The enduring appeal of Trumper is, on the face of it, all the more surprising because of? his early death. Just 37* at the time of his pass??ing Trumper had no real opportunity to make a mark in life beyond his playing career.

But despite the regular publication of new research on Trumper it remains very much the case that there is no ??definitive biography of the great man. There is no shortage of writers who have tried to put such a book together, but th??e three principal efforts, by Jack Fingleton, Peter Sharpham and Ashley Mallett have all fallen short.

The reason for the collective failings of previous biographers is not difficu??lt to pinpoint, being the paucity of information regarding Trumper’s early life, a problem neatly summed up by Max Bonnell at the close of the first chapter of this one:-

Where does genius come from, and how does it develop? That’s the sub?ject of this book, which explores the first twenty or so?? years of Trumper?’s life and seeks to understand how he became the cricketer he was. Trum??per’s early life has been investigated only imperfectly, and there’s ??a great deal that we’re unlikely ever ??t?o know with any certainty. But we do know that an illegitimate child, born int?o hardship, with no cricket in his family and no material advantag?es, became the most memorable crickete??r of his generation. And perhaps the ?single most interestin?g question about Trumper’s life is, how?? does something like that happen?

And there you have the book in a nutshell. There are ??really two parts to it, the first being to explain Trumper’s origins, or at least to put forward the limited evidence there is, a??nd the possibilities that stem from that. Max Bonnell is far too good a historian to attempt to come to any conclusion on what he finds, but he gives his reader all the information he has been able to discover.

The second part of the book then looks at Trumper’s early cricket. A pattern quickly emerges from that as well, that being that there really weren’t all t??hat many runs, but nonetheless a huge amount of satisfaction from those who saw the ones he did ?make, and a great anticipation for a future for his batting that even then was seen as potentially ground breaking.

Despite the praise, and appearances? in the Sheffield Shield and against Drewy Stoddart’s 1894/95 tourists at the age of just 17**, in statistical terms at least Trumper flattered to deceive until the 1897/98 season. By the end of that summer a man who had made just one singl?e half century in the previous six years ended his season with the eye watering average of 204.20.

In the next summer Trumper’s First Class career resumed in earnest and no one in Australia exceeded his average of 62.35. He was duly selected for the 1899 team that toured England under Joe Darling and the book ends with a 21*** year old Trumper getting on the boat for England and the observation from Bonnell that everything that happened after that, you know.

Young Vic is a thoroughly worthwhile addition to the available literature on Trumper, albeit there is a tinge of sadness with the realisation that with Bonnell having tasked himself with the research, this account of the origins of a leg?end, highlighting ?all the gaps and inconsistencies, is almost certainly the best we are going to get, but then at least we now know.

The book is due to be published on 14 March and there will be two versions. All who want a copy will be able to purchase a perfect bound paperback from the publisher or, in Australia from Roger Page. In addition there is also a signed and numbered limited edition of just 30 copies. Those are available from the same sources and can be pre-ordered – but if any of those remain unsold by publication date I will be most surprised.

*or, once you have read the book, possibly 36,

**16

***and 20.

But he admits in his foreword that for years the subject matter of this book was something about which he knew little more than the basics. I can well imagine therefore the adrenalin rush he must have experienced when a descendant of Gwilym Rowland made avai?lable to the muse??um an extensive personal archive.

And an excellent book has been the result. This would have been an in?teresting enough story if it was just concerned with the cricketing aspects of Rowland’s life. As it is though his remarkable back story furth??er illuminates a narrative that no one who picks this book up will have any significant prior knowledge of.

Essentially the book is a biography of Rowland. Born in Manchester in 1876 he was an intelligent man who initially found success in life by understanding the tax system.  From there he joined and headed a major agricultural machinery conglomerate. By then he had relocated to North Wales and it was his desire to establish the game there that is the central theme of The Dream That Died.

The cricketing story of Gwilym Rowland unfolds in the 1920s. His aim was to create a Welsh national team, something that, if not to the full extent of his ambitions, he succeeded in doing. There was however an always uneasy and often difficult r?elationship with the south of the country, Glamorgan having become, in 1921, the seventeenth First Class coun??ty.

There were also frustrations in Rowland’s failure to persuade the 1926 and 1930 Australians to visit Nor??th Wales, but he had more success with other tourists and the MCC. The whole story is contained in the huge volume of correspondence that Rowland’s great grandson made available. That that is the source is crucial because such is the detail in the letters that they give up much of Rowland’s character, something it would be very difficult to capture otherwise g??iven that there is no one alive today who knew him.

The bare bones of Rowland’s achievements in the world of cricket exist in the scorecards that can be found on Cricketarchive, but the??y offer no context. The correspondenc?e does, but it all ends in 1932. It was then that the mighty Rowland suffered a setback he never got over. The vast business that he presided over, which in truth seems never to have been built on solid foundations, crashed and burned.

