Invent a cricketer...

brazo de natillas · King of the divan

Invent a cricketer...

Golcar CC · Bezalgo

AJP Jennings b. 1954, Kansas City, Missouri (?)

Originally hailed as one a small group of US born cricketers to prosper in England's county championship his controversial flame burnt brightly, but briefly. After a couple of games for Staffordshire in the minor counties ranks (interestingly enough he also turned out for Port Vale FC in a few fixtures in their 1973/74 season), he made the grade as a county cricketer, playing for Leicestershire in their successful 1975 championship winning side. He was an elegant middle-order batsman, who also looked useful in the burgeoning one-day form of the game developing at the time. He occasionally featured as a handy "go-to" bowler, seam bowling with a very individual delivery that caused amused comments wherever he bowled.

Yet halfway through the season he disappeared without trace. While Leicestershire never fully explaining the reason for his withdrawal and simply stated he had returned to the States for family reasons rumours at the time were rife that he wasn't actually American at all, and that he had fled in fear of being discovered. The only light ever shed on the affair came when estwhile colleague, Terry Spencer, mentioned in an unguarded moment that he could probably be tracked down in the Heavy Woollen League, under another name of course, but the official version may never be settled.

Top score: 91 no v. Yorkshire, Bradford PA; Best bowling: 7-28 v. Essex, Ilford.

-- Edited by Golcar CC at 20:56, 2007-02-04

Golcar CC · Bezalgo

Sir Casimir Cartwright van Straubenzee (Major-General)

One of the few Canada born cricketers to make an appearance in first-class English cricket his major sporting claim to fame was being Canadian and getting a first class game of cricket in. Not a talent but a major general and a general good sort. He may have been related to the Dutch van Straubenzees' of Cleveland.

-- Edited by Golcar CC at 21:06, 2007-02-04

Date: Feb 4, 2007

Kendon DeVilliers

One of the first generation of West Indian cricketers to grace the county game, the softly-spoken Tobagan established a formidable strike partnership at Lancashire with younger compatriot Everton Goddard. His trademark pigeon-toed run up, the legacy of wartime service in the Merchant Navy, belied an ability to hurry batsmen and generate movement off the green pitches of the era.
Sadly, difficulties settling in Preston and a refusal to continue to play under non-union conditions forced him to return, in the middle of his third seasonto, to the Caribbean, where cricket took second place to law.
He was never capped.

joel · Findin' Fundin

Aubrey, Lord Southam (b. 1828 Madras, d. 1916 Little Frogham, Somerset)

There can be few cricketers who have managed to combine such a distinguished presence at the crease with a hand in shaping the rules of the game as we know them today. He was a ferocious opening bat who was particularly strong on the off side -- the result, it was said, of his time at Harrow, where it was customary for first-formers to be sent to bed without supper if they played through the on. He was a superb slip fielder, despite losing two fingers in the Indian Mutiny of 1857, where he was decorated for bravery. It was during his convalescence that he met his future wife, Harriet Bonham-Carter, then working as an auxiliary at Nagpur field hospital. She would later bear him four sons, the youngest of whom, Henry, became Gloucestershire's most successful pre-war captain.

Lord Southam was back in action within a month, scoring 52 and 139 n.o. for The Governor General's XI against The East India Company in Delhi. He was to finish the season as the Empire's leading run-scorer, with 2,952 at an average of 123. This was to remain unbeaten until 1926 and Bunny Mathews (see Bunny's Summer by A.G. Swunton, Hodder, 1951, which also contains a chapter on Southam).

He returned to England in 1859, but India was never to leave him. He remained a strict vegetarian, and his one match as captain of his country, a fractious affair against The Gentlemen of Middlesex in 1865 in which Southam acquired the only pair of his career, was marred by a player mutiny after he refused to allow bacon to be served at the pre-match breakfast. He relented, but would never play for his country again. If it affected him, he refused to let it show, and he was to become Somerset's leading run-scorer for the next 15 years and the first man to score successive triple centuries at Taunton, a feat that was to remain unmatched until F.R.S. Townend 50 years later. In his autobiography, Signed, F.R.S., published in 1931, Townend relates how it was seeing the bust of Southam in the Great Hall as he emerged from tea on the last day that gave him the impetus he needed to pass 300. He retired on 301 that day, he said, in tribute to his great Somerset forebear.

Southam played well into his fifties, powers undiminished, but still harbouring the distaste for the on side that marked his career. The sole moment of levity during the infamous Bodyline tour of 1932-33 was provided when Harold Larwood, frustrated by Bradman's tentativeness down leg, was heard to remark "Who do you think you are, Lord B****y Southam?", to which the great Australian grinned and replied, "Now there was a gentleman, when gentlemen still played this d**n game".

He played his last match against the visiting Indians in 1885, lining up for the first time alongside his beloved eldest son, Percy. It was a poignant moment, said by E.F. Swinton to have reduced the notoriously hard Taunton crowd to tears.

