Cricket XXXX Cricket

by Frances Edmonds

  By about lunchtime that day we were all feeling a couple of tinnies over par and rather peckish. No Swan Brewery hospitality box on offer here, I’m afraid. I went to scavenge and came up with an unlikely comestible reclining sluggishly in the pavilion bar’s microwave. It rejoiced in the name of Chicken Hero, although whether this appellation designated the product or the potential consumer remains unclear. The Chicken Hero comes hermetically sealed in its own silver foil bag, presumably for reasons of environmental pollution. I do not think that any putatively edible takeaway has ever occasioned such ribald mirth amongst its consumers. This Hero is a long, thin roll, generously stuffed with a sort of mucous secretion which once upon a time might conceivably have been tangentially connected with a chicken. Then again, it might not.

  Nick, Mark H’s future brother-in-law, who along with Prince Edward has patently missed his vocation in the Marines where men are men, and sheep are scared, ate two. The rest of us had finished after one bite.

  Australia, of course, went on to win the fifth and final Test, but there was far too much bad batting, bad bowling and bad umpiring to make it a truly great game. Nevertheless, if nothing else, the match demonstrated one point: two teams playing mediocre cricket can still prove genuinely exciting for spectators and players alike. A contest in which any one of three results remains possible until the very least minute, with the entire population of the Sydney Cricket ground teetering on the brink of its seats until the bitter end, cannot be all bad. Besides, the match did evidence various aspects which were indicative of the series as a whole.

  On the Australian side, Greg Ritchie, who in most people’s books should be a permanent middle-order fixture in the team, was unfortunately forced to open the innings. A solid opening pair is a priceless asset in Test cricket, as England’s Broad–Athey combination has shown. Indeed, much of the English psychological dominance in this series has stemmed from the stalwart performance of these two openers, and from the reciprocal fragility of their Australian counterparts, despite the often laudable efforts of an extremely professional Geoff Marsh.

  All the more credit, therefore, must go to Dean Jones, who in effect at number three, has often to all intents and purposes been opening the innings.

  Jones’ swashbuckling one hundred and eighty-odd at Sydney certainly established an excellent platform from which the Australians should have progressed. However, despite that, and some singularly exasperating lower-order partnerships, England still managed to bowl Australia out for three hundred and fifty. Jones has grown in stature and confidence as the series has progressed, aided by two stylish, if eventually redundant, centuries in the intervening Perth one-day challenge series, and it has been a joy to watch his development.

  Allan Border has had a relatively quiet series for a figure of such international stature, but that was almost inevitable considering the intolerable media pressures to which he has been subjected since Australia’s first Test defeat in Brisbane. How England should thank the Australian press for its often vicious excesses. For all that, Border must still surely rank as the English bowlers’ most prized scalp, and I know Phil rates his five Border dismissals in ten Border appearances as his own greatest contribution to the retention of the Ashes. Border’s dogged century in Perth, allowing Australia to survive when a second successive defeat looked inevitable, was a brave captain’s innings. I sincerely hope that this modicum of Australian success will at least serve to deflect some of the media flak from a man who, until recently, has had to play in a one-man band.

  Peter Taylor, the overnight hero, was awarded the Man of the Match award, but for me the true highlight of the game was David Gower’s first innings’ effort, an impeccably beautiful gem. For the hundreds of thousands of cricket followers who hold the often misunderstood former England captain in great affection, it has been a treat to witness his gradual return to form this tour. After that lucky break in Brisbane, when he was dropped on nought, he has gone on to score over four hundred runs in the series, an aggregate surpassed only by Chris Broad, whose four hundred and eighty-seven at an amazing 69.5 average includes three consecutive Test match centuries. It was certainly no more than his just deserts when Chris was acclaimed the Man of the Series.

