LITMIR.BIZ

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I have studied the fields that were set. It was quite an extraordinary way that Australia played, and you are talking about uncovered pitches in those days, obviously.

      Without doubt England exploited the dampness superbly, yet it is extraordinary that one chap in any era could get 19 wickets. Tony Lock, the left-arm spinner, would have been apoplectic that he ended up with just one in those conditions. They were a fine spin double act Laker and Lock even if they weren’t necessarily bosom buddies away from cricket.

      To see how Laker tried to get his wickets was quite an eye-opener. Alan Oakman was stood like a predator at leg slip, a position which has really gone out of the modern game, and the spin that Laker got combined with the accuracy made it a really attacking position from which to snare batsmen.

      I came to know Jim because he was a commentator on the BBC’s television coverage of the Sunday League alongside Peter Walker. Frank Bough was also around at that time, and they were a nice little commentary team. Jim also happened to be a really good friend of Jack Simmons. They were both off-spinners of course and Jack was one of the most gregarious fellows you could meet. The pair of them used to talk about the art of off-spin and other things for hours.

      But it was actually Ray Illingworth, of the players I played with and against, that reminded me of most of Jim in that when he bowled he stood nice and tall in delivery. Accuracy was your main ally in the days of uncovered wickets because if you kept things tight the natural variation in a pitch would sometimes reward you by allowing the ball to spit this way or that.

      I never tire of watching the cine reel of that 1956 performance at Old Trafford. It looks pretty clear to me that the Australians had no real idea of how to play that type of gripping off-spin where the ball does something off the pitch, off a decent length.

      Fielders were stood all around, circling for their chance of an inside edge or a false defensive shot. One of the things that makes me chuckle from watching that back, though, is that a wicket did not encourage French kisses or gropes of each other’s backsides; it was just a simple pat on the back or a nod of approval with your head. Sometimes if players got really carried away they might give each other a handshake.

      But there was certainly no going down on your hands and knees kissing the turf, beating the badge on your chest or tonguing short-leg’s helmet. There were no advertising logos to point towards the cameras either. The only name on any of your clothing might have been the nametag sewn into your shirt by your wife or mother. The most extravagant Laker seemed to get was to smile, and hitch up his pants in that 1950s fashion, as if to say he was ready for business.

      It was really peculiar to England that the regulations meant you would play on uncovered pitches. Teams would come over and find it extremely difficult whereas an English player would develop a technique on these uncovered surfaces. Through the middle of the 20th century there was a fashion for fast-medium bowlers who were deadly accurate and hit the seam. Now, as a batsman that meant you had to play at most deliveries and if you weren’t used to it jagging this way and that you were in danger of being dismissed.

      But it all came about from England losing the first Test at Lord’s, a match that the Australian fast bowler Keith Miller dominated. England’s response was telling. Out went their own attack spearhead Frank Tyson, as attention turned to spin. With Lock and Laker together it was an obvious tactic. Some of the Australian party believed it was a tactic that was tantamount to cheating. But I don’t see how preparing pitches to suit your own purpose can be called that. With the bilateral nature of Test cricket it seems eminently sensible to make use of any home advantage going.

      We have reflected on Bradman’s freakish numbers but two Laker statistics from ’56 will stand the test of time, I am sure. To claim 19 wickets in one game, and 46 in an Ashes series is astonishing. It is fair to say that numerically at least Laker contributed more than any other Englishman to victory over Australia. Yet, in losing down under two-and-a-half years later, the urn was relinquished once more and stayed in the land of the didgeridoo for the entire 1960s.

      It might have been different, according to good old Fiery Fred. I’ll let two classic pieces of sledgehammer wit tell the story. England led the 1962–63 series, you see, courtesy of Trueman’s eight wickets at the MCG. But two crucial slip catches went down. The first, by the Rev David Shepherd, was greeted by Trueman exclaiming: ‘Kid yourself it’s a Sunday, Rev, and put your hands together.’ The next, by Colin Cowdrey, came with an apology to the bowler: ‘Sorry, Fred, I should have kept my legs together.’ To which, the great man replied: ‘No, but your mother should have.’

      Under Ted Dexter’s captaincy, England drew more than Rolf Harris at his marker-pen doodling best, but in 1964 their most significant result was a defeat at Headingley that put Australia ahead. Disagreement on the best tactical policy in the field led to Australia’s Peter Burge swashbuckling his team home with a big hundred.

      The match I remember most clearly, though, is the fourth Test at Old Trafford that followed. Australia captain Bobby Simpson scored his maiden Test hundred, a whopping 311 to be exact, and the stand-out aspect from an England perspective was the fact that they opted to leave Trueman out on a featherbed, despite trailing with two matches remaining. It was a result of the Dexter–Trueman bust-up in Leeds, and meant they gave debuts to Fred Rumsey and Tom Cartwright.

      As Simpson just batted and batted it was bleedingly obvious that they had come up with the wrong team. I guess the Simpson innings stuck in my mind both because it was at Old Trafford and also because he was the professional at my club Accrington.

      What a fabulous cricketer Simpson was: a more than handy leg-spinner and one of the best slip catchers not just in Ashes tussles but that the world has ever seen. However, his main forte was as an opening batsman.

      Later in life he became such an influence as a coach. He followed me in the role at Lancashire although he didn’t stick around very long. He had a lengthy association with the area, from the time that he played in the leagues and coached us youngsters, and we had exchanged views on a few things when he had been over in the past as coach of Australia. It was an unbelievable job he did from 1986 to 1996. When he took over, Australia had not won a Test series for three years, and by the time he had finished they were celebrating four consecutive Ashes victories and a place in the final of the 1996 World Cup.

      It was during the 1991 season that he got in touch to inquire about another Australian who also played for our dear Accrington. One Shane Warne.

      ‘How’s young Warne going?’ he asked.

      ‘He’s not doing great, if I’m honest,’ I told him.

      ‘I thought he must be pissin’ ’em out,’ Bob said.

      ‘Well, no he’s not.’

      ‘Right, get him to ring me. I’ll tell him where to bowl.’

      These days it is a privilege to sit in a commentary box next to Warne. Earlier connections in my career, meanwhile, take me right back to the 1930s through Gubby Allen, one of the central figures in the Bodyline fiasco, and a man who ran English cricket for a long time. He was Gubby to his very best friends but to most people he was most definitely Mr Allen. You can probably tell which camp I was in as an aspiring international player.

      Having been called up in 1974 against India, my debut was at Lord’s, and so I got in early the day before the match, and was wearing my pride and joy. Get this: the pride and joy of which I speak was a snazzy yellow leather jacket. I thought I was a right bobby dazzler as I turned up in this clobber, and displaying typical keenness of the new boy I was first in. I put my bag down and there was this chap sat on the table. I had no idea who he was. ‘Alright,’ I greeted him. ‘How do?’

      ‘Hullo,’ came the rather authoritative reply.

      ‘Nice day, isn’t it?’ I resumed, trying to break an uncomfortable silence, my tactic being to work out who the heck this bloke was, and what he was doing in the England dressing room, if I kept talking. ‘See you decided to get here nice and early too.’

      There was not much coming back from him at all, and what went through

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