Lady Luck has huge crushes on these two © AFP

A new Test batting star emerged for England yesterday, to go with the new one-day batting star and new Twenty20 batting star, who also emerged over the last year. Eoin Morgan’s highly attractive three-for-the-price-of-one offer has added to the growing competition for places in a Test side that should soon start to impact even on the seemingly undroppable.

The calmness, timing and variety of run-scoring capabilities that Morgan displayed in his excellent and stylish performance bode well for his and England’s future, but his innings also illustrated the BruceReidically slender margins that separate the vintage champagne of success from the budget processed grape juice of failure.

A better wicketkeeper than Kamran Akmal (any volunteers? – no previous experience required; candidates should ideally possess their own gloves and, preferably, a willingness either to watch the ball all the way into the those gloves, or to move their feet, preferably both; apply to PCB by next Thursday) would probably have been standing in the right place to catch an edge when Morgan, on 5, played away from his body to another good ball by the brilliant Aamer. He later survived what appeared to be a fairly conclusive lbw appeal when missing a sweep off Shoaib Malik on 35.

Hawk-Eye suggested the ball would have hit the inside of leg stump, but, to compound the umpiring error, Pakistan had blown their two referrals trying to get rid of Kevin Pietersen, who seemed to be busy trying to get rid of himself anyway, as Kamran expanded the range of known methods of wicketkeeping ineptitude by demanding a referral for a rejected caught-behind appeal after a ball that had barely passed within conversational distance of the bat.

Had Morgan been caught on 5, questions would have been asked about his Test-match technique and his footwork against the swinging ball. Had he been given lbw, he would have failed to convert three consecutive 30-plus scores into half-centuries. Instead of proving his Test credentials, he would have raised further questions about them. Instead of delivering under pressure, he would have failed under pressure. Instead of a “magical maiden ton”. He capitalised brilliantly on his luck, and some low-grade spin bowling, to kickstart his Test career in spectacular style. Pietersen had plenty of good fortune in his innings, but looked like a man who doesn’t play much cricket these days, and did not capitalise.

Luck has always been and will always be a fundamental, and fascinating, part of sport, particularly in batting, where a batsman’s bad luck is final (how many centuries would I have scored in my career if I hadn’t been unlucky in 99% of all my innings?), and a batsman’s good luck can make the different between an unremarkable failure and a career-defining success.

Some examples: Lara, dropped by Durham wicketkeeper Scott on 18, powerdrills his name into the record books by blasting 501 not out. Gooch snicks Prabhakar at Lord’s in 1990, but Indian keeper More Kamrans the primary-school-level chance, and Gooch goes on to score another 297 runs. Pietersen at The Oval in 2005, on nought, edges Warne – but Gilchrist’s glove deflects the ball away from the waiting Hayden at slip; then after 15, nervous in one of the most pressurised periods of play in all Test cricket, he edges Lee to slip, where Warne fluffs a relatively simple chance. On each occasion, the batsman was, essentially, provisionally out. They had made their mistakes, and were merely awaiting confirmation of their dismissals. Before being reprieved, and capitalising to achieve cricketing immortality.

Pietersen’s luck was particularly transformative – it probably won the Ashes for England, and he became a cricketing hero over the course of one staggering afternoon. History shows that he played one of the great modern Test innings, one of the most brilliant and important in England’s Test history, an expression of individual cricketing bravery and daring that just about justified a brave and daring hairstyle, and elevated himself to the cricketing A-list. History could have shown that he failed, technically and temperamentally, thus concluding a debut series in which his early promise had faded into a run of costly failures, whilst sporting the most ridiculous haircut in Test history.

Similarly, there must be many of one-, two- and three-cap Test players who ended their careers thinking, “If only that usually incompetent fielder hadn’t pulled off that uncharacteristic one-handed diving catch”, or “If only that umpire hadn’t been certifiably blind”. Scorecards do not record luck.

