Lara needs perfect blend (21 April 1999)

21 April 1999

Lara needs perfect blend

E. W. Swanton

The season just begun is beset with problems and impending crises, at home and internationally. All the more reason, then, to start this column on a recent event which merited universal pleasure and applause. I mean, of course, the Barbados Test, wherein the West Indies achieved one of the most extraordinary victories in Test history.

I cannot recall a match with more frequent and exciting shifts of fortune, the prime example of the glorious uncertainty which is the oldest cliche in the book. Few crowds can match the Bajans in their knowledge and critical appreciation of cricket - hence Kensington Oval being as full on the fifth day as on the first.

How many Test sides have scored 490 in their first innings and lost the match? According to statistical expert, Robert Brooke, a higher score than 490 has been played by the losers more often than one might suppose, in fact eight times - four involving England.

I saw two instances myself, both at Headingley. The loss to the 1948 Australians was a calamitous failure of will that is still hard to bear thinking off. Bradman, I later discovered, had ordered the team's transport to be ready by mid-afternoon; he and Arthur Morris, helped by several unaccepted chances, made 301 together and Australia scored 404 in the day to win by seven wickets.

At Headingley in 1967, England and India both scored more than 500, the former winning easily.

At Bridgetown last month, the result was the more remarkable in the light of West Indies' recent history and that, following the Australians' 490, they lost their first six wickets for 98. But not that of Lara, whose magnificent double-hundred brought victory in Jamaica. Could he conjure another miracle? He did and in doing so gave an enormous fillip to Test cricket, the genuine article.

The modern media must have its heroes and villains, one or the other, and in Lara's case the transformation came in record time. The coordination of eye and limb worked in perfect union, the footwork and suppleness of wrist added up to perfect balance at the moment of impact. I wonder how it is that so many left-handers exude grace and beauty: Sobers, Harvey, Gower and this wonderful little man. Let us hope that he realises at last that such talent calls for responsibility and discretion. The West Indian Board are not yet out of the wood. It will take time for the disgraceful events of that South African tour to be redeemed.

Matthew Engel, the editor of Wisden, has for some years advanced the prospect of a world championship of Test Cricket and in the 1999 edition (second on the hardback sales list last week) he prints a Wisden world championship table on a points and percentage basis as at the end of February: Australia, South Africa, West Indies, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, England, Zimbabwe, New Zealand. The editor describes his involvement as temporary, pending an official programme from the International Cricket Council.

The president of ICC, Jagmohan Dalmiya, has since flown to India representatives from the Test countries in order to promote his own scheme. He calls it pragmatic but one proposal is that the other nine countries will come simultaneously to England in one championship and fight it out between May and September! I am sympathetic with him in that the Asian countries patronise Tests poorly, having been saturated with the one-day games. Let them compete in triangulars at their mutual convenience. I cannot see other countries getting too excited at the world title prospect.

Dalmiya will preside at the ICC meeting at Lord's in the last week of June. Next year he will hand over to Malcolm Gray of Australia.

The fancy names which are appended to each county in the National League are not everyone's cup of tea. But Kent, at least, have settled for a word enshrined in the county's history. The Battle of Britain was fought across Kentish skies by Spitfires and Hurricanes based at a dozen Kent airfields. In 1941, the Kent Messenger suggested that in response to a national appeal, county towns and villages should subscribe the cost of a Spitfire, hence the Invicta squadron of 22 planes each named after the town which had "bought" it.

Furthermore, it suits the Shepherd Neame brewers - the club's main sponsors. They have a Spitfire Premier Ale, altogether a title which needs living up to.

More about Kent, with due apologies all round: great things are about to happen at Bearsted, where the cricket club are celebrating the 250th anniversary of cricket on Bearsted Green. No doubt the Wealden villages played one another before that, but 1749 is chosen because in that year Eleven Gentlemen Of Bearsted came to London to meet Eleven Gentlemen of London on the Artillery Ground at Finsbury. The season will start with a dinner at which Lord Cowdrey will propose a toast to the club - and for all I know may lead the dancing.

As it happens, I can celebrate a personal milestone in connection with Bearsted, for exactly 70 years ago I have a clear picture of a locally famous match on the Green between P F Warner's XI and the 1929 South Africans.

It was the first match I remember reporting for the Evening Standard. Great names there were on both sides: Woolley, Hendren, Tennyson and Peebles for Plum; Herbie Taylor, Jock Cameron, Bob Catterall, Tuppy Owen-Smith against them, plus a character called Osche but pronounced 'Oooch' - a significant cognomen for a fast bowler.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)