Meeting: 24 March 2012
Guest Speaker: MJK Smith OBE
Grace:
The Reverend David Brown said, Grace.
Apologies for Absence:
Denis Crump, Mike Soper, Roy Birch, Terry Johnson, John Fingleton, Brian Scrimshaw, Alan Edwards, Roger Packham, John Gallimore, Roy Clarke, Brian Ford, Richard Pettifer, Innes Marlow.
Next meeting:
The President announced Robin Brodhurst to speak at our autumn luncheon on 6 October.
Administration:
Increase in meal costs – The President announced the Club has subsidized the cost of 90p per head this spring due to rising costs at the Bat & Ball, and members should be prepared to see the cost per head increase at future events, but depending upon menu choice, Lou will try to negotiate costs to a minimum.
Ties – These are available for £15 each from the Treasurer.
Payment for lunch – The President reminded members to pay the Restaurant Manager for their lunch before leaving.
Prize Draw in support of Youth Cricket at Hambledon Cricket Club:
The customary draw raised £310. After deduction of the prize drawer, speaker’s expenses and flowers, netting £162.55, plus £75 for club ties, £237.55 was raised in aid of the Club.
The Loyal Toasts:
The President asked members to be upstanding for the traditional toasts: The Queen’s Mother; The King; The Hambledon Club; Cricket; The immortal memory of Madge. The secretary asked members to toast the President. Dave Allen added an extra toast for Portsmouth-born Hampshire cricketer Neil McCorkell who had reached his personal century earlier that month.
Speaker Introduction:
The President introduced our guest speaker MJK Smith OBE. He described seeing Geoff Pullar score the first century ever made by a Lancastrian in a Test Match at Old Trafford followed by MJK Smith who also scored the century. He played in 50 Tests, 25 of them as captain and is the last man to represent England in cricket and rugby. He led England abroad to India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in one tour, to South Africa and to Australia. After retiring, he served on committees, including the TCCB, and in the earlier days the MCC as well as being chairman of Warwickshire for a fairly considerable period, and managing two England touring teams abroad.
The Speaker:
MJK thanked the President for his fulsome introduction adding, “It is a pleasure to be here among cricketers, many of who appear to be of my vintage and, of course, the cricketers’ wives who don’t look as old as us at all.” He remembered when players and their wives had to accept that tours were often very long, for example, to India and Pakistan that lasted 3½ months. Initially, players couldn’t take wives but when that changed it didn’t suit everyone. “I remember when Walter Robins asked one player, “Are you taking your wife?” and he replied, “If she goes, I won’t.” And of course, she didn’t!”
When visiting the Bat & Ball for Bob Barber’s 70th birthday he spoke of Bob as an outstanding young cricketer. Bob was fed-up with life at Lancashire where he was a ‘nudger’ and ‘nurdler’. “When he came to Warwickshire his move coincided with the introduction of the Gillette Cup and he started to blast it from that moment on; he was a great, great entertainer. I went up to Oxford in 1953 and one of the early games was against Lancashire when Bob played, then after the game, he went back to school – and that wasn’t his debut. He had played a championship game already and from there he went up to Cambridge. What was interesting is that he didn’t get a blue in his first year because Goonesena kept him out – it isn’t easy picking good players but you would have thought that you couldn’t really have missed with Bob.”
MJK reminded us that John Jameson was a similar player, “who belted it from ball one,” and who helped Denis Amiss, an exceptional player, in that “Denis never had to worry about moving the score along: John was blasting away and Denis was accumulating runs.” MJK spoke of an amazing statistic concerning Denis: he was a very fine player who joined Warwickshire at 15 and made his first-class debut at 17 but didn’t get a Championship 100 until his 7th season from the debut. “You wonder today whether he would get pushed out yet he got a hundred!”
MJK went to the West Indies as a single man in 1959. He recalls how Barbados was “an amazing place, the size of the Isle of Wight, but they could take on the world.” MCC played the Colts, and then Barbados, “and here an unknown Seymour Nurse, came out and got 200 but it didn’t get him in the Test team until at a later date.” The first Test in Barbados was the first Test centuries of Barrington and Dexter although they had played a lot of test cricket. “It seems unusual now but Ted was the last selection to go on that tour. With two places kept open, he and Alan Moss went on to become the best number threes we’ve produced.”
MJK spoke of the most unusual system the West Indies had in that the local island selection committee picked the Test team for that island. “Trinidad hadn’t had a great time recently but their slow-left-hander Charran Singh, who had played a bit for Northants 2nd XI, got into their Test team. There were six five-hour days and a rest day and we got 382 and that was pretty average there, so we were probably going down on the Saturday.” Much gambling had been going on, “and on the Saturday they thought they were going to smash us about until Brian Statham and Fred Truman bowled them out.” MJK recalled how the crowd became morose and finally Ramadhin and Singh “messed it up” when there was a run-out, and then the bottle-throwing began. When a man threw a rock onto the field, George Statham suggested he “grab a stump” which he didn’t think particularly good advice. However, the situation unfolded when another ‘rioter’ flew past Mike shouting, “We’re not after you man, we’re after that umpire!” The Test match was won but MJK describes it as a very sad occasion.
