SAMPLE EDITION

AUTUMN3 2013

THE

NightwatchmanTHE WISDEN QUARTERLY SAMPLER THE NIGHTWATCHMAN

THE

NightwatchmanTHE WISDEN CRICKET QUARTERLY

Issue 3, out in early September, will feature the following: Cricket’s past has been enriched by great writing and Wisden is making sure its future will be too. The Nightwatchman is a quarterly collection of essays and long-form articles and is available in print and e-book formats. John Crace played for Hemmingford Hermits. Then suddenly realised he didn’t…

Co-edited by Osman Samiuddin and Tanya Aldred, with Matt Thacker as managing editor, Rob Steen marks the 50th year since the publication of CLR James’ Beyond a Boundary The Nightwatchman features an array of authors from around the world, writing beautifully and at length about the game and its myriad offshoots. Contributors are given free rein Mathew Merritt on two of Yorkshire and England’s finest over subject matter and length, escaping the pressures of next-day deadlines and the Chloe Saltau on Fawad Ahmed’s bid for Australian citizenship despair of cramming heart and soul into a few paragraphs. David Owen gives us the knowledge on the other Don Bradman There are several different ways to get hold of and enjoy The Nightwatchman. You can subscribe to the print version and get a free digital copy for when you’re travelling light. Aakash Chopra gives a player’s view of the IPL If you don’t have enough room on your book case, you can always take out a digital-only subscription. Or if you’d just like to buy a single issue – in print, digital or both – you can Alan Tyers reimagines cricket’s attempts to storm the States do that too. Take a look at the options below and decide which is best for you. Mike Jakeman turns to baseball to find a possible future for cricket

Martin Claytor tells the story of the post-Bodyline Goodwill tour

Luke Ginnell reports on Serbia’s attempt to join the cricketing fraternity Full subscription Annual print Digital subscription Anjali Doshi questions the generally held belief that India is a nation of cricket-lovers subscription (with Annual e-book only free e-book versions) subscription Robert Winder surveys the world from the safety of the non-striker’s end £27 (+P&P) £10 Kamakshi Ayyar sees the game doing its best to survive and thrive in New York Click to Buy Click to Buy Mark Hooper believes that when it comes to bats, it’s all about belief

Lynn McConnell tells the remarkable tale of a New Zealand hero

Mike Harfield takes his beloved Ash Tree CC to Corfu

Steven Lynch and S Rajesh start up a stats-based double act Single copy Single issue (with Patrick Collins salutes Pat Pocock, a man who spanned three generations of England cricketers Digital single copy free with free Single issue e-book version) (e-book only) £9 (+P&P) On the following pages you’ll find an article by John Crace, reflecting on a career spent yearning £4 Click to Buy for mediocrity Click to Buy

THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET JOHN CRACE THE NIGHTWATCHMAN

