At Headingley: A Freddie Trueman poem

A few days have transpired since the Lord’s Test. It was a setback like some of New Zealand’s Tests in the ’40s and ’50s but I’m now looking forward to the Second and final Test of the England series.

News from Leeds, Yorkshire (Freddie Trueman country), indicates it’s probable they’ll include Daniel Vettori and Martin Guptill in place of Bruce Martin and B J Watling who have ended their tours with injuries. McCullum will take up the wicket-keeping duties.

It would be great to see Vettori back in action for New Zealand. I hope he is there come match day. (They could play four seamers instead.) His experience would certainly calm the nerves of some of the younger players, just like having an old cricket great visit you in the dressing room.

Speaking of cricket legends like Vettori and Trueman, my last blog post mentioned the cricket writer John Arlott, also a poet and well-known broadcaster. I picked up some recordings of his broadcasts on cassette tape recently. Arlott was one of the greats of cricket writing.

I was lucky enough to pick up a selection of his writings at a Book Fair last year along with a copy of his biography of Freddie Trueman titled Fred.

When Trueman died in 2006, I wrote the following poem for him, recalling his visit to Wellington College where he spoke to us in a packed assembly hall.

I’ll share it with you on the eve of the Test at Headingley. Trueman formed a lethal bowling partnership with Brian Statham.

He ended his career with 307 wickets at an average of 21.57 from 67 Tests.

MARK PIRIE

‘Fiery’ Fred

Freddie Trueman (1931-2006)

“…someone described him as a young bull and there was in his approach that majestic rhythm that emerges as a surprise in the Spanish fighting bull.” – John Arlott, Fred

Once the service

and the tributes are over,

and the dust settles as it must

History is what is left,

and History always looks

to change the strike.

Once, when on a visit

to Wellington, I met you

from a distance.

“Please welcome Freddie Trueman.”

The applause broke out

in our college assembly hall.

Different, I suppose, to

the unheeded noise as each

new wicket was snared.

That day, after assembly

and school had finished,

I went home and found my book,

looking for your action to follow.

In my room, I tried in vain

to arc my arm like the photo

as if I was a kid mimicking you

in the stands at Headingley

or The Oval. And now that you’re gone

records remain: the first 

to 300 Test wickets, devastating in

the home series against the Windies.

Those 300 wickets appear a long-broken

record now, especially in this

age of 700s, but I figure, even so,

you’d still be looking to include

yourself in any historical XI,

ruefully turning the strike over yet again.

Poem © Mark Pirie 2008

The book I mention with the photo of Trueman’s bowling action was Peter Arnold’s The Illustrated Encyclopedia of World Cricket, Golden Press, Auckland, 1987. The book was my chief bedtime reading at the age of 13 along with the 1987 Shell New Zealand Cricket Almanack.

Trueman’s ‘devastating’ series with the West Indies in 1957 (referred to here) shows his bowling figures as 22 wickets in five tests at the average of 20.68 in Peter Arnold’s book, still just as handy like the cricket almanack despite online archives. Surprisingly his best Test figures came in his first series with India where he took 8-31 at Old Trafford, Manchester.  

Good luck to New Zealand for the Second Test. Square the series and make us proud!

‘Fiery’ Fred first published in Mark Pirie’s Slips: Cricket poems (Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, Paekakariki, 2008).

Article © Mark Pirie 2013

Day four at Lord's

“The horror! The horror!” that most famous Conradian crux (from the story The Heart of Darkness) came to mind on witnessing New Zealand’s defeat at Lord’s this morning.

(Especially when batsmen of the quality of Kane Williamson chip to mid off.)

My blog stats for Williamson and Taylor posted the day before confirmed my worst fears. With Williamson and Taylor gone cheaply, it was a no win situation. McCullum came to the crease and put away two fours but then succumbed to an lbw appeal. 29 for 6.

It didn’t get much better after the lunch break, Martin and Watling batted with injuries and New Zealand were all out for a sorry 68, including a poor run-out to end the display. Wagner top scored with 17.

