A Beautiful Game

by Mark Nicholas

  On the last afternoon of the penultimate match, I set Northamptonshire 241 in 60 overs on a flat deck and with a very short boundary on the far side of the Northlands Road ground. Most of the team thought this target too easy, and their fear was substantiated when Wayne Larkins hit the first ball he received from Marshall over extra cover for six. Larkins made 48 quickly and then I had him caught at slip by Maru, soon after nailing Geoff Cook lbw. Generally, my bowling was a thing of little interest, though I could always swing the ball. A career-best haul of 6 for 37 against Somerset beggars belief but on this day, the Northamptonshire wickets of Cook and Larkins were much celebrated.

  Allan Lamb took us on, accelerating the chase in his inimitable style while we dropped him twice. Then Maco came back to have him well caught by Chris Smith. Now came the crunch. Roger Harper, the West Indies all-rounder, was at the wicket and hitting sixes. I turned to Maru because I felt we had to take pace off the ball and get it to spin while Northants were chasing so hard for victory. Neil Mallender promptly holed out. I wish I could recall the exact details of the final over but I know that, come the final ball of the match, Northants were 9 wickets down needing 6 runs to win.

  I went to talk to Maru, who looked terrified. I said he must look to rip it, not worry too much about where it pitched, but pitch it and spin it, not roll it. I had most fielders around the boundary but three up—backward point, extra cover and straightish mid wicket—all for top edges. I told Raj that in less than a minute from now he would be a hero and that we would go on to win the championship. ‘Spin it,’ I said, ‘just spin it.’ He nodded and turned pale.

  I got to my position at mid wicket and turned to see Raj already moving in to bowl. He is rushing it, I thought. Slow down. Too late. He fired the ball at the pitch, landing it back off a length where it stood up and, said our wicketkeeper, Bob Parks, turned just a little from leg to off. Harper took the stumping out of the mix by stepping back and then opening up the left side of his body in the modern way. He waited, as if he had his finger on the trigger, and then he fired. I can see the ball now, in its long, slow arc high over the sightscreen, over the wall and into the road. It was never found, neither was the championship won.

  We were devastated. In the dressing room there was only silence. Laces were undone, boots pulled off, drinks taken. Maru sat slumped as most of the guys commiserated by patting his shoulder or ruffling his hair. Eventually the silence was broken by Greenidge, who said: ‘Which idiot told you to bowl it there?’ ‘Me,’ I said. ‘No one is to blame. It just didn’t work out.’ And that was that.

  The NatWest Trophy quarterfinal

  A funny thing happened at Taunton. Fifteen minutes before the start, Mike Taylor—former player, friend and, in 2005, the club’s marketing manager—came into our dressing room. He said the pitch hadn’t been rolled. We had lost the toss and been put in by Ian Botham on a humid morning. Mike was convinced we were entitled to seven minutes of a roller of our choice. I asked the umpires, who agreed but said it was now too late to be rolling the pitch. I took issue with the second judgement, saying the start should be delayed while the playing conditions were honoured. Truculent as this may sound, Garner and Botham with the new ball on a hard and greenish pitch was a potential game-breaker so I stuck to my request.

  The umpires sent for Botham, who was immediately incensed. He argued that thousands were out there who had paid good money for a game of cricket not a roller. I said fine, you bat then. There was no love lost between us back then. He stormed off, telling the umpires it would be on their head.

  Botham was the biggest figure in the game; the umpires were petrified. I pushed harder and said they surely should call the TCCB offices at Lord’s and speak with the cricket secretary, which they did. He confirmed that we were entitled to have the pitch rolled and that though it was not usual practice to delay the start, they had the power to do so. This was especially challenging at Taunton, where the groundsman’s shed was behind the covers, which were behind the sightscreen, which was behind the boundary advertising boards, which were behind the ropes. It took ten minutes to get the heavy roller out there and seven more to roll the pitch. We started about half an hour late and Botham stormed in, bowling fast and short. To this day, Paul Terry says it is the quickest bowling he ever faced. Unusually, Garner pitched short as well and though the ball flew through, the stumps weren’t threatened. Terry and Greenidge dodged the bullets until a mix-up, a run-out and 2 cheap wickets brought Robin Smith to the wicket at 51 for 3. He loved the pace in the pitch and, first with Paul—who batted with a serenity given to few county cricketers against such a high-quality new-ball attack—then later with the left-handed David Turner, smashed all comers to the shortish boundaries while running the rest of the Somerset fielders ragged. We made 299 for 5, a big score in those days, of which Robin made a swashbuckling hundred.

