Hi everyone!
“ There were Giants in the earth in those days”
The Book of Genesis: Chapter 6 Verse 4
Amazingly; this Season there wasn’t any County Championship cricket on the Saturday and Sunday of the August Bank Holiday Weekend 😢
But 40 Seasons ago – in the Good Ol’ Days of the 28 games Championship – I was watching down at Hove Actually: Sussex v Middlesex.
The two Counties regularly played each other Home & Away at the Spring & August Bank Holidays.
In 1981 Middlesex were visitors to the South Coast.
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I turned 29 that Summer.
Colin Cowdrey, Lord Ted, Young Jim …
Even the ones of my teenage years – born in the 1940s – had recently retired or were definitely in the late Autumn of their careers:
Barry Richards, Deadly Derek, Knotty, Snowy …
For me: the 1950s.
Today’s blog is about two such
Heroes.
Phillipe-Henri ‘Phil’ Edmonds: born on 8th March 1951
in Lusaka, then in Northern Rhodesia & now the capital of Zambia.
Imran Khan: born on 5th October 1952 in Lahore,
Pakistan.
The words of Genesis Chapter 6 Verse 4 Giants in the earth could well have been written about Imran & Phil !!
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I’d first seen the two play in the same XI some eight Seasons before in June 1973 at Fenners in Cambridge.
Watching with the Young Man from the
Glisson Road side of the ground for all three days of Combined Universities v
New Zealand, the game itself was one of the most exciting I’ve ever, ever seen.
NZ scored 250 and the Universities
replied with 299.
With NZ getting 259 for 7 declared
in their 2nd innings, the Universities were set 211 to win.
By very last ball on the third
& final afternoon the Universities required 4 to win with NZ needing to
take one final wicket.
It ended honours shared with the
Home team finishing on 207 for 9.
The Universities were well-captained
by Phil Edmonds, who went on to play for England in over 50 Test matches.
Many a tale to tell about Phil ...
You might like the one about the tour to India in 1984/85.
England were playing India in Calcutta.
With the hosts playing at a snail's pace towards an inevitable draw, Phil, who was fielding at square leg, produced a copy of the Daily Telegraph and proceeded to read it!
And, of course, there are the books about being on tour with England
in the mid 1980’s, written by Phil's wife Frances.
Two of the wittiest, most incisive
books ever written about cricket:
What did Frances say about Phil:
Reputation for being awkward & arrogant,
probably because he is awkward & arrogant.
Works hard at trying to be controversial & iconoclastic,
but basically a pillar of the Establishment.
Editor:
Lord Ric & Phillipe-Henri share
the same educational establishments in The Skinners’ School, Tunbridge Wells
& Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.
Beyond that I am unable to comment on what – if any – characteristics they share!
Looking back over four decades to
the match at Fenners the Universities player who very much took the eye was the
No.4, Imran Khan.
He top scored in the
1st innings with 73 and then again with 88 in the 2nd. As well as taking 7
for 146 in the match.
Eight Seasons on and the two Giants were in opposition, with Imran playing for Sussex and Phil – in the absence of regular skipper Mike Brearley away captaining England in the Ashes – leading Middlesex.
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Middlesex and Sussex were Old Enemies, with a recent history of not sending each other Christmas cards !
The previous season in June 1980 in a Benson & Hedges Quarter Final Imran had objected to Wayne Daniel launching bouncers at the Sussex tail, after breaking Kepler Wessels’ arm.
Imran, as non-striker, had
protested, Mike Brearley had intervened and “incredibly” (source: Wisden) he and Imran
had nearly come to blows.
A month or so later it was on to the Gillette Cup Semi Final at Hove …
Imran knocked Wayne Daniel’s helmet off with a
vicious bouncer.
When Sussex came out to start their reply, a
fired-up Wayne bowled down the hill from the Cromwell Road end.
Sussex captain John Barclay was bowled 2nd ball for a
duck.
Wayne Daniels wen to on to take 6 for 15.
Imran ran out Sussex’s top scorer Colin Wells …
Needing only 180 to win, Sussex stumbled to 115 all out.
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The B&H and Gillette games of Season 1980 were still very recent history when the Championship game began on Saturday 29th August 1981.
Middlesex won the toss and chose to bat.
Sussex captain John Barclay opened the bowling with South African Garth Le Roux and former England and Surrey Geoff ‘Horse’ Arnold.
Though Arnold was injured after
bowling only 14 balls (and didn’t bowl again in the match), Sussex made performed well, limiting Middlesex to 154.
