Sundial in the Shade

Andrew Murtagh

Description

As a former county player, Andrew Murtagh is often asked, 'who is the best batsman he has ever played with or against?' His answer is always unequivocal - 'Richards.' And then comes the inevitable rider - 'Barry, that is, not Viv.' It is a travesty that the cricket world has largely forgotten Barry Richards - a cricketing genius. Debuting for South Africa in 1970, his run-scoring, technique and audacious, extravagant strokeplay took the breath away. A glittering international career beckoned. However, the apartheid storm burst, and Richards had played his first and last Test series. Consigned to plying his trade for Hampshire, Natal and South Australia, Richards became increasingly frustrated and disenchanted with the game he had loved. Following retirement, personal tragedy and professional controversy continued to stalk him, though he has now come to an uneasy acceptance that he will be forever known as the genius lost to Test cricket.

Sujets

• Republic of South Africa
• Críquet
• South Africa
• Cricket
• Afrique du Sud

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785310676
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

To Lin Murtagh, my wife.
Without whom I would probably not be here today.
First published by Pitch Publishing, 2015
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Andrew Murtagh, 2015
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Contents
Foreword by Tim Rice
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 A Singular Child
2 Nuffield Week
3 England, June/July 1963
4 Natal, 1964-70
5 Annus Mirabilis, 1970-71
6 Happy Hants, Hampshire 1968-73
7 Not So Happy Hants, Hampshire 1974-78
8 Natal Success 1973-76
9 The Packer Revolution, 1977-79
10 Those Two Imposters - Triumph and Disaster, 1984-2015
Appendix Barry Richards s Career Record
Photographs
Hide not your talent. They for use were made.
What s a sundial in the shade?
Benjamin Franklin
Foreword by Tim Rice
S OUTH Africa s Barry Richards is simply one of the greatest batsmen cricket has ever seen, whose talents have at times been bracketed with those of Sir Donald Bradman, Sachin Tendulkar and his namesake Vivian. The comparison would have been made more often but for the well-known tragedy of his career: it coincided almost exactly with his country s period of isolation from the cricket world, 1970-1991, as a result of apartheid. This meant that he only played four Test Matches, all against Australia, all of which were won by South Africa, and his contribution of 508 runs at an average of over 72 was a major factor in this triumph. After that magnificent success, the door slammed shut on South Africa s international cricket and by the time it was prised open again, Barry had retired. He played first-class cricket until 1983, notably for Hampshire and South Australia, and nearly every time he went to the wicket, his admirers could not but wonder what might have been.
I have had the honour of knowing Barry as a friend for many years and have even played in a couple of extremely minor club matches which he graced with his presence. He was long gone from the first-class game but his first-class ability and modesty were still very much in evidence. He generously refrained from smashing me out of the attack and during one of my more testing spells (the ones when the ball occasionally hits the deck before getting to the batsman) even managed to give the odd spectator the impression he was not quite sure how to deal with me. Not true, obviously, but I am eternally grateful for the gesture.
I am delighted that Andrew Murtagh is herein paying tribute to this wonderful player, who has known great ups and downs in life, both off and on the pitch, but remains above all a sportsman and gentleman without bitterness and with few equals.
Preface
It was as if Yehudi Menuhin had called into the Festival Hall of a morning, taken his fiddle on stage and reeled off faultless, unaccompanied Bach all day - just for the pleasure of the cleaners, box-office clerks, odd electricians or a carpenter who chanced to be there - without central heating, of course - without taking off his coat.
Tony Lewis on Barry Richards s innings at an empty Lord s, 1974
I T just happened as it happened. No one had planned it, nothing had been scheduled, nothing organised. It was a day much like countless others in the life of a county cricketer. Net practice when no match is on the fixture list is not the way most professional cricketers would choose to spend a rare day off but the custom was almost de rigueur ; it would be a brave captain who would say to his team, You deserve a rest, lads - go and play golf.
And a captain who was brave enough to defy custom would only feel he could get away with it if his team were looking down on everyone else from the top of the championship. Sixteen other sides, of course, would be looking upwards, so naughty boy nets would be ordered and everyone had to be there.
