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World Cricket: One Man's Quest for the Ashes Holy Grail
My 30-year quest to find the Ashes’ most valuable artefact
Douglas Jardine’s token of appreciation for Harold Larwood’s efforts in the Bodyline series is cricket’s Holy Grail for our correspondent
Nick Hoult
To Harold For the Ashes 1932-33 From A Grateful “Skipper”
Five lines. That is all there is engraved on an unassuming Elkington & Co silver ashtray, one of thousands made in the 1930s.
But the story behind the inscription and this ashtray has inspired books, documentaries, a TV mini-series and made this piece of memorabilia arguably the most valuable Ashes artefact aside from the actual urn.
“He loved it. He was so proud of it because it was given to him by Mr Jardine.” That is Mary McGrath talking. She is the middle one of Harold Larwood’s five daughters and is now 87, her voice quiet but her memory sharp, and over the course of a day in Sydney, details come flooding back of her father and the many famous cricketing figures that were part of family life: Jack Fingleton, Frank Tyson, “Bertie” Oldfield and Keith Miller.
I am surrounded by members of Larwood’s family, gathered for a rare viewing, even for them, of the ashtray that was a present to Harold from Douglas Jardine – two men forever linked in cricket history – more than 90 years ago.
It is in immaculate condition, lovingly polished and cared for by Harold who kept it in pride of place on his mantelpiece for the rest of his life. “He would show everyone who came round,” says Mary. Now it is my turn.
What started out as a personal quest to see the ashtray several years ago turned out to become something more substantial. Today it will be a shared journey; me to look at the ashtray that is a symbol of cricket’s greatest controversy summed up in one word: Bodyline. For Mary and her family the day will end at the SCG, where Telegraph Sport has arranged for her to see her father’s name on the Honours Board in the away dressing room for the first time – 93 years on from his 10 wickets in the first Bodyline Test of 1932-33.
With us is Andrew, Mary’s son and Harold’s grandson, and together we have learnt about Harold and the Bodyline story.
We travelled to Trent Bridge when Andrew and his wife Bex visited Europe last summer and to Nuncargate, the mining village 10 miles north-west of Nottingham where Harold lived to see his statue and the house where he was born.
Now it is a sunny Saturday in Sydney in late November and the Larwood family’s turn to show off their treasures, a crown jewels of cricketing memorabilia, and not just the fabled ashtray.
Andrew also has the personalised Parker Beacon gold lighter presented to all the players by the MCC for the 1932-33 tour to Australia and a pencil with an engraved gold band, a gift Jack Hobbs gave to all his Surrey team-mates, including Jardine, to commemorate his 100th hundred. Jardine presented it to Harold the night before he emigrated to Australia.
There are also photos of Andrew as a child with his grandfather in the garden of the Larwood bungalow in Kingsford, not far from the SCG – Harold in old age pretending to bowl with his knee-high grandson next to him. It is simply signed “Grandad”.
But first of all the ashtray; after all that is what has brought us together. To Harold it meant so much because it was a gift from a captain he called “Mr Jardine” for the rest of his life. It represented the loyalty of one of the few men to stand by him when the cricketing establishment cast Harold out, scapegoating him for Bodyline in order to save relations with Australia.
Larwood carried it with him when he moved from Nottingham to Blackpool to run a sweet shop, and packed it in his suitcase when he emigrated to Australia in 1950. He would proudly show it off to visitors to his bungalow in Sydney, whether they be England cricketers, journalists dropping by for an interview or devoted fans that would knock on the door and ask for a chat and an autograph.
Now, 30 years after his death, his family are gathered around a kitchen table with the ashtray carefully removed from its blue box and protective bubble wrap.
Harold had five daughters and 13 grandchildren. Mary, Andrew and Becky have met me at the house of another Larwood grandchild, Janet Neville. Her daughter and granddaughter – more Larwoods – pop in and out as the family heirloom is put on a display and the photographer snaps away.
My interest in the ashtray was sparked 30 years ago by a column in TheGuardian by the legendary sports journalist, Frank Keating, when he interviewed Harold while covering the 1993-94 Ashes tour. He wrote: “On the mantelpiece is a small silver ashtray. I tap my pipe out on it. The old man hears the clink. ‘I think you’ve just emptied your ash in my most treasured possession,’ he says, though without any trace of admonition.”
We will allow the great Keating some artistic licence, tapping his pipe out on Harold’s ashtray was a good line too hard to resist. Nobody was ever allowed to use it, confirms the family. Reading that as a student with aspirations to be a sports journalist, and then a decade or so later consuming Duncan Hamilton’s superb Larwood biography, an ambition was sparked to one day track down the family and see the ashtray for myself.
Ashes tours came and went. The timing was never quite right to locate the Larwoods. In 2017-18 I left it too late, waiting until Sydney and the final Test to start the search and getting nowhere, mainly because the Larwoods are no longer called Larwood, the daughters all married and took new names. Plans to do so for the 2021-22 tour were ruined by Covid and the restrictions in Australia at the time. This time I started earlier, taking no chances.
Correspondence started last January. Nottinghamshire put me in touch with Stephen Roper, a Larwood grandson who until this summer was the most recent family visitor to Trent Bridge, and has given interviews in the past about Harold. He lives in Port MacQuarie in New South Wales, about five hours north of Sydney, and shared a few Harold stories over the phone, but was not in possession of the ashtray.
Via email, he passed me on to his cousin Andrew McGrath. At the age of four Andrew and Mary moved in with Harold and Lois. He grew up living with his famous grandfather. Now aged 54, he was on his own Harold quest to find out more about his life; our paths crossed and led to this, but even he was not sure if the ashtray would be available for viewing.
Two days before we were due to meet up for this interview, he phoned. “We’ve got the ashtray. We’ve sorted it for you. And Mum is happy to talk.”
Apart from a stint on show at the Bradman Museum in Bowral, the ashtray has never left the family’s possession. I have agreed not to reveal its permanent whereabouts for obvious reasons, and Janet had to work hard to persuade a relative to part with it for the day to show me. She promised to guard it closely.
The Larwoods (I will call them that for ease of identification) have inherited Harold’s modesty and humble nature. Andrew is surprised at the power of the press when I arrange a visit for him to the MCC when he was in London to see the Bodyline archives, then a trip to Trent Bridge and finally the SCG so Mary can see her dad’s name embossed in gold on the honours board. But it was the Larwood name that opened doors; nothing was too much trouble for Harold’s family. His legend lives on.
First of all, the story of the ashtray. On Whit Monday, 1933, in front of 5,000 people at Trent Bridge, Jardine, who was still England captain, presented Larwood with a “gilt edged security certificate”, in the words of the Nottingham Evening Post, worth £388 (around £24,000 these days), the result of a shilling fund run by the local papers for him and his Bodyline partner Bill Voce.
A front page report in the local paper covered the story in detail, nestled next to one about Margaret Scriven winning the French Open tennis and another on the longest solo flight over the Atlantic.
A photograph of Jardine, in suit and tie, talking to the crowds on the balcony of Trent Bridge also includes the detail of a telegram sent that day by Plum Warner, the MCC’s manager of the 1932-33 tour, expressing his “warmest congratulations and wishes for the future” to Larwood and Voce. That brings a snort from the family, given what would transpire.
“None of you here can have any conception of the mental courage which your two Nottingham heroes displayed in Australia,” Jardine told the crowd.
Harold replied: “Our skipper, Mr Jardine, is certainly one of the finest men I have ever had the privilege of meeting – a magnificent captain, a great sportsman and true friend”. Loud cheers and “for he’s a jolly good fellow” rang out to toast Jardine.
In private, away from the cameras, Jardine gave Larwood and Voce an ashtray each he had paid for from his own pocket and had engraved, and it is Harold’s that we are looking at today.
It weighs a few ounces, is about five inches in diameter and a classic of its time. Elkington & Co made ashtrays for the White Star Line shipping company and they were common features in hotel bars and lobbies. “At the end of his life when he was losing his sight he was a bit more guarded about it,” says Janet. “Nana was always there to look after it in case someone took it with them.”
The family have never had it valued nor considered parting with it, the only time it has left their sight is the loan to the Bradman museum, ironic given the relationship between the two men. It did thaw as they reached old age but even now, long after both died, when I mentioned Bradman’s name over the kitchen table, everyone shifts a little awkwardly. The Larwoods are still sensitive about offending Australians about their great hero; this is combined with gratitude for the fresh start Australia gave Harold and his family as they escaped post-war Britain.
Mary was there the day Larwood and Bradman bumped into each other for the first time after Harold had moved to Australia. They had not seen each other for years and both were long retired. The chance meeting in the street in central Sydney between two men who were international news at the time of Bodyline, passed un-noticed. Nobody batted an eyelid; no camera phones then. Mary is the only eyewitness.
“Dad and I went into the city to buy a watch for myself and my sister for Christmas. Dad said: ‘Look who is coming here.’ It was Bradman. I don’t know who saw who first. They had a chat. When they parted Dad said something along the lines of ,‘Imagine that. Us having a chat and nobody noticing.’”
We talk about their family life in Sydney, how Harold became an Australian, embraced the country and lived anonymously, apart from the cricket fans who would knock on the door or send letters from all over the world some addressed simply: Harold Larwood, Cricketer, Sydney. They would always find their way to the house, Harold replying to each personally. But Bodyline never went away.
“Mum used to take shoes to the bootmakers to be repaired,” says Mary. “She would never leave the name Mrs Larwood. She would always leave another name.”
Janet chips in: “Where I used to work, I would be introduced as Harold Larwood’s granddaughter. ‘Just be careful who you tell,’ I’d say. Some people might not be happy with that.”
Andrew grew up with the greats of Australian cricket and world cricket popping round to see grandad. Alan Davidson and his wife Betty would look after him at the SCG when his grandad was off talking to supporters.
Mary would answer the phone to one of the most famous Australians of all, a man who had huge respect for Harold. “A voice would say, ‘Tell him it’s Keith Miller,’” she remembers with a smile, still looking thrilled to be speaking to the great Australian all-rounder. “He was a hero.”
On the 1954-55 tour, Frank Tyson popped round to pay homage. “He wore a shirt and tie,” says Mary with a laugh. “Mum would say to Dad: ‘Go and put a clean shirt on.’ My dad would say: ‘They are coming to see me, they will take me as I am.’ He would still go and change his shirt though.”
“My earliest memory is of these huge feet” says Andrew. “It was Chris Old sitting in the garden with Grandad. I remember we had an outside toilet and going out there one day as a teenager I saw Richard Hadlee having a chat with my grandfather. Graham Gooch, Darren Gough all came round. Len Hutton, he offered to put me up in England but he died before I could go. Chris Broad came round too with a baby, I think it was Stuart. After they left Nan found a little glow-worm, a stuffed toy. She was horrified. She thought we had to get it back to him. She wrapped it into brown paper and sent me to the SCG to knock on the door and hand it over.”
Of course we talk about Bodyline. “He always called it fast leg theory,” says Andrew. We chat about the hurt Harold carried around for the rest of his life when he was ostracised and his Test career ended for not apologising for bowling Bodyline, despite just following captain’s orders.
“He was just so disheartened by it. He was hurt. Australian cricketers would come to visit him and he would always say he was treated better by Australians than he was by the English,” says Mary. Oldfield became a great friend, and Andrew has a photo of him as a child posing with “Bertie” and a cricket bat. Thoughts will flick back to him and Harold this week at the Adelaide Oval, where Oldfield top edged a ball from Harold on to his head and staggered from the crease, the moment when the England players feared for their safety from a baying mob in the crowd. “Bert told Dad it wasn’t his fault,” says Mary.
