The Summer Field

95 Australia between six and ten thousand. In 1968 the first day gate at the Leeds Test of 20,000 was well short of the capacity of 27,000, yet was far better than the first three at Manchester, Lord’s and Birmingham. J.M.Kilburn in the Yorkshire Post called Australia’s second innings at Headingley ‘a dreariness to watch’. As he summed up afterwards, not only were the two sides ‘less than great’, they played without urgency. A reader and spectator, Norman Threlfall of Huddersfield, complained in the Post likewise and warned: “The game is in danger.” That’s worth recalling whenever over-excited broadcasters hold up ‘the Ashes’ as one long epic, outstanding as if by the magic of England versus Australia. As Stuart Broad hinted before the 2013/14 series, journalism became more like cheer-leading marketing, seeking to convince people to pay for a TV channel or tickets. While reporting of England-Australia matches stokes up rivalry, the truth is the opposite. Real cricket lovers, as Australia-born Gubby Allen wrote in Bruce Harris’ 1936/37 tour book, ‘are international in their outlook’. By the 21 st century rich fans – accountants and their student sons, retired broadcasters – holidayed where England played in the winter. Cosmopolitan ties, team and personal, abounded between sportsmen. Glenn McGrath and Andrew Strauss married women from the other’s country, to name only two. Strauss met his during a season in Sydney; few English or Australian first-class players since 1945 have not preferred at least one summer in the opposite hemisphere to their own winter. The temptation dated at least from the 1920s, when Patsy Hendren sailed to Adelaide with his wife, and coached. Who would not take the chance to live in one of Australia’s coastal cities? What then explains Keith Miller’s undated but presumably early 1990s letter from his north Sydney suburb of Newport Beach, evidently replying with pleasure to a letter from Derek Whitehead, an English wartime RAF mate. “Whitey! What a wonderful Christmas present to hear from you. I have been going to UK for almost every year since that war and have looked in telephone books etc in the hope I may see your name.” This reunion of old comrades may have stemmed from the retired and ageing men’s quest for friends, as workmates and family died. That, however, does not explain why Miller in mid-life chose to work for the Daily Express in the British summer and, despite his fame, looked in directories for an old friend, an ordinary man. As touching was the reminiscing by fast bowler Bob Willis in Surrey’s 1985 yearbook. He made light of his match-winning eight for 43 against Australia at Leeds in 1981. While not ignoring the keen competition, he treasured ‘the chivalry of the struggle’. Newly-retired, he could appreciate that ‘the tradition of the duel’ meant more than anyone’s heartache in any series. History did mean something. Players of his, and any, era departed the stage, ‘but the stage remains,’ Willis summed up. ‘Long may it remain so.’ * So far this story has been of adult players, on the stage, no matter how gifted or in front of how big a crowd, or none. How did some men and not others reach the stage, in London or the provinces? How did you audition, and learn your lines? Were there even lines you could learn?