You never can tell

Hi everyone!

"C'est la vie", say the old folks,
 It goes to show you never can tell

You never can tell by Chuck Berry

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Today’s blog is about a game that took place exactly 40 years ago: 

Saturday 2 September 1978

40 Seasons ago Cricket was in crisis.

(Editor: when has Cricket ever not been in crisis?)

The previous season in 1977 The Daily Telegraph no less had accused Sussex of  having “cheapened club loyalty, diluted county identity and created a money market with all the attendant unpleasantness.”

But the player who wanted to leave Worcestershire to join Sussex was well worth fighting for.

The matter went to the Cricket Council where Sussex’s appeal against the Test and County Cricket Board (TCCB) was successful.

Imran Khan was allowed to play in county games later that year.

But this was just a storm in a Spen Cama Pavilion tea cup compared with Tony Greig – captain of Sussex and England – joining Kerry Packer’s Rest of World side to play against an Australia team.

Initially banned from playing Test cricket, Greig went to the High Court to win his claim against the TCCB for an unreasonable restraint of trade.

Greig was re-appointed Sussex captain, but - amidst resignations on the cricket sub-committee and the main committee – he then stood down.

Half way through the season wicketkeeper Arnold Long - who had come to Sussex from Surrey in 1975 – became captain.

In a season of transition, Sussex said goodbye to Greig, Sussex Legend John ‘Snowy’ Snow and Michael Buss.

Imran scored over a 1,000 runs and took 49 wickets and in his first season Javed Miandad topped the batting averages.

Sussex were but a mid-table team in the County Championship, as they demonstrated by losing twice in June to Somerset: by four wickets at Hove and then by an innings and 38 runs at Bath.

But it was better news in the Gillette Cup where an easy win against Minor County Suffolk was followed by a very close game against another Minor County Staffordshire at Priory Road, Stone. Sussex scored 221 (Paul Parker 61), with Staffordshire falling a mere 2 runs short on 219 (Geoff Arnold and Imran both taking 4 wickets).

The Quarter-Final was against Yorkshire at Leeds.

Yorkshire (captained by Geoffrey Boycott) batted first. But rain interrupted and the game had to be replayed on the third day.

In a 10 overs a side game (rather than the usual 60 overs) Sussex scored 68 (Javed 27) and then restricted Yorkshire to 59 (with Arnold and Imran both taking 3 wickets).

It was back to Hove for the Semi-Final against Lancashire.

Having been put in by Lancashire, Sussex’s 277 (Javed 75, Parker 69) looked a big score.

And so it proved as Lancashire (including West Indian captain Clive Lloyd) collapsed to 141 all out, with John Barclay taking  3 for 27, backed up by Arnold, Spencer and Phillipson taking 2 wickets each.

So it was off to the Final at Lords against Somerset - as we've seen - twice winners against Sussex in the Championship earlier in the season.

The Young Man & I got tickets in the Warner Stand, just to the left of the Pavilion as you look out at the ground.

Both lifelong Sussex Supporters, I remember both of us having some qualms for Sussex who were up against what was a very strong Somerset XI.

We weren’t alone in this for ‘From the Sea End: The Official History of Sussex County Cricket Club’ (1839 to 1989) states:

“General opinion had it that Greig was more likely to be elected as the next President of the MCC than Sussex was to win.”

But Chuck Berry was right: You never can tell

Somerset batted first, with their two star batsmen Viv Richards and Ian Botham scoring 44 and 80 respectively in a total of 207 for 7.

Both & Viv

Even Test players get nervous on big occasions. John Spencer recalls:

“I remember Imran’s first over going for 16 runs and thinking that we were going to have a few problems. He was like a cat on a hot tin roof before he settled down.”

Top bowlers for Sussex were John Barclay with 2 for 21 (including dismissing Viv Richards) and John Spencer with 0 for 27, both after 12 overs.

Sussex made a good start, not losing a wicket until they reached 93, with both openers Barclay and Gehan Mendis scoring 44. 
Javed and Imran were out for a duck and 3 respectively and Sussex were in some trouble at 110 for 4.