  Ian Botham’s much heralded exit from overseas Tests occurred with more of a whimper than the usual bang. He too has had a quiet series in every possible way. His two vital performances, however, the one with the bat during his blistering century in Brisbane, and the other with the ball when he snapped up five wickets in Australia’s first innings at Melbourne, give some indication of what we shall all be missing in the future. Only Bruce Reid of the Australian attack survived with any degree of stature from Beefy’s merciless Brisbane onslaught, and it looks as if he will remain the fulcrum of the Australian attack for many years to come. There is, on reflection, no shortage of positive elements which could be galvanised into a very useful Australian side in the future.

  As for England, Graham Dilley’s return to form after years dogged by terrible injury, and Gladstone Small’s remarkable success with the new ball, all go to show that the England team never has been, and most certainly is not now, a one-man show.

  Wicketkeeper-batsman Jack Richards, brought into the team when the batting looked suspect early on, has proved himself a very competitive cricketer both behind the stumps and with the bat, particularly in his extraordinary century at Perth. Together with Mike Gatting in Sydney, he was almost instrumental in achieving a match-winning position. He took some magnificent catches in Melbourne, and the only memorable blemish on an untarnished record would be the missed chance of stumping Waugh at Sydney, which in the end proved crucial.

  Spin-twins Edmonds and Emburey have also played an important role, tying down batsmen for hours on end, giving the captain time to take control of developments, and Embers’ seven-wicket haul in Australia’s first innings in Sydney should by rights have been rewarded by something better than an England defeat.

  At all events, with a 2–1 victory in the Ashes series, and an astounding win in the one day challenge match in Perth, England is looking like a reformed collegiate character. Whatever the outcome of the next one-day-knockabout-pyjama-game codicil to the tour, England will surely be returning home to a 1987 series against the Pakistanis a far more confident and aggressive side than the Johnsonian shambles they were quite rightly dismissed as being at the start of the tour.

  It has not, however, been all lost Test matches, early morning calls and being sacked from breakfast TV these last few weeks. Sydney is not a place that allows of depression. The rest day during the Test, for example, was anything but. David ‘Fender’ Gower and Allan Lamb, together with celebrated restaurateur Peter Doyle and the house of Bollinger, had ideas for the team which involved little in the way of relaxation. An alternative Test match had been organised at Doyle’s piscatorial palace on the beach at Watson’s Bay, between the MCC touring team and the ‘Bollinger Belles’.

  The inevitable tipple started flowing as soon as we boarded the Solway Lass schooner outside the Opera House, and set sail across the harbour. Elton John powered alongside us in a motor launch for part of the way, just to wave. I forgot to mention that he had carried a lucky charm into hospital with him when he was admitted for surgery. It was a pristine-looking bat Phil had given him after the Melbourne Test, and as most people noticed, barely used but for the a few red marks along the edges. How we all do hope that the op has been a success.

  The match started after a copious lunch, both teams replete with talent-levelling quantities of the company libation, and a surfeit of shellfish. The Bollinger Belles were comprised of Sydney socialites, television personalities (of whom I was still supposed to be one at that stage), journalists, wine representatives and a brace of beauty queens. (Ian Botham had wisely elected to go elsewhere for the day.) Expatriate Pom boxer Joe Bugner was there as the Belles’ minder, and his wife-cum-manager, Marlene, was nominated minder’s minder. What a charming chap he is! Seated at
the lunch table between Joe and Phil, I lurched over at one stage to replenish La Edmonds’ glass with the necessary lotion. Long experience has taught me that ladies can remain thirsty for a very long time when Philippe-Henri is in charge of dispensing the drinks. A virtual non-drinker himself, except of course when England retain the Ashes, it does not readily occur to him that other people are in no way averse to the odd tincture from time to time. When I say from time to time, I do, of course, mean, on days such as this, more or less all the time.

  ‘Please don’t do that,’ said Joe, relieving me of the bottle so voraciously clasped in my clammy little hand, and pouring out the requisite volume of the alternative amber nectar. ‘You mustn’t think boxers don’t know their manners.’

  I did not tell him it was not the boxers I was worried about.