Lord Southam moved quickly and seamlessly into administration, making numerous changes, some arcane and others of lasting significance. He was instrumental in the annulment of Law 3.21, which stated that "no gentleman of a rank higher than the Younger Son of a Marquess shall be removed by an lbw ball", although it was said that he later came to regret his decision. He gained little support at the MCC for his proposal to reduce an on side boundary to two runs, for which we should perhaps be thankful; however, his spirited but ultimately doomed attempt to enforce separate viewing enclosures for gentlemen and 'others' at Lord's is a blow from which the game has yet to recover.

O.G. Swilton

-- Edited by joel at 01:13, 2007-02-05

-- Edited by joel at 01:19, 2007-02-05

brazo de natillas · King of the divan

Warwick 'Wacka' Smith (b. 1874? Kalgoorlie)

Of mining stock, the unorthodox Smith was a fixture in the Australia sides of the 1900s, where he was a combative presence in the middle order. Aside from consistent, if unspectacular, achievements with bat and ball, he played an important role in the diplomatic negotiations surrounding the disastrous 1908 Temperance Society-backed tour of South Africa, where, due to a cranberry-stained chart, the Australian team disembarked in Lüderitzbucht, Südwestafrika.
Smith's contributions to the game include the modern slips stance (previously impossible because of the level of starch in most whites) and the sledge.

Club Dogsbody · Veteran Member

Ernest 'Jumbo' Hunworth G.C., D.S.C. (1899 – 1972)

Ernest, the second son of a pit foreman, was born near Barnsley in 1899. Preferring to devote himself to football and cricket and seemingly destined for a life in industry, he left school at the age of 14 without having shone academically. When he was just 12, he played cricket for his village 1st XI alongside his father and uncle, proving himself to be capable with both bat and ball, although it was as a bowler that he came to the attention of Yorkshire CCC during the 1914 season. Between April and early June he took 187 wickets at a cost of just 11 apiece playing for Penistone in the Barnsley and District league, and won a trial for the county. He played seven times for Yorkshire 2nd XI before the end of that season, with best bowling figures of 4-46 v Derbyshire 2nd XI.
Upon the outbreak of the First World War, Ernest joined the 2nd Barnsley Pals (14th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment), even though he was still underage. He served with distinction in France and Belgium throughout the war and, miraculously, despite receiving four bullet wounds, was never seriously injured. While convalescent at a military hospital near Paris in the spring of 1918, he met his wife to be, Hilda, who was working as a nurse. Ernest never once spoke about his ordeals in the trenches, but the fact that he was twice awarded medals for gallantry gives ample insight into his character.
He returned to south Yorkshire after the war, and resumed playing both cricket and football. With Yorkshire in desperate need of bowling in 1919 after the tragic deaths of Major Booth (his real name, not his rank) and Alonzo Drake, he made his debut for Yorkshire in August 1919, taking 3 Gloucestershire wickets in his first ever spell at the St George's Ground, Harrogate. A sports writer for the Barnsley Chronicle described him as a “brisk medium paced bowler who used conditions of air, ground and moisture to his advantage and the batsman’s misfortune”.
He was called up for England for the Ashes tour of 1920/21, but did not play in any of the tests, despite the calamitous nature of the series for the visitors. A tragic turning point in Hunworth’s career followed, as he twisted his knee very badly in a fall down some stairs on the boat back to England and he never seemed to recapture the devastating bowling form of his early life. He played on for some years as a competent middle-order batsman before retiring from first class cricket in 1927.
He umpired for many years on the Yorkshire circuit before retiring in 1959. He died peacefully in Scarborough in 1972.

-- Edited by Club Dogsbody at 13:14, 2007-02-05

joel · Findin' Fundin

This is great stuff

joel · Findin' Fundin

Michael (‘Mike’) Graham Foster-Roberts (b. 1943, Worcester; d. 1998 Castelnaud-la-Chapelle, France)

At some point in that baffling decade the 1970s, it seemed as if the Mikes would inherit the earth, or at least the Gillette Cup, a hope borne out by Worcestershire’s victorious side of 1973, which contained no less than seven Mikes, along with two Brians, a Geoff and, in a curious hangover from the 1950s, a Bill. Mike Foster-Roberts, an unsung but important member of that team, was born a stone’s throw from New Road and apart from four years at Cambridge, where he read French and Philosophy and took the best figures seen in a Varsity match up to that point, 8/23 in the infamous 1962 match at Fenners, he lived in Worcester all his life. “Worcester gave me everything I ever needed from life,” he wrote in his autobiography, Where Have All The Mikes Gone?, published shortly before he fell to his death from the roof of his 17th century stone cottage in the Dordogne.