  The whole match was played at fever pitch. We knocked over Peter Roebuck and Viv Richards quickly, and took 3 more quick wickets before the second unusual occurrence of the day. The score was 43 for 5 and only the mighty Botham, who had just arrived at the crease, could deny us. Given the storyline of the day, I thought I’d bowl against him myself, on the basis that he would almost certainly look to hit me most of the way back to Winchester and just might hit one straight up in the air. I started with a decent outswinger that he missed and then a straight ball that he blocked. Then another that he blocked. I wasn’t that good. He walked down the pitch and told the umpire that the low evening sun was blinding him. I said the scoreboard was his problem, not the sun but he said no, really, he couldn’t pick the ball up. He then asked the umpires to come and stand in his crease and see for themselves. The crowd was restless. Somerset’s terrific team of the late 1970s and early 1980s had reached its zenith and was falling back down the mountain. We were, potentially, the heir apparent. The people suspected it and had now seen it with their own eyes. Incredibly, the umpires upheld Botham’s appeal for light—good light—and we all left the field. The crowd went nuts, though this time not at me, at him.

  Back in the dressing room, and I suppose it was close on seven o’clock by now, we were resigned to coming back the next morning. To our surprise, Botham put his head in the door and asked for a private word with me. I met him back in the umpires’ room, where we’d had our face-off eight hours earlier. He said the crowd was getting out of control, demanding their money back and blaming him. He asked if I would appear on the balcony and explain the problem with the sun in the hope of defusing the increasingly emotive situation. This was like Caesar requesting that Marcus Brutus come to his aid in the Forum.

  But I did as he asked. I stood on the dressing-room balcony, microphone in hand, looking out over thousands of angry cricket fans, and said that the sun had suddenly dropped to a point just a fraction above the sightscreen that made seeing the bowling from the River End pretty much impossible. I added that it wasn’t of Ian’s doing: blame the fellow who laid the pitches all those years ago, I said.

  Well, it worked a treat. Even the police came to say thanks. Botham was hugely grateful, and how about this? We have been mates since that day. So much so that his family asked me to MC his son’s wedding; that Ian asked me to take that son, Liam, in at Hampshire—Liam was a very good all-round cricketer by the way; and that I have hosted many of Beefy’s charity foundation events over the years and do so to this day. (His knighthood came on the back of unflinching commitment to Queen and country on the field and to people in need off it, particularly children suffering from leukaemia.) We play golf together and share a love of food and wine. Staying at the Botham home in North Yorkshire is a delight, the only trick being to disappear to bed before he disappears into the cellar for the night. When they built Ian Botham, they broke the mould.

  The NatWest Trophy semifinal

  Hampshire had never made it to Lord’s for a cup final. All those fabulous players—from Roy Marshall to Malcolm of the same name, from ‘Butch’ White and Bob Cottam to And
y Roberts, from Derek Shackleton and Peter Sainsbury to Trevor Jesty and David Turner, from the start of Barry Richards to the completion of Gordon Greenidge as the world’s greatest opening batsmen—none of them had managed to negotiate the dreaded sea of a semifinal.

  In 1985, neither did we, though we got so close we could touch, feel and smell that Lord’s turf. Essex beat us by virtue of having lost fewer wickets in a match so tense that nerves and tempers were stretched to breaking point.

  We batted first in damp conditions and did not make enough runs. I got to 39, our top score, before playing all around a straightish ball from Stuart Turner. I was incandescent when given out lbw. On the BBC, Richie Benaud said, ‘I don’t know that Mark Nicholas is very pleased with that . . . it looked pretty straight to me.’ He was right.

  We had to defend 224 on a pitch that was drying out. We got rid of every Essex batsman who mattered except Gooch. In the final over before tea, he called for a tight single to mid wicket, where Robin Smith swooped to hit the stumps direct with Gooch clearly short of his ground. The umpire, Barry Meyer, gave him not out. Fuck, fuck and FUUUUCK again.