But they were for me. I was every bit And that’s it. Those aren’t just some of as bad a cricketer at the end of a net the highlights. They are the highlights. session as I had been at the start. Only Thirty years of cricket condensed into more aware of my inadequacies. less than five minutes of worthwhile accomplishment. Even in a team as There was the odd career highlight. I poor as the Hermits, there is a body once caught a slip-catch low down to my of players with a substantial memory left off one of our quicker bowlers; I’ve bank of career highlights. The 50s, the no idea how I did it as I’ve never come quickfire match-winning 20s, the four close to repeating it. All I remember is or five spells. I can remember seeing the ball coming towards me and most of them myself, though not just knowing I was going to catch it. It necessarily with the same affection as didn’t feel at all difficult. I once took those who accomplished them. I still WHEN TIME three in two overs; two of the have nightmares about our batsmen got themselves out by swiping and – need you ask – opening batsman at straight balls that pitched on middle making a match-losing 50 in 28 overs RUNS OUT and hit middle. But the third batsman at West Ilsley in Oxfordshire and raising was bowled by a ball that pitched three his bat when he reached the landmark. After 30 years, John Crace’s knee forced him to retire. He looks back inches outside off and hit the top of the I was sitting on the boundary’s edge on a career spent yearning for mediocrity. off . This isn’t impressive for most thinking, “Why the fuck don’t you just bowlers; they do this kind of thing the get yourself out? None of us drove 60 whole time. I don’t. miles down the M4 just to watch you For the best players, retirement is or so every time I went out to bat; or the be so boring. And, to make it worse, something meticulously planned third-change bowler who could deliver I also once hit a six. I was in my at least half of us aren’t even going and announced with gravitas. A a steady five overs in the second half usual number nine slot for the Hermits to get a bat, thanks to you.” Team tipping point when fatigue outweighs of a 35-overs-a-side game. That would at Turville Heath, a lovely ground on the spirit has always been written into the enjoyment; when the slowing of the have been enough for me. But it was edge of the Chilterns, and I hit a slow Hermits’ DNA. reflexes combined with persistent pains almost invariably worse, much worse. bowler high into the large chestnut tree in almost every joint makes each game – I think it’s a chestnut – on the edge At this point, you might be asking why I a trial rather than a Test; when you Not that I never tried to improve my of the boundary. It was the only six I’ve bothered. Why turn out year after year wake up in the morning and realise that skill levels. Especially in the past few ever hit in my career. I was reminded when your main distinguishing purpose the answer to the question “Do I really seasons, when the Hemmingford of this fact recently when I read the is to improve the opposition’s batting need to have my every failing picked Hermits, the particularly useless team historian Tom Holland’s account of the and averages? There are several over in slow-motion by a bunch of old for which I have played for the past only six he had ever scored in the lovely answers, the first of which is hope. The blokes sitting in the commentary box?” 30 years, suddenly became alive to book about the revival of the Authors hope that the next game will somehow is a resounding “No”. the idea that one of the reasons we XI. There is a difference between Tom be different, that I will get to bat when were so hopeless might be that we and me, though. Tom remembers the other team is letting their wicket- It wasn’t really like that for me. There never practised. So one of the more exactly how he hit his. I don’t. I keeper’s 12-year-old son, who has been was no moment of self-awareness enthusiastic players – not the captain, remember where it went, but not how drafted in because someone didn’t turn that my performances on the cricket obviously – booked a series of nets at I did it. I certainly wasn’t intending to up, have a bowl. The hope that I don’t pitch had slipped to a level I found Lord’s during the winter months. At hit a six. My only intention usually when get over-excited, try a massive heave unacceptable. If only. Mediocrity was a which I made an appearance from time I’m at the wicket is not to get out. But and get bowled. The second is rather standard to which I constantly aspired to time. It’s not for me to say if these somewhere between thinking, “watch more complex. Namely, that I actually throughout what – for want of a better nets were a waste of time for all of us; it’s the ball, block it, don’t get out”, my bat enjoy playing cricket. Quite why I am term – I call my playing career. To have possible that one or two of the Hermits must have acquired a mind of its own, so perverse as to get such pleasure been the kind of middle-order stalwart may have noticed a subtle improvement connected sweetly and sent the ball from something at which I am so bad who could be relied on to get a neat 17 in their game that has escaped my eye. soaring over deep mid-wicket. is something neither I, nor my therapist,

THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET 5 JOHN CRACE THE NIGHTWATCHMAN

