History of Bucks CCC

Smith liked to keep at cover point whether there was a right- or left-hander at the wicket. With the popular Cardigan Connor winning a contract with Hampshire, a top priority was to get more bite into the opening attack. Horace Perrin’s answer was to recruit Hartley Alleyne, a Bajan who had played for Worcestershire from 1980 to 1982. For a couple of seasons Perrin would take on the task of bringing his new fast bowler to the county’s matches in his own car. “And for one of the matches up north,” Tim Russell recalls, “there were transport difficulties and Hartley had to catch a plane. Horace had to leave the scoring to pick him up at the airport.” “Hartley was rapid ,” wicket-keeper Russell remembers, and Smith ruefully recalls that opposing counties took fright and did their best to prepare docile pitches to thwart him. In eight matches, spread across two seasons, Alleyne managed only 29 wickets, seven of them on his penultimate appearance, against Wiltshire at High Wycombe. The problems of availability hit hard in 1985, a summer in which, for only the second time since World War I, not a single championship match was won. The season had opened on an optimistic note with Richard Hayward elected as the new captain. Apart from his outstanding batsmanship, it was felt that his personal qualities would make for a successful time as county skipper. Moreover, he had experience of first-class captaincy with Central Districts in New Zealand. However, the season had hardly begun when a plea was received from Somerset, beset with injuries to their batsmen, seeking Hayward’s services as cover. Thus the captain could play in only four championship matches. David Smith was persuaded to help out and Dick Humphrey also took a turn as skipper. Even without Hayward there was a magnificent win at Longton in the English Estates Knockout Cup when Bucks, with centuries from Harwood and Burrow, amassed 306 for 2 in their 55 overs against Staffordshire to set up a 116-run win. However, the end of the campaign came in the next round, when a score of only 144 against Dorset proved inadequate and thereafter, in a miserably wet summer, the batting was a constant problem. John Turner had retired and moved to live in Wiltshire two years earlier. Gear had also moved on and, just when he was needed most, Milton missed all but two of the matches through injury and achieved little when he did play, while Humphrey’s form with the bat deserted him. Moreover, Harwood, who had been denied opportunities earlier, also missed matches through injury. There was a recall after an absence of two years for Keith Edwards, and Paul Dolphin, another who had been edged out, also played a few matches. Inevitably there was little consistency of selection, but one young man who made his debut was still stamping his presence on Bucks’ cricket in 2006 – the current captain, Paul Atkins. Atkins had already shown evidence of his exceptional talent with the Young Amateurs, but it was a strange twist of fate that brought him forcefully to the attention of the county selectors. Bucks were playing Oxfordshire at St Edward’s School and found another match taking place on an adjacent ground. The Southern Schools were playing the Northern Schools and a young man in the Southern team had the good fortune to make 150. “They wondered who this guy was,” Atkins now recalls. “If I hadn’t got that score that day I wouldn’t have played as early as I did.” After making another fifty against the Western Schools and going on to play for the English Schools at Lord’s, 19-year-old Atkins had already begun to make national headlines when he played his first match for Bucks on the Molins ground against Cheshire. It wasn’t the friendliest of starts. He had to open against Pakistani Test cricketer Mudassar Nazar, and he did so without the words of encouragement he might have expected from some senior players. There were modest returns in the first few matches, but 54 against Berkshire at Amersham was seen at close quarters by the former Surrey and England player Graham Roope, who was in the Berkshire team. He made sure that his former county took note of the young Atkins. 91 Success again