SHIRE BRIGADE #6: DARREN STEVENS

The sixth in the monthly series caught up with one of county cricket's most underrated players (at least, if we're judging by England selection). 

Darren Stevens is a destructive batsman whose late-career reinvention as an all-rounder who purveys some of the tricksiest dobbers on the circuit has often kept Kent afloat during a tricky period, as this once powerhouse club adjusted to their financial realities and rebuilt with a team of homegrown talent (Billings, Bell-Drummond, Blake, Riley, Cowdrey, Northeast et al) and no overseas player. 

He is still trooping on, now almost 40, and Jimmy Adams and Rob Key will be hoping they can squeeze a little more out of Stevo before he heads off into the sunset. 

Darren Stevens: Shire Brigade 

 

J.K. LEVER: GLEANINGS

Truth be told, I didn't remember much about JK Lever's career. I found out from Phil DeFreitas (an interview I did in October 2014 that still hasn't been published) that Lever was coaching Lashings, so I thought it would be worth pursuing.

I remembered him bowling the last ball of a Lord's final against Notts, with four runs needed, and being carved to the Tavern boundary by Eddie Hemmings. I remembered a few other TV appearances as the swing-bowling spearhead of a very strong Essex side in the 1980s – the likes of Gooch, Ken McEwan, Keith Fletcher, Neil Foster and Derek Pringle, with a solid support cast of Brian Hardie, Paul Prichard, Stuart Turner, Ray and David East, David Acfield, et al. 

Lever flanked by Turner (left) and Fletcher

Turns out he had one of the most successful (and controversial) England debuts of them all en route to playing 29 Tests. That said, and without being churlish about a charming fellow, he was only the second most interesting Lever to have played for England that I've interviewed... 

JK Lever: Gleanings 

 

SHIRE BRIGADE #5: IAN WESTWOOD

The fifth installment of my monthly series for All out Cricket was a chat with the diminutive, nuggety Warwickshire opener and sometime skipper, Ian Westwood. Not a bad lad, considering he has a Brummie accent... 

Shire Brigade: Ian Westwood

RELIVING GLOUCESTERSHIRE'S ONE-DAY GLORY YEARS

Mid-September, and a trip to London to watch unfancied Gloucestershire take on fat cats Surrey in the Royal London Cup final, once upon a time the showpiece game of the English domestic first-class season but now something of a poor relation to the glitz of Twenty20 Finals Day.

A smallish crowd – the larger part of which were down from the West Country, it seemed, rather than south of the Thames – were treated to a slow-burning classic of a game, with Sangakkara at one stage looking like he was waltzing Surrey to victory, until his dismissal triggered a tense hour-and-a-half on a crusty pitch. Gloucestershire fought superbly, and eventually squeezed out a victory, one that was highly reminiscent of their glory years under John Bracewell and Mark Alleyne at the turn of the century, when they completely dominated limited-overs cricket.

It was this one-day dynasty that formed the subject of my ESPNcricinfo blog for September, and I managed to run into quite a few of that team around the ground: Mike Smith, Jack Russell and Alleyne in the press box, Ian Harvey and Jon Lewis in the Tavern pub, clearly enjoying themselves.

Reliving Gloucestershire's One-Day Glory days 

 

THE SHIRE BRIGADE #4: PHIL MUSTARD

With their close ties to the PCA and access to the England cricket team, All Out Cricket magazine could be forgiven for ignoring the less glamorous parts of the English game. True, they do run interviews with the likes of Moeen Ali, Joe Root and Ben Stokes every three months, it seems, but they also like the less heralded characters of the county game, which is who I'm trying to write about in the Shire Brigade series – players who can be considered cult heroes, or stalwarts for their clubs.

Fourth in the series, after Nottinghamshire's Luke Fletcher, Somerset's Peter Trego and Northamptonshire's Steven Crook, is the Durham wicket-keeper Phil Mustard, 'The Colonel', still an important part of their one-day team but someone who has lost his place in the Championship side to Michael Richardson and has been loaned out to Lancashire. 

I'm led to believe he is an avid consumer of magazines from a shelf or two above the natural home of All Out Cricket, and while that does perhaps add to his cultic status, it wasn't really something that was ever going to make the cut. 

Shire Brigade: Phil Mustard 

 

STAFFORDSHIRE'S 1001st GAME

At the end of August I pootled on down to a sun-baked Knypersley CC to watch the opening day of Staffordshire's fixture with Buckinghamshire, their 1001st game in the Minor Counties Championship. 

I was able to interview to a few people – Keith Stride and Sid Owen, as well as both coaches, Dave Cartledge and Simon Stanway – for my book about the Minor Counties' cult players, and I was able to chat to several people in a non-professional capacity. It was an enjoyable day, and I was able to write a piece for All Out Cricket magazine about it, with another due in the next issue of The Cricketer. 

The Manchester United of the Minor Counties 

 

WASIM JAFFER INTERVIEW

Some time in July I headed out Solihull way, to a Lashings game (a bizarre carnival worthy of a piece in itself), to interview, among others, the current Himley CC pro Wasim Jaffer on the subject of the five great Indian batsmen of his era, all of whom he played with across a 31-match Test career: Sachin, Rahul, VVS, Ganguly and Sehwag.

I was able to pinch two twelve-minute periods in amongst the various corporate glad-handing he was contractually obliged to undertake, and the result was an interview that ESPNcricinfo refused, despite having commissioned it ("there's nothing here that hasn't been said before"). In spite of my best efforts to elicit specific examples of their technical strengths and weaknesses, specific anecdotes illustrating his general observations, Wasim played a steady hand, blocking carefully, eschewing high-risk options... 

Anyway, if you're not au fait with the copious literature on the aforementioned stars, here's the piece, which I sold on to Wisden India for considerably less than cricinfo would have stumped up. Sigh. 

Wasim Jaffer on the Big Five