A Beautiful Game

by Mark Nicholas

  Why don’t more commentators follow Richie’s lead? Mainly because emulating him is impossible. The dry wit and comedic timing were a gift; his depth of understanding was the product of more than 70 years up close and personal with the game. Silence was among his most effective weapons and not many producers out there want silence anymore. During the World Cup, I got an email from the executive producer of Star Sports that urged me to talk more. The Indian audiences want a constant flow of stories and information, he said. Evidence, I suppose, that the televised cricket of the moment is geared to the values, standards and expectations of a young, social-media-crazed audience who have no time in their lives for silences. Only Benaud could transcend that.

  CALLING AUSTRALIA HOME

  There is a small corner of North Bondi where the point stretches out to sea and the waves lash at huge rocks that have withstood their attentions for hundreds, maybe millions, of years. It is called Ben Buckler and it is there that I have lived from late October through to March in the years since Alan Jones first called David Gyngell on my behalf. Sydney is a wonderful city with an incomparable lifestyle. As the American writer Gore Vidal once observed, ‘Sydney is the city that San Francisco thinks it is.’

  Not a day goes by without a comment on the cricket, whether it be over a morning splash in the surf, a jog to Bronte and back, or a cup of some of the best coffee in the world at any one of the numerous cafes that help to make this a little piece of paradise. In Australia, cricket is life. It remains the one national sport and on any summer Saturday afternoon the virtuous circle of Australian cricket is on view. School, park, grade, district and state cricket underpin the national teams. At the Easts Club on Bondi Road—formerly Waverley Cricket Club where, at one time or another, Tony Greig, Geoffrey Boycott and Malcolm Marshall all trod the boards—training and practice sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays are oversubscribed with youngsters and yeomen alike. All summer long, the back pages of the newspapers are full of cricket talk, whether success or scandal. On beaches, the scores are shared via social media and live play is streamed via smartphones. In bars, teams are discussed and players anointed or otherwise. Cricket matters.

  More than a decade ago now, two pimpled teenagers—drainpipe jeans and tats—poked their heads out of McDonald’s on Bondi’s Campbell Parade, smirked at me and said, ‘You’re no Richie Benaud,’ with which I wholeheartedly agreed. Super sledge, that. What most interested me was that they watched cricket so closely. The new Richie thing dogged me for a while but it was balanced by friendly encounters and general support. Nowadays, I feel as much a part of the scene as any surfer strolling back home from the beach and engaged in conversation about the day. A surfer’s currency is the waves; mine is bat and ball.

  The subjects I am asked about most are Richie Benaud and Shane Warne, the best Australian players, the future of Test cricket and the impact of T20. During the time I have held the Nine microphone to my lips, an array of wonderful cricketers has lit up the game before moving gracefully into retirement. It has been my privilege to talk about their performances and to interview them so often they must surely have thought, ‘Not Nicko again!’

  I have already said a great deal about Shane Warne. It is enough that he was named one of Wisden’s five cricketers of the 20th century and continued to play at a high level in Test-match cricket until January 2007. After retiring at the Sydney Cricket Ground, he went off to captain the Rajasthan Royals and win the first IPL. Typical. I cannot think of a cricketer who has so dominated front and back pages, which is testament to his celebrity and his addiction to risk. Even Ian Botham’s colourful journey pales alongside Warne’s 25-year journey. Of the attributes I have not previously discussed, it is his respect for the game that most stands out. The other day I asked Michael Vaughan about batting against him and he said, ‘Warnie gave me a lot of respect, never abused me once, just “Good shot” if I played one, and he always came up to me after the match and said, “Well played, mate,” if I’d made a few.’ Sure, there have been boorish moments, of which Warne is now embarrassed, but these should not be confused with the cricketer who understood his place in the history of cricket and, more specifically, his conviction that no one, not even he, is greater than the game. In Chapter 9, I said he had become the collective noun of leg spin. It now occurs to me that may not be a good thing for no other leg spinner has a chance.

