The Picador Book of Cricket

by Ramachandra Guha

  Almost as one, but without Bradman, the Australians tumbled into the launch. Late at night they returned to the ship, singing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and good cobbers for life with the men of the RAF. They had had a champion time. A few minutes after entering the mess, the CO dropped all formality by doffing his black tie and cummerbund. ‘They were such good fellows’, said one of the team, ‘that, bless me, if we had stayed another day in Aden, we jolly well would have played them a game of cricket.’

  It was a warm thought that the game of cricket should have its ties in such outlandish places and, thinking of the desolate lives the RAF must endure there, of what the British Empire owes to such men and how they worshipped and venerated him, it might be thought that Bradman, for once, would have yielded and gone to give, and have, pleasure. But here again was an instance of that mind which would not allow him to depart from a set course.

  Do these interludes reveal anything of Bradman and his attitude towards cricket? I think they do because they show his mind and how he would never allow it to relax. Probably he reasoned that if he relaxed, if he became, mixed and lived like one of the ordinary cricketers, his concentration would be spoilt. You gathered that same concentration in conversation with him. There was the long pause, the slow, studied and concise reply . . .

  These little facets of Bradman’s character have to be written and understood so that we can interpret the mind which he brought to the game of cricket – a mind the game of cricket has surely not known before. D. R. Jardine was one of the few who did not give Bradman bouquets for his captaincy in England in 1948 but that might have been a hark back, on Jardine’s part, to bodyline days. ‘To suggest’, wrote Jardine, in his cold, austere manner, ‘that the captaincy of 1948 was brilliant or inspired would be flattery, but it was adequate and more than adequate.’

  Bradman, in 1948, was a very sound captain. He had the advantage of leading a side that was overpowering in all directions, and that against very weak opposition, but just praise must be given him for moulding that side and for being equal to emergencies. He had one fault, I thought, as a captain and that was in having his favourites, particularly when it came to bowling out the tail-enders. Those not in the beam of his smile often received scant opportunities, so that this English tour was not a happy one for some. Midway through the tour, those who did not make the Test side, rightly thinking they might have been given more chances in other games, devised a song which they sang with rare gusto in the dressing room:

  Ground-staff bowlers is our name,

  Ground-staff bowling is our game.

  At the nets, we bowl all day;

  In a match, we’re never asked to play.

  We’re the heroes of the dressing room;

  Ground-staff bowlers is our name.

  So weak was English cricket in 1948 that Bradman could well have given the ‘Ground Staff’ more opportunities without risk of defeat, but he had set his heart on an unbeaten record and never once took a risk with it. The Australian Board of Control, not regarding kindly what are called Festival Games in England, stipulated that there should be only a certain number of English Test players included against the Australians. Bradman ‘policed’ the opposing Scarborough selection pretty closely and then entered the field with his very own Test side. He was particularly ‘toey’ in these two Festival games, being anxious that the unbeaten record should not topple at the end, and he remembered, also, that it was in one of these games that Armstrong’s great side of 1921 came to grief.

  As a captain, he had good control of his side. There was the occasion at Manchester in the third Test when he apologized to Edrich (‘Sorry, Bill, but these chaps get out of control when they get excited’) after Miller had given Edrich four roaring bouncers in succession, but that was the time when Miller and Lindwall were stung into hectic bouncer offensive after Edrich, earlier in the day, had bowled bouncers at Lindwall. He had more conferences on the field than any other captain I knew. He took longer to place a field and was constantly in attendance on most of his bowlers during an over, but he always knew what he was striving for and always had something in mind. I can remember only two occasions on this tour when the game got away from him. Once was the Saturday at Manchester, in the third Test, and the other during the Leeds Test, in England’s first innings, when, strangely, he had Johnson emulating Yardley’s defensive ‘wheel’ field on the very first day of play. But, perhaps, there was some retaliation in this. In the final analysis, Bradman was, in every sense, a brilliant captain.

