The Cotswold Cricket Museum

The rain drops that didn’t soak us on their way down splashed up at our ankles. England’s Ashes defeat was a bruise on our recent memory, the ongoing ODI series a succession of painful pokes and jars. But my parents and I were minutes from an experience that chased away the staleness and ill-humour of the wettest, most unrewarding winter of following the England cricket team.

We stepped inside the museum entrance, stamping our damp feet, paid for three inexpensive tickets and were led upstairs, past pictures and figures, teasers for the images and objects of the main display. An hour and half later we left the Cotswold Cricket Museum, enthused by this unique collection of the sport’s history and made so welcome by the owner, director and curator, Andy Collier.

Following this visit in February, I got back in touch with the man behind the world’s only privately owned cricket museum, found in Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire. Andy agreed to answer some questions about his life, his museum and his mission.

I started with a topical question:

DG: England’s ‘solar red’ shirts worn at the World T20 came in for a lot of comment and criticism. Would you welcome one into your collection?

AC: T20 cricket is not something that  floats my boat! I have never been a great lover of coloured clothing so the ‘solar red’ shirt grates a bit.  As for putting one in the museum, well, I’m trying to promote the history of our great game and I feel England’s performance in the T20 world cup  should be forgotten!  So, no, I won’t be putting a shirt in.

DG: Which was the first historical cricket item you collected and how did you come to own it?

AC: The first thing I collected was not necessarily historical, it was a cold cast porcelain statue of Don Bradman.

DG: When did you realise you were hooked on collecting cricket memorabilia?

AC: The realisation of being hooked on collecting and learning about the history of the great game came when I found a signed photo of Don Bradman when clearing a friend’s shed out. I had already collected about 12-15 other statues of great players by then.

DG: How and when did it develop from a passion to an occupation?

AC: The museum came about after we had an exhibition in my home town of Guildford. I had purchased a lovely photo of the 1911/12 MCC team to Australia which was formerly the property of Hampshire player Phil Mead who went on the tour. After I had cleaned the original frame and put a new mount on it and hung it on the wall, it looked fantastic. I thought to myself, I’m the only person going to see this! So that was when the light bulb moment came for the exhibition in Guildford.

The thing with collectors and collecting is that you are generally the only person who gets to enjoy what you have. I was always keen to let people see the collection.

DG: One of the most striking things for me about your museum is its informality – by which I mean I could hold bats used by Hobbs and Grace. How do you strike a balance between giving a hands-on experience and protecting the valuable exhibits?

AC: When visiting other museums it was always frustrating that things were  behind glass, in cabinets etc.  So it was always my idea to let the visitor get close up and personal with things.  It’s been great to see the reaction of people when they hold W.G.’s bat, or I can let people try on Hobbs’s cap. It makes them feel part of the history and gives a different kind of museum experience.

DG: I coach at a club with a thriving junior section. I do notice, though, that most of the kids don’t seem to follow the county or even international game. Do you get many children visiting the museum?

AC: I am always trying to get the kids involved and try and tell them about the history of  the great game.  We are certainly getting more kids in now that the museum is getting more established.

That is one of the ideas of the quiz – it makes you read things on the wall, bats, pictures etc and takes you through some of the major parts of the development of the game.  It is proving very popular with all ages and can actually end up with people staying all-day, then saying “what a good idea – a great quiz – it really encouraged us to look at all the things on display”.

DG: As a private owner of a cricket museum, you are unique. Are you in touch with the curators at other museums, such as the one at Lord’s and, if so, have they been supportive?

AC: When I first started the museum I contacted Lord’s and told them what I was doing.  They actually offered me for display the Patrick Eagar photo exhibition which they still had, but it was just too much to fit in the space I have.  Also the curators of the museums at Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and a few more have been in and loved it. So, all have been very encouraging.

DG: In the last 20 years, cricket has become heavily packaged and commercialised. Do you think in generations time there will be the same interest in 2014 T20 shirts that we have in artefacts from, say, the 1920s?

AC: Will new things be as collectable in the future?  There’s a question! One problem with, say today’s autographs, is that it is impossible to read who they are without the name being printed by the side. So, I think they won’t be so collectable, plus the players sign so much there are plenty about. Shirts, etc need quite a lot of space, especially if they are framed so that limits their value.  But the vintage pieces I think will always hold their value because of the rarity and significance to the past, plus, you can read the autographs.

But I suppose we will never really know! We are only custodians of all these lovely things so we can only hope that museums like the Cotswold Cricket Museum will inspire the younger generation to collect and keep the history alive.

DG: You have managed to acquire some personal effects – shirts, boots, blazers, and also letters. I was particularly interested in Sir Alec Bedser’s letter to the Lancs Chairman with suggestions on improving Jimmy Anderson’s bowling action. How have such private items come into your hands? How do you judge which to display?

