The Picador Book of Cricket

by Ramachandra Guha

  8 June 1982. It was a pleasure at Edgbaston to meet Robert Brooke, the editor of The Cricket Statistician, who has solved the Porbandar mystery, of which I wrote in these columns some weeks ago, and which has perplexed a number of correspondents. Brooke has confounded Wisden and demonstrated that the Maharajah did make two more runs, equalling his highest score, in a match, twelve a side, against Blackheath in 1932. This confirms his tour average, for all matches at 1.14. He still holds the record for a touring captain.

  N. S. RAMASWAMI

  Iverson and the Lesser Arts (1953)

  Of the prowess of Jack Iverson as a bowler there is little new to be said now. But his batsmanship and fielding are facts worth recalling. Iverson the batsman was a wondrous sight. He was a tail-ender to the manner born. He stepped into the ground from the pavilion like a portent. This advent should have been signalized by massed bands of the I(ndian) A(ir) F(orce), the Navy and the Army, with the delighted spectators in the background taking up the chorus. With his wide and white Australian hat flapping about his ears, he made his steady way to the crease, holding his antediluvian bat on his shoulder.

  This bat was not the least part of the pageant that was Iverson the batsman. It looked hoary with age, discoloured, perhaps breaking at the edges. Tradition had it that it was the implement with which its owner had defied the mighty bowlers of England. An unsentimental man would perhaps have cheerfully abandoned it to the fireplace. But not the least pleasing of the Australian’s qualities was his devotion to it.

  Iverson had, of course, nothing of the graces of a Hammond or a Hutton. But it is an error in aesthetics, as Browning has demonstrated, that only the pretty or the beautiful is style. Ugliness, if it is commanding and can impose itself on imagination despite the latter’s instinctive abhorrence of it, is no less to be prized. Perhaps one did the estimable Iverson injustice by calling his style ugly. It was not so much that as ungainly, which, of course, is not the same thing.

  This remarkable batsman scorned to take ‘guard’. He did not in the Madras ‘Test’ with the Commonwealth team. Before planting himself at the crease, slightly leaning on his bat (when the fear arose that it might break under his accumulated weight), he surveyed the field benignly. Perhaps in his heart he chuckled at the foolishness of those three hopeful fieldsmen who had drawn near to him and eyed his tall, lanky frame with ill-concealed hope.

  Iverson was a noble example for tail-enders. Some tail-enders are convicted tail-enders. They bat as if on sufferance and not by their prerogative. Should their partner presume to steal the strike, they aid him with ill-concealed eagerness. It was reserved for Iverson to uphold the dignity of the class.

  The factor which governed Iverson was his sense of humour. There was always a smile about his mouth. He was a kindly man to whom cricket, for all the honours it had bestowed on him, was still only a game. He was not overawed by the supposed dignity of Test matches. He was always free to be himself. I thought that his extraordinary grip in bowling was his way of showing his genial contempt for the pomposities and puerilities with which some aspects of the game have unfortunately been afflicted.

  Iverson the fieldsman was an equally rewarding phenomenon. He was one of the few players I have seen who did not object to being considered slow and slovenly. It was in consonance with his attitude to the game that he would not put himself out in chasing an errant and wayward ball. Should it have the thoughtfulness to come to his hands straight, he would throw it to the wicketkeeper with indescribable dignity. Therein he acknowledged his sense of its nature of accommodation. Should it, however, have the impudence to evade him and career to the boundary with unseemly haste, he would follow it more in sorrow than in anger. Not for him the exaggerated efforts of a Pheidippides; after all, his object was nothing so notable as announcing to an expectant Athens the glorious victory of Marathon, but only the recovery of a contumacious piece of leather.

  Iverson’s progress after the erring ball could not unfairly be compared to a Republic Day procession. With grace and measured steps he followed it, perhaps resolving in his mind deep philosophical thoughts of the Original Sin which must be inducing even an inanimate object to behave in such an extraordinary fashion. When Iverson was embarked on the recovery of the ball, the entire field held its breath. The only man of equanimity was the fieldsman, whom the bowler was regarding with a glare, the captain with exasperation, and the batsmen with gratification. But a sense of the ultimate value of things will teach everybody that the runs which may or may not have been lost by what would conventionally be described as Iverson’s slowness matter little in comparison with that wondrous picture, Jack Iverson in pursuit of a cricket ball.

  ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

  In cricket, as in other team sports, the crowd maketh the game. Only more so. For the slower pace at which the game is played, and its frequent interruptions, allow for more intelligent crowd participation than soccer or rugby or basketball. Each ground has its resident wit, who attends every match, offering vocal and pungent comments on individual players. Arguably the most famous of all such barrackers was Yabba of Sydney.

  RICHARD CASHMAN

  The Celebrated Yabba (1984)

  There is no question that by far the most celebrated and legendary barracker of the era was Stephen Harold Gascoigne (1878–1942), better known as Yabba, who was as much a part of the game at Sydney as the players themselves. When he took up his seat, usually by the fence in front of the scoreboard, hundreds of Hillites gravitated towards this born entertainer. Yabba was no less than the Hill’s own expert commentator: he added to the excitement, relieved the tension and helped the crowd to participate actively in the game. He was also unofficial coach and mentor to the players.

  Yabba was born in Redfern but in his adult life hawked rabbits around Balmain in his pony and cart – he supposedly acquired his name from a corrupted version of his call, ‘Rabbo, wild rabbo.’ He was a large man, just under 1.82 m (6 ft) and around 89 kg (14 stone), with a fleshy face and close-cropped hair which was usually covered by a felt hat or a cloth cap. He had a ‘coarse and penetrating voice’ which rose above the ‘nondescript yells’ of lesser lights. Carol Badcock, who was based in Adelaide for part of the 1930s, recalled that such was the power of his voice that it could be heard over the radio commentary. Yabba arrived at the game with his lunch and a couple of bottles of beer but he seldom drank more than that. He rarely missed a major match and was a regular follower of grade cricket: he knew the game intimately. No one knows when he established himself as Sydney’s No. 1 barracker – some have claimed that he was prominent before the First World War – but there is no doubt that between the wars he ‘stepped forward from the ranks of the chorus’, as Ray Robinson put it.

  A number of Yabba’s comments were variations on themes which had been called out many times before but with Yabba they were sharper and more pithy. When a slow batsman scored after a period of inaction he yelled: ‘Whoa there! He’s bolted.’ Then when a bowler strayed too far from the stumps he delivered a classic, and much-repeated, comment: ‘Your length is lousy but you bowl a good width.’ On another occasion he advised New South Wales captain Herbie Collins to declare when a new batsman had added only five runs in half an hour and the side had passed 500 runs: ‘Hurry up, Herbie, declare the innings before he gets set and scores a century.’

  Yabba differed from the run-of-the-mill barracker in that his range of comments was much wider and was based on a very close knowledge of the game. When the Nawab of Pataudi remained scoreless for half an hour he advised the umpire, who was a gas-meter inspector: ‘Put a penny in him, George, he’s stopped registering.’ Then there was another occasion when an umpire had to hold his hand aloft for some time waiting for the attendant to move the board: ‘It’s no use, Umpire; you’ll have to wait till playtime like the rest of us.’ Because he knew the game so well, Yabba’s comments were fairer than most other barrackers’. When a Sydney grade crowd laughed when a North Sydney tail-ender had his middle stump sma
shed first ball Yabba consoled the dejected batsman: ‘Don’t worry, son. It would ’a bowled me.’ According to the Sydney Morning Herald of 17 December 1934 Yabba was also reluctant to join in the patronizing remarks made to women cricketers in the first international match at the SCG (New South Wales v. England, 1934). When the teams were late to return after lunch there was a stream of comments such as, ‘Shake it up with your powder puff in there, girls!’ and ‘Don’t get impatient, old chap. Women are never on time these days. Anyway, it’s a woman’s privilege to keep a gentleman waiting.’ One spectator then turned on Yabba and yelled, ‘Hey, Yabba, why ain’t yer yowling?’ Yabba replied, ‘Why should I? The ladies are playing all right for me. This is cricket, this is. Leave the girls alone.’

