HOWARD MARSHALL: The total – Hutton’s total, 332. It sounds like the total of the whole side. The England total 707 for 5, and the gasometer sinking lower and lower. Here’s Fleetwood-Smith again to Hutton. Hutton hits him. Oh, beautiful stroke! There’s the record …
England v Australia, The Oval, August 1937
• • •
JOHN ARLOTT: He [Denis Compton] played so late that his stroke was within a sparrow’s blink of being posthumous.
England v Australia, 1948
• • •
JOHN ARLOTT: Bedser heaves his shoulders, swings his arms back behind him until they meet, rolls his sleeve again, and comes pounding in ever-optimistically from the Radcliffe Road End, bowls to Weekes … and Weekes throws his bat at a ball wide outside his off stump – a most impudent stroke. That ball was a yard wide of the off stump – almost any other batsman in the world would have let it go by, but not Weekes.
England v West Indies, Trent Bridge, July 1950
• • •
In the course of a huge partnership, Colin Cowdrey and Peter May had broken the spell that spinner Sonny Ramadhin had held over the England team.
REX ALSTON: And England must be looking for runs now. Smith bowls short, Cowdrey has placed it gently towards third man, and the extra applause is because the partnership is now worth a monumental figure of 400. I think the imagination starts to boggle at all this business about records. We’re getting tired of it – I should think [scorer] Roy Webber is drooling records, somewhere else along in this box …
England v West Indies, Edgbaston, June 1957
• • •
JOHN ARLOTT: It’s Hall to bowl now to Dexter. He comes in from the Nursery End at full spit and bowls, and Dexter plays that very calmly back down the pitch off the middle of the bat as if Hall were a medium-pacer. There is about Dexter, when he chooses to stand up to fast bowling with determination, a sort of air of command that lifts him or seems to lift him above ordinary players … He seems to find time to play the fastest of bowling and still retain dignity, something near majesty as he does it.
England v West Indies, Lord’s, June 1963
• • •
JOHN ARLOTT: And O’Neil goes out and disapprovingly prods the spot, rather like an old lady with an umbrella.
England v Australia, 1961
• • •
JOHN ARLOTT: … there it is! Four runs right of cover’s left hand. It crosses the rope, beats Lawry. Boycott 102. Arthur Wrigley passes me a note to say a hundred in 3 hours and 55 minutes with 9 fours, and I believe by no means the last Test hundred we’ll see from this man.
England v Australia, The Oval, August 1964
• • •
JOHN ARLOTT
• • •
Tom Graveney had returned to the England team after a three-year absence.
JOHN ARLOTT: Let us say that in a day when many people think the rest of the England batting failed there was this man, the senior of them all, demonstrating that it wasn’t quite so difficult as some people might make it look. It becomes tragic now that he’s been out of Test cricket for so long. It’s said, ‘All right he’s 39, he can’t last long,’ but Jack Hobbs made over a hundred centuries after he was 40 and this man has something of the same ease as Jack Hobbs. Something of the rightness about when to go forward and when to go back …
England v West Indies, Lord’s, June 1966
• • •
JOHN ARLOTT: Kanhai pushes that halfway up the wicket, wants a quick single. Sobers sends him back and makes little soothing motions with his hand to Kanhai as if to say, ‘There, there, we’ve got all week.’ He’s not a man, in general, over-afflicted with patience when it comes to batting.
England v West Indies, 1966
• • •
John Arlott was in the box as the West Indies, led by Clive Lloyd, put Australia to the sword and gave what is considered to be one of his finest passages of commentary …
JOHN ARLOTT: They’ve scored off the last 15 balls. Now difficult, not only to bowl a maiden over, but apparently to bowl a maiden ball …
JOHN ARLOTT: And Lloyd hits him high over midwicket for four. The stroke of a man knocking a thistle top off with a walking stick. No trouble at all …
JOHN ARLOTT: And umpire Bird having a wonderful time, signalling everything in the world, including stop to traffic coming on from behind.
JOHN ARLOTT (on a rare dot ball): That is the first time in hours that the ball has passed through unviolated.
West Indies v Australia, World Cup final, Lord’s, June 1975
• • •
This match marked Graham Gooch’s England debut …
DON MOSEY: … [Gooch] a very burly broad-shouldered young man, 21, shock of dark hair, Walker in, bowls, Gooch looks for a run on the leg side and he’s out! Caught on the leg side, trying to glance, he’s caught by Marsh and he joins the distinguished ranks of the great cricketers who have got a duck on their first Test appearance.
England v Australia, Edgbaston, July 1975
• • •
Northamptonshire’s David Steele made his England debut aged 34, and became an unlikely hero.