Mike Atherton remembers Harold showing off the ashtray when his England side visited towards the end of Larwood’s life in 1994-95. By then he had lost his sight. “Nan was Grandad’s eyes, he was Nan’s ears,” says Andrew. Bodyline never left him. “He still felt it. He was still hurt by it. He said it was not his fault. He just did what Jardine told him – he said he just followed orders,” says Mary.
In September Andrew and Bex visited Lord’s and were shown the archives and scorebook from the Bodyline tour, most of the important documents detailing what went on in committee rooms and how Harold was made the fall guy are missing, thought to have been destroyed by Warner during the war to protect his reputation.
Andrew was surprised to see a portrait of Jardine in the pavilion, but not one of his grandfather – an oversight the MCC should do something about to rectify. It would be a nod to the egregious treatment handed out to Larwood in one of cricket’s great establishment stitch-ups if they were to commission one now.
“My surprise was more at the fact that my grandfather was made to feel as though he was in the wrong and asked to apologise for simply following and executing the instructions of his captain yet there is a portrait of his captain in such a prominent place. Why isn’t there also a portrait of our grandfather as an acknowledgement of his achievements as an English cricketer?”
The Larwoods are all Australia fans, understandably. Harold himself was split between the two. He never lost his thick Nottinghamshire accent. While we were at Trent Bridge, Alan Odell, the club’s senior tour guide, played us an old 78rpm recording of Harold talking about Bodyline in the months after the series. “I haven’t heard his voice for years,” said Andrew at the time.
“He sounds more Nottingham now than in my memory.”
A short drive to Nuncargate and Andrew poses for a photo next to his grandfather’s statue as the sun sets. There are three statues outside the library and opposite Morrison’s supermarket: one of Larwood bowling to Bradman stepping to the off side or ready to duck and Bill Voce crouched fielding, improbably, at short cover.
We wrap up taking pictures. Mary poses with the ashtray and Janet takes from frames on the table by the front door, photos of her grandfather as a young man, looking debonair as he takes a drag on a cigarette.
It is time to end the trip and take a short drive to the SCG. Phil Heads, the club’s head of media, meets us at Gate Two, we park next to Richie Benaud’s statue so Mary does not have to walk far.
There is a match going on, an SCG XI club game. The players have been warned to expect a special guest and make sure they are decent when Mary walks in.
They stand back as she looks at the honours board in the away dressing room that will not have changed much since Harold used it, and played his last game for England here (there were two Sydney Tests in the Bodyline series). She sees Harold’s name, there for his five for 96 and five for 28 in a 10 wicket England victory in the first Test.
“There he is,” she says when she spots his name. “I’ve lived here all my life and not seen it.” But then the Larwood name strikes again. The captain of one of the teams politely introduces himself.
“Excuse me. I once met your father,” says Bruce Hocking, a long time SCG member, and farmer from Gunnedah, up country New South Wales. “I knocked on your dad’s door and even though I was a nobody and didn’t know me from a bar of soap, he took time out to talk to me. We had a good yarn and he showed me his things. You know what? He gained more respect from Aussies for not saying sorry.”
After lunch, Andrew shows me the lighter and the Hobbs pencil. The night before he emigrated, and after Jardine gave him the gold and brown pencil inscribed: “To D.R Jardine. From Jack Hobbs, 1925.”
Harold decided he had to go and see Jack Hobbs one more time. He went to his sports shop in Fleet Street, eventually finding the great England batsman in the Cheshire Cheese pub, the pencil in his inside pocket. The pair drank champagne, and Larwood showed him the pencil. “It is an honour to know you have it,” Hobbs said. It is another remarkable piece of cricket history.
Andrew gives me a lift to the airport, on the way driving past Harold and Lois’s bungalow where he grew up. “To some people he was a hero, to others he was a villain, but to me he was just my grandad.”
To Jardine he was a great bowler, a cricketer who cut down the Don and won a series at great personal cost. All just “For the Ashes”.
Burning down the Baz-house is easy, but what comes after that for England?
Brendon McCullum’s regime may be unravelling but there is rarely any suggestion of what to do next and how the team can be improved
Barney Ronay
Overprepared. Overconfident. Overblown. Over there. And now just over. We know how this goes from here, don’t we? We know this cycle.
The days since England’s defeat in Brisbane have boiled down to a real-time competition to become the hate-click boss, to describe in the most sensual, eviscerating detail the depth of England’s badness, not just at cricket, but at the molecular, existential level.
Right now everything is turned up to 11. Bring on the flamethrowers. Scour this filth from the earth. It’s time to burn this Baz-house down. So we have pitch maps of shame, fifth-stump drive montages, deconstructions of the basic energy at the Gabba, when even the players’ faces seemed to collapse, from handsome, alpha dogs romping out in mid-afternoon, to weak-chinned lost souls under the evening lights, eyes hollow, hair straggly, like acid casualties at Woodstock.
We have a race to capture the exact styling of the end times. What will its epitaph be? The current favourite is Brendon McCullum’s post-match TV interview, an experience that felt, in the moment, like having burning hot kebab skewers made entirely from vibes and golf driven into both eyeballs.
Even as McCullum said the thing – “If anything we overprepared” – you could almost hear the clank of belts being loosed, steak knives sharpened. There it is. His we need to look at the data. His peace in our time. His we’re ALL RIGHT, fist raised to the party conference hall.
So we can do the horror. But there is a problem here too, and a familiar one. There is rarely any suggestion of what to do next, or what parts to keep, just the urge to purge, to annihilate the dominant thesis. Reject. Reanimate the old ways. Concrete over the flaws of the present with the flaws of the past.
But what if there was another way? What if it was possible not just to say how England are bad, but why and how to improve it? Who would be the best person to tell us this, outside exasperated ex-pros and scalpel-penned hacks?
If we accept that the greatest flaw of the Baz-verse is its philistinism, the rejection of knowledge and theory, then the answer is probably someone with an actual interest in these things, meatheads v pointy heads.
Rob Ferley is a former Kent and Nottinghamshire spin bowler turned professional coach and one of the most innovative thinkers in English cricket. Ferley is outside Bazball. He also played with, respects and is fascinated by its grand wizard Rob Key. With Dr James Wallace, lecturer in Sports Science at the University of Brighton, he has formed Square One Cricket, a kind of sports science brains trust based at its Falmer campus facility.
As an antidote to the burn-it-down dynamic, this page asked Ferley to come up with a state-of-Bazball briefing paper, evidence-based and drawing on current theory. So what do people who have spent a professional life trying to understand coaching culture think about a system that rejects it?
An important message. This is not an apologia for the regime, whose only real achievement in Australia so far is to have found a more extreme way of being bad. Factor in depth of resources, extended prep, the freedom to create an entire cult-like way of being. Fold in the fact England have won 13 of their past 39 Tests and one-day internationals, a win ratio worse than Ange Postecoglou at Spurs, worse than their predecessors, the Silverwood-Mott axis, who won 17 of their last 39 matches, and England aren’t just bad right now, they’re mega-bad.
Lose again in Adelaide and resigning on the spot is the only real Bazball move left. Run towards the carpet slippers. Be where your sofa is. So we can do the horror, because the horror is real. But it is also reductive. What are the good parts here?
So we enter Part 1: What Bazball gets right. Even in the middle of failure, there has been one major gain. As Ferley puts it: “Bazball revolutionised how England feel. It’s probably the best time ever to be an England cricketer. So that is genuinely remarkable, isn’t it?”
How did they do this? “Players feel trusted, empowered and unburdened by fear of failure.” Yes this sounds funny now, having collapsed like an overdunked biscuit at first contact in Australia. But it is also a major achievement in English cricket, which has so often been hampered by the absence of these qualities.
Key to these early gains was Reinvestment theory and constraints-led approach. “Reinvestment theory suggests that overthinking technical details inhibits performance. Bazball’s messaging – ‘trust your game’, ‘play with freedom’, ‘express yourself’ – limits this excessive cognitive load.” Ben Duckett, for example. Did you really think he would average 40 as a Test opener? Duckett has been reinvested. He was ready for this.
We also have Positive self-fulfilling prophecies, whereby: “Stokes and McCullum use belief as a weapon … The message is consistent: we believe in you. This creates belonging, identity and confidence.” But we get into trickier ground under A values-oriented culture with its “clear emphasis on the psychological and emotional domains. These are enjoyment, self-expression, connection, mental freedom, reduced fear”. This may be falling apart right now, but it worked while it worked. “In short, Bazball is 85% built on solid evidence and powerful principles.” But don’t worry. “There are clear gaps,” where “Bazball is incomplete or unsupported by evidence”.
The first is High support but low challenge. “The current environment is extremely supportive – but it seems to lack challenge. High support without high challenge creates comfort safety and enjoyment, but not necessarily excellence … the current model feels too comfortable.”
One example is the apparent lack of detail as opposed to simply energy. Zak Crawley has talked about picking up a mood on how to bat, never actually being told to get a quick 30, just sensing it was the right thing from the nature of McCullum’s silence when he walks back into the dressing room. How’s that going to break down under actual pressure?
Next is Lack of tactical adaptability and perceptual-decision training. “A constraints-led approach shouldn’t mean absence of tactical development. England speak a language of freedom, but look unable to adapt when conditions change … they cannot change their approach under pressure.”
One example this week was the Marcus Trescothick press conference, which featured statements like: “I don’t think you should be looking too much at what the guys are trying to do” (why not?) and “no discussions took place about driving on the up”. What to make of this after a Test where up to 15 wickets fell to balls that could have been left? Why have there been no discussions? Or just one discussion? This is literally the job.
Next problem, One-size-fits-all autonomy. “Autonomy is preached, but the culture has converged on a single way of playing. The team ethos has become: ‘This is how we play.’ That risks suppressing penalising players who think or operate differently.”
Think here of Ollie Pope, who would surely look happier under a different regime. As it is nobody knows what Pope’s real depths are, his actual core skills. Although it seems likely these might be resilience and slow craft. This is before we even get to Harry Brook, who is in danger of swallowing his own talent, always going for the sugar rush, shooting for the sun.
Speaking of which Over-reliance on a ‘entertainment-first’ narrative. “Entertainment matters, but high performance requires consequence. England sound like a team enjoying themselves more than a team striving to be the best.” There is a surprising truth here. Bazball is dull. These are one-note iconoclasts, predicable mavericks, like a manufactured punk band snarling to order an American talkshow.
Most important of all perhaps is Psychological comfort without performance accountability. “High performance requires consequence. If players are too safe it can lead to: complacency, reduced hunger, acceptance of mediocrity, overconfidence that becomes blind spots.”
Stokes expressed surprise in Brisbane that England are bad at coping with pressure. Maybe this is because they don’t allow themselves to foster it, but look instead like a team that has been told it’s special and actually believes it.
As for Unclear values, well now we’re talking. “Bazball has a vibe, an energy, a style – but what are the actual values? Entertainment? Positivity? Bravery? Winning? These are cultural traits, not performance values. Great teams have clear, explicit values that guide behaviour, decision-making and accountability.”
This is the other thing England have achieved in Australia. They haven’t just played badly. They have made themselves unusually unlikeable. Other England teams have lost like drowning men, lost like it hurt. This England are still trying to be cool in defeat, to talk about going for beers in the sting of 2-0 down.
So we get on to Selection bias and favouritism risks. “High belief encourages confidence – but it can also create blindspots. There is a risk of loyalty overriding objectivity, leading to a small pool of players being backed regardless of evidence.” Selection is confusing. The message is: we will not select on runs and wickets. We will pick you on attitude. So go out there and play in a style that keeps you in the team. Haseeb Hameed, for example, has clearly been making the wrong kind of runs.
