WHEN THE MINOR COUNTIES BEAT THE AUSTRALIANS

the pavilion at Ashbrooke, Sunderland 

The last time an Australian team arrived in the North-East 2-0 down in an Ashes series was August 1977, while the World Series Cricket storm raged away in London and in Sydney. It may only be 7.8 miles as the crow flies from Chester-le-Street’s Emirates ICG (née Riverside Stadium), venue for the Fourth Test, to the grand old Ashbrooke Sports Ground in Sunderland where, 36 years and four days ago, they were defeated bythe Minor Counties in a two-day fixture; nevertheless, given this tour’s turbulent beginnings and the open secret of a rift between Shane Watson and Michael Clarke, the current group are neither a million miles nor light years from Greg Chappell’s much derided party, who arrived with Packer contracts in their pockets and left as 3-0 losers, having been downed en route by a team of teachers, surveyors, solicitors, and wily old pro’s of the northern leagues. 

If posterity will record the backdrop to 2013 as the sacking of Mickey Arthur in the backdraft of Dave Warner’s swinger in Birmingham’s Walkabout Bar, then the backstory for 1977 was the cloak-and-dagger negotiations over the World Series Cricket jamboree that was about to bootstrap international cricket into modernity. Wisden pronounced that the thirteen of the seventeen-strong touring party to have put pen to paper “had already inflicted the initial wound on those who sent them 11,000 miles to represent an organisation not long since celebrating something of 100 years duration”. This line, pungent with unthinking affinity for the fellow august institution, was precisely the key to the whole affair: were the cricketers representing the ACB, or were the ACB supposed to be representing – in the sense of looking after the interests of – their players, their prime assets? (Any gauche suggestion of workers seizing the means of production here has to be tempered with the reality of Packer pragmatism and a simple desire to break the TV monopoly in Australia. Less a revolution, then, than a liberal reform, precipitously carried out.)

At any rate, by the time the 1977 party reached Wearside, they were a pale imitation of the team that had eviscerated England in 1974-75, a 41-year-old Colin Cowdrey dragged from retirement and offered up to the Gods, Lillee and Thomson. The Packer secret had been broken as early as May and in early August he was in the UK putting out, and relighting, fires. Any Minor Counties players reading the Daily Mail on August 2, two days before the game, would have seen a reproduction of the Packer contracts, on the hardline nature of which their progenitor would later remark, “I make no apologies for the fact that this contract is tough. I told every player, ‘This is a tough contract and you’ll do as you’re damn well told’.” Needless to say, this was very far removed from the world of Oxfordshire versus Berkshire or Lincolnshire versus Cumberland, ‘The Sausage Derby’…

The Australians had arrived in Sunderland on the back of defeat, two days earlier, in a Nottingham Test that had seen a visit from the Queen, out in the shires on her Jubilee tour. However, an even more regal visitor had put in a rare appearance at Trent Bridge, for this was the match that Geoffrey Boycott came out of his self-imposed three-year international exile, going on to score 106 (his ninety-eighth first-class hundred) and 80 not out, batting on all five days of the match in which Ian Botham made his debut. England won – Derek Randall, who struck the winning blow, leaving his home patch arm in arm with Boycott, who, famously, had run him out in the first innings – to take an unassailable lead in the five game series.

The match at Ashbrooke, a leafy Victorian suburb four or five David Warner switch-hits south of Sunderland city centre, may only have been a two-day fixture – standard for the Minor Counties players right up until 2001 – and thus did not have first-class status, yet such a short course had not inoculated the Minor Counties against the ignominy of an innings defeat in 1964. In 1953, meanwhile, the Australians had won a first-class match slated for three days but completed inside two by an innings and 171, Ray Lindwall taking 7 for 20 and Richie Benaud following up with 5 for 13 as the Minor Counties were routed for 56 and 62. That game took place on the Michelin factory ground in Stoke-on-Trent, an 80-year-old SF Barnes bowling the honorary first ball at a venue where he had done his fair share of damage – where hadn’t he? – for Staffordshire: an aggregate analysis of 209.2-70-344-62 over seven games, in fact, for an average of 5.55 (well below the overall Staffs career average of 8.10), having made his bow there at a sprightly 55 years young. Whether it was this delivery that persuaded Benaud to select Barnes for his all-time XI is uncertain. Either way, the curmudgeonly old master told the tourists that he wouldn’t be taking the new ball, “in case I induce a collapse”.