It was an unexpected calamity to end this way on what seemed after the first day a moderate pitch. From the second day onwards wickets fell at pace: 10 (Day 2), 12 (Day 3) and 14 on the final day. Who’d have thought? The New Zealand chase of 239 did seem likely.

2.

It’s hard to stay positive sometimes as a New Zealand cricket fan, but for much of the game we had England virtually on the ropes.

After Southee’s six wicket haul, I was on the phone to a friend, excitedly talking up New Zealand. Could we secure a famous victory at Lord’s? It must’ve been a huge disappointment when fans awoke in New Zealand to check the score.

I can only imagine what cricket writers Harold Pinter, John Arlott and Pelham Warner would’ve made of it all.

3.

It’s easy in review of this Test to give credit to the bowlers: Southee for New Zealand (10 wickets in the match) and Anderson and Broad for England, especially Broad, but one player who again caught my eye was the young Joe Root. His second innings decided the match just as much as the bowling. Root’s 71 was a very mature knock from the coming star of English cricket.

Broad, on the other hand, was a revelation. In his last three Tests with New Zealand he had shown some signs (6-51 at the Basin) that he was capable of becoming the destroyer (a relentless “tommy gun” as one commentator put it) and it was certainly his day. The ball of the match ripped out Hamish Rutherford’s off stump.

4.

I could write a poem-lament (or an elegy) but I feel it’s time to focus on the next stop: Headingly.

Our bowlers showed we can foot it with the English; it’s now up to our batsmen to show the necessary mettle and finish the job.

Article © Mark Pirie 2013

Day three at Lord’s

It seemed smart to refrain from commenting on the New Zealand first innings until the end of the third day. They were looking good at the end of day two but then wobbled, dismissed for 207 giving England a lead of 25 runs going into the second innings.

The New Zealand bowlers have done well to keep to England to just over a 200-run lead with four wickets remaining. Can the New Zealand batsmen chase down the runs?

Looking at the first innings effort, Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor were the standouts for New Zealand. They did all the hard work to draw the second test v England at the Basin in March too. Taylor was the aggressor in his 100th first class match and Williamson the grafter, prepared to wait for the bad ball and maintain his patience and concentration.

A look at these two since the Zimbabwe Test win in 2011 up to the conclusion of the recent England series at home reveals the following stats:

Ross Taylor 

v ZIM 76 & 76

v AUS 19 & 0

v AUS 6 & 56

v ZIM 122* (retired hurt)

v SA 44 & 48*

v SA 44 & 17

v SA 18* (retired hurt)

v WI 45 & 21

v WI 60 & 0

v IND 2 & 7

v IND 113 & 35

v SL 9 & 18

v SL 142 & 74

v ENG 31

v ENG 0 & 41*

v ENG 19 & 3

Total: 1146 runs at an average of 45.84. Three first innings hundreds (as captain).

Kane Williamson

v ZIM 49 & 68

v AUS 14 & 0

v AUS 19 & 34

v ZIM 4

v SA 11

v SA 0 & 77

v SA 39 & 102*

v WI 0 & 19

v WI 22 & 8

v IND 32 & 52

v IND 17 & 13

v SL 0 & 10

v SL 135 & 18

v ENG 24

v ENG 42 & 55*

v ENG 91 & 1

Total: 956 runs at an average of 35.40. One second innings hundred v South Africa.

I have not included the South Africa Test series in 2012/13 where they weren’t playing together on those occasions.

In the four matches New Zealand won (highlighted in bold) Taylor scored 552 runs at an average of 92.00 (two centuries), whereas Williamson scored 327 runs at an average of 46.71 (one century).

Stats are fun to look at and imagine that if these two are on song New Zealand will have a good chance of winning this Test in the second innings, you could say. (New Zealand have not won in England since the famous victory in 1999.)

