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Game for a laugh Wisden CricInfo staff - January 1, 1997
ON THE BOOKSHELVESGideon Haigh's Australian Cricket AnecdotesOxford, 286pp, £16.99. Of all the cricket compilations, none should be more enjoyable to gather, let alone read, than one devoted to laughter. And Australian cricket has spawned a lot of it. Haigh has scanned widely, and the lesser-known mixes with the familiar. Some tales are a touch serious, but the blend is magnetic, `You can take the body away,' bellowed Yabba from the SCG Hill after Carter, an undertaker as well as a wicketkeeper, had caught Hobbs. The lesson might be that insult, forgiveness and fellowship can go together. And might there be echoes in 1997 of the Australian skipper's assertion to his England counterpart that `we've only got to get two or three of you out and the rest will shiver with fright'? Captivating caricature montage on the dustjacket.Sammy: The Sporting Life of SMJ Woodsby Clifford Jiggens: Sansom, 160pp, £14.99. Somerset's wild colonial boy was an early-edition Botham. Sydney-born, he entered Cambridge, though not with any intellectual aspirations, and played cricket for Australia and rugby for England (having declined an England Test cricket cap because he was Australian). `Greatheart' was a giant, kind by nature but boisterous when roused. And he played for fun, without losing his competitiveness. `Hard luck, old son!' he shouted at WG after catching him in the 1888 Lord's Test. In 1891 he ran to the crease sans pads and gloves, whacked the boundary that won the Varsity match, and ran off again. There was something of Keith Miller about him too, though the West Country took him as their own, and he willingly succumbed. The Archive Photographs Series: Yorkshire CCCby Mick Pope: Chalford, 128pp, £9.99. Over 200 pictures trace Yorshire's history from Sheffield beginnings to 1971. All the notables beam or glare from the pages; Rhodes and Hirst, Sutcliffe, Leyland and Sellers, Hutton, Wardle, Appleyard and Trueman, plus Boycott, lllingworth and Close. Also a photo of Lord Hawke and his team after their record 887 at Edgbaston in 1896. Ideal publication to inspire a full revival. Les Jackson; A Derbyshire Legendby Mike Carey: from him at 5 The Square, Darley Abbey DE22 1DY; 140pp, £9.50 inc p&p. One of the travesties in the saga of English cricket is that Jackson, a most wonderful seamer, played only two Tests, and those 12 years apart (1949 and'61). Even Fred Trueman, in his foreword, agrees that he deserved many more. He took 1730 wickets at 17.38, and Dexter reckoned him the best bowler he faced. This detailed biog ends by naming the guilty men, the selectors of the day. The Journal of the Cricket Society Spring 1997ed Clive Porter: from P Ellis, 63 Groveland Road, Bechenham BR3 3PX; 72pp, no price given. AC Smith on his numerous tours (the first aboard the Queen Mary); the Olympic cricket match in 1900; memoir on EJH Dixon, war casualty; analysis of the old Daily Worker Cricket Annual; and much more esoterica. Graham Kersey ( 1971–1997)A Tribute by Richard Williams; from him, 32 The Gower, Thorpe, Egham TW20 8UD; 100pp, £2.95 + 50p p&p. Affected, as were so many, by the death of the 25-year-old Surrey wicketkeeper, Williams, a painstaking statistician, has compiled a detailed record of Kersey's career, first-class and 2nd XI. The Yorkshire CCC 1997from the club; no price given. The 99th edition of the county handbook prematurely pictures overseas signing Michael Slater– the unexpected always happens – and confirms the plan to leave Headingley for the custom-built Durkar ground. Captain Byas strikes notes of optimism, while the record section remains a source of inspiration from afar. IN THE SALEROOMSAUTOGRAPH ALBUMS, scrapbooks and Edwardian postcards are what usually deceive auctioneers when they set their estimates for the catalogues. At Phillips' London sale on May 22, the estimator did a fair job; but even he failed quite to appreciate the importance of an 1804 publication, Thomas Boxall's little instructional book. It was one of many items I could not afford at Hodgson's sale of the JW Goldman collection in Nov 1966, when it made £58. Last month, it fetched £5646 gross. Ackermann's history of Rugby School similarly came in at a tidy realisation: £12.50 (no buyer's premium in that blissful era) in 1966, £541 in 1997.Herbert Sutcliffe's (wormholed) twin-centuries Melbourne 1924–25 bat reappeared and made £882, mysteriously over £100 down on its performance last October at the same venue. But a bat signed by 82 players in 1907 and presented by W. G. Grace to a hospital in Twickenham sold for £1058, just below estimate. The six New Hall Pottery Plaques excited interest, drawing bids ranging form £400 for Woodfull and Duckworth to £847 for Bradman. The Staffordshire figures supposedly of Caesar and Parr, seldom seen these days, fetched £1587 the pair. John Corbet Anderson lithographs steadied, but the Vanity Fair caricature of EW Dillon, which always causes mild hysteria, went for £2588, perhaps the falsest value in cricket collecting. Back came WG, this time with his name engraved on an 1895 medallion presented by the Balloon Society of Great Britain not out of sympathy for the Champion's great girth but to mark his 1000 runs in May 1895: £1587 secured it. Among the other 300-odd lots, an 1898 Wisden, original publishers' hardback, made £2470. More memorabilia left by Howard Levett, the Kent and England wicketkeeper, was sold by Mervyn Carey at Tenterden on May 14, much of it associated with the 1933–34 MCC tour of India. A signed photograph of the team, led by D. R. Jardine, fetched £411, while Levett's tour cap and Kent cap together made £389. Just over £200 was paid for two flicker-books captivatingly misdescribed as showing Frank Wolley`bathing'. © Wisden CricInfo Ltd |
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