Perhaps 1920s batsman Jack MacBryan would have turned out to be a surprise Test-match great. He had an unlucky Test career. In his only Test, in 1924, it rained for much of the first day, then for all of the rest of the match. MacBryan did not bat. And failed, in his 66.5 overs of fielding, to convince the selectors that he had what it takes to succeed at the highest level. Perhaps they spotted some flaw in his technique whilst he was playing pretend shots in the covers in between balls.

For Morgan, then, the future looks bright. The cream generally rises to the top. But sometimes, it needs a helping upward shunt from the capricious hand of Lady Luck, a fickle woman whose hand can tenderly stroke or unforgivingly spank.

Pakistan have had little luck with umpiring this summer, particularly with lbws, and could have had England in even deeper trouble yesterday. As it was, with Gul and Kaneria off form, only Aamer - fast becoming the world’s new favourite cricketer - and Asif applied pressure, and the fragile confidence of Salman Butt’s side visibly dissipated. At Headingley against Australia, they seemed to become nervous in the field when it became clear they would have to chase more than one run to win. As it was, Farhat and Azhar nervelessly took them close enough that even a top-quality collective choke could not deprive them of an excellent victory. Their inexperienced top order and dangerously long tail will do well to avoid defeat in this game.

(A quick comment on the Umpire Decision Review System. It seems to me to be unfairly weighted in favour of the batting team. Generally, more appeals are given not out than are given out, so statistically the fielding side has more occasions on which it is likely to want to use their referrals, and are thus more likely to run out of referrals. If a not-out lbw decision turns out to have been fractionally out, it remains not out. If an out decision transpires to have been fractionally not out, it becomes not out.

Whilst this maintains the traditional balance of doubt in favour of the batsman, there is a double punishment when, as happened to Pakistan yesterday, Pakistan referred a not-out appeal, the technology suggested that it could/should have been given out, but only marginally, so the “Umpire’s Call” stood.

Thus, Pakistan, despite essentially having correctly referred an appeal that was shown to be out, lost a referral. I suggest that if a team refers and appeal that results in an “Umpire’s Call” refusal, it should not lose one of its referrals. I also think the fielding side should have two appeals, but the batting team should only have one.)

(And finally, commiserations to all those who had to watch the Colombo Test match. I can only imagine what you have just been through. It sounds awful.)

Comments (22) | Pakistan in England 2010

Muttiah Muralitharan is fifth on the all-time list of Sri Lankan Test match six-hitters © Getty Images

Muttiah Muralitharan’s incredible Test career is almost at an end, and, as I write, he is in the process of attempting to become the first and last man to take 800 Test wickets.

Given the nature of modern international cricket, I think I can predict that no one else will reach 800 with a similar level of confidence as someone announcing that John Wilkes Booth will always retain the world record for Most Assassinations Of Abraham Lincoln, or that 1924 Olympic sprint champion Harold Abrahams will never again break his own personal best for the 100 metres. Murali’s mark will stand for all time. Unless Sajid Mahmood discovers both the elixir of eternal youth and the DNA of Freddie Trueman lurking in his garden shed behind a tin of creosote and a broken lawnmower.

Murali, the Jimi Hendrix of offspin, and surely Peter Such’s only serious rival as the greatest spin bowler of the late 20th century, has just two more days before he joins the ranks of former cricketers, alongside Grace, Bradman, Sobers, Warne, Capel, Igglesden and the rest. Seven more Indian scalps lie between him and a final statistical cherry on his cherry-laden multi-layered career cake. He already has Tendulkar in the bag for the eighth time, the Mumbai Master presumably weakened by spraying litres of his magic blood all over copies of his biography.

