Cricket Society Journal reviews King Willow

A brief but very good mention of the book I edited, King Willow: Selected Poems by Robert J Pope, appeared in the latest issue of the Cricket Society’s Journal:

JOHN SYMONS

Review of King Willow: Selected Poems by Robert J Pope edited by Mark Pirie

HeadworX Publishers, Wellington, New Zealand

Mark Pirie is continuing to explore New Zealand literary history both old and new and here we have a selection of poems from a writer, Robert J Pope whose life (1865-1949) covered the birth of New Zealand cricket through to Walter Hadlee’s determination on the post-war tour of England to be worthy of full-length Test Matches.

Although, well-regarded in his lifetime as with many poets, he became unfashionable although there now seems to be a reappraisal of his work. The selection from his work set out here contains only a single cricketing poem but his other work is well worth modern consideration. There is a wistful and elegiac tone to his war poetry – no drums and bugles and hurrahs – more sadness at lives lost and friends no longer to be greeted.

The only cricket poem “King Willow” was written to welcome in the 1932 season but there is a small section of cricket prose at the end of the book. I also liked his affectionate parody of W B Yeats in Billy’s Tea which made me smile.

Not really enough perhaps to convince the cricket collector to add this to his library but Mark Pirie is ploughing a singular furrow as he explores the byways of New Zealand literature and deserves the praise that he is garnering. A writer and a publisher who are always worth seeking out.

(From The Journal of the Cricket Society, UK, Volume 26, No. 4, Spring 2013, p. 69-70).

Nick Whittock’s new cricket poetry The Doon

Last year, Nick Whittock sent me a copy of his latest cricket poetry book called The Doon, an exchange for a copy of Michael O’Leary’s Out of It that I published. It’s taken me a while to get on to it, but here’s a brief review of the book.

Review of The Doon by Nick Whittock (Vagabond Press, Australia, 2012)

Whittock is the author of the superb Covers, a collection of his very imaginative cricket poetry, one of my favourite cricket books. I’ve interviewed him previously for this blog on Covers.

The Doon, beautifully produced with Kay Orchison cover design/b/w artwork, is his follow up to Covers. It is a saddle-stapled chapbook by Vagabond Press in Sydney, Australia. It is a limited edition, a rare cricket and poetry book. My copy is No. 28 of 100 copies.

The cover sports an old, antique cricket bat, and ‘Doon’ in the title is presumably a play on ‘Don’ as in Don Bradman.

Bradman or his myth features in several of the poems here.

There are seven poems in total, including the poem ‘Don Bradman’. I first included that piece in A Tingling Catch in 2010. It is a monologue by a cricket spectator and recommends Ross Taylor as a ‘good fucking batsman’. As a Kiwi, I agree. It goes on to make comments about Twenty 20:

problem with 2020s not that it

dumbsdown cricket or its techniques

(in fact it enhances them all)

but the dumbing down of commentary…

Whittock’s technique is cut-up and Modernist, an element of Dada art involved. This can make the poems not as accessible as some other cricket poetry out there. The poetry texts require several readings to elucidate their ‘meanings’ and the jokes about beer are fair dinkum Australian, from the Rodney Marsh to David Boon era of the ’70s/’80s.

Throughout, the poems examine a contemporary Australian Bradman/Beeradman cultural myth effectively.

‘clara 81’ from Whittock’s Clara series (alluding to Brian Lara/Michael Clarke/Lara Bingle) reads like an elegy for former Australian captain Kim Hughes as ‘the people he could never be’. My favourite is ‘0s’ a poem about noughts in the scoresheet, published in the Sun Herald in Sydney in 2009. It ends by alluding to David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’: ‘blobs just for one day’.

The book concludes with the long, rambling ‘shane watson: becoming opening’ about Watto’s adventures as an opener. The poem conjures pithy one-liners, puns and word-play and fine imagery of a match v Pakistan (Yousuf, Akmal & Co). With plenty of clever allusions to Ricky Ponting, Stuart Law and Michael Clarke in the second section, it is rewarding.

