SPECTATOR SPORT
A barrage of baloney
Frank Keating
AS I WRITE, I pray that the performances at Sydney of three north countrymen, Atherton, Crawley, and Gough, might have turned the Ashes series into a contest and left their critics gawping as uncomfortably as beached goldfish. The same happened last winter when a bad and booed defeat in Trinidad was followed by a glorious victory by the England X1 in Barbados. This time the self-flagellating barrage of baloney in the public prints has been even further over the top.
Australia has an outstanding side — set- tled, resilient, committed, and capable of brilliant passages here and there. It was no particular surprise that they beat an unset- tled, injury- and umpire-wracked England in the first two matches — and neither was the London tabloids' predictably routine and wearisome yobbo-like scorn. But why do presumably sensible men gormlessly fol- low the Sun as if they, too, don't know what they are talking about?
Did Lord Rees-Mogg, all-seer for the Sun's lofty stablemate, for instance, gen- uinely mean his lamentable contrast between weak English batsmen in Australia and the indomitable heroes who were evac- uated from Dunkirk? Denis Compton was a slightly better bat than Lord Rees-Mogg, so should know better. Yet Denis's vitupera-
tion of Master Atherton's team was even more scathing. The two things good ol' Compo cannot stand, apparently, are men wearing England caps who are 'born losers', and Test batsmen who cannot get the ball `off the square'. Well, respectfully it must be pointed out that the first four Ashes series of Compton's Test career resulted in not even a remote sniff of the urn for Eng- land, and some horrendously one-sided defeats to the tune of 12-2 to the guys in green. And in 1950-51 in Australia, Denis's scores in the four Tests he played were 3,0; 0,23; 5,0; 11,11. Old men forget. Likewise, there was scarcely an obituarist who noted the sad loss of the former Corinthian and captain Peter May without pining for the long sunny days of success for England when he was leading, straight- backed, from the front and showing the cocky Ocker what for. Why don't these lyri-
cists of the late look up the log? The only England team May led to Australia was in 1958-59. England lost ignominiously by 4-0, dead-batting one draw, then being kiboshed successively by 8 wickets, 8 wick- ets, 10 wickets and 9 wickets.
As well as May, that England team included Cowdrey, Graveney, the young Dexter, Bailey, Evans, Laker, Lock, True- man, Statham, and Tyson. Did a certain novice leader-writer from Balliol, destined for greatness at Printing House Square, dare write that lot off as spineless? They are all, at various levels, true greats of the pantheon.
The summer before, by the by, I had seen May bat for only the second (and the last) time. He had made a first-ball duck at the Oval in 1951 in the Test, and it was six sum- mers later I was at Lord's for the Gents v Players. Tyson, the 'typhoon', was bowling from the Pavilion end when May walked in, upright, patrician, capless. Second or third ball, crack! If Tyson hadn't skipped in his follow-through it would have broken his ankle. In a blink The ball had splintered a white paling in front of the Members and rebounded almost to Tyson's mark. Still the most awesome straight drive I've ever seen. Next over May was out (c Graveney b True- man 5). But it was a shot worth a century.
Previous page
