Last in the Tin Bath

by David Lloyd

  To underline the psychological nature of the whole episode, once I had re-established myself in the first XI’s top six my bowling came back to me, and I became quite relaxed about things, whether I was in the Old Trafford nets or the middle of a match on the circuit. Of course, it took a while to get back to being entrusted with the volume of overs of my first two seasons, but it was progress.

  Indeed, during the 1968 campaign, my first-class victims numbered just one and I sent down fewer than twenty overs. But I was in the team to score runs and did so, stacking up 935 in all, including that hundred against the Cambridge students and earning that county cap in the process.

  But the search for the potency I had shown in a rare away victory a couple of years earlier against Gloucestershire at Lydney, where I took seven wickets in the second innings to complete a ten-victim haul in the match and a 60-run victory, meant there was a gradual increase in overs bowled by me. Subconsciously, the pressure I felt previously, perhaps due to having all these great players around me, dissipated. I clearly couldn’t handle it for a while.

  The two big wickets of my career were Geoffrey Boycott – which I remind him of most times I see him (and that’s fairly frequently you will understand, as I’m usually working just a couple of commentary boxes down from him at any given England match) – and Garry Sobers. Not the two best dismissals from an aesthetic point of view, but you always remember reeling in the big fish.

  The first was in the second innings of a drawn Roses contest at Bramall Lane, Sheffield, in August 1967. Boycott, who had 54 to his name, was caught at first slip, which was not particularly unusual. Or at least it wasn’t unusual until you considered that at no stage during the process of the catch being claimed, and Boycs walking off, did Geoff Pullar touch the ball with his hands. Sizing up a rank bad ball, the bespectacled one went to cut it and somehow got a top edge. Geoff, quite an ample bloke, instinctively turned his back on it during a course of evasive action and somehow the ball lodged between his arse cheeks. ‘I’m not going for that,’ Boycott declared, doing his best WG Grace impression as Pullar produced the missing ball from between his legs. Unfortunately, he had to. The quality of the delivery made it a harsh departure in the extreme – but all the better in another.

  Sobers was actually my bunny. Fancy a player of his high class getting out to me. TWICE. Having had him held at slip by Jack Simmons at Old Trafford in 1971, when some nasty rumour-monger claimed he had wanted to get back into the dressing room to watch a televised horse race from somewhere or other, I also dismissed him in the same fixture three years later in a match with significance for me. Not only was it a rare workout with the ball at that stage of my career, which reaped four wickets, but it was during that match’s course that I learned I would be retaining the England place I had won that summer when Boycott had been overlooked. My name was among the sixteen chosen to tour New Zealand and Australia that winter.

  Joking aside, Garry was the best player I was confronted with on a cricket field, simply because he could do everything. There wasn’t really anyone to compare him to when you considered how accomplished he was across the board. As a batsman he hit the ball incredibly hard, taking just about everybody to the cleaners regardless of reputation; then with the ball he could bowl genuinely fast or equally effective spinners and in the field he caught everything that moved. All this without ever going to sleep – a fact that while only 99.94 per cent true helped enhance his superhuman image. Of course, he got some shut-eye now and again, but Garry would tell you himself that he didn’t like going to bed before three o’clock – not sure whether he meant a.m. or p.m.

  On the field he was indestructible with an impeccable demeanour. Strolling to the crease with a huge smile, he would make a point of saying, ‘How do, is everything all right?’ Well, it was for those few seconds. Next thing you knew he would be smashing it everywhere. Some cricketers have an aura about them when they walk over that boundary rope and Garry had that. Not of the same kind that another West Indies great, Viv Richards, possessed: Viv had menace but Garry was charismatic. He would be unbelievably chilled out. It was just his way of getting in the mood before taking you to the cleaners.

  Imagine Sobers’s value if he was on the Twenty20 market. A natural athlete able to hit balls out of the park at will – think of his carnage at Swansea when he took Malcolm Nash for six sixes in an over with a backswing you could still recognise when you walked onto the Royal Westmoreland Golf Course in Barbados when he was in his seventies. He could also take wickets by switching to whatever style of bowling to best suit the surface, and he could catch pigeons. Whether it be dollars, rupees or sterling, Sobers would be on the top shelf of anyone’s auction.

  CHAPTER 5

  Educating Bumble

  It was against Garry Sobers’s Nottinghamshire that I began the practical side of my tertiary education as a full-time cricketer, making my official second XI debut in a Minor Counties Championship match (some counties’ second XIs still played in this tournament) at Old Trafford a little over nine months after I had received the club offer of an apprenticeship.

  There is no learning like learning on the job, and that competitive domain represented a decent classroom. This was my first experience of a dog-eat-dog environment in which everyone was fighting for higher recognition. Although, in my naivety as a seventeen-year-old thrilled to be playing full-time cricket, I’m not sure I saw the starker side of things. I was up against some experienced campaigners and some wonderful characters all told.