Twenty-four years later, in 1977, another, less eminent Staffordshire man, Peter Gill, would be at the heart of the Minor Counties’ first ever victory over the Australians, just their third over any touring team in 36 attempts. Any aspirations to play professional cricket – not to mention undertake a university degree – that Gill may have had were nipped in the bud when he was commandeered to the family industrial insulation firm – an appropriate metaphor, perhaps, for a No 3 batsman, so often an auxiliary opener. Australia’s first-drop, Greg Chappell, was in London alongside Rod Marsh, parlaying with Kerry Packer who’d applied for an injunction to prevent the Test and County Cricket Board (precursor of the ECB) and ICC excluding WSC signatories from international cricket. Meanwhile, a Jarrow March away, his fellow tourists spent their solitary, rain-sodden day off after Trent Bridge touring the Newcastle Brewery, and the following morning were being asked by Cheshire skipper David Bailey to have first use of a slightly two-paced Ashbrooke surface, “because I thought we’d get them on the backlash and it was an overcast day, so it gave us the best chance of doing some damage”. From a family of West Hartlepool lawyers, Bailey had headed to Manchester a decade or so earlier to train as a chartered surveyor and in 1968 and ’69 played 27 first-class games for Lancashire alongside Lloyd, Lloyd, Engineer, Higgs, Lever, Wood, Simmons et al – qualified thrice over, then, to judge the surface: by profession, playing experience and geographical provenance.

With grass banks on three sides of the ground and a rickety, covered stand flanking the rugby pitch at the northern end, Ashbrooke, a multi-sports complex offering tennis, squash, hockey and other envigorations, provided a small-scale though fitting amphitheatre for a North-Eastern public still largely deprived of top-level cricket (Durham would not turn first-class until 1992, of course). “The ground was ringed” recalls Bailey, who duly gave the new ball to one of the crowd’s own: Durham’s Stuart Wilkinson, reckoned by Gill to be “the quickest bowler in Minor Counties cricket, if not the quickest outside it”. 

the wrong end

He may have been able to propel the ball from A to B very quickly, yet the local tearaway couldn’t always discern which way the wind was blowing, and Hertfordshire’s Brian Collins was thus more than a little surprised when his opening partner opted to run uphill across the rugby pitch. A 36-year-old former policeman who left the force to sell burglar alarms, Collins was a tall, strong, lively in-swing bowler for whom the strong breeze blowing diagonally over his left shoulder was “absolutely ideal. I couldn’t believe my luck. I saw [Wilkinson] have a word with the captain and I thought there’s no way I was going to let him have my end, so I’d got to be on the button”. Within an over, Wilkinson was kvetching to the skipper; after three, he was replaced by genial Devonian left-arm swing bowler Doug Yeabsley, a schoolmaster at Haberdasher’s Aske’s who played as a back-row forward for Harlequins for many years. Despite a rickety set of knees, he would bowl uphill and into the wind, unchanged and uncomplaining, for the rest of the innings.

Amateurs they may have been, but, as Gill remarked, “the pitch was lively and our opening bowlers were quite a handful”. Indeed, this was a more than useful attack. Earlier that summer, Collins had returned aggregate figures of 31.4-8-97-5 for Minor Counties West in the Benson and Hedges Cup group stages, while Yeabsley’s return for the same side was an even more impressive 42-12-106-7, his victims including Eddie Barlow, Glenn Turner and Basil D’Oliveira. Wilkinson, meanwhile, had picked up a man of the match-winning – if not matchwinning – 5 for 24 in the Gillette Cup against a Northants side at one stage reeling at 17 for 4, his scalps including two of the flintiest souls on the circuit, David Steele and Peter Willey, as well as Mushtaq Mohammed.

Collins’ keenness to use the advantage saw him nip out the first three wickets – the relatively unheralded Ian Davis, Gary Cosier and Craig Sarjeant, who nonetheless shared between them 25 more Test caps than their eleven opponents could boast – with Kim Hughes surviving a hat-trick ball but becoming the fourth of his 4 for 42. Yeabsley had the golden-haired poster boy of WSC, David Hookes, caught at slip, while Wilkinson, once he had the wind in his sails, finished with 4 for 49, including the prize scalp of Doug Walters, who interrupted his chain smoking to top-score with 42 as the Australians were skittled for 170 in 41.3 overs either side of a lunch interval extended for local dignitaries and sponsors. The Minor Counties’ wicket-keeper Frank Collyer observed, somewhat pithily, that “it wasn’t a gentle ride for them”.

Still, on a dank, windy day they may well have feared an equally violent buffeting themselves. With DK Lillee back in Australia – he and Ian Chappell having ruled themselves out of contention until the Packer business was resolved – and Thomson skulking around the outer for much of the two days, the new ball was taken by Lennie Pascoe, more than capable of bringing some brimstone to proceedings. He bowled 8-0-8-0, which amounts to a lot of very quick – “the quickest I saw” according to Yeabsley, who had played against Holding, Roberts, Procter and many others – though often very short deliveries allowed to sail through to the keeper. Even so, Cumberland’s phlegmatic former Lancashire opener Bob Entwistle, struck on the pad first over, walked down to his opening partner, Oxfordshire’s Mike Nurton, and deadpanned: “‘E’s a bit quick, lad”.

