Nari Contractor – A Grand Old Man of Indian Cricket

He should really have been born in Mumbai (or rather Bombay as it then was), but Nari Contractor’s train driver uncle realised that one of his passengers on 7 March 1934, Nari’s mother, was in some difficulty, so he persuaded her to disembark with him at Godhra when his duties ended. The intention was that, fully recovered, he would then get her back to Mumbai the next day, but Nari wouldn’t wait and was born the same day.

The serendipitous outcome of this was that Contractor was qualified by birth to play for Gujarat, and at a time when the Bombay side was extremely powerful he was able to gain selection for Gujarat for their game against Baroda in November 1952. Contractor made the headlines after the game as he became only the second man, after Australian Arthur Morris, to score a century in each innings on First Class debut.  Six others have managed to emulate Morris and Contractor since, although looking at the bowlers opposing each of the eight it is difficult to come to a conclusion other than that Contractor’s feat is the most impressive.

In the following three years Contractor’s run scoring feats were relatively modest. He generally batted at three and managed just one more century after his remarkable debut. He had not been forgotten however and when Pankaj Roy was dropped after a failure in the first Test of the first ever series between India and New Zealand Contractor was one of two additional batsman brought in for the second Test, the other being the 17 year old Vijay Mehra. Neither achieved much in that Test, but both were retained for the third and, Vinoo Mankad having to drop out, the pair opened together. It was Contractor who, with 62, took his opportunity and was retained for the fourth Test when, Mankad having returned to partner him, he managed another half century.

At this point it might have been expected that Contractor had established himself, at least for while. In fact Roy had managed to get a late call up for the fourth Test and, batting at three, scored exactly 100. For the final Test he displaced Contractor at the top of the order and Roy and Mankad posted their remarkable opening stand of 413. Scheduled to come in at seven Contractor never even got to the crease, and he didn’t get another cap until the third and final Test of the 1956/57 series against Australia after Mankad decided he no longer wished to open the batting. In a low scoring defeat Contractor opened with Roy and scored 20 and 22. Only Vijay Manjrekar scored more runs for the Indians.

West Indies visited India in 1958/59 and won 3-0 with two Tests drawn. The key to their success was the fearsome pace bowling of Roy Gilchrist and Wes Hall, who took 56 wickets between them. It was a difficult series for Contractor. He scored runs in both innings of the second Test but failed in the first and third and in the fourth Test the selectors asked AK Sengupta to open with Roy with Contractor dropping to four. In the event Sengupta scored just a single, whilst Contractor compiled a typically stubborn 22 and Contractor and Roy were reunited at the top of the order in the second innings. In the final Test, India’s best performance of the series, Contractor made some progress towards cementing his position in the side with a fine 92.

So what kind of batsman was Contractor? There were, to say the least, divergent views. On a positive note is the description of the veteran Indian writer Kishin Wadhwany; No left-handed Indian batsman was more accomplished than Nari Contractor in the range of onside strokes. He was a master craftsman, a great artist. With a precise and subtle turn of wrist and occasional force of strength, he could alter the direction of the ball beyond the reach of fieldsmen, for a destined boundary. He had the ability to delay his shot as late as one could conceive. He had a computer-mind for strokes between the area of fine leg and mid wicket. ….. gifted as he was in stroke production on the onside region, Contractor was, in no way, devoid of shots on the off side or of front foot strokes. He could lean forward in his own leisurely manner to drive, which he followed by referring to one drawback;  his grip and the movement of his feet, however, prevented him from cutting.

Rather less complimentary is the pen portrait that appeared in a UK brochure for India’s 1959 tour of England that was edited by Gordon Ross. It is not clear where the material comes from, and if Ross wrote it whether he had ever seen Contractor bat, but he describes Contractor as being pitchforked into the opening pair through sheer necessity before adding that; the responsibility of opening the innings has curtailed his stroke-play. He now holds the bat almost at the bottom of the handle and hence cannot drive either correctly or forcefully and collects his runs mainly with deflections. Weak against the ball that leaves him, Contractor frequently uses his pads as a second line of defence.

The 1959 Indians did not have a happy tour, losing all five Tests and winning only six of their 33 First Class matches. Contractor did not begin the tour well, in the run up to the first Test scoring just a single half century, albeit he managed that against the full strength of reigning County Champions, Surrey.  In the first Test itself England, fresh from their disheartening experience in Australia the previous winter and including three debutants, batted first and piled up 422. It was enough to win by an innings. In a dogged start to the Indian first innings Contractor scored 15 in 104 minutes. He was caught at slip without scoring in the second innings.

At Lord’s for the second Test India batted first and, on a fast wicket, a short delivery from Brian Statham soon leapt from the notorious ‘Lord’s ridge’ and struck Contractor on the chest, fracturing a couple of ribs. The effects of the injury were to keep Contractor out of the game for almost a month. On the day he was struggling to breathe, but skipper for the match and opening partner Roy was desperately keen for him to remain if possible so he did. He was eventually seventh out for a battling 81. The famous Australian all-rounder and by then writer Keith Miller considered the innings warranted a Victoria Cross.

The Indians were all out for 168, and whilst they restricted England to 226 England still ran out comfortable winners. In the Indian second innings Contractor was in plaster and in pain and his movement was too restricted for him to take his place at the top of the order. When India were in trouble again Roy, keen to set some sort of target, asked Contractor to go in once more. Always a great team man Contractor agreed and went in at the fall of the sixth wicket, and was unbeaten on 11 when the last man was dismissed with the score on 165.

After missing the third Test with his rib injury Contractor came back into the side for the match against Middlesex immediately before the fourth Test. He managed 55 in the first innings to show he was fully fit again and the Test, although lost by 171 runs, was India’s best performance of the series. The game did not begin well as England piled up 490, and India’s reply was only 208. Contractor made 23 in an hour before, in attempting to hook Derbyshire paceman Harold Rhodes, he gloved the ball to wicketkeeper Roy Swetman. Unusually for the times England chose not to enforce the follow on and India began their second innings in pursuit of 548 for victory. Contractor spent the greater part of three hours over 56, Abbas Ali Baig scored a century and Contractor’s fellow Parsi Polly Umrigar did so as well, and in totalling 376 India could at least hold their heads up.

The improvement did not last at the Oval, India capitulating for 140 and 194 to lose by an innings once more. Contractor did his best but became completely strokeless as he took as long as 199 minutes to score 22. Such was his mindset that when Ted Dexter chose to bowl him a medium paced full toss he was so surprised that he could do nothing more than tamely drive the ball into the hands of Ray Illingworth at cover. In the second innings Contractor contributed 25.

After recovering from his rib injury Contractor’s form certainly improved. He managed five half centuries altogether and eventually, at the Hastings festival in September, he recorded his one century of the tour. He was third in the Indian Test averages with the highest aggregate, and sixth on the tour as a whole. Wisden’s verdict on him, whilst praising his courage,  had some echoes of the Ross brochure; on the whole he failed to impress the public that he was more than an ordinary plodder …………. he will be remembered for his leg side glances, but his cross bat driving when trying to push along the rate of scoring revealed his limitations.

In 1959/60 Australia, just three years after their previous visit, came back to India for a full five Test series. With the bat this series was undoubtedly Contractor’s best. He could not prevent Australia taking the series 2-1, but with 438 runs at 43.80 he batted with great consistency. Only once did he fail to get to 24, and that was in the first innings of the fourth Test when illness forced him to drop down the order to number four in the first innings. In the third Test Contractor recorded what was to remain his only Test century, 108. The Australian side was a relatively young one, with no Keith Miller and Ray Lindwall past his prime, but two younger world class bowlers, Alan Davidson and Richie Benaud both had magnificent series. In the final Test Contractor’s occasional right arm medium pace claimed its only ever wicket, the prize scalp of Neil Harvey.

