Tim Rice: Novel way of looking at cricket can be sheer murder (9 Sep 1998)

9 September 1998

Novel way of looking at cricket can be sheer murder

By Tim Rice

'MAY I say that the murderer, and I am convinced there is one, is a cricketer, and to be precise, a cricketer who is a member of one of the two sides playing in the present Test match - here at Lord's."

On the face of it, the above statement highlights the kind of scandal that English cricket could well do without. Having a murderer within the squad is not conducive to team spirit and could well lead to a charge of bringing the game into disrepute. However, no one need be concerned that the England side recently chosen for Ashes duty will be reduced by one, although if the killer turned out to be a batsman this could be good news for Graeme Hick.

Fortunately, these words are taken from a work of fiction, Testkill, a novel written by Ted Dexter and Clifford Makins back in 1976.

Testkill is good fun, but like nearly all sporting fiction it struggles to overcome the fact that sporting fiction can never be as gripping as sporting fact. It is hard to get as worked up over the exploits of dashing England No 3 D F Q Byron (a leading player in Testkill) as it was about the real-life exploits of dashing England No 3 E R Dexter. I shall not reveal which cricketer in Dexter's and Makins's oeuvre did the dirty deed (or deeds) but the book certainly makes one even more suspicious of chaps with three initials.

Ted Dexter was not the first extremely gifted batsman to write a novel. Back in 1927, Jack Hobbs produced "a romance of the cricket field" entitled The Test Match Surprise. Thus J B Hobbs, in the year after he surpassed W G Grace's great record of 126 centuries, found himself bracketed with Sir Walter Scott, H G Wells, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens and Jules Verne (who never scored one century between them) as an author published by The Readers Library, which "intended to bring the best-known novels of the world within the reach of millions".

Hobbs's novel, delightful but slight, does not seem to have had the legs of some of his Readers Library pals' efforts, as The Test Match Surprise, a tale of the love affair between a famous Oxford and England cricketer, heir to a baronetcy, and the daughter of an Australian millionaire, is impossible to find today. Geoffrey Herrington, Hobbs's hero, like D F Q Byron, is just not as fascinating as his creator.

There is, however, one novel in which cricket plays a major part that entranced me as a child and which I still enjoy re-reading today, namely Pip by Ian Hay, published in 1912. Hay wrote many light novels just before the First World War, many with a sporting theme, all successful, and all with a damn fine chap as the leading character. In one book, David And Destiny, the hero is David Gow, sad to say not a graceful left-handed batsman but a piano-playing genius (using both hands).

Pip is the story of Philip Wilmot, from infant to man, from nursery school to engagement to Elsie after a thrilling game of golf with marriage at stake. On the way Pip discovers he is a slow left-arm bowler of outstanding ability, taking seven wickets (including the hat-trick) without conceding a run in a vital schoolboy match, eventually playing for England, although his Test career is not part of the story. Thoroughly recommended for all who relish a charming, amusing, whimsical portrait of those doomed, innocent years before the carnage.

AT THE end of every season it is always tempting to forecast who Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year will be. At the risk of inspiring the Almanack's editor, Matthew Engel, to spite prophets by choosing four England spinners and Javed Aktar, it does seem to me that this year there are just six candidates for five places (remember, no one can be selected twice). Jonty Rhodes and Muttiah Muralitharan are dead certs, Hansie Cronje and Mark Butcher almost as bankable, with Nasser Hussain and Darren Gough the only other realistic English candidates. Er, then of course there is Arjuna Ranatunga, John Crawley and even Andrew Caddick . . . .

My final hope for this season is that MCC will finally take the decision to admit women. It must be tempting for many members to vote again for the status quo when they read some of the venomous and witless comments about themselves and their club. Sometimes one wonders on which side more prejudice lies; but I am confident the membership will ignore gratuitous insults and by giving all cricket lovers the chance to be part of MCC, they will ensure that the club are better able to continue their vital work for cricket and membership. It all comes down to good manners, really. In this day and age it is simply discourteous to exclude women cricket-lovers.

This MCC are not; and as one member put it so tellingly at a recent meeting, if it is a gentlemen's club then of course we should all vote against women, but if it is a cricket club, then we should all vote in favour. The club are the MCC, not the MGC.

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