Lives in Cricket No 40 - Edwin Smith

80 Chapter Fourteen Summer of drama In 1965 ‘Swinging London’ got into full spate and for Derbyshire’s seam bowlers the ball swung just as much, but a wretchedly wet summer and the controversy over Harold Rhodes made the cricket almost an afterthought. A campaign to stamp out throwing from the game had gathered pace after the MCC tour of Australia in 1958-59, when the actions of several Australian bowlers had come under scrutiny. Seven umpires had found fault in the action of the South African, Geoff Griffin, on their 1960 tour of England, but while he bowled 29 overs without complaint against Derbyshire on that tour, umpire Paul Gibb no-balled Rhodes three times on the first evening and a further three times on the second day. Gibb felt that there was something different about Rhodes’ action and, as the law was at that time, he was entitled to call him. Those six no-balls effectively ruled the bowler out of Test cricket. The English authorities, keen to lead on stamping out throwing elsewhere, had to be seen to be putting their own house in order and Harold Rhodes effectively became their sacrificial lamb. The Derbyshire players, like Rhodes, became accustomed to repeated filming and the studying of the bowler’s action from all angles. At one stage he had been filmed wearing a splint on his elbow and changed to a more slinging action with the arm behind his back, a similar style to that used by Les Jackson. While the cloud still hung over the player, his struggle for form, especially in 1964, meant that no one complained. Rhodes himself admitted having a ‘whippy’ wrist action, but there was nothing illegal in that. Fred Trueman wrote the foreword for Rhodes’ later autobiography and contrasted the bowler’s classic sideways-on action with that of acknowledged ‘chuckers’, where the leading foot generally splayed out towards cover and gulley and not down the pitch in the orthodox manner. Everything changed in 1965. It was a bowler’s summer and in Harold Rhodes and Brian Jackson, Derbyshire had the two most successful bowlers in the country. By the end of the season, Rhodes had taken 119 Championship wickets at 11; Jackson 120 at just over 12. Logic dictated that while a call to international cricket was unlikely for the latter at 33, at 29 Rhodes was perhaps in his physical prime. There were suggestions of a recall in the media, as his early season form was excellent. A winter tour to Australia would need a strong pace attack and on form there was no one better than Harold Rhodes.