Taking The Lord’s name in vain
As things stand, the best, purest, most destructive striker of a cricket ball this country has produced since Ian Botham will never be permitted a proper run on a stage worthy of his talents.
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
 | ||
|
| ||
|
|
|
Sachin Tendulkar may be a demigod in India, but not everyone is in awe of his aura or susceptible to his charms. Try as he might, he could not persuade Alistair Brown to join the Indian Premier League. And thereby hangs a somewhat tragic tale. Out of respect to those who died in Bhopal, Auschwitz and Galle, I would normally resist the word “tragedy” in relating any story that does not involve a fatality, but Brown’s tale seems in keeping with the Shakespearian sense of the word.
In Tuesday’s edition of the Times, “The Lord”, as Brown of Surrey has long been belovedly known at The Oval, revealed that he had not only rejected Tendulkar’s entreaties on behalf of Mumbai Indians, but also those of his erstwhile county colleague, Harbhajan Singh, who phoned him shortly before pre-season training began, urging him to reconsider. After all, a three-and-a-half-year deal was on the table. “They were talking telephone numbers,” divulged a still-disbelieving Brown, whose appetite for chewing up and spitting out bowlers in double-quick time is matched only by his modesty. The main reason, he insisted, was a sense of loyalty.
“I’ve been at The Oval for 20 years and they’ve been the best 20 years of my life,” he told reporter Patrick Kidd. “The club have been incredibly good to me and, having signed a one-year contract, I didn’t feel it was quite right to turn round and say: ‘Let’s tear that up and do something different. I want to go out to India because there’s a lot of money up for grabs.’” Cynics may be disarmed to know that after the Wisden Cricketer ran a piece about Brown by Hugh Massingberd in its “My Favourite Cricketer” section last year, the subject rang the magazine asking for the author’s phone number. To convey his thanks, embarrassment and heartfelt appreciation.
The long and the short of all this is that, as things stand, the best, purest, most destructive striker of a cricket ball this country has produced since Ian Botham will never be permitted a proper run on a stage worthy of his talents. This, remember, is the man responsible for the highest-ever score in a List A fixture (268 off 160 balls for Surrey against Glamorgan in 2002). Indeed, he was also the first professional to smack two limited-overs double-tons (the other, 203 against Hampshire in 1997, came off 119 balls). In the Twenty20 Cup, wherein he has not missed any of his club’s 42 matches, only Ian Harvey has amassed more runs at a better strike-rate than his 978 at 157.74 per 100 balls. No English-born batsman has clubbed more sixes than his 41. Tendulkar, who was in the firing line at Old Trafford when Brown made his lone international century, 118 against India in 1996, knew fully well what he was after.
Yet Brown, 38, and contracted to Surrey only until the end of the summer, is smelling the end of his career having won just 16 ODI caps, none of them in a World Cup. In the Twenty20 era there could – should - still be an opportunity for this wrong to be righted, for the world to glimpse his bar-emptying gifts, but now even that remote possibility appears to have vanished. The unpalatable truth is that the IPL organisers recognised what Brown’s own national selectors did not. The tragedy, such as it is, is that what made him undid him. Had he been more orthodox, more restrained, less fearless, less sheerly, wantonly, brazenly entertaining, not to mention less English, he might have been an inspiration to millions as opposed to a strictly local hero.
Unfortunately, he fell prey to two of the average Englishman’s less attractive talents: the insatiable thirst for the instant judgment and the damning put-down. That hundred in Manchester was preceded by a shaky but productive ODI debut three days earlier, a nervy, chancy, streaky cameo of 37 that prompted one now-respected correspondent to depict him as Coco the Clown. Yet for all the misgivings about technique, surely the eye, the attitude, the timing and the power were all commodities far too precious to be willingly sacrificed by those responsible for selecting a national team not exactly known for its one-day firepower? Think again. This is England, you know.
The pigeonhole was ready. The label stuck. Future appearances would be scarce to the point of invisibility. And yes, before you carp or sneer, he could do the traditional thing too. Yet not even a first-class average in the mid-40s, with 44 centuries and a best of 295 not out, could earn him a Test. He simply wasn’t trusted not to do something daft – or, worse, make the selectors look idiotic. This fear-ridden approach still amazes and dismays another former England opener, Mark Butcher, who as his county captain is better placed than most to weigh up the pros and cons. “There are days when you despair,” he admitted to me a week or two back, “but those are far outweighed by the number of times he makes your jaw drop and wins us matches.”