Finally we have Schedule narrative. “The constant commentary around the schedule may reinforce a self-fulfilling belief that England are uniquely fatigued. But is this evidence-based? It’s unclear whether the schedule is uniquely difficult – or whether England believe it is because of their cultural echo chamber.”
So despite talking about how much they play, England look short of matches. They look fit but also tired and scrambled. In conclusion: “Bazball has transformed English cricket. It has rehabilitated confidence, restored identity and created a liberated environment. But the final 15% – tactical adaptability, challenge, accountability, perceptual development, value clarity and diversity of thought – is the difference between being inspiring and being world class.”
That does sound about right, doesn’t it? Or at least a more reasoned response to the sense of a team built as a monument to a single idea. For now England are probably right to take some time in Noosa, to relax and regroup and follow the only path they really have open to them at this stage. The motto of their chosen resort is “plan, play, explore”. Just don’t expect this regime to do much more than the play part.
The Robin Smith I knew: a brave, gentle soul loved by everyone
Robin Smith, former England cricketer, dies aged 62
‘Judge’, who has died aged 62, was a brutal batsman with arms like traffic bollards who loved taking on fast bowlers. His team-mates all loved him
Mike Atherton
It was on the second and final day of last month’s Perth Test that Robin Smith received the kind of standing ovation that came his way so freely during a decorated career as one of the best and bravest England batsmen of the 1980s and 1990s. The reason for the ovation was rather different this time, after he had recounted in detail to a corporate audience the difficulties he experienced with alcoholism and depression since leaving the professional game a little more than 20 years ago.
As often happens when England arrive in Perth, “the Judge” — it was always the Judge, with his wavy, wig-like hair — was sought out by former team-mates, friends and journalists. As one of the most popular of all England cricketers, he had many of the former and, because he had a colourful tale to tell, he was of interest to the latter. Readers of The Sunday Times will have read, I hope, Simon Wilde’s superb interview and portrait, published only three days ago. Raw in detail, it is now even more poignant with the desperate news of his unexpected and unexplained passing.
When we held our pre-Ashes meeting in the newspapers’ offices some months ago, I suggested that the Judge would make a good interviewee, but that I’d rather not do it. Having played so often together, and having captained him for a period of time, I felt too close to it. Judge’s last interview, with Simon, will stand as a fitting testament to a gentle and generous soul, who was in his element in a cricket dressing room, but who found life beyond it more challenging.
He admitted as such in the interview and his words would have struck a chord with many. “Cricket is like a family. You are together so much of the time. It’s difficult to adjust to normal life once the bubble bursts. You miss the adrenaline surge; you continue the old lifestyle and live beyond your means. If you don’t know how to reinvent yourself, that can leave you in a terrible position,” he said. He is not the first, and won’t be the last, to have found that adjustment so hard to make.
He was a wonderful batsman: strong, committed and brave with forearms the size of traffic bollards. I have a memory of the Old Trafford Test in 1995 against West Indies, when his jaw was broken by Ian Bishop on a quick pitch. He rarely batted with a visor or grille to his helmet, because he didn’t feel he could see the ball well enough, and a short ball nipped back and flew into his cheekbone, blood everywhere. Retired hurt.
The dressing rooms were upstairs in the old Victorian Pavilion then, and after the ambulance had been called the medics made their way up with a stretcher. We were chasing only a small target to win, but wickets had started to tumble, and Judge waited on the stretcher at the top of the stairs until it became clear that victory was inevitable. Only then would he allow himself to be taken downstairs into the waiting ambulance. Victories were hard to come by. It was a different time.
Schooled by his strict father on a bowling machine in his back garden in Durban, Judge was honed to play fast bowling. It was a good job, as there was plenty of it about then. In his first Test for England at Headingley in 1988 he came up against Malcolm Marshall (a great mate from Hampshire), Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh. Patrick Patterson and Bishop joined the attack at Sabina Park two years later. He played against them frequently, and they prized Smith’s wicket above all.
Like his countryman and his hero, Allan Lamb, he thrived on the adrenaline that fast bowling would bring. He’d say to me that he had an imaginary line in his mind’s eye halfway down the pitch and anything short of it, he’d duck. But if it was in his half and a little bit wide of off stump, then watch out. No one hit a square cut harder than the Judge. It was a brutal, ferocious stroke. Mike Selvey, the former Guardian cricket correspondent, said that if he was ever condemned to a beheading, he’d like Judge to be the swordsman.
It was said that spin was a weakness, although it was only relative to how well he played fast bowling. He never really enjoyed the challenge of spin on the subcontinent — he much preferred the ball whizzing past his chops at 90mph — and his iron wrists meant he was a clubber not a worker of the ball. But few have scored a hundred against Muttiah Muralitharan in Colombo. I can see him now, in that dingy dressing room at the Sinhalese Sports Club in March 1993, sweating buckets, standing under a fan to keep cool and lining up ten, maybe a dozen pairs of gloves for the task ahead. In the first innings of that game he made 128, in the most brutal conditions imaginable.
Readers will know that the 1990s were not a successful decade for England, but the players got on extremely well and enjoyed a strong bond. Judge was among the most popular of all the players — and there were lots — who came and went through the revolving doors. He was kind and gentle and very good company who always wanted to please, which endeared him to everyone. There was not a bad bone in his body.
South African-born batsman, who played more than 100 international games, has died in Australia
Scyld Berry
Robin Smith, the former England cricketer, has died. The 62-year-old passed away overnight in Perth, Western Australia.
The former Hampshire batsman played 62 Tests for England before finishing his international career in 1996. Only last week Smith spoke about his battles with alcoholism and mental health struggles.
Kevan James, a former Hampshire team-mate of Smith, addressed the news on BBC Radio Solent, where he works as a sports presenter.
“Oh gosh it’s been horrible, unfortunately. It was happening as I was reading out some of the sports news. He was at the time, in the Eighties and Nineties, he was England’s best batter. He averaged 43 in Test matches,” James said on air.
“He averaged over 40 when he was dropped after the mid-Nineties Test series in South Africa which is quite incredible now, isn’t it, to think a batter would be dropped averaging that many. In one-day internationals he averaged 39.
“He was a super player, particularly of fast bowling in an era where the West Indies had all these quick bowlers. You know, he was one of the few England batters that stood up to them and basically gave them as good as he got!”
Supremely brave on the field but plagued with uncertainty off it
Smith faced fast bowling full-on, even if, tragically, the same could not be said for life itself.
Smith was universally known as “Judgey” for the shape of his hair. He was one of the bravest batsmen ever to take on the West Indies when they were in effect the world Test champions, owing to the calibre of their incredible fast-bowling contingent.
Smith strode out to the middle, mighty of forearm, murderous of square cut, and never gave a hint of the uncertainties which plagued him off the field. Those who could take down West Indies were very few but alongside Allan Lamb, Graham Gooch, Allan Border, who was also born in South Africa of a British parent, was Smith.
Smith’s father had installed a bowling machine in the garden of their family home in Durban when such machines were novelties, not ten-a-penny in academies. Smith’s square cut was born here, and he soon had the forearms to match his technique.
Far from being prolific against medium-pacers on three-day county pitches while playing for Hampshire, Smith instantly looked a Test batsman when he made the step up. That could not be said of every England player in the 1988 series against West Indies.
Smith made his debut in the fourth Test at Headingley, when the all-rounder Roger Harper was somehow selected by West Indies. Not one over of Harper’s off-spin was bowled as England were mown down for 201 and 138.
Chris Cowdrey had been picked as England’s captain for this game, which was perhaps not entirely a coincidence as the chairman of England’s selectors, Peter May, was his godfather. Cowdrey was out of his depth, and never represented England again. Smith entered the arena with England 80 for four, and batted to the manor born.
It helped that Lamb was at the other end, of the same background, and equipped with the same square cut and courage. Still, it was a huge challenge for a man on his Test debut to face Curtly Ambrose, Malcolm Marshall, Winston Benjamin and Courtney Walsh. Thanks to that upbringing, Smith was immediately up to speed. His first-innings score of 38 does not fully reflect it; but he shared a century partnership before Lamb endured the occupational hazard when batting against West Indies, and retired hurt.
Smith averaged 43 in 62 Tests overall (he also played 71 one-day internationals), and 44 against West Indies. He hit two centuries in the 1991 series, and 175 in his final Test against them. This was after Brian Lara had scored 375 in Antigua. Fatigued as England were, they still matched the home side’s total of 593.
In 1989, when England were a pitiful rabble in the face of Australia, Smith stood up taller than any other batsman to make two more hundreds. Australia did not have a spinner of much note on that tour; but they did on their next in 1993 (Shane Warne) and Smith’s batting gradually tailed off.
Those mighty forearms were not so much use when it came to defending against Warne, Anil Kumble and Mushtaq Ahmed. Smith did make a hundred in the Colombo Test of 1993, but he was pushed up to open and avoid the worst of Muttiah Muralitharan and Sri Lanka’s other spinners. Bowling machines, when he was a teenager, could not replicate spin as they do now.
Rather prematurely, Smith was abandoned after England’s 1995-96 tour of South Africa. He went on to do fine and conscientious service as the captain of Hampshire from 1998 to 2002, and already had his medals for winning cup finals for his county at Lord’s.
He will be fondly remembered, for his supreme, pugilistic bravery against fast bowling and for his human frailties, but above all perhaps for an innings of 167 not out against Australia in 1993, the highest for England in limited-overs cricket until that point.
In a one-day international of 55 overs per side at Edgbaston he made his runs off 163 balls, in the days when batting at a run a ball was rare. No Shane Warne to face in that game, only the off-spinner Tim May. England still lost, as they were wont to do in those days against Australia, but never for want of Smith’s trying.
30/11
‘Back from dead’ — but Robin Smith’s fight with alcoholism will never end
Former England batsman opens up on his struggles, compounded by death of close friend Shane Warne, and how he is rebuilding his life after being only ‘days’ away from death
Simon Wilde
The Test match in Perth last week gave Robin Smith the chance to catch up with friends from his England days. Graham Gooch, David Gower and Allan Lamb were in town, so too Mark Nicholas, who captained him at Hampshire after Smith came over from South Africa as a teenage wonder-boy, destined to be one of the world’s best players of fast bowling.
When I mention this to him a few days out, he gives a dark chuckle. “I know. ‘Jeez, Judgie,’ they’re saying, ‘You’re back from the dead.’ ” Of this death, Smith admits that he cannot remember much, but 18 months ago, those closest to him were told he might have only two days to live. Years of alcohol abuse and depression were killing him. “Everyone is keen to see Lazarus,” he adds.
Sadly, the old friend that Smith would have perhaps liked to catch up with most, and who is central to this story, is Shane Warne, who died tragically and suddenly in Thailand in March 2022.
During the Test itself, Smith — always known as ‘Judge’ in reference to his once-wavy, wig-like hair — steeled himself to go into a function room at Perth’s Optus Stadium to be interviewed by Brad Hogg, a former Australia cricketer who has had his own off-field issues. It was an event organised by John Stephenson, chief executive of Western Australia Cricket and an old county team-mate of Smith’s.
The chat turned to mental health and, as Smith talked about his situation, he broke down in tears. When he had finished, the audience gave him a standing ovation.
During the Test itself, Smith — always known as ‘Judge’ in reference to his once-wavy, wig-like hair — steeled himself to go into a function room at Perth’s Optus Stadium to be interviewed by Brad Hogg, a former Australia cricketer who has had his own off-field issues. It was an event organised by John Stephenson, chief executive of Western Australia Cricket and an old county team-mate of Smith’s.
The chat turned to mental health and, as Smith talked about his situation, he broke down in tears. When he had finished, the audience gave him a standing ovation.
