CLR James – The Black Plato

Cyril Lionel Robert James, universally known simply as ‘CLR’ is, thanks to the acclaim heaped upon Beyond a Boundary, one of the best known names in cricket writing. Back in 2013, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of its release we published a feature on the subject of the book, and we have now republished that here to accompany this feature.

Born and brought up in a small town near Trinidad’s capital, Port of Spain, CLR’s father was a teacher, and his mother a habitual reader who helped to foster her son’s passion for literature. His strict upbringing made sure that CLR won an exhibition to enable him, at the age of nine, to attend Queen’s Royal College, the leading school on the island.

Although he might have been an outstanding scholar CLR, having succumbed to the temptations cricket offered, did not achieve all he might have at school. He was a good cricketer, a useful opening bowler and a competent batsman, although he never appeared at First Class level. CLR’s first career was as a teacher, for a time at his alma mater where, amongst others, he taught the future Test cricketers Victor and Jeffrey Stollmeyer, and the man who would later lead Trinidad to independence, Eric Williams.

During the 1920s CLR pursued his interest in cricket, and became a close friend of the great all-rounder Learie Constantine. He also did some writing in the press, and developed his interest in Marxism and his support for Andre Cipriani, a French Creole who built a strong labour movement in Trinidad.

In 1932, by which time he was 31, CLR decided to leave Trinidad for the UK. Constantine, by now one of the world’s best cricketers, invited CLR to join him in Nelson where he was a huge star in the Lancashire League. Part of the reasoning behind the move was to assist CLR to assist Constantine with writing his autobiography. When he arrived CLR had with him the initial manuscripts of two books, the first was the autobiography which, as Cricket and I, appeared in Constantine’s name in 1933. The other book was a biography of Cipriani.

Having arrived in Nelson Constantine introduced CLR to Neville Cardus. Cardus was shown a piece written by CLR after catching sight of the then 59 year old Sydney Barnes in a Lancashire League match. Much impressed Cardus made sure the piece appeared in the Manchester Guardian in September of 1932, and CLR was taken on to the newspaper’s staff.

After six years with the Manchester Guardian CLR travelled to North America. He met Leon Trotsky in Mexico, and lived in the US until 1953 when, his visa having run out, he was threatened with deportation if he did not leave. He did not obey immediately but returned to the UK after a period of internment. There was a reunion with both cricket and the Manchester Guardian. CLR remained then in the UK until 1958 at which point he was invited, by his former pupil Williams, to return to Trinidad as independence beckoned. The job he took was an opportunity to influence events as editor of a newspaper, The Nation.

One of the issues debated in the pages of The Nation was a tentative agreement reached, in 1959, for a private West Indian tour of South Africa. It is a curious episode that I have found it impossible to discover too much about. The essence of the story, which seems to have broken in the April, was that Frank Worrell had been persuaded to take a side to South Africa. It would be interesting to know exactly what was agreed, but whatever the conditions were they seem to have been acceptable to both the visitors and the South African government. Matches against multi-racial teams were planned, but the tourists would be subject to the usual laws of the land.

In April the tour was the subject of a letter published in The Nation. The writer of the missive in question was Constantine, by now returned to the country of his birth and involved in politics. Constantine was opposed to the tour. He believed that by agreeing to the conditions placed on them by the South African government the West Indies were, effectively, condoning apartheid, and in doing so that tacit approval would suggest to the rest of the world that apartheid was acceptable.

By the time I reached my adolescent years the constant repetition of arguments like Constantine’s had become that old mantra; no normal sport in an abnormal society and as the 1970s dawned the South Africans were, finally, sent into exile as a result of the plainly abhorrent apartheid policy. It came as a surprise to learn therefore, some years later, that CLR had disagreed with Constantine on the subject of the South African tour, and felt that Worrell and his men should have gone.

CLR’s view, articulated in a response in The Nation, was that the African people should not be denied their desire to measure themselves against the outside world. He did not accept the argument that agreeing the conditions demanded by the South African government implied acceptance of apartheid, and cited the example of his own experience supporting the sharecroppers in the southern USA. CLR made the point that during his six months in that community, organising strikes, he believed that his time spent subject to the strict segregation laws in force at the time served only to undermine those laws. The reply was not a short one. CLR spent around 800 words justifying his belief the tour should go ahead.

Something else that CLR wrote of the proposed tour was that the whole world is talking about it, which makes it all the more curious that the story seems to have disappeared. In particular no mention of the proposed tour appears in Michael Manley’s History of West Indian Cricket, nor Andre Odendaal’s Cricket – The History of an African Game, both important works where mention of such a tour might have been expected.

Of course the tour didn’t happen, although it is difficult to establish exactly what prevented it. Certainly the President of the BCCI, Ratilal Patel, spoke out strongly in support of the Constantine view, but eventually it was Worrell’s decision to abandon the project. Initially swayed by CLR, who was one of the great advocates of his being appointed as captain of the West Indies, the seed for the change of mind seems to have been sown in Worrell’s mind by an old acquaintance from his days as a Lancashire League professional, the English jazz musician and great cricket enthusiast Vic Lewis. When the pair met after the tour had been set up Lewis, a white man, had just returned from a tour of South Africa and was able to pass on to Worrell his first hand knowledge of just how bad conditions in the country were.

Other than his original letter I have not been able to find anything additional from CLR on the subject of the 1959 tour, but I suspect he was in a minority, and in time he certainly changed his views. Towards the end of his life, when he was living in Brixton in South London, CLR was interviewed by The Cricketer, and expressed his support for those who condemned the West Indian rebel tours to South Africa in strident terms; they have an unanswerable case. I don’t feel South Africa has made any progress with multi-racial sport. Black people who live there say they haven’t. I have been asked to go and told I could be smuggled out of the airport and shown the country, but I have always declined. The black intellectuals would be angry.

A year later CLR left The Nation, having fallen out with Williams on questions of the creation of a federation in the West Indies and a US Naval Base in Trinidad. He returned to London in 1962 and, of course, Beyond a Boundary was published the following year. CLR continued to travel and the extent of his influence is best illustrated when, in 1965, he visited Trinidad only to find his former friend Williams, then in conflict with the Unions, was prepared to place him under house arrest for fear of the problems CLR’s presence might cause. It was only the ensuing public outcry that secured CLR’s release.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s CLR moved between the UK, the US and Caribbean and also spent time in Africa where he was involved in independence movements that swept through that region as well as the Caribbean. He lectured widely and wrote extensively on political matters leaving him little time for cricket writing.

In 1981 CLR turned 80 and was invited to London by the Race Today Collective to make a short series of speeches. It was then that he decided to relocate to London, and he rented a small flat above the Race Today Collective offices in Brixton. He wrote for the organisation’s journal, and had more time to write about cricket. The man who The Times dubbed the Black Plato was 88 when he died in Brixton in 1989.

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Beyond a Boundary – Half a Century on

I would have liked to call this article It was fifty years ago today. The comparison would have been fitting. A play on the opening words of the title track of one of the most acclaimed albums of all time introducing an article about the most lauded cricket book ever written. The fact that I am unable to do so is because I cannot, with absolute certainty, establish the exact date on which CLR James’ seminal Beyond a Boundary first hit the nation’s bookstalls. That said I am confident that I am not far away, as sometime newspaper editor turned cricket writer, historian and herdsman Andrew Renshaw assures me that his birthday money, received at the beginning of May 1963, enabled him to purchase his copy on publication, a few days after his celebration.

