A Beautiful Game

by Mark Nicholas

  The only sadness is that Wilfrid died early in 2016. His great heart, his humour and his unwavering devotion to the club will be greatly missed. Bill smiles on, the embodiment of Hampshire cricket at all levels and for all ages.

  I was very involved in the early stages of the project, hosting lunches and dinners, pitching to investors and sponsors, and driving a series of crucial meetings with Lord MacLaurin, then chairman of the ECB, to ensure the new ground received international status. I made a short three-dimensional graphic film that we used for promotional events and even wrote a marketing paper that included a new constitution for the club based around the model of a Southampton city franchise. Such ideas are all the rage now.

  More generally, I ‘sold the dream’. I relate this to illustrate just how embedded in Hampshire cricket I had become. In 1995, alongside the Judge and Shaun Udal, I dug the first sod of earth at the site on which the ground sits so impressively today. I retired from first-class cricket four months later. At that dinner in Leeds in 1987, we had discussed the size of the boundaries because I envisaged setting fields for Udal that brought him wickets with catches in the deep rather than the dispiriting mis-hits for six that were so prevalent at Northlands Road. As it happened, I was six years out of the game by the time Hampshire played first-class cricket there.

  Rod moved the business model from a members’ club to a limited company. I was on the board for a couple of years but stood down once I began to spend almost half the year in Australia. Our dream was truly realised one balmy summer’s evening in 2005 when England thumped Australia in a T20 match before a full house of 18,000 people at the Rose Bowl. It wasn’t the first international match on the ground but it was surely the most memorable. Since then, England has beaten India in a Test match at the Ageas Bowl—rechristened courtesy of a loyal and important sponsor—T20 finals day has drawn fans of the game from far and wide and Hampshire has won many a nailbiter in front of the television cameras. Members have space to stroll around the outer and appreciate the cricket from many different angles, while the facilities offer all that is expected of a modern sporting venue.

  When we set out on the journey we wanted a contemporary cricket ground, not a modern sports ‘stadium’. The great legacy of Hampshire cricket can live comfortably in this new arena, nestled as it is in the green hillside that looks directly back over the Hampshire Downs. Even the access for spectators has improved. Long queues and some crowd rage have haunted the club’s executive from the moment the Eastleigh Borough Council withdrew its plan for an ancillary junction of the motorway that would service the ground and the local community. Nowadays, the council is a shareholder in the business, so perhaps we can persuade its officers to reconsider.

  My part in the story of the Ageas Bowl was substantial enough and I am proud of it. It has become a popular place, especially with the players who visit from around the country and from all over the world. There are stands named after Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, the club’s most irresistible personality, and Shane Warne, one of the two greatest cricketers to have represented the county. Malcolm Marshall is the other. As for Rod? Well, the pavilion honours his name, which is a fair reflection of the many miles he has travelled for the benefit of the club.

  I had eighteen years within the heart of Hampshire cricket, almost twelve of them as captain. Come rain or shine, I gave it all I had. I look back with fondness and pride on the cricket we played, the people we produced, the manner in which we conducted ourselves (with the odd exception) and the prizes that were won. I think I can safely call it a love affair.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Smiths

  This is the story of a beautiful family that lived vicariously through the achievements of its two sons, Christopher and Robin. For better or worse, cricket has written the storyboard of their life from 1980 to the present day.

  We first met Robin Smith at the county ground in Southampton in 1981. He was seventeen years old and already something of a prodigy. At the age of twelve, he had featured as the model in Barry Richards’ coaching book and then went on to beat Richards’ record for runs in a season of Durban club cricket. They called him the Judge because of his hairstyle—sort of crinkled and cut tight to his scalp, like a judge’s wig. His shyness disguised a wonderful sense of fun and an entertaining ability to mimic other cricketers and famous folk, most especially Archbishop Desmond Tutu. His modesty could not disguise his talents.