I’ll end with the funniest poem here from a Kiwi perspective called ‘don bradmans wildly successful tour of nz’, a touring/holiday incident about camping in the Bay of Islands:

NICK WHITTOCK

don bradmans wildly succesful tour of nz

which cuntre ya callin cunt cunt

road trip to the baymarie of islands

minivan shadows tarmac

bob                    dylans a mothership

samuel becketts a mechanism

for opening

bottles scenerys cameras horse

                   stands on the earth

birds stand on the horse

things we cant see stand on the bird

n smaller things ride petes train

in the abscence of bathmats                   we stand on towels

the navigating was fucked

a crotchless cap for dickheads w

aids all over m penis w

unknotted condom                                  ooh! interesting soil

                                                              are you learning?

Poem © Nick Whittock, 2012

Anyone interested in the real Don Bradman’s 1932 visit to New Zealand, a similarly unrewarding spectacle, can read my blog article on it. Thanks to Nick for letting me reproduce the poem.

Copies of The Doon may be hard to get but the best bet is to try obtaining the book from Vagabond Press (http://vagabondpress.net/collections/rare-object-series)

About Vagabond Press: “Independent Literary Press since 1999. Based in Sydney and Tokyo, Vagabond Press is dedicated to promoting new writing in Asia Pacific. Over our first ten years we published many of the key emerging voices in Australian poetry. Over the next ten years we aim to publish and promote new prose, poetry and criticism from Asia Pacific.”

Review © Mark Pirie 2013

The Doon by Nick Whittock
(Vagabond Press, 2012)

Cricket Society Journal reviews Out of It

Michael O’Leary whose cricket novel I edited earlier in the year got a brief but good review in the Cricket Society’s Journal. Out of It was re-released as a 25th anniversary edition through my company HeadworX:

JOHN SYMONS

Review of Out of It by Michael O'Leary (HeadworX Wellington,
New Zealand)

If there has ever been a stranger book on cricket, I've yet to see it. I always thought that Willie Rushton's W G. Grace's Last Case was the strangest but this one .........................

Well, it's a reprint of a 1987 book which is apparently a 'cult classic.' The main story (?) is of a one-day match between a proper New Zealand side led by Jeremy Coney and a team named Out Of It. The latter team is skippered by the Maori chief Te Rauparaha with Bob Marley as Vice-Captain and the likes of Janis Joplin, Oscar Wilde, Jimi Hendrix and Hermann Goring playing (look, I'm not making this up!) with a running radio commentary from standard and made-up broadcasters.

It reads not unlike one of the earliest Dadaist offerings, written under the influence of hallucinogenics and although that almost certainly isn't the case, it may have been the author's intention to read as if it was. Perhaps it's about dislocation in society - perhaps it isn't. Maybe it's about a suburban man becoming unsettled in real life and entering the surreal world of the imagination - and maybe it isn't. It's unclassifiable (and occasionally, in parts, unreadable) but if you suspend disbelief, a kind of logic can be found.

It's not a spoiler to let prospective readers know that, unlike the song, Goring lasts for three overs and not the obligatory two balls, however small.

If you can find an inexpensive copy, you will have something in your collection that will be unique.

(From Journal of the Cricket Society, Volume 26, No. 3, Autumn 2012, UK)

Classic Reads: Merv Wallace by Joseph Romanos

During the winter off-season in New Zealand, I’ve been reading a book about New Zealand’s hugely under-rated batsman Merv Wallace. Wallace was a member of the 1937 and 1949 New Zealand touring teams to England. Wallace receives considerable attention in Rod Nye’s Martin Donnelly biography and Richard Boock’s recent Bert Sutcliffe biography. The respectful mentions of him in these books made me want to read further.

Merv Wallace: A Cricket Master (Joel Publishing, 2000) is researched and written by Joseph Romanos in discussion with the late Merv himself, and is, I feel, an important addition to New Zealand’s cricket history. Much has been said and written about other members of the ’49ers such as Walter Hadlee, Martin Donnelly, John R Reid and Bert Sutcliffe, but till this book appeared little was known about the extent of Wallace’s contribution to New Zealand cricket.

Romanos expertly fills in the gaps with enthusiasm and energy. He is an ardent admirer of all sports but cricket is a large part of his focus. Romanos has again produced an excellent biography with impressive knowledge, artful use of photos and memorabilia, comprehensive research and a humanist empathy for the subject and his life. I must thank too the benefactor Sir Ron Brierley’s financial commitment to the publication of this book.

