Games Of Cricket From My Memory

... McKenzie comes running in and bowls to Dexter and Dexter gets in behind it and pushes it into the covers and Shehan pounces on it and prevents any chance of a run.

There are three slips and a gully, cover, extra-cover, mid on and a deep fine leg and a short square leg.

McKenzie, right arm fast, over the wicket, comes in and bowls to Dexter, and Dexter lets it go by outside the off stump to be taken by Grout. Shehan in the covers has been outstanding this morning. Nothing can get past him.

Ian Redpath, Bill Lawry, and Bob Simpson are at first, second and third slips respectively.

There's Ashley Mallet loosening up at deep fine leg. Simpson might bring him on soon.

In comes McKenzie from the tennis court end, here he comes running in and bowls to Dexter, and he turns him away on the on side and they cross over for a single. As Mallet throws the ball back to Grout, Barrington takes his guard to face McKenzie ...

... this is Radio Australia transmitting the overseas service of the ABC bringing you a ball by ball description of the first test match England versus Australia being played in Melbourne. Now back to the game ...

... Thank you, and as we come back to the game it's Hawke, walking back to the top of his run up, polishing the ball on his trousers. There he comes, running in.

Hawke bowls to Dexter and Dexter chops down on it, backward of square, really fine, nice shot. Grout dives to the right but fails to reach it. Deep third man cuts it off just a couple of meters before the boundary. The batsmen cross over for a single ...

Well that was from memory. This is not exactly what happened, but close enough. Not really close, but somewhere there! It was really great when I first discovered that there were commentaries describing the test matches.

It was only my second or third year at school, and the kids used to bring newspaper cuttings of pictures of these great cricketers.

Some of them even bring along magazines which contain score cards of old matches. Having watched a few school cricket matches, and with this kind of exposure, I got interested.

I cannot say exactly how I got about tuning in to commentaries or whether I accidentally arrived at a station which was transmitting commentaries. But who cares? The whole thing was very thrilling.

The main interest was around the test matches played between England and Australia. The main players were the opening bowlers McKenzie and Hawke. I don't remember who opened the bowling for England at that time, was it Trueman?

The English batsmen who opened the batting were Dexter and Barrington.

My interest in the game soared when I discovered that other countries too had test teams. The introduction to the West Indies team came when Sobers was captaining. Kanhai was the opening batsman.

Their bowling was opened by Hall and Griffith. Sobers bowling medium pace was first change. Then the master spinner Gibbs was brought on.

I recall having read in the sports magazines of that time about the South African test cricket team.

The openers had been Barry Richards and Eddie Barlow, followed by Ali Bacher, Mike Proctor, Peter Pollock ... well!

My memory is focused on scorecards in Wisdens encyclopedia.

South Africa had been dominating the cricketing scene at one time, and before their temporary departure from the game thay are supposed to have beaten Australia 5 - 0 in a test series. I do not have access to details of this series.

However, what I remember from viewing old scorecards is that they always indicated that there were many South African batsmen who scored double centuries in test matches.

In some test matches many South African batsmen used to retire just after scoring a century. So the score board often reads something like South Africa 566 for 2 wickets declared, when actually six batsmen have batted and scored runs.

India was at that time led by the Nawab of Pataudi, and the commentator used to refer to him as Pataudi, although his real name was Manzur Khan.

The other players in the team were the famous spinners B S Chandrasekhar and E Prasanna. The two opening batsmen were Eknath Solkar and S Abid Ali. Incidentally these two also opened the bowling for the Indian test side.

Some of the other names I remember were Ajith Wadekar, a very elegant batsman, S. Madanlal, a superb seam bowler and Brigesh Patel, another elegant batsman.

Of course the greats like Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev came on much later.

The Pakistani cricket team was captained by Inthikhab Alam. I remember the opening bowlers who were Asif Masood and Safraz Nawaz. Inthikhab Alam was a spin bowler and behind the stumps was Wasim Bari.

The other great Pakistani players like Javed Miandad and Imran Khan came into the scene much later.

A test batsmen who fails on his very first outing is rather disappointing. I refer to one such incident when a batsman by the name of Ken Eastwood opened for Australia.

Eastwood was out for a duck in the first innings and was dismissed for just five runs in the second. "A very disappointed Eastwood walks back to the pavilion." That's exactly what the commentator said. I can assure you that Eastwood was not the only one who was disappointed.

My memory goes back to the famous commentator Cristopher Martin Jenkins talking about Barry Richards. Jenkins spoke of a game in which the pitch was so horrible that all the batsmen were struggling to stay at the crease.

On this wicket and in the same game, Barry Richards is supposed to have scored an effortless double century. So he says, Richards is undoubtedly the world's best. Unfortunately South Africa was not in the scene at that time.

McKenzie left the scene, making way for DK Lillee. To partner Lillee came Jeff Thomson. Lillee and Thomson terrorised the English batsmen, with their raw pace that a solution seemed far away.

Colin Cowdrey was brought back into the English team at the age of 40, to "sort out" the attack of Lillee and Thompson.