The sad, but unsurprising aspect of the story is that after that business failur?e Williams was a broken man and, in 1938, he was found dead in a ditch near his home on Anglesey. No obituaries appeared and, I assume, the cause of death is, as are any details of the last few yea??rs of Rowland’s life, lost. That is a little frustrating for Hignell’s reader but, perhaps, that is just as well.

Rowland had two sons and two daughters. Both sons played some First Class cricket for the teams their father was involved with. The elder, Bill, had a breakdown and was, in similar circumstances to his father, dead at 38. Cyril was the better cricketer, qualified as a barrister and then went into insurance. His son David was also involved in insurance, rebuilding Lloyds of London from its crisis  in the 1990s and in time was? knighted for his services to the industry.

The Dream That Died is highly recommended. Its cricketing content may be a touch niche, but the overall story is of much ??broader interest and one that I muc??h enjoyed.

The trust is a charity dedicated to the preservation of the county’s history and was?? established in 2014. There at the beginning, and later when the Museum and Learning Centre were opened at the county’s Nevil Road headquarters in Bristol, Roger was one of the Trustees.

It was in that capacity that I came across Roger a few years ago, and in various email exchanges he kept me up to da??te with the M??useum’s occasional publications. Roger himself was the author of the best of them and, while there is no full length book in my collection that bears his name, his monographs have been some of the most welcome additions in recent years.

It must, I suppose, be possible and even likely that Roger had some assistance with the design and lay out of ??the booklets, but at their heart was the fascinating content. In each case the monographs covered examples of diligently researched and lesser known aspects of Gloucestershire cricket made all the better by the fact that in addition to acquiring a thorough understanding of his subjects Roger was also an excellent wordsmith.

He began 2015 with In Memoriam, a tribute to the Gloucestershire cricketers who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country in the Great War. That one was reprinted in 2019 together with three more. The monograph that remains my personal favourite concerned the scarcely credible story of a proposed tour of India by a Gloucestershire side back in 1936/37, The Tour That Never Was.

The other two 2019 titles were Delayed in Transit, an account of the formation of and playing record of the West of England XI, a side that played through the wartime summers of 1944 and 1945, and Dealings With a Dead Man. That latter title I am confident would never have seen the light of day had?? it not been for Roger. It is the story of his disc?overy that, for many years, the game’s historians, archivists and statistician’s had misidentified a man who made three anonymous performances for Gloucestershire in Victorian times.

And that was that, for three years until 2022, when four more titles appeared from Roger’s cottage industry. Concerning CB Grace was the first, a memoir of the legendary WG’s youngest son, Charles Butler Grace, who appeared on four occasions in the First Class game. George Pepall: Cricketer and Countryman, was, like Dealings With a Dead Man, a look at a man who played occasionally for Gloucesters?hire around the turn of the twentieth centu?ry who had an interesting back story.

The other two 2022 titles are fascinating glimpses at social and cricketing history. Holidays at Home: Gloucester Cricket Week 1943 looked at the holiday time entertainment available to Gloucestershire’s populace in wartime, and Bristol C?ricket Challenge Cup Competit??ion 1885-1892 reconstructs the history of something the Victorian club game ultimately wasn’t quite ready for, a knock o?ut cup.

In the circumstances I had rather hoped that, another three years on, we would have seen another quartet of publications from Roger but, sadly, his passing would seem to have put an end to that idea unless there are titles in the course of preparation. If the??re are I sincerely hope that they are sufficiently well advanced to enable his colleagues at the Heritage Trust to finish the projects and get them into print.

As well as a historian Roger was also a collector but I am told that, unlike some cricket tragics, he was interested in a good deal more than cricket. An accountant by profession he was clearly, from the fulsome tributes that have appeared in the last few days, excellent company and a fine raconteur. I did meet him once, as recently as last November, at an event organised by Stephen Chalke at Lansdowne Cricket Club. For me it was an enormously enjoyable event, meeting many people who I had only ever corresponded with by email. At one point Roger came up to me, apologised for interrupting but said he wanted to introduce himself and said that doubtless we could talk later. Sadly we never did, and now never will, but even in that briefest of meetings he exuded bonhomie, good humour and knowledge. The accompanying photograph of him signing some of his monographs in Boundary Books�showroom, captures that very well.

The developing story was one which was widely reported and it soon became clear that a book from Rafiq would follow. That It’s not Banter it�s Racism then took 15 months to appear rather took me by surprise and, to an extent, public interest had ??cooled by the time of publication. It was perhaps a combination of that and the fact that I had read so much at the time that led to the delay in my feeling the need to?? read the book.

We have a problem with racism in the UK. We always have had and I fear we always will. The nature of the problem has certainly changed over my lifetime, but not as much as I would have liked. I believe that on the whole there are many more people than when I was young who passionately bel??ieve in fairness and equality, but the minority is still far too large, and there are far too many of those who allow their thoughts to become words and, worse still, actions.

In a different life I used to defend people in Magistrates’ courts. I have seen changing attitudes in both those who make the law and those who are charged with enforcing it. But despite that I have to confess to not having really understood the problem until 2003, a time by which many criminal offences could be and were made more serious by the words racially aggravated being added to the charge.