  At tea the BBC kept replaying it. Gooch was a foot short. There were toys everywhere and we were throwing them. Then I thought, ‘We’d better get this thing back on track. The game is by no means done yet.’ (Later, bad light stopped play and the match went into a second day with Essex needing another 94 off 21.2 overs with 6 wickets in hand.) We fought, by heaven we did, but there just weren’t enough runs to play with. It was like trying to squeeze toothpaste from an empty tube—there was nothing there. Essex inched closer, Gooch in control—one of the best players anywhere, going nowhere except Lord’s. I took some gambles, specifically using Marshall for all his allotted overs in an attempt to collar Gooch. But bloody hell, that Gooch had some game. I told Cowley to lob it up and buy his wicket; I even bowled a few at him myself, some proper poo, but he resisted everything, including temptation. We were left with Greenidge bowling the last over—the 60th. Gordon never bowled, ever. Gooch was at the non-striker’s end when Stuart Turner safely blocked the final ball of the match. The scores were level. Essex had lost 7 wickets to our 8. Stupid rule. We batted when the ball was nipping around all over the place, for goodness’ sake. Essex should have won easily but we pushed them as a decent side should. I was proud of that. Mr Meyer, a lovely man, cost us the Lord’s dream.

  WHAT I THINK NOW

  If I had my time as captain again, I would give more attention to fielding—my own and that of the team. Had we caught better, we would have won the championship, despite our relatively thin bowling. That summer of 1985 was the closest we came and the most fun we had. We were third on a couple of other occasions and certainly had enough players of a standard above the line to carry those beneath it. I have already said that we needed one other top-class seam or swing bowler—something Cardigan Connor later became, though was not quite while Malcolm was in his pomp. I suspect he revered Malcolm too much for his own game to flourish. Above all, we needed a big spinner of the ball. Shaun Udal arrived not a moment too late but his greatest gift was accuracy and deception in the one-day game, not revs on the ball to win championship matches. The more he played, the craftier and more reliable he became. So much so that England took him to India in 2006, where he captured Tendulkar’s wicket, among others, to help England win in Mumbai. Game-changing spinners are a rare breed in the county game. It was, and is, a lonely job, especially on English pitches that are prepared with an increasingly uniform soil that binds them together like cement.

  At the end of the 1987 season, we were left with a dilemma. The TCCB changed the regulations on overseas players to one per team and just two per county staff. There was no point in either Greenidge or Marshall kicking his heels in the 2nd XI so, reluctantly, we did not offer another contract to Greenidge. I was a part of that decision, explaining to the cricket committee that cover for Marshall was crucial, given our ongoing struggle to take 20 wickets. Expecting him to play every match was unfair and likely to shorten his career. We signed the South African left-arm quick, Stephen Jefferies, who was grateful for the deal, good with the youngsters in the 2nd XI and, when the stars were aligned, a brilliant matchwinner.

  Greenidge was deeply hurt by the decision. He had come to England from Barbados as a ten-year-old boy, living first in Reading. Hampshire picked him up and he more than returned the county’s faith over the eighteen-year period he was with the club. The general view was that his surprising insecurity, which could manifest itself in an apparent bitterness, came from two things. First, the cross-pollination of his life—was he English or Bajan, and how did others perceive the answer to that question? Second, the fact that a couple of Richards stole much of his thunder.

  As I have said, Gordon was an exceptional cricketer. In West Indies colours, he laid much of the groundwork upon which the others, notably Viv, paraded their talent. At Hampshire, he stood at the non-striker’s end while Barry was consistently feted as the best opening batsman on the planet. He was overlooked for the captaincy of the county three times—first when Gilliat retired, then when Stephenson moved on and later when Pocock stood down. Now, he surmised that I had fired him. He had a fair bit to grumble about.

  He did not make life easy for his captain. Indeed, we all trod on eggshells around him. He infuriated me when he refused to play in a county game the day after the 1987 bicentenary match at Lord’s between MCC and Rest of the World. He made a superb hundred in the second innings, hobbling between the wickets for much of it. This melodrama was a Greenidge speciality. Indeed, many an opposing bowler was glad to see him arrive fully fit because, when limping, he invariably made runs. Anyway, I got through to the dressing-room phone at Lord’s and he told me he wasn’t up for it the next day. I said if he could limp through a hundred against the World XI he could surely limp through one against a county attack. He said he couldn’t and would not be there in the morning. Marshall, the stand-out bowler in the match at Lord’s, turned up on time and played with his usual commitment.

  I cannot pretend that my relationship with Gordon was always as it should have been. I have long thought it would be interesting to hear him talk about his sense of identity as a cricketer. Much water has flowed under that bridge, however. Probably too much. It remains one of only a very few things I regret about my time as captain.