Although Smith’s version of events is incomplete, his family and friends know what happened last year. There was one day in hospital when four of them were around the bed and it took an hour to feed him a pot of yoghurt. He was in hospital for four months before being sufficiently out of danger to be sent home because the hospital wanted the bed, though his organs were still in a seriously ravaged state.
He stayed with son Harrison and his wife, and a painstaking rehabilitation took place. A number of people went to great lengths to help, including Chris, his long-suffering elder brother whom Robin calls “my biggest supporter but also my biggest critic”.
Initially, he struggled to eat but Harrison’s wife, Yen, who is Vietnamese, plied him with nutritious food. He practically had to learn to walk again. Covering ten metres was a start, then 20 metres, 50 metres, and so on. This for a guy whose job was once to sprint between the wickets.
After six months he was well enough to move out and live for several days a week in low-cost housing near his ageing father, John, who during Robin’s absence had gone into a care home. In the 1970s, John had built a cricket net at the family home in Durban which Chris and Robin used to hone skills that turned them into international batsmen.
“We’d go for a walk and an ice cream, which I loved,” Robin recalls. “Whenever I left, he’d say, ‘Rob, I love you… be good.’ I knew exactly what he meant: ‘Stay off the bloody alcohol.’ Then the next time I went he’d had a stroke. It was terrible. He could still hear and see, but just couldn’t communicate. I could see the anxiety in his face. That broke my heart. I got a call two weeks later to say he had comfortably passed.”
That resulted in another lapse. “I thought I had fully recovered. Then having seen dad in the state he was, and living on my own, I got back into my… well, you know, once an alcoholic always an alcoholic. You always battle to keep away from it. It’s not difficult to go back on the alcohol.”
These events are only a few months ago. This is raw stuff to listen to as we talk in a cafe in Perth’s central library over a coffee and a fruit juice.
He saw the specialist who had told his family in 2024 that he may not have long left. That news had filtered back to England shortly after the death of Graham Thorpe, a batsman with whom Smith shared a number of memorable partnerships for England, including two which helped secure a 2-2 draw with West Indies in 1995.
“After that week where I started drinking again, I saw the professor who had spoken to my family about me not necessarily making it. I told him I’d let myself down. He said, ‘If you’ve been drinking again, you must be a cat with nine lives, because many other people wouldn’t have survived this.’ I’m on my last warning, I know.” The medics were amazed at how well he was able to function.
Friends have urged him to speak publicly about his problems, including for this interview and at Optus Stadium last weekend, as a first step in recognising that what he is going through is not unique to him, that others have suffered the same sort of difficulties.
“His journey was terrible but other people go through similar things,” said a family friend, Anne Richards, who lost her teenage son to suicide 16 years ago and is now involved in a mental health charity. “You are lonely and embarrassed and think no one has the same issues, but they do. If he starts to express himself it’s actually quite healing and I think he is ready to do it after the positive feedback he got over the weekend.”
It appeared from our conversation that such messages were indeed starting to resonate; that he wants to use his time to do good in the community. “You shouldn’t be too proud,” he told me. “Show your emotion, speak of your problems. There are close friends that will listen and support you if they love you. That’s the first step to recovery and I don’t think enough people do that. If they are genuine friends, they will be there.”
He phoned me a couple of hours after we met to add some advice for those checking on someone about whom they are concerned. “When you ask someone how they are getting on, and they say, ‘Yes, all good’, don’t necessarily believe them. It’s not always the case. Behind my eyes is a deep and sorry story.”
Wind back to 2003 and Smith’s tale was a familiar one, of a sportsman steered into retirement before he was ready. England had cut him off in 1996, which felt premature because he was only 32, but he was associated with the old guard of Gooch, Gower, Lamb and Ian Botham, and they had left the scene. When the end came at Hampshire seven years later, it was still more painful. No more dressing-room life, no more camaraderie. He should have seen it coming and been prepared, but he wasn’t.
“Cricket is like a family. You are together so much of the time. It’s difficult to adjust to normal life once that bubble bursts. You miss the adrenaline surge, you continue the old lifestyle and live beyond your means. If you don’t know how to reinvent yourself, that can leave you in a terrible position.” Forward planning was never his strong point.
What played out over the next ten years was chronicled in his autobiography The Judge, published in 2019, that made for harrowing reading: the alcoholism, the depression and the brush with suicide when he booked into the Rendezvous hotel at Perth’s Scarborough Beach armed with vodka and cigarettes, ready to throw himself off the balcony.
Thankfully he looked down at the street below and saw enough people milling around to grasp the likely consequences. “My father would have just said, pull yourself together,” he says. “Few people understand how you can go from thinking the world is great to just wanting to end it all… I cannot live another day, I do not want to live another day. I know a lot of people feel like that — I’ve been there.”
The book was written when Smith had regained a little stability and in itself was a cathartic process. He had met a new partner, Karin, was working for his brother Chris, and coaching at a local school, something he was good at. He talked about taking a psychology degree.
But life had more to throw at him. His mother died and then, while he was living with his widowed father, the Covid pandemic struck. As for so many, the isolation proved difficult, and only fuelled his drinking. “I should have been stronger but with nothing to do, sitting there with your old man two yards away deteriorating, I fell into a deep hole.”
But that was not really the catalyst for the collapse that would lead him into hospital and his brush with death. A year or so later, two things happened which sent him into his most serious decline.
One was an enforced separation from his partner. Karin worked for the Western Australia government and was relocated to Christmas Island, a remote Australian territory some 1,600 miles off the northwest coast.
The other was the sudden death of Warne, one of Smith’s greatest friends in cricket, aged only 52. Through all Smith’s difficulties, from his failed business as a cricket helmet supplier, to the breakdown of his marriage in 2010, to his drinking problems, Warne remained a steadfast ally who spoke to him on the phone almost every other day. It was a devastating blow.
Subsequently, to complicate matters further and most cruelly, Karin was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). In an effort to arrest her decline, she has just flown to Belgrade for two weeks to pursue stem cell treatment. She knows once that is done she faces a period of isolation to protect her immune system.
“Her deterioration hasn’t been easy, particularly when the Australians reckon they are one of the world’s leading researchers in MS,” he says. “I’ve been close to this disease and those claims are rubbish. I’m very passionate about that. We’ll see how she goes.” It’s another hurdle to clear.
Smith enjoyed a privileged upbringing. He grew up in one of the finest houses in Durban and Barry Richards and Mike Procter, two South African cricketing greats, were family friends who came and used the net his father had built.
It was also a strict life. His mother was soft and lovable, his father old-school South African. “It was,” Smith says, “an incredibly disciplined household. If I put a foot wrong, it’d be into dad’s study and there would be a good smack. That was the discipline in South Africa in those days.”
When the chance arose, the Smith brothers went to play for Hampshire because that’s where Richards had played, and Robin spent three seasons of club cricket in Perth in the mid-1980s because Richards had settled there. “He thought it would be better for me to get out of the clutches of my family and live on my own, and grow up.”
Smith was always destined for the top. By 1988 he was playing for England, and the following year scored 553 runs in his first Ashes series; only Wally Hammond has scored more runs for England in a series against Australia under the age of 26.
He was renowned for his bravery against pace, to the point where he felt he had to live up to an image of the hard-drinking hardman that may have fitted his South African background but was never really him. “I was trying to be the Judge that everyone loved rather than the quiet, shy, introvert Robin that I was brought up to be.”
Ultimately, his career foundered on a fallibility against spin. This supposed weakness was possibly exaggerated, because he scored plenty of runs against Asian sides. His real problem was Warne, who ensured Smith was less of a problem to the Australians in 1993 than four years earlier, and was the reason why he was dropped for the 1994-95 Ashes.
Smith could have held this against Warne — whom he got to know when a young Warne bowled at England in the nets on their 1990-91 tour — but didn’t. In fact, he helped bring him to Hampshire in 2000, though he refused to face him in the nets because doing so did nothing for his confidence.
Their friendship endured to the end, Warne calling Smith a couple of hours before he passed away. Warne’s former wife Simone even contacted Smith and said the family wanted him to attend Warne’s memorial service, and would pay for his flight to Melbourne. Smith declined. He feared he would be unable to hold himself together.
11/11
Ben Duckett: I was treated unfairly in 2017 — but I’ve matured
England batsman on incident with James Anderson that led to suspension from Lions tour, taking inspiration from Rishabh Pant and why he loves batting with Zak Crawley
Michael Atherton
I know what they are going to call me. I’ve had it my whole life. I only have to stand by the Western Terrace [at Headingley] and the English fans are at me for being small. You’ve just got to deal with it, try and laugh, maybe go back at them. We’ll see how that goes — probably not well. I’ve always had a lot of chat from the crowd.”
Ben Duckett, only 5ft 7in tall but growing in stature and reputation among present multi-format international batsmen, is contemplating his first Ashes tour, and all the uncertainty and excitement that comes with it. Along with Zak Crawley, Duckett will be in the vanguard of a batting unit that can boast only one hundred on Australian soil — Ben Stokes is the owner — but one on whose success the outcome of the mission relies.
The tour represents a remarkable return for Duckett who, when England were in Australia eight years ago, was fined, dropped and suspended from a Lions touring party that, like now, was shadowing the main team. After that, Duckett, then 23, found himself out in the cold, tagged as something of a wild child or difficult character and had to start from scratch to get recognition again.
Duckett’s “crime” was a relatively innocent one. On a night out with the senior team in a bar in Perth, he responded in kind to having had a drink poured over him by Jimmy Anderson and was reported by one of the ECB’s security guards. It was not the gravity of the issue — England’s coach at the time, Trevor Bayliss, described it as “trivial” and the antics were largely good-natured and high-spirited — but rather the context, which was an Ashes tour going badly both on and off the field.
“It was extremely tough. I wasn’t an angel but I certainly wouldn’t have been in that situation in this side,” Duckett says. “I joke with Rooty [Joe Root] all the time; he was captain and he always says he feels a bit guilty about it. It would be approached differently now. If you ask me if I felt like I was treated unfairly, I’d probably have to say yes. Jimmy was England’s greatest ever cricketer, I was this young guy trying to find my way.
“I try to think these things happen for a reason. Had it not [happened] I might have played for two or three years and not done very well in a previous regime, whereas now I’m 38 Tests in and playing in a team that certainly gets the best out of me. I don’t believe I would have averaged 42 in previous years so I’ve got so much to be thankful to Baz [Brendon McCullum, England’s head coach] and Stokesy. I’ve been very open about how much I love playing in this team. It gets the best out of me.”
How does the 2025 version of Duckett, as player and person, compare to that of 2017?
“I’m a similar player but I believe I’ve matured a lot as a batter,” the 31-year-old says. “People might find it hard to believe at times, but there’s a lot more thought goes into it than it looks. More importantly, I’ve matured as a bloke.”
“I certainly think the hard work getting back to where I am now has had an impact on my game,” he says. “It makes me not want to waste it. I’m not sitting here saying I’m pretty cushy or I’ve had a decent England career. I know what it was like then; I know how tedious those winters were when I wasn’t playing for England. I want to capitalise and make these years the best of my career.
“But I want to keep that carefree mentality. I actually spoke to Rishabh Pant during the India series because I think he’s a fascinating cricketer; an incredible cricketer. He said he’d nearly died [in a car crash] and so he said he wanted to do it his way. I thought that was such an awesome thing to say. For however many years are left, I’d like to it my way.”
All kinds of pressures will impinge on that, not least the nerves and expectation that land on an opening pair on the morning of an Ashes Test, and the excellence of Australia’s attack. The last time England were in Australia, Rory Burns lost his leg stump the first ball of the Brisbane Test to Mitchell Starc, setting in motion another disastrous tour. In their contrasting ways — and remembering the first ball of the 2023 Ashes, which Crawley drove majestically to the cover boundary — Duckett and Crawley will be looking to set a different tone this time.