In 2003 there was a football match between Port Vale and Oldham Athletic at the former’s home ground in Burslem, one of the towns that makes up the city of Stoke-on-Trent. Something was chanted by the home fans towards the away fans along the lines of You’re a town full of Pakis. One fan faced a racially aggravated charge as a result. Sitting in Stoke-on-Trent Magistrates Court a District Judge dismissed the charge, on the basis that use of the word Paki was mere doggerel.

The prosecution appealed, and the High Court agreed with them, and did not mince their words in doing so. Paki was denounced as a slang expression which is racially offensive.

The release of the Judgment of the High Court inevitable sparked much debate in my local magistrates court’s advocates�room. It was, after all, the sort of issue that cropped up in cases in the court day in and day out?? and whilst I remain of the view that none of my professional colleagues had a racist bone in their bodies, a number had a degree of sympathy with the errant Distri??ct Judge’s reasoning.

Our discussions were ended when another colleague, a newly qualified one of Pakistani ethnicity, came into the room. He explained to us all, clearly feeling much the same emotions as Azeem Rafiq, just why the High Court were right and the District Judge wrong. I learnt something that day which? I have ?carried with me ever since and, reading Rafiq’s book having reminded me of the episode, it came as no surprise when googling that young solicitor to learn that he has made a great success of his career.

But I digress.

When I did open It’s not Banter it’s Racism I have to say my initial reaction was that I didn’t like the cover (I thought it was far too ‘in your faceâ€?, I didn’t like the fact that it didn’t have any photographs in it, nor that it lacked the statistics of Rafiq’s career or an index. Those thoughts were prompted by previous experience distilled from the number of cricketing biographies and autobiographies I have read over the years. As soon as I started reading this one however I realised that in fact it is the exception that proves the rule. The design of the cover is entirely appropriate, and photographs, statistics and an index not required.

And that ?isn’t because the book is not in fact an autobiography. It most certainly is and however much I did know before reading it I certainly didn’t know about Rafiq’s childhood in Pakistan, the circumstances that forced his family to travel to England, and the hugely distressing loss of h??is first child.

I also didn’t know quite as much as I thought I did about what had developed as far as the bullying allegations were concerned, and more particularly just how thoroughly he was ultimately vindicated. The line that tends to stick in the memory is that the allegations against Michael Vaughan were fo??und to be ‘not proven� but it is clear that is the top and bottom of that. Ultimately of course only Vaughan played an active role in the proceedings, and much of what was accordingly found proved against others had been admitted by them in any event.

The greatest hope therefore must be that all involved, Vaughan included, had at some point the sort of light bulb moment that I had in June 2003, and I have no doubt that anyone who reads Rafiq’s superbly crafted telling of his life and feelings and hasn’t already experienced that will do likewise. It’s not Banter it’s Racism is an important book. It is an uncomfortable and troubling read but does, ultimately, give some hope for the future and, spoiler alert here, at least for Rafiq and his family there seems to have been a happy ending – it is just a shame he had to move to Dubai to find it.

Thus the mismatch at Haverford took place in 1895.?? By now, aged 22, the man who remains by a distance the best known crick??eter produced by Philadelphia in their Golden Age heyday, John Barton King, was just getting into his stride.

Visiting North America in 1895 were a team of English amateurs led by Frank Mitchell, a Yorkshireman who was just short real Test ?class, although he was good enough to play five Tests, two for England against South Africa and then, as South African?? captain, twice against Australia and once against England in the 1912 Triangular Tournament.

The match which is the subject of this monograph was the last of the three First Class fixtures that the tourists had. Musk’s introduction explains how the Haverford match was the deciding match of the three. The University of Pennsylvania Past and Present won the first, and Mitchell’s side the second against The Gentlemen of Philadelphia. The tourists opponents in ??the third match were again the Gentlemen of Philadelphia.

How strong were these two sides? Fortunately for the many who will be familiar with only King and Mitchell Musk begins with ??brief biographical details of the 22 players. Two of the other Englishme?n played with Mitchell for England in South Africa and Frank Druce played throughout the 1897/98 Ashes series. The remainder were of variable quality but the reader is left with the impression that Mitchell’s was a decent side.

In the event however, as the final part of the monograph explains, they were beaten, and beaten by an innings. King starred with the ball with 5-47 and 6-61 and with the bat there was a centurion and two men who went past fifty – it reads as though it was an interesting game.

For those who are interested in the doings of Bart King and his teammates, and there clearly is some enthusiasm for the subject judging by the number of books and monographs that have appeared in the last couple of years or so this one, a mere snip at £8 inclusive of UK postage and packing is well worth investing in. It is available either from the publisher or Roger Page, but there are o??nly 30 signed and numbered copies to go round.