After the Australian series India’s captain, Gulabrai Ramchand, retired from Test cricket and, for the visit of Pakistan in 1960/61 Contractor became, at 26, India’s thirteenth Test captain. The series was a complete contrast to the one going on at the same time between Australia and West Indies. All five Tests were drawn, and indeed there was no winner in any of the fifteen First Class matches on the tour. To be fair to Contractor there was not a great deal he could do about it. He lost the toss in the first four matches and, on choosing to bat, Pakistan then batted first and killed the game.

The final Test was not played at a significantly greater tempo but, without a last wicket partnership of 38 after being asked to follow on, Contractor and India would have broken the deadlock . With the bat Contractor enhanced his reputation by scoring 319 runs at 53.16 with half centuries in the first, fourth and fifth Tests. The innings were very much ‘in character’ the highest of them, 92 in the final Tests, taking up all but six hours.

In the following Indian summer two Test series were arranged. The first was a full tour by England, the first time the MCC had sent a team for a decade, to be followed by a series in the Caribbean. England were not at full strength, Colin Cowdrey, Statham and Trueman all being missing, but there were still plenty of high quality players in the side that Ted Dexter led. Contractor was Indian captain once again, and although there were many still happy to criticise him for an over-cautious approach he won the series 2-0.

The first three matches were drawn, the first in circumstances where Contractor declined to chase a target of 294 at 72 runs per hour. In the modern game no captain would be so generous although at the time four runs an over was considered fast scoring. In any event Contractor and India were clearly risk averse and made no attempt to chase the target down. India’s two wins were thoroughly merited however, all-rounders Chandu Borde and Salim Durani playing leading roles. For Contractor there was an innings of 86 in the first innings of the final Test, but little else and he averaged just 22.50 with as many as eight of his teammates above that mark. Nonetheless Contractor had the satisfaction of being the first Indian captain to win a series against England and, something he has doubtless shown regularly to the naysayers over the years, the report on the series in Wisden described his captaincy as imaginative.

The taste of victory did not, sadly, linger too long in Indian mouths. In the Caribbean they suffered another 5-0 reverse, on a tour that was marred by the dreadful injury that Contractor suffered in the tour match against Barbados. In the lead up to the first Test Contractor scored runs against Trinidad, but then just 10 and 6 in the Test. The pattern continued as he scored a century against Jamaica, but only 1 and 9 in the Test.

Moving on to Barbados the Indians were faced with Charlie Griffith. He had made his Test debut against England a couple of years previously but had not been selected for either of the first two Tests of the series so the Indians had not seen him before. The Griffith action had already attracted adverse comment however, and at a function before the Barbados match even West Indies skipper Frank  Worrell warned the Indian batsmen about him.

The dreadful injury occurred in the third over of the Indian innings, and the first after lunch. Griffith was bowling extremely quickly. Ironically had the Bajan skipper, Conrad Hunte, not been such an honourable man the fateful delivery might not have been faced by Contractor at all. He had played the previous delivery straight into the hands of Hunte at short leg, but Hunte knew he had taken the ball on the half volley so there was no appeal.

In simple terms what followed was that Contractor was struck on the temple, fracturing his skull. It was touch and go for a time, but the skill of a specialist neuro-surgeon  who was hurriedly flown over from Trinidad ensured Contractor would survive. As to exactly what occurred with no television pictures we need to look at the accounts of the participants. There is no unanimity. Griffith’s famous partner, Wes Hall, wrote later; He (Contractor) got behind a ball from Charlie, intending to push it towards short leg, completely misjudged the kick, bent back from the waist in a desperate last second bid to avoid it and was hit just above the right ear. Hall added; It had not been a vicious ball, never rising above the height of the stumps and he concluded Griffith was in absolutely no way to blame. In his own autobiography Griffith described the delivery as being bail height, but given that he also wrote that he had already dismissed Vijay Manjrekar at this point (he hadn’t) his recollection is undoubtedly unreliable.

The height of the delivery is where the controversy arises. According to Garry Sobers he had to tell Griffith not to appeal for lbw. Griffith himself suggested it was wicketkeeper David Allan who was ready to appeal. In 2002 Sobers wrote that Contractor ducked into a ball that didn’t get up. The Indians disagreed. Farokh Engineer is adamant the delivery was a bouncer. The man who replaced Contractor as skipper, Pataudi Jnr, acknowledged that his captain ducked into the ball, but wrote that the ball started at neck height, and Contractor does not dispute that he made a desperate attempt to jerk his head backwards and out of the way when he realised how much difficulty he was in. Erapelli Prasanna was not so dogmatic, writing that he didn’t believe the delivery was a bouncer, but he certainly didn’t suggest that he agreed with Hall’s account.

According to Wisden, certainly a neutral reporter, Contractor did not duck into the ball. He got behind it to play at it. He probably wanted to fend it away towards short-leg, but could not judge the height to which it would fly, bent back from the waist in a desperate, last second attempt to avoid it and was hit just above the right ear. Contractor himself has, in a number of interviews, always maintained that the delivery was a bouncer and that the suggestion he ducked into the ball is nonsense. The Indian writer Dicky Rutnager, watching from the press box, was clear that Contractor had got into line.

In many ways exactly what happened matters little but, given that all those quoted were doubtless being honest in their recollections, it is interesting to see the different perspectives put on the delivery by those who saw what happened all, of course, from different positions and not all of whom expressed their views at the time.

Having been struck with such a sickening thud immediately afterwards Contractor was dismissive of those who ran to his assistance, and he shaped as if he intended to bat on. A slightly delayed outpouring of blood from the ear and nose put a stop to that idea, and he was quickly helped from the field and after a brief stay in the pavilion was rushed to hospital. There were two operations, one by a local surgeon just to keep Contractor alive long enough for the Trinidadian specialist to arrive and carry out the surgery that saved the Indian captain’s life, with the assistance of blood from, amongst others, Worrell, Umrigar and Borde.

After his stay in hospital in Barbados Contractor went to a New York clinic before travelling home and coming under the care of a leading neuro-surgeon in Tamil Nadu. It was back in India that a steel plate was inserted into his skull, something which he has from time to time used to cause consternation amongst airport security staff.

A few months later despite his still suffering from poor vision and being somewhat unsteady on his feet, Contractor’s specialist recommended he restart his cricket career. This advice took Contractor by surprise, but he went to the nets and, as he had been told would be the case, his eye, reflexes and technique soon returned. He was ably assisted by the West Indian quick bowler Charlie Stayers. At the time the Indian Board had employed a selection of Caribbean pace men in an attempt to improve batting standards against fast bowling and the West Zone had been allocated Stayers who was happy to bowl fast and straight to Contractor whilst at the same time not, initially anyway, dropping anything at all short.

Ten months after that fateful day in Bridgetown Contractor resumed his First Class career in a charity match in Nagpur and scored 37 against an attack that included the West Indian Chester Watson. The following season, that of 1963/64, Contractor scored a century for West Zone in the semi-final of the Duleep Trophy and he scored four more before, in 1970/71, he finally retired. The Test selectors never came calling again however. They clearly did not have the same confidence in Contractor’s surgeon’s handiwork as the man himself had, and at one point asked one of his predecessors as India’s captain, Ghulam Abbas, to speakt to Contractor’s wife in an attempt to dissuade him from playing on.

Whether at any point Contractor’s form might have justified a recall is a tricky one. He had a poor season in 1966/67, so although his experience of English conditions would have been useful he was not selected in 1967. A couple of years later when he did enjoy a fine summer, averaging over 50, he might have got a recall against New Zealand but the selectors preferred a young Chetan Chauhan to open the batting with Syed Abid Ali. In an interview in 2014 Contractor told writer Clayton Murzello that not getting another Indian cap after his injury was his only regret in life, so the omission is clearly something he felt strongly about and, 85 and living in Mumbai, he doubtless still does.