  None more so than Carlton Forbes, a Jamaican-born all-rounder who batted No. 3 and bowled some left-arm swing. He might have been christened Carlton but everyone knew him as Cha Cha, and his sideline alongside his cricket career at Trent Bridge was that he ran a nightclub in Nottingham. Cha Cha Forbes seemed about eight feet tall and was the blackest bloke you have ever seen. Okay, I might be exaggerating on one count there, but I bet he would have to stoop to get away with 6 ft 5 ins.

  Cha Cha was a very amiable chap, thin, not heavy set and the first bowler to dismiss me at senior level with a big swinger. But he had associations with much more famous cricketers than me. Without being willing to swear on a bible in court, I can almost guarantee that Sobers would hardly ever have been out of Cha Cha’s nightclub after he arrived in 1968. I never went in but I know plenty of lads who did, and for this after-hours association alone he was very popular.

  At the top of the Nottinghamshire order was a batsman called Mike Smedley, who went on to captain them for years. He remains on the Trent Bridge committee to this day. Then there was Smedley’s fellow Yorkshireman Barry Stead, another fantastic lad who bowled left arm. Barry would run through the proverbial brick wall for his captain, and was the kind of player that brought smiles to faces due to his love of the game. Relatively small in stature, he would absolutely tear-arse in, making up for any lack of inches with his huge heart. There were certainly some similarities to New Zealand’s Trent Boult in the way he operated – reacting to swinging one past the outside edge with a quiet word. Nothing demonstrative, just a polite acknowledgement to the batsmen that they hadn’t been good enough, in the manner and tone used by the best bowlers.

  Typically of a second XI in those days, their captain was a senior hand. John Clay, a revered name on the county circuit, was then in his fortieth year and a couple of seasons into leading the Notts second XI, having previously made history when he became the first professional to captain the club in 1961, more than twelve months before the abolition of the split gentlemen and players status in the English game. As it happened, we had a captain from the other side of the fence, Bob Bennett, an amateur who would go on to be an England tour manager in future years.

  Smedley and Mike Taylor, who went by the initials MNS Taylor and whose twin brother Derek kept wicket for Somerset, were among my seven victims in the match as the Old Trafford pitch took some spin. Ken Howard, our off-spinner, took five wickets in the first innings, while I backed him up with 11-7-17-
3. Old Trafford was quite green at the time and this pitch was an exception rather than the rule. For spin to play such an extensive part – we won by nine wickets – was unusual at what was a fast bowlers’ paradise where the pitches were as juicy as anything.

  Understanding the different characteristics of grounds around the country was also part of learning your trade as a county cricketer. At that time, all cricket squares around England had different characteristics, as you would play on the natural soil of the area. Accordingly, the behaviour of the top layer of soil determined how the pitch would play – how much the ball would bounce and how much it would deviate. In Manchester, we had grassy pitches; go to Bristol and, confronted with a reddish soil, you were served up something that was slow and low. If you went down to Mumbles at Swansea, those pitches would spin. It would be similar to Bristol in terms of its slow pace, but you would also get some turn.

  People of a certain vintage will recall the quickest bowler in English cricket at that time. Jeff Jones, father of our 2005 Ashes winner Simon Jones, didn’t actually play for Glamorgan when their home games were scheduled in Swansea. They just didn’t see the point of flogging him in unresponsive conditions, so they just played bowlers who bowled cutters at medium pace rather than an out-and-out speed merchant. Every pitch had its own idiosyncrasies. Headingley was a little seamer: it didn’t contain express pace but it was quick enough and provided bowlers with plenty of nip, which was what skilful practitioners like Tony Nicholson loved to work with. Brian Close was also a maestro at making the most out of the assistance on offer from the pitch. Similarly, in subsequent years, it was well exploited by Chris Old.

  The massive change in the game came when we got rid of uncovered pitches, because at this point standard soils were introduced around the country. We left behind the finer loams and grasses for heavier ones that would not deteriorate as randomly. Surrey loams, Ongar loams and Mendip loams were introduced into every pitch to try to get some uniformity. Instead of regional variation, the idea was that all pitches would hold together, and the ball would go straight up and down. These loams all had high clay content, which to grow grass on was not easy but gave you plenty of pace and bounce.

  It spelt an end to the likes of Brian Statham and other fast bowlers mastering the conditions in an old-school way. On some pitches, they would dig a hole with their front foot where they landed. Once fully formed, it would force them to land in another spot – you never got the groundsman running on with a bucket, shovel and mallet to repair these damned craters, the bowler simply had to move to an unblemished spot on the crease, whether it be along it or back a yard.

  This was an added skill within the fast bowling trade – coping with delivering the ball from another angle. There was an associated challenge for batsmen too because as a game progressed, when you waited in your batting stance, you had to contend with these holes. It meant finding somewhere comfortable to stand because even if you didn’t have a boot in a fully-formed void, a pitch was rarely uniformly flat and groundstaff were not in the practice of fixing them up when the match was in progress. There would be no filling with soil or compacting, they would simply give them a chamfer shave, and then it was up to the competitors to make the best of what was left underfoot.

  It was totally different when these loams came in. For a start, that landing area became rock hard and Fred Trueman, the greatest English bowler of them all, would get all curmudgeonly about the consequences he believed it had for fast bowlers, laying blame at its door for injuries, particularly those to the back, which appeared to have increased after these harder pitches were introduced. These big lads slamming down on to solid ground, he said, resulted in great pressure reverberating up the spine.