I knew of course that there was also an older? brother, Surinder, ‘Tommy� who had also played Test cricket for India, but other than one season with Burnley in the Lancashire League we never saw Tommy in England. We saw Jimmy here with India, but whilst his man of the match winning performances in the semi-final and final of the historic 1983 World Cup linger in the memory he never played county cricket, didn’t tour here in 1982 and on his visits in 1979 and 1986 didn’t pull up any trees.

But I did also know about his heroics in the Caribbean in 1982/83, and his reputation as one of the bravest o?f batsmen. I was also aware of his travails the following year when, West Indies paying a return visit to India, he made five ducks and just a single run in his sixth innings against West Indies. What, I have long wondered, was going on there?

In the manner of all traditional autobiographies Fearless charts a chronological course through Amarnath’s life. Lala, described in the title of one book about him as the Stormy Petrel of Indian Cricket, inevitably plays a major pa??rt in his family’s life and the development as cricketers of his ?three sons.

The Amarnath back story is not without interest, but I have to confess to having found the first quarter of Fearless hard work in places, and there came a time when I chose to skip forward to the chapter on that 1982/83 visit to the Caribbean. At that point my intention was to find such answers as there might be to the questions I started out? with and leave it at that.

Naturally I expected the chapter to be interesting, but I ??didn’t expect to be faced with what I can only describe as an object lesson?? in how a cricketer should approach the subject of a Test series in an autobiography. 

A mere observer, and even to a certain extent a biographer, can only really give an account of the cricket on a tour. Amarnath does that of course, but looking at it from his own perspective, and his impressions of those of his teammates. Outside the Tests there are entertaining insights ap?lenty none of which could ever find their way into a book other than an autobiography.

Amarn??ath clearly, and deservedly, enjoyed himself in the Caribbean, so what did ?he have to say about that extraordinary bad run a year later against the opposition he had bested in their own back yard? The approach is similar even if the story and the tone are rather darker. I suppose I should really have guessed, but the explanation was nothing more and nothing less than burn out.

So then I went back to the start of Amarnath’s Test career and am pleased to be able to say that the chapters devoted to each of the series in which he was involved are more of the same, descriptions of cricket matches and th??e touring experience, ?told with the same revealing insider’s view that characterised the accounts of 82/83 and 83/84.

One of the slightly surprising aspects of Amarnath’s career is that after, at 37, he played his last Test he was selected for another 22 ODIs over the greater part of two years. Not a man who always enjoyed the easiest of relationships with selectors the last subject the book tackles, and it is a fascinating story that is particularly well written, is the disciplinary issues at the end of Amarnath’s career after he criticised those selectors as being a bunch of jokers.

So all in all Fearless is actually a most enjoyable read. It isn’t quite perfect though, for three reasons, albeit the first I had barely noticed, but I am told that to the dedicated student of Indian cricket history there are a few factual errors. Second a few of the more controversial incidents do not name those invo??lved. I got the impression that that will not bother those same dedicated historians because I suspect enough clues are left for them to know who is involved, but others may, as I was, be left feeling a little frustrated at times.

And my final point may, I have to concede, be a complete non point depending on what Amarnath’s future plans are, but I was little disappointed that Fearless, to all intents and purposes, ended?? with Amarnath’s international career. On what he has done since, and his opinions on what has unfolded in Indian cricket after his retirement he remains silent. But maybe those are matters that are left out because they are due to feature in a follow up? I certainly hope so.

As with its predecessor the booklet, inevitably, looks at men who played their First Class cricket many years ago when, unlike now, it was possible for those whose primary calling was other than as a pr??ofessional cricketer to appear in the County Championship?.

Altogether Stephen Saunders has researched the lives of 23 men, only four of whom made double figures in terms of Hampshire appearances. By far the most were the ??75 appearances of Francis Bacon, the next most prolific being a mere 22. As m??any as ten appeared just once for the county.

It is slightly surprising that all of the 23 come from the officer class, as I had expected that perhaps one or two might have emerged from below decks, but National Serv??icemen not being eligible there are none.

All but one of the men featured made their appearance(s) before the Second World War. Only one played for Hampshire after the war and I initially assumed that was the only reason that I recognised his name. It turned out however that in addition to his post war appearances John Manners was also, probably, the best cricketer among the 23 and he certainly had a most remarkable life?? being. Manners was 105 when he passed away in 2020, and is the longest lived First Class cricketer of them all.

Manners, a Lieutenant-Commander, also had a notabl??e naval career that is described in some detail. Indeed for all these men, given that their cricket careers were almost all short, the game is largely incidental to accounts of their service to their country and their backgrounds.

I will resist the temptation to mention all of the booklet’s highlights but will reference just one of the stories, that of Oswald Cornwallis who, in his sole appearance for the county did not even take the field. Hampshire batted first against Kent in 1921 and the entry against Cornwallis’s name in both innings is ‘absent injuredâ€? By remarkable coincidence his brother Stanley, a rather more accomplished cricketer who made more than a hundred appearances for Kent is similarly described. In fact neither was injured, but both withdrew from the game following the murder of their brother in Ireland, the story of which is also told.

