The Picador Book of Cricket

by Ramachandra Guha

  Some great men fielded there occasionally. Sir Learie Constantine, surely the greatest of all fieldsmen, was often needed for his close catching but he was pre-eminent at cover point as anywhere else.

  The classic Australian cover was Syd Gregory, whose successors were Tommy Andrews and, briefly, before he moved to short leg, Victor Richardson. But their cricket produced a whole succession of players whom memory recalls as all of the same physical mould, of no more than average height, wide-shouldered and tapering down to neat, quick feet: all of them would run and pick up into the long, low accurate throw which marks the great Australian outfields – men like Vernon Ransford, Johnnie Taylor, ‘Nip’ Pellow, Sir Don Bradman, Neil Harvey, Jack Fingleton – all of whom fielded at cover often enough to demonstrate outstanding ability.

  Other leading Englishmen in the position between the two wars were Percy Chapman – with the dual advantage of being left-handed and having the strength and timing to throw accurately and fast when off balance, but who soon became a specialist at silly point – Eddie Paynter, Jack Davies and the bubbling Jack Stephenson, an entertainment in himself. At one point in the middle 1930s Middlesex, for the slow left-arm and leg-spin bowling which they always favoured, could set an arc of superb cover fieldsmen – George Hart, Joe Hulme, Walter Robins and ‘Tuppy’ Owen-Smith – from short third man round to extra cover, and still have John Human in reserve and the elder master, Patsy Hendren, standing at slip.

  In the post-war years the standard has been maintained by Cyril Washbrook, unmistakable as he prowled the covers, cap tilted, shoulders hunched and wary; Reggie Simpson, slim, poised and graceful; the Indians Gul Mahommad, Adhikari and Gaekwad; Athol Rowan of South Africa, Martin Donnelly and Brunty Smith, New Zealand; Alan Rees of Glamorgan and, when he could be spared from the near position, ‘Tiger’ Pataudi.

  Now, though cover point is no longer considered so important as twenty years ago, and when cricket standards are said to be deteriorating, the game has produced two men as fine as any who ever filled the position: arguably, indeed, the greatest, Colin Bland, the Rhodesian, has so studied and practised the movement of stop, pick up and throw that he seems to blend the three in a single ripple of movement, and his accuracy is amazing. The West Indian Clive Lloyd hardly looks an athlete, for he stoops and shambles: but he moves like a great cat and throws, on balance with whip, off balance with a kind of push, so that he is as fast in reaching and returning the ball as anyone we have ever known.

  Still the wise batsman must often say to his partner, ‘It is not one to cover’.

  ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

  Cricket is a game of subtlety, but nothing excites the passions more than the elemental force with which a ball is hit over the ropes. I once saw Viv Richards hit five sixes in a day at the Ferozeshah Kotla, the last out of the stadium, literally all the way from New Delhi to Old Delhi. Later I saw, if on television, Kapil Dev smash four sixes in succession to save the follow-on in a Lord’s Test. These men were heir to an ancient tradition. For, as Gerald Brodribb now reminds us, the big hit and the big hitter long antedate the modern bat and the one-day game.

  GERALD BRODRIBB

  The Big Hit (1961)

  A swirl of great swarthy arms, the sweep of a bat, and a joyous crack as the ball went up and up, high over the deep fielder, rising still over the holiday crowd, and then plummeting down with a crash on the roof of the court house, some 120 yards away. It was Maurice Tate – Hastings – 1924 – some luckless Hampshire bowler – the first six I ever saw. As I watched from the top of a car, the ball rattled down off the steep roof, and fell almost at my feet. I might perhaps have retrieved it, might perhaps have thrown it back daringly on to the field, but the moment was too overpowering. It was enough to feel that – even though I was so young – the very nearness of the ball had put me right into the game; cricket was mine, now and for ever. Not mine only, for the whole crowd was buzzing with talk and smiles; the great ‘Oo-ah!’ as the ball had rocketed up had given way to a murmur of delight. Without the reaction of the crowd that great six would have signified nothing. It instantly linked the spectators with the game, took them right on the stage and gave most of them a moment to be long remembered.