Coached at Worcester Grammar by the great EAS Swafton, who called him the best 12-year-old he’d ever seen, Foster-Roberts showed early promise with both bat and ball, although it was as a medium-pacer of uncanny accuracy and reliable length that he was to make his name at Cambridge, Worcestershire and Woolagong. His ability to extract swing and bounce from the most uncompromising pitches made him a natural choice to lead the England ‘B’ team to New Zealand in 1968. It was a fractious tour, with Foster-Roberts and Mike Furness spending a night in gaol for unspecified lewd behaviour, although both protested their innocence. Back on English soil, Foster-Roberts revealed that he’d led a drunken rendition of the ‘Red Flag’ in his hotel room in honour of the six French students killed in a battle with the CRS the week before, attracting the attention of the notoriously rightwing Auckland police. Bespectacled and bookish, the sight of Foster-Roberts reading Marx in the dressing-room at New Road became a source of affectionate amusement on the part of his colleagues. He would later drift rightwards politically, standing unsuccessfully for the SDP in the Worcester by-election of 1987.

New faces and new names entered the fray as the 1980s dawned, notably a host of Tims, Neils and Marks, and Foster-Roberts drifted out of the game. Somewhat inevitably, he became an urbane Head of French at Worcester Grammar, insisting that his charges call him ‘Mike’. Just as inevitably, he took over cricket coaching duties; among those that passed through his firm but capable hands were the tragic leg-arm spinner Gary Dewsbury and New Road favourite, Asif Iqbal. After taking early retirement, Foster-Roberts wrote a weekly wine column for The Worcester Echo, and spent many long hours in his splendid riverside garden. He was survived by his wife Gillian and his two daughters, Harriet and Rosie.

-- Edited by joel at 15:36, 2007-02-05

zimmerframe · Member

Endean, William Russell, 1924 - 2003

Russell Endean was an inspirational fielder, a dogged batsman, and a hockey international. Australians dubbed him "Endless Endean" for his long hours at in 1952-53 and his seven-and-a-half-hour 162 not out in Melbourne. Endean's brilliant catch in that first Test win at Melbourne was the embodiment of his commitment. Even as the crowd was rising to acclaim Keith Miller's six-bound blow over long-on, Endean was leaping in front of the MCG's iron boundary fence to clutch the ball one-handed. Endean had seen war service in Egypt and Italy when, still only 21, he announced himself with 95 opening for Transvaal at Bloemfontein in March 1946. Chosen as wicket-keeper/batsman for the 1951 tour of England, he struggled for runs in English conditions and played only when John Waite was injured at The Oval. But Endean's batting on harder pitches, where he could play square of the wicket with impunity, was sometimes devastating: playing for Transvaal at Ellis Park in 1954-55, he flayed Orange Free State for a world-record 197 not out before lunch. He played in 27 more Tests without taking the gloves, and scored two more centuries, though he continued his maddening form in England by following up with a pair in the decisive Oval Test. Endean was involved in two of the most bizarre dismissals in Test history: when he kept at The Oval in 1951, umpire Frank Chester ruled that Len Hutton, who instinctively flicked his bat when the ball ran off his arm and looked like dropping on his wicket, had impeded Endean's attempt to catch the ball and gave him out for obstruction. Against England at Cape Town in 1956-57, Endean himself became the first batsman out "handled the ball" in Test cricket when he tried to stop a top-edged paddle hitting his stumps. He said later: "I thought of heading it away, but that seemed too theatrical"; it might, however, have been legal.

joel · Findin' Fundin

Caes de Rietkerk (b. Amsterdam, 1965)

There are many faces to this flamboyant figure, almost single-handedly responsible for the revival of the game in the Low Countries and certainly the finest cricketer Holland has produced since his father, Volkert, once of Oxfordshire, lit up the Minor County scene in the mid-70s. A tidy middle-order batsman contemptuous of anything short of a length; a growling presence of some distinction in the field; a useful quick used primarily for containment; and a man of such gargantuan appetites that he was said, on one occasion, to have turned out for Amsterdam CC on little more than ten minutes' sleep, after having finally been tracked down to one of the city's notorious vice dens shortly before the match was due to start. He was an accomplished player of sledge, responding to a sardonic enquiry by the captain of South Africa ‘B’ as to his whereabouts that morning with the words “In ‘The Painted Lady’, schmoking hash and f*****g. You should try it shome time, Hansie.” He went on to score an unbeaten 23, which included the hospitalisation of silly mid-on.

It was only a matter of time before the Minor Counties, which in the late-80s were sorely lacking the kind of edgy entertainment once offered by a now-declining Barney Kennett, took notice. He impressed in trials with Devon and Staffordshire, choosing the latter so that he could keep an eye on his father’s pottery business. He won the Minor Counties’ Newcomer of the Year Award in 1989. With his blond ponytail, love of early ‘gabba techno’ and distinctive pink and brown VW Samba, he became a familiar figure around Stafford, if not an entirely trusted one. Meanwhile, back in Holland, de Rietkerk was fast becoming something of a pin-up, thanks mainly to the success of his single Schniffin’ Linseed, and his appearance, in the off-season, in the very first series of De Big Broeder, which he went on to win. After two more seasons of moderate success at Staffs, though he did shine during their otherwise fractious tour of Scotland in 1991, he returned to The Netherlands, where he became the face of the Dutch government’s imaginative ‘More Cricket’ campaign alongside Dennis Bergkamp.