Entwistle was soon snaffled by Pascoe’s partner, Mick Malone, whose solitary Test appearance was just around the corner, at the Oval later that summer, when he returned the miserly first-innings figures of 47-20-63-5 (from an innings of 101 overs!) against which his Sunderland match economy rate of 3.87 looked distinctly profligate. Anyhow, this brought Gill to the crease and he offered a portent of what lay in store by contributing a sprightly, stroke-filled 39 in tandem with Nurton, a lay Anglican preacher, trained magician and eventually all-time leading run-maker in Minor Counties cricket, whose nuggety 40 helped his team to 133 for 4 off 41 overs at stumps. Meanwhile, in the High Court that day, Packer’s injunction application was rejected by Mr Justice Slynn after the TCCB undertook not to disbar anyone from selection until a full court case was heard in September, the ruling stating that doing so would amount to restraint of trade. In Sydney, a writ was issued on Packer’s behalf against the Australian Cricket Board seeking a declaration along the same lines. The game was moving forward.

On the second morning, heavy overnight rain led to the start being delayed by 75 minutes and to pockets of agitated Australian discussion on the outfield, recalls Hertfordshire skipper Collyer, a solicitor and Cambridge graduate: “On the second morning, while they were waiting for the ground to be tidied up, I have a clear memory of them punting an Australian Rules football back and forth, talking in little groups. While one’s not privy to the conversation, one got the impression that there was a lot of uncertainty over what the immediate future held”. One certainly wonders what the party’s four non-Packer players – Cosier, Sarjeant, Hughes and Geoff Dymock – made of it all, while the immediate future of footie-punter-in-chief, Thommo, amounted to having his WSC contract annulled due to a 10-year agreement with a radio station that required him to play for Queensland.

When it was clear there would be no prompt resumption, Bailey declared 37 runs in arrears, “to try and twist their arm into giving us a target. I prefer to play these games to win, not as an exhibition”. And so, typically, do Australians. Busy fifties were scored by Davis and Hookes as Bailey let his spinners wheel through a few overs – Durham leggie Peter Kippax bagged 3 for 46, while current Somerset President Roy Kerslake bowled tidily for his 9-2-22-1. Acting skipper Walters was cut on the jawline attempting to pull Yeabsley and had to be given seven stitches. Nevertheless, at 169 for 6 and without any negotiation or collusion, a declaration was made, giving Minor Counties a target of 207 to win in two and three quarter hours, about which Collyer surmised: “I don’t think they thought for a moment they thought we were going to get those runs”.

Dymock and Malone took the new ball, Nurton falling early while Entwistle chipped in with a measured 33. However, it was the 81-run stand between Gill – who played “the innings of my life”, cutting and driving and clipping 17 fours on his way to 92 of the 166 runs scored while at the crease – and Kippax that took the Minor Counties to a position of apparent impregnability. Cosier, a military-medium swing bowler whose boomerangs had taken 5 for 18 in one of the ODIs a couple of months’ earlier, came into the attack just as the sun broke through the Wearside cloud, more or less negating his threat – although Gill, within sight of a century and with his team still almost 40 runs short of their target, “got a bit excited and had a slog at one” to be caught and bowled. 

preparing for Court: Packer and Greig

With the Minor Counties cruising to victory – Collyer recalls that “there was no element of panic. We were a rather more experienced cricket team than they were” – Pascoe, third change second time around, was brought back for a second burst. It was to no avail. A bespectacled, helmetless Bailey ruefully remembers the New South Wales paceman being barracked by “a wag in the sheds who bellowed out: ‘I thought you were supposed to be effin’ quick, man’. I thought, ‘thanks a lot’,” but he then upper-cut him through third man en route to adding 29 not out to an unbeaten first-innings 21. As the victory target drew close, Collyer can “remember sitting in the stand thinking ‘well, this is rather good’ and having something to drink”. Durham’s combative skipper Neil Riddell smeared Ray Bright for a six over mid-wicket and then Bailey “kicked one and ran”, the leg-bye carrying the Minor Counties to a famous, unimaginable victory with just an over to spare. Despite the embarrassment, Nurton doesn’t “suppose it was a great tragedy in their lives, losing to us lot; an inconvenience, maybe”.