In light of the importance of James’ contribution to cricket literature it must be right to start any article about Beyond a Boundary with the thoughts of today’s pre-eminent writer on the game, David Frith, and Cricketweb are particularly grateful to him for sharing his views with us:-

I’ve long ago lost count of the number of people who have murmured what a remarkable book is C.L.R.James’s “Beyond a Boundary”. Many have proclaimed it to be the greatest of the lot. Since there just happen to be over 10,000 cricket books, that is some statement.

Most of us have a mischievous element about us, and one way in which mine expresses itself is by asking these same people when did they actually read this book, or perhaps even how many times had they read it? To my amusement, the reply more often than not takes the form of a confession: “Well, I haven’t actually read it.” Then, after an embarrassed pause: “But I certainly intend to read it some time soon!”

Much of the responsibility for this fog-enshrouded ranking lies at the feet of John Arlott. In the book reviews section of the 1964 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack he wrote: “1963 has been marked by the publication of a cricket book so outstanding as to compel any reviewer to check his adjectives several times before he describes it and, since he is likely to be dealing in superlatives, to measure them carefully to avoid over-praise – which this book does not need. It is “Beyond a Boundary”, by C.L.R.James and, in the opinion of this reviewer, it is the finest book written about the game of cricket.”

Arlott, king among commentators and no mean prose-writer and poet himself, went on to name two other top-shelf cricket volumes: John Nyren’s early classic Young Cricketer’s Tutor (specifically the Cricketers of My Time section) and Hugh de Selincourt’s novel The Cricket Match. But James’s book, he believed, was more profound than either. Indeed, he knew of no book on any sport which compared. It cannot be ruled out that John was heavily influenced by CLR’s political stance, which was some way left of centre.

This, then, remains the ultimate claim on behalf of any cricket book. But it was penned nigh on half-a-century ago. Since then, tons and tons of cricket books have been published, some of high class, some just about worthy of the reader’s attention, and others an insult to intelligent men. What, then, is the substance of the book? Years after first reading it, my principal recall is of some fascinating insights into school cricket and unusual players in Trinidad and profiles of some world-famous West Indies players, shifting to a broader sweep which includes references to George Headley’s bowel motions on a match day. Now that, as far as I could tell, was a subject never touched upon in the game’s literary history.

CLR was a revolutionary, fighting (with words) the black man’s cause, while broadmindedly relishing the virtues of classic English literature and culture. This could be confusing, until you accepted him as a man of broad intellect and soul. His heroes were both black and white. That’s quite rare. He was very well read.

I went to see him in the 1980s, at a small gathering in Brixton, sitting at his knee as he spoke of this and that in a high-pitched voice that sounded like fingernails scraping over glass. An exceptionally tall octogenarian with a great mop of white hair, he signed my copy of his famous book, and further personally inscribed his Modern Politics and Radical America.

“What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?” That has become the talismanic sentence from this classic book. Well, sir, the way politicians continue to mess the world up, maybe cricket is the only thing worth knowing, notwithstanding the despicable way its followers are so often treated by some who have grasped the responsibility of running the game.

Frith may be a cricket tragic, but he is undoubtedly sane. A near contemporary of his, Major Rowland Bowen, was another cricket tragic, although he was most certainly not entirely sane. This article is neither the time nor the place to discuss Bowen’s foibles, or his status as a cricket historian. But the erudite and scholarly Cricket Quarterly, which was published under his aegis between 1963 and 1971, and noted for what were without question the most acerbic reviews of cricket books ever written, described Beyond a Boundary simply as in the settled opinion of this reviewer, the best book on cricket that has ever been written.

Barbados-born Professor Keith Sandiford, an alumnus of the University Of West Indies amongst other renowned seats of learning, spent almost all of his working life teaching history at the University of Manitoba in Canada. Now enjoying his retirement, although perhaps not as much as he would wish the performances of his beloved West Indies, Professor Sandiford told Cricketweb:-

I regard CLR as unarguably the brightest of all Trinidadians. He was at once a novelist, playwright, philosopher, historian, sociologist and political activist. He is fondly remembered variously as music critic, editor of eclectic journals, lecturer on diverse subjects and cricket correspondent. There was, indeed, no facet of the human experience in which the great “Nello” did not manifest a keen and lively interest.

Among his umpteen articles, pamphlets and books, the best known and perhaps the most influential of his works are “The Black Jacobins” (1938), the seminal study of the Haitian Revolution, and “Beyond a Boundary” (1963) which literally spawned a new genre of scholarly writing — the historical sociology of sport. This latter masterpiece has led a multitude of scholars to ask ourselves: “What do we know of modern culture who only cricket know?” I have also been asking myself and others “What can we, who do not cricket know, really know of Caribbean society?”

It was James who forced me to rethink my cricket, my history, my politics and my sociology. He is one of the few people whom I have profoundly regretted never having met. His writing has always left me marvelling at the profundity of his thought and the phenomenal range of his knowledge. He was the Aristotle of his generation, for no other thinker of the 20th century, so far as I am aware, has written so well on such a wide spectrum of topics, Few scholars of any age have treated the emotional subjects of class, race and gender with CLR James’s understanding and sympathy.

The most obvious thing that Frith, Bowen and Sandiford have in common is that they were there when Beyond a Boundary happened. Does the book mean the same to those who came afterwards? Stuart Wark reviewed the book for Cricketweb in 2007. Stuart’s review amply illustrates the importance of the book, but makes the telling observation …. it seems popular to now criticise “Beyond a Boundary” for being overly intellectual, complicated and difficult to read. These criticisms are not without some merit, but they are to overlook the point of the book. It is a product of a time of massive change, of social, political and economic upheaval.

David Taylor is another who first encountered the book many years after publication; It was only about a year ago that I finally got around to purchasing “Beyond a Boundary”, which I know is one of the most acclaimed books on cricket ever written. It soon became apparent that this was like no other cricket book I’d read, indeed, as John Arlott noted in his review in Wisden 1964, “to some it may not seem like a cricket book at all.” Arlott lavished praise on the book and it’s not difficult to see why he, a well-read man, would have been so impressed, but it is hard going in places for those of us accustomed to more lightweight offerings from the last thirty years or so.

The book is partly autobiographical and it is clear that James was no bad player himself, although he never played at first-class, or as he usually refers to it, inter-colonial level. He was friendly with George Headley and Learie Constantine and spent much time with Constantine in England; what he has to say about these two is always worth reading. His piece on the little-known Wilton St Hill makes me wish I’d seen him in action, while the fast bowler George John sounds a singular character. There’s plenty, too, on those iconic figures Garfield Sobers and Frank Worrell, who was interviewed by James shortly after the famous 1960-61 tour of Australia.

Perhaps I’m one of those “who only cricket know.” I enjoyed this book very much while James was dealing with the cricket, but I was less taken with the politics and the philosophy. A chapter running to 23 pages entitled ‘What is Art?’ was far from a page-turner for me, while others with titles in Latin were equally off-putting. I wouldn’t want to come across as some character from an HM Bateman cartoon, “The Man who tried reading ‘Beyond a Boundary’ and found he didn’t enjoy it all that much” while learned critics look on in horror; I understand that it’s an important work, but I wonder whether it is widely read these days, and if not, whether there’s a need for it to be discovered by the IPL generation.

