Boxing Clever
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SAMPLE EDITION SUMMER2 2013 THE NightwatchmanTHE WISDEN CRICKET QUARTERLY SAMPLER THE NightwatchmanTHE WISDEN CRICKET QUARTERLY 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. Co-edited by Osman Samiuddin and Tanya Aldred, with Matt Thacker as managing editor, 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 over subject matter and length, escaping the pressures of next-day deadlines and the despair of cramming heart and soul into a few paragraphs. 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. 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 do that too. Take a look at the options below and decide which is best for you. Full subscription Annual print Digital subscription subscription (with Annual e-book only free e-book versions) subscription £27 (+P&P) £9 Click to Buy Click to Buy Single copy Single issue (with Digital single copy free with free Single issue e-book version) (e-book only) £9 (+P&P) £3 Click to Buy Click to Buy THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET THE NIGHTWATCHMAN Issue 2, out in early June, will feature the following: Gideon Haigh travels to Papua New Guinea in search of cricket Rahul Bhattacharya finds a connection in the touching stories of two Indian cricketers Rod Edmond relives a near-death experience playing cricket on Goodwin Sands S.J. Litherland on the beauty of Ian Bell Saad Shafqat remembers spending time with Javed Miandad Lawrence Booth discusses press box etiquette Sharda Ugra reveals a side of Yuvraj Singh not seen by many David Foot looks back on a life steeped in cricket Jonathan Wilson says Paul Collingwood is the ultimate Wearsider Mirza Waheed gives us a glimpse of cricket in Kashmir Keith Booth wonders if the scorer’s days are numbered Tim Brooks ponders the Irish Question Emma John reveals her teenage obsession Neil Manthorp salutes Graeme Smith, captain in 100 Tests Andy Zaltzman says there’s no need to be nervous in the 90s Suresh Menon takes to the stands and finds watching cricket a whole new ballgame Marcus Berkmann anticipating the Ashes On the following pages you’ll find an article by Wisden Almanack editor Lawrence Booth, as well as extracts from several other pieces from the second edition. THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET 3 LAWRENCE BOOTH BOXING CLEVER The memory still makes me wince. But Now, in the second Test, with the Duncan we’ll come to that in a tick. Fletcher juggernaut stuck in neutral, England had scraped together 134 in reply It was late June 2000 and a warm Friday to West Indies’ 267. The No 11 Matthew afternoon at Lord’s. West Indies were in Hoggard had made 12 not out on his town, strong enough in those days to debut, raising disproportionate cheers merit a five-Test series and attract full with an apologetic lunge at Ambrose that houses. I was in the media centre, living had somehow turned into an on-drive. my own little dream, which was watching England supporters were doing what cricket and getting paid by Wisden Cricket they knew best, seeking the punchlines in Monthly (WCM) for the hardship. It felt gallows humour. Soon it would be 2-0 with almost incidental that a cracking story three to play. Here, I thought, we go again. was developing out in the middle; the thrill of the journalistic yarn was yet to infect And yet… England had other ideas, as they me. No: I was at the cricket, the sun was occasionally did in those days when the shining, and all was right with the world. odds looked hopeless. Sherwin Campbell cut Andy Caddick to third man, where Except it wasn’t. Not yet, anyway. England Darren Gough took a superb catch (6 for had lost the first Test at Edgbaston inside 1). Wavell Hinds was given out caught at three days to a side that included Brian short leg off Caddick (few cared that he Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Jimmy hadn’t touched it: 6 for 2). And opener Adams, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Adrian Griffith was caught behind off Walsh. This was no great shock: West Gough (10 for 3). Still, the lead was 143. Indies had not lost a Test series to England There was no reason to get carried away. since 1969 – six days before man landed on the moon and six years before I was born. Then it happened. All I had ever known was blackwashes, wrist-banded high-fives and post-colonial With the total on 24, Lara slashed Caddick to guilt. And I had made my peace with it all. point, where Dominic Cork clung on, before THE NIGHTWATCHMAN hurling the ball high into the air in a moment register so much as a scintilla of pleasure of release that spread instantly around so help you God! Lord’s. Up in the media centre, I may have picked up the vibe. I leapt from my seat. It quickly became apparent that the greatest insult one could hurl at a professional Hello. My name is Lawrence Booth. I am 25 journalist was to call them – no, brand them (or I was). And I leap from seats. – a ”fan with a laptop”. See, you were there to report on the England cricket team, not My excuse was that I had been sitting in to cheer them on. “What do you think this the front row, shielding my eyes from the is?” as Allan Border once enquired of Robin sun. This conferred a certain detachment Smith. “A fucking tea party?” from colleagues behind me. But as I glanced round, I realised my error. No one And yet the only sense this made was on a else had budged an inch. Some scribbled pragmatic level. Hadn’t I become a cricket a note. One may have glanced in my journalist because I loved cricket? And direction. (What was that look? Curiosity? what on earth were you doing in a cricket Pity? Derision?) I had broken one of the press box if you didn’t love cricket? The golden rules of the press box. No cheering, pragmatism made sense, sure: there was a clapping, oohing, aahing, petting or diving, job to do, and who wants to be known as especially at the Nursery End. unprofessional? But on an emotional level – the level at which we all fall for sport – it I watched the rest of West Indies’ collapse to made no sense at all. 54 with a studied reverence. England would go on to win a classic by two wickets, take I would wrestle with the contradiction. Did the series 3-1, and triumph that winter in art critics feel obliged to feign indifference Pakistan and Sri Lanka. I’d like to think that at the latest Picasso retrospective? Did my inner pundit had kicked in as I leapt from their theatre-going colleagues suffer a the seat at the very moment the Fletcher era pang of guilt when they enjoyed Hamlet? cranked into gear. But no, I was being a fan – And were travel journalists expected to go in the press box. Like I say, I still wince a little. easy on the hyperbole as they lapped up another long weekend in the Cinque Terre? First things first. I mainly love the press box. Yet here I was, the fan with the laptop, I have made good friends there, and enjoy flouting the golden rule which demanded the humour, the company, the sense of a an emotional disconnect. Welcome, then, common purpose. It has been the place to the press box. where I’ve been lucky enough to turn a passion into a career. The view is usually In the years that have followed, I’ve realised bird’s-eye good, the food more than we that my Lord’s a-leaping was only the start deserve, and the deadline’s adrenaline rush a of it. Press box etiquette, like all other pick-me-up. Press boxes everywhere: thank forms, is built around a list of unwritten you (except for the freezing tent in Horsham). rules. You ignore them at your peril. And, this being England, the rules are so tacit But spend any time in one – especially you need a PhD in mind-reading to decode in England – and you will find it hard not them. There are exceptions: when England to absorb at least some of the button- beat Australia by two runs at Edgbaston uppedness, the determination that, in 2005, bedlam briefly ensued before however exciting the cricket, you will not decorum returned. The whole process took THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET 5 LAWRENCE BOOTH about five seconds. Generally, though, the blagging: a snippet of info here, a phone rules expect to be observed. And generally number there. But, for goodness’ sake, they are. make sure you return the favour! My old WCM editor, Tim de Lisle, once Blaggers are easily spotted; word travels wrote of the importance to English cricket fast. So and so has a weakness against of the nouns “nudge” and “nod”: aspiring the short ball.