  Warne would be a certain selection in most people’s greatest Australian team, probably in their all-time World XI, too. Only Bill O’Reilly comes close among Australian spinners and Muttiah Muralitharan from elsewhere. Other Australians of Warne’s era who qualify for such consideration are Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting and Matthew Hayden.

  BENAUD’S GREATEST TEAM

  Back in 2004, I was involved in a fascinating project with Richie Benaud, in which he chose his best team for a DVD, Richie Benaud’s Greatest XI. We made it with my brother, Ben, who had his own production company. Benaud researched in great detail. He was at pains to point out that his final choices reflected the team he would most want to represent ‘him’ and was not necessarily meant to be the greatest cricket team ever. This was a sensible parameter, because it allowed entirely subjective thinking and invited no argument. In each position, Benaud selected three options, ‘in the same way I have always chosen teams, with the final eleven on the left-hand side of the page and two back-up players to the right, so that in effect I was looking at 33 players with three reasonably well-balanced sides able to take the field’.

  Benaud chose Adam Gilchrist to keep wicket and bat at number seven after Garry Sobers. I still have the notes he wrote at the time: ‘In 50 years of playing and watching, I have never seen anyone strike a ball more cleanly than Gilchrist and no one has reached keeping dismissals and batting targets faster in the history of the game so far as keepers are concerned.’ I interviewed Gilchrist in Adelaide, immediately after he decided to retire, and was struck by his self-deprecation. He had a good, if not flawless, approach to the spirit of the game and was eager to be generous to colleagues and opponents. I would call him an athletic and effective wicketkeeper rather than a natural, and just about the most dangerous middle-order counterattacking batsman the game has seen. Benaud’s other options among stumpers were Rod Marsh and Ian Healy—further proof of how well Australia has been served, especially as there was a place in his heart, if not his list, for Wally Grout.

  Glenn McGrath missed out on selection by a hair’s-breadth. Dennis Lillee won the slot at number ten, ahead of Ray Lindwall and McGrath. Benaud said, ‘Glenn McGrath is one of the great pace bowlers the cricket world has seen. Not blisteringly fast, he is beautifully accurate and with a host of variations that make him so dangerous to batsmen.’ He might well have gone on to talk about McGrath’s ability to prey on weaknesses, both in mind and technique, and an unerring ability to home in on the opposition’s key players or captain. Like Curtly Ambrose, he took devastating advantage of conditions or surfaces that suited him and, in general, brought more stress to the beating heart of an opposing cricket team than anyone except perhaps his cohort, Warne. What a pair they made.

  Benaud’s team and his options read thus:

  Jack Hobbs Len Hutton Victor Trumper

  Sunil Gavaskar Arthur Morris Gordon Greenidge

  Don Bradman Wally Hammond George Headley

  Viv Richards Greg Chappell Graeme Pollock

  Sachin Tendulkar Frank Worrell Brian Lara

  Garry Sobers Keith Miller Ian Botham

  Adam Gilchrist Rod Marsh Ian Healy

  Imran Khan Richard Hadlee Kapil Dev

  Shane Warne Bill O’Reilly Abdul Qadir

  Dennis Lillee Ray Lindwall Glenn McGrath

  S.F. Barnes Fred Trueman Harold Larwood

  When the idea was first put to me I decided that as this was to be my team, it would be one I would like to watch and be with during whatever mythical matches it might play, that the players would be first of all brilliant cricketers and quite pro
bably characters as well, and that they would be good mixers with the opposition.

  I have met all of the final eleven and when I narrowed it down to 33 from scores of players, I had met all but one. One of the many aspects of my selection that I would pay a great deal of attention was those who stood out as having had a beneficial effect on the game, those who stood out as champions and who are remembered as being outstanding in their era. Also, if they had an influence on cricket itself.