have ever quite understood. But there the Hermits had died that we could It was only recently I came to accept I ball to go of the last over. We didn’t have you are. That’s the way it is. I look forward no longer raise even a team quorum. had indeed retired. Before then I had an 11th batsman, so I offered to pad up in to my seven or eight games a season. I As I got slower and slower, so would kept telling everyone that maybe it my civvies to take the last ball. don’t even mind that much if it’s overcast the rest of the Hermits. Just as in would be OK in another or month or so. or a bit rainy as long as the game isn’t Zeno’s dichotomy paradox where the Now, no one even bothers to enquire Some cricket careers end in a blaze washed out completely. Most of all, I pursuer never reaches his goal, none after my availability. My last appearance of glory. Mine ended with a gentle love spending the day with friends with of us would ever actually slow down so on a cricket pitch was over a year ago; nudge to deep mid-on off a full toss whom I’ve grown older and wider on a much that we came to a complete stop. oddly enough, just four months after my that enabled me to walk through for a cricket pitch, engaged in an activity that Though it sometimes might appear that operation and when I still believed I had single. One off one ball. A strike means both everything and nothing. way from watching the Hermits in the a cricketing future. The Hermits were rate of 100. Given everything that had field these days. playing Cuddington. Cuddington had happened over the previous 30 years The other reason I keep playing are made something like 237 for 3 in their 35 of my Hermits career, it was a far more the numbers. It’s often said cricket is But it turns out I have stopped. It just overs. The Hermits had made 123 when satisfying sign-off than I had any right game of numbers and that the statistics took me the best part of a year to notice. we lost our eighth wicket with just one to expect. don’t lie. Perhaps not, but there are any My retirement didn’t just go unremarked number of ways of interpreting them. by the wider cricketing world; it passed • • • Take my batting average. Four seasons me by as well. It happened like this. I’ve ago it was 6.25. Two seasons ago it was had problems with my knee for decades 4.75. A cold, forensic eye would detect a and every time I played they would falling off. That I had become about 20% swell up and be sore for several days worse. But here’s the thing. When you afterwards. In a cricketer of greater are quite as bad as me, it’s not always talent, the discomfort might have that easy to detect the decline. Scoring counted as a slight handicap; for me it four really doesn’t feel any worse than didn’t really make much difference to scoring six. Trust me. my performance one way or the other and so I put up with it as a price worth Much the same applies to my bowling. paying. Even in my prime – I must have had one, surely? – I was never a quick seam bowler, Until I went to see a specialist who but as I’ve got older I’ve undoubtedly got advised me to have another knee slower. I like to think that greater accuracy operation. I’d had several in the past so I and mastery of length has compensated wasn’t that bothered. This one was more for this deceleration, but that’s perhaps serious, but not something that seemed open to debate. What’s not up for grabs likely to prevent a fairly immobile, not is that my effectiveness as a bowler very good, cricketer from continuing was only ever minimal at best, so losing to be a fairly immobile, not very good another yard of pace and becoming cricketer. Only it has. The surgeon’s easier to hit isn’t quite the disadvantage forecast for my recovery was hopelessly it is for the more able cricketer. Besides optimistic. I would have settled for very which, with one careless shot from an little. Honestly. The ability to meander in over-confident batsman or an unnoticed to bowl off just a few paces. The licence divot on the pitch, a terrible spell of to bat with a runner. But I can’t even bowling can be transformed into one manage that. I could, at a push, field at that is merely a bit below par. slip all day, though that prospect seems too futile even for me. Our bowlers I’d imagined my cricket playing days never get an edge. And if they did, I continuing like this until enough of wouldn’t catch it.

THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET 7 SAMPLER THE NIGHTWATCHMAN