Disappointingly, Murali’s first innings of his final Test was brief and contained no sixes. One of the lesser-trumpeted stats emerging from his 18 years of Test cricket, but one worth a quick brassy toot nonetheless, is that he stands fifth on the all-time list of Sri Lankan Test match six-hitters, with 29, behind Jayasuriya, Aravinda de Silva, Jayawardene and Ranatunga, and some considerable way ahead of the likes of 83-Test interest void Hashan Tillakaratne, and 1980s teenage one-Test-wonder Sanjeewa Weerasinghe, who has hit the same number of Test sixes as I have.

Of all Murali’s Test runs, 13.8% have been scored with maximums (impressive, but some way behind surprise all-time leaders Shoaib Akhtar [24.3%] and Michael Holding [23.7%], both bowlers who could swing the bat with the confidence that only a certifiable lunatic would attempt to curb their mayhem with a bouncer). Murali also has the fifth-highest recorded batting strike rate (70.28) of those with over 1000 Test runs. He should be the role model for all tailenders. No blocking and nudging, no eating up valuable bowling overs scrimping the odd single and exasperating the watching world. See it, whack it, giggle when you hit it, giggle when you miss it.

Whether the fireworks that accompanied Murali out to bat were to mark his final Test, or in recognition of Abhimanyu Mithun having just become the 17th Indian to take four or more wickets in his debut Test innings, must remain open to question. I have not seen the relevant paperwork.

And the fireworks when Sri Lanka later took the field could easily have been a tribute to Herath and Malinga registering respectively the fourth and the equal fifth highest scores by Sri Lankan numbers 8 and 9, whilst jointly becoming only the first eighth-wicket partnership in all Test history to add exactly 115, and only the 40th combination of 8 and 9 to score half-centuries in the same innings. All of which are surely more worthy of fireworks than a man walking onto a bit of grass. Let History be the judge.

Murali made his debut in August 1992. It was a landmark year for bowling. Warne debuted on 2 January, Murali in August, and Kumble, after a solitary Test in 1990, was recalled by India in October. And, lest we forget, Ian Salisbury turned in the greatest debut by an England legspinner in over 60 years, taking five wickets, as many as Warne amassed in his first four-and-a-half Tests.

In one year, spin, perceived by many to be a dying art of decreasing value in top-level cricket, had simultaneously launched three of its greatest ever exponents on the unsuspecting batsmen of the world.

All cricket-worshipping parts of the world should be thankful for these titans of the game, and Sri Lanka most of all. Murali has taken 40% of all his country’s wickets in his Test career, and bowled a ludicrous 33% of all their overs, ratios unmatched in cricket history. He has also been their leading (or joint-leading) wicket-taker in 42 of the 53 Tests they have won with him in the team, including 37 of 41 from September 1996 to December 2007. They have won only seven of the 61 Tests they have played without Murali, compared with 53 of 131 with him. He has not merely held the key to Sri Lankan success, he has built the entire house.

One-man-New-Zealand-XI Sir Richard Hadlee is the only modern player who comes close to matching Murali on the Maradona Scale Of Absolutely Critical Importance To A Team. He took 35% of the Kiwis’ wickets, bowled a quarter of their overs, and was leading wicket-taker in 16 of the 22 wins New Zealand achieved in his 86 Tests. They won none of the 14 Tests he missed during his career, which suggests that Hadlee was as important to his country’s cricketing victories as Muhammad Ali was to Muhammad Ali’s triumphs in the boxing ring. New Zealand won only 14 of the 170 Tests they played without Hadlee up to 1997. He was, without question, a useful cricketer for his country.

So good luck, Murali, in your quest for those final seven wickets. Cricket will miss you, your whirling wizardry and your grinning competitiveness. I was fortunate enough to have been at The Oval on the final day of the famous 1998 Test when the full extent of Murali’s magnificence slapped England full in the chops like a 200lb haddock.