Today marked the opening of the County Championship, the planet’s longest-running sporting league (official birth 1890, recorded inception 1864). Brown was at The Oval, watching rain wipe out play before lunch. How symbolic, right? After all, the launch of the IPL has cast a vast shadow over it that may take some budging.
Yet we hopeful [no, anything but hopeless] romantics persist in our possibly blinkered faith. We undaunted, ever-so-slightly potty disciples – and 2.6 million information-seeking hits were recorded on this very site last season, so there are quite a few of us – bracket county cricket with manners, understatement and the village post office: it remains one of England’s thinning thatch of cherishable customs, all of them in grave danger of extinction. One stalwart-turned-commentator recently likened the Championship to a cockroach, though this was not quite the gratuitous insult it sounds. “It’s small and ugly, and many a county chief executive considers it a pest and an impediment to financial progress,” reasoned the former Glamorgan and England opener Steve James in last weekend’s Sunday Telegraph. “But stamp on it as much as you like, it will keep coming back for more.” Many of the cockroach lovers among us see Brown as Exhibit A for the defence.
Let’s rewind to that afternoon in South London six years ago, when he filleted and battered that Glamorgan attack. If you don’t mind, I’ll rely on the piece I wrote the following week for Wisden Cricket Monthly:
“He’s a lucky player, hits some really ugly shots and in general has no ability whatsoever.” In proffering those musings for Alistair Brown’s benefit brochure, that sly card Martin Bicknell had tongue so far inside cheek it was massaging his tonsils. As became ever clearer on June 19, the day Ali B, beloved entertainer, ensured lasting respect.
“Fifties don’t do much for me,” asserts the Beckenham Biffer, who in a C&G fourth-round tie at The Oval for Surrey against Glamorgan underscored the point in indelible ink, pillaging 268 off 160 balls. Graeme Pollock’s world one-day high? Not so much erased as spat on from a great height. It may have been merely the cherry on a cake comprising the two highest totals in a limited-overs game of any consequence, but even Mrs Maraschino would have been hard pressed to produce a juicier one.
“Just phenomenal,” says Robert Croft, Glamorgan’s captain that day, whose own 56-ball 100 launched the most astonishing riposte in one-day annals. “The last innings I saw where a batsman pierced the field like that was when Brian Lara made 147 against us for Warwickshire shortly after his 375 against England. I tried to stay one step ahead of him with field placings but he kept middling everything. Even if one boundary hadn’t been so short, I don’t think any of his sixes would have been caught. It got to the stage where bowlers and fielders were almost smiling – no matter what we tried he had an answer.”
The statistics stagger. Two-thirds of the balls Brown received were either unproductive (55) or yielded singles (50); of the remainder, 42 went for four or six. Spurred by a 60-yard boundary on the gasholder side, nearly 50% of the runs (120) came in front of square on the off. Accelerating smoothly, the last 21 balls before his dismissal – in the 49th over, disdaining a not-out with typical selflessness – produced 63 runs, 26 off six consecutive deliveries. Unsurprisingly, an entire box of balls was used up.
Cricketers talk of being “in the zone”: so immersed was Brown that, like Garry Sobers, his recall of specifics, less than 48 hours after the fact, was virtually non-existent. “The only shot I remember is when I got lucky on 47 – edged to where first slip would have been, keeper dived and parried it for two.”…
…“I’m not Ian Botham,” says Brown of the icon whose record 13 sixes he narrowly failed to match, “but perhaps I am in the mould of Ian Botham. He was my hero as a kid: I accepted his noughts, just as Surrey members accept mine. Perhaps that’s why I play the way I do.”
“Since being diagnosed with advanced cancer, I have relied more than ever on this marvellous modern Master to cheer me up,” wrote Massingberd, who died a few months after penning his tribute to Brown. “I am now just living in hope of one more season of The Lord.” I’ll second that emotion.
Rob Steen is a sportswriter and senior lecturer in sports journalism at the University of Brighton