The story about Merv begins in Grey Lynn, Auckland, where he was born and raised. It follows his early advances into cricket as a schoolboy and later as a young man playing his club cricket for Point Chevalier (which amalgamated with Parnell) and his First Class cricket for Auckland (captaining them 23 times from 1939-1958). Wallace’s final First Class match was for Lord Cobham’s Governor-General’s XI in the 1960-61 season.

The two main chapters of interest (as a player) are the tours of England in 1937 and 1949 where he was among New Zealand’s best batsmen on both tours. In 1937, under Curly Page’s captaincy, it’s safe to say he was the leading New Zealand batsmen of the period (between Stewie Dempster and Bert Sutcliffe) and was well written up by the English cricket writers. Pelham Warner wrote in The Cricketer: ‘Wallace has, so far, proved himself the best batsman … Short in height, Wallace is strongly built and times the ball beautifully. He has a very good eye, is quick on his feet and seems to possess all the strokes.’

He topped the 1937 tour averages in England and Australia with 1887 runs at 41.02 but, as Romanos points out, never fulfilled his Test potential, losing his best years of Test cricket to the Second World War. Wallace’s contribution as a player could’ve been greater at Test level marking him out clearly as one of our greats. Instead, he finished with a modest Test average of 20.90, no Test century, and sadly a mostly forgotten player status in the game.

The other side to Wallace’s story is his role as a coach and selector and his influential job as a sporting goods proprietor. Wallace spent a good deal of time, after retiring as a player, coaching and selecting teams, both at international and domestic level. His major success came when he coached New Zealand to their first ever Test victory over the West Indies in 1956-57. Yet, as Romanos notes for reasons unknown, Wallace was not used often as a coach and selector by the New Zealand Cricket Council. It’s baffling to know why. Walter Hadlee and other members were clearly friends of Wallace’s with no axe to grind and who respected Wallace’s ability. Wallace’s input as a coach and selector for New Zealand should’ve been greater at international level but instead, as with his batting, we only had tantalising glimpses of what he could’ve done for New Zealand cricket.

Despite this, Wallace was always involved one way or another. For years, he ran a sporting shop in Auckland: Wallace and Webb Ltd. There are delightful chapters here on Wallace’s influence through the shop, his passing on of tips to players, coaches, fathers and schoolboys who visited. As well, Romanos captures the essence of Wallace by presenting a whole chapter of Wallace’s views on cricket giving out his handy tips. Some of these appear dated now, but it seems a nice way to preserve Wallace’s mind and thoughts on the game throughout the period where he made his largest contribution.

This book proved hard to track down but was worth the effort. I searched local book fairs, second hand shops and the Wellington Public Library and could find no copy. It wasn’t until I stopped by the New Zealand Cricket Museum’s Library at the Basin Reserve, Wellington, that I was able to borrow a copy and it was well worth the wait.

Merv Wallace: A Cricket Master is a must read for those interested in the key figures who’ve developed the game here as well as New Zealand’s reputation as a cricketing nation over the past century. As John R Reid writes on the cover: “Merv Wallace was the most under-rated player to have worn the Silver Fern. This long overdue book pays eloquent tribute to a great cricketer.”

Merv Wallace: A Cricket Master
by Joseph Romanos
(Joel Publishing, Wellington, 2000)

Article © Mark Pirie 2011

Harry Ricketts reviews Bert Sutcliffe biography

The latest issue of New Zealand Books (Autumn 2011) features a review of Richard Boock's The Last Everyday Hero: The Bert Sutcliffe Story (Longacre, 2010) by Harry Ricketts.
New Zealand Books (http://www.nzbooks.org.nz/) is a quarterly review journal that specialises in reviewing local books. It's good to see Boock's biography getting a substantial review there. One point of note. Harry says that Boock could've made more of the available material about Sutcliffe. For instance, Harry notes that John Arlott's piece on Bert Sutcliffe in Arlott's 100 Greatest Batsmen doesn't seem to have been referred to at all. Snippets from Arlott could've added to the book no doubt. Here's a quote from Arlott's piece on Sutcliffe: 'Like all the best batsmen, he was strong off the front foot or back - and his forward strokes were quite scholarly in method - his driving was handsome, but his hooking and pulling were equally effective.' I like the idea of Sutcliffe's strokes being 'scholarly in method'.
Other New Zealand batsmen in Arlott's 100 Greatest list (1989 ed.) are Martin Donnelly, Stewart Dempster, John Reid, Martin Crowe, Bevan Congdon and Glenn Turner.