For a performance that, understandably, ranks as the highlight of his cricketing life, Peter Gill won Man of the Match – “hundred quid; bought a few drinks” – and while Doug Walters came in to offer his congratulations to his amateur and semi-professional conquerors, the rest didn’t mingle and share a beer after the game – a quintessentially Aussie tradition for which Walters was of course the prime torch-bearer for many years. In fairness, this was in large part due to a brutal itinerary – absent the first and last days in May and the tourists played 27 of the remaining 29 days that month, 92 of 126 on tour, and were starting at 11 am sharp in Manchester the following day – but was perhaps also down to there being less bonhomie than usual amongst a group who, Collyer remarks, “didn’t look a particularly relaxed or happy bunch”. Was there any obvious disarray or disharmony among the opponents? “Not that I noticed,” said Gill. “You’ve got to remember that this is a one-off match for us and I’d have been extremely apprehensive – not apprehensive, nervous about playing these guys. Regardless of the scoreline in the Test series, this was Australia and I can’t say I was looking at what was going on around me”.

The Australians lugged themselves onto the coach and went on to defeat Lancashire in comfortable fashion before re-crossing the Pennines to Leeds where Geoffrey Boycott, famously, registered his ‘undredth ‘undred. As for the Minor Counties players, they had to scuttle back down the motorways to work, no doubt while basking in their first – their only – victory over an Australian team. Collins thought some of the press response a touch churlish, if not downright disrespectful to their achievement: “That was something that was levelled at us: ‘You’ve only beat a second-rate Australian side’. Okay, we didn’t play Chappell, Marsh or Thomson, but this was still an international team, eleven of the best seventeen in their country. They had all played Test cricket. There were no passengers”. 

Regardless of its position on the Packer situation, Wisden’s post-mortem on the cricketing merits of the touring party would be relatively scathing, despite them only losing one of the seventeen three-day fixtures (to Somerset): “A side no more than a good average had been allowed to beat them, with some comfort, in three Tests in England for the first time since 1886”.

On the other hand, with qualification for the 60-over Gillette Cup (ended in 2005), Benson & Hedges Cup representative games (ended in 1998) and an annual fixture against the tourists, this was truly a golden age for the Minor Counties game, and that winter the winning XI in Sunderland, bolstered by a handful of other players who just missed out on selection for Ashbrooke, went on a fully subsidised tour of East Africa courtesy of enlightened Minor Counties’ Treasurer Geoffrey Howard, a former RAF pilot and Lancashire and Surrey Secretary who had managed Hutton’s successful 1954-55 Ashes trip.

The Aussies, of course, disbanded under the historical inevitability of Packerism, a force and legacy still vigorously present today, largely for the better yet also, it might be argued, for the worse in the shape of a complacent cricket administration – a cricket culture, perhaps – in Australia that has been too focussed on revenue streams (the Channel 9 coverage, with its regular slots for hawking merchandise, is almost gaudily commercial to English tastes) to the detriment of the creation of the type of ecology that would allow long-form cricketing talents to come through as they once had done in swaggering abundance.

The Ashes may be gone, but crisis, as they say, begets opportunity. The game in Chester-le-Street offers a chance to a new generation of players to dispel the spectre of their recent defeats. That said, the Australians are used to getting spooked in the North-East – I don’t suppose Watson will be booked into Lumley Castle this time – and one wonders whether the ghosts of 1977 may haunt this current bunch as they head to this corner of England with little – save, that is, the credibility of the Australian cricket culture (or what CA might be inclined to call its “business model”) – to play for.

A lot of water may have passed under the bridge since 1977, just as a lot of water has rolled past the Riverside Stadium and out into the sublime indifference of the North Sea, yet this present crop of Australians must hope, after the green shoots of Old Trafford, that no such nadir awaits them, there by the side of the River Wear.   

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20:20 HINDSIGHT | NOTTS' T20 CAMPAIGN

lights are out at Trent Bridge

In the aftermath of Notts Outlaws' T20 Quarter-final against Essex, here's my twenty-point summation of their campaign: 

(1) They won the group. [Partridge Voice] Darren and Dwayne Bravo!

(2) For the third year running they have a home quarter-final. Zummerzzzet came storming round the final bend of 2011’s game, Jos Buttler finding angles that Euclid didn’t know existed, then Neil McKenzie and his cornucopia of superstitions guided Hampshire over the line last year. LL&L predicts QFIII will be third time lucky.

(3) The group began with a victory over feeder club Leicestershire, who were outfoxed by Leicester-born Samit Patel’s economical 4-0-26-1 before muscley stuff from Lumb and Hussey sent the visitors back to Grace Road wondering who the next player they could develop for the Outlaws might be. Smart money is on Shiv Thakor.