  Fred talked about the dangers of indoor nets, insisting that bowlers spent too much time on concrete.

  ‘What are you on about?’ I asked him.

  ‘These indoor nets all have one thing in common. Whatever surface is laid on top, they are all laid on concrete bases,’ he said. ‘So whenever you run in to bowl, you are smashing your back to bits.’

  By that token, Fred would have been one of them. But, oh no. As he revealed, Yorkshire’s indoor facility had a sprung wood floor. So whenever you landed in your delivery stride, there was an amount of give that effectively provided a cushion for your back. I reckoned Old Fred knew exactly what he was on about here. I lost count of the number of blokes sidelined by injury who were slamming down their size thirteen boots for a living.

  Scores were generally lower on these uncovered pitches, and in that first appearance for the second XI we bowled Notts out for 85, later securing a commanding first-innings lead of 48. Our top scorer was Ken Shuttleworth, an Ashes winner and someone who was to become a great mate over subsequent years. Shut also took five wickets in the second innings.

  There was also some eye-opening to be experienced for someone with a sheltered youth like mine. For example, it was during that match that I found out why Ken Howard, a very sallow-looking cove from Longsight who claimed half the Nottinghamshire wickets to fall in the first innings, possessed the nickname Spout. With the use of the most inoffensive terminology I can, it was because he had an appendage which was shaped like a down spout. His party piece when the spout was angry was that he could get a dozen old pennies lined up on it.

  The more serious side of my education was overseen by men like Bob Bennett and Edward Slinger, the two amateur captains under whom I featured, who have become known for other services to the game. Bob went on to become England manager while you may have heard of the name Judge Edward Slinger, as he is now known, who has regularly sat on disciplinary panels for the ECB.

  They were both fantastic mentors whose guidance throughout my early career was invaluable. It’s safe to say that I wouldn’t have got anywhere without those two, because not only did they teach me cricket, they taught me about life, kept me on an even keel, gave me a level head and encouraged me regarding my ability.

  Amateur captains became something of a feature in second XI cricket following the switch from a mixed gentlemen and players era to a professional one, and it wasn’t only in their status that they were different. Because they were amateur they were no longer competing with us for recognition and a place in the first XI. That meant you had a different relationship with your captain as opposed to other players. They were no longer direct opponents, they were just there to bring everybody else on. They helped everyone through and became father figures to their juniors.

  This is not to say that they were not bloody good players, circumstances had just dictated that they were ditched after the previous generation and re-engaged to bring on the next. Bob got a hundred in the first team, so that told you he could play a bit, and while Edward never got into the first team he was a very sound opening batsman for Enfield, partnering the West Indies great Conrad Hunte.

  You couldn’t speak too highly about those two captains, whose other duties included acting as the intermediaries between the dressing room and the committee, liaising with those making decisions on the club’s future policies not only on our progress but also providing character references on the kind of blokes we were. In modern terms, they were a bit like our line managers.

  There was no second XI coach, so men like these were the ones you looked up to and turned to for advice if you had any doubts about your own game. Although you knew they were amateurs, and there was always a little bit of a stigma attached with that because they were viewed on a different level when it came to ability, they offered great value.

  As opposed to second XI cricket midway through the second decade of the twenty-first century, which now more often than not involves sides packed with trialists or one county combining with another to form a composite team, this was a breeding ground for the best young players in the country, a competitive stage to show an improvement, with the ultimate goal being a place on the County Championship stage.

  Cyril Washbrook, one of the greatest players Lancashire e
ver had, and a wonderful batsman for county and country, ruled the roost at our club following his retirement. Some people would have told you he was an absolute tyrant. Whatever you called him – and he did not possess an official title – he undertook most of the judging and was effectively the first manager in English cricket. Unpaid for his service, he sat on the committee and, because of the esteem in which he was held, was unbelievably influential on playing matters.

  Major Rupert Howard and his successor Geoffrey Howard, military men both, held the position of secretary during these years. However, although they held the titles, you were in no doubt that it was Cyril that ran the whole shebang. He would turn up at the second XI matches to observe, and would pick out individuals and beckon them with the curling of his index finger. Dressed in a suit, with a trilby on his head, he cut an imposing figure and so getting the finger proved a fairly intimidating experience.

  The chat would normally start with him sitting you down and saying, ‘Let’s have a word.’ He was very well spoken and was clearly intent on getting to know you beyond your cricket. He would ask about your aspirations, your ambitions and how you felt you were doing. It was a little bit like getting an appraisal. He wanted to know about your preparation, where you saw yourself in twelve months’ time and once answered he would hit you with the killer, supplementary question: ‘How exactly are you going to go about it?’

  Similar processes take place nowadays with online forms, but with him it was just a chat about how you envisaged breaking into that first team, and he would store the information, not in an email inbox, but in the back of his head. At one of these meetings, he said to me: ‘I’ve watched you and seen the shots that you have been playing. Just a word of warning – do not play the sweep.’ It was a piece of advice that always stuck with me, even if I didn’t heed it later in my career.