Lord's more home to Cowdrey than Lords (10 May 1999)

10 May 1999

Lord's more home to Cowdrey than Lords

Robert Philip

'I 'll have the fish and chips and a pint of bitter shandy, please," says Lord Cowdrey, opting for British tradition in preference to the Thai green curry, blackened Cajun fish and spaghetti carbonara listed on the chef's menu of the day. Yes, tradition is important to the man who passes the busiest of retirements dashing between the floor of the House of Lords and the Long Room of Lord's, but an old fogey he ain't.

It may be difficult to imagine cricket's most famous set of initials striding out to the crease resplendent in psychedelic pyjamas, yet MCC secretly relishes the notion. "Actually, I'd rather enjoy playing in the World Cup," grins Lord Cowdrey, who captained Kent to success in all three one-day competitions. "I didn't approve of the pyjamas, as you call them, at the start but I accept it's the way it has to be. What colour do you think would have suited me?" Regal purple, I suggest, sending this most modest of men scurrying off to hide his embarrassment in deep cover. "This fish really is rather splendid. No, I love the excitement of one-day cricket and it is a deep regret that the internationals came along only after I'd finished. To be honest, however, I'm not sure I'd have survived in the modern game. You have to be an acrobat in the field these days and I reckon some of us old-timers would have struggled.

"Alec Bedser, for instance, simply must be one of the best bowlers of my lifetime, but I'm not sure his clumping great size 14 boots would have been a great asset in the World Cup. Now Godfrey Evans, bless him, could have won the World Cup for England. He'd have been a millionaire today. He was the fittest man I've ever seen. Denis Compton would have been another king of the one-day game as, indeed, would dear old W G. Everyone pictures Grace with his great beard looking like a steam-train, but they tend to forget he was only 12 stone 10 when he was younger. W G was playing at the Oval one morning, jumped in a hansom cab during the lunch break, won the 100 yards in the National Athletics Championships at Crystal Palace and was back at the Oval bowling before tea."

While he averaged 44.06 in Tests, Lord Cowdrey is dismissive of his own worth, even though there are many who believe he would not look out of place in the current England batting line-up at the age of 66. "I was probably at my best when the going was rough. I wasn't a very good free-fall player, and the World Cup is very much going to be a free-fall experience. Look at Sri Lanka, they never think they're going to lose. Even when England made, what was it, 470 or something at the Oval, they still went out and won the damn game."

Lord Cowdrey toasts the memory of Godfrey Evans with a gulp of shandy and a stream of reminiscences. "He was 50 years ahead of his time. Godfrey would come off the pitch every day and the 12th man would have a beef sandwich and a cup of tea waiting. He'd scoff that and by a quarter to two he was absolutely spark out asleep on the bench, under the bench or lying in the corner of the dressing room. At two minutes after two - and not a minute before - the 12th man would shake Godfrey awake. He'd come to with a great roar, plunge his head into a sinkful of cold water and re-emerge looking awful. He looked about 80 and many's the time I didn't think he'd make it through the afternoon. But as soon as he was back out on the old stage and the curtain went back, he was a genius.

"Godfrey had been a professional boxer, you know, a hard, hard man. One August Bank Holiday we'd been playing at Southampton and went along to the local fairground that night where there was a boxing booth. We tried to persuade Godfrey into entering the ring but he was having none of it. 'You're probably right,' I said, 'this fella's a bit tasty.' 'Right, that's it,' said Godfrey, who could never resist a challenge. 'I'm next'. The fairground chap didn't know what hit him. I thought he'd be carried out in a coffin. After the first round he got Godfrey in a clinch and said 'Listen mate, go easy. You'll win your fiver but I've got six more fights after this'.

"He was a great character and a great entertainer, and I think cricket often forgets it is an entertainment as well as a sport. Fred Trueman realised that, as did Ian Botham and Colin Milburn and I do wonder if cricket hasn't become a bit too ordinary. The modern players all look the same in their track-suits, which is very professional and all that, but I think they have lost something along the way. The Comptons, Huttons, Bedsers were gods and the English are crying out for a superstar like George Best; I thought Graeme Hick might be the one, and, indeed, he may still be."

In his own dignified way, Lord Cowdrey was just such a superstar, though he prefers to luxuriate in the deeds of others. "I would love to face Shane Warne. He's probably the best leg-spinner of all time, which is saying something. I don't think any batsman in history - perhaps with the exception of Compton - could truly feel the master of Warne. In my time, Sonny Ramadhin was a fantastic bowler to pit your wits against. He was a wizard. There I was at Edgbaston in 1957, established in the England side, beautiful day, perfect pitch, we should have made 500. We played magnificently, but were all out at twenty-five past three and Ramadhin had taken seven for 60 or something. He was just a little fellow with his cap pulled down over his eyes and his shirt-sleeves covering his hands. Six little paces then whoosh!. Now you see it, now you don't. It all happened so quick you felt tempted to say 'excuse me, could you bowl that one again?' "

Having demolished his cod and chips, Lord Cowdrey proceeds to demolish the notion he would be the ideal captain to lead an England Fantasy XI into the World Cup. "There's no way I'd be worth a place. Who would I pick? Off the top of my head, I'd have Graham Gooch and Len Hutton as openers, Walter Hammond at number three, Compton, Ted Dexter - who was a very dramatic batsman - Ian Botham, Godfrey Evans, Johnny Wardle, John Snow, Freddie Trueman and Brian Statham. Not an easy side to discipline but the team-talk would be easy - 500 will do."

But why no Cowdrey? "The modern training drills would have done me in. England recently spent an entire training session without bats and balls. That's my idea of hell. I'd have been done in by about May 7." And when, exactly, does the season start? "May the bloody first," chortles Lord Cowdrey, the most down-to-earth of all sporting gods.

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