They are something of an odd couple: one right, the other left-handed; one a beanpole, the other a short-arse; one strong on the drive and down the ground; the other, a rasping player square of the wicket. They did not know each other at all before being put together at the top of the order, but are now almost joined at the hip, having developed a fine understanding out in the middle and off the field, where they are often seen socialising together. They enjoy each other’s company.
“I’m in Nottingham and have a baby, and he [Crawley] is in London so we don’t see each other socially as much as we’d like to, but our relationship has certainly grown,” Duckett says. “We didn’t know each other at all at first. It’s come a long way; we have a typical friendship, really, with a lot of banter and taking the mick out of each other off the pitch, but I know that if one of us is struggling we will try to help each other through that.
“I love batting with him. He’d be my favourite partner. When we are out in the middle, it’s just so good; it’s a lot of fun. Headingley [against India] was such a crucial partnership that we had together in that second innings [scoring 188 runs]. That day I was feeling so good I was just saying to him, ‘Stick with me here’. When we are at our best, there’s not a lot of deep thought or conversation, but just flowing and rotating.
“Rotation [of strike] is so important. I can think of some partners I’ve opened with and we might be 100 for 0 but there would be only sweepers out for me so you can get stuck down one end. Whereas I know when me and Zak are going, I’m going to be facing as many balls, which is probably why I like batting with him the most.”
Before Perth, Duckett will lean on his experience of the opening Test in the 2023 Ashes which, he says, was eye-opening.
“That [the 2023 Ashes] was my first big series back in the side. All I remember was that I was a wreck that morning [at Edgbaston]. Normally, I’m pretty good at controlling my emotions but I just remember saying to Stokes after I got out: ‘This is quite a lot isn’t it?’ And even Stokes said that day had been pretty intense.
“My first Test in England was the Ireland Test which came before, so there may have been something about playing in England in front of a big crowd. But I didn’t feel like that facing [Jasprit] Bumrah or India, so it’s something to do with the Ashes — the history of it, what it means to me, having watched it growing up.”
Like many in this team, Duckett was a child of the 2005 series, inspired by that marvellous summer.
“I’ve spoken about Thorpey [Graham Thorpe] being a bit of a hero of mine, but my first memories of the England team are all around ’05. So the Ashes is different, I know it is.”
Another challenge for Duckett, as a player involved in all three formats, has been, and will be, the schedule. Balancing cricket and commercial opportunities with staying fresh and sharp was put into focus when Duckett was rested from the T20 series against South Africa this year, having been initially picked to play. Patently, by the end of the summer, he was knackered. His form dipped and has not recovered in New Zealand, where he made 11 runs only in the three-match ODI series.
“I hate admitting it but I found that Test series [against India] a lot mentally. Doing well myself I’d have obviously taken that at the start but it felt like it filled every day, and every time I went out to bat it was full-on against, in my eyes, the best bowler in the world at the minute [Bumrah]. It was hard to switch off. Then it was straight into the Hundred, where I got a run of low scores for the first time in a while and I just felt pretty knackered.”
And finally, those Australian bowlers, who as a unit present, perhaps, the toughest challenge in international cricket right now.
“They are relentless,” he says. “If they were in different teams you could focus on each one as an individual, whereas they are all together. We’ll see what fields they go with; they might have a deep point and deep square leg like last time, when the only good thing was that you didn’t get to spend long down one end. But I know how good they are. They are a world-class attack. I’ve not got an Ashes hundred. I’ve come so close [he got 98 at Lord’s in 2023] which, still to this day, hurts me a lot.”
Talking to Duckett, which I did before he left for the tour, you certainly sense the yearning. Before they flew, McCullum described this Ashes as the “biggest series of all our lives”, which was interesting given the normal ploy from modern coaches is to play down the significance of a big event, so as it not make it seem bigger than it is. So why not embrace it, as McCullum has done?
“I think that’s probably where he and Stokes and us as a team have got to recently,” Duckett says. “It was very apparent that they wanted to play a brand of cricket which was going to take some time for us and the fans to get used to. It’s now about winning.”
If that comes to pass, Duckett will feel ten feet tall.
Chris Broad interview: Stuart threatened legal action when I fined him for swearing
England’s Ashes hero of ’86-87 discusses punishing own son, getting caught up in a terrorist attack and his wife’s assisted suicide
Nick Hoult
Chris Broad pauses, puts down his spoon and laughs. He pushes back his plate of white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake, shakes his head and reminisces about the time when he had to fine his own son, Stuart, for swearing at a batsman.
It was the Covid summer of 2020. England were playing Pakistan at a deserted Old Trafford and because of the pandemic there were no neutral officials available, so Chris was drafted in as match referee, a role he has only recently relinquished with some reluctance after 20 years on the circuit. More about that later.
Amid the global pandemic shutdown, the International Cricket Council was in the middle of a crackdown on bad language. Broad, Stuart that is – and it is worth clarifying given Chris’s run-ins with authority when he was a player – was caught on the stump mic cursing at Pakistan tail-ender Yasir Shah, giving him a send-off when he dismissed him on the final morning of the first Test.
Chris convened a hearing after play for what he thought would be a regulation, open-and-shut case, but if he thought Stuart would play the dutiful son, he was in for a surprise.
“We played him the recording,” recalls Chris. “He was hook, line and sinker. No question. But Stuart was like, ‘No, no, no, I’m gonna get my lawyers involved. This is ridiculous’. I said, ‘Come on, stop it. Just sign the slip, it’s just 15 per cent of your match fee’. ‘No, no, I’m not gonna do it. No, no’. He felt because it was me I could change it because I was his father, rather than his referee. But no. Eventually he accepted it but bless him, he still goes on about it. He will get over it … eventually.”
We have met, ostensibly, to discuss the 1986-87 Ashes tour, England’s triumphant 2-1 series win and the role Broad snr played, scoring three hundreds in a row, a feat only matched in Australia by Sir Jack Hobbs and Wally Hammond. He also made a century two years later in the Bicentennial Test in Sydney and his average in Australia of 78.25, with four hundreds in 10 innings, is higher than any other England batsman in history.
But Broad’s life in cricket, as well as off the field, has encompassed more than just one glorious series. There is his relationship with Stuart which threads through most of this interview, his opinion that match referees have been emasculated by an ICC beholden to India, and the lingering mental effects of being shot at by terrorists. Even the assisted dying debate comes up, Broad supporting the bill currently going through Parliament, his view shaped by his second wife’s suicide in 2010 after her motor neurone disease diagnosis. It prompted him to set up the Broad Appeal, which has raised more than £1m for MND research.
“Why would you go through your whole life making decisions that suit you and your family and then when it comes to a critical time in your life, where you no longer will be able to make those decisions in the future, why would you not want to make that [assisted dying] decision?” Chris asks. “I’ve seen some very courageous people in my life doing sport, but without doubt, the most courageous person I know, I used to know, was my wife [Michelle, known as Miche], who made the decision to take her own life.
“Pretty much from the beginning, she didn’t want to be ‘a blob’, as she called it, and she found a chemist who was prepared to help her, give her some medication. A lot of people say, ‘Oh, yeah, I’d be exactly the same’. But actually, following through on that is the most difficult thing. And she followed through on it. I mean, how do you know that tomorrow there is not going to be a cure? You don’t. But as it is, tomorrow never came for her. To have carried that out, as I say, I’m just in awe, really.”
We fall silent for a moment, the waitress interrupts to check on the food. Broad, now aged 68, looks at least 10 years younger. Posing for the photographer in the conservatory of the Tap and Run in Melton Mowbray, part-owned by Stuart, and illuminated by an autumnal sun streaming through the full-length windows, he stands as upright as he did at the crease for his 487 runs in the 1986-87 series.
He rates his first hundred at the Waca as his best of the series. He compiled his highest Test score, 162, the cornerstone of the last time England avoided defeat in Perth. An innings of 116 followed in Adelaide and 112 in Melbourne as England secured the Ashes.
“At the end of the tour, I recall the feeling of almost conquering Australia if you like, because the abuse and the chat tailed off,” he says. “It was just, ‘well, their team’s a really good team and they beat us fair and square and we should appreciate the cricket that they’ve played’.”
Broad earned the respect. “I don’t recall there being as much animosity towards me as there was towards Stuart throughout his career and I remember as the tour went on, and I was able to score a few runs, there were suddenly lots of British people who were very supportive. Don’t forget we also had Beefy [Ian Botham], who might bop someone if they had a go at you.
“I remember once Greg Ritchie came in from mid-on after Merv Hughes bowled me a bouncer and sat me on my a---. Ritchie came in with some verbals and I was told after the match that Allan Border gave Ritchie a b-----king for winding me up because I got another 100. He said clearly this does not work on me so forget it. I have no idea whether that’s true or not, but it’s a nice little story.”
Because it would take until 2010-11 for England to repeat that win in Australia, stories of Broad’s tour became taller and taller. Famously written off before the series started when the team partied hard and a foggy-headed Botham walked out to bat in a State game without his bat, England dominated once the Test series began.
The team became cool guys to hang out with. Elton John, Phil Collins and George Michael latched on to the party. But Broad was a junior player on his first tour and not in the same circle as the bon vivants, Botham, Allan Lamb and David Gower.
“I was a very simple cricketer, really,” he suggests. “I just loved playing. I didn’t think I was a special cricketer. I was OK at the job that I was supposed to do: seeing off a new ball. It was a simple job that I was given: stay out in the middle for as long as possible and do your job. That’s how I viewed it. So when I got off the field I wasn’t someone who enjoyed a massive drink, and I was playing for England for goodness sake, this was the pinnacle of my career.
“You have to be as good as you can possibly be, each and every day, when you play for England. So I knew that alcohol would have an adverse effect on the way that I played, so I never really got very p----d prior to a day’s cricket because I knew I wouldn’t be able to perform.”
This is where Stuart makes his first appearance, even as a babe in arms. On Christmas Day 1986, Noel Edmonds presented his breakfast television show from the top of the BT Tower in London, connecting families with relatives across the world, a small miracle in the days before instant messaging shrank the distance between us. The BBC landed on the publicity stunt of hooking up the England team with their families, the night before the Boxing Day Test.
“That was a strange one,” Chris says. “I think it was midnight or close to midnight in Melbourne and they were in London and had been in the studio for some considerable time, waiting to be featured. Carole [Stuart’s mother] was there with baby Stuart in her arms, and she’s been desperate to keep him awake for as long as possible, but it just dragged on and on and on and so when I eventually came on camera he was asleep.”
So Ashes cricket was in Stuart’s blood. “He’ll tell you that I forced him to watch the videos of that tour every night, every day, but I didn’t. But he grew up around Trent Bridge, coming to the games where he’d be playing around the boundary’s edge during the day and then come up for a shower in the changing rooms at the end of the day. Never did I have a thought of his safety or security, because the stewards would be around, they’d look after him and he knew his way around as well and he would just wander into the members’ area or just come straight up the stairs to the change rooms. It was brilliant.”
Stuart passed largely unnoticed to the Aussies on the 2010-11 tour because an abdominal injury ruled him out after two Tests, but in 2013-14 he was in the sights of the country’s media after refusing to walk a few months earlier at Trent Bridge when he edged to slip. The Brisbane Courier Mailrefused to mention his name in print, calling him the 27-year-old medium pacer instead. It never really relented, right to the end of his last Ashes tour four years ago.
“I loved it,” says Chris. “I knew he would rise to the occasion. It was just up his street. You either shy away or you stand up and be counted. And he was definitely someone who was always going to stand up and be counted.”
