My car parked itself without steering where it always parks, in the Bridgford Fields. Richie is in already, the familiar attendant told me. But he is the only one. Everyone at the other end these days. Penny half-dropped: a vague recollection of a plan to move the furniture around at Trent Bridge, but I was committed to the old trail. And then, wow! What a grandstand! What a thrill!
I hopped over the boundary at the pavilion end of the ground just where, in 1973, I had sprinted along the boundary to finger-tip a hit by Bev Congdon, of New Zealand, for six off Ray Illingworth's bowling. The top joint of my middle finger had almost ended up in the crowd but dear old Jim Laker, on the television highlights, had declaimed dryly ``... and Lewis drops it''. He was usually right, Jim. But I had a wonderful first view of the new furniture.
On each side of the high-roofed central body which contains the media centre is a wide spread of elegant hospitality suites. The country cousin was fanning out a dazzling new ball gown. Shame it could not take a bow.
From the grassy cricket square, the Radcliffe Road boundary now looked a mere forward push and follow-through. Inside the building, workers bustled. Gentleman wants to know if there is a public telephone. No? Sorry sir, everyone has got a mobile. The Notts commercial manager, Basharat Hassan, was armed with such a phone as well as with treble forte walkie-talkie bulging under his green blazer. He was lecturing some girls in a corner as if they were about to go underground on some secret service mission. In fact, they have been the spirited sellers of œ3,000 worth of raffle tickets for the county club on each and every day.
And then in the middle, later in the day, Hansie Cronje - facing his third ball from Ian Salisbury. He had scored a careful 17 at the time. Down the pitch he went and crashed the ball over the top for four. It said so much about him. Salisbury had been very publicly announced as the cunning variation which could bring England some bowling joy. Poor Salisbury went for over six an over from then on: Cronje moved majestically to a century full of classical strokes. Cronje's advance down the pitch was premeditated. He was entering the risk area because Salisbury had already showed he could turn the ball away from the right-hander. It was brave because he could have been seriously criticised by his team's supporters if he had miscued. Test batsmen are supposed to hit the ball along the ground. More importantly, it was a piece of bravado emphasising how batsmen need the instinct to dominate and that a leg-spinner who has been away to reinvent himself is a proper target for a hammering. It was above all unselfish.
Cronje's team benefited. The fact that England played into his hands by introducing Salisbury at a time when the seamers had kept the pressure lid on was a side issue. The captain had sounded the advance and had gone first.
This is how Cronje's captaincy has always been and it is why he commands loyalty. He would never ask a player to do anything he is not prepared to do himself. That one hit turned the next few hours of play. The mischievous gossip came from old friends. Michael Procter and Clive Rice, outstanding South African all-rounders in their different days. Firstly, Procky gives a history lesson, telling how so many professional players from English county cricket used to sail to South Africa each winter to coach young players in all the orthodoxies associated with English play, the MCC coaching book and the well-worn gospels of the sideways game. Now British cricket is awash with reverse sweeps, bats angled to run the ball to third man and a whole professional game without a feared fast bowler or a spinner.
Rice's message is simple - it is time for England to be coached by South Africans in South Africa. What an indictment! We have lost the plot. Clive runs the national cricket academy for the United Board. I am going to propose to the ECB that they send their selected squads at all ages to South Africa every winter. The rand is cheap. They could afford it.
Have we turned a game of simple, straightforward trusted techniques into a fast-track, pinch-hitting, ball-in-the-right-place fantasy from which only overseas coaches can save us? Nightmare! I'll have another beer and see what Sunday brings.