To spread the net wider I asked Archie Mac what he thought of the book and, the man who set up Cricketweb’s Book Review section, is rather more Taylor than Frith, commenting:-

I first heard of this book while reading Brian Crowley’s Cavalcade of Cricketers, which he listed as one of the three best books ever written about cricket, – frustratingly he did not list the other two! – so I quickly added “Beyond a Boundary” to my bucket list.

By the time I finally secured a copy, some 12 years later, I had a severe case of deja vu, as it seems every second anthology that I had read featured at least one piece culled from James’ book, which may be a poignant assessment of the book’s quality. As I had spent far too many hours hungrily devouring every book I could afford on the greatest of all games and anthologies tend to be reasonably priced, they made up a large portion of my then pauper’s cricket book collection.

I found the book itself to be beautifully written, if heavily opinionated and I can still recall the writing on Constantine, which inspired me to track down biographies on arguably the greatest ever all-rounder. Although perhaps the piece of writing that has stayed with me most, is his incredulous response to USA College basketball players on the “take” and how much importance James placed on the ethics of cricket.

In the end I think I waited too long, or I simply built up “Beyond a Boundary” too much in my mind. I would not say I was disappointed because I did enjoy the book, however it would simply not make my own top ten list let alone the top three as Brian Crowley, and for that matter many other distinguished cricket writers and historians had ranked it.

I hate to admit it, but I find myself agreeing with another cricket tragic who wrote “Beyond a Boundary” would be twice the book if half the length.

I was beginning to thing that perhaps there is a generational divide, but then asking Dave Wilson his opinion reminded me that nothing is that simple. Dave’s comments on Beyond a Boundary suggest that the age at which the book is read may be of more significance:-

I can’t remember exactly when I first read the book, but I do recall I was going through a bit of an intellectual phase, and it appealed to me on more than one level, as it is part-philosophical, part-autobiographical and part-cricket.

Chapter headings such as “What Do Men Live By” and “What is Art?” were enough to satisfy my more cerebral longings, however in the final analysis it is James’s discussions on cricket which are what has given the book its lasting appeal. He brings to life his heroes of old such as Wilton St Hill and George Challenor, and of course much is shared on his lifelong friendship with the great Learie Constantine.

James has interesting points to make on the genesis of Bodyline, in that the tactics employed were of their violent time rather than to stop one man. He also intimates that if Hobbs had been born in 1910 England would have produced their own Bradman, so much had the times changed.

But it is the section on WG Grace which I enjoyed most. James admirably assesses his place in history as well as cricket, and the times and people which produced the game in the grandly titled “Prolegomena to WG”. It is perhaps ironic that Grace would never have read such a book – James tells a story of the great man rebuking another player for reading in the dressing room with a withering “I am never caught that way!”

For me the acquisition of a first edition of Beyond a Boundary, shortly after I acquired my 1964 Wisden in the mid 1980s, was my first “collector’s item”. Encouraged by Arlott’s superlatives I immediately opened the book, but found it slow going, and the arrival of a long-awaited copy of Harold Larwood’s 1965 autobiography displaced it in my reading list and, despite a couple more false starts in the interim, it wasn’t until this article was first mooted a few months ago that I actually completed it, just in time to avoid falling prey to David Frith’s “mischievous element”.

At the end of the day it is with some diffidence that I find I have to agree with David and Archie. I did greatly enjoy parts of the book, but was left scarcely moved by others. I wondered whether it might simply be a little dated, and like many publications of the period not stood the test of time quite as well as it might have. But on reflection I don’t think that is the answer. It seems to me that the simple truth is that Beyond a Boundary has reaped what it sowed. James, to a greater or lesser extent, whether directly or indirectly, has influenced every worthwhile cricket writer that followed him and the inevitable consequence is that to David, Stuart, Archie and myself his magnum opus did not break new ground in the way that it did for Messrs Frith, Bowen, Sandiford and their contemporaries. It might have been different had it been, as it was for Dave, one of our earliest forays into the literature of the game, but as time marches on new readers will increasingly start with the 21st century perspectives of the Gideon Haighs and Michael Athertons of this world, rather those of CLR James. I will therefore concede that the impact of Beyond a Boundary may not be what it once was, but I am equally certain that its importance is undiminished.

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Cricket Writing’s First Classic

There were a few books about cricket published in the 18th century, most notably the first ten editions of Britcher’s Scores, a series of books that is without doubt the most desirable in the literature of the game. Ultimately however the books were what the title indicated, simply lists of scores, as was a similar single volume published by William Epps in 1799.

As the 1800s dawned Britcher continued for five more years. Two decades later Henry Bentley also put together a famous book of scores. Thomas Boxall wrote a book of instruction in 1801 and Baxter, and then Lambert, produced publications about the laws and techniques of the game.

Occasionally cricket was celebrated in works of poetry, titles such as Surrey Triumphant and the Kentish Men’s Defeat, The Kentish Cricketers and The Noble Cricketers all appearing in the late 18th century. Probably the most famous of them all, James Love’s Cricket, an Heroic Poem, was first published in 1744.

In the late 18th century a small Hampshire village, Hambledon, boasted one of the strongest teams in the country. Matches were played on the famous Broadhalfpenny Down, opposite the Bat and Ball Inn. One of the club’s leading players was Richard Nyren who, for a time, was mine host at the Bat and Ball. In 1791, aged almost 60, Nyren left the Bat and Ball for London and Hambledon’s time as one of the main centres of the game in England came to an end.

Nyren had a son, John, who was born in 1764. John’s name appears on a few scorecards from the time but he was nothing like the cricketer his father was. He was however, in 1833, responsible for the first cricket book that contained any sort of descriptive content. The book came in two distinct parts. Part One was The Young Cricketers Tutor which, the cover stated, comprised full directions for playing the elegant and manly game of cricket with a complete version of its laws and regulations. There was therefore nothing new in that, but as the title page went on, added to that was Part Two, The Cricketers of My Time which consisted of Recollections of the Most Famous Old Players.

Also indicated on the cover of the book was that it was collected and edited by Charles Cowden Clarke. Clarke was an author himself, a publisher and very much a man of letters. Historians have differing views as to the respective influences of Clarke and Nyren on the finished product of the book. For these purposes however that matters little. The fact is the book exists and, to a greater or lesser extent it would appear it was Clarke ghosting Nyren as the latter recounted his memories of his father and Hambledon cricket in the late 18th century.

It is clear that Part One of the book largely apes its predecessors, Boxall, Baxter and Lambert. The Cricketers of My Time however, and a brief third section described as The Memoranda, have a hollowed place in the annals of the game. Writing in 1957, so before he became rheumy of eye and his vision too dominated by the past, John Arlott described it as still the finest study of cricket and cricketers ever written. A decade on from that the maverick historian and notoriously difficult to please Rowland Bowen described the book as outstanding as literature.

In 1893 writer and book dealer Alfred Gaston wrote this is the most charming of all cricket books. Andrew Lang in the volume on cricket in the Badminton Library made the observation that; if Love was the Homer of cricket, Nyren was undoubtedly the Herodotus. A century on from the book’s publication G Neville Weston commented, whilst writing a small book devoted to a bibliographical treatise on the various editions of Nyren; this work is undoubtedly the classic of cricket literature. More recently Ashley Mote, who devoted a significant part of his life to studying the book and those mentioned in it, described it in 1998 as cricket’s first and greatest work of literature.

