A Bit of Cardus ...
Aditya Basrur
This comes from the reports from England v Australia, 1953, Second Test, 1st
day. The game was played at Lord's. It comes from pp. 161 to 165 of "Cardus
in the Covers" (published in 1978 by Souvenir Press).
Oh, and by the way, for those in the know, the front cover my copy is
inscribed as follows:
"To Mr Sharad Kotnis
Sportsweek
In appreciation of your service to sports"
It's then signed with, I think "Naren Mama" or something of the sort, and
dated 19.1.79. Any clues as to who Sharad Kotnis is?
I have a bit of time over the coming weeks. Depending on the response, I
have no problems transcribing this stuff for a while. It's not like I have
any Cricket coverage or anything.
Aditya [Letting the adults talk Cricket ...] Basrur
---
Lord's, Thursday.
On a wicket which nearly all day resembled a batsman's processional carpet
Australia up to tea time had little trouble in laying the foundation of a
great score. Then Hassett, not out a century, was taken with cramp and
obliged to retire to the pavilion. The way was open for Engalnd to get at
the younger and less accomplished batsmen.
The crowd, subdued since noon and not naturally jubilant, soon found
consolation in the ten minutes before six o'clock and the five minutes
after. In those fifteen minutes, in which there were ten deliveries, Wardle
took the wickets of Hole, Benaud and Miller - Miller, who, the ball before,
had pulled him prodigiously into the grand stand for six. Australia 180 for
one at tea, and now Australia 240 for five. A narrow and unhoped for escape!
When the players went into the field the morning was warm, with sunshine
imminent. The crowed packed its thousands into Lord's and the camera and
newsreel men got to work on a high scaffold that defaced the side of the
pavilion near the green bank. The time seems at hnad when a Test match will
resemble a film studio and an Engalnd eleven might conceivably be
strengthened by the inclusion of Michael Wilding and Stewart Granger.
[Aditya: who?]
UNCERTAIN START
The stand of Hassett and Morris for Australia's first wicket amounted to 65,
but it might have ended for next to nothing. In his opening over Bedser beat
Hassett on the off-side, and Hassett then touched Statham to the leg-side,
where Evans endeavoured to make a catch out of a ghost of a chance.
Statham's next ball, a short embryonic 'bumper', was crudely clumped or
'hoicked' by Hassett over his shoulder to fall safely, but unbeautifully,
well in front of long-leg. Then Morris played Bedser with the edge of his
bat; altogether the Australian innings was long-emerging from a sort of
rough sketch of competent and not confident batsmanship.
Brown came on for Bedser, the ball still 'new', and he obtained a pace from
the pitch livelier than that of Statham, to whom Hassett played back more
than once with a leisure that caused me to think of an appointment
punctually, not to say impatiently, kept. A leg glance by Hassett, when he
was 22, just eluded Compton at short leg in Bailey's first over. Bailey,
like all the other quick England bowlers, excepting Brown, was too short in
length; Australian batsmen like to play from the back foot and should be
drawn forward.
GLUED THERE
The Engalnd attack afforded no convincing reason to explain the sense of
anxiety prevailing hereabout in the Australian innings; it was an anxiety
born within the minds of Hassett and Morris. Still they both remained
adhesively at the wicket until nearly one o'clock. Hassett especially
seeming as though glued ther, so that I received the curious illusion of
watching a batsman attached to the crease by some sticky stuff; error pulled
him away and self-preservation pulled him back.
He is a deceptive little craftsman, and today the inability of the England
bowlers and fieldsmen t oget him quickly caught in the region of short-leg
suggested a magnet straining to attract a needle, placed a little too far
away. Hassett's sore wrist obviously troubled him; frequently he appeared to
use the force of one hand. He gives thought to his every movement, takes no
ball for granted, and because of his intelligence he is constantly
interesting to the student of the game. Sometimes he cuts charmingly,
telling us as he does so to take care not to miss the sparkle. He is a small
batsman in inches who enjoys a long innings, and his cricket, like his face,
is humorously inexpressive, yet obviously indicative of the essence of him.
A witty man without epigrams, so to say.
Morris, in spite of a few fine hits and conditions entirely after a
batsman's heart, did not threaten to root himself to the ground like a plant
in the sumptuous sun. He was stumped, the ball glancing from his pad, and
Evans as quick to the opportunity as one monkey chasing another.
As soon as Harvey came in, he leapt down the pitch to drive Bailey
defensively on feet so light that he might have had wings or no weight in
him at all.
ATTACK WITHOUT VARIETY
After lunch a brilliant ball from Statham flashed near Hassett's blade on
the offside; for a few overs Statham considerably improved on his form of
the morning. But the attack needed variety. Hutton did not bring on Wardle
until three o'clock; his policy was, I gathered, to keep the runs down until
a new ball became available as the gorgeous afternoon spent its heat.
Harvey, not sure of himself to begin with, checked his strokes, and once or
twice fumbled them; and Hassett, when his score stood at 55, sent a very
sharp low slashed chance to Hutton at second-slip; had it been taken, as
well it might have been and brilliantly so, Australia's second wicket -
would have fallen at 106.
After a great pull by Hassett off Bailey, Hassett was beaten by Bailey: the
cricket strangely vacillated between dour competence and uneasy insecurity.
There was no continuous appeal to the connoisseur's insistence, for the
purposes of a Test match between England and Australia, on a certain
distinction of style and technique. A lovely off-drive by Harvey came as a
welcome flavour of blue blood and aristocracy; Debrett after the Board of
Trade returns. A straight drive by Harvey, off Wardle, the bat cracking and
flashing simultaneously, thrilled the imagination like lightning and thunder
announcing a storm coming to make a sad mess of England's steady but not
over-sophisticated attack.
ALMOST BORING
The bowling made no excessive demands on the batsmen's experience or
intellect; only a good eye and an incapacity to suffer boredom was needed to
play it on the lazy comfortable turf.
Leg-spin is necessary on such an occasion as this, both as a means of
getting on with the game and as a means of quickening the interest of those
of us who do not watch cricket with our eyes always on the scoreboard.
Wright, of Kent, whether he is taking wickets or not, enlivens the
imagination; it is tedious to look at seam-bowling, actual or potential,
hour after hour; and when the ball has lost its shine, to look at any
seam-bowler is as unsatisfactory as watching a workman using a blunt tool or
a pianist practising on a 'dummy' keyboard. At half-past three Australia
were 153 for one and now, surely, Compton's spin would have had its uses and
provided some relief, practical, comical or other.
At five minutes to four, when Australia were 167 for one, Bedser attacked
again with the new ball, blessed symbol of contemporary and rotatory
efficiency in Cricket. He at once found again an edge to Hassett's bat; but
I must say that if Hassett played with the edge he apparently played with
the middle of it. Harvey reached his 50 in some two and a half hours: the
threatened storm had not broken yet, but the flicker of his occasional
beautiful hits was not the flicker of harmless summer lightning.
HARVEY GOES
At tea, the Australian position was ominous for England: 180 for one. The
attack seemed content to wait the new ball. I cannot describe Hutton's
captaincy exactly as Machiavellian, nor was it openly aggressive. He seldom
placed a close intimidating field. At last, after tea, Harvey succumbed leg
before, a mistake of timing on his part as he played a short decisive push
against Bedser.
Miler was given a no-ball from Bedser to open his score, and he drove it
convulsively and high to the straight off, where it fell amongst a
fraternity of pigeons. Then by an exquisite late-cut Hassett arrived at his
hundred, after roughly four and a half hours of cricket so nicely fashioned
that the watchmaker's eye was required to detect a loose screw or loose end
here and there. Hassett now left the field with cramp in the legs, an
affliction more likely, I should have thought, to visit the bowlers.
[Aditya: Translation: Hassett is a wimp?]
So Hole joined Miller, and the new ball and the new faces at the wicket
clearly renewed hope and vitality in Bedser, who on the whole had not bowled
many overs positively menacing, though, of course, he was perseveringly
steady. Much the same may be said of Statham.
Brown at any rate always suggested he was trying by will-power to get
wickets and not relying entirely on the mechanics of the bowler's trade. All
his overs spoke of a dogged sullen determination; but he, too, was inclined
to pitch too short a length. Once or twice he turned a leg-break by
authentic spin. He sent a slower-flighted ball to Hole, and the hit that
went rather weakly over his head emphasised what the England attack
generally wanted in the way of intelligence and sense of humour.
The trouble with Test matches these days is not only that they are
frequently dull; they are as frequently pompous. The Australian stroke play
was not so versatile or ubiquitous to challenge the England fielding; but it
was as watchful and accurate as the opportunity allowed.
Under the blue sky Lord's made a handsome picture; the crowd in many
colours, the trees at the nursery end rich and still full of foliage, the
pigeons absorbed in their own way of enjoying a perfect June afternoon,
oblivious of the crowd, oblivious of the crowd, oblivious of all humanity
and human conduct.
A LITTLE SPIN
Wardle, when he bowled again, caused a ball or two definitely to spin in no
merely decorative way. I imagine that if the weather remains hot and dry, a
leg-spinner will look for more sympathetic collaboration from this Lord's
wicket on Monday or Tuesday. England must be thankful that Ring is not the
incomparable and fabulous Grimmett.
I had no sooner written that foregoing sentence than Hole was caught at slip
from a really sharp spinner from Wardle. England were emerging from a
situation which at tea hinted of a terrible lot of wrath to come. None the
less, Australia's position at close of play, if not impregnable by any
means, is not one which England will get round without immense effort and
strain. Some truly beautiful hits by Davidson after six o'clock reminded us
that Australia's innings is not over and done with yet.
[Aditya: There's now a scorecard, which formatting won't permit me to
reproduce exactly. I'll try, though.]
AUST: 1st Inns
Hassett, retd hurt, 101
Morris, st Evans b Bedser, 30
Harvey, lbw, b Bedser, 59
Miller, b Wardle, 25
Hole, c Compton b Wardle, 13
Benaud, lbw b Wardle, 0
Davidson* 17
Ring, * 10
Extras (b 4, lb 4) 8
Total (5 wickets) 263
To bat: Langley, Lindwall, Johnston
F-O-W
1-65, 2-190, 3-225, 4-229, 5-240.
Bowling
Bedser 30 5 77 2
Statham 19 3 25 0
Brown 22 6 46 0
Bailey 16 2 55 0
Wardle 17 5 42 3
---
gistak
"Aditya Basrur" <sandaa...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:brcq7u$ums$1...@mawar.singnet.com.sg...
> Just because I felt like it.
>
> This comes from the reports from England v Australia, 1953, Second Test,
1st
> day. The game was played at Lord's. It comes from pp. 161 to 165 of
"Cardus
> in the Covers" (published in 1978 by Souvenir Press).
>
> Oh, and by the way, for those in the know, the front cover my copy is
> inscribed as follows:
>
> "To Mr Sharad Kotnis
> Sportsweek
> In appreciation of your service to sports"
>
> It's then signed with, I think "Naren Mama" or something of the sort, and
> dated 19.1.79. Any clues as to who Sharad Kotnis is?
>
> I have a bit of time over the coming weeks. Depending on the response, I
> have no problems transcribing this stuff for a while. It's not like I have
> any Cricket coverage or anything.
>
Yes, please transcribe then. Make sure there aren't any typos or spelling
errors though.
Oh and if you attempt to be witty in reply, try to come up with something
better than telling me where I'm posting from.
--
gistak
Cricketislife!
<sandaa...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>It's then signed with, I think "Naren Mama" or something of the sort, and
>dated 19.1.79. Any clues as to who Sharad Kotnis is?
<snip stuff I shall read tomorrow morning cos I am gonna sleep early
tonight and thanx in advance for posting the extract and hopefully
there would be more extracts during ur stay in Singapore, Listen to
commentary online and read n type.. PLEASEEEEEEEEE...!)
( btw the link http://www.radiogy.com/timetable.htm also carries
Ind-Aus audio comm of channel 9 , anybody who saw the house full at
channel 9 link at cricinfo can tune in here. they have skysports stuff
streamed, atleast they did it today before going to broadcast comm for
WI - SA match)
As for Sharad Kotnis,
+++
3 December
1998--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Veteran sports journalist and former treasurer of the Mumbai Cricket
Association (MCA) Sharad Kotnis died at his Bandra residence early
today in sleep following a massive heart attack. He was 70.
He is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.
Kotnis, who had covered several international cricket assignments
besides the 1982 Asian Games in Delhi and the 1988 Seoul Olympics,
continued his journalistics career and stint in MCA cricket
administration side by side for nearly two decades.
Starting his stint in sports journalism with the 'Free Press Journal'
here in the early sixties, Kotnis switched over to sports magazine
'Sportsweek' and its sister publication, the evening paper 'Mid-Day'
and was connected with these two publications for more than fifteen
years.
Kotnis, who was MCA's treasurer for four years around the time of
Reliance World Cup in 1987, moved over to 'Afternoon Despatch and
Courier', where he worked for six years as sports editor until his
retirement in 1993.
Contributed by The Management (he...@cricinfo.com)
http://www.cricket.org/link_to_database/ARCHIVE/CRICKET_NEWS/1998/DEC/KOTNIS_DIES_03DEC1998.html
---------------
CiL
++++
It was the late Sharad Kotnis who first mentioned the name of Sachin
Tendulkar in an article in the Afternoon Despatch and Courier
+++ Schoolboy Prodigy
By Gulu Ezekiel, a HT special on sachin at
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/specials/sachin/gulu1.htm
Shatadal
--->8---
Good stuff. Keep it coming.
Michael Creevey
> resemble a film studio and an Engalnd eleven might conceivably be
> strengthened by the inclusion of Michael Wilding and Stewart Granger.
>
> [Aditya: who?]
Both English actors of the interwar period. You haven't heard of Stewart
Granger (I think he was Scaramouche, and Paganini, amongst other things-
look at uk.imdb.com if you are really interested in anything cinematic)