  A hit over the ropes counts six, but the difference between a six and a four is out of all proportion to the numerical difference. Most people go to a county match in the hope of seeing the ball hit hard and high. There is beauty in the curve of the flight, delight in the sound of a full-blooded hit, and an engaging element of danger. ‘Mind out, here she comes!’; the crowd eagerly makes a path for the ball; but someone will try to stop it or even catch it. ‘I caught you out twice today,’ said a perfect stranger to A. E. R. Gilligan, as he walked down the street one evening. Gilligan was puzzled until the stranger explained that the catches had been made somewhere up in the grandstand. Gilligan had hit his sixes, and the memory of two of them will remain with that spectator as long as he lives. For a moment of time he was playing in the match, with all barriers lifted. A similar thrill must have been enjoyed by the spectator in a Currie Cup game in South Africa who off two consecutive balls made catches of sixes hit by Winslow off Tayfield’s bowling.

  Though some batsmen give the impression that the crowd does not matter, might just as well not be there, the spectator has paid his money and expects to see some live cricket in return. W. G. Grace fully realized the good influence keen and satisfied spectators could have upon the game. In 1899 he wrote:

  There is no doubt that big hitters draw crowds and delight spectators, who would sooner see an hour of spirited play than spend an afternoon watching the most perfect slow batsman compiling runs in monotonous singles . . . Say what you will, the cricket-loving public likes lively batting, and for this reason, that is, for the good of cricket, I think hitters should be encouraged. Moreover, if there were more hard hitters, there would be fewer drawn games.

  I know nothing more exhilarating than the feeling that the spectators are on the qui vive and eagerly watching every ball, and it is because I realize that spectators are always in this mood when a notorious hard hitter is at the wicket that I say: ‘Encourage a young batsman who has a disposition to hit out.’

  An orthodox method may be important, especially for those of limited natural ability, but in the end it is the results which matter. I always like the story of the boy who was being coached by an old pro, who bowled him a good ball which the boy hit hard and high into the distance. ‘Just look where your foot is,’ reprimanded the pro, who considered that the ball should have been treated with respect. ‘And just look where the ball is,’ replied the boy, not perhaps tactfully, but with some measure of justification.

  If you are a hitter, the great thing is to win the name of ‘scientific’ hitter, which simply means someone who looks at the ball when he hits and shows some judgement in choosing the right ball. What a pity no one thought of calling Bonnor ‘a scientific hitter’, and then everyone would have been satisfied. Though some bowlers really do object to being hit about – one Yorkshire bowler is said to have murmured that it was ‘sheer murder and not cricket’ when F. T. Mann hit him twice running to the top seats of the Lord’s pavilion – most of them join in spontaneous admiration when a batsman makes a really fine hit off their bowling. I can well remember Ian Thomson, of Sussex, hitting a ball from Lock over the screen at Hove in 1957 and the bowler clapping him for doing so, and it was a sight almost as pleasant as the hit itself. Townsend of Warwickshire once made a very fine hit in the opposite direction at Hove off the bowling of James Langridge, and he writes: ‘I always remember Jim striding down the wicket, and saying to me, ‘‘Well hit!’’’ as the ball sailed away towards the entrance gate. I believe that such applause from ‘the enemy’ is largely confined to sixes, and not even the best of turf-clinging fours will often produce it.

  Sir Pelham Warner, whose cricket experience is unrivalled, said that the best match he ever saw at Lord’s was the England v. Dominions one of 1945. It was packed full of s
plendid hitting and produced more sixes than almost any match at Lord’s had ever done. From the expert observer down to the casual visitor the big hit is regarded as something excellent and worthwhile; E. V. Lucas sums up the whole matter very neatly in his famous poem:

  ‘You must keep them on the carpet,’ is the counsel of the pro,

  ‘And don’t ever leave your ground,’ he adds, and all agree ’tis so.

  Yet even from the pedant what a deep ecstatic sigh

  When the batsman jumps to meet one, and a sixer climbs the sky.