This leads Broad into another story about his son. Yes, he could take Australian barbs but a wind-up from his dad? That was another matter. “He didn’t appreciate my gesture after he was hit for six sixes by Yuvraj Singh. I got Yuvraj to sign an Indian shirt and gave it to him for Christmas. Apparently, he opened the present, saw it, and threw it in the bin. I think he had a bit of a sense of humour failure over that.”
Chris was not a full-on father, pushing his views about cricket on his son. It probably helped that Stuart was a bowler, not a batsman, although he did have talent with his highest Test score, 169, better than his father’s.
“Once he asked me, out of the blue, early season to go into the nets at Trent Bridge and throw him some balls and we had an hour working together and he went out and scored a few runs for England,” Chris recalls. “In the press he said, ‘Yeah, it’s been great and I’d like to thank Paul Farbrace for helping me with my batting’. Hello? What about your good old dad? And I did mention it to him and he said, ‘But politically, I’ve got to say the right thing’. I’m sorry, no, you don’t. So that was a bit disappointing. But I did try, I did say to him, ‘I can help you with your batting’. But he would go, ‘No, I’m not interested Dad, I’m a bowler. I’m not a batsman’. I get that. But he could have been so much better.”
Chris has been a regular presence in cricket, not just by being Stuart’s father, but largely through his role as a match referee. When he joined the list in 2003 it was a surprise given his own run-ins with authority, which included refusing to walk in Lahore and knocking his stumps down when dismissed in the Bicentennial Test.
But the ICC noted an individual who could empathise with the pressures players face in the heat of battle and he oversaw 123 Tests, his last in Colombo in February 2024. He wanted to continue but his contract was not renewed earlier this year.
“I was very happy to carry on,” Broad insists. “But for 20 years, I dodged a lot of bullets, both politically and physically. I look back and I think, ‘you know, 20 years is quite a long time to be doing that job’. I’m pleased not to be travelling to certain parts of the world. And I was always someone who believed in right and wrong and in certain parts of the world it’s a bit like the River Ganges – right and wrong are so far apart and there’s a lot of dirty water in between them that you have to deal with, so I think as someone who comes from a right and wrong perspective, to last 20 years in that politically active environment is a pretty good effort.
“I think back to Darrell Hair, who was another one who was a right-and-wrong-type individual, and he was ousted because of his beliefs and that was a big learning thing for me. You try to be as honest to yourself as you can be, knowing that politically behind the scenes there are things going on.
“I think we were supported by Vince van der Bijl (ICC umpires manager) while he was in position because he came from a cricketing background but, once he left, the management became a lot weaker. India got all the money and have now taken over the ICC so in many ways. I’m pleased I’m not around because it’s a much more political position now than it ever has been.”
Was he ever leant on to protect India? “Yes that happened, actually. India were three, four overs down at the end of a game so it constituted a fine. I got a phone call saying, ‘be lenient, find some time because it’s India’. And it’s like, right, OK. So we had to find some time, brought it down below the threshold. The very next game, exactly the same thing happened. He [Sourav Ganguly] didn’t listen to any of the hurry-ups and so I phoned and said, ‘what do you want me to do now?’ and I was told ‘just do him’. So there were politics involved, right from the start. A lot of the guys now are either politically more savvy or just keeping the head below the parapet. I don’t know.”
Broad says he has lingering after-effects of the terror attack he was caught up in when the Sri Lankan team were shot at in Lahore. He ducked under bullets and was hailed a hero for throwing himself over wounded colleague Ahsan Raza, now a full-time international umpire. “Still to this day, if an unexpected loud bang happens it makes me jump,” Broad admits. “And after it I was much more conscious of making sure that security was at the highest level. Undoubtedly the terrorist incident changed my perception of what the role should be.”
Life is quieter now. After this interview he is off to buy dried fruit to bake a Christmas cake at the weekend. He is due to play golf with Rory Underwood this week and will be back out on the course with Stuart and Kumar Sangakkara at Royal Wimbledon. “Stuart sold us in an auction.” I ask if Stuart is as competitive on the golf course as he was on the cricket pitch? “It’s got a lot better. Before, if he wasn’t playing well and was with me he would just walk off after nine. He’s matured a bit now, he will play all 18.”
I suggest perhaps Chris himself was a batsman with a fast bowler’s temperament. He thinks for a moment. “Yeah, probably. I’m sure Stuart got it from somewhere. I keep blaming it on his mother, but I’m sure it comes from me.”
Time to pay the bill and soak that dried fruit in brandy.
23/0
SLC postpones 2025 edition of LPL
SLC said that the decision was taken "after careful consideration of the broader requirement of preparing well in advance" for next year's T20 World Cup
ESPN
The 2025 edition of the Lanka Premier League (LPL) will not take place this year as was originally planned, SLC has announced. In a press release, SLC said that the decision was taken "after careful consideration of the broader requirement of preparing well in advance" for next year's T20 World Cup, which will be co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka.
The 2025 LPL was originally slated to be held between November 27 and December 23 across three venues - Colombo, Kandy and Dambulla. SLC, however, has now decided to move the tournament to another window, in order to allow "full focus on ensuring comprehensive venue readiness ahead of the World Cup."
As per ICC guidelines, all venues for the upcoming 20-team World Cup are meant to be in perfect condition to meet the demands of hosting a major international tournament. Accordingly, SLC said they needed the time to upgrade and enhance the infrastructure in and around the grounds.
The R Premadasa International Stadium in Colombo, which is one of three venues in Sri Lanka, had temporarily paused its renovation work to host 11 matches in the ongoing Women's World Cup. SLC confirmed that the ground will resume development work immediately upon the completion of its scheduled games.
The last two seasons of the LPL took place during July and August, however this year, with the 2026 T20 World Cup set to begin in February, SLC had initially felt the later window better suited their needs.
ESPNcricinfo had also learnt that talks are underway to incorporate a sixth team into the LPL. The first five editions saw five teams representing Colombo, Galle, Kandy, Dambulla and Jaffna compete. Earlier this year, Jaffna Kings - formerly the longest-standing franchise, having joined in the tournament's second edition - and Colombo Strikers were terminated by SLC for "failure to uphold contractual obligations." As a result, the LPL currently has no franchise owners with a history stretching back beyond 2024. New owners for both the Jaffna and Colombo teams are yet to be announced.
16/10
Meanwhile in Pravda's week's round-up yee-haw, they carry on with their familiar theme of perpetuating the cult of Moores
13/10
Two weeks of the closed season gone, yet it's still a long time until we can start counting down to the new season. Some might have engaged with another Women's World Cup on a subscription channel near you - I not sure which as I've not searched for it, still basking in that Championship winning glow, perhaps.
The Guardian last week was already searching for topics of a cricket nature to refresh; one which is familiar but not touched upon by Nottsview before.
Cricket in Corfu causes confusion but also unexpected delight for a few
Seeing a match on the Greek island may be unusual but it gave one American boy a touching link to his dead father
Ben Bloom
The boy had been loitering for about 15 minutes, edging steadily closer to the waiting batters seated around the nonexistent boundary edge, when he eventually plucked up the courage to ask who was winning. It was the type of uninformed query that ordinarily prompts eye-rolls in cricket’s complex spheres. But the match situation – 60 for one, chasing a victory target of only 86 – made the response quite simple on this occasion. Besides, he was just a kid; an American one, at that. How was he to know that cricket’s ebbs and flows rarely render it condensable into such binary terms?
Buoyed up by the engagement, the child began asking further questions, thrilled by every minor detail he was able to obtain: the ball, the bat, the scoring process. His name, he told us, was Jake. He lived in New York and he was 10 years old. Cricket had been his English father’s favourite sport until dying in a car crash three years ago. Since then, Jake sometimes watches cricket clips on YouTube to try to understand what it is all about. Now, in the unlikeliest of locations, while on holiday with his mother in Corfu, he had stumbled across real-life cricket in the flesh for the first time. His father’s passion played out in front of him. Jake was entranced.
His were, in fact, just a few of all manner of inquiries asked by confused spectators over the course of the Sunday afternoon – from English families wondering why they had unexpectedly stumbled across a scene reminiscent of home, to baffled east Asians taking photos of a strange sporting spectacle, the likes of which they had never witnessed before. We were rather difficult to avoid. The match between the tourists, Octopus Cricket Club, and our hosts, Anagennisi Cricket Club, occupied the most prominent of spots in Spianada Square, the green buffer separating the picturesque cobbled Old Town streets from the Old Fortress holding guard over the shimmering Straits of Corfu. Anyone seeking an outdoor spot for some food in the autumnal sun unwittingly became cricket viewers from their vantage point of the dozens of restaurants and cafes that lined one side of the pitch. Spectators – if that is the correct word for an engagement span that ranged from brief glancers to entranced starers – numbered hundreds. Over the past few years, Octopus have embarked on season-ending trips to a raft of unlikely European cricketing locations. From France to Croatia, and Malta to Montenegro, a common denominator tends to be the expat-heavy makeup of the opposition. By contrast, Corfu’s unique cricketing history ensures their teams are overwhelmingly homegrown. The first fixture on the Spianada’s sward took place in 1823 between officers of a Royal Navy ship moored nearby and a team of British soldiers from the local garrison. By the end of the 19th century – with the island no longer a British protectorate – the sport had been taken up by natives and Corfu swiftly became the home of Greek cricket. These days, the Hellenic Cricket Federation is based on the island, alongside eight of the country’s 11 clubs (the remainder are located in Athens). Enduring Anglo-Corfiot relations ensure a steady stream of English sides make the trip east to sample the local cricketing fare. One of those was crucial in reinvigorating the sport when it was in danger of dying out on the island – a high-profile fixture between a Corfu XI and a Lord’s Taverners team consisting of celebrities (John Cleese and Nicholas Parsons among them) and former England cricketers (Ken Barrington the most distinguished) in 1978. The match was immortalised in the short film Mad Dogs and Cricketers, narrated by Eric Morecambe, showing the two sides, replete in full whites, arriving at the ground to extraordinary pageantry before taking the field behind a marching band. Our entrance was rather less ceremonious, although pre-match discussions in 2025 differed little from that 47 years earlier, with the Octopus captain, Sam, informed – just as his slightly more illustrious counterpart Barrington had been – that, in lieu of any visible markers, the boundary would begin “where the grass ends”. Given the close proximity of the onlooking horde, protective netting was hoisted along the thick line of bushy trees under which the diners sat, and the match was played using a yellow indoor cricket ball – a leather creation with familiar stitched seam, but of almost half the weight of a conventional outdoor ball and a propensity to swing an astronomical amount. The tourists gratefully exploited it, easing to a nine-wicket win that made up for our earlier narrow defeat in the tour’s opening fixture at the island’s equally scenic Gouvia Marina ground. As our unbeaten batters walked off the Spianada pitch, and hands were heartily shaken and pictures taken, Jake remained in our midst, absorbing all he could of his father’s treasured sport. Seeking an opportunity to offload his distinctly worn pair of cheap batting gloves that had contributed to a career average of 8.91, our wicketkeeper Ben offered them to the eager young American, even pulling out a pen and adorning them with an autograph to further reduce their nonexistent value. Jake was elated; an otherwise routine holiday lunch had turned into an unforgettable occasion. When we passed him on the way back to our hotel a while later, the old gloves with a new lease of life were still firmly strapped to his hands and he was proudly displaying them on a video call to a family member on the other side of the Atlantic, his wide smile showing no sign of fading. Cricket in Corfu. How unexpected.