  In calibre, Bradman’s batting on this tour was, generally, only a shadow of what it had once been. He had some very jittery periods, particularly at the beginning of an innings and, often, against slow bowlers. He had difficulty in detecting the bosie, more difficulty than at any time of his career, but this, probably and naturally, was because his eyesight had lost its keen edge.

  One day at Lord’s, I stood with ‘Buster’ Nupen, the South African player, who had never seen Bradman bat and had flown specially to England to do so. This was Bradman’s most jittery period. Laker turned him almost inside out but the little chap battled it through – and Nupen was satisfied at the end that he had seen something pretty good.

  In absolute brilliance, Bradman might have been only a flicker of his 1930 self, but we must remember that those who knew him then were judging him in 1948 by his highest standards. The post-war generation were seeing him for the first time and they were satisfied, too, that he fulfilled every expectation. In this year of 1948 he had centuries on every ground of note – Lord’s, the Oval, Old Trafford, Leeds, Trent Bridge, Worcester, Southend, Brighton and the rest. The post-war generation in Australia were sadly disillusioned by what they saw of Hammond in 1946–7 but Bradman, his hesitant periods apart, knew only fame and success wherever he went in England.

  This 1948 tour of England was, in every way, a fitting end to the greatest career the game has known. Bradman not only again made runs unlimited but he stood out, with another Australian in the golfer von Nida, as England’s sporting personality of the year. His speeches were bright and witty; he was fêted and received by the highest in the land. Together with all other cricketers of our generation, I salute him as the greatest player of his age, the greatest attraction the game of cricket has known. He did not make the friends in the game which others did but, possibly he reasoned, he would not have been the player he was had he allowed his concentration to be upset in the slightest manner. He brilliantly and decisively achieved the objective he set himself when he found his feet in first-class cricket – and that was to be, by far, the greatest run-getter and the greatest holder of records the game has known. And, in doing that, he gave to the man-in-the-street the greatest possible value for his admission money and he brought to cricket the most pronounced publicity the game had ever known.

  ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

  With Learie Constantine, George Headley held together the West Indian side in its early years of playing Tests. If he failed with the bat, his side normally got out for under 100. Headley carried his team on his shoulders: a later biography was entitled The West Indian Atlas. So accomplished was his batsmanship that Anglo-Australian writers liked to call him ‘the Black Bradman’. His own compatriots, such as Constantine, thought this inexact as well as patronizing: they would rather refer to the Don as ‘the White Headley’.

  Headley’s character and cricketing style are vividly evoked here by C. L. R. James. James, however, omits one significant detail. When England toured the West Indies in 1929–30, Headley’s family (the cricketer included) was due to emigrate to the United States of America. But his passport was unaccountably delayed, this allowing him to appear for Jamaica against the tourists. He scored a century, was chosen for the West Indies, and never looked back or, shall we say, never looked northward again. So, were it not for an indolent bureaucrat, George Headley would have been lost to the world of cricket.

  C. L. R. JAMES

  The Black Bradman (1963)

  To th
ink about Constantine between the wars is to conjure up the other West Indian master of the period, the one and only George Headley. I write of him purely as a cricketer. And I do so . . . because, first, this West Indian narrowly escapes being the greatest batsman I have ever seen. Pride of place in my list goes to Bradman, but George is not far behind. In fact, it is my belief that if he had lived his cricketing life in England or Australia he would not be behind anyone. Everyone is familiar with his scores. On a world scale his average is, I believe, exceeded only by Bradman and Merchant. His average of one century in every four Test innings is second only to Bradman. In those days there were no Test matches against India and Pakistan and New Zealand. George had to meet the full strength of England and Australia. The second reason why I write about him is that he is a remarkable individual. I believe that every great batsman is a special organism; it must be so, for they are very rare, as rare as great violinists – I doubt if I have known many more than a dozen.

  There is a third reason, but that I shall reserve.