His arrest in the early hours of Saturday 18 February 1996 on charges of ‘overseeing the manufacture of lewd ceramic hashpipes’ at his father’s Staffordshire plant, to which the charge of ‘intent to supply Utrecht with adulterated linseed oil for the purposes of consumption at illicit raves’ was added a week later, brought the curtain down on a short but eventful career. After serving six months in a Rotterdam prison, he married childhood sweetheart Maartje and settled in Vlissingen, where he now grows tulips and is a part-time pastor with the Dutch Reformed Church.

El Presidente · Disco Brad

Percival James "Chook" Bird (1953 - ?) was a colourful and controversial character throughout his sadly brief career. A last minute replacement on the 1973-74 Australian tour of the West Indies the promising allrounder stated that he would "let his bat do all the talking" when asked how he rated his chances for the upcoming tour. However, a tour highest score of 8*, it appeared that his bat was not actually that talkative.

After claiming to have invented a new mystery ball that "God himself, would not be able to pick" he must have been rather disappointed with tour best figures of 5.4 overs 0 for 63 against Guyana in Georgetown.

Upon returning to Australai it was revelaed that "Chook" had been caught in a rather delicate situation with the wife of a selector, which perhaps goes some way to expaining why he was never picked for his country again.

After a frustrating return to State cricket he decided to return to his home town of Wagga Wagga to pursuit a career in landscape gardening. His current whereabouts are unclear, but rumours of incarceration over aggravated assault charges can not be verified at this moment.

Golcar CC · Bezalgo

FM Arouet b. La Rochelle 1751(?) d. Santa Monica (CA) 1888 (??)

An Anglophilic Frenchman with a philosophic bent, a bandy gait, and a way with words, his dealings with cricket were peripheral at best and he remains at footnote in the game's history. However, as a man of letters, he was an innovator whose intellectual treatment of the game raised consideration of the very art of cricket, offering food for thought to many of his English contemporaries.

Today historians dispute his influence over one of the game's major themes of the day, the shape of the bat, but there is no doubting his influence in changing one of the prevailing rules of the game and adding a dose of what now may be called regularity to the sport.

It was on the eve of game between a scratch side representing the Gentlemen of West Sussex and a Hambleton side (not to be confused with the more illustrious Hambledon) captained by the Duke of Beverley when Arouet, maintaining the sharp wit and incisiveness observational skills that had helped him overlook the revolutionary news crossing the Channel, ushered in his own revolution in a game quite foreign to him, yet one that he had grown to love.

"Why not, dears sirs", he is reported as saying (while tea was being poured - well , though a gentleman he did remain French for the duration), "why not? Why do we not prepare regular grounds for the playing of cricket, and indeed most importantly regular areas in the midst of such fields where one might set the wickets as they be known, and hence stop this invidious practice where the most practised, and let us be honest, in some cases the most prominent or even socially best standing bowler takes it upon himself to decide where the wickets shall be placed?"

A true gent and forefather of the game, and one who deserves no small recognition for his minor contribution development of the game. Widely reported claims that his last words were "J'admets que l'idea du cricket a' la 20 et 20 sera une force pour la future du jeu." are possibly apocryphal.

Much of his later life was spent back in his native France attempting to promote a national network of wooden-floored sports halls where children might play an elementary version of the sport still unknown in England called le jeu des mains.

brazo de natillas · King of the divan

Ambrose Sickert (b. Ashby St Legers 1814, d. Ashby de la Zouch 1889)

A frail figure with a deceptive roundarm action, Sickert's formidable exploits with the ball have been overshadowed by a single perfomance in the 1854 Northamptonshire v MCC clash where, with light fading fast on an autumnal evening, and the hosts requiring 145, he bowled an uninterrupted series of fifty-four no balls off a long run to secure the draw.
Further controversy followed in the return match a week later when Sickert stormed off the pitch in response to accusations that he was wearing oversized hobnail boots to create a more pronounced rough for 'Budgie' Archibald's off-tweakers. The game's end in acrimony provoked a damning Times editorial, an anonymous handbill, and a heated exchange in the Lords. The disgraced Sickert never played competitively again, though brothers Bertrand, Leander and Smethwick continued to wear the red rose for several years, between them amassing over 5,000 runs for the county.

-- Edited by brazo de natillas at 00:08, 2007-02-06

paichukka · ...Ding!

Time to delurk. You knew this would be the first thread I posted on...