AC: Most of the significant items have been purchased at specialised auctions which I have, on occasions, had to bid hard to purchase.  But I find that if the item is interesting to me then it will probably be interesting to other people, especially if I can tell them the history to that item, which always adds to things. Many people who come to the museum have happy memories of watching the players that are featured in the museum such as Fred Trueman, Denis Compton or Ian Botham.

DG: I think the museum is a ‘must’ to visit for all cricket followers – the opportunity to hold a bat used by Jack Hobbs is worth the visit alone. Which one item in your collection would you say is the biggest draw?

AC: There are so many things in the museum that amaze people so to pick one item is difficult. But the letter from Alec Bedser to Jack Simmons, which is giving a young Jimmy Anderson a few tips to improve his action and foot position, is mentioned by most people.

My personal favourites are the letters written to the 19th century Kent cricketer, Alfred Mynn and his wife, by their daughters in 1840-44.  The girls are between 10 – 14 years old and the hand writing is just immaculate, very different from today when we all send text messages and hardly ever write a letter! Perhaps a note in a Christmas card is our limit.

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Cricket inspires activity beyond simply playing or watching the game. It sustains writers, photographers, artists and statisticians. Andy Collier might have invested more than anyone in his cricket-inspired occupation and we are fortunate to be able to share it. I really do recommend you pay a visit to the Cotswold Cricket Museum.

The museum’s official site: http://www.cotswoldcricketmuseum.co.uk/

Follow the museum or Andy Collier on twitter: @Cricket_Museum @CotswoldColly

 

Disclosure: I have received no payment for this piece and where I express an opinion, it is my own.

 

Whitewash – the long view

An England team has been humbled in Australia, losing five consecutive Test matches. The clean-sweep is a fair reflection of the home side’s dominance. The visiting team can look back at unfortunate incidents, missed opportunities and questionable selections, but a gulf in quality has been exposed.

That’s the predicament English cricket finds itself in at the start of January 2014. 93 years ago, its touring predecessors suffered the same series result. How do the two series and their consequences compare?

England travelled to Australia in late 1920 as holders of the Ashes, seeking a third consecutive series victory. But that provided little evidence of form as the previous encounter had been eight years and one World War ago. The tourists’ batting was thought to be their strong suit. Cardus, reflecting on the ‘wonderful’ summer of 1920 just past, observed (with an analogy that intrigues):

Look at the men who will bat for England in a few weeks in Australia – Hobbs, Hearne, Hendren, Woolley, Fender, Russell. Individualists all – some of them very Lenins of cricket!

The team was led by JWHT Douglas, who had a proven record as a captain overseas with victories in Australia and South Africa, albeit achieved before the Great War. He had not been first choice for the role, though. Reggie Spooner of Lancashire was offered the captaincy, but declined it because of business commitments (1).

Hopes were, of course, even higher for Cook’s team of 2013. Setting out to secure a fourth consecutive Ashes victory, with the first Test at Brisbane starting fewer than three months after the close to final Test of the 3-0 series win on home soil. Cook, himself had never lost a series as captain and had lead England to its first victory in India in 26 years.

Douglas’ squad numbered 16, half of who suffered illness or injury in Australia. The most severe loss was Jack Hearne, who became ill at the start of the second Test and played no further part in the series. Harry Makepeace incurred an injury ‘of its time’ – damaging a thumb when starting a car.

This winter’s tourists also lost a pivotal member of their batting order early in the series, with Jonathon Trott’s departure owing to a stress condition. Graeme Swann’s exit – retiring mid-series – might also be seen as ‘of its time’.

But all touring teams, particularly in the first part of the twentieth century, can expect casualties and to need to select teams from a reduced squad. These matters provide background to stories of thumping defeats, but don’t afford explanations. A fast bowler – the quickest of his day – was where Australia’s superiority on the field was most pronounced. Mitchell Johnson, like Jack Gregory nearly a hundred years earlier, was too hostile for England’s Lenins. Gregory’s pace – “for which nothing in English cricket was adequate preparation” – found its  greatest support not from another fast bowler, but Arthur Mailey, whose wrist-spin took 36 wickets in the series.

England’s much touted batting order faltered, yet found some consolation in the performance of the greatest star of all. Kevin Pietersen was England’s leading run-scorer but could derive but a fraction of the satisfaction that Jack Hobbs could from his performance. 505 runs, with two centuries, despite some injury problems. Pietersen has faced heavy criticism for the manner of some of his dismissals – from press, followers and possibly, coach. I suspect he would need to score more than 500 runs, or travel back 90 years, or find a correspondent as romantic as Cardus to receive this indulgence of a dismissal:

Hobbs, in the moment of crisis, so fascinated by his own art that he heeds not the dangers lurking about him! On this occasion, indeed, he was out ‘leg before wicket’, no doubt attempting to ‘damn the consequences’, with his own hazardous but ravishing glance to leg from a ball on the middle stump, the riskiest stroke, but as sweet as stolen fruit.