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Onwards and upwards

After an (ultimately) closely fought three-and-a-half days in Dehradun, Ireland and Afghanistan can both take the positives from their performances, but also have room for improvement

Across the three twenty-over and five one-day internationals which preceded the one-off Test between Afghanistan and Ireland in Dehradun, the host side had looked, for the most part, to be the better of the two sides and, just after lunch on the first day, little had occurred to dispel that notion. But from that point on, the momentum of the game shifted much more fluidly, leading to an engrossing contest in which each side displayed their strengths and had their weaknesses exposed, before Afghanistan ultimately claimed their maiden Test victory in only the second match they had played

Incidentally, this is the fewest matches a team has had to play before recording a victory since Australia defeated England in what came to be recognised as the first Test match of all time, in 1877. Admittedly, the other nations to be granted test status in the interim have not had a similarly inexperienced opponent to compete against – the record set would also have been identical had Ireland won instead – but regardless of this, if Afghanistan are to nurture and grow a national enthusiasm for Test cricket, an early win can only be a good thing.

Aside from the result, however, the most important thing in terms of the development of these two fledgling Test nations is that they both played some impressive cricket over several periods of the match, displaying strengths which will serve them well over their formative years still to come. They both, however, also displayed some obvious weaknesses – unsurprising, given their inexperience at this level of the game, but they will nonetheless need to address these if they wish to prove competitive against the higher-ranked opponents they will face soon.

Ireland, of the two teams, came into the match with slightly more pedigree in this regard, having put in a creditable, if unsuccessful, performance against Pakistan in their inaugural test last May, whereas Afghanistan emerged from their initial foray into the Test arena, against India, somewhat chastened. That said, the conditions in which this match was played meant Ireland came in to it as the underdogs and at first this assessment seemed an apt one, as they slid to 69/7 by lunch on the first day and 85/9 soon afterwards as their collective technique against spin was tested and found wanting.

The last wicket partnership which followed this collapse, between George Dockrell and Tim Murtagh, was their first positive of the match – it more than doubled their score and showed that Ireland are a team that will fight when things are not going their way, something which a great many of the established Test nations have often failed to do in recent years. That it took their last man (who in the process became the only the eleventh number eleven in history to top-score for his team) to show this fight is perhaps a concern in itself, especially as Murtagh, who will turn 38 this summer, is unlikely to remain an active Test cricketer for too much longer. His partner, Dockrell, is one of the younger generation of Irish cricketers and showed he has a good cricketing head on his shoulders, which bodes well for the future.

Having pushed their score to a still disappointing, but less embarrassing, 172 all out, Ireland proceeded to (for the most part) impress with the ball. At first, this description may seem incongruous with what transpired – after all, they can hardly be said to have skittled Afghanistan, who scored 314 and many may disagree with my assessment. But for a team which is used to green, swing-and-seam friendly conditions and has never before played an overseas Test, to bowl a team out for just over 300 in the far more spin-friendly environment of Dehradun qualifies for me as a quietly impressive, though not stunning, performance. A further point in their favour is that visiting spinners generally, despite the assistance on offer, struggle when playing in these conditions for the first time, so the six wickets that their spin attack collected is another positive, although James Cameron-Dow was expensive.

Having said all that, it is not strictly the overall bowling performance that impressed me anyway. More to Ireland’s credit is how, after Afghanistan had reached 198-2, then 226-3 (at that point, the best you could reasonably say about Ireland’s bowling was that they hadn’t let the run-rate get too high), they fought back, taking two quick wickets with the second new ball and never really letting any of the remaining batsmen get going – Asghar Afghan, who was already at the crease when the collapse started, did the bulk of the scoring from there on in. In all, the last eight wickets fell for 116 runs (the last seven for 88), showing again that Ireland are a team that can and will fight back from situations which are certainly not impossible, but most definitely unfavourable.

Now for the less positive aspect of Ireland’s performance in this match. Before I delve into these, I would like to re-iterate that both Ireland and Afghanistan are only playing in their second match each and you would very much expect them to still have holes in their game at this point – the higher ranked teams have them too, after all. I just feel that this article would not be complete if it didn’t look at both sides of their performances.

With that out of the way, where Ireland do need to show improvement, and quickly, is most definitely in their first innings collapses – 130 against Pakistan and now 172 (and it could have been much lower) here. Getting bowled out for those sort of scores will mean that they are constantly chasing the game – given many teams’ apparent aversion to coming back from behind in Test matches, their best chance at beating a top-ranked team will most likely come when they manage to get ahead in the game and stay there. I appreciate, though, that to describe collapsing in the first innings of two matches as a pattern would be an unfair description. Perhaps the fairest thing to say is that, although it is not yet a pattern, Ireland would do well to ensure it does not become one.

To be perfectly honest, the above may well be the only genuine negative point Ireland take away from this match, albeit a rather significant one. That is not to say that they performed flawlessly outside of the first-innings collapse – they suffered a mini-collapse in their second innings too, and their bowling was at times unthreatening, but, whilst not to gloss over them, taken in context, these feel more like ‘things that happen sometimes’ (and, to an extent, can be chalked up to conditions) than holes in Ireland’s capability in the game’s longest format.

So, on to Afghanistan. The biggest positive for them is, of course, that they won! As I touched upon earlier, this is worth so much more than just that ‘1’ in the (metaphorical, for now) wins column. Afghanistan’s next Test, scheduled to take place in August, is against Zimbabwe who, you would have to say, are the most likely of the established Test teams to find themselves on the receiving end of an Afghanistan victory, and the fact the Afghans already have one such victory to their name will make achieving the second (and hopefully the third, and so on) all the easier now that they have already overcome the mental stumbling block that approaching a maiden victory can often prove to be.

If the fear of winning was affecting the Afghanistan team on the fourth morning in Dehradun, however, then they disguised it perfectly. Having started their run chase rather tentatively, perhaps overawed by the reward on offer should they complete their task (and arguably losing the early wicket they did due to this overly cautious approach), they played positively from the outset of the final day and although they got lucky with a simple dropped catch, never crossed the line from positivity to recklessness until, in what turned out the be the final over, a flamboyant charge and some over-optimistic running saw two wickets fall in two balls. Of course by that point nothing could change the course of the game. Both batsmen who fell will be disappointed with the manner of their dismissals and, moreover in this instance, the fact that they were not in the middle at the moment of victory. But the fact that the vast majority of the chase was conducted with such maturity and level-headedness is of great credit to the team.

Overjoyed with their achievement as they must undoubtedly be, Afghanistan should, however, not lose sight of the fact that their victory could have been almost totally straightforward and the margin far greater if they had not let their opponents off when they had their foot pressed to Ireland’s throat. At the fall of the ninth wicket in each Irish innings Afghanistan were well on top. Had the tenth followed quickly afterwards in either of those innings, Afghanistan would have, in all likelihood, secured victory before half of the first day’s play was completed or set themselves a paltry chase of 89 runs.

In the event, however, they seemed to freeze and become unnecessarily defensive when trying to prize out those final wickets. This passive approach allowed Ireland to first fight their way back into the game, and then claw themselves to a position from which they could fight back, and later to extend their lead to nearly 150 – a target which is far from daunting, but has nonetheless proved too much for the chasing side a number of times in Test history, including on some very famous occasions indeed. As an aside, the two fifty-plus stands that Ireland raised for each of their final wickets marked only the fourth time in test matches that this feat has been achieved.

As it happened, Afghanistan were ultimately not punished for their inability to land the killer blow and the damage they had already inflicted – the very fact that their bowling attack is already capable of running through a side is another big plus – proved sufficient to allow their batting to see them home.

I have now, I think, covered the most notable aspects of each side’s performance in this match. But to finish by talking about what one team did wrong would not sit well in the context of such an enjoyable and important contest. So I will end instead by saying: Well played both sides, thank you for the past few days, and may your Test match future prove bright!

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Hobbsy: A Life in Cricket

Hobbsy: A life in Cricket – the biography of former England, Essex and Glamorgan leg spinner Robin Hobbs – by Rob Kelly, was published in 2018 by Von Krumm Publishing, you can read our review here.