In the third and fourth Tests, he recalls they started to struggle and by the fifth Test, May and Statham got sick and returned home along with ‘keeper Andrews, but Jim Parks happened to be coaching so they brought him in, and to everyone’s delight he scored a century. “It was certainly his day, so we won the series which was tremendous.”
FCM ‘Gerry’ Alexander was their captain and looked upon as white, and when they lost the series, MJK recalls how “sadly” the newspapers were saying “it was time for a black man to lead the West Indies.” Frank Worrell hadn’t been around for a couple of years, but on his return, he took over the job of captaincy. The next winter they went to Australia and “they had a tremendous tour, particularly because the first Test at Brisbane was the first-ever tied Test Match: West Indies were 65-3 at lunchtime, on the first day, then in the afternoon session Sobers got 100. There was also, I would suggest, the worst umpiring decision ever in that series when Wally Grout was clean bowled and got two runs as the ball ran down to third man – “How’s that?” “Not out” – it’s hard playing under those conditions! Lance said, one or two of the Aussie papers accused Alexander of kicking the wickets down, but they were one-eyed.”
MJK told how sometimes funny things happen with umpires abroad. “I was batting in a Test Match in South Africa at the Wanderers. John Waite was keeping wicket and Peter Pollock bowled it down the leg-side and I watched John Waite get it, and he shovelled it on to leg-slip and, as you do, I just wandered up the wicket and tapped the wicket down, and then there’s a hell of a clatter and a shout of “Out!” I asked what was going on, and non-striker Parfitt, never short of a word or two, called “dead ball!” while the umpire who gave me out said, “I’m ever so sorry, I didn’t see!” So you could say that I am very much in favour of neutral or third umpires – there’s no way you can be bowled out and get away with it.”
In the ‘90s, MJK went back to the West Indies as manager, and a leading member of the side was then Philip ‘The Cat’ Tuffnell. “He was very much a ‘one off’ amusing bloke who was not an idiot, and damned sharp, but not necessarily the sort of bloke you would wish to manage. We had two Tests in Antigua and in the second Test he was lbw to Courtney Walsh. When he came in I said, “Bad luck Cat, that was missing,” and he said, “I’m very pleased to hear you say that manager, I never reckon to get in line.”
The fifth Test match was when Brian Lara beat Gary Sobers’ record of 365. Warwickshire was going to have Prabhaker as the overseas player, but he couldn’t come, so they chose Lara a fortnight before this Test. “Brian played a spectacular inning and they were literally queuing round the block to sign up for a Warwickshire membership. And when he came over he got seven tons in his first eight matches, which included 500 against Durham, whose ‘keeper Chris Scott dropped him on 80, and famously said: “he’ll get a hundred now.” Lara’s tremendous performance at Lords one day resulted in John Emburey telling him to “play the game sensibly like the rest of them” after being hit and the ball hitting the flagpole on the pavilion over long-off just above the player’s balcony. MJK told of another incident when his son played. “They got to Northampton and he and Dermott were at cross-purposes, which sometimes happens, and Brian walked off. Club regulations said you must turn up the following day with a doctor’s certificate, which he did, and it was signed by a gynaecologist!”
MJK spoke of other good West Indian players at Warwickshire. “Rohan Kanhai would play three innings a season, consistently, and if I played one of those it would be the best I’d ever played in my life. I would always say he and Lara were the two best batters ever to be seen at Warwickshire with Kallicharan and Amiss next.”
MJK said you can be lucky. “We had a very quick West Indian bowler called Tony Merrick, and our manager David Brown thought Tony was going to be in the West Indies party for the next season. David also wanted a backup so he rang South African Ali Bacher and asked if he had any ‘quicks’ to which he suggested, Alan Donald. We took Alan blind but Tony didn’t get picked so Alan came over unheralded and played in the second team. There was no pressure on him whatsoever and everybody on the staff thought he was fairly handy. Then two senior members of the committee wanted to rip up his contract and this situation took us to a vote in the AGM. Fortunately, they lost it and the following year Alan came back, and from the late 1980s for the next few years, we were the best team in the country. He was the catalyst. That’s how the luck comes in.”