  The twenty-one defenceless Belles (aided and abetted by the fact that additional handicaps were continuously being introduced for the MCC team at the four umpires’ discretion) played exceedingly well. There was quite a bit of blatant cheating, verbal abuse and intimidatory shouts from both sides, and the umpires seemed only vaguely conversant with the rules. Just like a proper Test match in Australia, really! Suitable, and indeed often unsuitable commentary was provided by Bob Willis, Norman May and Henry Blofeld, whose comments about Mrs Edmonds, legs open wide, waiting for a tickle, produced the inevitable raucous laughter. I had been elected Belles’ wicketkeeper, since it is generally believed that I miss nothing. I did not know whether insult or compliment was intended, but it was widely suggested at the end of the day that Tim Zoehrer could not have done a better job.

  The score card was maintained meticulously by Test veteran Alan Davidson, and involved a few controversial decisions, such as:

  Gower D., out for verbal abuse, for 6.

  Broad C., out for obstructing a fieldslady, for 5.

  Slack W., out for molesting an umpire, for 4.

  The final score, thanks to a ten-to-one weighting system, was Bollinger Belles 250; English Lie-ins 61.

  ‘Throwing-in’ took on a new meaning when my own mode of dismissal had been effected by David Gower bodily transporting me into the raging surf and dumping me. After that, everyone went in; Blowers went in with his expensive camera still around his neck, and even Joe Bugner went in (although it took seven of the English cricketers and much accommodation from Joe himself to render that possible). Yes, everyone got well and truly soused. It was a very merry day.

  A very merry day indeed, and more significant still, an index of the fact that it does not matter how you play the game, but whether you win or lose. All right, so England lost the final Test, but the tour so far has been an unhoped-for success. Imagine the blown Fleet Street or Wapping tabloid gaskets if the team had been involved in such a frivolous mid-Test outing during the last disastrous West Indian series. I can imagine the headlines now: ‘Champagne Charlies in Frothy Frolics as Cricket-as-we-know-it Crumbles.’

  The great British public does not care to have the dirt dug on a team perceived as national heroes, on cricketers lighting up the midwinter misery and darkness by thrashing the ancient foe. One wonders whether consumers would have devoured the post-Windies shock-horror salacious stories with such gusto had we managed to win out there. In this ultra-professional cricket world, at least as far as media fallout is concerned, we can all forget the eminently praiseworthy Corinthian ethic. As far as Joe Public’s impressions of a team are concerned, the only thing that really counts is whether it comes up trumps.

  We had already moved inexorably into the Benson and Hedges World Series Challenge when the Willesee crew, led by journalist-interviewer Neil Kearney, arrived at our Bondi Junction pad about 10 am. It is such a dramatic improvement, living in the normal confines of a flat, rather than trying to operate within the stiflingly claustrophobic restrictions of the average hotel room. Phil was in his favoured pose, recumbent on the couch like some sybaritic MCC pasha, staring fixedly at the box. The crew filmed the usual early morning Edmonds’ crossfire. Phil graciously admitted that I had helped him in his cricketing career, in that I generally ensured he left the house feeling angry and aggressive in the morning. They asked me what would I do if I found my husband had been touring around breaking furniture with faded Beauty Queens. I professed my deep-seated belief in the ancient Roman philosophy of lex talionis, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. In common parlance that means I have met several men this trip with whom I would be only too happy to break a retaliatory bed.

  ‘I always give tit for tat,’ I countered, and, in the words of the immortal Sophie Tucker, ‘there’s got to be a lot of tat for what I’ve got to give.’

  Phil went off to play in yet another of the preliminary one-day games against the Australians at the SCG. This one, incidentally, turned out to be a real cliff-hanger, with Allan Lamb guiding England to a quite breathtaking victory by smashing eighteen runs off the hapless Bruce Reid’s last over. Meantime the interview went on to cover such topics as my ideas on Australian men. Actually, I do not have too many ideas about Australian men, except that I do harbour this nebulous germ of an idea that few Aussie men are consistent with that macho image so hyped abroad. I have said this before, and I am now more and more than ever convinced of its truth. Perhaps that image was apposite a few years ago when legendary tales were handed down of was it Dennis Lillee? or was it Rod Marsh? who held the record for the non-stop drinking of tinnies during an intercontinental flight from Australia to England. Nowadays, if the advertisements are to be believed, all Aussie cricketers are probably on Diet Coke. I mean honestly, do real men drink Diet Coke?