  The Smith family lived comfortably in La Lucia, an attractive suburb fifteen minutes from the centre of Durban. The father, John, ran a thriving leather business. The mother, Joy, taught dance. Robin’s elder brother, Chris, was a good cricketer already forging a career with both Natal in the Currie Cup and Hampshire in the County Championship. Chris—or Kippy as we knew him because when a toddler he couldn’t pronounce Chris and used his own interpretation—and I were close friends. Robin hung out with us a bit but had his own circle and, boy, could they party.

  John Smith doted on Robin—we all did, really—and was determined that the gift of batsmanship given to his youngest son should not go to waste. Each morning at 5.30, John would wake the Judge with a cup of tea and then drive him to the nets, where a family friend and former Natal batsmen, Grayson Heath, taught him the finer points of batting and rehearsed them in forensic detail.

  Frequently, Robin would have a night on the tiles and sneak in through the garden doors to leap into bed fully clothed, pulling the sheets to his chin just seconds before John appeared with the tea. ‘Good morning, my boy!’ And Robin would act out a yawn, rub his tired eyes and grunt, ‘Morning, Dad,’ before curling back under the sheets. Once John had disappeared Robin would slug back the tea, jump into the shower, switch from nightclub finery into training gear and emerge into the morning sunlight with John none the wiser. John never did work out why his boy invariably needed a siesta. Then again, perhaps he knew full well.

  South African cricket was immensely strong in the 1970s and 1980s. At all levels, the game was enthusiastically played in a tough and fair-minded way. Provincial cricket was blessed with talent and commitment. The Natal team was led by Mike Procter and included a collection of players who fed off Procter’s charismatic performances. Both on and off the field, they went hard. At the end of the first day of the first match in which the sixteen-year-old Robin Smith was made 12th man, he changed out of his whites and into best bib and tucker—blazer, slacks, white shirt and Natal tie. The team was strewn around the dressing room, soaked in sweat after a long and humid day in the field. Smith made to leave, eager not to overstay his welcome or, indeed, to keep his mother waiting in the car park to take him home.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going, youngster?’ said Procter.

  ‘Er, to meet my mum, Mr Procter.’

  ‘Not yet, you’re not. Get that jacket and tie off, go down to the bar and order 60 cane and Cokes.’ (Cane is a favourite South African spirit.)

  ‘Sixty?!’ exclaimed the sixteen-year-old.

  ‘Yup, there’s eleven of us and you and we’re having five each.’

  From that moment on, the Judge was one of the lads. Procter, the best of men and most outrageously brilliant of all-round cricketers, took to Smith. Soon he had him in the team and, unsurprisingly, the boy ate from his master’s hand.

  South Africa’s ban from the global game—which had come in 1970 because of the government’s apartheid policy and was to last until 1991—meant that the Currie Cup was the only stage for these richly talented cricketers. Provincial matches were as much about the need for self-expression as a simple and youthful desire to play the game they loved. Some—most notably Richards, Procter, Eddie Barlow and Clive Rice—had a career with counties in England. A few others—Garth Le Roux included—had also been a part of Kerry Packer’s WSC.

  Matches against Transvaal were war. Rice, Ray Jennings and Alan Kourie let the younger Smith have it with every weapon at their disposal. The games against Western Province were hardly less intense. Le Roux bowled fast
and aggressively, Stephen Jefferies swung the ball at pace and Denys Hobson ripped his leg spinners. The quality and approach of these opponents gave Robin a foundation for the challenges he was later to face against the West Indies, India and Australia.

  Joy’s parents were Scottish. John’s family was out of Walsall, near Birmingham. Therefore, the boys qualified to play for England. Tony Greig had gone down this road successfully; Allan Lamb was in the process of doing the same. Chris was keen to make a living from the game, and county cricket was the place to do just that. As luck would have it, he made a hundred for the Glamorgan 2nd XI, with whom he was having a trial match or two, against the Hampshire 2nd XI at Bournemouth in 1979. I bowled some of my Procter impersonations at him but, given he had the real thing to contend with in the nets back home, he didn’t appear much bothered. The Hampshire coach liked the look of him and nipped in with the offer of a contract, which Chris quickly signed.