(4) Having started by winning by seven wickets with 2.2 overs to spare, Notts brazenly/unwittingly revealed the details of their strategy by beating Lancashire by six wickets with 2.2 overs to spare. Immediately, four-figure sums were being laid – for instance, I bet the four-figure sum of £10.43 – on a five-wicket win with 2.2 overs to spare against Leicestershire’s fellow East Midlands second-class citizens Derbyshire…

(5) …which didn’t happen, throwing patternologists into paroxysms of confusion. It was six wickets. With 2.3 overs to spare. I sat up all night trying to work things out…  

(6) Meanwhile – well, back in the previous game – the chants of Ohhh Lanky-Lanky, Lanky-Lanky-Lanky-Lanky Lancashire (to the tune of ‘Ohhh Jimmy-Jimmy, Jimmy-Jimmy-Jimmy-Jimmy Anderson’) ended with 2.2 overs of the game gone, when it became apparent they were turd…

(7) …Apart from Mitch McLenaghan, that is, who (probably) picked up a magnum of Veuve Clicquot champagne, or some shit like that, for his Man-of-the-Match-winning – but not matchwinning – performance of 5 for 29. He was the best Kiwi on show, too, as Ian Butler went for 10 an over. And he was also the man who most looked like a cross between a rugby flanker and a minor character in Mad Men. There was no magnum of Veuve Clicquot champagne for that, however.

(8) The following day the Outlaws set aside their englobement in the earth-shatteringly important business of what type of sprog would emerge from the womb of the sister of that bird who the tabloids think has a nice arse and out into a life of taxpayer-funded privilege to go to Durham. Michael Lumb spanked 14 fours and 3 sixes in his 96. Back-to-back MoMs for the housewives’ favourite.

(9) With four successful chases out of four, Notts’ T20 skipper David Hussey cost them the game by losing the toss at Grace Road, allowing their academy side, ‘Leicestershire’, to beat them by … [cue Twilight Zone theme tune] … seven wickets with 2.2 overs to spare. Four-figure sums…

(10) In said game, future Notts bits-and-pieces spinner Shiv Thakor bowled Samit Patel, the incumbent slightly-better-than-part-time tweaker, then cannily didn’t dismiss James Taylor, who laboured to 33 not out from 32 balls. Reports that Sigmund Freud, from the Beyond, asserted that guilt feelings were behind the innings cannot be confirmed.

(11) Next up was a ding-dong humdinger against Durham at the Bridge. They won off the last ball. It was exciting. Because it went to the last ball.

(12) Next stop was Leeds – oh, Leeeeds – who, seeing patterns in Notts results (bat second, won ‘em all; bat first, lost ‘em all), shoved ‘em in. Natch. Approximately thousands of Yarkshire supporters went oop t’cricket to put on ostentatious displays of smugness while supping the best ale in the country. But they lost the game and probably went home and took it out on their nearest and dearest…*

(13) They might have said, “I’m sorry I’ve got to batter you, kids, but Patel with 46 and Hussey’s 52 not out set us a stiff target of 156 that we couldn’t chase down, despite being well placed at 73 for 1 at the halfway stage, so happen I’m gonna have to take us frustrations out on thee. Hic.”*

(14) Notts’ next game was on the telly. D********e were the opponents. Notts did not win. It was a nine-over game. Some of the kids got bored because of the boring middle overs. It wasn’t pretty.

(15) The rain that fell that night could not wash the pain from my soul. Oh Notts, how could you let it happen? How?!

(16) So, having lost three out of four, Notts finished with home fixtures against the two Roses counties. Yarkshire had sobered up enough to drive down the M1 but not enough to drive through the covers. Pyrah’s technique brought late pyrotechnics – badoom, tish – but it was never going to be enough. Ever.

(17) Al Exhales breathed a sigh of relief (The Sun [probably]) with 62 not out, including five maximums pongoed into the stands. His brother Colin was delighted.

(18) And Hales took this form into the ‘Who’ll get the home QF?’ showdown with Ohhh Lanky-Lanky, Lanky-Lanky-Lanky-Lanky Lancashire, smashing 82 as Notts – GG White snaffling 5-22 – romped to victory and a magnum of Veuve Clicquot champagne-infested series of dreams.

(19) For the third year running they blew a home quarter-final. This one, against Essex, wasn’t even close. Why? A lack of quality spin; lack of an effective sixth bowler, with Wessels preferred to Mullaney (yet not used when he’s most effective, in the power play); front-loaded power-hitters (Hales, Lumb); flaky batting – and that’s politely avoiding the ‘c’ word (not that one) – from international players in Hales, Taylor and Patel; and possibly some mental scarring.

(20) Oh, and the opposition were excellent, particularly the savagery of Holland’s finest, Ryan ten Doeschate. The winner, though, was crickeeeeet. Cricket and Essex. Mainly Essex.

* This did not happen anywhere in Yorkshire that night. This is lazy stereotyping. Some of my best friends are Yorkshiremen.