Robin Hobbs made his Test debut for England in the summer of 1967 playing three matches against India and one against Pakistan. After appearing in the opening Test of the 1967/68 tour of the West Indies he was dropped and didn’t feature in the Ashes series later that year. Out of the frame for England, Robin headed for South Africa at the end of 1968 where he and his fiancé Isabel were getting married. England had also been due in South Africa but the tour was cancelled as a result of the D’Oliveira Affair and in its place a tour of Ceylon and Pakistan was hastily arranged. It was intended that the tour party would be the same 16 players that had been selected for South Africa but following the withdrawals of Boycott and Barrington – both for health reasons – the selectors decided to reduce it to 15 players. With an extra spinner needed for the sub-continent, Robin was picked as the man to replace the two world class batsmen.

Excerpt from Chapter 10 of Hobbsy: A Life in Cricket

An imbalance of the tour party was the least of England’s problems; internal unrest in Pakistan meant that the country was as good as engaged in civil war. This was no time and place for a cricket tour but incredibly it was sanctioned and encouraged by a British Foreign Office keen to demonstrate support for the Pakistan President, Ayub Khan, who was considered a vital ally in the Cold War.

All of this was still to come as the tour party headed off to the peace and tranquillity of Ceylon for the first leg of the tour, arriving in Colombo on 22 January 1969. The four warm-up games were played in a festival spirit and in between the players relaxed playing golf and basking on the idyllic sands of the island’s beautiful beaches. “We played in Kandy and Colombo, there were thousands of people watching. I used to toss it up and got smacked all over the park, I got one for 70 in eight overs and one for 60, everyone was happy, people were running after the ball for the sixes and our captain, Colin Cowdrey, must have been thinking ‘He’s a bit expensive this bloke!’”

After the serenity of Ceylon the tour party flew on to Pakistan where they’d be playing three warm-up games before the start of the Test series. Robin played in the first of these games against the Control Board XI at Bahawalpur taking two for 71 in an attack which also included fellow spinners Pocock and Underwood.

Despite a good bowling performance Robin wasn’t selected for either of the final two warm ups. At one stage Robin had been left virtually alone in a hotel in Lahore while the rest of the team had headed off to Sahiwal, some 180 km away, to play a three-day match against the West Pakistan Governor’s XI. Without much by way of entertainment Robin turned to pitch and putt to keep himself amused.

England team at the Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore, February 1969
Standing: Bernard Thomas (Physiotherapist), John Snow, Pat Pocock, Roger Prideaux, Bob Cottam, Derek Underwood, Keith Fletcher, Alan Knott, Robin Hobbs.
Sitting: David Brown, Basil D’Oliveira, Tom Graveney, Colin Cowdrey, Les Ames (Manager), John Edrich, John Murray.

The first Test at Lahore was drawn and Robin could only watch from the sidelines twiddling his thumbs, England preferring to go with the spin of Pocock and Underwood. There were a number of interruptions from protestors during the game, particularly on the first and last days, and an air of tension pervaded the ground as the England players were left wondering whether they might be forced to flee at any moment due to the inefficiency of the security forces’ efforts to keep control.

The second Test was at Dacca in East Pakistan and before departing a cable was received from the British High Commission there warning that the tour party should not come to that part of the country as their safety could not be guaranteed. When news broke that the team wouldn’t be heading to Dacca an angry mob promptly burned down the High Commission. Surprisingly, the following day a further cable arrived from the High Commission assuring that everything was now fine and that the tour should proceed as planned. It was Carry On up the Khyber stuff! “Poor old Les Ames was tearing his hair out,” Robin recalls, “he spent more time at the High Commission than he did at the cricket.”

Incredibly the Test passed off without serious interruption with the organisation of stewarding and security taken over by the student protestors themselves. On the field the match was drawn, Robin once again wasn’t selected and Pocock was dropped as England opted to go with three seamers and just one specialist spinner in Underwood. Pakistan on the other hand opted for four spinners and just one seamer.

The one bright light amongst all the turmoil was the arrival of Colin Milburn shortly before the start of the Dacca Test. Milburn – who’d just come to the end of a stint playing for Western Australia – was preparing to sail home to the UK when he was summoned to Pakistan where he was needed as cover due to injury concerns with Cowdrey. The journey from Perth to Dacca took 72 hours and Milburn emerged exhaustedly from the plane to be greeted by the whole England team, his arrival was a huge fillip. The mood was raised even higher by a few laughs at Milburn’s expense. Years later Robin stills chuckles away at the thought of that day.

When the plane landed we picked him up from the airport. We were staying in a decent hotel but there was a hotel we’d stayed at on the under-25 tour two years earlier which we called the Shag Bag, it was a dreadful hole. We picked him up from the airport, put him on the bus and we dropped him off at the Shag Bag, we told him there weren’t any rooms free at the Hilton and left him with his bags outside this bloody hotel.

After an hour the players returned to collect Milburn but the horror wasn’t over for him. By chance his arrival in Pakistan that day coincided with a religious festival which Robin remembers well with a mischievous smile.

It was the day of the year when the locals throughout Pakistan slaughtered an ox wherever it stood to feed the local village and so the whole place was covered in blood and carcases. Ollie’s reaction was priceless – “F***ing hell, what have I come to, there’s blood everywhere!”

The second Test was drawn and the tour party flew to trouble-torn Karachi for the series finale. By now Robin had given up hope of playing any further part in the tour and had got rid of all his kit, giving it away to grateful locals. Taking a look at the pitch in the days leading up to the Test Robin describes it as being “as flat as a table”. Not having played for a month he felt certain he had no chance of being selected and was relieved that he wouldn’t have to bowl to a Pakistan batting line-up well used to facing spin, and that in their own backyard. “Pakistan had a batting order that looked like a world eleven”, recalls Robin, “they had Hanif Mohammad, Majid Khan, Shafqat Rana, Asif Iqbal, Saeed Ahmed, Mushtaq Mohammad, they batted down to 11.”

To his bewilderment, Robin found himself selected anyway. The England selectors had originally opted to go with the same bowling attack as in Dacca but as the wicket dried they felt it would be a slow turner and so Bob Cottam was dropped and in came Robin, ridiculously short of match practice, something which he still recalls with a sense of astonishment.

Cowdrey said to me two days before the game “You’re going to play the next game Robin, we think you’re the chap to bowl them out.”
I said “You’re f***ing joking! I haven’t played or bowled a ball for five weeks.”
“We’ll sort that out this afternoon” he replied.
“Oh really, what are we going to do?” I said with more than a hint of sarcasm.
“We’re going to the nets, you and I, and you’re going to bowl 50 balls.”

And so, with less than two days to go before the deciding Test in the series, Cowdrey and Robin headed for the nets for a special practice. “Oh my God, oh God help us,” recalls Robin, “balls were going all over the place and there I was – Hobbs picked for the final Test in Karachi, trying to hide or run away.”

Colin Milburn was also brought into the side, replacing Roger Prideaux, and went on to score a magnificent 139 after England had won the toss and, much to Robin’s relief, opted to bat first. A number of pitch invasions and interruptions had occurred during the first two days and on the third the situation turned ugly following the death of a prominent anti-government leader. For Robin, short of match practice and contemplating the prospect of a mauling at the hands of the Pakistan batsmen, fate intervened and provided his salvation.

The anti-government protestors had been threatening all tour to disrupt the place and we’re playing in the national stadium in Karachi and I’m thinking ‘We’re 502 for 7, I’m going to have to bowl 25 overs here and I’m going to get smashed for 150 and this is the end of my f***ing life, I can see it happening.’ I couldn’t bowl a hoop down a hill and they had a batting order I couldn’t get any of them out, I would have got nought for 150. And then suddenly God looked down on me. The gates at the far end of the national ground opened and f*** me, about 500 people came bursting in. They set fire to all the hoardings, all the VIP lounges went up in smoke and there were two blokes out there with a f***ing shovel digging the pitch up and if I could have had another shovel I’d have been out there with them. I tell you what, was I happy!