  This was a profound moment for Hampshire cricket and a masterstroke by Peter Sainsbury (not that he knew it at the time), because Robin followed suit a year later. Hampshire was perfect for the Smith brothers, who had grown up with almost daily reports and pictures of Barry Richards in the club’s colours on the back pages of the South African papers.

  The boys were a terrific addition to our number: engaging and enjoyable, if jaw-droppingly naive about life outside the walls of South Africa’s residential palaces. Chris asked us what sort of trees spaghetti grew from and left the plug in both basin and bath. Robin panicked when he travelled to Cardiff for the first time in Chris’s car. A mile before the Severn Bridge, Chris produced his passport and told his brother to do the same. The Judge went pale. Chris hid him in the boot and let him out at Newport. They were a breath of the freshest air and this natural, positive energy gave us all hope at a time when the club was languishing near the bottom of the county cricket heap.

  Chris made an instant impact, with a work ethic previously unseen among lazy young English pros. He spent hours in the nets, perfecting a defensive technique that was the basis of the many hours he spent at the wicket. There was something of Geoffrey Boycott about his single-minded pursuit of runs, if precious little about Geoffrey after hours.

  In the off-season, they returned home to play in the Currie Cup. The scene in South Africa was changing. Rebel tours, brilliantly conceived and executed by Ali Bacher—who had captained the last South African side before the ban took hold and then became chief executive of the South African Cricket Board—were the centre of everyone’s attention because they brought overseas teams to the Republic for the first time since 1970. (Notwithstanding an International Wanderers side that had toured in 1976, with Dennis Lillee making a marked impression upon the South African audiences starved of international cricket.)

  First, in 1981–82, Graham Gooch captained an England side that broke ranks with the TCCB to earn some decent money and mercenary status. Then came a substandard Sri Lankan team before two West Indian teams in consecutive years, both led by Lawrence Rowe. After that, Kim Hughes took a group of Australians, all of them taken aback by the strength of South African cricket through the 1985–86 and 1986–87 seasons. In 1990, Mike Gatting led another English side, the last unofficial group to tour a country that was on the brink of political revolution. The tours had helped to maintain high standards in South African cricket and offered players the chance to wear Springbok colours but they barely compensated such magnificent cricketers as Rice and Le Roux, Jimmy Cook, Peter Kirsten, Kevin McKenzie, Kenny McEwan and Vintcent van der Bijl for the loss of a Test career.

  Procter had played seven Tests in two home series against Australia before the ICC voted to outlaw South Africa. Barry Richards had played four against the Australians in 1970 and Graeme Pollock, arguably the greatest player of the three, had thrilled audiences in 23 Tests against England, Australia and New Zealand. A team that included these three cricketers and any number of the above from the talented pool in the Currie Cup would have given the full West Indian side a run for its money.

  All of which meant that the Smith brothers had a choice to make, one that changed the course of the family’s life in a way they could never have imagined: stay home and be limited to provincial cricket and the hope of the odd rebel touring team to set the juices running, or change allegiance and relocate to England. They went for the second option, as many of their teammates would have done had they too possessed British passports.

  Even with a British passport, players who were not born in England had to complete a four-year qualification period. Allan Lamb had done just that and, after four dynamic seasons with Northamptonshire, was picked to play for England at home to India in 1982. Meanwhile, Chris was making mountains of runs for Hampshire in an exhibition of what could be achieved if the mind was properly tuned to the matter. He was a lesson to us all. If only we had taken more notice.

  Meanwhile, Robin was having an outrageously good time in county second-eleven cricket where he slaughtered feeble attacks and burnt the candle at both ends with great relish. I have often wondered if this period of relative cricket inertia tempered the natural development of his game. The brothers continued to play for Natal in the English winter, a rhythm that was disturbed in late 1983 by Chris’s selection to tour New Zealand with England.