So how does Nyren read? It certainly conjures up the pride that the men who played on Broadhalfpenny Down felt; Little Hambledon pitted against all England was a proud thought for Hampshire men. Defeat was glory in such a struggle, Victory indeed made us only a little lower than the angels.

The descriptions of the players are vivid ones. Of defensive batsman Tom Walker Nyren wrote; Tom’s hard ungain, scrag-of-mutton frame; wilted, apple-john face….. his long spider legs, as thick at the ankles as at the hips and perfectly straight all the way down. Walker must have been a courageous batsmen because Nyren went on to describe him as the driest and most rigid limbed chap I ever knew; his skin was like the rind of an old oak, and as sapless. I have seen his knuckles handsomely knocked about from Harris’s bowling, but never saw any blood upon his hands – you might just as well attempt to phlebotomise a mummy.

Of his father Nyren wrote; he was a good, face-to-face, unflinching, uncompromising, independent man. He placed a full and just value on the station he held in society, and he maintained it without insolence or assumption. He could differ with a superior, without trenching upon his dignity, or losing his own. I have known him maintain an opinion with great firmness against the Duke of Dorset and Sir Horace Mann.

The leading batsman of the Hambledon era was William Beldham, universally known as ‘Silver Billy’. Nyren described him as one of the most beautiful sights that can be imagined, and which would have delighted an artist, is to see him make himself up to hit a ball. It was the beau ideal of grace, animation, and concentrated energy.

If Silver Billy was the leading batsman of the time the bowling honours went to David Harris, and of Harris Nyren wrote; his attitude when preparing for his run previously to delivering the ball, would have made a beautiful study for the sculptor. First of all he stood erect like a soldier at drill; then, with a graceful curve of his arm, he raised the ball to his forehead, and drawing back his right foot, started off with his left. The calm look, and general air of the man were uncommonly striking, and from this series of preparations he never deviated. His mode of delivering the ball was very singular. He would bring it from under the arm by a twist and nearly as high as his armpit and with this action push it, as it were, from him. How it was that the balls acquired the extraordinary velocity they did by this mode of delivery I never could comprehend.

How easy is to get hold of a copy of Nyren? The short answer is very simple, but the long answer rather depends on what it is you are after. The first edition of course is getting on for two hundred years old but, perhaps surprisingly, can still be had for around £500.

There were eleven editions of the book all told, the second appearing in 1840 and subsequently 1845, 1846, 1848, 1848 (again), 1849, 1851, 1854, 1854(again) and 1855 which suggests either an overly cautious approach to numbers or sales that consistently exceeded expectations. The later editions can be had for around £100.

That was it for more than thirty years before, in 1888, Nyren’s work, Lillywhite’s Handbook of Cricket and Denison’s Sketches of the Players were reprinted as The Chronicles of Cricket. A further reprint appeared in 1893 as part of a series entitled Classics of Cricket and then, in 1902, the foremost historian of the day, FS Ashley-Cooper, published a further reprint in a series called Sportsman’s Classics. In addition to Noreen’s text there is an eleven page introduction from Ashley-Cooper plus eight appendices including various pieces of additional research.

It was a mere five years before a further book including a reprint of Nyren appeared, as part of a wider study by EV Lucas entitled The Hambledon Men.

After that flurry of activity demand for Nyren was once more sated for the time being and this time it was forty years before, in 1948, with an introduction by Neville Cardus the book was reprinted again. There was a limited edition of 750 copies, 50 of which were specially bound. In the same year John Arlott gave his name to a reprint, although From Hambledon to Lord’s was not confined to Nyren, and included the work of Denison, James Pycroft and John Mitford as well.

In 1952 a Sportsmen’s Book Club edition of The Hambledon Men appeared, and in 1954 a further edition with Phoenix House. In 1974 a revised version of the 1888 reprint appeared with an introduction from Arlott and then, and to date finally, Mote’s wide ranging and comprehensive reappraisal was published again in 1998. The most frequently seen editions are Mote’s and the 1974 Arlott, both of which can currently be bought on eBay for less than a fiver.

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A Little More On Irving Rosenwater

I have written on the subject of Irving Rosenwater before, here. My main purpose in doing so then was to give a flavour of the man himself, and to then concentrate on the fascinating body of research that he left us with. That done Irving was not a subject I expected to revisit in the future.

It is strange how things sometimes turn out however. Irving never married and had no children so there are no descendants. He did however have a sister and she had children, one of whom happened upon my previous article a few months ago, and felt the urge to contact me.

We had a pleasant exchange of emails which concluded with Irving’s niece offering to send to me what little remains of his correspondence. His home was, by all accounts, full of paper in one form or another. In an autobiography, published shortly before his death in 2013, Christopher Martin-Jenkins had described Irving as living surrounded and eventually buried by paper, because he hoarded everything like a squirrel in autumn.

One of the questions the niece asked me, understandably, was in relation to the comment I made about Irving being barred from internal flights within Australia. The story I had heard was that Irving had been harassing young female members of the airline’s cabin crew. As a matter of law one cannot libel the dead, however my doubts about the veracity of the assertion and its lack of any real relevance to what I was concerned with were the reasons I chose not to go into any detail.

On reflection however this is probably not the sort of statement that should be left hanging in the air, therefore I have, with the assistance of the material I now have and the memories of a few who knew Irving looked into the question just a little further. In support of the ‘allegation’ an Australian contact has told me that at some point during Irving’s stay in Australia in the late 1970s ‘Irving made a pass at my mother’, although that is an expression which can, of course, have a myriad of meanings.

There is an interesting comment from CMJ on the question. He clearly shared the family view that Irving was not interested in women, but in commenting on his single minded devotion to cricket he made the observation I believe he thought of nothing else until years later when, as a television scorer, he was accused of groping a young secretary and lost his job with Channel Nine. I note the use of the word accused. CMJ has, sadly, now departed this mortal coil himself so cannot be asked but he had no need to be non-committal, so I suspect therefore that he was not convinced.

I suppose it might be that the heat of Australia affected Irving, especially given that those others who have written of Irving generally seem to feel it necessary to mention his being a lifelong bachelor. There is no evidence to suggest that Irving ever showed any interest in women in the UK. Certainly his niece was surprised at the suggestion, the family always considering him to be asexual.

The bulk of what I now is have is a chain of correspondence going back over a number of years between Irving and Gordon Phillips. I recognised the name as that of the co-author of the Wisden Book of Cricket Memorabilia, the jacket of which tells me that Phillips was from Rhodesia, and describes him as a researcher, librarian and archivist. Clearly Irving and Phillips were close friends and the correspondence is sadly not complete, but it does stretch over most of the 1990s, with a few earlier letters. Phillips died in 2003, so three years before Irving, but I have nothing after 1998.

The letters are undoubtedly entertaining. The pair have much in common, their love of cricket and passion for research being the two most important. It is also clear that they have a shared distrust of journalists and publishers. At times Phillips is almost fawning towards Irving (not that I blame him for that given that a regular purpose for their correspondence involved Irving sending Phillips gratis copies of his publications), and whilst the intense admiration is not reciprocated in the same way there is still genuine warmth in Irving’s letters to his friend.

