England Cricket Diary (27 Jun 1998)

DOWNPATRICK are determined that their 150th anniversary celebrations will not be marred by the fire which destroyed their clubhouse last week

27-Jun-1998

27 June 1998

England Cricket Diary

By Clive Ellis

DOWNPATRICK are determined that their 150th anniversary celebrations will not be marred by the fire which destroyed their clubhouse last week.

The Belfast club are due to host the South Africans on July 10 and Australia A at the end of August, and John Wright, the Irish Cricket Union secretary, was meeting club officials last night confident that the South Africa game could go ahead.

"We'll do all we can to stage the match at Downpatrick," said Wright. "They'd be heartbroken if it wasn't played there."

The club have a healthy mix of Protestants and Catholics and Wright pointed out: "It's not an area which you'd normally associate with the troubles, but the general feeling is that the fire was well planned and politically motivated."

GRAEME Pollock shared the general elation at South Africa's success last week but he also came away with one rather less happy memory of Lord's.

The great left-hander had been staying with friends in London and begged the use of his hosts' car to travel to St John's Wood. He was delighted to find that there was plenty of parking space outside the Grace Gates and went into the ground.

When he returned to pick up the car at the end of the day's play he was distraught to find that it had gone missing. His friends suggested he should contact the police and it cost him £250 to have it released from their pound.

KENT will gain something more than two highly promising batsmen when Ed Smith and Will House come down from Cambridge next month: they will also bring added brain power to the Canterbury dressing room.

Both have emerged from their finals with first-class history degrees and since Anurag Singh, this year's Cambridge captain, has gained an upper second in law, there is powerful evidence that sporting prowess and academic excellence are not mutually exclusive.

In fact, Cambridge University Rugby Club have elaborated on the mens sana in corpore sano principle by suggesting that sporting types actually do better in exams than their non-athletic contemporaries.

The theory runs that the sportsmen have more organised minds and, because they are used to competing at a high level, they cope better with pressure.

THE bat with which Ian Botham scored his heroic unbeaten 149 at Headingley in 1981 has found its way to the Somerset museum after a curious and convoluted journey.

Botham gave the 3lb 2oz Fearnley Magnum to Dennis Breakwell, his Somerset team-mate and now coach at King's College, Taunton, who offered it as an item at an auction in aid of Taunton Town Football Club.

The winner then sold the heavily taped bat for £330 to a Plymouth man, Nick Higgins, and it was occasionally used in the garden by Higgins's son Tom before spending 15 years in the attic.

The bat was then offered to Lord's for permanent display but turned down and the final twist came when Higgins met Mervyn Kitchen, the former Somerset player and Test umpire, in a furniture store.

He suggested that the County Ground at Taunton would be an ideal home for the bat, which now enjoys equal billing with Joel Garner's size 15 boots and one of W G Grace's wallets.

JONTY Rhodes, on 95, survived an enormous lbw appeal against Dean Headley on his way to 117. "I felt terrible," admitted Rhodes. "The umpire said I got an inside edge on to the pad but, actually, the ball hit the pad first. I reckon it was hitting all three. Still, you're not allowed to walk for lbw decisions so I had to carry on." Seems reasonable.

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