An account of the extraordinary match between Perth Scorchers and Sydney Sixers in the WBBL, which was tied after 20 overs per side, and still tied after a Super Over. Also two photo galleries, one devoted to two recent auction purchases and located between the match and the super over, and one my usual sign off gallery.

Early yesterday morning UK time the Perth Scorchers took on the Sydney Sixers at Hobart, supposedly a warm=up act for the match between the local Hobart Hurricanes and the Melbourne Renegades. I was in the position of being able to listen to the whole of the first match and the early stages of the second. The match I got to hear the whole of was one of the most remarkable it has been my privilege to follow, and this post looks back at it.

THE FIRST INNINGS

The Scorchers batted first, and at 95-1, with Brooke Halliday and Beth Mooney both into the 40s they looked set for a fine score. However, they failed to take the two over Power Surge while this pair were in residence, and when both fell in quick succession and it was getting late in the innings they ended up taking the Surge with two new batters at the crease, albeit one of them was Sophie Devine, one of the biggest hitters in the women’s game.

The first over of the Power Surge and the 15th of the innings was bowled by off spinner Ashleigh Gardner, and it was a superb over. With the second ball of it she clean bowled Mikayla Hinkley, and with the final ball of it she did the same to Indian star Dayalan Hemalatha. She also conceded only three runs in the over, putting the gloss on a great bowling performance, turning an already very good 3-0-18-2 into a sensational 4-0-21-4. Scorchers were five down, and although Devine and Carly Leeson added eight runs to the score before the next wicket fell both were out very close together and Scorchers were 114-7. The skids were now well and truly under the Scorchers innings, and they ended up failing to bat the full 20 overs, being all out for 126 after 19.2 overs. The last nine wickets had crashed for just 31 runs, and at the halfway stage the Sixers would have been heavy favourites.

THE REPLY

Sixers started steadily, with the general reckoning being that Scorchers had to take ten wickets to avoid losing. Elsa Hunter, a 19 year old who already has considerable international experience, having made her debut for Malaysia Women as a 13 year old, opened the innings with Ellyse Perry, and struggled to score. Perry hit form from the get go and looked a class apart from every other batter in this match. Hunter fell for an 18 ball 9, caught by Hemalatha off the leg spin of Alana King. Amelia Kerr managed just a single before a catch by Ebony Hoskin off Chloe Ainsworth disposed of her. Ashleigh Gardner was the first Sixers player other than Perry to strike at above 100, scoring 17 off 15 balls and helping the third wicket to add 32 runs. Hollie Armitage, in at number five, found run scoring hard but gave Perry good support, although the required rate crept up, hitting eight an over with five overs left in the innings. The 16th and 17th overs both yielded this exact number of runs. In the 18th over Alana King had Perry caught by Ainsworth, and then Maitlan Brown, regarded more as bowler than a batter, but not having bowled at all this tournament, was pinned LBW first ball. When Scottish wicket keeper Sarah Bryce was caught by Ainsworth off Leeson the Scorchers would have been feeling confident. Mathilda Carmichael joined Hollie Armitage, and at the end of the 19th over the score was 115-6, 12 needed off the final over.

There followed one of the most extraordinary six ball sequences I have ever seen. There are many ways to handle a chase of two runs per ball in the last over, but few if any other batters would have done what Mathilda Carmichael did. She ran twos of each of the first five balls of the over. Off the sixth she got through for one, but was well short coming back for the second as Mooney collected King’s throw and took the bails off to execute the run out. Sixers thus ended on 126-7, exactly level with Scorchers 126 all out. In the WBBL when scores are level at the end of a match a Super Over is played. Each side nominates one bowler to bowl their over and three players who will bat (two out constitutes all out in a super over). In the WBBL specifically if a Super Over is tied that is then the end of the matter, and the points are split. Before I cover the Super Over I have decided to break things up a little…

GALLERY ONE: TWO AUCTION LOTS

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week James and Sons had their November auction. On Tuesday I had no bids in, but on Wednesday I had put in advance bids on two lots, numbers 438 and 447. I was not able to follow the auction live, as while it was on I was involved in an online session (via Teams) on safeguarding in my capacity as WNAG secretary. As it happened my two modest bids were both successful, and these two lots form my first picture gallery of this post…

The first seven images are the gallery I produced for potential bidders to see – while I did not have time to image the lot in full detail I had to to go into some detail given that I was considering bidding myself.

Just a four image gallery for the auction this time as this was a much smaller lot.