  When big hits flow in profusion the whole game blooms like some exotic flower and the effect is almost intoxicating. I know no better description of this than Ronald Mason’s account in his Batsman’s Paradise of a day he spent at the Oval when he was aged twelve; the match was Yorkshire (Champion County) against the Rest of England:

  Fortune favoured the two left-handers on that day; and, I have since thought, a relaxed carelessness on the part of the two bowlers, Rhodes and Kilner, whom in normal conditions no one hit with impunity. But the Fates were with the batsmen, and it was the last game of the season (15 September 1924, I shall remember the date all my life) and the bowlers’ fingers were perhaps September-weary, and the left-hander’s spinner to the left-handed batsmen encouraged a gladsome sweep to leg with the break – and altogether we were presented with such conditions as never before or since concatenated so gloriously; and these two beautiful left-handers, Woolley in a roseate dream of willowy motion and Chapman in a great muscular charging flourish of strong limbs in their pride, collected 50 runs off these tremendous bowlers in exactly seven minutes by the clock. Woolley’s right foot, again and again, planted itself lengthily down the wicket as he swung lazily with the break; Chapman, all of him, came swinging out in delight with his bat flourishing high – and time and again the ball soared splendidly over the crowd, out into the road, under the gasometer. I can still hear the joyous crack, still rise with the excited crowd around me as the ball sails above our heads, join in the high squall of delighted cheering, wave on wave of it, and down comes Chapman again and crack comes the ball once more into our midst. I felt, innocent and inexperienced as I was, a sense of tremendous exultation. It was elementary, charity-match stuff; but it affected me as no incident at any cricket match has ever affected me, before or since. For the rest of the day I felt breathless, dizzy, almost ill; the ordinary world seemed unreal. But for years later, literally years, the memory of those moments (which Woolley and Chapman have probably forgotten; I doubt whether I can say the same of Rhodes) recurred to me and, curiously enough, steadied me at times when steadying was what I most needed.

  A big hit is not only memorable to those who saw it, but regarded as worth recording by cricket correspondents. Glance through any columns of cricket reports, and consider the headlines. Here are a few from miscellaneous papers of the 1930s:

  ‘Voce Hits Ball into Hotel Bar’ – Daily Express.

  ‘Gigantic Hit by Hammond’ – Sussex Daily News.

  ‘Budd’s One Stroke – Six – ’ Morning Post.

  ‘R. H. Moore Hits Two Great Sixes’ – Daily Telegraph.

  ‘A Great Hit by Voce’ – The Times.

  ‘Wellard’s Giant Sixes – Hits Ball into River’ – Daily Telegraph.

  A big six must then be regarded as something to be reported, and indeed the purpose of this piece is to place on record and in some detail the hitting feats of those whose particular talent has glorified the game.

  Scorebooks and histories give the details of runs gained and conceded, but the individual great strokes which provided such pleasure to all those who saw them soon become lost in the mist of memory; some exceptional ones may be lucky enough to blossom into legend and grow with the passage of time, but in the end they fade into oblivion as though they never had been. It is surely unjust that such glories should meet with such a fate, while the score-sheets that contained them linger on, like skeletons. I hope by recounting the feats of the great hitters to recall the joys they must have produced, and perhaps to remind batsmen of today what seemingly impossible feats have been achieved.

  It is easy enough to appreciate the joyous feelings of those who have witnessed the great hits. It is sometimes forgotten that the man who makes them is also provided with intense pleasure. Though this pleasure is sometimes evident, there are not many batsmen who have been able to express their feelings in words. We are lucky though to have something which Jessop wrote in 1899 on the subject of hitters and spectators. He wrote:

  The man who hits always possesses one consoling thought in success or failure, that with him goes the sympathy of the great majority of spectators. Most of them maintain firmly that ‘It is better to have hit and missed than never to have hit at all.’

  A few old-fashioned theorists still shake their heads sadly, and endeavour to look disgusted when the ball crashes into the pavilion clock or disappears into the neighbouring gardens, but I suppose I cannot be wrong in saying that even these in their hearts are not especially saddened by the sight, while for the more ordinary sportsman, the men who have just come to see some fun, and the younger people of both sexes, the spectacle causes unqualified enthusiasm.