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DEREK RANDALL: GLEANINGS

A couple of weeks back I went along to An Evening With Derek Randall and John Robertson at The Approach in Nottingham to review it for LeftLion, and was lucky enough to have a ten-minute (completely unprepared) chat with one of England's best loved cricketers of the past forty years: Notts jack-in-a-box Derek Randall. I then recorded his half-hour Q&A with a rowdy audience (censoring the naughtier answers), before finally doing a bit of prep and asking him a few questions over the phone to help fill in the gaps. The result was a piece of quotations for cricinfo... 

Gleanings: Derek Randall 

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ANDRE ADAMS

Many interviews with professional sportsmen are as dull as dishwater. They are defensive or lacking insight or just plain bland. Not this one, with Nottinghamshire's Kiwi pace-bowling talisman, Andre Adams. Thoroughly enjoyable; for both of us, I hope. 

Andre Adams interview 

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ASHES, DAY TWO

Agar-aphobia

Wow. Just, wow. And d’oh! Then a long nooooo!!!

Imagine walking into a Hollywood studio and pitching the following: “I’ve got this story about a 19-year-old Aussie kid – yeah? – who comes to England one summer to play club cricket for Henley – y’know, where they have that regatta – then goes on an A tour to Scotland and Ireland for a few weeks where he does so well that he gets called up for the main tour, the Ashes, ‘to aid his development’. Only, instead of being a net bowler and drinks waiter, he’s a shock call-up for the first Test, sheds a tear when presented with his baggy green by a bona fide Aussie legend, then goes on to make a debut hundred at a run a ball – the highest score in the history of Test cricket by a number 11”.

“B*****ks. Never happen”, they’d say (before ploughing $60m into the story of some university professor who, by night, turns into a mutant fox and bites the heads off posh folk who flounce around Leicestershire on horseback). Only, it did happen. Well, nearly… Agar-nisingly, the young Victorian fell two runs short. And the crowd was almost uniformly disappointed, even the partisans.

Ignore the tumbling records (the eclipse of Tino’s 95 at Edgbaston last year, meaning the ‘Best’s Best’ speaking tour must now be binned, with a huge printing bill). Ignore, too, the enormity of the series and the grisly match situation, Australia 98 runs behind when he poured himself out to the square. Instead, just look at the warm ooze of natural talent. This was an innings of preternatural beauty. Front foot, back foot, legside, offside; off pace and spin; the full range of strokes was on display. Quips that he could soon find himself batting at number three may have started as facetiousness but by mid-afternoon looked almost a stone-cold certainty.

TrentBridge was the county of Sir Garfield Sobers, of course, and there was something in the languorous drives and bullwhip hook and pull strokes that was redolent of the great Bajan. If young Master Agar can bowl lively medium-fast to complement his left-arm spin, turn himself to an electric close catcher, then the comparisons may not be so far-fetched.

There was something, too, of Brian Charles Lara in the two imperious sixes he struck off the bowling of Graeme Swann, the flashing willow blade finishing round between his relaxed shoulder blades as two balls that he didn’t quite get to the pitch to – one from round the wicket, one from over – were despatched to long off and long on, the latter his favourite stroke of the innings. It was all, well, erotic. Positively sexy. And England’s fieldsmen, scattered hither and thither across the greensward, looked distinctly edgy: a mild case of, ahem, Agaraphobia, perchance?

Faunaverbs

Talking of foxes – and Swann was deemed to have outfoxed one or two of the Aussies in the morning session; he may even have swanned about when he couldn't dismiss Agar – it struck this correspondent that the English language has an extraordinary amount of verbs deriving from the name of this island’s relatively harmless collection of animals. Here’s some more: to ferret, to badger, to crow, to goose, to snake (about), to hare (after), to dog, to cow, to pig (out), to carp (on), to grouse, to fox, to squirrel (away), to swan (about), to rabbit (on), to horse (about). Use them.

Architectural splendour

It was fitting that such a sensational debut performance as Agar’s was played out on this most delightful of grounds.

There is a wonderful line in Spanish surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel’s Le Fantôme de la Liberté (yes, I know that’s French) when one of the characters, contemplating a spider (or perhaps a butterfly) mounted and encased in glass atop a mantelpiece, says, enigmatically, “Bah, I’m tired of all this symmetry”. And therein lies the charm of TrentBridge – indeed all grounds that resist the lure to create identikit charmless bowls. Sure, the Radcliffe Road Stand is symmetrical, a Sir Richard Hadlee wing and Sir Garry Sobers wing, but the rest of the ground is a charming mixture of styles, materials and contours – the albatross wing on top of the Fox Round stand; the giant football dugout effect of the Parr Stand, allowing the afternoon light through; the famous old pavilion.

But perhaps the most strikingly singular is the glass-fronted office building where Notts Executive staff are usually housed, and where controversy’s Marais Erasmus sits making his dubiously supported decisions. If London has Sir Norman Foster’s ‘Gherkin’, Glasgow has ‘the Armadillo’ and Manchester ‘the Filing Cabinet’, then Nottingham has ‘The Batman’.

