Tim Rice: Pads and gloves in the back seat on Broadway (14 May 1997)

Wednesday 14 May 1997

Pads and gloves in the back seat on Broadway

Tim Rice Talking Cricket

FEW cricket lovers would relish spending the first month of a new season (and an Australian one at that) in New York City, where ignorance of the 1997 season, indeed of any season, matches the lack of interest in the British election, i.e., total. There was not even dancing in the streets outside the innumerable Irish bars when Hansie O`Cronje stuffed Middlesex.

The only New Yorkers from whom it is just possible to elicit a grunt of enthusiasm for the great game are taxi drivers from the subcontinent when Sachin Tendulkar or Wasim Akram are mentioned. And even they don`t know where the theatres are. The cabbies that is. I`m sure Tendulkar and Wasim know every corner of this throbbing metropolis.

Having had one`s winter`s work completely disrupted by an excess of cricket on television from all corners of the globe at all hours of the day and night, I was almost looking forward to a break from Mark Nicholas and company when I arrived here four weeks ago. This proved impossible in one sense as the ubiquitous former Hampshire skipper turned up in Manhattan the other day, on his way to entertain a cricket festival in Philadelphia, excited by the rare prospect of an audience that had heard neither the butter joke nor his Phil Edmonds story (the two are not connected).

When posted here for six weeks in mid-April, I sensed a chance to make up for my close-season indolence. The show must go on and lack of cricketing distraction would help the show no end. However, I was soon in sympathy with Noel Coward`s reaction to that cornerstone of show-business philosophy. When told that the show must go on, the Master simply responded "why?".

Contact with cricket in Manhattan is primarily reading the English sports pages a day late. The New York Times hardly ever stoops to deal with cricket. Even if it did provide regular coverage, it would still struggle for my subscription, employing as it has for over a quarter of a century an apparently unending string of abusive drama critics (at least as far as my work is concerned). However, a glorious exception was made last month when Denis Compton was honoured with a major obituary notice, and glorious action photograph to match. Headed "Cricketer Who Lifted Britain`s Spirits", it was as moving as many of the tributes from England.

Not even the English papers saw fit to give any space to my own team`s confident start to 1997. At the end of 1996, Heartaches CC had played 365 matches in 24 seasons and although I have missed a few, the thought that I have spent virtually one complete year of my life amassing just over 1,500 third or fourth-class runs at well over seven an innings is a sobering one. In only my 20th or so absence from the fray, the Hearts rolled over old rivals Stonor by eight wickets. I think of the lyrics I could have written in that lost year - and am very grateful that I didn`t write them.

I shall return in June to an atmosphere at Lord`s unlike any I have known. I refer, of course, to the ban on smoking in the Long Room. For some reason, during the first 200-plus years of MCC`s existence, and for more than a century of the current pavilion`s life, smoking had not been a matter of concern to the members. Presumably, this politically correct form of censorship will be seen as a sign (and not just by women) that MCC are moving with the times. This ignores the fact that MCC have been moving ahead of the times in many fields for many years - the architectural field for starters.

The new grandstand and the media centre will enhance Lord`s position as the greatest cricket ground in the world. These projects will match and complement the Mound Stand, a brilliant construction of such universal appeal that it would slip elegantly into the skylines of grounds as far-flung as Sydney or Jaipur.

It will be sad to return to an English summer without Willie Rushton, or the immortal Denis. It will be terrific to see the Australians again and to believe that if England can only avoid being slaughtered in the first session of the first Test, they are in with a chance. If Tony Blair can win us the Eurovision Song Contest, why not the Ashes?

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