Author Saunders hails from Portsmouth, and has a lifelong interest in both the Royal Navy and Hampshire cricket and the pleasure he derived from putting the booklet together is evident in his writing. The subject matter won’t interest every cricket lover, but if it does appeal this well written and nicely produced booklet is a credit to both author and publisher. It is available to visitors to the club shop at the Ageas Bowl for £5, or for £7.50 inclusive of UK postage via the publisher. Copies are also on their way to Melbourne where they will be available from Roger Page. 

For the remainder of the inter-war period Australia’s matchwinners with the ball were spinners, in the main C??larrie Grimmett, Bill O’Reilly and ‘Dainty�Ironmonger with help from Arthur Mailey and ‘Chuck�Fl??eetwood-Smith. The Australian pace attack was not quite the ‘gesture to convention�that India used in the 1960s and 1970s, but fast bowling was not the way they expected to win Test matches.

By the time England visited in 1924/25 McDonald was gone, playing professionally in the Lancashire League whilst waiting to acquire the residential qualification that enabled the Red Rose, for the only time, to dominate county cricket in the late 1920s. Gregory was still around, and played in all five Tests taking 22 wickets, but the cost was 37.09, and he wasn’t quite the bowler he ??had been four years previously.

In 1924/25 Gregory did have a pace bowler to open with, although Charlie Kelleway was no more than fast medium. In fact Kelleway bettered Gregory in the averages, albeit he took only 14 wickets, but the cost of those was a creditable 29.50 each. He proved rather more economical than his more illustrious partners but he was no youngster, and despite his bowling being described as lively and animated he was already 38. Kelleway had made a Test debut back in 1910. He was a good enough batsman to end with an average of 37.42 and, when his Test career finally ended, four years later after a solitary? wicketless Test in the 1928/29 Ashes, he had a tally of 52 wickets in his 26 Tests for which he had paid 32.36, so a genuine all-rounder if never a prolific wicket taker.

The only other Australians to provide a measure of pace bowling in 1924/25 were batsmen Jack Ryder and ‘Storkâ€?Hendry. Both were on the quicker side ?of medium pace, and it would be unfair to describe either as only occasional bowlers, but equally neither could claim to be a true all-rounder at Test level. 

Australia won 4-1 in 1924/25 and Mailey had a big bag of wickets and Grimmett first appeared late in the series. In 1926 England had grown stronger and, in a famous match at the Oval, finally won back the Ashes by winning the fifth and final Test. There was some poor weather but the fact that in five Tests the Australian seamers took only four wickets between them is still remarkable. Gregory took three of those, at a cost of 99.33 runs each, and Ryder paid 142 runs for his wicket. The only other pace bowler in the party, 25 ??year old Sam Everett, did not get in the Test side at all.

In 1928/29 Percy Chapman’s England returned from Australian with a 4-1 Ashes triumph. In the first Test the Australian selectors reprised their opening attack of four years previously with Gregory and Kelleway. Neither played again. As noted the 42 year old Kelleway had gone wicketless and Gregory, who had at least taken three wickets, suffered a career ending knee injury in an attempt to take a catch from his own bowling from young English fast bowler Harold Larwood. Australia lost that match and the next three, an increasingly desperate selection policy entrusting the seam attack at various times to Hendry and Ryd??er, as well as Otto Nothling, Ted, a’Beckett, Alan Fairfax and Ron Oxenham, none of whom threatened any fireworks.

Australia’s consolation victory came in the fifth and final Test and, in large part, came courtesy of the efforts of a young fast bowler, Tim?? Wall, selected at 24 for his debut. Wall was not genuinely fast??, but had a long run and a good action which, combined with his height, could make him a handful. In this match, which went into an eighth day, he took 3-123 and 5-66, looking particularly impressive for a time in the England second innings when rain briefly freshened the wicket.

When Australia reclaimed the Ashes in 1930 the best remembered contribution was the 974 runs scored by Donald Bradman, but the 29 wickets G??rimmett took were v??ital as well. Wall was consistent, but lacked penetration and as far as the averages were concerned Australia’s most successful seam bowlers in the Tests were two medium pacers, Alan Fairfax and Stan McCabe.

The following summer West Indies visited Australia for the first time and a year later the South Africans. Australia’s margins of victory were 4-1 and 5-0, so they were not extended and the bowlers who did almost all the damage were Ironmonger and Grimmett. Wall went wicketless in his only appearance against West Indies, but did rather better against the South Africans. The only seamer to make any sort of mark against the men from the Caribbean was Alec Hurwood who, in the first two Tests, took 11 wickets at 15.45 before his employers declined to allow him to make himself available for the rest of the series. As a medium pacer Hurwood would not, however, have been the answer to Australia’s lack of pa??ce in any event.