Going Irish

When the phrase “going Irish” is used in the context of the England attack, you’d be forgiven for thinking they were talking about the deck-hitting, 6’ 8” God Save the Queen avoider, Boyd Rankin. But no, they were talking about the reverse swing first developed by Simon Jones in the 2005 Ashes and since perfected solely by – and in certain parts of the world this claim goes down as well as cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad – the world’s top swing bowler, James Anderson.

England’s sole dependable paceman was at the top of his game in one of the craziest morning sessions the Ashes can have witnessed, sending back the hitherto comfortable Steve Smith, Peter Siddle and Mitchell Starc courtesy of three catches by Matt Prior as Australia lost five wickets for nine runs in 31 balls before Agar rode to the rescue. Whether the Aussies can do the same on a wicket that looks pretty flat may well decide the outcome of the game.

Trottsky

There was more than a hint of controversy over the first-ball dismissal of English batting bellwether Jonathan Trott, adjucated lbw on review after Aleem Dar had ruled out a vociferous appeal from Mitchell Starc’s full, swinging delivery. Replays suggested two possibilities: that he had hit it (tight-angle shot) and that he hadn’t hit it (wide shot). Jimmy Anderson was categorical in the press conference that he had hit it. The hotspot cameras square to the wicket were out of action, apparently still dealing with the Root dismissal the ball before (even though DRS was not required for it), strangled down the legside. So, with no conclusive proof either way, ‘Malaise’ Erasmus informed his colleague in the middle that he couldn’t tell whether there had been an inside edge or not. Fine. So why then overturn the decision? This is WAR!

Churchillian wisdom

According to somewhere in the region of 9834 articles that appeared yesterday, “the phoney war” finished at 11am on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the real war – without much of the maiming and misery, admittedly – finished at 4pm on Thursday, when five sessions of breathless cricket finally ran out of puff, like some wild-eyed student who’d gone out on two-for-one Thursday night, hit the adult confectionary, then staggered through the door late on Sunday evening. Now it’s just a cricket series, and much of the bellicose rhetoric can be parked for the foreseeable future.

Which brings us to Winston Churchill, who knew one or two things about cricket. “We shall fight them on the beaches”, boomed the bejowelled one, famously, in a pretty unambiguous advocacy of England looking to play on turning pitches. Agar can bat, but can he bowl? 

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ASHES, DAY ONE

Fail to prepare and prepare to, um, have moderate success...

Australia have kept everyone guessing this tour. First they picked a red herring as coach – very fishy – then they select players who they’d first sent to the Home Counties Premier League to prepare. Ashton Agar counted Adam Dobb, Alex Chalker and Steven Snell among his victims for Henley, and recovered well from a full bunger first up to show encouraging signs. Such as not yipping up.

Meanwhile, a guy they originally picked to open the batting with Ed Cowan – who, naturally, is now at three – was sent to Zimbabwe (where else?) for a warm-up match, much to the chagrin of the bijou Nottingham hostelry to be found at 11-15 Friar Lane (rhymes with talkabout). Presumably Warner will be back in time for the Lord’s Test – he has to cut the ribbon on his stand, after all.

Body talk

England’s initial batting efforts were marked by both Root and Trott’s serenely positive footwork and general movement at the crease, in contrast to Cook’s tentative hanging back. This was Greg Chappell’s thing: positive movement leads to positive thoughts (more so than the other way around). The England skipper seemed overly concerned by some early swing batted as though trying not to get out lbw. Root, we know, gets back and forward in the crease and plays the ball under his eyes. His first 16 runs were all run down to third man. It was classical opening batsmanship and no doubt educed a purr of appreciation from Sir Geoffrey of Boycottshire up in the TMS box, possibly even his first orgasm since the undredth undred. Impressive, right up until he got out.

Trott, meanwhile, might walk out all flubberdy-dubberdy, like a youth team ice hockey goalkeeper, but he looked the most assertive of the lot, transferring his weight and stepping lithely into whatever was thrown at him, footwork precise and crisp, caressing the ball on the top of the bounce, frequently with a crunching sound off the blade. To be bowled chopping on to an innocuous length ball was, understandably, annoying and his mock swipe at the stumps suggested as much. Still no Test fifty at Trent Bridge, but his form looks promising.

Siddler on the Roof

Truth be told, none of Australia’s seamers were at their best in the morning session, with England picking off 18 boundaries in 24 overs. Pattinson’s bumper-wide to start proceedings – after the interminable and overblown pomp – invited the predictable quipped observations that it bore some sort of cosmic significance and had “set the tone” not only for the series (if anything had set the tone, it was those quips), but also the EU debt crisis, the second wave of the Arab Spring, and the implementation of the Kyoto protocol.