One aspect of Irving on which a little light is shed by the letters is that family belief he was asexual. Not quite it would seem, is my response to that one. In their correspondence in 1995 the pair complain about the behaviour of some at Lord’s and, as an aside, Phillips makes the observation; but oh Irving, those privileged yobs have lovely sisters/girlfriends and the micro skirt is definitely in during this present heatwave. Made my aged, arid glands positively zing!

Irving’s reply is; you are a man after my own heart with your deft remarks about the lovely sisters/girlfriends of the privileged yobs at Lord’s. I remember choosing a front cover picture once for The Cricketer of an Eton v Harrow damsel. It was magnificent then and it remains magnificent today – my appreciation, like yours, has not diminished one iota. Why indeed should it? I think it is a fact of life that the older we get the more lovely the sisters/girlfriends look. But then what are others’ sisters and girlfriends for if not to be admired? For anyone who is curious the edition of The Cricketer to which Irving refers is that of 15 July 1966, and it is available free of charge to all with a subscription to Cricketarchive.

So, to return to the point in issue, did Irving depart from acceptable standards of behaviour in Australia? I have to say I rather doubt it. It seems likely to me that there was some sort of misunderstanding, but I am not convinced it went any further than that. Irving spent those two years in Australia working for, ultimately, Kerry Packer and, given what we know of Packer and of Irving, the idea that those two could have avoided a complete breakdown in their relationship for any longer than that seems highly improbable. My own view is that the simple truth is more likely to be that the immovable object could no longer tolerate the irresistible force with, I suspect, at the end each being equally happy to see the back of the other and plenty said that may not have been entirely accurate.

In fact, amongst the correspondence I have, are a couple of letters written by the publicity director of World Series Cricket, one Bill Macartney, to Irving. Sadly, for once, there are no file copies of Irving’s replies but an amusing comment is made in one of the letters in relation to a controversy that had arisen as to whether or not some scores had been sent to Irving, where Macartney states I imagine you do have them Irving, because had we not send them, I feel sure you would have jumped up and down loud enough for us to hear all these many many thousands of miles away in Australia. So no mention of anything salacious, but a clear indication that Macartney was finding Irving a challenge to deal with.

A noted writer who knew Irving well recently told me that he and Irving had been the best of friends in the 1960s and early ’70s, but a strange form of madness encompassed him and in the last years he was impossible to deal with. A good summary of him comes from CMJ, who described him as the most precise, punctilious cricketing scholar I ever met, far more stubborn than any mule who has ever dug his toes into the sliding grit of a mountain pass.

That there was another side to Irving however is clearly the case. His niece told me that as far as her family were concerned we just considered him to be a bit of a mad professor, obsessed with cricket. He was a lovely Uncle and, even when I was all grown up, he would always meet me at Lord’s or The Oval, if I was attending, with a bag of loose sweets for me, give me a peck on the cheek and then disappear into the stands.

Reading through the letters that Irving exchanged with Phillips I cannot help but wonder if he was not, in truth, misunderstood as much as anything else. He was clearly a man who took attention to detail to extremes, and was unbending in many of his views. His attitude towards the use of second class mail is the one thing that every person who knew him will remark on, but was his tongue slightly in his cheek? Here is an extract from one of his letters to Phillips, and indeed there is very little else in the letter:-

How is it that I have received this morning (November 22) your envelope postmarked November 21 – containing a letter from you dated OCTOBER 8, 1994? October 8!! October 8?? not even November 8!! October 8! Ah, well – here is Rosenwater with reply in the typewriter exactly three minutes after receipt of letter, but to all semblance 45 days after your own letter. Many would take offence, and indeed I suspect in not doing so Phillips is in a small minority.

Phillips dropped the ball again four years later and was roundly admonished for doing so. The cause was his receipt of another Irving freebie, this time of a study of Arthur Haygarth. This was only the second occasion on which Christopher Saunders published Irving and, doubtless trying to be complimentary, Phillips made a positive reference to the publisher (then trading as Orchard Books). The comment brought forth a withering diatribe from Irving:-

You describe the Haygarth item as “a nifty publication by Orchard Books” but I played my part too. I designed the cover, the title page; provided the text page border; as well as the motifs for the limitation page and the drop letter for page 5; provided the photographs; agreed to the paper; insisted on sewing(rather than stapling) and duly provided the binders; and so on and so forth. Oh, and I wrote text as well.

Clearly Phillips had, probably by accident but, given he clearly had rather more of a sense of humour than Irving possibly by design, ‘pressed the wrong button’, and as with the ‘October 8’ episode had unleashed a barrage that would have ended many a friendship. Unfortunately for me the correspondence trail between Phillips and Irving peters out soon after that, but what little else there is makes it clear that Irving’s tirade did not undermine the friendship that the two men had on either side. I suspect, to an extent at least, the pair were teasing each other.

The most interesting item in the package I received, in bibliographical terms, is what I like to think amounts to a new and previously undiscovered Rosenwater limited edition, on this occasion of just a single copy. Of course that comment is not strictly accurate, but that is what I like to tell myself I now have. What it is amounts to is Irving’s own “mock up” of an offprint from an article in the Cricket Society Journal about CI Thornton entitled “A Canterbury Tale”. With my very rough item is some correspondence with a printer about publication. What is sadly not present is any indication as to why Irving never finished the project.

To receive this correspondence was a cause of mixed emotions. There is delight at being faced with some fascinating material and insights into Irving’s personality, but frustration at the thought of the many boxes, bags and other containers of correspondence that I understand were simply disposed of. Christopher Saunders handled the vast collection of books, pamphlets and other memorabilia, but much more has been lost forever and in particular there is, sadly, no mention in anything I have of Irving’s bete noire, Major Rowland Bowen.

Also notable and worthy of mention is a lengthy exchange of correspondence with Chris Harte in relation to the 1991/92 purchase by Irving of a substantial collection of old Australian cricket annuals from him. In the end Irving paid Harte £2,750,  a very considerable sum in those days. Knowing what we now know about Mr Harte the reader is given cause to wonder but, I think, now is probably not the time to go into that one in any great detail.

Amongst other fragments of correspondence are a couple of examples of something else Irving was noted for, in that there are two separate exchanges with the Oxford University Press on the subject of the definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary of “eunuch” and “shawish”. There are other letters from and to other cricket people (I assume Irving retained a copy of everything he ever wrote) including the then Mr Justice Popplewell, who Irving was extremely polite to in reminding him of an occasion when he had turned down an opportunity to take part in an overseas tour that Irving managed.

In a recent post on CricketMASH on the subject of Irving Mayukh Ghosh commented that the man is largely forgotten, and he deserves a biography. I couldn’t agree more, subject to the caveat that even if the game has moved on from Irving he will never be forgotten by the game’s bibliophiles. A biography could no doubt shed greater light on him, and had I been able to access all of his papers I might even have put my hand up for that job, but the material is sadly gone. So all I can offer is this and my earlier piece and express the hope that they are of some assistance to those interested in a man who, if nothing else, was most certainly a character.

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The Bard of Basingstoke

Back in 1969 The Noble Game of Cricket*, a large coffee table type book, was published. It is a showcase of sixty examples of cricketing art, so not of immensely wide appeal although there was sufficient interest in it to persuade the publishers to produce a second edition in 1986. For many the book was notable as much as anything because it was jointly written by, with all due respect to EW ‘Jim’ Swanton, the two leading cricket writers of the day, Neville Cardus and John Arlott.