MJK spoke of the rigours of gambling. “One season, Warwickshire won three of the four competitions. A bookie suggested we back our players with a bookmaker to win something because so often when the players won something the club finished paying out more than they had won. So, we had a ‘Yankie’ that Warwickshire would win the championship, the Sunday League, and get to the two one-day finals. After a bit, we won the Bensons and we were going well in the Sunday League and in the Championship. In due course, we went to the final of the Gillette. We had to win the last Sunday League game at Bristol to win the big money. They went in first and got 160 and we were 1 for 3 chasing that. The next ball, Trevor Penny chipped to mid-wicket and Courtney Walsh dropped it, and I don’t think we lost another wicket! So, we won the bet, and then the bookie writes to say, “You do appreciate we have a maximum payout of £100,000.” If anything was crooked, that was it, but you can’t go to court and sue over a gambling debt. You have to go to arbitration and Sporting Life. So while we didn’t go unarmed, the arbitration panel found in favour of this bookie, crooked as he was. And while they severely disciplined him, they backed him too!”
Having the job of a coach is something MJK would dislike. “As a young player they all want the opportunity to play and this doesn’t always happen” but unfortunately “the coach doesn’t always get it right because it’s difficult.” MJK went up to Oxford when Cowdrey was captain and spent a lot of time batting at the other end. “This was more valuable to me than any coaching I got, but if you don’t get in, you don’t get the opportunity.” He recalls how Warwickshire turned down Wilfred Rhodes, “so there are 4,000 wickets gone there”; and lost opportunity by Essex who had “first call” on Jack Hobbs, “that’s 60,000 runs gone.” He continued, “How on earth could Lancashire turn down Tyson – the fastest bloke you’ve ever seen in your life? Lancashire had Norman Gifford as well but they let him go and he got 2,000 wickets for Worcestershire … Post-war, Tattersall, Appleyard, Titmus, and Hemmings were all off-spinners who played for England, and Don Sheppard didn’t play for England but got 2000 wickets. You’d say, I would have spotted them, but you wouldn’t because they all made their debut in first-class cricket as seamers and then changed. But this all happened before overseas players, so they got plenty of opportunities, which they don’t get now.”
At Warwickshire, MJK said players are missed, such as Kevin Pietersen and Glen Turner. “It’s not always easy to pick them out. I’m totally against two divisions – I can see no reason for it. When you are a coach, are you going to bring in an overseas player to stop the team from getting relegated or do you push them to get up into the upper division? In the old days before two divisions, you’d say, we’re not getting very far and here’s a promising young player so we’ll give him a month. Hampshire has just got rid of Benny Howell who is not the world’s worst cricketer. Put him in the same situation as Amiss and he’s not going to get half the opportunity, and may not make it, but he struggled for the opportunity.
MJK said, “It’s sad and difficult, and the bottom line is what we are trying to do is produce a Test team, and you can’t do that by bringing in too many overseas players. By all means, bring in a few but you have to chuck these lads in. They can’t complain if they have had the opportunity. If they don’t get an opportunity, they’ve had a poor deal. (Editor: Howell has since signed a two-year contract with Gloucestershire.)
“In 1988 we won the Nat West Trophy and you may remember against Middlesex we needed 11 in the last over. My son was in and he hit a six off Simon Hughes with Asif Din at the other end and we won with about two balls to spare. He’d been on the staff for about two years, and not getting all that far, but we struggled in the previous game in Yorkshire and he was second night-watchman. The first one, Tim Munton, was a blocker but he got out so Neil went in, stayed in, and on the next day got 160 having never got a 50 in his life. That may have swayed his selection for the Gillette final where he bowled pretty well and hit that six. He was out of contract, so they had to give him another; that’s good fortune. Similarly, in our 1954 University match against Cambridge University at Lord’s, I went in first with a Scotsman Jimmy Allen who played for Kent and then for us. I got off the mark with the easiest catch I ever had dropped in my life; it went straight between the ‘keeper and first slip and both froze. I got 201 not out!
“When we started the next year I was not playing for my place. I was made secretary of the club and then captain, and that’s the luck. The luck with us was when we got Alan Donald and we’d never seen him. And how we got Brian Lara, which was nothing to do with us; that’s good fortune. It’s up to them to take it, but luck certainly helps a lot.
“We had another Final that was a great finish when we beat Sussex. Roger Twose was in quite a long time with Dermot and it came literally to the last ball of the match, and that was his first ball. He’d been in 10 minutes plus, and he had to get one run to win, which he did and won the match, a great match and wonderful for the spectators and members! MJK recalls how a very good friend of the players had taken his 14-year-old son, Billy. “When asked what he’d enjoyed the most he said, “the singing on the train.” Well, he’d had a good day and plenty of fun!”
MJK concluded “You have a wonderful place here and you are doing a wonderful job too. Thank you very much for your hospitality.”
Thanks:
Douglas thanked MJK and the Bat & Ball for a lovely lunch.
Any Other Business:
None