By Andy Biggs
December 6 2004

In the second of opur guest articles, Andy Biggs recalls his first ever visit to Lord's and in particular the world class spin bowling on show, that we could really do with now.

On my first visit to Lords, it happened – and I was hooked. We were in the field and two young and obviously very fit men opened the bowling, Selvey and Vernon. (This was the early Selvey, who tried to bowl quickly, with a full head of long hair, not the balding swing and cut bowler of later years.) Brearley, in his pre-England days, let this go for an hour or so, as they strained every nerve and sinew to dislodge two opening batsmen long since forgotten. Then, with 50 or so on the board, he made a change. He turned to a small figure whom I knew to be about the age of the two opening bowlers put together.

Moreover, this man had accidentally maimed himself less than a decade previously. Age and disability notwithstanding, he flowed up to the wicket in a rhythmic, gentle glide and propelled the ball so slowly that it seemed to my childish eyes that even I could whack it. But the batsmen couldn’t. Where runs had been coming at pace, they simply stopped. It was this that impressed me, that this old (sad to say I’m about his age now!) man could achieve, with as little effort as if he were asleep, what the two young rips clearly could not: he could control the game. Wickets fell and my sense of irony, strong even then, grew stronger. It was a kind of magic.

So I started to follow the scores in the papers and noted with satisfaction that Titmus seemed to take lots of wickets, aided primarily by his partner in spin Edmonds. This last had failed to make much impression on that first visit but the next time I went, I had to watch Cottam and Dye run through our specialist batting in a morning. After lunch we recovered quite a bit, through a rollicking late stand between…Titmus and Edmonds.

So to 1976, and a championship. I saw the last two wickets Surrey fall at the Oval (one c Edmonds b. Titmus at short leg) and the necessary runs scored to achieve the bonus points. A pattern had now been set in my mind: if we bat first and post any sort of total, our spinners will bowl us to victory later in the game. We had some ferocious pace bowlers over the succeeding  years, Cowans, Van der Bijl, Williams (on his day), Ellcock (alas too briefly) and Daniel (most gloriously) – and some excellent seamers, Selvey, Fraser and  Hughes come to mind - but it was our spinners who seemed to give us a real edge. “If it breaks up, 150 will be enough of a lead”; “Hello, Marks has taken a couple of wickets, we’ll be alright when we bowl”; “They’ve got a young side, bet they haven’t got much experience of quality spin”; “Graveney turned that one quite a bit; wait till it’s our turn.”

It became a mindset. First Fred and Henri, then Embers came on the scene. But Fred wouldn’t retire so sometimes they both played as well as Edmonds. Then they kept recalling Fred when Embers was unavailable. They had help: Featerstone, Maru, Barnett, Monteith, but it was mainly the England men. Fred finally retired and Embers, having served a long apprenticeship, came into his own. I remember Edmonds in particular hastening Hants to a two-day defeat at Uxbridge. He gave up (or made one daft suggestion too many) and along came this muppet with a pony tale - surely the line was broken? “Tufnell will never get wickets.” But he did of course. And Emburey’s successor appeared, Paul Weekes. But Embers went on and on, so Weekes had to wait his turn. He could bat, so he got plenty of cricket. Then we lost both openers and they asked him to do that and his bowling took a back seat.

Even when we only had Tuffers as a threatening, match-winning spinner, my perspective remained unaltered. “If we bat first, we’ve always got that chance….”;  “If it turns… “The seamers look impotent on this first day wicket – bring on the Cat…”; “That sun’s hot, bet it’s baking the wicket…”

And now? Weekes seems often to be our best bowler in one-day cricket but he never seems to pose the threat in four day cricket that the illustrious foursome above did. He’s been a great servant to this club and owes us absolutely nothing, in any case. But in Dalrymple and Peploe lies hope for the future. Even I am too young to have seen, or followed, Fred’s debut seasons, but I remember Edmonds, Emburey and Tufnell starting. Only the first of them, in my memory, seemed to arrive as something near the finished article. The other two had to serve their time. Of course, there were differences. The two offies were patient, stoic types; the two left armers were harder to handle- for the Middlesex captain, that is! Maverick, testy, controversial but they could bowl. Both got batsmen out with their mouths, as well as their fingers.

Quicker men often arrive in a flurry of dust – Hewitt and Bloomfield, for instance, were quickly among the wickets, and where are they now? Spinners take time. But not too long I hope. I still feel that there has been a colossal upset in the natural order of things when I watch Mustaq, Saqlain or MacGill outspin us. It used to happen very rarely, Bedi, once and Doshi, I think. All overseas spinners, you notice. But when I head off to Lords, in the near future I hope, I would like the natural order to reassert itself. After all, a battery of seamers can be boring watching, can’t it? And getting them out gently is so much funnier, isn’t it?

You’re not available at all next August, are you Fred?