  I saw George in 1930, I saw him in 1934, I played cricket with him in Lancashire. He had to a superlative degree the three cardinal qualities of the super batsman. He saw the ball early. He was quick on his feet. He was quick with his bat. The most important of all, in my view, is seeing the ball early. In 1953 George told me that from the time he began to play cricket he saw every ball bowled come out of the bowler’s hand. He added that if he did not see it out of the bowler’s hand he would be at a loss how to play. The conversation began by his telling me of a bowler in league cricket, of no importance, who had bowled him two balls in succession neither of which he saw out of the hand. The experience left him completely bewildered.

  He was as quick on his feet as any player I have seen except Don Bradman. To see Bradman get back, his right foot outside the off stump, pointing to mid-on, and hook a fast bowler was to witness not cricket but acrobatics: you knew he had got there only after he had made the stroke. George’s speed of foot was of the same kind. He was as quick with his bat as any. Bowlers, seeing the ball practically on his pad, appealed against him for lbw, only to grind their teeth as the bat came down and put the ball away to the fine-leg boundary. Any single one of these three qualities makes a fine batsman, and courage and confidence are the natural result of having all three.

  What I want to draw special attention to here is George’s play on wet or uncertain wickets. Here are his scores on such wickets in England.

  1933

  Other high scores in the innings

  v. Northamptonshire

  52 out of 129

  32 and 15

  v. Yorkshire

  25 out of 115

  25 and 16

  v. Nottinghamshire

  66 out of 314

  54 and 51

  v. Lancashire

  66 out of 174

  29 and 18

  v. Leicestershire

  60 out of 156

  22 and 19

  v. Leveson-Gower’s XI

  35 out of 251

  70 and 44

  1939

  v. Surrey

  52 out of 224

  58 and 52

  v. Yorkshire

  61 out of 234

  72 and 28

  v. England

  51 out of 133

  47 and 16

  5 out of 43 (4w)

  13 and 11

  v. Somerset

  0 out of 84

  45 and 17

  v. Gloucestershire

  40 out of 220

  50 and 28

  5 out of 162

  43 and 26

  In those thirteen innings George passed 50 seven times. Three times only he scored less than double figures, and in his other three innings his scores were 25, 35 and 40. I believe those figures would be hard to beat. Look at a similar list made for Bradman by Ray Robinson in his fascinating book Between Wickets.

  In fifteen innings Bradman passed 50 only once, 40 only twice and 15 only four times. His average is 16.66. George’s average is 39.85. You need not build on these figures a monument, but you cannot ignore them.

  Bradman’s curious deficiency on wet wickets has been the subject of much searching comment. George’s superior record has been noticed before, and one critic, I think it was Neville Cardus, has stated that Headley has good claims to be considered on all wickets the finest of the inter-war batsmen. I would not go so far. It is easy to give figures and make comparisons and draw rational conclusions. The fact remains that the odds were 10 to 1 that in any Test Bradman would make 150 or 200 runs, and the more the runs were needed the more certain he was to make them. Yet if Bradman never failed in a Test series, neither did George. I believe Bradman and Headley are the only two between the wars of whom that can be said. (Hammond failed terribly in 1930 in England and almost as badly in the West Indies in 1934–5.)

  But there is another point I wish to bring out. Between 1930 and 1938 Bradman had with him in England Ponsford, Woodfull, McCabe, Kippax, Brown, Hassett. All scored heavily. In 1933 and 1939 West Indian batsmen scored runs at various times, but George had nobody who could be depended on. In 1933 his average in the Tests was 55.40. Among those who played regularly the next average was 23.83. In 1939 his average in the Tests was 66.80. The next batsman averaged 57.66, but of his total of 173 he made 137 in one innings. Next was 27.50. It can be argued that this stiffened his resistance. I don’t think so. And George most certainly does not. ‘I would be putting on my pads and sometimes before I was finished I would hear that the first wicket had gone.’ This is what he carried on his shoulders for nearly ten years. None, not a single one of the great batsmen, has ever been so burdened for so long.