One player who didn’t share Robin’s elation was Alan Knott who was on 96 not out and approaching his maiden Test century when the mob broke into the ground and brought a halt to the game. The England team took refuge in their dressing room and the Pakistan cricket authorities took the decision to abandon the tour. The players were as good as smuggled out of the ground back to their hotel where they hastily packed their belongings and headed for the airport where the tour manager, Les Ames, had managed to get everyone booked on the first flight out of Karachi. As the plane took off at midnight, Milburn rocked the cabin with a rendition of The Green, Green Grass of Home and Robin and the other England players broke into rapturous and relieved applause, flying home “as happy as Larry.”

It had been a strenuous five weeks on a tour which should never have been given the go-ahead. Other than Boycott and Barrington, none of the other players had pulled out before the start which, on reflection, may seem surprising but in that era international cricketers were not as financially secure. The original tour to South Africa would have lasted close to four months, the rearranged one lasted less than two. However, MCC – perhaps mindful of how fraught the tour would be – still opted to pay the players the same fee which made the ordeal well worth their while. Robin still chuckles at the whole experience: “I got two wickets which cost MCC £1000 – £500 a wicket.”

The whole tour had been a farce and the England team had been lucky to escape unscathed, the experience had been even more surreal for Robin with his strange recall for the third Test despite being completely short of bowling practice.

It was unbelievable, I was really sold down the river being picked for that last Test there and I only got out of it by luck, I didn’t bowl and came back unscarred by pure luck. I would have been slaughtered, I would have been smashed all round the park so that made up for the missed chances at Lord’s in 1967.

Playing in an abandoned Test did however bestow upon Robin a rare and dubious honour which he still sees the funny side of many years later. “I’ve been one of the few people to have played in a Test series who didn’t bat, didn’t bowl and didn’t even bloody well field.”

Hobbsy: A Life in Cricket costs £16 and is available direct from Von Krumm Publishing.

Copies are also available from the Essex Cricket Shop and Amazon.

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After You

England’s bowling is their weaker suit in One Day Internationals, but is their own team’s lack of faith in their bowlers creating more problems?

“When you win the toss – bat. If you are in doubt, think about it, then bat. If you have very big doubts, consult a colleague – then bat.” – W.G Grace

The above quote, or some variation on it, will no doubt be familiar to a great number of those who are reading this. It is a piece of cricketing wisdom that has survived the years since it was first uttered by being, more or less, accurate. Times do change, however, and like many adages, it (unsurprisingly) holds up less well in the modern era than it did in the 19th century. In this case, thankfully, this can be rectified by adding the following sentence: “If you are the England ODI team, bowl. Always bowl.”

At first, this might sound like an over-statement. In the lead up to the previous World Cup in 2015, England’s ODI batting was widely regarded, then brutally exposed as, substandard. Since then, however, they have totally re-invented their batting which has proceeded to bring them well-documented acclaim. Here are some of the key numbers (please note that matches in which there was no result have been excluded from all statistics in this article):

England when batting first post-2015 World Cup

Innings: 39

Average score: 304

400+ scores: 4

Matches won: 24

Matches lost: 15

Win/Loss ratio: 1.6

Win rate: 61.5%

Now, these numbers are very impressive. I’m not contesting that. Since the end of that disastrous World Cup campaign, England have done some incredible things batting first, not least breaking the world record for highest ODI score, then later smashing their own record by 37 runs. So why am I saying that, given the choice, England should never choose to bat first. Let’s look at what happens when they don’t:

England when batting second post-2015 World Cup

Innings: 38

Matches won: 29

Matches lost: 8

Matches tied: 1

Win/Loss ratio: 3.625

Win rate: 76.3%

These numbers are, basically, more impressive. Contrary to what the great W.G Grace may think, conventional wisdom in ODIs has been for a while that you should bowl first given the chance. England’s results over the last few years certainly bear that out: their win rate increases by 15% when batting second compared to when batting first. As a proportion of their bat-first win rate, England are 25% more likely to win by chasing a total than by defending one. Just quickly, let’s have a look at the numbers for the other top-9 teams over the same period:

	Batting first				Batting second
	Won	Lost	Tied	Win rate (%)	Won	Lost	Tied	Win rate (%)	Difference
India	22	10	1	66.7	33	14	1	68.8	1.03x
New Zealand	25	17	0	59.5	18	13	0	58.1	0.98%
South Africa	20	13	1	58.8	22	13	0	62.9	1.07%
Pakistan	14	17	0	45.2	37	21	0	63.8	1.41%
Australia	15	19	0	44.1	14	16	0	46.7	1.06%
Bangladesh	17	14	0	54.8	13	11	0	54.2	0.99%
Sri Lanka	10	28	1	25.6	13	22	0	37.1	1.45%
West Indies	9	19	2	30.0	8	20	2	26.7	0.89%

A fairly interesting table. Five of the eight teams range from ever-so-slightly worse to a little bit better when chasing, with the difference being fairly minor either way. The West Indies show an appreciable drop in success when chasing, but, with respect, they’ve won so few ODIs over the period in question that this only actually represents one fewer win in the same number of matches. Similarly, Sri Lanka’s striking 45% improvement when chasing is somewhat due to this effect too, though to a lesser extent.

Pakistan, however, appear to be a more extreme version of England, as over a decent sample size, they’ve been 40% more likely to win when batting second. Perhaps I should be writing this article about them.

Anyway, I’m not, so back to England.

The reason why I have decided to look into this particular topic isn’t so much that England lose more when they bat first, it’s how badly they lose when they do, why they lose so badly and why they play the way they do which leads to this. Let’s now take a look at England’s four worst recent performances when batting first, highlighting when each innings was at its most desperate point:

Opponent	Low point	Total	Chase
Australia, 2015	85/7 (20 overs)*	138/9 (33 overs)*	140/2 (24.2 overs)
South Africa, 2017	20/6 (5 overs)	153 (31.1 overs)	156/3 (28.5 overs)
Australia, 2018	8/5 (6.2 overs)	196 (44.5 overs)	197/7 (37 overs)
West Indies, 2019	113 (28.1 overs)	113 (28.1 overs)	115/3 (12.1 overs)

*Eoin Morgan had also retired hurt by this point, and did not resume his innings

Not pretty reading. The most recent entry, against the West Indies, is a bit on an exception to the rule insofar as the start innings, whilst bad, was not as dreadful as the other entries in the table – in this case, the lower order – supposedly a big part of England’s strength as a batting unit – subsided in short order, with No.s 8, 9 and 10 all dismissed for 0 (the No. 11, Mark Wood, did not face a ball).

In each of the first three cases, the opposite was true – the top and middle order failed, in two cases spectacularly, and each time the lower (and bits of the middle) order put in performances ranging from respectable to impressive, as follows:

Australia, 2015: 53 for the last two wickets (particularly impressive when you consider that England’s No. 11 in this match was Reece Topley)

South Africa, 2017: 133 for the last four wickets

Australia, 2018: 188 for the last five wickets

Also worth noting is the ease with which the opposition generally chased down the scores they had restricted England to. Only Australia wobbled slightly in their pursuit of the target – the other three matches ended with very comfortable wins of seven wickets or better. This shows that conditions were far from unplayable – certainly, the pitch was doing a bit in each of the innings and England probably had to bat when the pitch was at its spiciest, but the following descriptions of wickets falling from Cricinfo tell the story:

“4.5 throws the bat, thick-edged to second… England are five down! Superb catch from Faf du Plessis, that went very quickly as Buttler attempted to thrash it through the covers. Not quite as quickly as England are subsiding, but still 20/5”

“4.6 edged and gone – THIS IS ABSURD!!! Rashid goes for a big booming drive from his first ball, du Plessis scoops it up low to his left this time… and Rabada is on a hat-trick! Perhaps England are trying to get their shocker out of the way before the Champions Trophy, but this is golden-era awful from a country that knows a fair bit about being rubbish at ODIs 20/6”

