Classic After-Dinner Sports Tales. Jonathan Rice

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СКАЧАТЬ 1986, he scored almost 10,000 runs, including 9 centuries, and took 324 wickets with his off-breaks. Subsequently a leading cricket administrator.

      Middlesex v Sussex at Hove in 1980 – I toss up with Mike Brearley and win the toss. Walking back to the pavilion to convey this news to the team, I was addressed by a lady at the boundary edge.

      ‘Mr. Barclay,’ she said. ‘Have you won the toss?’

      ‘Yes,’ I replied proudly.

      ‘And are you going to bat?’

      ‘Yes,’ I said, even more proudly.

      ‘And are you opening the batting?’

      ‘Yes,’ I said, puffing out my chest.

      ‘In that case,’ said the lady, ‘I’ll go into Hove to do my Sainsbury’s shop before lunch.’

      EDDIE BARLOW

       One of the all-time great South African cricketers, Eddie Barlow played 30 times for his country before South Africa’s exclusion in 1970. He scored 2,516 runs at an average of 45.74, and took 40 wickets. He subsequently played for Derbyshire with distinction.

      When I began my cricketing career, it started, like most boys, in my parents’ back garden. My brother Norman and I were limited by space and had to share our ground with Dad’s vegetable garden. He was very proud of his achievements and had grown some wonderful cauliflowers. Unfortunately they were right in the firing line of Norman’s cover drives and sure enough one of these knocked a top completely off, quickly followed by another one. With great presence of mind we sat the tops back on their stalks and carried on playing. A few days later we spotted Dad inspecting his handiwork, seeing his face turn from pleasure to anger. Now we were going to catch it. As he came inside we heard him say to Mum, ‘Those wretched cutworms have ruined my caulies.’ Phew! Saved by the worms.

      Whiling away the time in Australia we asked each other how we had got our names. Mine, Barlow, I said came about because a Mr Bar who owned a pub married a Miss Low who was not very tall. Peter Carlstein, we said, was related to the Swedish King Carl Gustav, hence the Carl, and his ancestor had married a princess of Stein. Johnny Waite and I decided to carry the game a little further and on the day of the first Test he received a telegram, common in those days, which said ‘Good luck Peter from Gus’.

      ‘Who the hell is Gus?’ asked Peter. ‘Well, obviously it is the King of Sweden,’ we said, and some good-natured ribbing ensued. The word must have got out for when he walked out to the crease and took guard, Wally Grout greeted him with the words. ‘Good morning Your Royal Highness,’ He was out first ball to Richie Benaud’s famous flipper.

      ALEC BEDSER

       Probably the greatest fast-medium bowler ever to have played for England, Sir Alec Bedser CBE carried the England bowling attack in the years immediately after World War II. By the time he retired, he had taken 236 Test wickets – a record at the time, including 39 in the Ashes-winning series of 1953.

      In 1946, Surrey CCC played a match in aid of the club’s Centenary Appeal Fund, against an Old England Eleven. Some 18,000 spectators came. The Old England side comprised Sutcliffe, Sandham, Hendren, Woolley, Jardine, Tate and M.J.C. Allom among others. The captain was Percy Fender. Surrey fielded their full county side but the match was obviously played in a light-hearted way.

      Frank Woolley, the great Kent and England batsman, made a good score, and during his innings, my brother Eric and I decided to have a bit of fun. Frank Woolley had not met us, and did not know we were twins. Eric bowled slow off-spinners and I bowled fast-medium. We decided to bowl one over between us. I bowled the first three balls to Frank Woolley, and then we switched over in a way that nobody noticed, so that Eric bowled the last three balls. At the end of the over, Frank Woolley turned to our wicket-keeper and said, ‘That young man has a wonderful change of pace.’ Everybody had a good laugh, including Frank, when we explained the trick to him.

      DEREK BELL

       Racing driver who competed at Formula 3, Formula 2 and Formula 1 before going on to become one of the leading sports car drivers of his generation. He won two World Sportscar titles (in 1985 and 1986), five victories in the Le Mans 24 Hours and three in Daytona 24 Hours, between 1975 and 1987.

      The car that didn’t make it.

      A well-respected racing driver was invited by the designer to test a particularly poor-handling racing car. After a few laps at a modest pace at Silverstone, the driver pulled into the pits, climbed out of the car, removed his helmet, looked at the designer and, with his broad Aussie accent, said, ‘John, you are a bloody genius!’

      John was overcome with excitement that this star driver thought his car so good!

      ‘Really Frank?’ the designer said.

      ‘Yes John, you have two cars here, one at the front and one at the back’…and he strolled off.

      RICHIE BENAUD

       Not only one of the great leg-spinners and captains in Australia’s cricket history, a man who retired after taking 248 wickets and scoring 2,201 runs in his 63 Tests, but also one of the legendary cricket commentators, whose laconic and precise style is often imitated but rarely matched.

      Some cricket spectators have long memories. A few are brilliant with their repartee and, when they marry that with a good memory, the effect can be devastating.

      Forty-nine years ago, I toured the West Indies and played in all five Tests. This had come at the end of a rather harrowing experience in Australia against Frank Tyson and Brian Statham, who were the earth-shattering fast bowlers in the MCC team captained by the late Sir Leonard Hutton.

      In the Caribbean, led by Ian Johnson, Australia won the First Test by nine wickets, drew the Second and won the Third in Georgetown by eight wickets in only four days. When we played the Fourth, in Barbados, we made 668 and had West Indies in all kinds of trouble at 147/6 on the third evening. It looked a ‘lay down misère’.

      Assume nothing in this game.

      The next day, the overnight not-out batsmen, Denis Atkinson (219) and Clairemonte Depeiza (122), batted throughout the five hours’ play, Atkinson with some lovely strokes and Depeiza with his nose and his bat touching the pitch. Nothing got past, not even the ones which kept low. Clairemonte and the horizontal defensive stroke were inseparable that day.

      The next morning I bowled to Depeiza, he lifted his head, balanced on one leg, essayed a flamboyant back-foot drive and the ball ran straight along the ground and bowled him.

      In 1991, when I was working on television for Channel Nine in the Caribbean, I was in Barbados and just about to host the ‘intro’ to the one-day game eventually won by the Australians to give them that Limited-Overs series. No one knew at that time Australia were about to win. The crowd was in high good humour. They knew they were in for an exciting game, and some were even celebrating and toasting their heroes pre-match. Loudly!

      At least one of them also had his cricket history in good shape.

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