Farewell to all this
John Arlott looks back over his final season on the circuit
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The decision was freely taken; and although it was not easy to go, was a better choice than, one day, being told to go. In addition it allowed the luxury of studying, assessing, savouring, enjoying a thousand facets of the game, its people, and the places where they play, that had passed almost unnoticed through the haze of custom. Sometimes the poignancy was almost unbearable. To go to Worcester; the realization that Reg Perks and his Doris and Dick Howorth were gone, suddenly peopled familiar resorts with ghosts.
Cricket, more than any other game, is one of nostalgias. Men stay longer in it then in most others. A lad may enter the game as a sixteen-year-old on the ground staff and remain, as player, coach and umpire, until his sixties. Thus familiar are its figures; many of them contemplate no end to it; it simply comes upon them unawares; in some ways that gives the game its timeless quality. Knowing that 'this is the last time" gives everything a fresh clarity. The habitual assumes rarity value.
To observe it thus was to realize why so many old cricketers find it difficult to go back to the scene of their active days. Even for one who has had as little of the action as a commentator, it would seem empty to go back simply as a spectator; to have, in effect, sacrificed one"s purpose in being there at all.
The season of a West Indian tour and the Centenary Test with Australia seemed a superb prospect which, in the event, was marred by the weather. It was, we were assured, the worst summer since before the First World War. Presumably that was 1907, when Hallam and Wass, twelve times unchanged through an innings, bowled Nottinghamshire to the Championship. Charles Fry once said that Wass was an indifferent bowler on dry wickets even when they were lively; but that, on a damp one, bowling, in effect, fast leg-breaks to three or four slips and a gully, he was all but unplayable.
The dragging out of over-limit matches from one day, often to two and occasionally even three, increased the drain on the counties" resources. The loss of the Lord"s Saturdays was ameliorated to an extent by heavy advance bookings but as the destruction of an occasion it was unhappy. In the Cornhill Centenary Test the long delay in starting play on Saturday so angered some members that they considered themselves justified in jostling the captains and the umpires when they returned from the final wicket inspection, at which they were in agreement. The incident so shocked and distressed Messrs Bird and Constant - two young, conscientious and capable officials - that they came out to restart play with an escort of four policemen.
The bad weather was, indeed, the major difference between the two Centenary matches. In Melbourne in 1977 the sun shone and, after varied and absorbing play, the cricketers achieved a just result. At Lord"s the feeling between the players, past and present, was again admirable and the arrangements, though not on the scale of the huge MCG, were sympathetic and efficient. Only the rain prevented a clearly-defined ending.
Of course it was logical - quite simply so - to proceed from the premise that two extremely fast opening bowlers are a major attacking asset to the conclusion that four bowlers all of high speed, operating all the time, would be overwhelming. Never until now, though, had any country had four bowlers of such speed at the same time. Some claimed to find the West Indian pace attack boring and, certainly, their over rate was sometimes sadly leisurely. When they were taking wickets though - and usually overcoming a sluggish pitch to do so - they were-compelling: and, of course, their speed breeds spectacular fielding. They were unique not only in their complete reliance on pace, but in their apparently inexhaustible supply of it. They began with Roberts, Holding, Croft and Garner; had Marshall in reserve; and did not need to call on Clarke of Surrey or Daniel of Middlesex, who both were markedly faster than any Englishman.
England had few batting colours apart from Gooch"s bold front early in the series; an assault by Botham at Trent Bridge and Willey"s century; until Boycott, given the situation he so much relishes, at Lord"s, eschewed all error and made a century.
Middlesex were always likely to defeat the bookmakers by winning the Championship and the Gillette Cup - the major double - with a splendidly-balanced team strengthened by the acquisition for a single season of the towering, thoughtful, and versatile van der Bijl: and by the vastly improved form of a Brearley freed from the anxieties of the English captaincy and able to bat as of old.
Northamptonshire took the Benson & Hedges with a healthy batting side of good heart; and Warwickshire, with Willis in his first year as captain and David Brown as manager, performed the miracle of the season by leaping the length of the John Player League, bottom in 1979, top in 1980. To have watched much of this was an undeniable, considerable pleasure which even the weather could not spoil.
The 'last time round" man finds looking to the future irresistible. Dilley began the season not only as a remarkably improved, but, more important, as a steadily improving bowler. It must be hoped that his glandular fever will not prove too debilitating; it is a dire complaint for a fast bowler. Three others give good reason for hope in that field: Agnew, Wilson and Pigott all have technical problems to solve but none of theirs are insoluble. Cook of Leicestershire and Barnett of Derbyshire offer other bowling hopes.
Let us not overlook the rich rising crop of rising wicketkeepers. Richards of Surrey, Garnham of Leicestershire, French and Curzon of Nottinghamshire, Brassington of Gloucestershire reflect an extremely high standard - importantly, one not retarded by overseas talent.