  Yabba was not only a celebrity, he was also the subject of a Cinesound newsreel. When Jack Hobbs played his last match in Sydney the members of the Hill chipped in to buy him a testimonial, an ornate boomerang: when Hobbs walked round the Hill to receive his gift he asked for Yabba and then shook hands with him – the one-time critic of barrackers acknowledged the No. 1 barracker. After Yabba died the NSWCA stood in silence before its next meeting in memory of a man who probably added not only to the entertainment but also to the very size of the crowd itself. Recently Yabba has achieved another distinction, an entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, and joins a select band of Test cricketers – a minority of them – who have been similarly honoured.

  An Englishman’s Crease

  I’ve been standin’ ’ere at this wicket since yesterday, just arter tea;

  My tally to date is eleven and the total’s an ’undred an’ three;

  The crowd ’as been booin’ an’ bawlin’; it’s booed and it’s bawled itself ’oarse,

  But barrackin’, bawlin’ an’ booin’ I takes as a matter of course.

  ’Oo am I to be put off my stroke, Mum, becos a few ’ooligans boos?

  An Englishman’s crease is ’is castle: I shall stay ’ere as long as I choose.

  It’s not when the wicket’s plumb easy that a feller can give of ’is best;

  It’s not ’ittin’ out like a blacksmith that wins any sort of a Test.

  The crowd, they knows nuthink about it; they wants us to swipe at the ball;

  But the feller ’oo does what the crowd wants, I reckon ’e’s no use at all.

  ’Oo am I to be put off my stroke, Mum, becos a few ’ooligans boos?

  An Englishman’s crease is ’is castle, I shall stay ’ere as long as I choose.

  HUBERT PHILIPS

  MATCHES

  We begin our selection of great matches with the epic 1882 Test which inaugurated the ‘Ashes’. Ralph Barker’s essay is a masterpiece of historical reconstruction (he was, of course, born years after the match took place). It is based on a close reading of dozens of old newspapers, yet has the immediacy and detail of an eyewitness report.

  RALPH BARKER

  The Demon Against England (1967)

  It was the first and only Test Match of the 1882 season, and only the second ever played in England, and it excited enormous interest. On the first day 20,000 people paid a shilling each at the turnstiles, and several thousand more filled the privileged seats of the small pavilion and low-roofed, single-deck grandstand. It was the biggest crowd ever known at a cricket match. The Australians had had a highly successful tour, beating the Gentlemen and all the leading counties, but losing – without Spofforth – to the Players. If it was felt that they were showing signs of staleness – of the three matches lost, two, the Players’ match and the game against Cambridge University Past and Present, had been in the previous three weeks – no one doubted that they would be at their best to meet the challenge of a representative England XI. The side had been chosen by a team of selectors led by Lord Harris, and eight of the Australian team had forecast it correctly. Everyone was agreed that, with fast bowler Fred Morley unfit and another fast man, Crossland, left out through a suspect action, it was the strongest eleven England could field. Against them the Australians had just about their best side apart from off-spin bowler George Palmer, who was suffering from a strain. Another injured tourist, batsman P. S. McDonnell, might also have got into the side had he been fit. However, England were thought to be invincible at full strength on their own wickets, and in spite of universal respect for Australian skill and temperament it was generally felt that England were certain to win.

  The first day’s play, on a rain-affected pitch, produced a succession of shocks and a pittance of runs. The Australians won the toss and batted badly; they were dismissed in two and a quarter hours for 63, their lowest score of the tour. England failed to gain the expected big lead and were all out just before the scheduled close of play for 101, 38 in front. In a low-scoring match, though, it might prove a useful lead. England bowled 80 four-ball overs, the equivalent of 53 six-ball overs, and the most successful bowlers were Barlow, left-hand medium, 5 for 19 in 31 overs, and Peate, left-hand slow, 4 for 31 in 38 overs. Both men bowled 15 maidens in their first 20 overs. For Australia, Spofforth bowled throughout apart from a change of ends and took 7 for 46.

  Most of the spectators were Londoners and they were soon home; some who came from a distance camped outside the ground. The Australians drove back to their hotel, the Tavistock in Covent Garden. The match was the climax of the London season, and many of the grandstand spectators went on to the Savoy Theatre, where Richard D’Oyly Carte was presenting a new opera by Gilbert and Sullivan. As an added inducement D’Oyly Carte offered cool air and a freedom from asphyxiating vapours during the heat of summer. ‘These remarkable results’, he claimed, ‘are obtained by the use of electric lighting in the place of gas.’ This, in the London of the 1880s, was unique.