Neil Bitson-Pieces (b Corby, 1960)

A bustling medium pacer and capable lower-order batsman, Northamptonshire stalwart Neil Bitson-Pieces first caught the eye with two hard-hitting centuries in July 1988 that took him into the England test side. A tough debut against the West Indies followed (0-181 off his 36 overs; scores of 1 and 7), but he was resilient enough to come back from being dropped for the 4th test, and earned a place on the touring side to Pakistan after injuries struck more favoured all-rounders. There he played a minor role in the Johnnie Walker incident, and his subsequent refusal to shave off his moustache left him with little option but to join the rebel tour to Lesotho immediately after his return to the UK, although not before his quickfire 43 against Lahore Banking and Trading Company had taken England to their first victory of the trip in Shakoor Rana’s infamous “8-no-balls match”. Banned for three years, a somewhat stockier Bitson-Pieces returned to the one-day side for the 1992 World Cup, where his controversial switch to comedy left-arm spin halfway through an over is held by many to have cost England a place in the Mediocre Eights consolation final. A brilliant diving catch at long-on as the Bahamas almost choked in their run chase was not enough to save his international career, although the accompanying V-sign to the crowd certainly did not aid his cause. His autobiography Down and Out in Bedford and Luton is acknowledged as one of the blandest yet most-revealing insights into the county game. Bitson-Pieces stood as a Conservative council candidate in Kettering while still playing professionally for Northants, but heavy defeat ended his political ambitions. Ever the all-rounder, he now combines his duties as director of a valve-installation business with the role of acting editor of Midlands Ale Monthly.

El Presidente · Disco Brad

paichukka wrote:

Time to delurk. You knew this would be the first thread I posted on...

Welcome mr Paichukka. To be honest though I had my money on you entertaining us on the "What did you have for Sunday lunch?" thread on your first post.

joel · Findin' Fundin

Vassily Streltsov (b. Klin, 1932; d. Moscow, 1996)

Even a cursory glance at the annals of Soviet cricket could not fail to pick out the name of Vassily Streltsov. A gentle, urbane man, ‘Comrade Offspinski’ revived the banned art of slow bowling in the Soviet Union at a time when the game was being dominated by a seemingly endless line of fine Turkmen quicks. He was also credited with re-popularising the concept of the all-rounder, which had been in decline since the purges of 1935. Starting out as a hard-hitting number four for his local youth side, Pioneers 15th of May, he didn’t turn to the off-spin with which he was to make his name until well into his teens, when ex-Cambridge captain Roger Blunt arrived at the club in a part-time coaching capacity. A long-time resident of Moscow and former President of the Congress of Socialist Cricketers, the equivalent of the MCC, Blunt was to become an important early mentor to Streltsov, and continued to coach him privately until his execution for treason in a notorious show trial that sent shockwaves through Soviet kriket.

Streltsov worked hard at all aspects of his game, and was able to devote himself entirely to cricket when he was accepted by the elite Lenin Sports Academy in Moscow at the age of 17, where he was coached by the maverick Ukrainian Dr Andrej Sukharev. Firmly established as a dashing number seven for the Academy team, and positively relishing the fearsome bowling of the Turkmens, the tragic Rafis Abazov chief among them, he felt freer to concentrate on his ball work. Off-spin was seen as a risky business, particularly after the infamous 1928 Ordinance, which called on clubs to “stamp out this petty bourgeois practice in the name of the Heroes of the 17th of July”. The art of spin disappeared virtually overnight, although in practice it still went on, semi-clandestinely, in scratch matches, with party chiefs being known to turn a blind eye to it in the traditional May Day inter-factory tournaments.

Streltsov was determined to bring off-spin into the light again. In his autobiography, which he left unfinished, he described it as “the most beautiful thing I had ever seen … the perfect admixture of science and aesthetics”. Stalin’s death in 1953 liberalised the game with immediate effect, and Streltsov’s application to bowl off-spin in his last year at the Academy was accepted. He completed his thesis on ‘The Dialectical Method as Applied to the Bowling of Off-Spin’, and joined the famous Batallion 23rd of September army team, coming under the guidance of Colonel Ivan Mihailev, a brilliant tactician and strict disciplinarian who was to have a major influence on Streltsov’s career.

His first full season of off-spin was a triumph. Working in tandem with the great Byelorussian seamer Aleksander ‘Misha’ Barbaroff, Streltsov took over 250 wickets and averaged 40 with the bat, earning him a Pravda Hero of Socialist Cricket award. Batsmen would slowly come to terms with Streltsov’s bowling, although his wrong ‘un remained unplayable by all but the best Latvians. For a couple of seasons in the mid-50s he was imperious, and it was only a matter of time before he came to the attention of the national selectors, then in the process of assembling a team for a first tour of Eastern Europe since the war. Nominally organised to celebrate Georgian cricket’s centenary year, it began in Bulgaria, with Streltsov taking 5/23 and making a quick-fire 47 to steer the Soviets to a five-wicket victory. After further games in Warsaw and Prague, the latter a rain-sodden affair that was eventually settled by the Gorky-Andropov method in the Soviets’ favour, the tour moved on to Yugoslavia, where cricket was enjoying something of a renaissance thanks to a cluster of Australian Marxists who had defected following a phytosanitary conference in Zagreb in 1954. The opener, against Organ of Associated Labour Velenje, was a fractious affair, with BJ Eve and Bruce Crawford both earning life bans for sledging; their continual questioning of the veracity of the Soviets’ figures on the 1955 grain harvest threatened at the time to bring Yugo-Soviet relations to an all-time low.