But, supported by Paul Phillipson’s 32, Man of the Match Paul Parker scored 62 not out to see Sussex safely home - with 5 wickets and over 6 overs remaining - to a Famous Victory.

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40 years is a very long time …

Life; John Lennon captured it so well as :

For Somerset, both Viv Richards and Ian Botham are now Knights.

Richards was voted one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the 20^th Century.

Botham has raised over £12 million from his charity walks for Leukemia Research.

Batting No.3 that day, Peter Roebuck went on to captain Somerset and become an acclaimed journalist and commentator based in Australia. In 2011 he committed suicide.

As for Sussex …

A few weeks ago Imran Khan became Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Paul Parker became Sussex Captain and then for 20+ years taught Classics at Tonbridge School.

John Barclay too became Sussex Captain and then President of the MCC. 

He runs the Arundel Castle Cricket Foundation; over the years thousands of disadvantaged children, many disabled, have come to the beautiful setting of Arundel Castle and learned life skills through the medium of cricket.

@TroutBarclay wrote my favourite book on cricket:

And the Young Man …   

Though we would never have guessed it that Saturday long, long ago… for well over 30 years, he has lived on the far side of the world in Plimmerton, a dozen or so miles north of Wellington, New Zealand.

60+ years after we first met, we remain the Best of Friends!!!

It is always a Special Day when the Young Man is over in the UK & we get to watch together from up at the Cromwell Road end.

Your round 🍺, I think, Young Man !!

And as for me, dear reader?

Well, if Chuck Berry was right, then so too was James Taylor:

I've seen Fire and I've seen Rain
I've seen Sunny days that I thought would never end

I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend

But I always thought that I'd see You again

Perhaps you’re in your mid 20s – as I was back on 1978 – and the Summer sun is high in the sky.

Or maybe – 40 years on – you’re in your mid 60s and you see the darker evenings approaching.

But wherever you are in  Life ... What are Dreams for, if not to come true!!

So, how about coming and watching some Cricket with me?

I can’t promise you that it’ll be Sunny day.

But I do know we’ll have a really good day out.

After all ….

Why read a Lord Ric Cricket Blog, when you can star in your own. 

See you soon!!

Lord Ric of Beckley Furnace

Follow me on Twitter: LordRic52

PS

I often get asked what it is that I so love about sitting in the iconic deckchairs up at the Cromwell Road end and watching my beloved Sussex play at Hove Actually ….

The Foreword to ‘From the Sea End’ puts it better than ever I could:

For this oldest of first-class sides, the way the game is played matters most of all.

Few would deny that Sussex, even when they are down in the table, are rarely in the dumps. Their cricket shows a remarkable resilience that has survived the most humiliating drubbings to bounce back within a season or two to a whisker of the County Championship.

What's more, even in its worst moments, Sussex is rarely a dull team to play with or to watch, and throughout its whole history has been known as one of the finest fielding sides on the county circuit.

Sussex has played its way through 150 years of first-class cricket without forgetting for one moment that, above all things, cricket is a game, a sport. 
That single sentiment has made its mark on whoever has played for the team or watched from the pavilion, the striped deckchairs, the cowshed or from the sea end.

Sussex is the cradle in which cricket was nursed, and this history of the first 150 years of Sussex County Cricket Club is not simply a bucket of statistics and a record of who did what to make them. It is even more than a celebration of the game. For cricket is part of this land's social history, and Sussex is one of its cornerstones.

Ted Dexter, April 1989

Young Jim & Lord Ted at Hove

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In a couple of weeks’ time on Saturday 15 September once again Sussex will play Somerset .

This time at Edgbaston in the second Semi-Final on T20 Finals Day.

(And NO !!! I haven’t managed to get a ticket… Don’t even begin to get me started!!!)

No Viv or Both.

No Imran or @BarclayTrout.

But Somerset have Captain Lewis Gregory, James Hildreth & veteran Peter Trego.

Sussex have young Phil Salt, Jofra Archer, Chris Jordan and captain Luke Wright, one of the world’s leading T20 players over the last decade.

It’s going to be a cracking game. 

Just as it was 40 years ago, only the one Winner for me …

Come on The Mighty Sussex Sharks!!!