  We see each other once a year at a charity match for Well-being of Women. It is wonderful that he plays. He has softened, as have I. His life after cricket has not always been easy and I care as much for him as for the other Hampshire players of my time. His friendship with Marshall grew stronger as Malcolm became terminally ill with cancer. He nursed him until the end, which is a kindness and spirit given to few men.

  On the international stage, Gordon played some of the greatest innings in history. For Hampshire, he did the same but under the radar. I’ll pick just one, at Northampton on a wet pitch. With Paul, he put on 250 for the first wicket. When Paul raised his bat for 50, an innings he considered among the most technically accomplished of his career, Gordon was 202 not out. We declared at 338 for 2 on a terrible pitch and won by 169 runs. That is how good Gordon was.

  Decisions on players’ careers were much the most difficult part of the job. I well remember walking Bob Parks around the United Services ground at Portsmouth to tell him that we were going to play Adrian Aymes ahead of him. That was a most unpleasant experience. I also told my dear friend Peter Sainsbury, the man who had backed me on every step of my journey, that his number was up as a coach. In discussing the Sainsbury decision, the chairman of the cricket committee, Charlie Knott, had said ‘and tell me when I should go too, please’. So one day I did, in his own house.

  What else? I had to wrestle with dropping myself on a couple of occasions but both Knott, and the man who replaced him, Jimmy Gray, insisted I should not do so. They thought such a decision the thin end of the wedge and, anyway, they preferred their captain out there, in charge. Paul could s
ee the argument but it was sure tricky explaining to Robin Smith that he was heading for a 2nd XI match while we were off to try to win the championship. Paul was no fan of Gray, a former player in Ingleby-Mackenzie’s golden team, primarily because of his misinterpretation of a letter Paul handed to him when he resigned the vice-captaincy. I, however, was fond of Gray. He had helped my batting, read the game well and, like Knott, was an effective buffer between the dressing room and the general committee.

  I was upset when Paul stood down. A few niggling issues had come his way, not least my interference in matches that he captained when I was ill or injured. He was also disapproving of my approach to certain complicated issues that arise over a long period of governance. He regrets the decision now, much as I regret interfering with his brief spells at the helm. While working on this chapter I called him to talk these things through. The next day he wrote me a kind note, clearly explaining his thoughts back then and apologising for not resolving them with me face to face. We were so damn subjective about everything, we agreed. Oh, for the time and space to have stood back and taken stock. Malcolm took up the cudgels of vice-captaincy and loved the day-to-day involvement.

  Malcolm’s offsider, Cardigan Connor, was a lion-hearted cricketer and an utterly charming and self-deprecating man. He had been plucked from Minor Counties cricket and, over a long career, proved to be one of the club’s finest signings. The Smith brothers, Robin and Chris, were outstanding batsmen, whose professional approach to the game sat comfortably with their innate sense of fun. I knew Udal from a young age and ushered him though the early days of his long and fruitful time in the game. A touch more maturity would have made him a regular international player: as it was, he served Hampshire with unconditional love and enthusiasm before finishing up at Middlesex, where he took over from Ed Smith as captain. There were two wicketkeepers during my time, Parks and Aymes. Parks had a lovely, natural way with the game and a fine brain for it. Aymes was tough as teak and the sort of soldier any general would want by his side. There were two vastly different all-rounders, Kevan James and Jon Ayling, the first an import from Middlesex, the second a Portsmouth Grammar School boy. Jon could really play the game but never quite recovered from two freak injuries that badly affected his confidence. Kevan simply gave all he had, in the most honest way. He made hundreds from most positions in the order and took 6 for 22 with his left-arm inswing against Australia in 1985. Raj Maru toiled away, too tiny to bounce the ball much, but spinning it just enough to ask questions. He was a fine close-catcher and brave lower-order batsman, who had not found a regular place at Middlesex but instead found a home at Hampshire. There were two promising fast bowlers—Stephen Andrew and Kevin Shine—both of whose ability was overshadowed by self-imposed anxiety. There was a damn good, if ageing, Dutch medium pacer called P.-J. Bakker—nickname Nip, get it?—who brought a little sophistication and perspective to the workplace. These fellows, along with Paul, Tim and the superstars, were the nucleus of Hampshire cricket for more than a decade. My admiration for them and the wonderful memories of our time together live to this day. We were all lucky.