04/10
The independent Cricket Discipline Panel (CDP) has issued its decision in relation to a Charlie Bennett, an Essex CCC player, after he was charged following allegations that he used a misogynistic and discriminatory term whilst playing in recreational cricket. Mr Bennett is subject to the Professional Conduct Regulations (‘PCRs’) by virtue of his contract with Essex CCC.
Mr Bennett admitted a charge of a breach of paragraph 3.2 of the Professional Conduct Regulations (‘PCRs’) for improper conduct in using misogynistic language with the effect of creating a hostile or offensive environment on the field of play towards another player.
Mr Bennett was issued with a reprimand for his admitted conduct, given a one match suspension that was suspended for a period of 12 months only to be enforced in the event of a further breach of Regulation 3.2 of the PCRs and ordered to undertake equality, diversity and inclusion and/or anti-discrimination training.
Managing Director of The Cricket Regulator Chris Haward said: “I would like to thank Essex CCC and the recreational league clubs for their open co-operation in this matter.
"Professional cricketers are role models within the game and have a duty to act appropriately and responsibly at all times. Where a professional cricketer uses any form of discriminatory and/or misogynistic language or carries out any actions of that nature, the Cricket Regulator will ensure they are held to account in line with their professional responsibilities as set out in the Professional Conduct Regulations.
"There is no place in the game for discriminatory or misogynistic behaviour and the Cricket Regulator will ensure that those displaying such behaviour are held accountable. Ensuring that cricket is a safe, welcoming and inclusive environment for all is a priority for the Cricket Regulator.”
Trimming the Championship and Blast is not the answer to England's exhaustion
HUW TURBERVILL: ECB chair Richard Thompson says "we have to look at the schedule", but cutting domestic competitions isn't confronting the problem head-on
Thank goodness we have the freedom to challenge authority.
ECB chair Richard Thompson gave an interview to BBC Sport recently. During it, he declared that cricket must "look at the schedule" of an "unrelenting" calendar, with some players "obviously exhausted" this season.
It prompted me to reply on X: "Gosh, I wonder what new tournament taking up the whole of August has added to this fixture congestion/player exhaustion. The counties were never going to give up T20. We should have stuck with what we had and revamped it."
Perhaps I must learn to love The Hundred, just as the Labour Party learnt to love Peter Mandelson during the Tony Blair years.
Prolific commenter Dan Kingdom outdid me. "It is misleading how Thompson segues from creaking bodies at the end of the India Tests into the shrinking of the Blast and possibly the County Championship… England Test players hardly play in the CC or Blast, and the ECB have the power to rest them from matches in those competitions anyway!"
The major problem is not exclusively that the County Championship and T20 Blast are too long. It's that England Men play six Tests a summer, six ODIs and six T20Is. The paying public want the stars in all of them… Joe Root, Harry Brook, Jamie Smith, Ben Duckett and so on (mercifully, Ben Stokes is being wrapped in cotton wool).
It prompted me to research just how much cricket England's main men have played this season.
There have been 167 days from April 4, the date the County Championship started this year, through to the end of the penultimate round (September 18). The hardest workers have been Ollie Pope (62 days), Zak Crawley (56) and Smith (55).
Next are Brook and Tongue (51), Duckett (48), and Root (47).
As Kingdom pointed out, most England stars play little Championship or Blast cricket, so what benefit will cutting those competitions have, particularly a the ECB can tailior their schedule anyway?
hompson did make some pertinent points, however.
"We're the only sport to have a World Cup every year, which I personally think is too much." He is right on that – one 50-over World Cup every four years, one T20 World Cup every four years is, of course, the logical way to go – but when did logic ever come into it when it comes to the ICC?
Next year's Men's T20 World Cup will be the fourth since 2021. Meanwhile, the women's tournament in England next summer will be the fourth since the turn of the decade.
On the England v India Test series, concertinaed into a ridiculously tight schedule of 46 days, he told the BBC: "I'm not surprised some of the players were obviously exhausted… I can't ever remember a five-Test series going five days in every Test."
While obviously the all-powerful Board of Control for Cricket in India had a big say in the schedule, Thompson and the ECB cannot completely absolve themselves of blame there.
He added: "We have to look at the schedule. We're reducing the number of T20 Blast games we're playing. We're looking to potentially reduce the amount of Championship cricket."
But not The Hundred, of course. And if you had to put money on it, you can only see that getting bigger in the years to come, now new overseas owners are on board.
Of course, I sympathise with Thompson and the players. Three formats are too many. But what do you do? The top players prefer Tests and T20. The 50-over game is great, but you can increasingly see that one making way in the long term.
"At this stage of my career across a 12-month calendar, it is no longer possible to commit to all formats at every level, both physically and mentally," the words of Jamie Overton were an insight into the dilemma players are facing.
Meanwhile, punters want to watch the best players and resent talk of cutting schedules. It's a hell of a hard job trying to keep everyone happy.
Thompson called the scheduling "the hardest game of Jenga" when he took over, and I am certain that he hasn't changed his mind.
Revealed: Cricket is running out of BATS - here's why the IPL, climate change and expensive trees are all to blame... as we take you inside the race against time to save the sport from an existential crisis
Lawrence Booth
A recurrent grumble during the recent England–India series concerned the state of the Dukes ball, with fingers pointed in every direction – including at the Aberdeen Angus cows who supply the leather. But behind the scenes, another equipment-related headache has been raging. And they’re calling it the ‘cricket bat emergency’.
In a nutshell: there aren’t enough trees. Or at least there aren’t enough trees of the kind needed to make cricket bats.
English willow has always been the sport’s wood of choice. Kashmir has a huge willow market, producing around two millions bat clefts a year, but the quality is variable; so does Serbia, believe it or not, though only 100,000 clefts a year, and again the quality is unreliable. Poplar, the next-best alternative, has been tried, and there have even been experiments with bamboo, but they did not go well.
To complicate matters, the willow has to be grown in the UK. When cuttings were sent to Australia, the wood grew too quickly, which made it brittle. When they were sent to New Zealand, the trees were damaged by the wind, which will come as no surprise to anyone who has covered a Test match in Wellington. All told, then, English willow – salix alba caerulea to its mates – is where it’s at.
Like money, however, willow doesn’t grow on trees: it is the tree. And those trees are struggling to keep pace with a demand for high-quality bats that has exploded, especially since the end of the pandemic, and especially on the subcontinent, where the sport’s economy continues to boom beyond the capitalists’ wildest dreams.
The repercussions have been inevitable: with supply chains unable to balance the equation, prices have shot up. A good bat might now set you back the best part of £1,000, which is a blow to cricket’s attempts to shake off old accusations about elitism. And that’s before you factor in the cost of pads, helmets, gloves and the rest.
The economics of willow growth sounds like one of the more obscure specialist subjects on Mastermind, but it helps explain why the sport – led by MCC – is now exploring other means of producing bats good enough to survive everything thrown at them.
JS Wright & Sons, who have led the industry ever since WG Grace approached Jessie Samuel Wright in 1894 to request a supply of willow, say their trees take between 12 and 20 years to reach maturity and be ready to become bats.
The trouble is no one accounted for the post-IPL boom in India, which meant the quantity of willow planted back then is insufficient to meet modern needs. As Rob Lynch, MCC’s director of cricket operations, put it during the recent World Cricket Connects conference at Lord’s: ‘The situation is becoming unsustainable.’
JS Wright, who claim to produce three-quarters of the world’s English willow bats, planted around 15,000 trees 20 years ago, and have now upped that figure to more than 40,000. One tree, well tended, can produce 40 bat clefts, and the company are assiduous about replacing every felled tree with three or four new ones. This year, they have produced 700,000 clefts.
But even sustainable planning in the here and now leaves an issue in the short- to medium-term. ‘Not enough competitors have planted enough trees,’ said Jeremy Ruggles, a director at JS Wright for over 30 years.
The problem starts at the top, with the best players now getting through bats at a rate once considered unthinkable – three a year has become more like 15 or 20. And with ever more Indian stars now signing bat sponsorship deals worth around $1m (£740,000), the companies have to claw their money back somewhere.
Players train more, too, and – thanks to the IPL and other T20 franchise tournaments, which seem to be growing rather faster than salix alba – hit the ball more ferociously. They also train more regularly against the harder new ball. All this adds to wear and tear. Tree prices, meanwhile, are said to have trebled since 2017.
Then there’s climate change, which has meant milder winters in the UK and accelerated tree growth. Things get a little technical here, but essentially fast growth leads to wider grains, and that in turn produces bats which require longer to knock in. Pros, inevitably, prefer the ready-to-go narrower-grain bats.
What to do, then, while the willow-growing industry catches up with demand, and attempts to keep at bay a crisis that could make cricket accessible only to those who can afford it?
One alternative is laminated bats, pieced together from two or three pieces of wood, with an English willow face backed by lower-grade wood. These bats are already allowed in junior cricket, but remain illegal in the professional game, where there are concerns over the small advantage they provide the batsman - a lighter pick-up with more power.
There is also the possibility that manufacturers might hide other performance-enhancing material between the bits of wood, such as high-density foam. Short of sawing bats in two to verify their authenticity, this would be hard to police.
Non-wooden material remains up for discussion, too, though the sport has never quite got over the controversy caused by the aluminium bat used by Dennis Lillee during a Test against England at Perth in 1979.
And while some kind of metal would ease the strain on the willow industry, and make the game more affordable, it might also take cricket down a path it is reluctant to explore: as bowlers keep telling us, bats are already powerful enough.
Whatever happens next, and assuming the likes of JS Wright & Sons overcome the crisis, may depend on how successfully the sport can unite its disparate strands and produce an over-arching solution.
MCC, whose excellent work in the background has a habit of being overlooked, want to host an industry-wide conference in the next few months to explore options.
The crisis can be averted. But it is far from over.
So MN echoing "Judas" Thompson, poor Ben eh, exhausted ! Players maybe play too much, because of endless franchise cr*". There probably is too much international cricket. ODIs are virtually ignored by the media now. But First Class domestic cricket is now rare indeed. How about less Tests, only 5 a Summer, less international cricket, just 2 ODIs and 2 Int T20s. scrap franchise rubbish, and make top players play in the County Chanpionship. Ever the dreamer !
Like so many leading cricket in this country, he's got a blind spot when it comes to the franchise monopoly of August, no doubt caused by all of those $$$$$$$
I love Test Cricket, less so ODIs and T20Is. But Test Cricket needs to be special, and so not too much of it. It needs the support of proper, meaningful First Class domestic competitions, in each Test playing country. The further reduction of First Class domestic cricket is in itself terrible, and it also would bring down Test Cricket.
Yes the international schedule is badly affecting some players but yes as you rightly say this has nothing at all to do with the domestic schedule (except that most of them want to play in the competing competition which is off the agenda for discussion). Pretty disingenuous to link the two.
But we can’t allow to go unremarked the irony (to use the mildest word) of the massive desire that the domestic schedule must be adjusted to ensure “the best versus the best” cricket and meet player welfare concerns when the international schedule threatens player welfare and deliberately obstructs the “best versus the best”.
Martin Samuels in the Times is onto this and others might be that I have not seen. The India test series and especially the final test were so brilliant, dramatic and high intensity and quality that the effect of the schedule on the Oval game in particular was disguised. Cramming all five tests into those weeks meant that selection was compromised. Even with the wonderful Jasprit Bumrah having an injury requiring management might he not have been available for four or five of the matches if there were not turnarounds of days between some of them. Especially the last match with the series on the line if it had been held a week later? Surely Ben Stokes, our inspirational captain and key player would have played in the fifth match if it had been a week later. Maybe Jofra Archer too. So the competing competition affects the test matches. In such a way as to compromise their “best v best” nature. And the test matches still massively subsidise the domestic game.