  Unfortunately for D’Oyly Carte, the heatwave had ended and the weather had broken up completely. Temperatures were abnormally low, well down into the fifties, and there was plenty of cool air for everyone.

  Next morning the barometer was still falling. It rained heavily and persistently, increasing to a downpour by ten o’clock. There was no covering of the wicket, and prospects of play looked poor. Yet thousands and thousands of Londoners were converging on Kennington Oval, by horse bus, by hansom cab, by train, and on foot, undeterred by the weather, so that a constant stream passed through the turnstiles. The vast open spaces of the Oval were rapidly filling up. It was an unforgettable sight, the green, sodden arena, murky under a lowering sky, completely enclosed by drab, mackintoshed humanity, anonymous and almost invisible beneath a jungle of umbrellas.

  Shortly before eleven o’clock the sky cleared, and towards midday came a hint of sun. But the air was still cold. The ground had meanwhile become a vast amphitheatre, with nothing visible outside the actual playing area except people. They threw off their raincoats and sprawled on top of them on the turf, they crammed the seats, they stood behind in ranks six or seven deep, they crowded on to the artificial mounds at the back. They peered in little clusters from every window overlooking the ground, they even perched on the rooftops. Play had been due to start at 11.30, but they waited dumbly and patiently, their long silence enhancing the effect of their full-throated roar when the two white-coated umpires appeared at five minutes past twelve.

  The Australians had already earned a reputation for fighting back from adversity. But their two opening batsmen could not have been less alike in temperament and method. The diminutive Bannerman was the stonewaller, the hardest of all the Australians to get out. The broad-shouldered Massie liked to hit. The Australians had doubted Massie’s ability to succeed on the slower English wickets, but he had been the success of the tour. Only he and W. L. Murdoch, the Australian captain, had passed 1,000 runs for the season.

  Hornby, the England captain, began with Barlow from the pavilion end. The ground was still very wet, unfit for cricket in the opinion of many, the run-ups being slippery and the ball quickly deteriorating into a cake of soap. Barlow had to get a groundsman to dig the mud out of the bowler’s fo
otholds so that he could fill them with sawdust. Bannerman cut Barlow’s second ball firmly for two, then snicked the next one through the slips for two more. Barlow swore under his breath and ground his teeth in vexation. George Ulyett, the Yorkshire fast bowler, opened from the gasworks end, and Massie drove his second ball hard to the off, his favourite shot. Maurice Read just cut it off before it reached the boundary, but the batsmen ran three. The wicket had rolled out easily, and Massie was determined to attack the bowling before the pitch deteriorated.

  Massie took guard to face Barlow. He was unable to get the first three balls away, but he drove the fourth square to the off for four. Ulyett bowled Bannerman a maiden, and then Massie forced Barlow in front of square leg for three.

  Ulyett and Barlow quickly adjusted themselves to the conditions and settled into a length. Twice Ulyett beat and nearly bowled Massie, and twice Barlow found the edge of Bannerman’s bat. But in Ulyett’s fifth over, after Bannerman had stolen a single to Hornby, who had injured his arm and couldn’t throw, Massie pulled the fast bowler to square leg for four, putting 20 up in 20 minutes. He followed this with a towering drive off Barlow high to long on for another four. The crowd applauded each hit, but they were ominously silent in between. They desperately wanted to see some wickets fall before the arrears were knocked off. England would have to bat last on a damaged pitch.

  Ulyett could get nothing out of the wet turf and Hornby substituted his fellow Yorkshireman Peate. Peate bowled a maiden to Bannerman. The situation called for a double change, and Studd came on at the pavilion end for Barlow. Massie drove him at once as he had Barlow before him, high to the on for four. Next ball another hard drive was brilliantly fielded by the bowler. Peate bowled Bannerman another maiden, but Massie took a single off Studd, and that was 30 up. Peate now had to bowl to Massie, and he could not keep him quiet. Massie stepped in and drove him straight for four, and followed this, when Hornby adjusted his field, with a magnificent off drive towards the gasometers for his sixth four. That was 38 in 35 minutes and the arrears knocked off without loss.