Open Writing

After the farce at the end of the 1967 season, the new season dawned and I knew what was expected of me. Some good performances on the field or I could be out of a job.

So who turns up in early May but world class batsman Barry Richards of South Africa, now playing for Hampshire. He stroked an effortless 130 in the first innings and a 104 not out in the second. He made batting look like a walk in the park. I swear he could have made runs with a walking stick!

Our next game was at Nottingham where a certain Garry Sobers was playing for them, finishing a very illustrious career. He continued where Barry Richards left off, and individual bowling figures suffered.

Our captain Roger Prideaux had one of his tactical brainstorms at the start of the second day's play. Gary was about 20 or 30 not out overnight and Roger thought instead of opening with the usual pace attack, he would use a cunning plan and bowl me, the spinner, first and the flight might confuse Gary.

The umpire at my end was Ron Lay, a very tall droll character from Northampton. He always used to moan, tongue in cheek, at the number of Geordies on the Northants staff and that few people knew what they were talking about with their strange accent. He would try to wind Colin and I up and we would respond in a like manner. So when he saw me taking my sweater off to bowl first he muttered "Has your skipper lost his marbles putting you on first?"

My first ball was a beautiful flighted delivery, spinning through the air to test the great man. He responded by not even having the courtesy of having a good look at my first ball as most batsman do. Gary stepped down the wicket and hit it on the half volley with the velocity of a 303 bullet. It passed my head by inches and with me blocking his view put big Ron flat on his back. The ball hit the sightscreen still going up!

Lying horizontal on the ground and white as a sheet, Ron was not amused when Colin told him to get up and signal a 6 instead of lying around. Bearing in mind that Gary had recently hit Glamorgan's Malcom Nash for six 6's in one over, my next five balls were flat and at the speed of Wasim Akrim.

Mentioning a fast bowler reminds me of the game against Sussex at Hove in 1968. We were 40 behind on the first innings and at 137 for 8, it looked all over as I approached the wicket to join David Steele. We were putting on a good stand when their skipper Tony Greig bowled me a tennis ball bouncer. I hooked and miss hit it straight to long on, where England fast bowler John Snow was fielding. Perhaps over-confident, he dropped a perfect sitter. There was much ado on the field and very strong words, which we couldn't help hearing, were spoken by their skipper to the England fast bowler.

Perhaps, to give him a chance to redeem himself, the skipper then put bristling John Snow on to bowl. The result was the fastest bowling I ever faced as "Snowy" gave David and I the 'works'. We had a torrid time, unprotected by helmets or the protection gear batsmen have in today's cricket. David made 75 and I contributed 37 as we totalled 242 to save the match. We were black and blue for weeks.