  It would be superfluous to have a coach with a team of this quality and character, but I do have two men I would appoint to other positions—Keith Miller as twelfth man and Frank Worrell as manager. Miller, as player and captain, could fill any position in the team; Worrell was the best I ever saw at man-management. As the first black cricketer to be ‘allowed’ to captain West Indies away from the Caribbean, he was one of the reasons why the face of cricket in Australia and perhaps in other parts of the world was changed forever because of that Tied Test series.

  The selections tell you much about the man. The clues are everywhere. Over the days that we took to record the film, we talked about his life in and around the game. The greatest things in which he was involved were the Tied Test, WSC and Old Trafford 1961 when he bowled out England to win the match—‘without which I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you now!’ The greatest things from afar were Australia beating England in the First Test in 1877, the Warne ball to Gatting, the first one-day international in 1971 at the MCG and the 2005 Ashes series—‘the most exciting battle I have watched,’ he said.

  The worst things were the match-fixing and bribery scandals that have haunted the game. They left him with an empty feeling, he said, and a particular sadness about Hansie Cronje. He was interesting on sledging, which, he pointed out, has always been around in some fashion or another. It astonished him that the players found time for it, given his own need to concentrate entirely on the job at hand. He liked the spirit of cricket initiative started by Colin Cowdrey and Ted Dexter, and said it should be no hardship to embrace the spirit of the game at the same time as trying to win it. ‘Subtly, MCC have posed the question of whether it really is impossible to win a cricket match without sledging your opponents,’ he said. And he hoped not.

  He was hugely positive about the playing standards. ‘The cricket in the past two or three years has been the best I have seen in a period of playing and watching that covered more than 500 Tests and 57 years.’ I can’t help but wonder if he would say the same now.

  He felt that cricket in Australia was in good shape thanks to forward-thinking administrators. I had an update from him on this in 2013, when he applauded Cricket Australia for having former players such as Mark Taylor, Allan Border and Wally Edwards on the board. He spoke well of the CEO, James Sutherland, and of Tim May’s work on behalf of players. He had briefly considered administration himself but was put off by the folk who ran the game in the 1960s and 1970s. And anyway, he said, his media work around the world made it all but impossible.

  He loved his time with Channel 4 cricket. ‘When BBC lost the rights I didn’t expect any more television work in the UK because the first press release for Channel 4 said, “We won’t be employing any grey-haired old fogies in our commentary box.” So in my own press release the following Sunday I wrote, “I’m sure David Gower and Tony Lewis can look after themselves, but I can’t imagine who else they might be talking about!”’ The seven years with Channel 4 were among the most exciting and innovative of his life, he said, with the flair of young people to hand every day. Gary Franses and Rob Sheerlock—who had come from Nine—were the best producer and director, respectively, with whom he had worked. More generally, he was hugely proud of the way Channel Nine and then Channel 4 had broadcast the game. ‘The most important thing for me and for the viewer is enjoyment. I’ve had it every day from the minute I have arrived at the ground until the minute I leave. I hope the viewers have too. One thing I can tell them is the extraordinary amount of work from many people behind the scenes that goes into making it happen.’ At the time of our last detailed chat, he was delighted that Channel Nine had secured the cricket rights once more, ‘making sure viewers are able to watch, at no cost on free-to-air, the best cricket matches involving Australia’.

  And to conclude: of all the things that he had enjoyed with his mates in the game, nothing could quite match the shiraz grape.

  CHAPTER 12

  2005 and all that

  The title of this book is meant as an appreciation of cricket not a summary. I see the game as beautiful, which is not to say that things can, and do, detract from its appeal. These might be anything from one-off extremes such as match-fixing or throwing to ongoing concerns such as the imbalance between bat and ball or the tardiness of over rates. Some issues are not immediately obvious but become a worry over time. Among these has been the increasing gulf between the best teams and the worst. By 2005, England had become so feeble against Australia that the Ashes lost something of its magic. Test cricket needs competitive Ashes cricket because it is the market leader: the worst possible outcome for both the sport and television is the likelihood of only one winner.

