Simon Hughes: Cricket must tap this early learning centre (16 June 1997)

Monday 16 June 1997

Cricket must tap this early learning centre

Beyond the Boundary by Simon Hughes

SIR Donald Bradman learned to bat by throwing a golf ball against a water tank and hitting the rebound with a stump; Lord Colin Cowdrey honed his off-drive in South India with his backside pressed against the mesh of a tennis court and Michael Atherton OBE first got the hang of it by whacking a ball in a sock hanging from the washing line.

Cricket was booming when they were in short trousers and they were all instantly captivated by the game and mimicked their heroes - Macartney (Bradman), Hobbs (Cowdrey) and Clive Lloyd (Atherton) as they practised.

I can well remember this kind of worship from when I was growing up. Having seen Cowdrey, on television, make a century in his 100th Test against the 1968 Australians, he became my idol. His was the only autograph I wanted and, aged 10, I got it. Knocking a tennis ball around in the garden, I pretended I was Cowdrey, racking up the records I had memorised from Wisden. Sadly, the only batting one I ever set was going through a whole county season (1980) without making a run.

The surge of appeal in the game initiated by England`s victory against Australia in the first Ashes Test will prompt another spate of kids into annoying their parents by scything the heads off their precious chrysanthemums with their Hussain-inspired off-drives.

The BBC schedulers did their best to give the first Test maximum exposure and the audience peaked at 6.2 million on Sunday afternoon, an unprecedented figure for cricket. Many of these were still tuned in for the presentation, which was slightly delayed because Atherton decided to have a quick shave.

It is crucial to keep hold of today`s popularity, from which will emerge the stars of tomorrow. BBC and Sky are doing their utmost with magazine and focus programmes (though BBC Scotland showed a recorded shinty final during the last afternoon of the Test, and Gower`s Cricket Monthly gets bumped around the airwaves, last Saturday going out at 11.50am when any junior enthusiast would have been playing).

These initiatives need to be built on with the same sort of enterprise that Surrey and Sussex are showing. Senior figures have scoffed at floodlit cricket, or musical Sundays, but these experiments create interest, however long they last. Once a child`s fascination is sparked, he is captured.

Now is the time to capitalise, magnifying personalities through all possible media, creating figureheads that adolescents can latch on to. Make them accessible. The phenomenal performance of men`s glossy magazines - FHM (500,000 monthly sales), GQ (250,000) and Loaded (450,000) - provides one perfect springboard (all their editors are cricket fans); the profusion of bubbly weekend kids` TV another.

Lord Cowdrey himself is at the forefront of a worthwile supporting initiative. He remembers, when he was 12, the impact of being introduced to Jack Hobbs, and is determined to create similar experiences for others. As chairman of the Sports Ambassadors Project, he is supervising a pilot scheme to provide schoolchildren with access to famous sportsman who are "not too old".

"The idea," he said, slightly breathless after walking the spaniels round Angmering Park Stud, "is that we get the Mike Gattings and Will Carlings, when they`re available, to come along in a tracksuit and play with and talk to groups of talented boys and girls, to really spark their enthusiasm. We`re building up a directory of sportsmen so every school from Land`s End to John o`Groats can have direct contact with them."

If the scheme goes well, and gets the rubber stamp from the Departments of Education and Heritage, which looks likely, a nationwide version will be sponsored by Barclays Bank.

Atherton`s OBE award no doubt precipitated some mickey-taking in the Lancashire dressing-room, though none of it probably as merciless as that suffered by Gatting. Arriving at Bath the morning after his award was made public in 1987, he found a note pinned in the dressing-room saying "Mike Guttin`: Order of the Branston Empire." Next to it was a cutting with the headline "GATTING OBE," to which had been added the letters S E. The Somerset miscreant responsible soon regretted it: Gatting made 196 before tea.

TODAY Dean Jones heads back to his home, 50 miles north of Melbourne near the craggy landform where the film Picnic at Hanging Rock was shot. But as you might infer from someone who once had a job as a prison warder, Jones has never seen life as a picnic.

He is deadly serious about sport, and expects everyone else to be too. He was fiercely committed to his teams, making a lot of noise and kneading fragile egos, and was never afraid of antagonising the opposition.

Cries of "Hustle!" when he was pushing the long-off fielder for two or the "straight seed`ll be enough for this joker" line from gul- ly when a new batsman arrived, often had the desired effect. Jones was an electrifying presence at Durham, creating positive vibes in his team, negative ones in the opposition. Unfortunately, at Derbyshire, the two mentalities finally got mixed up and he resigned.

He returns to Australia to continue a successful career as an after-dinner entertainer. He has discovered, with his speaking partner Merv Hughes, that the more you annoy people while you`re playing, the better the material when you`ve retired.

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