Much of the blame for the lack of Australian pace bowlers is put on the pitches and playing conditions in Australia at the time. Wickets were hard and true?? and Test matches were timeless. The only time bowlers could look forward to an advantage was on the notorious sticky wickets of the era, and when those conditions were encountered it was almost always the slower men who got to take advantage. That said visiting teams pace bowlers had their moments. Maurice Tate had a wonderful series for England in 1924/25 and he had some success four years later as well, as did Larwood and Leicestershire’s George Geary. 

The West Indies bowlers were, overall, disappointing, but their attack was dominated by pace, all of George Francis, Herman Griffith and Learie Constantine bowling well at times. For the South Africans paceman Sandy Bell, despite that 5-0 hammering, emerged with the excellent return of 23 wickets at 27.13 even though Australia won three of the Tests by an innings and another by ten wickets. There was also success for pace bowlers in Australia in 1932/33. Ther??e are still those who cry foul where the success of Larwood and Bill Voce in that ‘Bodyline�summer is concerned. The rights and wrongs of Jardinian leg theory cannot alter one thing however, and that is the 21 wickets at 28.13 that Gubby Allen took, bowling strictly conventional off theory.

The Australian s?electors chose to fight Bodyline with spin and Wall, despite much off field clamouring for some selections to fight fire with fire. There is no doubt that there were some candidates, but skipper Bill Woodfull was not prepared to retaliate. The native Australian Eddie Gilbert for one was fit and firing and, in Bradman’s view, the fastest? man he ever faced. But Gilbert had a much maligned action and never did play Test cricket. Also in the frame was the Australian Rules Footballer Laurie Nash, another who was fast and nasty and who doubtless because of that did not appeal to Woodfull. Last but not least was the man who did replace Wall in the side for the final Test, Harry ‘Bullâ€?Alexander.  Genuinely quick but not very accurate Alexander took only one wicket, although by hitting Douglas Jardine more than once at least pleased the crowd if not his captain. Alexander never played for Australia again.

As in 1930 a Bradman inspired Australia won back the Ashes in England in 1934, though once more pace bowling did not make a major contribution. Between them O’Reilly and Grimmett took 53 wickets and, with six at 78.66 Wall led the pace bowlers. McCabe to?ok just four wickets and the only other specialist seamer in the Australian side, Hans Ebeling, who took Wall’s place in the fi??nal Test, took three in what proved to be his only Test.

1934 was the end of the road for Wall, who announced his retirement, so the search began again. In Victoria there was Erni??e McCormick, a bowler of real pace who had appeared against Tasmania in 1929, although it would be two years before he first played a Sheffield Shield fixture. Part of the problem was a period out of the game after an appendectomy, another was that there were not sufficient places in the Victorian line up to accommodate McCormick, Nash and Alexander.

A keen baseball player McCormick realised he needed to add something to his game in order to be certain of his place and in December of 1933 it was reported in The Australian Cricketer that he had developed the baseball art of swerve and incorporated that in to his bowling with such success that he now had six different type of delivery; fast and slow outswingers, a fast inswinger, a backspinner that kicked, a straight ball and an off break. The article concerned went on to explain that he had also cut his run up from 18 paces to 12 and had started t??o deliver the ball with a full body swing, rather than the square on approach he had begun his career with.

Another aspect of McCormick’s game, unusual for a tall fast bowler, was that he was a fine slip catcher and it was that, as much as his bowling that led to The Australian Cricketer? calling for McCormick’s inclusion ??in the 1934 touring part through the early months of the year. Sadly for McCormick and his supporters however his one chance in 1934 to impress the selectors, a Shield game against New South Wales at the end of January, saw him record the disappointing analysis of 34-1-148-1.

The next Test series for Australia was their trip in 1935/36 to South Africa. The two countries had met in South Africa before, but only as an afterthought following a long Australian tour of England, so this five Test series was eagerly awaited. There was much disappointment when ill health prevented Bradman making the trip, but the party was still a strong one and the fast bowler who made the party was McCormick.  The spin attack of O’Reilly and Grimmett were the driving force behind Australia’s 4-0 victory, but with 15 wickets  at 27.86 McCormick’s first taste of international cricket was a successful one. As a tourist he was immensely popular, teammate Len Darling describing him as the funniest man I ever toured with, and the type that every team should have on a long trip.

Selected for the first Test of the 1936/37 Ashes series McCormick provided a sensational start. For the very first delivery of the rubber he produced a very rapid bumper which the Derbyshire opener Stan Worthington attempted to hook to the fenc??e, but succeeded only in popping up for ‘keeper Bert Oldfield to help him become only the second bowler, and the last before Shane Warne, to take a wicket with his first delivery in Ashes cricket.

Batting at first drop for England was Arthur Fagg, who was quickly struck a painful blow about the body and then came very close to being hit on the head. It? came as no surprise when, in trying to glance McCormick, he was dismissed for four. What was more surprising was the next delivery, the great English champion Walter Hammond doing no more than popping up a straightforward chance to one of McCormick’s two short legs.

