The Nightwatchman
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SAMPLE EDITION AUTUMN3 2013 THE NightwatchmanTHE WISDEN CRICKET 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 wicket 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 wickets in two overs; two of the have nightmares about our captain 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 stump. 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 batting 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 bowling 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.