THE SUPER OVER

Sixers having batted second in the match had to bat first in the Super Over. Scorchers surprised many people by selecting Amy Edgar to bowl, while Sixers to no great surprise opted for Perry and Gardner as their first two batters. Alana King had been their best bowler in the match, and many would have expected her to bowl the super over. Edgar bowled a wide, and 14 came off the bat in the over, 12 to Perry and 2 to Gardner. Sixers thus scored 15-0 from their Super Over.

Sophie Devine was obviously going to bat for the Scorchers, and the question was who else they would use. In the event they went for the left handed Beth Mooney, and Mikayla Hinkley was their third batter. Unsurprisingly after her efforts earlier in the day Gardner was Sixers choice to bowl the over. Devine got a single off the first ball, then Mooney was out to the second and Sixers looked favourite. Hinkley scored two off the third ball, meaning that 13 were needed off the final three balls, or 12 to tie. Hinkley had now found her range, and struck the fourth and fifth balls for fours to reduce the ask to five off one ball or four to tie. Gardner did her best, but Hinkley hit a third successive four to level the scores, and split the points. I have only previously followed one match in which the teams ended tied after a super over, and on that occasion a tie-splitting procedure was in place, as the side who benefitted from that procedure, England, have never been allowed to forget by fans of certain other sides. Scorchers now have nine points and sit fourth on their own, three points behind Brisbane Heat and Melbourne Renegades, with Sydney Thunder a point ahead after their derby against the Sixers at Drummoyne was washed out leading to a split of the points there. Sixers, on eight points are in sixth, behind Hobart Hurricanes on net run rate, and ahead of Adelaide Strikers and Melbourne Stars. A full scorecard of both match and super over can been seen by clicking here.

PHOTOGRAPHS

These photos come from Wednesday afternoon (cold), Thursday (brutally cold) and today (bright and sunny, and less cold than either previous day, reaching the giddy heights of four degrees Celsius (yesterday was below freezing the whole way through, and as low as minus four at one point)…

An Amazing Auction

A whistlestop tour of the greatest highlights of an outstandingly successful auction that took place on Wednesday.

On Wednesday just over 500 lots of mainly railway models went under the hammer at James and Sons. I had produced somewhere close to 3,000 images for this auction which gave me particular interest in proceedings. It was an extraordinarily successful auction, and my list of big achieving lots ran to about 80, and I had mentally adjusted my normal threshold for this upwards by some way early in the auction when it was obvious how it would go. For the rest of this post I am going cover a very few of these highlights.

THE HIGHLIGHT LOTS

Lot 507, a Bachman Aston Steam Breakdown Crane expected to fetch £30-40 climbed all the way up to £110. Here is the image gallery for that lot:

Lot 509, a large range of Bachman wagons expected to get 50-60 went for £180.

Lot 511 a boxed set of the ‘Northumbrian’ with certificate of authenticity, was estimated at 40-50 and went for £100.

Lot 551, a large collection of Hornby Gresley and Pullman coaches expected to fetch 80-120 soared to £220.

This image is a composite of the next three (the only way I could image a lot of this size)

Lot 653, a Hornby locomotive model ‘Walter K Whigham’, estimated at £30-40 went for £85.

Lot 714, a Hornby box set of Stephenson’s Rocket and its Carriages, estimated at 15-25 ended up going for £90!

Lot 760, a collection of Hornby coaches including a ‘Northumbrian’ pack, estimated at 40-60 went for £110.

Now comes a hat trick of triumphs. Lot 765, estimated at £10-15 went £100, 766 estimated at 15-20 went £120 and 767 estimated at 15-20 went for £90. These were all model locomotives.

I sign of with let 784, a NU Cast Locomotive LNER/BR class GER T26 class 2-4-0 Passenger Engine, boxed. Expected to fare no better than 10-15 it ended up selling for £70.

Upcoming Auction

A look back at the auction that happened at James and Sons earlier this week and a look ahead to the July auction. Also a bumper photo ga;llery.

Although James and Sons, for whom I work, have just had one auction, there is another ready to go, almost a month before it actually happens. This post looks back at the auction that happened this week and forward to the next one.

THIS WEEKS AUCTION

There were 427 lots under the hammer at the auction that happened this Wednesday. It was overall successful. The headline lot, a lifetime collection of real photographic postcards of Swaffham (Swaffham is a market town, more or less forming the right angle of a right angle triangle of which the three corners are King’s Lynn, Fakenham and Swaffham – the hypoteneuse of this triangle is the King’s Lynn-Fakenham side, which measures 22 miles or about 35 kilometres, so it was an item of local interest) housed in an album and all in splendid condition. This sold for £850. I got lucky with lot 611, a set of postcards made from black and white photographs of birds, missing one card, but still in its British Museum (Natural History) wallet and with the accompanying mini-guide to the cards. The designation of the museum in this lot indicates its age – it is a long time since the Natural History Museum was affiliated to the British Museum. Below are my pictures of the lot since acquiring it…

THE NEXT AUCTION

We have two auctions in late July. On Tuesday the 23rd a collection of sporting memorabilia will be going under the hammer, but I have hardly had anything to do with that sale. On Wednesday the 24th over 500 lots of collectors models, mostly trains, but some buses and lorries as well, will be going under the hammer. Imaging for this auction has been my focus for a while (the job is by no means complete, but many more have been imaged than not. The printed catalogue for this auction arrived at our premises this week, and it is already viewable on both our online platforms – links below.

This is from lot 600. My preferred platform for bidding and following the progress of auctions is easyliveauction. The train lots start at lot 501.

….the other online platform we use is the-saleroom.com. This image is part of the gallery for lot 603 (almost all of these items are still in their original boxes).As before, the train lots start in the 50os.

PHOTOGRAPHS

I have a bumper gallery of my regular photos to end with…

An Aspiblog All Time XI

A bit of fun on the all time XI theme, a look back at a James and Sons auction, and a photo gallery.

The first test match of a five match series between India and England is two days old as I type this post, but I am holding fire on that for the moment. This all time XI is picked with a view to being an entertaining watch. I have restricted it to players who played before I started following cricket, and save for allowing myself one overseas player I have concentrated on English cricketers. After I have paraded the XI there will be a section about some of the players who missed out, though I will limit myself, otherwise that section could be very long indeed.

THE XI IN BATTING ORDER

Frank Woolley (left handed batter, left arm orthodox spinner). An attacking batter, an excellent spinner and the only non-wicket keeper ever to take 1,000 first class catches.
*WG Grace (right handed batter, right arm bowler of various types through his career, captain). Cricket’s first superstar.
Wally Hammond (right handed batter, right arm medium fast bowler). Over 50,000 first class runs, including 167 centuries, in spite of missing eight complete seasons in the course of his career – one to bureaucratic malice on the part of Lord Harris, one to illness and six to WWII. Considered by Bradman to possess the best of all cover drives.
Denis Compton (right handed batter, occasional left arm wrist spin bowler). A great cricketer and an even greater entertainer.
Garry Sobers (left handed batter, left arm bowler of every type known to cricket). No cricketer before or since has mastered so great a range of skills as my chosen overseas player.
+Les Ames (wicket keeper, right handed batter). Twice winner of the Lawrence trophy for the fastest first class hundred of the season, scorer of over 100 FC hundreds, maker of a record 418 first class stumpings in his career. The “wicket keeper’s double” of 1,000 runs and 100 dismissals in first class matches in an English season was only achieved four times before the reduction of first class fixtures in 1969 made it impossible, and three of those were by Ames (John Murray of Middlesex was the other to do it).
Percy Fender (right handed batter, leg spinner, vice-captain). I have remarked before on his suitability for batting at seven in a strong line up and his tactical acumen.
Jim Laker (off spinner, right handed batter). In 1956 he absolutely destroyed the visiting Australians, and it wasn’t all about the pitches helping him – when Australia played Surrey before the test series had started they batted first, and Laker, on a good pitch and having not slept the previous night due to his children being sick had figures of 46-18-88-10 in the first innings.
George Simpson-Hayward (under-arm off spinner, right handed batter). The last specialist under arm bowler to play at the highest level, and his five test matches yielded him 23 wickets. Someone prepared to buck the trends as spectacularly as he did must have been worth watching,
Syd Barnes (right arm fast medium bowler, right handed batter). My pick for the greatest bowler of them all – 189 wickets in just 27 test matches, at 16.43 a piece.
Tom Richardson (right arm fast bowler, right handed batter). Only 14 test matches, which yielded him 88 wickets. His first class record was outstanding – he took his 1,000th first class wicket in his 134th first class match, and his 2,000th in his 327th match, both these figures being records.

This side has a powerful batting line up, and a spectacular bowling line up, with massive variety on show – Barnes, Richardson, Sobers in his quicker guises and Hammond to bowl pace/ seam, and Laker, Simpson-Hayward, Fender, Woolley, Sobers in his slower guises, and Compton to bowl spin plus of course the wild card of WG Grace.

MISSING OUT

The number seven slot was a two-way choice, and I opted for Fender who bowled spin over Jessop who bowled pace. I considered the presence of Woolley and Sobers to obviate the need for a specialist left arm spinner. There would have been a number of possibilities, Rhodes, Blythe, Verity and Wardle being just four of those I might have chosen. Digby Jephson who bowled fast underarm just a few years before Simpson-Hayward’s prime and was enough of a bat to be considered an all rounder was a possibility there, but Simpson-Hayward got the nod for two reasons: he played test cricket and Jephson did not, and also in view of the current state of England’s spin bowling, and some of the comments flying around that imply that England have never had great spinners I wanted to place extra emphasis on spin. I regretted not being able to accommodate either Harold Larwood or Frank Tyson, but I had only 11 spaces to fill. I also didn’t include a specialist left arm quick bowler, relying on Sobers for that. Had I done so William Mycroft would have got the nod.

AN AUCTION

James and Sons had an auction earlier this week, which did reasonably well, especially given that it was basically an appetizer for next week’s auction of sporting memorabilia. There were a few items of interest to me. Lot 68 was a pair of bookmarks, which went my way cheaply.

No prizes for guessing which bookmark I actually wanted!

Lots 141 and 142 would have been of interest to me but were beyond my purchasing power.

I did get lot 269.

The Metropolitan Railway was the original Underground railway from which London Underground developed.

Lot 329 also went to me…

I ignored lot 399…

I had produced a very extensive image gallery for lot 400, made more so by fielding a query on that lot. However, in the end my opportunistic bid was the only one on the lot.

Lots 402 was also railway related but discipline had to prevail.

Lot 602, a model of a locomotive sculpted from coal proved, as I expected to be the case, to be beyond my price range.

I end this section with a lot that attracted a fierce bidding war (in which I had no part, other than creating the images that generated it), and ended up fetching £150, having been expected to do no more than 20-30, number 197.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

Harbingers of spring, and it is only late Janaury.

Pakistan v South Africa

A look at developments in today’s world cup match between Pakistan and South Africa, a brief mention of this week’s auctions, and a photo gallery.

This post looks at developments in today’s match at the ODI cricket world, between Pakistan and South Africa. I was at work yesterday, which gives me the perfect excuse to draw a veil over England’s “effort” against Sri Lanka – all my knowledge of what happened in that match is second hand.

THE PRELIMINARIES

Pakistan were coming off a defeat at the hands of Afghanistan, while South Africa have been hugely impressive so far. Both sides made changes to the line up. Pakistan won the toss, and managed to get the next part right – they decided to bat first.

THE PAKISTAN INNINGS

Pakistan did not fare well at first, and when Babar Azam was out for 50 (65), his third such innings of the tournament, they were 141-5. However a good partnership between Saud Shakeel and Shadab Khan helped them to reach a final total of 270. Tabraiz Shamsi claimed four wickets with his left arm wrist spin and Marco Jansen three with his left arm pace. Pakistan’s total, while not great by modern ODI standards, looked enough to be defensible if they bowled well.

SOUTH AFRICA’S RESPONSE

South Africa have made a rapid start to their reply, but have also lost two wickets. The score at the moment is 110-2 after 16 overs, a position from which South Africa should prevail easily enough. However, Pakistan are notoriously unpredictable – it would be very like them to suddenly find form from nowhere and win this one.

AUCTION NEWS

This week has been auction week for James and Sons. It has been a little bit chequered – the Militaria auction which should have been on Tuesday had to be postponed until today due to internet problems, while the Railwayana auction on Wednesday was very successful, though it did take a long time to get through. I managed to discipline myself to placing advance bids on two lots and opportunistically snapping up a third when it would have gone very cheap indeed otherwise. Here are the pictures I have taken of them since getting them home, save for one composite pic which serves as the feature image of this post.

The appositeness of this picture become apparent when you see…

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

	The First Two Days i… on A Successful Auction
	Marizanne’s Mastercl… on From Victory to Rout in Two…
	From Victory to Rout… on An Extraordinary Opening …
	amsutcliffebtinterne… on Thunder v Scorchers
	Thunder v Scorchers… on Brilliant Bray Bosses Sydney…