See also my own blog review of Boock's biography (December 2010).

Summer Reads: Brendon McCullum: Inside Twenty20

Review by Mark Pirie of Brendon McCullum: Inside Twenty20 with Dylan Cleaver, Hodder Moa, 2010, RRP $29.99. Foreword by Ricky Ponting.

During the 2002/03 season, I was playing a 2-day match for Hutt District 2Bs at Wainuiomata’s Richard Prowse Park. It ended early with us annihilated by an innings after a half hour on the second Saturday as 2-day club games sometimes can. The two teams then wondered what to do? Head for a shower at home, then back to the clubrooms later in the afternoon, or maybe start a new game, 20 overs each, with 10 players getting 2 overs to bowl each? We chose the latter option and started a fun hit-out inspired by Martin Crowe’s Cricket Max and playing effectively what is now termed ‘Twenty20’.

That in mind, my initial thoughts on our friendly ‘Twenty20’ were positive but I guess I hadn’t seen it as anything more than a bit of fun, not to be taken too seriously. That’s why Brendon McCullum and Dylan Cleaver’s new book on the real Twenty20 phenomenon is a ground-breaking and timely release. It’s one of the first books to dig deep into Twenty20 at a national and international level. McCullum himself has been a trail-blazer making a world record 158 for Kolkata Knight Riders and has helped develop and improvise his shot techniques, most notably with the introduction of Tillakaratne Dilshan’s scoop shot.

It’s a very rewarding book. Dylan Cleaver, Heath Mills, Black Caps players and other officials along with newspaper quotations from journalists interject throughout McCullum’s discussions with handy match facts, controversial quotes and important Twenty20 trivia, while Cleaver himself presents a history of the Twenty20 format in his introduction. Australian great Ricky Ponting also chips in with a foreword. Cleaver, a well-known sports journalist, has done cricket followers a favour here by treating the new phenomenon in cricket as something to be looked at more closely and with a degree of seriousness. For those who’ve dismissed Twenty20 as being too radical a departure from the purist’s game of Test cricket, it certainly is an eye opener on the new form of the game. Twenty20 has helped revitalize the sport, bringing new crowds into the world’s stadiums, offering financial wealth and security to the players and their families, and finding innovative ways of playing in terms of bowling, fielding and batting.

Some of the highlights are McCullum talking about his world record knock of 158 off 73 balls for Kolkata against Bangalore in the IPL 2007 opener. McCullum notes that his form in the nets prior to the innings was abysmal. Even he hadn’t dreamed of coming out and playing the innings of a lifetime to kick start the money-rich IPL. The photos of McCullum in a gold helmet and gold batting pads are stunning. If IPL is all about entertainment, it certainly looks futuristic from a cosmetic point of view.

The rest of the book covers various aspects of Twenty20. There is a handy chapter on McCullum’s shot techniques in Twenty 20: the Dilshan scoop, the slog sweep, the slap, the paddle, the Pietersen switch-hits are all discussed. As a kid in Junior cricket for Onslow I used to bat one over right-handed then the next over left-handed. The adult umpire eventually told me I could only bat one way; it was unfair for the bowlers, so I chose to bat right-handed. The irony is that Twenty20 makes batting both ways now possible. If I were a kid now, I’d love to play Twenty20 cricket. There’s an excellent series of photos showing how McCullum plays each shot. For players wanting to learn some of the techniques needed in Twenty20 it is indispensable information.

Elsewhere McCullum discusses the World Twenty20 competitions, his two seasons at Kolkata Knight Riders, including his 2008 season as captain where he displaced Sourav Ganguly, the Prince of Kolkata, as leader of the team. There are chapters on ‘Club Vs Country’, McCullum being stripped of the Black Caps’ vice-captaincy, a chapter on Otago’s run to the Champions League and his ripple-stirring time with New South Wales as well as a chapter where McCullum selects his world Twenty20 XI.

