SAMPLE EDITION SPRING33 2021 THE NightwatchmanTHE WISDEN CRICKET QUARTERLY SAMPLER THE NIGHTWATCHMAN ISSUE 33 – SPRING 2021 THE THE WISDEN CRICKET QUARTERLY Nightwatchman Matt Thacker introduces issue 33 of the Nightwatchman John Budden tells a tale of loss and closure 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 Daniel Lightman investigates the prejudices surrounding Percy Fender is available in print and e-book formats. Robert Winder unveils his plan for five-day franchises Co-edited by Anjali Doshi and Tanya Aldred, with Matt Thacker as managing editor, The Paul Edwards delves deep into the cuttings of one of cricket’s finest writers Nightwatchman features an array of authors from around the world, writing beautifully and at length about the game and its myriad offshoots. 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Daniel Lightman investigates the misconceptions and prejudices surrounding Percy Fender It was Frank Keating’s article on the the school. There were a number of front page of the Guardian on 17 June other Jewish pupils but only a handful 1985 that first piqued my interest in observed Shabbat – and I alone of that Percy Fender’s background. Entitled cohort had any sporting pretensions. “Fender the fastest dies”, it read: The cricket coach, who in his youth on the MCC staff had taught Ian Botham PGH Fender, one of cricket’s best and how to bowl the out-swinger, berated most colourful captains, scorer of the me in front of the rest of the cricket game’s fastest first-class century, and squad for putting (as he charmingly recently characterised in the television put it) my “petty superstitions before series Bodyline as a monocled fop, has the good of the team”. died… He played in 13 Tests – indeed, he should have captained England I found it difficult to comprehend why regularly, many said, but he knew he so bigoted a stance was adopted by a never would when he overheard an school which had been founded in 1830 MCC president at Lord’s referring to by the University of London. At a time him as “the smarmy Jew boy”. when only communicant members of the Church of England could attend This struck a chord with me because Oxbridge, University College London a year earlier I had almost been was established to open up higher expelled from school for refusing to education to those of any faith (or play cricket on Shabbat, the Jewish none). The school it founded (whose Sabbath. University College School’s alumni included Hermann Adler, the headmaster, fresh in his post, was Chief Rabbi of the British Empire from adamant in his view that making 1891 to 1911) notionally shared the same oneself available for sports on Saturday ethos. Hence the school song says of was a sine qua non for attendance at its founders: “They laid intolerance Image courtesy of the David Frith Collection Frith the David of Image courtesy THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET 4 SAMPLER THE NIGHTWATCHMAN low.” Although I always sang that line: One England captain, Arthur Gilligan, The Australians were glad never to Surrey weren’t a pleasant side to “They laid tolerance low.” said he had “always regarded him as confront an England team led by umpire in those days. Fender liked his easily the finest skipper of a county side Fender. In his autobiography 10 for own way and the air was blue from The headmaster decided to expel me during my time”, while another, RES 66 and All That, the Australian leg- the amateurs when things weren’t but his decree needed to be rubber- Wyatt, exclaimed: “What a remarkable spinner Arthur Mailey wrote that going right. Like the Australians of stamped by the school’s governors. I player he was! There has never been Fender “will always be well up in my recent years, they’d take the mickey was told that I was saved by the Bishop anyone like him for astuteness and list of England’s [possible] captains, out of the batsmen to upset them of Southampton, who announced at the cunning in the field. As far as tactics and in this I have the support of nearly and I know Jack Hobbs was happy to governors’ meeting that he would never go, he was the finest captain I ever every member of the 1921 Australian be out of it eventually. I was always play cricket on a Sunday, his day of rest, saw… He was unlucky never to have team. We always felt much more happy to get away from The Oval in and that his stance persuaded enough of captained England and to have played comfortable when Fender’s name was the ’thirties. the governors to vote down my proposed in Test matches so seldom.” A third, not on the list of probable captains of expulsion. However, as a condition of my Walter Hammond, described Fender the England XI we were to face.” Nonetheless, I wondered whether reprieve, I was banned from representing as “perhaps the most skilful strategist Streeton had delved deep enough the school at any sport. of cricket in my time”. In his acclaimed PGH Fender: A into an issue which he described as Biography (1981), Richard Streeton appearing to modern readers to be a Having myself experienced what The accolades went on. According stated that Fender had “disposed “distasteful and unnecessary” thing to appeared to be a form of anti- to Harold Larwood, Fender was “the of several myths about [why he raise; or indeed whether the subject of Semitism in a cricketing context, I shrewdest and most astute [captain] never captained England] that were his biography, then in his late eighties was troubled by the possibility that it I ever encountered in county cricket, first suggested at the time or have and with a reputation for being testy, had denied Percy Fender the England especially on slow wickets”. Herbert become accepted since”. However, might have made clear that he did not captaincy. Fender was a charismatic Sutcliffe called him “a cricket in a book of almost 200 pages, the welcome further probing. I wondered, and fascinating figure. As well as genius” and “a brilliant captain”, assertion that he failed to get the too, whether Streeton was aware of, being an exceptionally astute captain adding: “I could never understand captaincy “because it was thought or had put to Fender, Frank Keating’s of Surrey for a decade (1921-31), he why in his most successful years he was Jewish” was dismissed in (albeit unsourced) story about an MCC was an idiosyncratic cricketer who he was not England’s captain; and I one sentence: “Fender denied he president referring to Fender as “the was nonetheless one of the best all- say, after paying due respect to DR was Jewish and in any event did not smarmy Jew boy” – and why, if his rounders of his generation: a big- Jardine’s skill and knowledge, that believe it would have told against him lack of tact had truly been the cause hitting batsman – his century in 35 Fender is the best cricket captain I if he had been.” of his failure to be appointed England minutes in 1920 still remains the have known.” captain, this hadn’t been given as fastest hundred (save in contrived The reasons that Streeton gave the reason in his contemporaries’ circumstances) in first-class cricket – a Many respected cricket writers shared for Fender not being given the autobiographies.