  The economy too would seem to indicate a certain lack of bullish behaviour in the country, although a treasurer who suggests that Australia is on the brink of becoming a banana republic does little to harden anyone’s currency. However, in stark contrast to the mawkish lack of self-confidence which obtains in other areas of endeavour, it is fascinating to watch the fearless entrepreneurial spirit of the Bonds, the Murdochs, the Packers, the Holmes à Courts and the Elliots at work. Although not all born Australians, they do nevertheless represent that gutsy and unquestioning belief in their own capacities which for me used to epitomise this brave sometimes even brazen country.

  Australian men? Why ask me? I do not believe in stereotyping any category of person on a nationality basis. Neither the men, nor indeed the women, of any particular country are necessarily a homogeneous bunch. What I do believe, however, is that the state of the national sport is often inextricably connected with the state of the nation. When the New Zealanders were doing so remarkably well in the America’s Cup challenge series, for instance, the Kiwi stock exchange was looking rosy. The day they lost to the Americans and Dennis Conner, stocks took a nosedive. Similarly, a once invincible national cricket team which now wimps out of facing up to the mighty West Indians in their own unevenly pacy and bouncy Caribbean back yard, would appear to be sadly indicative of a country whose once boundless self-confidence seems to have taken a temporary downturn.

  In search of Australia’s lost macho-man, we therefore set off to the celebrated R. M. Williams, men’s outfitters, in Castlereagh Street, Sydney, where the sort of tackle a hardened bushman would need is on offer. It is all there. Your Drizabone all-weather, waterproof overcoat cum mackintosh; the moleskins, the sort of trousers you could chop wood on; the kangaroo-skin boots, which for less than a hundred and fifty dollars are designed to last a lifetime in the City, and many a punishing year in the bush. We bought one of the now famous bush hats for Philippe-Henri, originally popularised by golfer Greg Norman, and the manager, Brad, informed us that they were selling like hot cakes since Hogan’s appearance in Crocodile Dundee. Thanks to an article in some trendy New York fashion magazine, the Drizabone was on offer in fancy Fifth Avenue boutiques for anything up to six times the Aussie price. There is an ironic twist, however, for any up-to-the-minute-Yank who thinks he can walk around the streets of New York doing a ‘Hoges’ with impunity. Those
of you who have seen the film will readily appreciate the rub. Chaps attracting attention on the streets by looking like the newest arrivals from Oz are being held up at knife-point, at the drop of an Akubra, by juvenile assailants out for kicks with flick-knives expecting their potential victims to pull a real knife. If the Sabatier-sharp artefact fails to materialise, then the chances are that the ersatz Aussies will be swiftly relieved of their snakeskin wallets. Crocodile Dundee lookalikes had better beware!

  We arrived, camera crew and all, at the SCG just in time to see Phil take Allan Border’s wicket . . . again. I have been giving this matter of wicket-taking some serious thought. A game as statistically orientated as cricket should surely be capable of finding some method of ‘rating’ wickets. It has always seemed unfair to me that an Allan Border wicket, or a Viv Richards wicket, will go down against your name as one wicket, just the same as a Merv Hughes wicket or a . . . or a . . . No! Better not mention an English equivalent. I have to live with these people. I do feel, however, that on the basis of past performance, and current form, some cricket-loving bookmaker could work out such a rating, possibly on a scale from one to twenty. A Border, for example would be worthy twenty points, and a good old Merv, say two. Bowlers with staggering reputations as leading wicket takers might not emerge particularly well out of such as system. You hear it from the cricketers themselves. It escapes no one’s notice how the ball cannot be prised from certain statistics-conscious bowler’s hands when it comes to wrapping up the easy tail-enders.