SPECTATOR SPORT
Hit for six
Frank Keating
TOPPED by that clunking clout clean over Father Time's grandstand, the blistering innings in the cup final at Lord's on Satur- day by Worcestershire's Australian Tom Moody underlined how England will be up against it when the Ashes series resumes in the winter. Even with Allan Border and Dean Jones retired, Moody admits he has little chance of elbowing his way into the rock-solid Australian batting order for the Test matches.
Nobody seems to have logged the fur- thest 'sideways' swipes at Lord's. Certainly Christopher Martin-Jenkins had never seen a ball struck over the grandstand and out of the arena before. I was there once when, batting at the Nursery End, Colin Milburn cleared the old Tavern scoreboard and dented a black cab in St John's Wood Road, but the historians seem only to go for the straight hits towards the pavilion. ALE. Trott, of course, clobbered a delivery in 1899 onto a pay, chimney, whence it clat- tered down the roof behind the building. Keith Miller's whizzbang exploded against the wireless commentary-box in 1945, and in the Centenary Test 14 years ago another Australian, Kim Hughes, reached the top- deck seats.
Moody's voracious innings at Lord's on Saturday did, however, allow England some comfort, for he was in partnership with
Graeme Hick, who matched him, almost, blow for blow. Might the tall, so often tremulous Zimbabwean have throttled his big-occasion demons at last? We shall see this winter, but, as Alan Lee noted in the Tunes on Monday, during the summer of 1994 Hick 'has begun to bat with breathtak- ing freedom, treating ordinary bowling with contempt and good bowling with nothing more than respect'.
If you accept the greybeards Gooch and Gating as deserving to tour by their huge weight of runs this summer (tons ahead of the 1,400 of Hick and Crawley, who join them on tour) and the 1,300 of Twose, Hemp, Moxon and John Morris, who were not even considered remotely, the two con- tentious choices were both at Illingworth's casting-vote insistence. The chairman of the selectors says he pushed for the two British-born Australians, White and mcCague, 'because of the pace and bounce
of the rock-hard pitches down under'. Eh, what? When was old Raymond last in Oz? Nearly a quarter of a century ago, that's when, the time when as captain he let Snow out of his cage and Willis out of his nurs- ery. Since then Brisbane, Adelaide, Mel- bourne, and especially Sydney have become unbouncy and almost slow, low Leeds-like `puddens'. So all eggs in one basket for Perth and the last Test, Illy? Too late then.
Either way, where does that leave poor Angus Fraser? Dropped last month for the Test at his favourite hard-rock Oval, his last Test pitch with any bounce was in Barbados in April. He routed the West Indians. Gus's father, Don, touchingly raged in a letter to the Telegraph on Monday. Not only is poor Gus ditched but
he is deeply hurt at having to wait to learn the news from the media. After bowling his heart out on many occasions when others have given up the ghost, would a phone call to break the news have been too much to expect? The England selectors ask for loyalty from their players — but what price loyalty now?
Come Easter, I rather think, Fraser will have been much missed. By which time Illingworth will be trumpeting a new range of unarguable certainties.
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