In retrospect, the decision to play an exhibition match in Trieste was a mistake. The defection of every player save Streltsov and young Armenian paceman Ardavan Kerkourian was a dark episode from which the Soviet game would only begin to emerge in the Brezhnev era. Streltsov returned to Battalion, but the Trieste defections had removed the Soviets’ golden generation in one fell swoop and he slowly drifted out of the game. After a brief spell as manager of a Kiev smelting factory – he had trained as a metallurgist – he was a popular appointment to the post of cricket Czar in the Crimea. He was to remain in Odessa for 20 years, retiring in 1986.

For the last ten years of his life, the tiny Moscow flat he shared with his physicist wife Elena Sharapova became something of a mecca for afficionados of Soviet cricket. He died of emphysema just two weeks after his 64th birthday, and was buried with his favourite ‘Tovarna Sakharin’ bat and a picture of Ray Illingworth.

-- Edited by joel at 12:51, 2007-02-11

brazo de natillas · King of the divan

joel wrote:

fine Turkmen quicks.

El Presidente · Disco Brad

brazo de natillas wrote:

joel wrote:

fine Turkmen quicks.

What. No left-arm Kyrgystani fast-medium out swingers?

-- Edited by El Presidente at 13:39, 2007-02-11

joel · Findin' Fundin

brazo de natillas wrote:

joel wrote:

fine Turkmen quicks.

Thought you'd like that

El P, cricket never really took off in Kyrgyzstan, sadly. Very much a rugby league and crown green bowls republic.

El Presidente · Disco Brad

David Beaman (b. Selby, Yorkshire 1981)

Young David (known as Dave to all of his mates) moved to Ljubljana in the Spring of 2008 in hot pursuit of Alma-Marija a young Slovenian girl he had met on a backpacking journey to Egypt.

Armed with a certificate obtained from a crash course in TEFL he arrived at the doors of British World d.o.o run by Ljubljana cricket club veteran Brad Eve, to enquire as to the possibility of obtaining some English teaching work. Ever the opportunist, Brad siezed the chance to discover if he were indeed a member of the cricket-loving population. David replied that he was a fan and occasional player and that he "could bat a bit" and was promptly invited to play in the following match which Ljubljana were yet again "a couple short."

How surprised the cynical mob of unruly LjCC players (who had already christened David - Dave the batsman the 7th) were when the young man casually reverse-swept the first ball he recieved well over the Skofija Loka to Vodice road for an effortless six.

Several glorious shots later and Dave would become only the third LjCC player to register a century for the club.

Sadly he wouldn't stay long as his relationship with Alma-Marija ended and upon the advice of "lonely hearts" expert Dave Ibbotson to "get thee down Cutty's" resulted in him being involved in an ugly brawl, his subsequent arrest and deportation.

He did leave with an impressive average of 137.33 from an aggregate of 412 runs scored in the 5 matches he played (2 not outs). He could also bowl a bit and took 13 wickets including a hat-trick with his first spell for the club. He will no doubt be hard to replace in the team.

Golcar CC · Bezalgo

Prof. dr. Ignacij Škržat: Takoimenovani »predhodnik in star stric oz. stric v tretjem kolenu slovenskega kriketa«

Prof. dr. Škržat, rojen l. 1878 v Črni na Koroškem. Sin slovenskega predhodnika in zagovornika in kasneje nasprotnika v podporo vseslovanstvu ustanovljenega telovadnega društva Sokol Vekoslava Škržata avstro-slovenskega rodu, in cesarske balerine grofice Ljudmile Magdelene von Battin-Kirchberg, avstro-waležanke francosko-italijansko-irskega rodu, je svojo mladost, napolnjeno s športom in študijem preživel enostavno in skromno, v mali graščini. Starši so spoznali, da bo nekoč postal pomemben teoretik športa, ko je izrazil željo, da bi rajši bral knjigo namesto običajnega vsakotedenskega družinskega teka do Celovca iz Črna.

Za kriket na Slovenskem je prof. dr. Škržat pomemben zaradi srečanja s človekom, ki je postal njegov mentor, waležanski gizdalin in nekdanji prefinjeni kriketni stilist, Percy, Lord Southam, kasneje, Percy Sotham, 5. markiz Soutam, v Ženevi, v nevtralni Švici, kamor je bil šel med prvo svetovno vojno z namenom, da njegove mame ne bi skrbelo in da, ne bi ubil enega od svojih 34 bratrancev, ki so služili kot oficirji po celi Evropi v tem času.

Percy, Lord Sutham se je znašel v Ženevi zaradi problemov z hrbtom, ki so jih povzročile prekomerne prefinjene izkušnje, in je prof. dr. Škržat kot zdravnik in doktor športa (takrat je bil le dr. dr. Škržat) poskusil pomagati Percyu s širokim izborom iz slovanske športne kulture prevzetih fizičnih vaj, ki so ostale neznane v anglo-saksonskem športu do sedemdesetih letih.