Mitchell Starc, meanwhile, was forced to bowl in plimsolls so as not to create rough for Swann, the significance of which the English media may slightly have overstated (it being well known that it is absolute suicide for any left-arm seamer to play against is ever again).

The other Dandenongian, Peter Siddle, recovered from a frankly dross first spell of 4-0-27-0 to show his usual blue-collar honesty and bag a ‘Michelle’. He may have been slightly fortuitous to have yorked Root with his first ball back (surely no-one intentionally bowls a yorker first up), but swung a couple at KP – who is contractually obliged to feel bat on ball – to nick him off, then did the same to Bell, before the drag-on of Trott. But the big gimme was Matt Prior, toeing a wide nothing ball to short point, the low point of a callow England batting display. Five-fer, under par.

Broad shoulders?

There was, it seemed, a distinct and pre-meditated plan to get stuck into Broad. While the green-and-gold-clad Fanatics in the Parr Stand regaled the hometown boy with the Aerosmith classic ‘Dude Looks Like a Lady’, Starc and Pattinson wasted no opportunity to bounce him and generally show aggressive body language. Both hit him on the body – Starc’s early blow that glanced off his back for four also bringing Haddin up to within earshot for a spot of advice; Pattinson’s blow on the shoulder preventing him from taking the field – and it’s fair to say he can expect a bit more, um, cock-measuring as the summer goes on.

Anyway, after a couple of impressive punched fours off the back foot, Pattinson, persevering with the short stuff, changed the angle and it paid immediate dividends with a clothed pull offering a simple return catch. Given that this was a docile surface, Broad can thus expect several more such examinations. You could of course have told all this is soon as the first ball of the series was bowled.

Finn does surprise  

When you’re rolled inside 60 overs on the opening day of the Ashes, you need something, someone to spark you off. Step forward – with rather a large stride – Steven Finn, opening the bowling in the absence of Broad (how Cook must have been thankful that Bresnan wasn’t his third seamer). Things didn’t start so auspiciously – Watto crunching boundaries off front and back foot from his first two balls – but the first two balls of Finn’s second over went rather better, Watson and Ed Cowan offering catches in the cordon.

Of course, a certain amount of synchronicity between the timing of England’s opening burst and the peak in a day of lager consumption helped whip TrentBridge into a cauldron of noise – good natured and witty noise, too, it has to be said. Anderson then castled the now-mature Australian skipper, ‘Dog’ (formerly known as 'Pup'), with a ball that, had he told him he was going to bowl it, he still wouldn’t have been able to play, before trapping Rogers, lbw b DhaRmaSena.

Steven Peter Deveraux Smith

“Hi, I’m Steve Smith.”

“Steve? Smith?”

“Yeah.”

“And what do you do, ‘Steve Smith’?”

“I play cricket for Straylya.”

“Do you now. Batter or bowler?”

“Well, I used to be a bowler, a leggie–”

“Why ‘used to be’?”

“Dunno. Just… Dunno. Couldn’t really land it.”

“Oh.”

“Or spin it.”

“Oh. So now you’re a batter?”

“Yeah.”

“How’s that working out?”

“Well, I probably still need to tighten up a bit, maybe not have so many moving parts, but the selectors have told me: ‘Look mate, we’ve got a bit of a batting drought, so even though you wouldna come within a Nullarbor of the side six years ago we’re gonna have to give you a run’. So, I’m pretty stoked.”

“Cool. How you go today?”

“Alright, mate. Yeah. Pretty good.”

“Well, best of luck ‘Steve Smith’ who plays for Australia.” 

“Cheers.” 

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DULCE, EH, TO DRAW A TEST?

Bent double, like short-legs (Boonie or Slats),

Weak-kneed, frothing like dags, we cursed our Pom grudge

Then on their daunting glares turned our backs

And toward our pavilion rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All’d felt game, ball-shined,

Yet stunk, lacked technique, deaf even to Joe Root’s

Inspired, deft 159 as we replied, way behind.

GAS! Gas! Their quick boys – Wickets were a-tumbling;

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But Warner still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man after three bottles of wine.

Swann: “Through misty shades, the baggy green plight,

As though in my pocket, I saw him frowning.

In all my dreams, before my gleeful sight,

He lunges at me, back-cutting, poking – astounding!”

If in his smothering dreams Hughes truly liked pace…  

Yet see his wagon wheel from what was flung at him

And come watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like Michael Bevan’s sick of spin;

If you could hear, every ball, the chirp

Come gargling from dross-corrupted tongues,

Obscenities to answer, bitter as the dud,

Vile incurable scores whence our reputations hung,

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To Aussie kids ardent for some desperate glory,

The old lie: Dulce et Decorum Est

Pro patria block-out-for-a-draw-y 

With apologies to Wilfred Owen.

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