ANJALI DOSHI Aakash Chopra

That day, for me, epitomises the very best and worst of Indian cricket. The hold cricket has on “Test is the ultimate honour… you know there are not even 300 players have represented the nation as it wipes life off the streets, a bond that unites family members who may have India since we started playing ?” said Srinath, trying to drive home the little else to talk about, a sense of identity that infuses a billion with purpose, confidence and point of Test’s importance and relevance. “Exactly! If only 300 have played in 80 years, self-worth in their collective consumption of a new age opium and new age idols, and a balm what are the chances that I’d get to play for India one day? More than 150 Indians that soothes our deepest scars. cricketers get to play in the IPL every season and the money they earn, I followed the auctions closely, is much more than Test cricketers make in a year,” said the youngster But there was also the backlash of a deflated nation who set the stands on fire, burnt its and finished the debate. superstars’ effigies, decreed the Indian team the worst in the world, accused its heroes of throwing the match, cursed its beloved , and switched off its televisions as • • • defeat loomed, unable to bear the loss and what it said about them. Robert Winder • • • It may be that the non-striker’s most telling influence lies in the cultural sphere. Cricket CHLOE SALTAU is, as has often been said, a hybrid – an individual sport for glory-seeking egomaniacs played within the boundaries (patrolled by the game’s heritage) of a team ethic. But “Were you really threatened with death?” The question sounded glib, but it was what though the importance of the collective effort – bowlers need fielders, and batsmen everyone wanted to know. Fawad Ahmed was telling his story at a conference of Australian need partners – is undeniable, everyone knows deep down that it is individual feats cricket chiefs in . They knew Pakistan was a dangerous place. They hadn’t sent that are posted on the honours boards. Team spirit exists, but is also, in part, a cover an Australian team there since 1998. But really? You could be murdered for playing cricket? for hot personal ambition. Richie Benaud famously noticed, in an early World Cup in England, that we were in the tenth over, and Sunil Gavaskar was about to face his very “Yes, really,” Ahmed told his audience of suited executives after he was introduced by Cricket first ball from the fearsome Malcolm Marshall. He paused to let the implications of his boss Tony Dodemaide. Softly-spoken but direct, he described the time in May, 2009, observation – that the little master was hogging the non-strike – sink in. “A little touch that Taliban goons turned up at the Golden Cricket Club in Swabi, where he was captain of experience there,” he mused. and coach. He was warned to quit teaching this westerner’s game or he would be killed. He defied them. • • •

• • • PATRICK COLLINS

DAVID OWEN The more I think of him, the more I appreciate those extended monologues, because they sprang from his sheer love for the game. It was his profession, of course, and Don Bradman spent most of the 1930s surrounded by farmland in rural Worcestershire around the thing he did best. But it was more than that. It was a conviction that cricket in where junction five of the M5 is today. He was based at Wychbold Court, a fine, timbered general was a kind of joyful, uplifting, enormously satisfying experience which was very seventeenth- house where the BBC built what was once the world’s most powerful much more than just a game. In an age of ice-bathing, diet-conscious, media-trained transmitting station. A versatile, if not particularly fleet-footed, all-rounder, with striking white conformists, some of whose personalities appear to have been surgically removed, stockings, he sported his green colours in some notable victories. His most famous days Percy Pocock spoke for a more nonchalant generation. came at Liverpool – and at Derby, in the presence of the King and Queen.

THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET 9 SAMPLER THE NIGHTWATCHMAN

Rob Steen THE

Naturally, the first thing I knew about CLR was The Line. The Line he adapted from a Rudyard THE WISDEN CRICKET QUARTERLY Kipling poem, The English Flag (“And what should they know of England who only England Nightwatchman know?”). The Line that defines him, exemplifies what he wrote and stood and fought for. The Line everyone knows, and quotes, sometimes accurately, as proof of wisdom. Even those who only cricket know; even those who know cricket not a bit and have never read a syllable of The third edition of The Nightwatchman will be published at the beginning Beyond a Boundary. The Line that lashes the ignorant and the one-eyed. The Line that poses of September 2013 on a limited print run. So subscribe or order now to the question to all of us, for all seasons and every reason: “What do they know of cricket who ensure that you get your copy. only cricket know?” I googled it the other day and 63.6 million results pinged back. Just 5m more than for “What do they know that only cricket know?”

• • •

Alan Tyers Click to visit thenightwatchman.net A touring Surrey team featuring Lumpy Stevens was booed during a Boston exhibition match in the 1770s. The crowd, confused by the laws of the game, began to riot when a series of decisions appeared to go in the favour of the visiting colonists. The situation quickly got out of hand, with Massachusetts residents objecting to London interference in their sporting pastimes (“No taxation without a say in the proposed introduction of the LBW law”) and empting crate-loads of cricket gear into Boston Harbor.

THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET