The year of the helmet

Press, 20 September 1978, Page 18

The year of the helmet

By

MICHAEL KENNEDY

in the “Daily Telegraph”

Summer’s lease, which has had an even shorter date, has expired in its chief particular: the scoreboards are blank, the gatemen have had their picnic, and the voice of the football supporter is heard in the land (not, that it is eter silent). The first-class cricket season is over.

Last year, at the same period of mourning, 1 wrote here some partisan and random thoughts and received some pleasant and provocative letters in response. So here goes once again, after a summer, if that is the word, in which too many precious hours have been spent watching umpires inspect the wicket. Something ought to be done to help grounds — Headingley, as a dire example — to afford decent mopping-up equipment and wicket covers. Many hours of cricket have been needlessly lost simply through lack of tarpaulin. Even more contentious a climatic issue is “bad light,” which more than anything else brings umpires into disrepute. Just the sight of the name H. Bird, the television umpire, on a scorecard is enough to make

one peer round the sky on the sunniest day in fearful search of a black cloud, while praying that he does not notice any. I fear that a light-meter will merely add to the stress from which he says he suffers. Most important of all, club officials should make it their first concern, when play is suspended, to tell the crowd (who hate paid to go in) what is happening. Even Mr

barracked less if something of what goes in his conclave was revealed to the public less grudgingly. If we gave picturesque names to our years as the Chinese so imaginatively do, then this would have been the Year of the Helmet. Helmets, are aesthetically unpleasing, which is reason enough to outlaw them, and they must restrict vision, as Brearley found. They are also associated with Packer. They should certainly be banned from the fielding side (but will not be, I prophesy). It was distressing to see Botham of all people wearing one while England were fielding at Nottingham. Batsmen are occasionally hurt by bumpers, but in most cases this is through incompetence. An accomplished batsman, as Boycott showed at Nottingham, knows how to play bumpers — avoid them or hook them. That name Packer again. Most cricket watchers to whom I talk have ambivalent views. Fortunate those, like the Warwick-

“Dicky” Bird might be shire team, who feel able to be completely singlemined in their “anti” attitude.

Perhaps they don't like helmet salesmen. I see their point, yet I cannot believe poor Somerset would willingly see the back of Viv Richards, and I have had, yet again, hours of pleasure from the great Clive Lloyd, as honorary a Lancastrian as Barbirolli was. As for Kent...

Perhaps nothing should be done about players who were established in county sides by 1977, but it should be made clear to post-1977 talent which absconds to Packer that the choice is Packer or Test and County. Packer has done England a good turn, no doubt about that. Would Botham and Gower be in the team

if Greig and Woolmer were still around? Bob Taylor ought to have displaced Knott as wicketkeeper three seasons ago. But Pakistan were a shambles without Zaheer, Imran and Asif, and were duly slaughtered.

The other name which cannot escape mention when two or three cricketers are gathered together is that of Boycott (the Yorkshire right-hand opening batsman, as Jim Laker would say).

No-one is ambivalent about him. His self-cen-tred, navel-contemplating style of batting, not at all attractive to watch, combined with his strange attitude to playing for England, makes it difficult for those not born in the faith to join in the worship, in spite of his hm-scoring. His cause is not helped by some of his supporters, the most aggressive and blinkered pressure group around, with methods reminiscent of an opera claque. How they gloated over Brearley’s mis-< fortunes.

Yet, while pot wishing to give them a point, I think Brearley may count himself lucky that he does not play for ■ a county north of Watford or he may not have received so many chances to redeem himself. Remember Frank Hayes? The Radio 3 commentators have had a good season, though why the Gillette final cannot

be all-day ball-by-ball only some 8.8. C. mandarin knows. Trueman’s dog William made his first broadcast — a rather querulous bark — and Brian Johnston imitated a macaw from Bourton-on-the-Water and nearly got a pigeon to broadcast. Now that they have featured in a Sunday supplement they move almost beyond criticism, . besides boosting the sale of Turkish Delight. But the worrying tendency of the “chat show” element to take precedence over the cricket at all costs, except when John Arlott is concerned, was exemplified at Nottingham. Trevor Bailey started to sum up Boycott’s innings, but Johnston insisted that he continue to give details of a forthcoming club tour of Barbados. Mind you, Bailey’s views on Boycott were predictable, as Johnston must have known. He is pro-B. to the eyebrows, nd doubt recognising a fel-low-martyr in the cause of timeless batting. When the chat is not trivial though, it is the best thing on radio. Trueman is top value. His account of his Yorkshire apprenticeship and his tribute to Maurice Leyland

were stuff for the archives; and he must have shaken every egalitarian in the land when he admitted to a preference for playing under an amateur captain “who was worth his place” — and he gave cogent reasons. Fred is not so fiery these days.

Now we are for the dark, but the tests in Australia will take the sting out of winter, making even 6 a.m. listening a delight. This is the series which will show how good England really is. Perhaps television will do more than just toss us a scrap of film of someone being bowled, tacked on to the end of the news — after all, if World Cup football were being played out there, every match would be shown and analysed in full, probably more than once, wouldn’t it?