England, after generously deigning to play a piddling one-Test series against the now world champions for the first time since 1991, and fresh from brilliantly stealing a Test series from under the noses of a strong but fatally cautious South Africa, were delighted to be put in by the scheming Ranatunga on a flat pitch. The home team made a solid 445, as Murali twirled away defiantly to take 7 for lots. Ranatunga chuckled inside. The masterplan was in action. While the great spinner took the rest he needed in between bowling England out single-handedly twice, the batsmen would gorge themselves on a pristine surface − if Murali had had to work for his wickets on that pitch, then Ian Salisbury would have to get on his bended knees and pray for his. And pray hard. And probably sacrifice at least 100 head of oxen.

Jayasuriya, in his flamboyant pomp, treated England’s bowlers as a Victorian teacher would have treated the winners of the Top Five Naughtiest Boys competition. He whipped them mercilessly. After Murali had helped Suresh Perera add 59 quick and important runs for the last wicket, Sri Lanka had a lead of 146, and a day-and-a-half remaining.

Seamers Wickremasinghe and Perera fulfilled their contractual obligation of helping the batsmen hit the shine off the new ball, then Murali began to spin England into a paralysis of confusion. England, frankly, bricked it. The spell Murali cast over them is not entirely revealed by his own incredible figures − 9 for 65 in 54 overs of ceaseless mesmerism. Such was the strokeless rigor mortis that England contracted from him that, at the other end, Dharmasena, Jayasuriya and de Silva between them bowled 58 overs in support for just 58 runs. Had England been able to score at just two per over against these three less-than-demonic back-up tweakers, they would almost certainly have saved the game.

I was sitting near a large group of Sri Lankans who were, as Benaud said of the Edgbaston crowd in 1981, “going noisily berserk” as Murali carved himself into cricket immortality. It was a great day to be a cricket fan.

Well, it appears that, once again, I have stayed up past my bedtime truffling around for stats and writing this overlong blog, so the latest Q&A and more thoughts on Pakistan v Australia will have to wait a few days.

Instead, to conclude this spin-obsessed blog, here is a trivia question. Don’t look it up. That would be cheating. And besides, I’ll tell you the answer. So guess. Or telephone your friends and family to discuss the matter before settling on your final answer.

In the 1980s, only three spin bowlers took more than 50 Test wickets at an average of under 30. Who were they?

Think about it. Don’t look down the page yet.

Here comes the answer. If you get it right, you win today’s star prize, which is the right to jump around whatever office/train/bedroom/operating theatre you are reading this blog in, noisily celebrating your phenomenal rightness.

The answer is: Iqbal Qasim (131 at 24.99), Bruce Yardley (89 at 28.64), and Tauseef Ahmed (87 at 29.57).

If you answered correctly without being a close personal friend of at least two of Iqbal Qasim, Bruce Yardley and Tauseef Ahmed, you have my undying respect. Incidentally, thirteen spinners managed that feat in the 1950s, six in 1960s, five in the 70s, and eight in the 90s. Only three managed it in the 2000s – Warne, Murali and Swann − but with five more averaging below 31.3.

At ease.

Comments (50) | Test cricket

Ricky Ponting and Mohammad Aamer attempt to break into a Scottish dance routine © AFP

After a painstaking 98-year reassessment study following the botched triangular series experiment of 1912, neutral Test match cricket returned to England yesterday. It was, according to those who were lucky enough to see both Syd Gregory’s Australia play South Africa almost a century ago, and their modern-day baggy-green descendants take on Pakistan, much improved from its previous incarnation.

It was a compelling opening to the series, with everything you could want from a Test match – some good batting, some bad batting, some outstanding swing bowling, a bit of decent legspin, a bit of less decent legspin, a couple of influential umpiring bloopers, a couple of rampantly irritating bouts of going off for bad light, and perhaps the most minor piece of argy bargy in the history of all sport, as Ricky Ponting and Mohammad Aamer lightly brushed elbows.

To the untrained eye, this could easily have signified the beginning of an outbreak of Scottish dancing, but fortunately the umpires were on hand to ensure a full-blown ceilidh did not break out – there is simply no place for it in Test match cricket. Ponting, an inveterate dancer, was understandably irritated, and left the field visibly chuntering his displeasure to the umpire that his trademark Strip The Willow had been cut off in its prime.