Had Australia not then missed a couple of chances in the field (McCormick himself was responsible for the first, a?nd he was the unfortunate bowler for the second) then England might not have been able to score the 358 that, after being 20-3, they recovered to.  For McCormick there was time for just eight overs before an attack of lumbago prevented him bowling again in a match which, thanks to the intervention of the weather, England went on to win contrary to the form book and all expectations.

The lumbago had cleared up before the second Test, or at least it had for the first session when McCormick again bowled at great speed. Neville Cardus however felt he wasted his opportunity by bowling too many deliveries on a leg stump line and then, after lunch, Cardus complained of McCormick’s bowling becoming laboured and middle aged. That McCormick’s pace would drop significantly after his opening burst was an observation made by many.  Thanks to a double century from Hammond England were able to declare?? on 426-6 and, fortunate again with the weather, they went on to win by an innings.

For the third Test at the MCG McCormick was sidelined by his lumbago, but there was no like for like replacement as the left arm wrist spin of Fleetwood-Smith replaced him. This time the Australian attack was o?pened by McCormick’s opening partner of the first two Tests, fellow Victorian Morris Sievers, and McCabe. Sievers was another tall man, but not much above medium pace. In this game however he had the good fortune to get the ball in his hands, in tandem with O’Reilly, when the weather chose this time to visit its wrath on England and he took 5-21 as they were dismissed for 76 in their first innings. Strangely this was to prove the end of Sievers�three Test career as a fit again McCormick took his place for the fourth Test.

Australia, thanks in large measure to Bradman, completed the comeback by winning the final two Tests. There were two wickets in each innings for McCormick in the fourth match at Adelaide and then, in a move which surprised many, a second bowler of real pace was selected for the decider, like the third Test played at the MCG. Fellow Victorian Nash was the man picked and England skipper Allen was sufficiently concerned to make it clear to Bradman that he would not tolerate any intimidatory bowling by the Australians. His worries proved unfound??ed on that score, although bowling a conventional line Nash did take 4-70 in the English first innings and another in the second. For McCormick there were no first innings wickets, but he snared Worthington and Les Ames in the second.

After the series finished there was one final round of Sheffield Shield matches left, and for Victoria that meant a trip to Adelaide to play South Australia. Batting second the Victorians took a first innings lead of 31 at which point McCormick embarked on a sensational spell of bowling as he took 9-40 in eleven overs to leave the South Australian innings in tatters at 75-9. With victory all but certain and a rare chance of an ‘all ten�for a pace bowler on offer Victoria’s skipper, Ebeling, tried to help. He had bowled eight overs himself, before bringing Fleetwood-Smith on. After two overs of Fleetwood-Smith Ebeling, concerned his unorthodox spinner might well inadvertently take a wicket, brought on Sievers with strict instructions to bowl wide and with the fielders all knowing that any opportunities had to go to ground. Inexplicably in?? the circumstances Sievers bowled Graham Williams with his sixth delivery �it is unlikely that Sievers was bearing a grudge after his omission from the fourth Test, and rather more likely that he thought it would appeal to McCormick’s sense of fun. In any event it was the only time in his career that McCormick took more than six in an innings and, having taken 3-56 in the first, the only time he had a ten wicket match haul.

McCormick came to England in 1938. The prospect of a genuine fast bow?ler performing for Australia for the first time since 1921 aroused much interest, a good deal of which was dashed in McCormick’s first appearance in the country. In the traditional tour opener at Worcester Australia batted first and (Bradman 258) spent the first day and an hour of the second putting together a total of 541. McCormick took the new ball. His first over consisted of 14 deliveries, and from one of the legal deliveries opening batsman Charles Bull, attempting a hook, deflected the ball on to his head and had to retire hurt. The second over comprised another 15 deliveries.

At this point Bradman spoke to the umpire and asked if McCormick was dragging. Dragging? He’s jumping two feet over was the response, and after an ?eight delivery third over McCormick was removed from the attack. He came back and was certainly better, but still managed a total of 35 no balls in 20 overs. The explanation given was that McCormick, who by now had a thirty yard run had not, in practice at Lord’s, been able to utilise his full run hence the Worcester game being his first opportunity to do so.

The first Test at Trent Bridge was drawn with England batti?ng first and piling up 658-8 before Hammond declared. Australia had some awkward moments before a majestic innings from McCabe ensured they would save the game. McCormick took 1-128 but had no luck, a catch going down in the gully in his first over and Len Hutton shortly after that contriving to play the ball on to his stumps without disturbing the b?ails. 

One record that McCormick will never lose was set up in the second Test at Lord’s when, after Hammond again won the toss and chose?? to bat, he became the first man to bowl a ball on live television. The delivery itself was uneventful, but there was life in the wicket and England were reduced to 31-3 with?? McCormick having Hutton and Charles Barnett caught at short leg and, between those two, bowling Bill Edrich. Unfortunately for Australia Hammond then played an innings like that of McCabe at Trent Bridge, and again the match was drawn.

The third Test, at Old Trafford, was abandoned without ?a ball bowled because of rain, and then the Australians won at Headingley to go one up in the series.  McCormick dismissed Barnett in each innings, but that was his only success in what proved to be his final Test. 