The famous pair had not worked together before, nor were they to do so again but they seem to have enjoyed a good relationship. Arlott described Cardus as a friend, although the pair seem not to have been particularly close. The Noble Game of Cricket consisted of an introduction by Cardus, in his usual style, followed by reproductions of the chosen works, each summarised briefly by Arlott.

I have not been able to discover how the project came about, but it is unlikely that the entirely separate roles of the two men called for a great deal of collaboration. There is perhaps a clue in one of the few comments I have been able to find from Cardus about Arlott. A year before the book was published Arlott had been appointed the cricket correspondent of The Guardian, the position which had given Cardus his opening almost half a century before. Cardus’ quoted reaction was I have always admired Arlott’s economy of words, his ability to depict a scene or character as though by flashlight …….. he is one of our most civilised writers. That economy of words is well illustrated by, for example, Arlott’s verdict on the great Barry Richards; He butchers bowling, hitting with a savage power the more impressive for being veiled by the certainty of his timing.

Arlott was born in 1914 in Basingstoke and was therefore a quarter of a century younger than Cardus. The two men did not therefore have a great deal in common outside cricket, albeit for neither was cricket the be all and end all, something which doubtless contributed to the quality of their writing. In addition neither went straight into the press box, and neither was a good cricketer. Cardus was a noted music critic in addition to his cricketing duties. Arnott was a poet, wine expert and, of course, an accomplished broadcaster.

After leaving school Arlott worked in his local town hall briefly before spending four years as a records clerk in a mental hospital. He then joined the Southampton Borough Police, a job he stayed in for a dozen years, rising to the rank of Sergeant. He spent much of his free time in the summer watching Hampshire play cricket, and another abiding passion was writing poetry.

Eventually Arlott’s poems brought him to the attention of future Poet Laureate John Betjeman and, through him, to the BBC and in 1946, after spending some time combining his police duties with BBC work Arlott joined the corporation as an Overseas Literary Producer. When, that summer, the management were looking for someone to broadcast to India on the 1946 tour Arlott was given the task. The rest, as they say, is history.

The first cricket book to appear from Arlott’s pen came the following year, Indian Summer being an account of that first post war series. There were then four more similar accounts. Gone to the Cricket in 1948 dealt with the 1947 South Africans, and Gone to the Test Match recorded the ‘Invincibles’ visit of 1948. Gone with the Cricketers chronicled Arlott’s first overseas trip with the 1948/49 tour of South Africa and the visit to England the following summer of Walter Hadlee’s New Zealanders. Arlott had strong liberal values and found apartheid abhorrent. He never visited South Africa again after 1949 and later played a major role in Basil D’Oliveira’s migration to England. The fourth in this series of books, Days at the Cricket, concerned the visit of the 1950 West Indians.

There were other books from Arlott at this time. Passionate about the history of the game he was involved in the repackaging with new introductions of two books of reprints of rare and almost unobtainable nineteenth century books. In 1948 From Hambledon to Lord’s: The Classics of Cricket appeared, to be followed a year later by The Middle Ages of Cricket. The first included the work of John Nyren, Charles Cowden Clarke, James Pycroft and John Mitford. The latter was Pycroft again, and also reproduced William Denison’s collection of pen portraits from a century before, The Sketches of the Players.

Also in 1949, in the manner of Cardus, Arlott gathered together a selection of his own essays that had appeared elsewhere, Concerning Cricket. A very similar collection, The Echoing Green, appeared in 1952. The former is a fine book, the latter quite outstanding. Arlott also found the time to publish How to Watch Cricket in 1948, to edit a selection of the work of others on the subject of the First Class counties, Cricket in the Counties, in 1950, and to work with Stanley Brogden on a second edition of Brogden’s classic account of The First Test Match: England v Australia 1877.

There were three biographies from Arlott over the course of his life. The first was a slim book about Maurice Tate that appeared in 1951. More substantial efforts in respect of Fred Trueman (Fred: Portrait of a Fast Bowler) and Jack Hobbs (Jack Hobbs: Profile of The Master) appeared in 1971 and 1981.

In Coronation year Arlott wrote Test Match Diary 1953 on the subject of that summer’s Ashes series. He also edited Cricket, a book in the Pleasures of Life series, which contained a number of his own essays as well as the work of others. His next book was his second and last account of an overseas Test series, Australian Test Journal, one of the many accounts of Len Hutton’s men’s 1954/55 Ashes triumph.

It would then be 1959 before Arlott published his Cricket Journal, which was in large part an account of the very unsuccessful visit to England that the New Zealanders endured the previous summer. In the next three seasons England’s visitors were India, South Africa and Australia and Cricket Journals 2, 3 and 4 recorded those series. With the genre gradually becoming less attractive there was, a decade later, to be just one more tour account from Arlott, The Ashes 1972.

In the latter part of the 1950s there were three other Arlott books. First, The Picture of Cricket, a modest 32 pages, appeared in 1955 and, as the title suggests, deals with cricket illustrations. That was followed in 1957 by Alletson’s Innings, a 40 page account of the remarkable 189 that Ted Alletson scored for Nottinghamshire against Sussex in 1911. Finally, and also in 1957, Arlott contributed 59 pages to the official history of the Hampshire county club.

It was then to be 1967 before Arlott published Vintage Summer, a look back at the remarkable English season of 1947 when Denis Compton and Bill Edrich carried all before them. After that there came the Trueman and Hobbs books already noted, and the 1972 Ashes book, but a number of collections of essays apart that was to be the end of Arlott’s cricket output until, finally, an autobiography appeared in 1990, the year before he died. Arlott perhaps left the project too late as Basingstoke Boy is a little disappointing. For those wanting to know more about Arlott David Rayvern Allen’s 1994 authorised biography**, Arlott, is a better read, and more so is Stephen Fay and David Kynaston’s Arlott, Swanton and the Soul of English Cricket.

None of Arlott’s books are rare in themselves. Two appeared in limited editions as well as standard books, there being 200 signed and numbered copies of Alletson’s Innings and  200 of Basingstoke Boy, again signed and numbered and also leather-bound. Shortly before Arlott’s death book dealer John McKenzie published an expanded edition of Alletson’s Innings, again in a signed and numbered limited edition. For those familiar with the Arlott signature the clearly frail scrawl is a sad sight, especially as just a few weeks before that, when signing copies of the limited edition of his poem Harold Gimblett’s Hundred, which Richard Walsh published, the Arlott hand had seemed as firm as ever.

Arlott remains popular with collectors in part because of his habit of off printing essays from his books and issuing them in small signed and numbered limited editions. The Old Man, an essay on WG Grace from Concerning Cricket was thus released in a limited edition of 12. There are 10 copies of Athol Rowan from The Echoing Green, and a mere three of The Works of JC Clay from Cricket, and half a dozen of Jim Laker, which came from a 1969 collection of essays; Cricket: The Great Bowlers. Another was Jack Hobbs; An Appreciation which was off printed from John Arlott’s Book of Cricketers. There are twenty copies of that one and fifteen of The Boy Collins, an essay on AEJ Collins (he of the 628* in a Clifton College house match in 1899) that, as far as I am aware, was the only one of these that was an original work and not an offprint.

Although many of Arlott’s books concerned Test series he was a great lover of county cricket. Unlike some other writers he was also a great admirer of the players, and spent many hours in dressing rooms getting to know the men whose play he so admired. In his own words; The heart of English cricket is the county game; and the essence of county cricket is not the Test star who dominates it, but the ordinary county cricketer who is there every day and gives it his constant and fullest effort.