England had some great fast bowlers too, and their pace attack during that period consisted of Snow, Willis and Ward. Ward was the quickest of the lot. Then came along Peter Lever.

Another fast bowler by the name of Jeff Arnold appeared just after Snow's departure. Arnold was famed for his accurate swing bowling.

England soon put together a pretty good outfit with the likes of Geoff Boycott, Alan Knott, and of course the greats like Ian Botham to add power to the side.

Geoff Boycott, England's opening batsman of course deserves a special mention. That's because getting him out was a task that was pronounced impossible by many of the great bowlers of almost every test playing nation.

Boycott was technically perfect and journalists were of the opinion that his concern was directed more towards staying at the crease than accumulating runs.Of course it is a fact that if you stay at the crease runs will come your way.

Many humorous stories were created involving Geoff Boycott just to highlight these qualities of him. One of these stories I read was that Boycott kept a calculator in his pocket and kept working out his average after every single run that he scored! My hats off to him as I too hail him as one of yerterday's greatest players.

The West Indian batsmen were excellent players of fast bowling.

My memory goes to the second test match played against Australia in Perth in 1974. It was a 5-match series.

Australia batted first, and managed to score over 200 runs against the West Indian pace attack of Michael Holding and Andy Roberts.

Michael Holding was new and was bowling at blistering pace with Andy Roberts supporting him at the other end.

Michael Holding grabbed two wickets in succession, putting himself on line for a hat trick.

Fittingly the commentator was none other than the brilliant West Indian commentator Tony Cozier. Cozier's style was great, with Aussie wickets falling, TC was jubilant.

When Holding got the second of the two wickets which brought him to a "on-a-hattrick" status, Tony Cozier literally screamed!

It went like this ... "Holding running in from the far end ... and bowls to Chapel ... ANDHE'SBOWLEDHIMYORKEDLEGSTUMP!" (and he's bowled him, yorked him, leg stump! LOL!)

The Aussies had lost about six wickets when I had to leave home to to attend lessons.

When I got back, which I did faster then I usually do, I switched on the radio and tuned in to Radio Australia.

The West Indies were batting which meant the Aussies were all out.

When the commentator said "Lillee bowls to Julian," I thought the West Indies had collapsed within a very short period of time, as Julian who is a pace bowler usually bats at number seven.

Roy Fredericks the regular opening batsman for the Windies was still there, and this is the way it went ... "Thompson bowls to Fredericks, and Fredricks cracks him through point, the ball crashes into the boundary for four." ... Thompson to Fredericks, and he flicks him through mid wicket, four more" ... "Thompson bowls, ... short, and Fredericks hooks ... that's four!"

Only when it was announced that the West Indies were none for one hundred and ten, that I realized that Bernard Julian had opened the batting with Roy Fredericks.

And then it went on ... "Lillee bowls to Frederics, and he drives, straight past the bowler ... four!" "Lillee to Fredericks, and he back cuts ... four!" "Lillee bowls once more ... short ... and he hooks ... it's in the air ... over mid wicket ... one bounce and into the boundary."

But Fredericks went on an on and on and on ... and he went on to hammer 169 runs in this game. Julian scored just 25 runs, and Clive Lloyd too scored a century. Lloyd got 147 runs I recall.

In this test the Windies beat Australia by an innings, and the sports page of the local newspapers carried the heading which was something like ...

"West Indian Batsmen Reduce Much Feared Aussie Pace Attack To Baby Class."

That was a game I remember very well indeed. The West Indies were supreme at that time. However ... that was the only test that they won in that series! Australia won the series four one!

Although there is cable television these days which brings you very clear pictures of the action and in real true color as well, I still would prefer to listen to these games being described on the radio by the great commentators like Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Brian Johnston, Tony Cozier and the rest of yesterday's cricket commentators.

... concluded

Just for the sake of interest, I remembered the West Indian and Aussie teams that took part in the very first world cup 50-over matches.

I believe the West Indies won, defeating Australia in the finals. From memory here are the teams ...

• Turner
• McKosker
• Ian Chapel
• Greg Chapel
• Walters
• Edwards
• Marsh
• Gilmour
• Thomson
• Lillee
• Walker

• Fredericks
• Greenidge
• Richards
• Rowe
• Kallicharran
• LLoyd
• Murray
• Julian
• Boyce
• Holding
• Roberts

The very first World Cup limited overs cricket series was held in the year 1975. Six test playing countries participated. They were, England, Australia, West Indies, India, Pakistan, and New Zealand. Sri Lanka and East Africa too participated although they were not test playing countries.

The tournament was held in England and each match was of sixty overs duration. Sponsored by Prudential Assurance Company, the first ever World Cup was officially called the Prudential Cup.

The finals was between the West Indies and Australia. The West Indies, led by Clive Lloyd started as favorites and fittingly lifted the first ever World Cup beating Australia by 17 runs. In this game Lloyd scored 102 runs in just 85 deliveries, a truly great achievement indeed.

Read more about the first ever World Cup series here.