Aamer’s opening spell was prodigious. He could have had all of the top three Australian batsmen out lbw, but ended up with none. Katich should have been given out, Ponting could have been given out, and Watson was being given out but escaped because he had the good sense to deflect the ball into his stumps and be out bowled instead (thus depriving Umpire Gould, the first English umpire to stand in a Lord’s Test since umpires were deemed to have become so universally and flagrantly patriotic as to be utterly untrustworthy, of his moment of finger-raising glory).

Katich escaped for no discernible reason – Gould claimed to have heard and/or seen an inside edge, in which case Katich’s bat must have invisible wings stretching a good eight inches beyond the visible wood. The only other conceivable explanation why the umpire did not despatch the self-proclaimed Elvis Presley Of Stepping Across To Cover Off Stump And Deflecting The Ball Into The Leg Side, after his extremely Australian leg interrupted a delivery that was heading towards the middle of the middle of the middle bit of middle stump, was that Gould had been playing with a ouija board before the start of play, and had been told that the ghost of Gubby Allen would pop out from under the Lord’s turf and headbutt the ball away before it hit the wicket. Thus the benefit of the doubt was given to the batsman.

I can, without jealousy or hyperbole, state definitively that Aamer is a better bowler than I was at his age (notwithstanding my then career-best spell of 2 for 35 off four overs of occasionally reachable legspin). His mesmeric opening spell was later supported by a hypnotic burst of platinum-quality trundle by Asif, a masterfully skilful and crafty onslaught of 80mph dobblers that broke both ends of the Katich-Clarke partnership, almost dismissed North three times in three balls, and thus exposed Australia’s untested middle order.

Paine and Smith, in their first Tests, were doomed to failure – not by the excellent bowling nor the helpful conditions nor the pressure of their own expectations, but by the sheer weight of statistical history. This was the first time Australia had picked debutants at both 7 and 8 since their first Test against Sri Lanka in 1982-83, when Roger Woolley and Tom Hogan proudly donned their baggy greens for the first time, and then collectively failed to trouble the scorers. Largely, in fairness, because Australia declared on 514 for 4. This however, merely spared them from inevitable actual failure.

Fourteen times since their first Test in 1876-77, Australia have sent out a brand new 7 and a previously unseen 8 in the same Test, and between them, in their debut innings, they have now scored a not especially grand total of 318 runs in 26 innings at a piddling average of 13.25. The top score of these was Clarence “Nip” Pellew’s immortal, unforgettable, era-defining 36 in the first post-Great-War Ashes Test of 1920-21. (Feel free to use this fact in your next attempted seduction. I cannot guarantee it will lead to success, but it will certainly elicit a reaction of some kind.)

Australia’s coaching staff has clearly not been checking their statistics. If they had, they would surely have split the two debutants, sandwiching them around a more experienced player to divert the unstoppable hand of cricketing inevitability from slapping them both back to the pavilion.

Assuming they bat according to the listed scorecard, Pakistan will also launch two players into their debut Tests back to back in the batting order. Umar Amin and Azhar Ali are listed to bat 3 and 4, making this already historic match even more historic – it is the first time Pakistan have had their numbers 3 and 4 making their debuts together since the entire Pakistan team made their Pakistan debuts in Pakistan’s debut Test against India, in Delhi in 1952-53. So this is the first time they have chosen to play a Test with an uncapped 3 and 4.

In that game in 1952-53, Israr Ali and Imtiaz Ahmed scored 1 and 0 respectively in the first innings, so Umar and Azhar will be desperately hoping to set a new national record for most productive joint debuts by a 3 and 4.