Guided by McCullum’s modest, honest and well-judged reflections on his strengths and weaknesses in the game, insights into how Twenty20 has altered the cricket world along with Cleaver’s reliable research and support material, this book is well worth having. I’d recommend it to all cricket fans interested in finding out more about the game's newest departure. Brendon McCullum: Inside Twenty20 is an essential read.

Review © Mark Pirie 2011

Brendon McCullum: Inside Twenty20
with Dylan Cleaver (Hodder Moa, 2010)

Summer Reads: Shane Bond: Looking Back

Review by Mark Pirie of Shane Bond: Looking Back with Dylan Cleaver, Hodder Moa, 2010, RRP $44.99. Foreword by Sir Richard Hadlee.

I remember Shane Bond’s absence during the 2003/04 season. On Saturday’s, my club teammates were often wondering when Shane Bond would return to the Black Caps. Someone said, “He’ll never be back, it’s a seriously bad injury. He’s the best bowler we’ve had since Richard Hadlee, but, sadly, I think we may have seen the last of him.”

He did come back briefly but broke down again on the 2004 tour to England. Back then, I started thinking we’d never see him again at international level. When Shane Bond did return and then see out his playing career at 35 in the 2009/10 season, I was impressed.

For Shane to make a comeback like that after a serious injury (as well as being ruled out of international play for two seasons because of a barely known ICC technicality) there must’ve been something exceptional driving him. I bought a copy of his book at Christmas time, thinking I’d get a better insight into Shane through his own words.

As expected, Shane’s autobiography written with leading sports journalist Dylan Cleaver is a straight-talking affair with plenty to get off his chest about the ICL debacle, and his list of injuries. You get the sense Shane wants to put matters right with the New Zealand public after his misrepresentation at times in the New Zealand sports media and on talkback radio.

Like his bowling, Shane doesn’t hold back, and does set things straight. He doesn’t bowl many beamers either and hits the seam often enough to make it interesting for the reader. There’s also a whole chapter devoted to critiquing the Leading Teams concept of player review and discussion. Contrast this with the recently released biography of Sutcliffe’s playing days in the 1950s/60s and you realise the dilemmas of the modern game – much more team analysis. These days, a lot more money and revenue are at stake. This all leads as Shane points out to occasionally rash selection choices, early player retirements and the harsh axing of players.

The best bits for me, however, are not about player contracts and team management tactics or disputes. Shane gets his words whizzing round like his best balls when he talks about his playing days: there are the overseas tours as well as his Test debut against Australia and the VB One-Day series of 2001/02. That was a great season of cricket. This was the series when Shane cleaned out Adam Gilchrist with his trademark in-swinging yorker.

I was at the MCG then when New Zealand was top of the VB series table. Unfortunately, the day I was there they lost to Australia after a blinder from Michael Bevan. Bevan became a New Zealand nemesis who helped defeat them again at the 2003 World Cup in South Africa after Bond had taken 6-23 off 10 overs to rip out their top and middle orders. There’s nothing here, however, about Shane scoring his only First Class century for Canterbury vs ND, 2004/05 season. Maybe the circumstances around that century weren’t interesting enough to report.

The chapter about Shane’s back puts his injuries in perspective and his frustrations while sidelined from the game. You get brief interjections in each chapter with players and teammates of Shane adding their bit in little snippets like a documentary film. There’s comments from Stephen Fleming, Dan Vettori, Craig McMillan, Geoff Allott, Adam Gilchrist, Heath Mills, Martin Snedden as well as Shane’s manager Leanne McGoldrick and his own family.

Looking Back, however, is painful to read at times. There’s almost too much information given and unnecessary management decisions seem to have been made concerning Bond’s injuries and international availability. You can’t help feeling for Shane. The writing’s not flash to read but has important things to say. Still, there’s plenty here to admire, some good match photos, and it’s those wicket taking deliveries from his playing days rather than the politics that will live with you.

Shane’s overall bowling stats are very impressive. Sir Richard Hadlee provides a nice foreword, and that says a lot about Shane’s standing as one of New Zealand’s premier fast bowlers.