Imran 4 for 41, le Roux 3 for 42 and Ian Greig 3 for 45
When Sussex began their 1st innings, after bowling 9 overs Wayne Daniels was injured.
And it was this injury that turned the entire course of the game … …
With Middlesex’s fastest bowler Wayne
Daniel picking up an injury, it was Simon Hughes – these days known as The
Analyst and the current editor of The Cricketer magazine - who led the
attack.
Sussex made steady progress, passing Middlesex’s total for the loss of only 5 wickets.
Hughes was loathe to bowl any
bouncers for in Imran & Le Roux for Sussex had two ferocious fast bowlers
in their ranks.
On one of those boiling hot days you
just occasionally get on the South Coast, when Hughes ended a long spell, Imran
asked the Middlesex Captain: “May I take my helmet off, now?”
Phil agreed, and on came the sunhat.
Hard to even begin know why, but Phil
decided to irritate Imran. He told Hughes to have just one more over with a
couple of Bouncers. Imran was unready for such a ball & he could only fend
the ball to gully for an easy catch.
With Hughes taking 5 for 94 in his 34
overs, Sussex ended with 252, a lead of 98.
When Middlesex came out in bat, from the very first ball Imran had a point to prove, taking 6 for 52 in Middlesex’s 157 all out.
Legends' Lane, Hove
Captain Barclay and fellow opener Mendis opened for Sussex, who won easily by 10 wickets.
And the moral of the story?
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Season 2021 is into its final few
weeks …
So, my friends, it may well be Season 2022 before we next watch cricket together …
I can’t promise that there will be Giants in the earth when we’re next watching from the Deckchairs up the Cromwell Road end… but there’ll be plenty of Top Tales to tell !
I really hope that you’ll come along and watch with me.
After all ….
Why read a
Lord Ric Cricket Blog, when you can star in your own.
See you soon!!
Lord Ric of Beckley Furnace
PS
40 Seasons is a long, long time ago … …
And - as you may feel having read Genesis, the 1st book in the Bible - you may be wondering What Happened Next …
The Book of Isaiah is the 23rd book in the Bible.
Chapter 40 Verse 31 well-summarises What Happened Next:
But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary;
and they shall walk, and not faint.
As for Phil, after retiring from cricket he enjoyed a successful
career in business, serving as chairman of Middlesex Holdings, White Nile Petroleum Company and Middlesex County Cricket Club.
Earlier this year the Cricketer magazine in What happened to? interviewed
Frances Edmonds, who said:
“[Phil] spends a lot of time in Africa. He’s helped build a school outside Lusaka (the Chiboyla Memorial School). With his own money. It gives him an awful lot of joy.
He’s a rumbustious
person. He doesn’t mess around. If they need latrines or an extra classroom he
gets it done.”
And what of the mighty Imran?
Imran never forgave Middlesex.
His First-Class numbers against them read 49 wickets at an average of 16.
At
Lord’s in 1986 he bowled unchanged, taking a career best 8 for 34, routing
Middlesex for 70.
And - if I had told you this exactly 40 years ago today, you wouldn't ever have believed me -
on 28 July 2018 Imran became … …Prime Minister of Pakistan.
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And of your Correspondent … ??
After Sussex had won, that gloriously sunny evening I drove back
across Ashdown Forest to where I then lived in Weald View Road in Tonbridge.
40 years on, I can still remember feeling rather downcast, thinking - though I would have completely
denied it if you had asked me – that I was Drifting through Life.
The following year I moved to the North; well, Hertfordshire
seems like the North to a boy who grew up on the Kent – Sussex border !!
Then it was off to Belgium for a few years, before in the late 1980's settling here in ‘undiscovered’ Bickley.
….
Perhaps in your Youth you played cricket for your country on the
great Test grounds of the world …
Or perhaps you played on the village greens of Kent & Sussex.
Wherever it was, I can tell you that no Life is ever to be judged
when you are 30 …
It is fiercely difficult for the athlete to grow old,
but to age with dignity and with courage cuts close to what it is to be a man.
In truth, I knew was Drifting … and in fact, it would be two more decades
before I was Tested.
All of the Tales of Ric that I would like to be told at my Funeral
…
On that September evening exactly 40 years ago today - Not one had yet happened !!!
Of course; Absolutely no need to wait until the Funeral.
Come & watch cricket with me ... & we can run through “a couple” of them !!!