“5.3 dug in, Root wafts at a pull, gets a big, ballooning top edge… and Hazlewood pockets the catch at fine leg! Root bags a duck and England are four down! Good pace and bounce, the bumper got too big for Root and he sent it right down the fielder’s gullet. This could get ugly 6/4“

“24.5 short of a length, and Moeen edges a flaccid drive to the keeper! Done by pace and bounce, as have several batsmen on this pitch… Not much of a surprise, given Moeen’s relative strengths and weaknesses, but that was nevertheless an accident waiting to happen against a quicker bowler like Thomas 111/6”

“26.3 short ball, Woakes pulls… and sends it tamely to midwicket! England sink further, again pace doing the trick! It was on him quickly, the bat turning in the hands, and it barely got off the square. A duck for Woakes on his birthday! 111/7”

Admittedly, I have cherry-picked some of the worst dismissals and there were also a number of dismissals where the batsman did little to nothing wrong and was undone by excellent bowling which made perfect use of the conditions on offer. That’s fine: it happens – I don’t like it, but there’s nothing you can do about it. What isn’t fine are talented players with a significant amount of international experience throwing their wickets away in the ways described above, with seemingly no regard for the match situation.

It’s a simplistic approach, but given how well England’s lower order performed in the first three matches in that table above, let’s assume that with a couple more of the batsmen playing intelligently, England had managed to add another one hundred runs to their eventual totals. What difference would that have made? Ok, so they’d probably still have lost the first two, but they’d most likely have won the third. Only one more win, but if this was in the context of a Champions’ Trophy or World Cup and that ‘one more win’ was the final, that’d would be sort of a big deal.

Now, as is often pointed out, England’s bowling attack is by no means world-beating, and more often than not they will struggle to defend a less-than-substantial total, which is the best England could have reasonably hoped for even if they’d applied themselves better after bad starts to those innings. Is this why, then, the adopt this ‘Sydney or the Bush’ approach, because they feel the only way they can win a match after a bad start is to continue attacking at all costs and hope they manage to put up a daunting total anyway? Perhaps this is the logic they work by, but I don’t think it should be. Though I wouldn’t expect England to defend, say, 250 very often, I’d back them to do it more frequently than I would them to reach 350 after being 10/3, 15/4 after five overs or thereabouts. And anyway, I can’t actually recall a time recently where England have made what you’d call a ‘big’ total after an outright bad start with the bat – all their biggest scores had come, if memory serves, when the start of their innings has been, at worst, merely decent. When things do go wrong, England’s batsmen need to cut their losses and show some faith in their bowlers.

Is there time for England to change before the World Cup, where rain and heavy use of the pitches could well conspire to offer up the conditions which they’ve tended to capitulate in? They have a few ODIs, mostly against Pakistan, before the start of the World Cup, so there’s a reasonable chance there will be a match where they bat first and start badly and hopefully, this time, apply themselves. Even if they still lose, if they can run it close – say Pakistan chase down 260 with two wickets in hand, hopefully it’ll help them realise that it’s the approach that will work more often than the one they currently seem to be blindly wedded to.

This year, England are hosting the World Cup for the first time in 20 years, and will no doubt want to give their home fans something to remember. Let’s just hope that the ‘something’ doesn’t turn out to be them reaching the final and getting bowled out with 30 overs.

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The Overview of Cricket Tradition in India

Cricket is undoubtedly the most popular outdoor sport in India. Each match draws enormous attention of millions of fans, especially if it is a clash with India’s arch-rival Pakistan. The India national cricket team news is definitely more important for the average Rajesh than the developments in national politics or economics.

No wonder that since the 19th century, cricket has been commonly referred to as the “gentlemen’s’ game”. There is a truth to that notion because cricket combines all characteristics of a true nobleman: honor and sportsmanship, passion and the thrill of competition, and of course graciousness and dignity in every move a professional cricketer makes. This sport has a long-standing tradition in the country and has become an integral part of Indian culture that is definitely worth knowing about.

A brief history of cricket in India

The first mentions of cricket date back to 1721, when a sailor from one of many merchant ships, which belonged to the East India Company, wrote in his diary that he and other members of the crew played the game of Kutch (that is how cricket was called back then) while waiting for the cargo to be loaded.

One can also find a vivid description of the colonial cricket in the famous novel The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club by Charles Dickens. The first official cricket match took place on March 1845 between the officers of the English colonial forces and sipahis, the professional infantrymen recruited within India. This fact was recorded in the Sporting Intelligence magazine. The first professional cricket club named the Parsee Oriental Cricket was established three years later in Mumbai (previously known as Bombay), the current capital city of Maharashtra, marking the cornerstone of the development of organized cricket in India. The native Indians have initially been forbidden to access to the club, with an exception for Parsees, who represented the influential Zoroastrian community.

The first official cricket match within the auspices of the Parsee Oriental Club was held in 1864, and saw the teams from Madras and Calcutta go against each other. Back then, the Indian players couldn’t afford their own equipment so they had to use the hand-downs of players from the Bombay Gymkhana, a cricket club organized strictly for European colonists. Despite these minor drawbacks, the Indians showed immense potential in playing cricket. Only three decades since the establishment of Oriental Club, precisely in 1895, the all-Indian cricket team went against the professional English side which was captained by Lord Hawke. It was the first competitive cricket match which took place within the framework of the tournament known as the Presidency matches.

The comprehensible development of cricket in India began since the 1900s. Local princes were so fascinated by the game that they invited tutors from Europe to improve the cricket skills of Indian players. In 1934, the Board of Control of Cricket, which is currently the main national governing body for that sport, organized the first Ranji Trophy which remains among the most popular cricket tournaments in India to date. In 1952, India celebrated the first ever official Test victory over the English side. Since that time, India has established a strong foothold on the global cricket arena.

1971 saw India winning their first Test series, which took place in England, and in 1983 they lifted the Cricket World Cup. Starting from 1985, India enjoys unquestionable authority in the realm of international cricket, winning 150 Tests, making the appearance in 11 One Day Internationals appearances (winning two trophies: in 1983 and 2011), participating in 115 Twenty20 matches, and winning one T20 World Cup in 2007.

The cricket structure in modern-day India

The domestic cricket in India is divided into several categories, namely the first class competitions, the limited over tournaments, and the Twenty20 fixtures. The first class competitions include the Ranji Trophy, the oldest cricket championship that has a two-division structure and accommodates 37 teams from all over India; the Duleep Trophy, which can be compared to the All-Star Games in the United States, features three teams that represent different regions of India. The Irani Cup was named in honor of Z.R. Irani, who was one of the founders of the Board of Control of Cricket.

The limited overs or List A incorporate the Deodhar Trophy, a 5-over knockout tournament between the teams called India A, B, and C; the NKP Salve Challenger Trophy played between 3 teams that include 36 finest cricketers in India; the Vijay Hazare Trophy played out among 27 teams that represent 5 zones of India. Lastly, the BCCI Corporate Trophy which is the recently established competition, the first game took place in 2009, and usually takes place right before the Ranji Tournament.

The Twenty20 tournaments are considered the most popular in India since they usually attract massive crowds of supporters. The Indian Premier League includes 8 teams from different cities and is played in the double round-robin format with playoffs. The Sued Mushtaq Ali Trophy  features as much as 27 teams that have to go through the knock out phase to win the tournament. The Indian Inter-State T20 Championship includes 27 teams from the Ranji Tournament which are split into 5 zones.

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Squadron Leader William John Edrich, DFC

The elder and most successful of four brothers who played First Class cricket Bill Edrich was one of the game’s great characters. Renowned for living life to the full he was also a fine cricketer as well as a very brave man who was, without a doubt, a genuine war hero.

The Edrich family came from Norfolk and it was for that county that Edrich first made an impact on the game. He had not long turned 16 when the 1932 Indian tourists turned up at Lakenham for a two day match. It was India’s first tour as a Test playing nation and three weeks later they played their inaugural Test, the only one allocated to them that summer. They lost the Test by 158 runs, but emerged with considerable credit, in particular a burly fast bowler, Mohammad Nissar.