  He had characteristics which can be attributed to less than half a dozen in the whole history of the game. He has said, and all who know his play can testify, that he did not care who bowled at him: right hand, left hand, new ball, old ball, slow, fast, all were the same. He loved the bad wickets. And his reason is indicative of the burden he carried. ‘On a bad wicket it was you and the bowler. If he pitched up you had to drive. If he pitched short you had to turn and hook. No nonsense.’ I sensed there a relief, a feeling that he was free to play the only game which could be successful under the circumstances, but this time his own natural game.

  George was a quiet cricketer. So quiet that you could easily underestimate him. One day in 1933 West Indies were playing Yorkshire at Harrogate, the wicket was wet and Verity placed men close in, silly mid-off and silly point I think. The West Indian players talked about bowlers who placed men close in for this batsman and the other batsman. George joined in the reminiscences. Someone said, ‘George, if Verity put a man there for you—’

  A yell as of sudden, intense, unbearable pain burst from George, so as to startle everyone for yards around.

  ‘Me!’ he said. ‘Put a man there for me!’

  They could talk about it for other players. Test players, but that anyone should even think that such fieldsmen could be placed for him – that was too much for George. The idea hurt him physically.

  George was a great master of the game in many senses. He landed in Australia (1931–2) a boy of twenty-one who had never played or seen cricket out of the West Indies. As he has told me in great detail: ‘I was an off-side batsman, drive, cut and back stroke through the covers. Of course, I also could hook.’ Australian critics were startled at his mastery of batting and of an innings of 131, played at Victoria in less than even time, one critic who had seen all the great players of the previous thirty years said that no finer innings had ever been seen on the Melbourne ground. An innings of 82 against New South Wales evoked the same admiration. Then, as he says, the word went round: keep away from his off stump and outside it, you will never get him there. Henceforth in every match, on every ground, it was a leg-stump attack and an on-side field. George was baffled and I remember how anxious we were at a succession of failures. What he did, under fire, so to speak, was to reorganize his batting to me
et the new attack.

  This is what happened to George in Australia: 25, 82, 131, 34. Then he failed steadily: 27 run out and 16; 0 and 11 (Test, to Grimmett both times); 3; 14 and 2 (Test); 19 and 17. Nine successive failures. It is only by the third Test that George is once more in control of the situation: 102 not out out of 193 (next highest score 22), and 28 out of 148 (again top score); 77 and 113; 75 and 39; 33 out of 99 (top score) and 11 out of 107 (fourth Test); 70 run out and 2; 105 and 30 (fifth Test).

  He had so mastered the new problems that Grimmett considers Headley to be the greatest master of on-side play whom he ever bowled against, and he bowled against both Hobbs and Bradman. Yet of George’s 169 not out in the Manchester Test of 1934, A. Ratcliffe, reviewing modern cricket (The Cricketer Annual, 1933–4), says, ‘His cuts off the slow bowling were a strange sight to see and I had only seen such strokes once before when Woolley cut Roy Kilner’s slow deliveries to the boundary time after time.’

  George Headley, this West Indian, would be my candidate for a clinical study of a great batsman as a unique type of human being, mentally and physically. So far as I know no one has probed into this before.

  Mentally. George is batting against an Australian slow bowler, probably Grimmett. To the length ball he gets back and forces Grimmett away between midwicket and mid-on or between midwicket and square leg. He is so quick on his feet and so quick with his bat that Grimmett simply cannot stop ones and twos in between the fieldsmen. Every time Grimmett flights the ball, out of the crease and the full drive. Grimmett, that great master of length, can’t even keep George quiet. He has a man at fine leg. He shifts him round to square and moves square to block up the hole. Next ball is just outside the leg stump. George, gleeful at the thought that fine leg is no longer there, dances in front of the wicket ‘to pick up a cheap four’. He glances neatly, only to see Oldfield, the wicketkeeper, way over on the leg side taking the catch. The two seasoned Australians have trapped him. That sort of thing has happened often enough. Now note George’s reaction.