JOHN ARLOTT: His white hair, he’s prematurely grey, showing quite strikingly under the cap. He plays in glasses, a good sticker with some punishing strokes, especially in front of the wicket. He tends rather to play off the front foot … that didn’t do Tom Graveney any harm but it’s not always an asset against bowlers of this pace. He’s elder brother of John Steele of Leicestershire and cousin of Brian Crump who used to, like himself, play for Northants. All three of them come from Staffordshire, that richest of minor counties. Steele then a little over average height – he’s filled out in the last few years … he’s fairly firmly built with square shoulders, a serious man, takes a slightly crouching stance, bat barely touching the ground as it rocks like a pendulum as Lillee comes in, bowls to him, and he moves across and lets that go outside the off stump …
England v Australia, Lord’s, July 1975
• • •
TREVOR BAILEY: And though Brian [Johnston] and myself may be getting a little bit weary of this massacre in the sun, it’s a wonderful afternoon for Bill Frindall who is having an absolute ball because statistics are going left, right and centre. It’s a great afternoon for the statisticians.
BRIAN JOHNSTON: You can hear the sparks coming out of his ears with the excitement.
England v West Indies, The Oval, August 1976
JOHN ARLOTT: On the whole, England’s openings have not been impressive … Malone to Boycott, he gets that one away, wide of Thomson at mid-on for a single. And he takes the lead from Brearley by 39 to 37. And this at the moment bears close resemblance to a pursuit of my youth which was known as the ‘Slow Bicycle Race’, and the winner was the last one to cross the finishing line. I must say, these two are not so much neck and neck as bottom to bottom.
England v Australia, The Oval, August 1977
• • •
Geoff Boycott had just been recalled to the England side after a lengthy, self-imposed absence …
JOHN ARLOTT: Thomson comes in, bowls to Boycott. Boycott pushes back … there must be a run out here! Oh, how tragic … how tragic, how tragic, how tragic. We welcome World Service with the news that Randall has just this minute been sacrificially run out and England are 52 for 3 … Randall almost with tears in his eyes. He looks very disconsolate.
England v Australia, Trent Bridge, July 1977
• • •
TONY COZIER: Dilley again comes in now to Richards. Short, and Richards hooks. It’s going to be … it’s gone out of the ground, I think. It’s gone right over the Kensington Stand and even at that he seemed to hit it with one hand. Short ball, and Richards got under it and lifted it right over the top of the Kensington Stand and it finished up in a building site outside the ground. It was on its way to the deep-water harbour, but there are a few buildings in the way.
West Indies v England, Barbados, March 1981
• • •
HENRY BLOFELD: Although we are in the dying moments of the match, England 170 for 7, still 57 runs behind, we are seeing some attractive cricket. Both Botham, who is 34, and Dilley, who is 24, are putting bat to ball and runs are coming at quite a speed and in very entertaining fashion.
FRED TRUEMAN: The Australian bowlers, who have been in command for so long – suddenly, they do not really know where to bowl because the stick is being dished out. They are bowling a bit wide and giving Dilley a lot of room and he is liking that. It is giving him the chance to swing that bat and when he middles it, doesn’t it go?
Later that day, when Botham left the field on 149 not out …
TREVOR BAILEY: It’s the sort of innings which any great player would have been proud to play, including the likes of Sobers … It was a stupendous innings.
England v Australia, Headingley, July 1981
• • •
CHRISTOPHER MARTIN JENKINS: What a scene is set now, because we’ve got two of the greatest of all modern West Indies batsmen, Clive Lloyd coming out to join Viv Richards with their side in trouble – a full Lord’s, sun shining. You really couldn’t ask for a situation more pregnant with possibilities than that.
England v West Indies, Lord’s, June 1984
• • •
Malcolm Marshall had broken his wrist in the field but still came out to bat for the West Indies at number 11, his left arm in plaster.
DON MOSEY: And here’s Allott bowling to complete his over, bowling to the one-handed Marshall who gets runs, through the gully and Terry in pursuit. I don’t think he’ll beat that to the ropes. Some helpful youngster comes in, picks it up as it hits the ropes, lobs it back and Marshall is off the mark with four runs and Allott stands with his head downcast as much as to say, ‘Why can’t I get out a man who’s batting one-handed?’
England v West Indies, Headingley, July 1984
• • •
Viv Richards had just scored the fastest century in Test cricket history, off only 56 balls.
CHRISTOPHER MARTIN JENKINS: The police come out to try to stop the spectators, but they can’t do so and one gentleman in a blue shirt tries to lift him off the ground. The police trying to protect the uncrowned king of Antigua at the end of what has been an absolutely brilliant hundred.