It is a risky, and almost unique, selection. They may develop into one of the all-time great 3-4 combinations, but, currently, their joint total of 0 career Test runs and 0 lifetime Test centuries, cannot match up to Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf’s Test total 12,600 runs and 40 centuries. But the unusualness of Pakistan’s selection is revealed by the fact that this will be only the 27th time in the entire history of the human race that a Test team has had debutants at 3 and 4. Here is proof, courtesy of the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful Statsguru.

Bear in mind that, of the previous 26 such occasions:

Ten were in a team’s first ever Test match, when debuts are largely unavoidable; seven more were whilst Queen Victoria was still alive;
one was in 1907, the year Picasso painted Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon, and ace Russian science whizz Ivan Pavlov was messing around teasing dogs with bells, so the world was understandably a little confused; four more occurred whilst Hitler was still largely viewed by the world as a jaunty curiosity; and two only happened due to the use of a night-watchman.

That leaves only two other Tests since the Second World War in which numbers 3 and 4 have debuted together. The first was when England sent a shadow team to India in 1951-52, and the second when Sri Lanka, in just their sixth Test match, against New Zealand in 1982-83, decided to start all over again and throw seven debutants into the Test arena at once.

(Incidentally, a brand new opening partnership is almost as rare – 28 occurrences, the most recent being last year, when a commercial dispute led to West Indies having to ask if anyone in the crowd fancied a game against Bangladesh.)

This shows how reluctant teams have traditionally been to throw two completely unproven players into the top order together. But in mitigation, not many Test countries have been piecing a team together after speculatively banning then unbanning a large wodge of key players, and not many Test teams have had Shahid Afridi as captain. It sounds crazy, but it might just work. Unless the ball keeps swinging, in which case, it probably won’t. It all adds to the ceaseless fascination that is Pakistan cricket, and it is a delight to see them play just their tenth Test on these shores in the last 18 years.

I will be back shortly with some thoughts and stats on Murali, and if you have any questions for the next Confectionery Stall Q&A, please leave them in the comments section below.

Comments (105) | Pakistan v Australia, 2010

Shaun Tait: that's Mr Grumpy to you © Getty Images

England have chosen a very good time to register a convincing win over Australia. It has dovetailed extremely neatly with the hydraulically hyped football team exploring hitherto uncharted territories of incompetence in a World Cup humiliation that is being widely viewed as the nation’s biggest embarrassment since King Harold was tricked by the Normans into a game of Catch The Arrow With Your Eye. (In relative terms, watching England’s World Cup unfold was the footballing equivalent of sitting in a darkened cellar, watching Steve Harmison’s first ball of the 2006-07 Ashes on a continuous loop for two weeks.)

The one-day series triumph has also coincided with the government’s jovially portentous forecasts of continuing economic gloom. So by playing to their potential, and by offering genuine promise for the future, Strauss’s team have surely thrust cricket back to the top of English children’s favourite-hobbies lists, ahead of football and macroeconomics.

Congratulations are due to England not only for the all-round excellence of their play in the first two-and-nine-tenths matches, but also for cleverly raising then crushing Australian hopes by collapsing spectacularly to the point of defeat in the final one-tenth of match three, and then convincingly losing match four in order to maintain public interest in the build-up to the Ashes. If the whitewash that was obviously inevitable had been allowed to happen, who would have bothered tuning in to see Ponting’s men ritually humiliated yet again this winter? Only true sadists with no love of a genuine sporting contest.

Perhaps I read too much into it. But England have now played well enough often enough in recent limited-overs matches to suggest that their current run is not an uncharacteristic blip in a long era of carefully nurtured underachievement.

This five-match effective whitewash spread over a mere 12 days will sadly be of little value when the World Cup comes around next year. The tournament will be a test of psychological endurance as much as cricketing ability, as it crawls slowly onwards like the asthmatic brontosaurus it is. In fact, the gaps between games are mostly long enough to allow teams to commute to and from home to minimise the chances of homesickness.