Review © Mark Pirie 2011

Shane Bond: Looking Back
with Dylan Cleaver
(Hodder Moa, 2010)

Summer Reads: The Bert Sutcliffe Story

Review by Mark Pirie of The Last Everyday Hero: The Bert Sutcliffe Story by Richard Boock, Longacre, RRP $39.99. Foreword by Alan Davidson.

Richard Boock’s recently published story of Sutcliffe’s life is an excellent cricket biography. It utilises the detailed research of author Rod Nye who died before his own work on Sutcliffe could be realised. Nye, a cricket lover, wrote the biography of Martin Donnelly, one of our greatest players, and was working on the Sutcliffe biography at the time of his death in 2004.

Boock’s final account of Sutcliffe’s life is a testament to Nye’s research methods and Boock’s own heartfelt commitment to the project. Doubly moving is that a number of Nye’s interviewees have passed away too before Boock's book was completed.
In this book you will find New Zealand team-mates of Sutcliffe as well as overseas players and officials talking about Bert and describing his deeds and innings first-hand. His extraordinary First Class playing career stretched from 1941/42-1965/66. What is remarkable is the consistency of the Sutcliffe portrait that emerges. Through the different voices of the era, Sutcliffe materialises as a kind, generous, egalitarian and popular man, the life of every party, and above all a batting ‘genius’. Most relate just how good a cricketer he was. Arguably, as Walter Hadlee comments, ‘he was the greatest cricketer New Zealand has produced’.

The book itself starts in explosive and unconventional manner, taking us straight into the Tangiwai disaster, the death of Bob Blair’s fiancée Narissa, and the Second Test at Ellis Park, South Africa, on the 1953/54 tour where Sutcliffe returned from hospital, took a swig of whisky and clubbed seven sixes on his way to an unbeaten 80. Of course, the story is now folklore (as seen by Jonny Brugh’s recent stage adaptation The Second Test and my own poem to Bert in A Tingling Catch) and perhaps why Nye wanted his book started at this moment in time. It was, of course, how the Sutcliffe legend began for many. From there Boock takes us deeper into Bert’s life story but in a more conventional manner, tracing Bert’s life from schoolboy cricket to retirement years, and ends with a poem read by Iain Gallaway as Sutcliffe’s ashes are deposited on Carisbrook in the exact fielding spot where Sutcliffe took his catch against the touring MCC in the 1946/47 season.*
One of the best things about Boock’s biography is its sheer range of contributors. Players young and old lend their support to the project, and as with any good history, forgotten sporting names and connections rear their heads. The lesser-known names all shine in fabulous batting-like partnerships with their star. Merv Wallace gets significant mention for his input into New Zealand cricket. It’s great to hear Walter Hadlee, John Reid, Australian Alan Davidson and Iain Gallaway talking about Sutcliffe alongside lesser known names like Noel McGregor, Eric Watson, West Indian Sammy Guillen and Tony MacGibbon. One of the finds was former New Zealand batsman Bill Playle’s account of the ill-fated 1958 tour of England. Nye’s brother Lindsay interviewed Playle, now living in Australia, in support of his brother’s
project.

Overall, it’s a fitting tribute to Bert’s life. It’s also very revealing of the cricket hierarchy of the time, particularly the poor selection choices made on tours to England in 1958 and Pakistan, India and England in 1965, the tight scheduling of games, and the dangerous and unsanitary conditions players faced in those days when touring Pakistan and India. If I have a minor quibble, it’s the lack of endnotes to properly reference the book’s sources. Instead, we have a short bibliography. Maybe it was too academic but the attention to detail might’ve added to the book. For instance, quotes like that made by Walter Hadlee above need clear dates to put these comments in historical perspective.

Another remarkable part of the Sutcliffe legend is that Bert (who still holds the New Zealand record for the Highest First Class batting score of 385) never played in a winning Test team. Suffering from ill health after returning from the tour of Pakistan and India, Sutcliffe listened on the radio as New Zealand defeated the West Indies in 1956 for their first ever Test win. He may not have won a Test but after reading Bert’s story, there’s no doubt that Sutcliffe at least had won the hearts of all, most notably his nation. Boock has successfully taken on Nye’s extensive research and produced a compelling account.