The stats do show that Taylor has not made a century in the second innings of a recent Test, whereas Williamson did against South Africa with the pressure on. So, is Williamson’s grafting approach the key to a solid second innings at Lord’s?

Williamson averages 41.54 in the second innings of recent Tests played with Taylor and Taylor averages 36.00. Hundreds may not even be an issue if the 50s are the top scores in the Test to date.

Cricket followers know that the best bats don’t often perform when expected to, and the winning runs may come from any of the top seven on their day, including B J Watling the wicket-keeper or a lively cameo from Tim Southee in a potentially low-scoring contest. Yet I like to think that the signs are there for an important innings from Taylor or Williamson in the conclusion to this match.

Article © Mark Pirie 2013

Day one at Lord's

Day one of New Zealand’s Test at Lord’s was good from New Zealand’s perspective. England in defensive mode grafted 160 runs for the loss of four wickets from their 80 overs.

It’s still early days, but New Zealand is starting to find consistency with their bowling attack. Trent Boult has impressed me the most in the past year but Tim Southee and Neil Wagner are doing good work as well. Doug Bracewell (the hero of the victory over Australia in 2011) didn’t make the Lord’s side which says a lot about how well Boult, Wagner and Southee are doing of late. Chris Martin now seems a forgotten man of New Zealand bowling but deserves the plaudits for a long and excellent career.

I scrawled down a few brief epigrams on the New Zealand bowling attack after day one, which a featured a slow and lifeless pitch without zip at times. Each bowler toiled hard, and Bruce Martin (not mentioned below) did well to draw Nick Compton into a false shot.

MARK PIRIE

Three epigrams at Lord’s 2013

Boult is not quite a thunder-bolt

But shows the marks of a fiery colt.

Southee can swing it and keep it tight

He looks the goods, batsmen lose their sight.

The ball to Wagner is more than just an opera;

He makes batsmen turn green, more like soap opera.

Poem © Mark Pirie 2013

Article © Mark Pirie 2013

The New Zealanders at Lord’s 2004

Good news this week about New Zealand bowler Tim Southee now fit for the Lord’s Test, and that they are considering four seamers.

It sure is exciting as we are a short time away from another New Zealand Test at Lord’s, the ultimate Test at the home of cricket in St John’s Wood.

It doesn’t seem that long ago that I wrote the below Lord’s poem, written after following New Zealand’s Test defeat at Lord’s in 2004. It’s in A Tingling Catch.

There were a number of circumstances surrounding the Test at the time. It was to be Nasser Hussain’s last Test, and Ian Botham had made comments in the media calling for his ‘axe’. He went out making a Test-winning century in style (103*), while his teammate Andrew Strauss was close to back-to-back centuries (112 and 83). Add to this Brendon McCullum missing a century (96) in the second innings, some defiant workmanship from opener Mark Richardson (93 and 101), and Chris Cairns’ scintillating knock of 82 from 47 balls in the first innings. Well, you had the perfect cocktail for an absorbing Test.

Four years later and New Zealand toured again with an inexperienced batting line-up (Jamie How, Aaron Redmond, Daniel Flynn, James Marshall and Ross Taylor) but drew their Lord’s Test in 2008, thanks to some time being lost, which could be a factor in this 2013 Test. Jacob Oram though stepped up with 101 off 121 balls in the second innings. That Test was notable too for McCullum again missing a Test century at Lord’s. He was out for 97 from 97 balls bowled by Monty Panesar, oh so close.

With this in mind McCullum could be among the batsmen to watch at Lord’s this week, as he heads out to the centre third-time lucky in search of that elusive ton and his name on the Lord’s Centurions Honours Board. Peter Fulton, on the other hand, is third-time lucky for three consecutive Test centuries following his renaissance at Eden Park. I’ll be among the fans following it from home and willing them and their New Zealand teammates on.

MARK PIRIE

The New Zealanders at Lord’s, 2004

A see-saw struggle,

a tightly fought contest.

At the end, Hussain punches the air

in victory ­– or is it disbelief?