And just in case there is any doubt, within days of the cricketing nation rejoicing in the glory of the Oval test and the series we were told what was what by one of the owners of the franchise teams. The complaint was that because the Oval test ran into the last day as late as 4 August or thereabouts Jamie Overton and Ollie Pope - fine players but not I respectfully suggest in the very front rank of 2020 players- were thought not really to be rested enough to play in their franchise team’s first game. This was very concerning, not really acceptable and the ECB had better work harder in future when planning England test matches to stop this kind of inconvenience happening again.
Sort of related, if I may please ? Very sad to read of India and Pakistan refusing to shake hands. Sport should bring people together, if it divides them, it really isn't worth half a crown.
Myself and the good lady have been to Corfu quite a lot and have seen the cricket đ pitch in Corfu Town and had a glass(or 3) of Ouzo with lemonade opposite in one of the pavement Taverna’s
Is NS-B a Blazer? Was she on maternity leave early season or was that just KS-B? NS-B was certainly a Rockette this year, so is that her "domestic" team? Has Ducky reached the point where when he falls out of favour with Bazball or post-Baz England, he'll just retire just as Lord Broad and Joker Swann did? Alternatively he might just run away to the T20 world circus like Baz Hales has. Obviously Sciver by name, skiver by nat ure, perhaps!!
C’mon 82no - you’re a massive fan of women’s cricket đ as we all know, and I was referring to Nat Sciver-Brunt of course who hardly ever seems to represent The Blaze thesedays, just like Sir Ben of Duckett for Notts, but her exploits with the England đ´ó §ó ˘ó Ľó Žó §ó ż team are constantly blasted by Notts Pravda on X - as you would expect - somebody told me at the semi final game against Lancashire, NSB, is only now required to represent the mighty Blaze for one game a season, which ironically was all England allowed Duckett to play for us last season also ?
I got a right roasting elsewhere on social media for suggesting that sometime Notts player SB retired too early. "He retired at the time of his choosing." When did he do anything other than at the time of his choosing ?
Guess you could throw that poor mans Trescothick, Neil Edwards, into that opening scores mix also(binary) - although he did hit a sprightly 80 odd on debut at the real home đĄ of cricket đ- remember ?
Watch my movie. I'm now an icon for the LGBTQ+ community and as such embrace all things "non-binary" so 80 is all good by me. Neil ended his time at Notts with a drink problem after having so many drinks at the last chance saloon
Yes - the only binary I can remember or really relate to is the mathematical based one of zeros and ones if I can remember all that way back to my school đŤ days AT………..we had a particular problem with opening batsman scoring runs around that time - Billy Shafayat used to wear his scorecard(no1) on his shirt at this time, do you remember a few games from “Nanette” Newman and Karl Turner also ?
Mick was struggling to find an opener and tried a number of unsuccessful partnerships over that period. His cheque book got him nowhere and his now proclaimed youth pathway produced no one at that time. Do we need a thread (again) of Mick Newell's super signings XI?
Hence Paul Franks, the western liberal democracy of Notts openers: the worst opening partner for Alex Hales except for all the others. Very much helped win us the championship in 2010 though so hero status assured if not already established by then.
With respect to Ben Duckett, it would be more mature if he accepted he was wrong in 2017. Also he and his England batting mates need to play in pink ball day/nighter in Canberra. Am amazed they would even think of not playing.
Very, very sad đ˘ Rich Especially after Thorpey, we think these rare breed of sportsmen are indestructible with the careers they’ve had yet they can suffer awful đ health conditions just like the rest of us Never đ forget that square cut to the boundary Robin specialised in - awesome đ
Regarding David Lloyd’s comments and on a purely selfish nature as a Notts supporter how would we cope without Has & Duckett as he seems more established than Crawley in the side, he just hasn’t had enough preparation in my opinion to produce the goods from day one in this series down under - I think we all know the answer to this one. I’m sure Has would love the chance to play test cricket again as he’s a much much much more accomplished batsmen than on his last tour over there. I think Ben has proven he can play this way and be relatively successful in Test Cricket as he has such a natural talent but perhaps he should have just reigned himself in a bit more on the bouncier pitches hes played on so far this series
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ReplyDeletePerhaps a return to the metal bat that Dennis Lillee used to use many years ago ?
Poor "batters", anyway game went "batty" a long while ago. 2 puns for the price of one !
ReplyDeleteGareth or nora?
DeleteConcerned member
So MN echoing "Judas" Thompson, poor Ben eh, exhausted ! Players maybe play too much, because of endless franchise cr*". There probably is too much international cricket. ODIs are virtually ignored by the media now. But First Class domestic cricket is now rare indeed. How about less Tests, only 5 a Summer, less international cricket, just 2 ODIs and 2 Int T20s. scrap franchise rubbish, and make top players play in the County Chanpionship. Ever the dreamer !
DeleteLike so many leading cricket in this country, he's got a blind spot when it comes to the franchise monopoly of August, no doubt caused by all of those $$$$$$$
DeleteI love Test Cricket, less so ODIs and T20Is.
ReplyDeleteBut Test Cricket needs to be special, and so not too much of it. It needs the support of proper, meaningful First Class domestic competitions, in each Test playing country. The further reduction of First Class domestic cricket is in itself terrible, and it also would bring down Test Cricket.
Yes the international schedule is badly affecting some players but yes as you rightly say this has nothing at all to do with the domestic schedule (except that most of them want to play in the competing competition which is off the agenda for discussion). Pretty disingenuous to link the two.
ReplyDeleteBut we can’t allow to go unremarked the irony (to use the mildest word) of the massive desire that the domestic schedule must be adjusted to ensure “the best versus the best” cricket and meet player welfare concerns when the international schedule threatens player welfare and deliberately obstructs the “best versus the best”.
Martin Samuels in the Times is onto this and others might be that I have not seen. The India test series and especially the final test were so brilliant, dramatic and high intensity and quality that the effect of the schedule on the Oval game in particular was disguised. Cramming all five tests into those weeks meant that selection was compromised. Even with the wonderful Jasprit Bumrah having an injury requiring management might he not have been available for four or five of the matches if there were not turnarounds of days between some of them. Especially the last match with the series on the line if it had been held a week later? Surely Ben Stokes, our inspirational captain and key player would have played in the fifth match if it had been a week later. Maybe Jofra Archer too. So the competing competition affects the test matches. In such a way as to compromise their “best v best” nature. And the test matches still massively subsidise the domestic game.
And just in case there is any doubt, within days of the cricketing nation rejoicing in the glory of the Oval test and the series we were told what was what by one of the owners of the franchise teams. The complaint was that because the Oval test ran into the last day as late as 4 August or thereabouts Jamie Overton and Ollie Pope - fine players but not I respectfully suggest in the very front rank of 2020 players- were thought not really to be rested enough to play in their franchise team’s first game. This was very concerning, not really acceptable and the ECB had better work harder in future when planning England test matches to stop this kind of inconvenience happening again.
Sort of related, if I may please ? Very sad to read of India and Pakistan refusing to shake hands. Sport should bring people together, if it divides them, it really isn't worth half a crown.
ReplyDeleteMyself and the good lady have been to Corfu quite a lot and have seen the cricket đ pitch in Corfu Town and had a glass(or 3) of Ouzo with lemonade opposite in one of the pavement Taverna’s
ReplyDeleteDunno đ¤ˇ♀️ HBD ? Who plays less games for their domestic teams thesedays ? Sir Ben of Duckett or Nat Sciver-Brunt ? Notts & The Blaze obvs đ
ReplyDeleteIs NS-B a Blazer? Was she on maternity leave early season or was that just KS-B? NS-B was certainly a Rockette this year, so is that her "domestic" team? Has Ducky reached the point where when he falls out of favour with Bazball or post-Baz England, he'll just retire just as Lord Broad and Joker Swann did? Alternatively he might just run away to the T20 world circus like Baz Hales has.
ReplyDeleteObviously Sciver by name, skiver by nat ure, perhaps!!
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ReplyDeleteWe need the ENIGMA code breaking machine these days to understand some postings on here !?
Cracked it! It says : 101001001101111010101010010010010101001010011001111111111010
DeleteC’mon 82no - you’re a massive fan of women’s cricket đ as we all know, and I was referring to Nat Sciver-Brunt of course who hardly ever seems to represent The Blaze thesedays, just like Sir Ben of Duckett for Notts, but her exploits with the England đ´ó §ó ˘ó Ľó Žó §ó ż team are constantly blasted by Notts Pravda on X - as you would expect - somebody told me at the semi final game against Lancashire, NSB, is only now required to represent the mighty Blaze for one game a season, which ironically was all England allowed Duckett to play for us last season also ?
ReplyDeleteI got a right roasting elsewhere on social media for suggesting that sometime Notts player SB retired too early. "He retired at the time of his choosing." When did he do anything other than at the time of his choosing ?
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ReplyDeleteMessage understood ( I think )
Over and out . đą⌨️đťđ đ️đ˛
We’re those the opening partnerships between Matt Wood & Will Jefferson Alan ?
ReplyDeleteThat'll be another U-boat sunk Kevin - loose lips and all that..
DeleteGuess you could throw that poor mans Trescothick, Neil Edwards, into that opening scores mix also(binary) - although he did hit a sprightly 80 odd on debut at the real home đĄ of cricket đ- remember ?
DeleteWatch my movie. I'm now an icon for the LGBTQ+ community and as such embrace all things "non-binary" so 80 is all good by me. Neil ended his time at Notts with a drink problem after having so many drinks at the last chance saloon
DeleteYes - the only binary I can remember or really relate to is the mathematical based one of zeros and ones if I can remember all that way back to my school đŤ days AT………..we had a particular problem with opening batsman scoring runs around that time - Billy Shafayat used to wear his scorecard(no1) on his shirt at this time, do you remember a few games from “Nanette” Newman and Karl Turner also ?
ReplyDeleteMick was struggling to find an opener and tried a number of unsuccessful partnerships over that period. His cheque book got him nowhere and his now proclaimed youth pathway produced no one at that time. Do we need a thread (again) of Mick Newell's super signings XI?
DeleteHence Paul Franks, the western liberal democracy of Notts openers: the worst opening partner for Alex Hales except for all the others. Very much helped win us the championship in 2010 though so hero status assured if not already established by then.
DeleteThe General was already at legendary status by 2010 IMHO anonymous
DeleteRe 11/11 article, always nice to hear about people who have played for Notts.
ReplyDeleteWith respect to Ben Duckett, it would be more mature if he accepted he was wrong in 2017. Also he and his England batting mates need to play in pink ball day/nighter in Canberra. Am amazed they would even think of not playing.
ReplyDeleteWhat a player, ! For my friend and member at Notts for 60 years Norman Doughty, his favourite non Notts cricketer.
ReplyDeleteVery, very sad đ˘ Rich
DeleteEspecially after Thorpey, we think these rare breed of sportsmen are indestructible with the careers they’ve had yet they can suffer awful đ health conditions just like the rest of us
Never đ forget that square cut to the boundary Robin specialised in - awesome đ
Regarding David Lloyd’s comments and on a purely selfish nature as a Notts supporter how would we cope without Has & Duckett as he seems more established than Crawley in the side, he just hasn’t had enough preparation in my opinion to produce the goods from day one in this series down under - I think we all know the answer to this one. I’m sure Has would love the chance to play test cricket again as he’s a much much much more accomplished batsmen than on his last tour over there. I think Ben has proven he can play this way and be relatively successful in Test Cricket as he has such a natural talent but perhaps he should have just reigned himself in a bit more on the bouncier pitches hes played on so far this series
ReplyDeleteI’ve read previously about Jardine presenting Larwood with that silver ashtray - great story
ReplyDelete