Bedside Cricket by Jenkins Christopher Martin;

Author:Jenkins, Christopher Martin;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: G2 Rights Ltd

‘I bowl,’ said Alf.

‘Fast?’

‘Very fast.’

‘Listen,’ said Hendren confidentially. ‘I’m getting on a bit, you know. Me peepers ain’t what they was and the crowd ’ere like me to get a few. I don’t mind how fast you bowl at me but don’t give me any short stuff – I just can’t see ’em any more.’

Cricket being what it is, it was inevitable that Gover should find himself bowling when Patsy Hendren waddled out to bat, warmly greeted as usual by the crowd whose great favourite he was. Should he respect the old boy’s wishes, or give him a bumper or two? County cricket is a tough game and Gover had a living to make: his competitive instincts won. His first ball was a bouncer. Hendren moved inside it with remarkably speedy reactions and hooked firmly for four. A lucky shot, thought Gover. His second bouncer went even more crisply against the fence in front of the Mound stand. The third went over that fence and amongst a cheering crowd.

It was a crestfallen Alf Gover who learned from Jack Hobbs at the end of the over that Patsy Hendren was not only one of the best hookers in the game still, but also, with his Irish blood, an incorrigible joker.

Humour is never far below the hard surface of county cricket. Sometimes it takes the form of the elaborate practical joke, such as the time when Peter Richardson ‘set up’ umpire Bill Copson to complain about the constant rumbling coming from the commentary box which was disturbing the batsmen’s concentration. The victim was E. W. Swanton, booming away to his listeners in those well-known resonant tones and explaining that umpire Copson must be waving at somebody walking behind the bowler’s arm. Colin Cowdrey, in on the joke, was summarizing in the box because of an injury and increased the commentator’s embarrassment by cupping his hand and shouting back to Copson: ‘Noise? What noise?’

‘That rumbling noise in your commentary box,’ the umpire yelled back, to general amusement.

More often the humour is the apt off-the-cuff remark, such as the order given by the Middlesex captain John Warr as they came back to the dressing-room having been asked to follow-on after a collapse. ‘Right boys,’ said Warr, ‘same order, different batting.’

The best remarks often come in adversity. The Kent players returned to the field at Canterbury after tea one day when they had been toiling in vain in the heat for many hours in ideal batting conditions. Derek Ufton noticed that, during the interval, a sleepy bee had alighted on the top of the stumps. ‘What are we going to do with this?’ he asked. ‘Put it on a good length,’ said Arthur Fagg, ‘our bowlers will never disturb it there.’

Wicket-keepers are often as quick with the tongue as they are with their hands. It was Arthur Wood of Yorkshire who said to Hedley Verity, after that great spin bowler had been savaged for 30 runs in one over by the South African Jock Cameron: ‘You’ve got him in two minds, Hedley.

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