Review © Mark Pirie 2010

*This year the urn containing Sutcliffe's ashes was reported lost and a search for them called off by the Otago Cricket Association when attempting to relocate them to the University Oval. "Dad's ashes are proving as elusive as bowlers found taking his wicket," his son Gary said. "Maybe there is a message here. Dad's wishes were that he would love to have his ashes scattered at Carisbrook."

See the related news stories below:

‘Cricket legend Bert Sutcliffe’s ashes lost’, NZPA, 12 August 2010:

http://www.3news.co.nz/Cricket-legend-Bert-Sutcliffes-ashes-lost/tabid/415/articleID/170254/Default.aspx

‘Search for Bert Sutcliffe’s ashes called off’, NZPA, 13 August 2010

http://www.3news.co.nz/Search-for-Bert-Sutcliffes-ashes-called-off/tabid/415/articleID/170514/Default.aspx

The Last Everyday Hero:
The Bert Sutcliffe Story
by Richard Boock
(Longacre: 2010)

Mark Pirie's Slips - cricket poetry

Some readers will be wondering where I got started with writing cricket poetry. It’s not actually all I do, just one of the subjects I write on. Since 1999, I’ve published a steady stream of poetry books and often they have included a cricket poem. I may have written more than 30 cricket poems in total, which begs a fuller collection of my cricket poetry in the future, perhaps with illustrations. In 2008, I did release a mini book of cricket poems (a limited edition of 60 copies) through the Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop Mini Series of A6 booklets. Titled Slips (after the fielding position) it received a very good review from Tim Jones’ blog “Books in the Trees” (14 April 2008). I’ll include it here for your interest:

TIM JONES

Review of Mark Pirie’s Slips: cricket poems

I discovered cricket in 1969. At the time, we lived in Otatara, south of Invercargill. The only access I had to test cricket (for the uninitiated, this means five-day games between nations) was via radio: 4YC out of Dunedin were broadcasting commentaries on that summer's tests between New Zealand and the West Indies. It wasn't a powerful station, and the only way I could get reception in our house was to put my radio on top of the metal toilet cistern, which amplified the signal. (It's possible this was inconvenient to other occupants of the house.)

Cricket is an old game which has developed a massive literature: not just the primary literature of statistics and match reports, but a secondary literature of fiction, poetry and plays. Mark Pirie has recently made a welcome addition to this literature with Slips, which is No. 21 in the Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop's excellent mini-series of poem booklets. Slips is dedicated to Harry Ricketts, another cricketing poet (and biographer), thus acknowledging its place in this literary tradition.

Mark knows whereof he speaks. My cricketing days are well past me, but my son played junior cricket up to the 2006/07 season, and several times, just as his team were packing up for the day, Mark would turn up with his senior team. The cover of Slips shows Mark poised to take a slips catch (again, for US readers, the slips are like extra shortstops who stand behind the batter and take catches off what in baseball would be fouls).

All the poems inside are about, or at least allude to, cricket. These allusions range from the glancing to the highly statistical: "Legacies and Cold Stats" and "Fiery Fred" would delight any cricket historian, while the longest poem, "11 Ways of Being Dismissed", is based on a Cricinfo article about eleven unusual dismissals.

My two favourite poems in the book aren't so stats-heavy. "At Browns Bay" is a beautiful love lyric, while "The Pavilion", following a long literary tradition, uses cricket as a metaphor for life.

This book displays many of the virtues of Mark Pirie's poetry: humour, moving writing about grief and loss, and some classic last lines. I particularly like the final line of "Joe", about a gentleman who starts distracting the scorer:

I watch his words aeroplane up and down his breath.

Whether or not you know your doosra from your googly, Slips is worth catching.

Review copyright Tim Jones, 2008

Writing cricket poems certainly encouraged my interest in finding cricket poems by other New Zealand poets, and that’s how the anthology A Tingling Catch was conceived. Little did I know there was a wealth of material to be found. I emailed a few New Zealand poets who I knew had an interest in the game. Four years of searching yielded well over 200 pages of material. I cut A Tingling Catch to 189 pages in the end. Still a very substantial read.

Below: Photo of Mark Pirie from the cover of Slips by Gemma Claire