At Lakenham Norfolk started well, dismissing the tourists for just 101 with Edrich bowling eight economical overs in which he took 1-11. The conditions were good for bowling however, and Norfolk were shot out for just 49, Nissar taking 6-14. Edrich came to the wicket with the score 21-5 and Nissar in full cry. He added 25 with one of another cricketing brotherhood, Desmond Rought-Rought, who contributed just four. Edrich’s 20 was the only double figure score in the innings.

India did rather better in their second innings and in bowling Norfolk out for 128 second time round secured, with Nissar this time taking 8-43, a comfortable victory. Edrich again batted skilfully and scored 16, third top score, before Nissar bowled him. Impressive performances for Norfolk brought a Middlesex trial for Edrich in early 1934 and, successful in that, he then spent three seasons waiting for his residential qualification to enable him to play in Championship. In the meantime in five matches in 1936 Edrich scored three centuries and, finally able to play regularly in 1937, he began his county career with more than 2,000 runs.

It is as a batsman that Edrich is primarily remembered. Not a tall man he was, in common with many shorter batsmen, particularly strong square of the wicket. Under the wing of the veteran ‘Patsy’ Hendren both Edrich and Compton were terrific hookers of the fastest bowling, but Edrich had an excellent all round game. In his early years he could match anyone in the country as a strokemaker. As the 1950s wore on and the lightning reflexes dulled a little he became much steadier, and then demonstrated a defensive technique as sound as any.

In the years before the war Edrich was only an occasional bowler, but for the first few summers afterwards, with both England and Middlesex having limited pace bowling resources, he became something approaching a genuine all-rounder. Unsophisticated in the extreme Edrich would charge up to the wicket and bowl as fast as he could with a slinging action not unlike that of Jeff Thomson two generations later. He didn’t move the ball very much, but was distinctly sharp and could hurry the best. Later he did develop an off cutter but the legacy of a shoulder injury suffered in 1947 meant that after that he was never truly fast again. Edrich was also an excellent slip fielder, his athleticism enabling him to bring off some spectacular catches.

After their exploits in 1947 Edrich’s name became inextricably linked with that of Denis Compton. The glamorous Compton set a new record for a season’s run scoring with 3,816, shattering the old record by almost 300 runs. Edrich too beat the old mark, with 3,539. In addition to their wonderful batting the love of a good party was certainly something else the pair had in common, and both were also fine footballers. Compo played on the wing for England in wartime internationals and famously won an FA Cup winners medal with Arsenal in his last appearance for the club in 1950. Edrich was also a winger and by the 1936/37 season had forced his way into the first team of the then second division Tottenham Hotspur. In that winter however he suffered an ankle injury against Swansea but, unlike with the ‘Compton knee’, the owner of the ‘Edrich ankle’ was persuaded that he should give up the winter game.

There was no official England tour over the winter of 1937/38 but a strong side led by Lionel Tennyson did travel to India and, by way of confirmation that the selectors had noticed him Edrich was selected. He had a decent tour as well, averaging more than 46, and that paved the way for a bittersweet 1938 summer for him. It was sweet because he begun the season by becoming the seventh man to score 1,000 runs before the end of May, and was therefore deservedly selected for the first Test of that summer’s Ashes series. He stayed in the side for the whole series, but 67 runs in six completed innings was a disappointing return. Three times he fell victim to ‘Tiger’ O’Reilly, and Edrich never quite shook off a reputation that he was vulnerable to wrist spin.

Despite his disappointments in the Tests Edrich still enjoyed a productive season in 1938, scoring almost 2,400 at more than 52, and he was selected in the party for South Africa for what proved to be the last England tour before the Second World War.  In the first Test he was asked to open the innings, and scored 4 and 10. The second Test followed immediately and Edrich moved to the middle order. In his only innings he did not trouble the scorers. In the third Test he didn’t get to the crease at all, England’s first five batsmen scoring all the runs that were needed, and then in the fourth, now batting at seven and opening the bowling, he scored just 6. He was probably fortunate to play in the last, timeless Test, but 150 and 45* against Natal in the only game between the two matches, coupled with his ability to bowl a few hostile overs kept him in the side. In the first innings he scored just a single. At this point his miserable average after nine Tests was exactly eight.

The ‘Timeless Test’ is part of the game’s folklore. Both captains played defensively and despite its name the match eventually had to be left drawn to enable the Englishmen to make the boat home. Their fourth innings target was 696, and when time ran out they were 654-5, so nearly there. Coming into this match Edrich was understandably low on confidence. Throughout his fledgling Test career Edrich had taken all the advice going in his preparation and whilst on Test duty had turned away from his usual party animal lifestyle, but the night before England began their chase he had been invited to a get together at the home of his old Middlesex teammate ‘Tuppy’ Owen-Smith who, a decade earlier, had been capped five times by South Africa.

It was a good party and alcohol flowed freely. Edrich did get to bed eventually, albeit not until long into the night and only then with some assistance. He was therefore somewhat the worse for wear when his captain Walter Hammond, not noted for his man-management skills, took him on one side next morning. Hammond told Edrich he was promoting him to number three and left him with the words; If you can get a couple of hundred we have a chance. Coming in on Hutton’s dismissal at 78 Edrich hit his first ball for four and proceeded to share a partnership of 280 with Paul Gibb, and then one of 87 with Hammond before being dismissed for 219. He had arrived at last.

Perversely Edrich lost his Test place after that double century. Fresh from a season with Arsenal Compton returned to the side for the visit of West Indies in 1939 and with him Joe Hardstaff came back into the team, so there was no place for Edrich. A summer with Middlesex brought him 2,000 runs again at almost fifty an innings.

In October of 1939 Edrich applied to join air crew, but heard nothing. In the end he decided to join the Physical Training Unit and worked his way to Flying School from there. Qualified as a pilot Edrich was posted home to Norfolk where he flew a Bristol Blenheim. Described as a ‘light bomber’ the Blenheim is nothing like so famous as the renowned heavy bomber, the Lancaster, and in truth was in many ways already obsolete by the time war broke out.

One advantage that the Blenheim did have, by virtue of its size, was the ability to fly low to the ground, and many of Edrich’s bombing runs involved maintain a flying height of less than 100 feet, the purpose being to avoid detection by German radar. Any pilot who could maintain those heights was a skilful one and Edrich survived to complete a full tour despite extensive attention from enemy fighters, anti-aircraft batteries and the perils of maintaining the correct altitude while, presumably, avoiding numerous obstacles. The Blenheims did however suffer heavy losses, and Edrich lost many friends and was never allowed to forget the fragility of life. Always a man who knew how to enjoy himself most who knew Edrich believed his war shaped the hedonistic lifestyle that he pursued for the rest of his days.

On 12 August 1941 Edrich, now an acting Squadron Leader, was the pilot of one of 54 Blenheims tasked with attacking two major power stations in Cologne, so it was 750 miles of low altitude flying. The success of the mission was tempered for those involved by the fact that only 42 of the Blenheims returned. Edrich was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his efforts, the citation reading; Squadron Leader Edrich led his formation in at exactly the right height and time, all aircraft dropping the bombs in the centre of the target area. By carrying out his orders with the greatest exactitude and determination, he must be given credit for a large part of the success of the attack.

His tour concluded Edrich’s flying duties ended and his role changed, spending time teaching the next generation and eventually being heavily involved in the preparations for D-Day. He was allowed time away from his duties to play in the five ‘Victory Tests’ in 1945. Eventually demobbed in December 1945 Edrich was offered a permanent commission by the RAF, and a dispute with Middlesex that resulted in the offer of just a one year contract for 1946 mean that must have been tempting, but cricket won the battle in the end.

