The Summer Field

140 As so often, Australians set an example that Englishmen envied. Before the Trent Bridge Test in June 1964 the Nottingham Evening Post described the Australians’ ‘rigorous 90-minute work-out’ instead of play on a practice pitch, too soft after recent rain. The tourists ‘chased ground shots, threw in to the wicketkeeper and sharpened up on close and out-field catching’. English fielders so often disappointed because they would not take fielding seriously. After the Burton-on-Trent club declined in 1858 – it played only two matches and lost both – the local press judged that ‘our present cricketers will not be content to do one thing at a time but fit their pipes and cigars in their mouths whilst engaged in the field which all will allow is a preventive to successful skill and in public performance is not respectful to the spectators who do them the honour to attend to witness their matches’. Fielders lacked, even in county matches, a regular surface that would let them field with confidence. When Derbyshire visited Yorkshire at Hunslet in August 1874, the Derby Mercury described the wicket as ‘tolerably good’, ‘but the outfield was rough and anything but safe for the fielders’. The Victorians had reason to worry. An injury could put a man off fielding as surely as batting. In June 1914, the not quite 66-year-old W.G.Grace was hit above the eye when fielding at point for Eltham against Goldsmiths College, ‘a nasty blow by a ball that got up’. You never knew what long grass might hide: a hole you might trip in, or a cow pat that spattered your trousers and smelled for the rest of the day. In the two world wars, men and horses had better work than looking after grounds. In July 1945, a Flight Lieutenant G.M.Bruce at RAF Escrick near York agreed with the Yorkshire Gentlemen’s club that air force gardeners would keep the club’s nearby ground mown, ‘providing we can obtain the loan of your mower’. Earlier that month, Claude Thompson for the Fielding and Wicketkeeping Surrey and England wicketkeeper Herbert Strudwick.