Botham called for his axe.

Strauss just wanted another ton.

Drama at the cricket.

Richardson played hard.

Everyone loves a battler.

McCullum though was last seen in the doldrums.

Poem © Mark Pirie, 2007

First published in Mark Pirie’s Slips: cricket poems (Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, Paekakariki, New Zealand, 2007)

Ken Rutherford's 317

The second match of New Zealand’s tour with the England Lions looks to be petering out to a draw, due to bad weather. The concern for New Zealand is Tim Southee’s injury. Mark Gillespie, a strike bowler, failed to pick up wickets in the Derbyshire game and Doug Bracewell and Neil Wagner are vying for one of the Test bowling spots. The potential loss of Southee could be a big blow for the Lord’s Test.

A talking point of the New Zealand first innings of 285 was the dominance of the young opener Hamish Rutherford who blunted the Lions’ attack. Rutherford made 126 off 155 balls before being run out. He’s a dasher and a different player to his father, but I still remember the great innings Ken Rutherford played against DB Close’s XI on the 1986 tour, his first tour to England.  (This was also the tour that New Zealand secured a famous Test series victory on English soil.)

Rutherford had a torrid start to his international career. For years his career average suffered from his early Tests where he was easy meat for the West Indies quicks.

Yet, at Scarborough (1 September), playing the last fixture of the 1986 tour, in which he was mainly a batting reserve, Rutherford made a magical 317. Considering the New Zealand first innings score reached 519-7 declared off 94 overs, they made the runs at a cracking pace. Martin Crowe made just 1 and all-rounder Evan Gray contributed 88.

The DB Close XI were no slouches, comprising Javed Miandad, Sadiq Mohammad, CL King and Geoff Boycott in the batting. Bob Taylor the England wicket-keeper played along with bowlers Chris Old, West Indians Roddy Estwick and Franklyn Stephenson (792 first-class career wickets) and Dilip Doshi the Indian spinner.

Doshi went for 142 runs off his 22 overs, almost Twenty 20 pace these days. In one Doshi over, Rutherford hit him for four sixes and looked good for equalling Gary Sobers’ record of six sixes off a first class over before Doshi closed him out with a low, flat delivery to save his blushes. Miandad made an unbeaten 102 to help draw the game for Brian Close’s team in the second innings.

When I looked up the score in Ken Rutherford’s book A Hell of a Way to Make a Living (1995), I found the following out. Rutherford had been out to ‘night spots’ for Willie Watson’s 21st the night before so he was still ‘groggy’. The first hundred came before lunch with Ruds hooking a Stephenson bouncer to square leg on 97 to go to lunch on 101. He slept over the lunch break and then continued the damage, scoring 199 runs between lunch and tea. He continues the story:

Once again I reached a landmark off the last ball before the break. I swatted a ball from Doshi, one bounce into the fence, for four which brought up the triple century. It’s difficult to recall a lot of the detail from the innings. Once I got to around 150 I set my sights on beating my brother Ian’s highest first class score of 222. Once I achieved that I was so far into Wonderland and I just went for everything…The amazing thing about the innings is that it was chanceless. You’d think there would have been the odd miscue but everything seemed to find the middle of the bat and a gap in the field.

  Evan was a tremendous help. He constantly rotated the strike and fed me as much of the bowling as possible. Often he was lost for words as the scoring rocketed along. Our partnership was 319 runs in 154 minutes off 291 balls. Evan scored 51 of them from 118 deliveries. When I returned to the dressing room at tea time the team was as shocked as I. John Wright just paced the room, shaking his head and repeating, “Do you believe that. Do you believe that.” The applause that coincided with my entry into the dressing room woke the captain, Jeremy Coney. He had hardly seen a ball of the session. Knowing I’d been on 101 at lunch he enquired, “Gee, Ruds, you must be on 180 odd.” I replied, “No. Jerry, I’m actually on 300.” He laughed as if waiting for the punch line of a joke until Wright told him to take a look at the scoreboard.