Over the course of the 1950s and 1960s a number of Hampshire beneficiaries had cause to be thankful to Arlott as he produced short biographical sketches of them, had a few copies signed, numbered and specially bound for sale with the proceeds going to the benefit. Needless to say the items in question are now highly collectable. The fortunate beneficiaries were Neville Rogers (1956 – 12 copies), Leo Harrison (1957 – 70 copies), Derek Shackleton (1958 – 50 copies), Vic Cannings (1958 – 50 copies), Jimmy Gray (1959 – 50 copies), Roy Marshall (1961 – 50 copies), Arthur Holt (1963 – 50 copies), Mervyn Burden (1964 – 25 copies), Henry Horton (1964 – 50 copies), Peter Sainsbury (1965 – 50 copies) and finally David ‘Butch’ White (1969 – 25 copies). Very similar in format are appreciations of two amateurs, Desmond Eagar (1958 – 20 copies) and Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie (1962 – 50 copies).

For the Arlott collector there are three other items worth mentioning, two produced for cricketers’ benefits and the last a posthumous publication by Richard Walsh Books being a limited edition of 50 copies of an essay on Wilf Wooller which had been written twenty years earlier for the Glamorgan handbook. The benefit publications were not like the others referenced in that they were neither signed, numbered nor cloth bound, but nonetheless the appreciations of Gloucestershire’s Sam Cook and Hampshire’s Danny Livingstone that appeared in 1957 and 1972 respectively are both rare and sought after.

To return, briefly, to The Noble Game of Cricket, history seems to be treating Cardus and Arlott rather differently. As those who recall him depart this mortal coil Arlott seems to be sliding quietly into history. Cardus on the other hand still creates interest and his legacy is debated to this day with new publications appearing regularly including a major new biography and separate anthology recently released. The styles of Cardus and Arlott may be very different, but both are as readable now as they were in their heydays.

In addition to the books mentioned the name Arlott appears on the spines of a number of other books most of which are either anthologies of Arlott’s own works or collections of the work of Arlott and others that Arlott edited. Foremost amongst the anthologies are Arlott on Cricket, A Word from Arlott and Another Word from Arlott, all of which were edited by Rayvern Allen. Examples of the latter are Cricket: The Great Ones, John  Arlott’s Book of Cricketers, Cricket: The Great Bowlers and Cricket: The Great All-Rounders. There is also another biography of Arlott, a very personal book written by his son Tim.

*The first edition of The Noble Game of Cricket appeared in a standard hardback and also a numbered limited edition signed by both authors and used in a slip case.

**Rayvern Allen’s book also appeared in a signed, numbered and specially bound limited edition which, there being a mere dozen copies, is very rarely seen.

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The Greatest Leg-Spinner of Them All?

Abdul Qadir was born in Lahore, capital of the Punjab and Pakistan’s second city in 1955, so he is just a few years older than me although, in the context of the second decade of the 21st century, we are as near to the same age as makes no difference.

My father worked for a major insurance company. My mother, in the manner of the times, stayed at home and looked after myself and my brother. We certainly weren’t wealthy, but I don’t recall ever being refused any reasonable request I made of my parents, and I certainly had all the kit I needed to pursue my burning desire, sadly unfulfilled, of being a half-decent cricketer.

Qadir of course became a very good cricketer indeed, and had he had my chances I can’t help but wonder whether he might have been even better. His father was a mullah, a learned man of Islam, who earned 120 rupees a month. What that means in real terms I do not know, but the fact that the family could not always afford bread suggests a considerable degree of poverty. At an age when my one concern in the mornings was working out how to maximise my time in bed before getting up to catch the school bus Qadir was getting up at 4am to travel to a market to buy vegetables that he would then take home to sell to neighbours before going to school. After school, depending on the time of year, I would look to get involved in a game of football or cricket for an hour or so before my evening meal, and very possibly the same again afterwards. Qadir on the other hand had more work to do, just to keep his family fed. Yet despite all that he still found time to play the game, even though for some time he had to play whilst wearing his shalma kameez. After he was finally able to buy his first flannels he felt the need to keep their existence from his family secret for fear he might be considered extravagant.

In his earliest days Qadir was a fast bowler and batsman. He eventually stopped bowling fast, finding in the nets that, albeit for different reasons, wrist spin could be equally frightening for batsmen. Perhaps that is why one of the most common observations made about him is that he never lost a pace bowlers hostility. As time wore on he also slipped down the batting order, although he always remained capable of playing a useful cameo. Twice he reached three figures, once in only his second First Class match, and then again a decade later, from number ten in the order, on tour in India.

At a time when leg spin was right out of fashion, everywhere but on the sub-continent, Pakistan had been playing Intikhab Alam as a specialist, albeit one who could score useful runs, for more than 15 years. Although Mushtaq Mohammad made his Test debut as a batsman at the same time as Intikhab he eventually became a true all-rounder and a fine leg-spinner. So in the 1960s and early 1970s Pakistan generally fielded two leggies, and another batsman, the late Wasim Raja, while not in the same league as the other two, was a servicable third choice who ended up with more than 50 Test wickets.

Intikhab retired from international cricket at the close of the 1976/77 season and, with Mushtaq signing up for Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, Qadir was in the right place at the right time when England arrived in Pakistan for the 1977/78 series. His Test debut was a travesty of a game in which Mudassar Nazar recorded what remains the slowest Test century ever scored, and was followed by an even more tedious response from England. Qadir’s and that series’ second Test was, thankfully, very different and Qadir established the mastery over England that he seldom lost his grip on. The visitors got to 123-1 before Qadir changed ends and, cleverly exploiting the rough created by the follow through of Bob Willis, immediately castled Brian Rose with a similar delivery to that with which Shane Warne announced himself to England 15 years later. By the time England had slipped to 157-9 Qadir had 6-67 but, sadly for Pakistan, Geoffrey Boycott held firm in both innings, Wasim Bari timed his declaration badly, and England comfortably batted out the last day.

For some time it seemed that that performance might be a flash in the pan. Qadir came to England in 1979 but the cold and wet first half of that summer did not suit him and, troubled by a shoulder injury as well, he got nowhere near the Test side. He did play in India in Pakistan’s next series, but failed dismally, and although he was a little more effective at home against West Indies the following winter by 1981/82 he was not in the squad that went to Australia, nor was he selected for the home series against Sri Lanka. When Imran Khan bumped into Qadir at the Lahore nets late in the domestic season he confided in the Pakistan captain that he was considering leaving the game altogether.

Imran’s view was that Qadir was a significantly better bowler than either Intikhab or Mushtaq, and he knew from his years in England that both of them had troubled the majority of English batsmen, so he fought his corner in the selection meetings and got his way. This time Qadir saw the second half of a warm English summer and against the counties he was devastating, taking his wickets at around 16 runs each. He was less effective in the three Tests, his ten wickets costing 40 runs apiece, but the crowds loved him and, without him, Pakistan wouldn’t have won the second Test, their first Test victory in England since their first series, way back in 1954.

What was it that so charmed the English crowds and so baffled the country’s batsmen? The mere fact that Qadir was a wrist spinner was part of it, but he was a particularly fascinating one too. His run-up was spellbinding. He would walk back to his mark, well wide of the wicket, and pause momentarily. Then he took a half step back before beginning an angled walk in, at the same time spinning the ball from right hand to left. Somewhere in those four steps the ball found its way back into his right hand, and then four more paces, this time bouncing strides, took him up to the wicket and the ball was delivered. In fact so much did that approach remind me of a high jumper that it always seemed to me that it suggested that the end result would be a Fosbury flop rather than a leg break or a googly.