To the surprise of many McCormick was left out of the final Test at the Ov?al, the management having concerns, given a recent bout of neuritis in his right shoulder, about his ability to last the course in a timeless Test. In the event Hammond won the toss and an anodyne Australian attack was bludgeoned by England (Hutton 364) until Hammond finally took pity on the visitors and declared at 903-7. With Bradman and Fingleton both unable to bat the eventual margin of England’s victory was an innings and 579 runs. Had a risk been taken with McCormick’s fitness it seems unlikely that the margin would have been that great. As it was the Australian opening attack was McCabe and the equally gentle medium pace of? Mervyn Waite. If ever a cricket match was decided on the toss of a coin it was this one.

On his return to Australia after the tour of England McCormick played for one more season before, at the age of 32, retiring at the end of the 1938/39 season. Outside the game he was a skilled jeweller, sometimes nicknamed ‘Goldie�and in time he was commissioned to make the Frank Worrell Trophy. It amused him no end that he later got the same job again, only to lose it when the West Indies Board found the original. The sense of humour never deserted Ernie McCormick, who would relate to all comers a story about his attendance at the centenary Test in 1977, when a spectator greeted him with the question, didn’t you used to be Ernie McCormick?

For those under 50 years of age ?Ki??rmani’s name is unlikely to be a familiar one, but he was a thoroughly competent wicketkeeper batsman who played in 88 Tests between 1976 and 1986 and his record certainly stands comparison with that of his immediate predecessor, the flamboyant and immensely popular Farokh Engineer, as well as that of his successor, Kiran More.

With all due respect to Kirmani he was not a superstar and, as a cricketer, was a man who got on with the job series in and series out rather than one who is remembered for any particularly stellar feats. That said despite the turning point of the match being Kapil Dev’s stunning catch to dismiss Vivian Richards Kirmani’s 14 runs, faultless glovework an?d catch to dismiss Faoud Bacchus in India’s famous 1983 World Cup is certainly memorable.

The layout ??of the book is an interesting one. The first 74 pages are Kirmani’s own story so, effectively, an autobiography. That is the followed by his two co-authors acting as biographers and their contributions are followed by a series of tributes from the great and the good of Indian cricket. Finally there is also an instructional chapter which, I have to say, is of such brevity as to not be of any great value if for no other reason than I cannot imagine that too many of an age where coaching will do them any good are going to be reading the book.

But that one is but a minor problem. The real issue with the book is that it appears no fact checking has been done, and the errors are not mere matters of detail, but the sort that make you doubt the veracity of everything you r??ead. Examples are the suggestion that Farokh Engineer, who didn’t make the trip, kept wicket for India during their famous series victory in the Caribbean in 1970/71, and that Pochiah Krishnamurthy wasn’t there when in fact he kept in all five Tests, the only ones of his career,

According to Kirmani Andy Roberts and Michael Holding were two of the West ?Indies pace bowlers in that historic series, although in fact Roberts didn’t debut for another four years and Holding for five. On the subject of Holding he, with the christian name Robert, is also stated to have been involved in the West Indies series in India in 1974/75. Add to that a not inconsiderable number of misspellings and grammatical errors and you have a book in respect of which th??e pleasure of reading it is much diminished.

The other problem with the autobiographical section is that it is, I am afraid, rather too much about Kirmani himself.?? That he has legitimate grievances against selectors and administrators I do not doubt, and t??here is interest in the points he makes. That said there is so much about those issues that at times his reader begins to wonder whether he actually enjoyed his career at all.

And there is another disappointment. Kirmani might well prove to be the last wicketkeeper to play with a bowling attack dominated by spinners. In his early Tests he would be keeping to three of the great quartet of Bedi, Prasanna, Chandra and Venkat. Even in his final Test India were still playing three front line spinners in Shivlal Yadav, Ravi Shastri and Laxman Sivaramakrishnan. His thoughts on the changes the g??ame has been through would have been very welcome.

In relation to the biographical chapters those suffer too from factual errors and misspellings and at times the prose itself struck me as very florid – Neville Cardus and one or two others have had the style and command of the English language to get away with that but not, for me at least, Sengupta and Pathak. The narrative is also too hagiographical to add anything of substance to what Kirmani has already written.

The tributes chapter is also hagiographical, but that is only to be expected and this is certainly the most satisfying part of the book and a great deal of effort must have gone in to securing the assistance of 29 contributors, opponents of Kirmani as well as teammates. There is still the occasional glitch however, Mike Brearley’s surname being misspelt, although he is at least allowed to spell Alan Knott’s surname correctly – to put that in context Alan Nott would be the ‘keeper in a distinctly useful misspelled name eleven that could be put together from the proof reading slips.

Had the publisher simply invested in a rigorous editor Stumped would have been a better book and indeed, in the right hands Kirmani’s life, times and thoughts on the game could have produced a very g?ood one. Sadly whilst it is not wholly ?lacking in merit this is not that book.