Rutherford was out shortly after tea caught behind by Taylor from Close himself for 317. There were 8 sixes and 45 fours in his total. The feat embedded itself in my mind as a youngster in the ’80s. Ken was one of my favourite cricketers growing up, who probably never really achieved the scores and average he was capable of at Test level. His highest score remained his 107* against England in a home Basin Test in 1988.

Interestingly my copy of Rutherford’s book was picked up at a book fair with no name in the front but inside the previous owner had carefully collected and cut out a series of newspaper clippings and articles on the book, always a bonus to have. The front cover has a barefoot Ken Rutherford, which reminds me (minus the long hair and beads) of the barefoot New Zealand poet James K Baxter.

Rutherford’s 317 off 245 deliveries in 230 minutes, the highest score by a New Zealand player overseas, still stands. In 2000/01, Mark Richardson scored 306 v Zimbabwe A, the next best.

New Zealand would dearly love a similar hard-hitting Test century from Ken’s son Hamish Rutherford on the current England tour. His century against England Lions serves as a warning to the England attack coming off the back of a sterling hundred on Test debut at the University Oval in Dunedin earlier this year.

Article © Mark Pirie 2013

(Sources: A Hell of a Way to Make a Living by Ken Rutherford with Chris Mirams, Hodder Moa Beckett, Auckland, 1995; and the Cricket Archive)





Michael Walker’s NZ-England cricket poem

New Zealand’s tour of England, often the pinnacle achievement for New Zealand cricketers, began last week.

In past times when they toured England (1920s-1950s), they arrived by ship and played a large number of matches. Back then, these lengthy tours signified. In particular, they made the reputation of a New Zealand cricketer on the world stage. That was the case in 1949 when New Zealand batsmen Martin Donnelly and Bert Sutcliffe made their names in a fine team captained by Walter Hadlee.

Now, a New Zealand tour to England may contain only two Tests and warm-up matches if lucky. Perhaps the players to watch on this current tour are young opener Hamish Rutherford, bowler Trent Boult, top-order batsman Kane Williamson and wicketkeeper B J Watling.

For 2013’s tour, New Zealand received two warm-up matches, a welcome boost, and they made good by defeating Derbyshire in the first of these.

New Zealand is now looking to build on a solid display at home where they nearly beat the world number two team England in a very interesting test series.

After the third and final test, a spectacular draw played out at Eden Park in March, an Auckland poet Michael Walker composed the following poem of interest, which contains a line from the English poet and mystic William Blake and gives generous credit to England wicket keeper Matt Prior’s face-saving century.

I’ll share it with you here:

MICHAEL WALKER

Eden Park Test

It has been seasons since a cricket test was played

on Eden Park so we took the chance to watch three days

of it, instead of listening to the radio commentary,

eager to see and assess the drop-in pitch too – a compromise.

I noticed many improvements in the interim, the air of a

real international stadium; the silver stands and grey seating

sloping down to greet the grass mown in strips in a criss-cross

pattern pleased my eye, as did the two big screen/scoreboards.

The corporate boxes, high up on the covered stands, were new to me

but who would want to be in one of these coveted places?

We were happy on the partly covered eastern stand,

able to move from the blazing sunshine to the shade.

The first day we were near the Barmy Army, intermittently

chanting, clapping in rhythm, singing verses of Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’;

Mainly because a New Zealand opener, on the comeback trail,

had scored two aggressive centuries, and a promising left-arm quick

had scythed through the England first innings, a New Zealand win

was very likely by the fourth day, but I fancy it was Blake's line:

"I will not cease from Mental Fight", that inspired

Prior's century and helped England hold out for a draw.

Poem © Michael Walker 2013

Poem revised by the author from first publication by editor Tony Chad in Valley Micropress, Vol. 16, Issue 4, April 2013

Let’s hope New Zealand can continue this form and produce another fine contest in England in the coming weeks.

Article © Mark Pirie 2013