In that 1946 season Edrich missed out on 2,000 runs, although he still averaged almost fifty. With the ball he had by far his best return to that date and indeed it was to remain his best summer as a bowler as he took 73 wickets at 19.28. He missed out on selection for the first two Tests against the touring Indians, and although chosen for the rain ruined third Edrich didn’t get to the crease, although with 4-68 in India’s first innings he did secure his best Test bowling figures. He did do enough to earn selection for the 1946/47 Ashes party however, although only just as his name was the last to be announced. The selectors’ decision proved to be a sound one. Edrich proved to be one of the tour’s successes averaging 46.20 with the bat despite failing twice at the ‘Gabba when faced with a sticky wicket, and getting one of the worst lbw decisions in Test history at Melbourne when he was 89 and looking set for a century.

Whilst in Australia Edrich was offered the opportunity to join a financial consultancy, so faced decisions about his future again. This time he didn’t have to consider abandoning cricket, as his prospective employers were keen that he should continue to play for Middlesex, but that would involve changing his status from professional to amateur. The real issue was whether or not to give up the prospect of a lucrative benefit. His status as a popular player would have guaranteed a decent sum anyway, but add in Edrich’s war time exploits and it must have been likely that a well organised benefit would have raised a life changing sum.

On the other hand the switch to amateur status would have made the prospect of becoming England captain a real one, and there is no doubt that that would have been attractive to Edrich. In the end he chose to accept the offer and therefore from 1947 Edrich played as an amateur. He never did get the England captaincy, but led Middlesex from 1951 to 1957. As far as the financial consultancy work is concerned he was successful at that as well and enjoyed an income well in excess of that which a professional contract would have rewarded him with. His tendency to live life to the full did however mean that he got through that income, and in retirement he must have regretted not taking some of his own advice and making rather better provision for himself than he did.

In cricketing terms the change of status coincided with that glorious summer of cricket in England which brought such welcome relief from the austerity of the times. In addition to his runs Edrich also found the energy to take 67 inexpensive wickets.

The touring South Africans suffered at the hands of Compton and Edrich as much as the counties and, the post war attendance boom still at its height, many thousands had the pleasure of watching the ‘Middlesex Twins’ cementing their places in the nation’s affections.  Like his teammates Edrich found the 1948 Australians a challenge, but he did pretty well in attempting to blunt the twin threats of Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller. His employers wanting to see him in the office in the winters of 1947/48 and 1948/49 meant that Edrich was unavailable for the MCC tours to West Indies and South Africa but at home he was a fixture in the England side until 1950 when, in somewhat absurd circumstances he found himself, effectively, suspended for three years.

By the end of the 1950 summer a new power had appeared in the world game as West Indies comfortably beat England 3-1 in a four Test series. England’s victory came in the first Test on a poor wicket at Old Trafford. There had been an early collapse, but the day had been saved by wicketkeeper Godfrey Evans, who scored his first Test century. There was a party to celebrate the achievement and, as was his wont, Edrich had a fine time and plenty to drink. He did eventually get to bed, but had to be helped to his room by the hotel night porter.

So far so good, and despite his state of inebriation Edrich went out and top scored in the second England innings. The problem was that the occupant of the next door room to his in the hotel was Bob Wyatt, the Chairmen of Selectors, and Wyatt had been woken by the commotion that accompanied Edrich’s return to his room. In the morning Wyatt made it clear to Edrich that he found his conduct reprehensible, and that he would be reporting his behaviour to Lord’s. During the second Test a disciplinary meeting took place and Pelham Warner, a great admirer of Edrich, invited Edrich to withdraw his name for consideration for the forthcoming Ashes series in Australia.  Edrich of course refused, but that was that for three years. There was no stated outcome as such, merely non-selection. The decisive factor seems to have been that the England skipper, Freddie Brown, did not want Edrich in Australia.

Warner always maintained that had Brown wanted Edrich he would have been picked, so perhaps that is true, but in his 1954 autobiography Brown managed to avoid the subject altogether. In any event in 1953 it was, of all people, Brown and Wyatt who finally held out the olive branch and, England struggling to find a reliable opening partner for Len Hutton, picked Edrich for the third Ashes Test.

1953 was Coronation year. The Ashes had been held by Australia since 1934, but that summer the two sides were more closely matched than for years. Edrich did little more than see off the new ball in the rain ruined third Test, but in the fourth a second innings 64 was instrumental in England avoiding defeat. There was another half century in the second innings at the Oval when England finally recorded the victory that brought the Ashes home. Fittingly the winning runs were hit by Compton, with Edrich at the non-striker’s end.

In 1954 Edrich played just once against Pakistan as the selectors experimented with options for the 1954/55 Ashes series. One of the new players was Frank Tyson, who later played a major role in the Ashes being retained. In 1954 he broke Edrich’s cheek in a county match, forcing Edrich, who had scored just a single at the time, to retire hurt leaving a good deal of blood on the pitch. The close came soon after and next day Edrich, his head swathed in bandages, ignored all advice and came out to bat again and scored another 19 runs. Edrich, as befits a war hero, never lacked courage. In the return fixture at Northampton a week later he scored a century.

By now Edrich was 38 and not the batsman he had been and although he was selected for the touring party, and then for four of the Tests in 1954/55 he did not bat well, his one significant innings being a battling 88 in the second innings of England’s heavy defeat in the first Test. There was a duck in Edrich’s final Test innings, so hardly a fitting end to the Test career of man not too far short of the top rank of English batsmen. He ended up with 2,440 runs at an average of exactly 40.00. Disregard the poor start and poor end to his career and the average would have been not far short of fifty.

Edrich retired from First Class cricket in 1958. He was not the batsmen he had once been but he was certainly not lost to the game, picking up the threads of his Norfolk career and playing Minor Counties cricket. His last appearance for the county of his birth was as late as 1971, when he was 55. A year before that he had appeared in a competitive match at Lord’s for the last time, a first round Gillette Cup tie. It was, as such games usually were, a one sided one and Middlesex won by 147 runs, but the old warhorse was the top scorer against the side with whom he made his name, scoring 36 out of 117 including 22 in an over from seamer Keith Jones.

Altogether four Edrich brothers played First Class cricket in the years following the Second Word War. Bill was the only one to play at Test level but Geoff, who played for Lancashire, was a fine batsman and at his best must have been close to the England side. Wicketkeeper/batsman Eric played at Lancashire for a couple of seasons with Geoff, and scored a century against Yorkshire. Brian was an all-rounder  who played for Kent and Glamorgan, but without ever fully establishing himself with either. Cousin John, a few years younger, was to become the most successful Edrich of them all.

On the subject of family Edrich was married five times. He was 20 when he first tied the knot in 1936. That marriage ended in divorce in 1944 and straight away Edrich married again. This time the marriage lasted four years before another marriage a year later proved rather more enduring, for eleven years. When that relationship ended in 1960 he again married almost immediately, this time for thirteen years. After that marriage ended in 1973 Edrich waited ten years before marrying for the fifth and final time. Edrich had one son by each of the third and fourth marriages and whilst he doubtless sorely tried the patience of all his wives none of the divorces seem to have been acrimonious.

Three years after his fifth marriage, on St George’s Day in 1986 Edrich, who had recently celebrated his seventieth birthday, attended a lunch time celebration. Still a great bon viveur he enjoyed himself immensely amongst old friends, comrades and teammates and the champagne flowed. A chauffeur driven Rolls Royce owned by one of the wealthy industrialists who attended the function took Edrich home in the evening. He was in high spirits and enjoying telling his wife about his day when he went upstairs, for some reason overbalanced and fell back down. There was a fracture to the base of the skull and Edrich died soon afterwards.

It was a sudden and unexpected end to a life well lived, and further sadness was inflicted on the Edrich family a few months later when Bill’s widow was tragically killed in a road accident. A post mortem concluded that Edrich was a man in fine fettle who, but for his fall, might well have lived for many more years although in many ways, given the way he lived his life, growing old would not have suited Bill Edrich.

from Cricket Web https://ift.tt/2ToR7ok