SPECTATOR SPORT
Birthday boys
Frank Keating
FADE to sepia tones and soft-focus child- hood, gently mellow brass-band tubas, the Sparkle after light summer rain, John Snagge or Alvar Liddell: 'This is the BBC Light Programme. It is five to two. Here is the lunchtime cricket scoreboard. Another undefeated century opening partnership by Washbrook and Place has again put Lan- cashire in a strong position in their match against . . Washbrook and Place. For those of a cer- tain generation, the duo is as lovingly evocative of period, culture and together- ness as Flanagan and Allen, Matthews and Mortenson, Bevin and Bevan, Gert and Daisy, Lillibet and Margaret Rose. Cyril Washbrook was 80 on Tuesday, Winston Place was 80 on Wednesday. Two Peas in a pod. Birthday boys. Still stepping 0.1.1t together, red-rosed caps jauntily askew, ln the hazily distant daydreams of middle- aged men. There were in those good times other opening partnerships round the Shires of England which still evoke a poetic Permanence — Dodds and Avery, Robert- son and Brown, Gardner and Spooner, Glmblett and Lee — but somehow Wash- brook and Place remain richly and reso- nantly the senior marriage which went topther like a horse and carriage. He doesn't live too far away, but I nayen't seen Washy for years,' says the chlrPY, flea-fit Place. bet he doesn't send '11,,re a birthday card. He was a tough man, "ashy was, a very imposing figure. He'd
quell the bowling by force of personality.' Washbrook, the belligerent hooker, still has the curt bearing of the disciplined martinet he was reputed to be as Lancashire's cap- tain. He is now the county's president. You call him 'Washy' at your peril. 'Oh, yes, Winston. Staunch man. No, I never see him these days, he never comes to Old Trafford. Yes, we had a very happy partnership. A great stalwart, although he never thought he was all that good, oddly enough; at the wicket, I mean.'
They shared four opening stands of over 200 and one, against Sussex in 1947, of 350 unbroken. Washbrook played 37 times for England, mostly as Len Hutton's opening partner. 'Len and I had a perfect under- standing, an innate confidence together.'
On England's misbegotten tour of the West Indies in 1947-8, Place played in three Tests, scoring 107 in the last in Jamaica. Thank you and goodnight — he was never remotely considered again. Place was an orthodox, craft-versed batsman, somewhat in the Makepeace mould of pedantry and plod. The grand Lancashire historian Eric Midwin- ter often watched the famous partnerships: In personality and power Place was subsidiary to Washbrook, and accepted that with equa- nimity, but it was a question of degree rather than subordinate status. Winston played Lit- tle John to Washbrook's Robin Hood. . . Place's Lancashire cap was pulled, like Wash- brook's, toward the left ear, but somehow without the same cockiness.
Place made £6,000 from his benefit, bought a corner tobacconist at his beloved Rawtenstall, and still, daily and gaily, tramps the glorious Rossendale hills. He is a delightful old man. Washbrook had a then astonishing record £14,000 from his benefit.
In 1956, five years after he last played for England, Washbrook was a Test selector. One midsummer Sunday beef-rib lunch at London's Bath Club, his fellow selectors told him, 'Cyril, get up to Headingley, pronto!' And to take his kit. Things were desperate (as ever).
There was an outcry — well, golly, the swaggering gall of a 41-year-old selector picking himself. England batted. Richard- son, Cowdrey and Oakman went for just 17. Washbrook joined May, the callow captain. They put on 187, and turned the match and the series. Washbrook lbw Benaud 98. 'No, I wasn't nervous. Just got down to it. Most gratifying of all was that the journalists who condemned me were proved so utterly, utterly wrong. Journalists don't know any- thing, do they?'
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