Perhaps the much-and-rightly-criticised World Cup schedules of recent tournaments have been designed with this specifically in mind – not, as most people had assumed, in order to render the events so stultifying that by the time they finally ended, no one really noticed Australia winning, thus taking the gloss from their triumphs, but as a means to reduce the unfair advantage enjoyed by the host nation, by enabling all the teams to nip home to spend some quality time with their family and check their post.

Nevertheless England look a well-balanced team with plenty of batting power. Whether they can adapt to subcontinental conditions and take enough top-order wickets early in their opponents’ innings will probably dictate how far they can progress. However, the tournament basically involves a largely ceremonial month-long group stage to whittle the seven teams with an ICC ODI ranking score of 100 or more up to eight teams, followed by a three-round shoot-out featuring all the potential randomness of tosses, conditions, weather and Daryl Harper. Therefore, any team could win it with a well-timed streak of (a) form, (b) luck and (c) Daryl Harper.

It was good to see Shaun Tait damaging the speed gun again. The world needs a few more bowlers who waddle up the crease and then wang it as fast as possible. It makes for unavoidably exciting cricket. Especially if “as fast as possible” clocks in at above 95 mph, as Tait did in that fourth game.

He has played one wicketless Test in the five years since his 2005 Ashes debut games, in which he proved himself to be fast, erratic, occasionally dangerous, and, as I witnessed first-hand at The Oval, exceedingly (and self-defeatingly) grumpy in the face of mild crowd banter. Since playing a major role in Australia’s 2007 World Cup campaign, he had played just a handful of ODIs before this series, so let us hope he will feature considerably more in coming years. Too many properly fast bowlers have played far too little top-level cricket this millennium, in particular Shane Bond, Shoaib Akhtar, Jermaine Lawson and, more understandably, Harold Larwood.

I well remember my first encounter with fast bowling. It was in my second ever game of cricket, as an eight-year-old. On the back of a battling, almost heroic, innings of 1 in my debut match, I was promoted to open the batting. Having taken two extraordinary slip catches – extraordinary at least to all those who had seen me attempt to catch before – I had helped my school Under-9s reduce our opponents to 63 all out. At the age of eight, with a career best of 1, this was a daunting target, the mental equivalent, I imagine, of chasing 500 to win a Test match.

I walked out to bat with the confidence of one who had never known true failure, like a pre-1991 Graeme Hick but smaller. I was the non-striking batsman. The umpire said “Play”. I looked round to see the bowler. He was not there. Odd, I thought. I looked again. He was there. Standing on the boundary with the ball in his hand. At this point, I was 90% defeated. I had seen Michael Holding on TV. In thundered the bowler, if an eight-year-old can indeed thunder, before flinging his missile of destruction towards my opening partner. I barely saw it. Perhaps because my eyes instinctively closed in anticipatory terror. I heard a distant thud, as the ball hit the batsman on the pad. He called me through for a single. It was an easy single. It was also a single that was extremely low on my priority list. My partner was half-way up the pitch, I had to run. I now had to face the demon. I took a nervous middle-and-leg guard, and surveyed the potential gaps in the field, for the sake of convention if nothing else, and also for potential escape routes. I settled into my stance. The run-up began.

As the bowler’s long approach unfolded, like a lion sprinting towards a 2-for-1 offer in a zebra shop, I steeled myself to be brave, watch the ball, and trust my brand new pads, gloves and box to avoid life-threatening injuries. He passed the umpire, uncoiled like the eight-year-old Garner-Croft-Holding-Roberts hybrid he clearly was, and whanged it. I studiously played the perfect forward-defensive. The ball smashed into the stumps. I looked up to see a disapproving teacher looking at me as if I had just betrayed my team-mates, my school and my country. I looked at the stumps. Which were further away than I had remembered them being. I looked at my feet. They were just off the edge of the pitch, heading towards square leg. It transpired that what would today be called my “trigger movements” had let me down. And taken me a good four feet out of harm’s way. A technical glitch to be ironed out, certainly. My career average slumped to 0.50. I batted at eight in the next match.

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