Prof. dr. Ignaciju Škržatu je v zahvalo za to pomoč Lord Percy razložil svojo ljubezen do kriketa. Kot veliki teoretik, je bil prof. dr. Škržat zelo navdušen nad športom, ki ga je bilo mogoče igrati neskončno število dni, in ki je imel toliko pravil, da je predvidel možnost izdaje komentarja v treh delih oziroma knjigah, ki bi lahko bil podlaga oziroma kal za idejni koncept nove doktorske naloge.

Drug, slučajni sad, ki je zrastel iz njegove korespondence tega časa z očetom Vekoslavom, je bil predlog imena »Orel« za novo telovadno društvo, ko je oče zapustil »sokole«, zaradi neskladnosti z nadstrankarsko politiko društva, in zaradi dejstva, da ga je njegova krščansko-socialistična naklonjenost vsebolj približala Vseslovenski ljudski stranki Antona Korošca. Prof. dr. Ignacij Škržat, ki je zmeraj insistiral, da bi ga njegovi študenti in uslužbenci nazivali kot dr. Škržata zaradi pretirane formalnosti dvonazivnega avstro-ogrskega sistema nazivanja, je proti koncu svojega življenja povedal, da mu je ime predlagal Lord Percy, ki je bil direktor nogometnega kluba južno-londonskega Krystala Palaca, znan po vzdevku »orli« (glej str. 345-346, Kdo je kdo, kdo je bil kdo, in kdo ni več nihče v športu v Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, II./VI., Delavska založba, Titova Mežica, 1954).

Že v začetku oktobra 1918 je pripravil strokovne spise, s katarimi je hotel prepričati bodoče vlade nove države, v katari se bi Slovenci znašli po vojni, o pomembnosti vloge športa za celo družbo. Novost njegovega pristopa je bila kombinacija angleških športov in pravil s slovanskim športno-tehničnim znanjem o vajah (namesto tekanja gor in dol in včasih okrog, kot je bila tedanja britanska navada). Kljub dejstvu, da ni nikoli igral ali celo videl igrati kriket, se je odločil, da so bila džentlmanska načela tega športa (danes bi temu rekli fairplay) primerna za državotvorno oblikovanje oziroma formacijo skladne, enotne države za vse južne slovane.

Že konec oktobra 1918 – torej še pred razglasitvijo kratkotrajane Države SHS – je v Švico potovala tričlanska delegacija Narodnega sveta, ki jo je vodil predsednik Anton Korošec. Tam je vest o naglem razpadu Avstro-Ogrske dosegla člane Sveta, in so razglasali Državo Slovencev, Hrvatov in Srbov. Na presenečenje vseh je Anton Korošec takoj imenoval prof. dr. Škržata za predstavnika nove države za šport, športne dejavnosti in športno prosveto, hkrati z zadržki o morebitni centralni vlogi kriketa, ki jih je zelo močno izrazil srbski delegat. Nasprotno pa je hrvatski delegat iz Visa podprl ta koncept.

Delegati so se morali takoj vrniti v Zagreb, da bi branili novo državo proti italijanskim, avstrijskim, madžarskim in turškim teritorialnim željam in utrdili njen položaj v odnosih s Kraljevino Serbijo. Vendar, spet pod vplivom Lorda Percyja je prof. dr. Škržat prepričal Korošca, da bi bilo boljše iti prek Pariza, kjer bi tudi bila prva konferenca Lige kriketnih narodov (Société des Nations des Jouers de Cricket). Liga ni bila ustanovljena in prof. dr. Škržat ter Korošec sta se pobito vrnila v Ljubljano in Zagreb le ob negotovi obljubi o obisku južno-afriške kriket ekipe na Slovenskem med njeno naslednjo evropsko turnejo. Edina dobra stvar, ki sta jo prinesla iz Pariza sta bili preobleki dveh prodajalcev klobas, ki ju je priskrbel seveda Percy, Lord Southam, brez katerih bi bilo prečkanje Germanske Avstrije dolgotrajno in zamudno.

Prva daljnovidna, ampak žal tudi zadnja poteza prof. dr. Škržata po vrnitvi v Ljubljano v začetku decembra 1918 je bila organizirati pripravo osnutka programa za ustanovitev športne fakultete v Fužinah, ki bi vključila kriketne in nogometne objekte. Vendar je šele takrat Korošec izvedel, da sta se, ko se je mudil s prodajo klobas, Država SHS in Kraljevina Serbija združili v Kraljevino Srbov, Hrvatov in Slovencev. Ne glede na vsestransko ljudsko podporo kriketu v peščici razkropljenih vasi na slovenskem Koroškem in na tretinji otoka Vis na Hrvaškem, so srbski kralj, Alexandar I in ministri pogojili Korošečevo imenovanje v vlado na to, da bi se slovenski državnik odpovedal ideji, da mora imeti »smiješna i glupa anglosaksonska igra kriketa« vlogo v srbski oziroma jugoslovanski državi. Pobiti prof. dr. Škržat se je umaknil v samotno vaško življenje na Koroškem za deset let, kjer je poskusil ohraniti ogenj svojih kriketnih sanj pri življenju. Brez uspeha se je predal in se leta 1929 izselil v Cleveland, kjer je užival zmeren uspeh kot trener telovadbe in univerzitetni teoretik nizkoligaškega bejzbola. Na Koroškem niso nikoli popolnoma pozabili nanj, in v sedemdesetih letih je ta regija končno postala zibelka modernega odobja kriketa na Slovenskem.