  This was a remarkable achievement. The plan had been for Robin to play for England, not Chris. But with the straightest bat and a weight of runs, the elder brother had prised open the door at a time when few had barely turned the handle. Gooch was banned by the TCCB for his adventure in South Africa and turned instead to a contract with Western Province in the Currie Cup. Boycott was winding down. The other candidates could not match the senior Smith’s consistency.

  Back in Durban during that English winter, in the garden at La Lucia, Robin was beating balls. John had installed a bowling machine and, hour upon hour, the garden boy was required to load up, fire balls at the Judge, see them scorched across the Durban turf, pick them up and start over. At midday, Robin would change into training gear, run for 40 minutes or so around the suburban streets (‘Run in the heat of the day, my boy,’ John would say, ‘to prepare for long innings in hot climates’), return home to jump in the pool, swim lengths, tuck into one of Joy’s splendid salads, have a kip and then head for organised practice with Greyville-Northlands or Natal in the late afternoon.

  Frequently, Paul Terry and I would join him in this routine. Paul and I arrived at Hampshire at pretty much the same time and our careers had followed similar paths. The clear differences were his greater ball sense and athleticism, and my greater confidence and natural timing. Paul had a fine cricket brain but little inclination to force it upon people. He could bat all right, but didn’t always appear to believe it himself. Paul was as introverted as I was outgoing.

  In a wonderful triumph for the Brat Pack of 1977, Paul was to open the batting for England against West Indies in the summer of 1984. His selection came on the back of a good county season but, specifically, an innings of 102 at the Oval against Sylvester Clarke. His linear approach and fine back-foot play impressed the chairman of selectors, Peter May, and his predecessor, Alec Bedser, who had watched it together.

  In 1984, a Test against the West Indies was the toughest ask in sport. Paul survived the first one at Headingley with modest returns and, depressingly for us all, had his arm broken by Winston Davis in the second at Old Trafford. His international career was over almost before it had begun. The pictures of him in a plaster cast, batting one-handed to see Lamb to a hundred and eke out a few more runs towards England’s total, are all that remain of so much early promise.

  My own career was stuttering along: good periods and bad, the gulfs between them quite ridiculous. Heath, a marvellous man, generously spent time with us visitors too. He pushed me to establish a more consistent method based on sharper footwork, a skill I found difficult. Later in my career, I learnt to stay still for longer and to base my batting on the position of my head.

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bsp; Joy and John were immensely kind to us and to the other English cricketers who migrated to Durban during those winters long ago. Their unflinching loyalty and friendship are one of the sweetest memories of my time in the game. John cleared our path in the pursuit of runs, wickets and catches. Joy soothed our fragile egos. Their boys had charm and a common touch that made them widely popular and often emulated.

  While Chris was away, we spent more time with Robin, both practising and partying. This was not for the fainthearted. As the sun went down, the beer flowed. Come the witching hour, we found ourselves at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Father’s Moustache or Raffles, admiring the beauties that were drawn to him. Eventually, we would disappear—self-esteem crushed and pockets empty—leaving the Judge to his girls, his mates and to the small hours before that dash home to beat John’s early morning call.

  Which brings us to an interesting aspect of the brothers’ development. These dawn-patrol coaching sessions fashioned a style of play and, from it, came an almost robotic mindset. Though Heath was a fine coach and a delightful man, he was driven by surprisingly inflexible thinking. An example of this was the requirement at every opportunity for batsmen to get forward. Thus, Robin honed a big stride towards even the fastest bowlers. In the main, this served him well but on occasion it led to bombardments that more nimble footwork might have avoided. He was famously brave against the quicks and, in general, highly effective but had he been able to resist the temptation to come forward as a matter of course, he might have developed a wider range of response and a more delicate touch. In turn, this would have improved his play against spin, which was compromised by that big front-foot move and the hard hands that were its result. This may seem picky about a man who averaged 43 at Test-match level, but hear me out.