West Indies v England, Antigua, April 1986
• • •
FRED TRUEMAN (on another English batting collapse): It is unbelievable. All you want is someone out there with a top hat and tails and a big whip and get the elephants moving and we’re in business. It is un-be-lievable.
Date unknown
• • •
David Gower was in the commentary box, having been controversially omitted from the touring party.
DAVID GOWER: That was a marvellous innings from Allan Lamb. Certainly worthy of a bottle of Bollinger – if he can find one in Kingston tonight.
West Indies v England, Jamaica, February 1990
• • •
Michael Atherton was on 97, just three away from a first Test century at Lord’s.
BRIAN JOHNSTON: Atherton waits while Border comes up to bowl to him, and he flicks that one away and that may be it! Hughes is going to cut it off, is he? Yes, he’s going to cut it off, down at midwicket, they’ve run two and they’re going for the third! No! He’s going to be run out! He is run out, oh! Atherton is run out! Sent back by Gatting, stranded, Merv Hughes throws and he is run out now for 99. And he’s coming back, helmet off – that was a disaster for England …
England v Australia, Lord’s, June 1994
• • •
VIV RICHARDS: I’m going to tell you something. This little sequence is going to be very interesting.
HENRY BLOFELD: Banks to Flintoff … Banks, the tall figure coming in now from the Pavilion End, bowls, it’s short, Flintoff’s down the wicket and he hits this with tremendous power and it goes for six, right down into the sightscreen beneath us. He came down the wicket to a long hop, hit it with a flat bat … that’s his 150. He’s 154 now and it’s 507 for 7 and Vivian Richards read that one absolutely right.
VR: Well, this script was written in some huge, huge letters. Banks to Flintoff in this sort of mood … oh, I wouldn’t like to be in Banks’s position.
HB: No. I don’t think Banks likes to be in it either.
England v West Indies, Edgbaston, July 2004
• • •
CHRISTOPHER MARTIN JENKINS: Here comes Lee into Pietersen … and he hooks that hard … oh, that’s a great shot. That’s the best of his sixes, because that went to a distant, old-fashioned Oval boundary. Down towards the block of flats opposite the Harleyford Road, just to the left of the pub at midwicket, right out of the meat of the bat.
Later that day …
JIM MAXWELL: Warne in to bowl and Pietersen swings into this and mows the ball away.
England v Australia, The Oval, September 2005
• • •
JONATHAN AGNEW after Pakistan skipper Inzamam-ul-Haq was out, in ungainly fashion, hit wicket.
England v Pakistan, Headingley, August 2006
• • •
SIMON MANN: You must have put a few spectators to sleep in your time, Geoffrey?
GEOFF BOYCOTT: Yeah, but I were still battin’ when they woke up!
Sri Lanka v England, 2011
JONATHAN AGNEW: Broad’s out! He’s out, he flicked that away to slip … I think. It’s been taken by Clarke and they’re appealing. And Aleem Dar … hang on, Aleem Dar is saying not out. Australia have got no reviews left. Broad’s leaning on his bat. That looked to me as if he edged it straight to slip. And Aleem Dar’s saying not out. And the Australians are furious! Absolutely furious!
GEOFF BOYCOTT (laughing): You’ve got no reviews left, lads!
JA: I don’t blame Australia for being really, really narked about that. For goodness’ sake, that’s out anywhere you want. It’s disappointing, I must say, to see someone standing for that. But Broad is not walking. He’s stood there and there are no reviews left. That’s another ridiculous one.
England v Australia, Trent Bridge, July 2013
• • •
England’s substandard batting in the 5-0 Ashes defeat during the winter of 2013/2014 drew some scathing and colourful criticism from Geoff Boycott …
GEOFF BOYCOTT: It’s not a good morning. It’s a pathetic display of batting …
GEOFF BOYCOTT:
GEOFF BOYCOTT: If I were you in England I’d go to sleep. Because this could become a nightmare. This has been a shocker this morning.
GEOFF BOYCOTT: That was like my mum hanging out the washing.
GEOFF BOYCOTT (after Joe Root was out to a rash shot): More brains in a chocolate mousse.
Australia v England, 2013/14
• • •
GRAEME SWANN: Moeen Ali is a natural timer of the ball and quite wristy. When he hits the ball, it makes a crack like a rifle shot. He’s also beautiful off his legs, through the covers. It’s just so easy. I’m going to call him the bearded Gower from now on …
England v Sri Lanka, Headingley, June 2014