Anton Korošec je posneje postal presednik vlade Kraljevine Jugoslavije od 1928 do 1929. Makedonski anarhist je v Marseillu na Aleksandra I Karađorđevića, Kralja Srbov, leta 1934 uspešno izvedel atentat. Njegov vnuk, sin Petra II Karađorđevića, je bil rojen v Claridge’s Hotelu, Brook Street, Londonu, in je navijač kriketa tudi zaradi prijaznosti njegovih tedanjih britanskih gostov, ampak je trenutno brez svoje lastne kraljevine.

(Sources available on request)

-- Edited by Golcar CC at 23:59, 2007-02-20

El Presidente · Disco Brad

Golcar CC wrote:

Ljudmile Magdelene von Battin-Kirchberg, avstro-waležanke francosko-italijansko-irskega rodu,

A worthy entry and a remarkable souvenir of your 200th post - well done.

I liked the above section (for those who don't read Slovene it says The Austro-Welsh French-Italian-Irish born Ljudmila Magdelena von Battin-Kirchberg)

-- Edited by El Presidente at 05:51, 2007-02-21

Golcar CC · Bezalgo

El Presidente wrote:

Golcar CC wrote:

Ljudmile Magdelene von Battin-Kirchberg, avstro-waležanke francosko-italijansko-irskega rodu,

A worthy entry and a remarkable souvenir of your 200th post - well done.
I liked the above section (for those who don't read Slovene it says The Austro-Welsh French-Italian-Irish born Ljudmila Magdelena von Battin-Kirchberg)

-- Edited by El Presidente at 05:51, 2007-02-21

well Ljudmila was Austria with a Welsh father but her lineage did include French, Italian and Irish strands, hence the very large number of cousins. Which indirectly was the reason Škržat ended up in Switzerland during the war.

Golcar CC · Bezalgo

Not an invented cricketer. Fantastically, a Ljubljana or rather Slovenian Cricket Team legend and in-joke Brian Bryan, a player officially listed as such because we knew his first name but not his last when the time came to submit the official list of players for an ECB tournament, is not unique in cricket history.

Check out the link of "Bs" who have played first class cricket in England and search for Bryan (Bryan).

paichukka · ...Ding!

Oh god, that is fuggin priceless. Didn't notice a Batsman (Dave the) anywhere...

And the Slovenian international has a nickname. He's Brian "Bryan" Bryan.

brazo de natillas · King of the divan

More.

Your turn Smith...

joel · Findin' Fundin

Darian 54306 (b. Zarg, 2526)

Darian 54306, or '06' as he was affectionately dubbed throughout Nebula 1, was an underrated upper middle-order batsman who many felt should have played for his constellation many more times than he did. He was strong on the off, drove imperiously and was a canny player through the 'maybe', created with the discovery, in 2734, of a sixth dimension. A comparatively late starter, he didn't play his first Shield match until he was well into his second century -- EAF Swafton called him the best 143-year-old he'd ever seen. 06's rise was swift and he became New Kent's top run-getter within a year. He was a dominant figure in the pod, and was one of the first to make use of the new mind-reading technology, which eventually came to replace the frustrating and limited Vaughan26 program, developed for the long game (month-long matches were not uncommon) but shoehorned into the shorter form with uneven results.

In retrospect, the decision to take 06 to New Antarctica in 2668 was born more of desperation than prudence. 06 adapted poorly to the Southern Quadrisphere flyers, only managing scores of 0, 4, -3.73 and 14 retired (malfunction) on that fractious tour. He returned to New Kent, recording year-best figures, and the clamour for his return to the Nebula 1 side grew louder when he belted 525 on a heartbreaker at Maidstone against the visiting Ozzians, captained at that time by legendary gloveman Gil Christ.

Although New Kent's best performer for over three decades, he had to wait another 42 years for a call-up, equalling the record set by the Earl of Darnley 800 years before. Before an adoring home crowd he scored his 200^th 600, sharing in a record third-wicket stand with the decryogenicised remains of Scott Styris. His interest waned swiftly thereafter and he drifted out of the game. He now runs an oxygen bar in Teddington.

joel · Findin' Fundin

Not a fictional cricketer, but sounds like one (from a cricinfo obit)

BEBAN, Father MARK ALBERT, SM, collapsed and died on the 16th fairway of the Wainuiomata golf course in Wellington, New Zealand, on April 4, 2005, aged 65. He played four times for Wellington as a bespectacled purveyor of brisk offspin in 1969-70, not long after being ordained as a Catholic priest. In his final match, against Auckland - when his five wickets included the future Test opener Rodney Redmond, twice - one of the umpires was the Rev. David Bindon.

Cracking biggrin