And there was a huge amount of speculation about exactly what Qadir did bowl. Every pundit, most of whom had very little experience of leg spin, wrote knowledgably in newspapers and magazines. There was a consensus that he bowled the usual deliveries, leg break, googly, flipper and top-spinner, but while it was agreed there was another one commentators weren’t too sure what to call it. Some described a googly that looked as if it was going to be a top-spinner, and others a top-spinner disguised as a googly. Others still noted a googly where Qadir’s shoulder dipped, the classic giveaway, and just as they got used to that, another googly where the change of action was imperceptible. Should a batsman looked at Qadir’s hand for the clue? Should he watch the revolutions on the ball? Or should he just play it on length? Different people tried different combinations but none seemed entirely sure. There were only two batsmen all summer who seemed to play him with real confidence those being firstly, to no-one’s surprise, Vivian Richards, and secondly, rather more unexpectedly, Hampshire’s Mark Nicholas.

There were some in Pakistan who, just on the basis of what appeared to be a modest record in the 1982 Tests, took the view that Qadir still wasn’t good enough, but the doubters were silenced during the 3-0 victory that Pakistan enjoyed over the visiting Australians in 1982/83 when he took 22 wickets at 25.54. After that he was a certain starter under Imran, although he was always much more effective at home than abroad.

After Imran retired, following the 1987 tour of England, Qadir’s relationship with his immediate successor, Javed Miandad, was less solid, and Miandad had a tendency to prefer the orthodox left arm spin of Iqbal Qasim if only one spinner was to play. That said Qadir’s best ever series came under Miandad’s captaincy when, in the three Tests of the 1987/88 series against England, he took 30 wickets at 14.54. This was the setting for the infamous spat between England skipper Mike Gatting and umpire Shakoor Rana, and England were deeply unhappy about the umpiring throughout. Qadir was one of the most vociferous appellants in the game, and he did get as many as eleven lbw decisions in his favour. That number of successful appeals does suggest England had some cause for concern, but that does not alter the fact that the English batsmen could not read Qadir, and he also bowled eight of them, so he was undoubtedly aiming for the stumps.

There will always be mutterings about the quality of the home umpires that Qadir came up against, and his distinctly lop-sided howe/away record* will be brought in to question as a consequence. There is likely to be some merit in that, although in fairness to Qadir it should be pointed out as well that as far as he was concerned he generally got a poor deal from the away umpires who, like the batsmen, had no idea where the ball was going to go so gave the man at the crease the benefit of the doubt. So there were frustrations along the way for Qadir not helped by the strident appeals that created an impression of petulance, and to add to that twice there were problems on tour.

In 1984/85 in New Zealand Qadir was sent home, the reason given being that he had not been trying in the field in a match against Wellington, and had then refused to apologise. Imran was not on that tour, and had he been it seems highly improbable the circumstances would have arisen, but his view was that the real reason behind the management taking the decision that they did was Qadir’s poor form (his two wickets in the first two Tests had cost hin 212 runs). The second occasion was in Bridgetown in 1988 when Qadir assaulted a spectator who had been baiting him throughout a day when he felt strongly the umpires had been against him. He was not sent home that time, but the PCB did have to pay some compensation to the spectator concerned.

Those two incidents apart there were other examples of Qadir being none too easy to handle. His very public criticism of team management during the 1990/91 home series against New Zealand was one. Others included a failure to attend a National Camp in 1984 that cost him a Test cap, and his refusal to tour India twelve months previously when the PCB had declined his request for a loan to enable him to build a house. But these episodes were far outweighed in the eyes of the vast majority of Pakistan’s cricket fans by more positive attributes. His performances against England were always very special, as was his contribution to the series Pakistan fought out with the then still mighty West Indians in 1986/87. In the first Test the crowd at the Iqbal Stadium in Faisalabad were on the edge of their seats as, after setting off towards a target of 240, Qadir’s 6-16 was the major factor in the remarkable collapse to 53 all out of one of the strongest batting line-ups that the game has seen. West Indies, as great champions do, recovered to win the next Test and the decider was drawn. Had Qadir not chosen to play despite a fractured little finger in his left hand, and then gone on to bowl 75 overs and take seven wickets, it certainly would not have been.

It was to be more than five years after he made his Test debut that Qadir first appeared in an ODI, during the 1983 World Cup in England. Spinners generally, and wrist spinners in particular, were not considered in those days to be important components of ODI teams, but Qadir was a revelation. He won the match award twice and conceded his runs at less than four an over. Only in the two matches against England, ironically enough, did he look relatively ineffective. He went on to play in more than 100 ODIs and while his economy rate did end up over four, it was only fractionally so.

It is now more than 20 years since Qadir bowled in international cricket and he therefore has his place in history – but how good a leg spinner was he? In terms of wickets taken his total of 236 has been exceeded by Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Anil Kumble, Richie Benaud and Shane Warne, all at a better average than Qadir’s 32.80. Other leading exponents of the art who can undercut the cost of his wickets are Fergie Gupte, Clarrie Grimmett, Tiger O’Reilly and Stuart MacGill. It is probably fair to say that he suffered more than others, particularly the Australians, from poor support in the field, and he played on a number occasions when carrying injuries. His complaints about away umpires probably have some merit too, although cynics will doubtless suggest that is at least offset by the reception that he got from his own.

Alan Lamb, a fine player of fast bowling but not therefore, as some suggest, a poor player of spin, spoke for most of his generation when he wrote; In my time Abdul Qadir was the best. He mesmerised batsmen and I reckon I was doing well if I read 40% of his deliveries. He had so many variations, including two googlies, and he was easily the most aggressive spinner I played against. His successor in the Pakistan side, Mushtaq Ahmed, said of his mentor He was my role model when I started playing cricket …. I really admired his enthusiasm and tried to copy every aspect of his action and his game.

But the real issue is how does he rate against Shane Warne? One top-class international batsman wrote Qadir was so good, I think he was even better than Shane Warne. I have never played against Warne but have observed him closely. There is no doubt he is one of the game’s great leg-spin bowlers, but unlike Qadir, he has had the advantage of bowling against relatively weak opposition. The batsman in question is Javed Miandad, so hardly independent, but then as noted by no means Qadir’s greatest admirer.

Richie Benaud rated Qadir highly, mentioning particularly that he never for an instant stopped attacking the batsman, but he did consider him as inferior to Warne and O’Reilly. There is however one man, untainted by nationalistic considerations and who, unusually given that the two men’s careers did not overlap, saw a great deal of both Qadir and Warne from the perfect position, and that is Barnsley’s favourite son, former international umpire Harold “Dickie” Bird, whose considered opinion, expressed in 1997 about the best spinner he had seen was Maybe he (Qadir) did not turn the ball as much as Warne, and maybe he was not quite so devastating on a turner as Underwood, but he finally got my vote because his variation was unmatchable, always with an impeccable line and length, and masterly control. Warnie of course continued to torment batsmen the world over for a decade after those words were written, and we might find that in Dickie’s forthcoming 80th birthday autobiography that he now takes a different view, but his words are food for thought nonetheless.

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