  Playing to the gallery in all sports is one of the most offensive forms of diseased vanity, and to hit simply in order to extort applause would indeed be a lamentable method of seeking cheap popularity. But it cannot be denied that there is some satisfaction in feeling that you are giving pleasure to the vast throng surrounding the field of play, that they are glad to see you appear, rejoice when an incompetent fielder gives you another life, are saddened when you retire to well-deserved obscurity. And even if the fates prove unfavourable, and your first ball, designed to disappear beyond the boundary, screws stupidly into the arms of extra cover, and you retire dejectedly into the pavilion for an ignominious ‘blob’, it is some slight satisfaction to feel that there is scarcely one who is not sorry for your departure. ‘He did his best to make things lively,’ they amiably remark, and even cheer your retiring figure, in a kind-hearted attempt to inform you of their appreciation of your effort . . .

  But remember that the object of each player is to do the best for his side regardless of the crowd; that we who are hitters hit because we are most use doing this, and those who play a stonewall game do so because they are most use doing that, and that all have equal right to participate in the finest sport, whether they cause interest to the spectators or whether they cause indifference.

  This is the fullest statement ever made by a great hitter on his approach to the crowd, and their sympathy with a batsman who is obviously willing to hit the ball. It was ever thus, as we learn from this verse written over 130 years ago on the great Fuller Pilch, then in his ‘promising’ days:

  At present his batting’s a little too wild,

  Though the ‘non-pareil’ hitter he’s sometimes been styled,

  So free and so fine, with the head of a master,

  Spectators all grieve when he meets with disaster.

  Some batsmen will remember some particular hit to the end of their days. Paul Winslow’s hit at Old Trafford in 1955, for example, when he reached his first Test century with one of the biggest hits ever seen on the ground, and waved joyfully to his fellows in the pavilion to include them in his delight. Herbert Sutcliffe well remembers the six with which he completed his first century in first-class cricket. He writes:

  In the match at Northampton in 1919, I remember that Holmes’s score stood at 98, when my score was 94. George Hirst, who was sitting in the pavilion, then said, ‘He ought to hit a six now.’ The next ball enabled me to do what Hirst hoped I would do. I went out to it, got properly hold of it and it soared over long off to clear the boundary by about forty yards, and pitch on the tennis courts. Probably one of the biggest hits I have made. The thrill stayed with me for a long time – there is a touch of it now when I think of the shot – but the hit was one I should not have attempted had there not been a race with P
ercy for the pleasure of scoring our first hundred for the county.

  Sutcliffe also recalls the innings at Bradford against Gloucester in 1932 which gave him his hundredth hundred in first-class cricket. It contained many sixes, of which he writes:

  I know the eight sixes I hit at Bradford when I made my hundredth hundred gave me great joy and I always have a similar feeling of joy when I see a batsman hit a six whether he is playing for us or against us.

  Other batsmen have stated the pleasure they have had in making a big hit. K. S. Ranjitsinhji, who could hit a very long ball when he wanted to, wrote: ‘A big drive, clean and true, gives a satisfaction that cannot be expressed in words.’ J. H. Wardle says: ‘There is no joy in the world like the ‘‘tonk’’ in the middle of the bat that sends the ball flying over the ropes for six. There is no more beautiful sight than to see it soaring; if you are the batsman, that is. If you are the bowler, it is not so hot.’ Wardle was a somewhat cross-bat swiper, and in the course of an innings at Lord’s when he made several huge hits to leg, one purist is said to have remarked that Wardle’s batting was ‘agricultural’, to which a Yorkshire supporter is said to have replied: ‘Yes, perhaps, but bloomin’ fertile.’

  Many writers have attempted to describe the sound of a well-hit ball; about which Dean Hole, who was once a keen Notts supporter, wrote:

  I maintain that there are few more blissful emotions than those which were ours when, having hit the billet with precision and power, we heard it whizzing through the air, saw our adversary gazing at it like a retriever at a partridge which begins to tower, and started to add runs to our score . . . I have myself played some beautiful though simple airs on the flute; but I have never heard any music, home-made or foreign, so sweet as the song of the billet.