And that included the stars , the overseas players. In the 1970s, every county was allowed two overseas players on its books and a brief glance at the playing staffs of those days would reveal a glittering collection of the world s finest cricketers. Today, counties employ overseas players who are barely recognisable to the general public. Central contracts have put paid to county cricket being the finishing school for Test cricketers from other countries.
Even the England players now have little more than fleeting contact with their home county.
It was different then. The Hampshire side that gathered together at 10am by the nets at the county ground in Southampton one day in the 1974 season included two of the best cricketers on the planet - Barry Richards and Andy Roberts. Actually, there was a third - Gordon Greenidge - but owing to an oddity of the rules, he was registered as an Englishman, even though he had nailed his colours firmly to the West Indian mast.
He had come to this country from Barbados when he was 14 and was developing into one of the world s most powerful and destructive opening bats. England, West Indies, Reading, Mars we didn t care where he came from as long as he was in our side. I say our side because I was in that group of Hampshire players padding up or marking out their runs for the ensuing net practice. I was a fringe player, it has to be said, but though I was frustrated at my seeming inability to make much of an impact in the first team, I was nevertheless tickled pink to be rubbing shoulders with the best in the game.
For Hampshire were the best. The championship pennant fluttered proudly at the top of the flagpole and there was every hope, nay expectation, that the previous year s triumph would be repeated.
Especially now that the world s fastest bowler was registered to play for us. Those who had played with Roberts in the Second XI the season before, while he served his year s period of qualification, were only too aware of his raw pace and his deadly potential. There had been one match, against Gloucestershire at Bournemouth that had already acquired legendary status and had done much to promote his fearsome reputation. Gloucestershire were 30-odd for one, with numbers six and seven at the wicket. The missing batsmen were either back in the pavilion nursing painful bruises or on their way to hospital. He was fast all right and that winter he had already made his Test debut for the West Indies.
The other overseas player was Barry Richards, who, by contrast, had no need to make a name for himself. Among the county fraternity, to say nothing of the wider cricketing public, he was regarded as the most technically proficient and naturally talented of any batsman on earth. Even so, together with one or two others in the Hampshire team that summer s morning, he did not particularly relish the prospect of a morning in the nets; county cricket is a treadmill and he would rather have had the morning off, to relax and to catch up on his mail. But all were professionals and if nets had been ordered, then nets it must be. Everyone just got on with it.
Such practice sessions always followed a pattern, a routine. The batsmen would go in first, usually in the same order as on matchdays. There would be ten minutes in one net where the seamers were operating and then the coach would shout out, Change nets! and a further ten minutes would be spent in the spinners net, where the surface was a little bit worn. By the time it came for the bowlers to bat and the batsmen to bowl, everybody had had enough and things rapidly deteriorated. How do you expect me to hold my end up if the rest of you won t bowl to me? would be the constant lament of the tail-enders to the retreating backs of his team-mates as they made their way back to the dressing room and a reviving cup of tea.
Richards strolled up the net, turned and took guard. He gave a little hollow laugh as someone gave him a guard several feet outside leg stump; it was an old trick and was becoming a little tiresome. He tugged at the blue Hampshire cap as he settled himself at the crease. It wasn t brightly sunny as it was back in his Natal homeland but he always wore a cap. It helped to keep the long, curly, blond hair from getting in his eyes. Round about, everything was proceeding as normal. There were raucous shouts for LBW from the bowlers, equally vociferous responses of not out! from the victims and several fingers would shoot upwards from those in positions where they could not possibly tell one way or the other. In other words, it was just like a hundred net sessions that season up and down the country.
Roberts wasn t bowling. He was lurking . Fast bowling is physically demanding enough without having to strain nerve and sinew at a footling net practice. He didn t really know why he was there. He couldn t see the point. So he contented himself with lobbing down a few gentle off-spinners, which everybody, of course, treated with the utmost respect. But then we noticed that he had walked back as far as his normal run. Richards had noted it too and wondered what was going on. As a suitable gap presented itself in the bowling queue, Roberts came hurtling in, rocking from side to side in that familiar fashion, rather like a runaway express train, gathering his whole body in the delivery stride, to deliver the ball at full pace. Richards was ready for it and