  Much as Kerry Packer liked to see the Poms beaten, he saw increasingly little commercial value in the series as they were and, therefore, chose not to bid for the rights to the Ashes of 2005 in England. Hindsight proved this a mistake but the evidence upon which he made his judgement was simple and persuasive. The Australians were not only the best team in the world but one of the great teams of all time. The chances of a meaningful audience sitting up through the night to watch them hammer England again were slim. (Good crowd numbers and even better television ratings for the two 5–0 thrashings that have been handed out on Australian turf since 2005 suggest the locals like the taste of English blood, but to expect them to arrive bleary-eyed at work through the winter months, in the cause of what was, back then, considered a one-horse race, was too much.) Therefore, the public network SBS, with its multicultural remit, took Channel 4’s pictures and commentary and made itself very popular among the surprising number of Australians who did, in the end, sit up through the night. They had good reason. They were watching one of the most fantastic series of cricket matches ever played.

  There is a theory that fewer people in Australia have the deep love of cricket so apparent in England, where the many amateur varietals of the game still thrive. In Australia, people enjoy the outdoor life for its own sake, and look to play sport competitively. They hope Australia does well but, arguably, less for the aesthetics perhaps than for the result. They expect famous deeds, of course, but not from tall poppies. Australians like their sports folk to remain the neighbour they once knew. I don’t agree with the theory. I am certain Australians love cricket every bit as much as the English and, in particular, continue to love Test cricket, which has played such a huge part in the country’s development.

  After sixteen barren Ashes years, during which time there was no Botham or Gower to paper over the cracks in English cricket, Michael Vaughan swapped team sheets with Ricky Ponting at Lord’s in mid-July 2005 boasting a few blokes with a bit of ticker and plenty of talent. Throughout the six weeks or so that followed, Vaughan barely slept. The cricketers of England and Australia knocked seven bells out of each other and, this time, it was the English who were left standing. Most people agree that it was the greatest series of them all. Certainly, the Ashes was back on the map. Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen, among others, became household names—talk show, game show, Hello and Grazia—because of their part in the hard-fought victory. It was the summer when all of England—and most of Australia, it should be said—saw cricket as the beautiful game.

  FIRST TEST, LORD’S

  Channel 4 started its coverage of the most eagerly awaited Test match in my memory with a pre-recorded sequence that opened from the small lobby outside the England dressing room. One underrated aspect of any cricket television broadcast is the work done by the camera men. In this instance, Bob B
locker harnessed a Steadicam across his shoulders and around his upper body so that he could film players and pundits on the move. The plan was for me to replicate England’s walk from the dressing room to the middle, a walk that is very different at Lord’s because the players have to negotiate their way through the members on their way to the pitch. For this, Bob had to be led backwards down two flights of stairs, through the Long Room and out onto the field. The members needed policing and didn’t like it much, so it needed to be a first take.

  I stood underneath the sign that said ‘Home Dressing Room’ and began with something like: ‘In just a short while from now, Michael Vaughan will lead his team from this dressing room, down these stairs, past portraits of Sir Donald Bradman, Douglas Jardine, Keith Miller and Sir Len Hutton along their way to the middle. The great history of the Ashes was forged by these men and by so many more who have best illustrated the cricket rivalry between England and Australia that began in 1877, just down the road from here at the Oval, where the Ashes urn will be pres . . .’ And as we were about to enter the Long Room, we had a technical fault and had to start again.

  Members shuffled, some anxious to see more of television’s fussy detail, others looking to hurry to their protected seat. Take two: ‘In just a short while from now . . .’ And this time we nailed it, down the stairs and then winding a path through the packed and feverish Long Room, out through the double doors, down the concrete steps, through the little white gates and onto the great green baize. By the time I said my last word, my heart was pounding fast enough to burst from my chest. For some inexplicable reason, a pre-recorded piece to camera is more nerve-racking than anything live. I guess with live you just do it; with a pre-record you can keep doing it again and again, and nobody wants to do that. It was the first time the MCC had allowed such access, and the pictures of a pavilion hitherto unseen by 99 per cent of the population were well received.