The heat of the Ashes contest infected the crowd, who jeered an antagonist in the opposition, then cheered loud and long when he was dismissed. Stuart Broad’s predecessor was ER Wilson, who earnt this reception by cabling complaints about the Australian crowd’s behaviour back to England, from where they bounced back to an Aussie audience.

The local crowd also jeered when they saw an England cricketer labouring in the field, failing to keep the batsmen to a single. The fielder was Hobbs, who was carrying a leg muscle injury. But according to Hobbs, the crowd made amends in “one of the most peculiar incidents in my life.”

The moment I appeared at the door of the pavilion, the spectators rose from their seats and cheered like mad, shouting, “Good old Hobbs!” They even sang “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” This was undoubtedly intended to make it clear to me that any chaff directed at my fielding had been due to ignorance of my injured leg

Could the team’s leaders remain in positions of authority after such a humiliating defeat? That’s the question preoccupying England cricket followers in 2014. Flower appears to have the backing of the ECB and he, in turn, supports Cook continuing as captain. In 1921, Douglas continued as captain. “Much has been taken from English cricket this winter, but much abides,” concluded Cardus. Yet, two Tests and two defeats later, Douglas was replaced.

Everything about Andy Flower’s role is twenty-first century. The tourists’ manager in 1920/21 was Frederick Toone. His sphere of influence was off the field. So highly respected were his organisational and diplomatic skills and so untarnished was he by the performance and scoreline, that he managed the next two MCC/England tours of Australia.

For precedents to apply to Flower, there’s a need to look to the more recent past. In 2007, Duncan Fletcher remained in charge for the World Cup campaign that followed the Ashes whitewash. Failure there led to his resignation, with a sense that he had contributed greatly to the development of English international cricket but that the team needed new leadership.

Mickey Arthur remained coach to the Australian team deep into 2013, several months after the 4-0 clean sweep to India. Failing to win a game in the Champions Trophy and with off-field controversy buffeting the team he was denied the chance to coach in the Ashes. Both Fletcher and Arthur exited having failed to conjure a recovery in their next assignment after being whitewashed. Maybe Flower is also being given an opportunity to turn around the fortunes of the team quickly.

His situation, however, differs from that of Fletcher and Arthur, both of whom had successors ready to take over, men who also represented changes of direction from the previous regime. Peter Moores was thought to be more consensual than the man blamed for the stubborn selections in the 2006/07 Ashes, as well as having strong connections back into the county game from which Fletcher had distanced his England set up. Darren Lehmann, in England in 2013 with the Australia A team, enabled Australia to end their association with their first foreign coach and replace him with a leader whose style was player-friendly, not technocratic; warm, not aloof. Flower, perhaps as a result of his authority, has no obvious successor who would bring a fresh approach to the running of team.

Finally, returning to the longer view theme of this piece:

The England team fails to rally late in the series. As the fifth consecutive defeat is recorded, the players look drained and trapped in a pattern of repeated mistakes. Time away from cricket, or at least away from Australian opponents, would seem the best best remedy.

It seems cruel on the England of 2014 that many of the key figures in the Test series defeat – Cook, Broad, Bell, Bresnan, Root, Carberry – must stay on for a further four weeks, meeting their vanquishers in eight limited overs fixtures.

Douglas’ England team did get to sail home at the end of the Test series. But any hopes they may have had of putting distance between themselves and their opponents were not to be realised. Amongst the passengers sharing the voyage were the Australian squad on its way to England for the return series in the northern summer of 1921.

Note:

(1) I have also read that CB Fry was offered the captaincy, but turned it down because of injury.

Sources: A Cardus for All Seasons (Neville Cardus); My Life Story (Sir Jack Hobbs); A History of Cricket (HS Altham & EW Swanton); Wisden

Neutering the intelligent cricketer

In cricket, the physically strong can be undone by the weak who are technically gifted; and the clever can prevail over the skilled. It does now, however, appear that the advantage of the intelligent cricketer is being eroded.

That was my reflection on listening to the recent Couch Talk interview with CKM Dhananjai, Performance Analyst with the Indian national team. The interview began like a bad day at work with the interviewee talking about ‘performance enhancement’, ‘SWOT analyses’ and data ‘delivery models’. Subash Jayaraman probed in his courteous way and out came the evidence for there being an active programme to neuter the intelligent cricketer.

Before I substantiate that charge, I will clarify my position on cricket and analytics. Readers of Declaration Game will know that I like to play with numbers, test hypotheses, find associations and contrasts. I do it because I find mainstream coverage of cricket lacking in insight and reliant upon assumptions, cliché and inherited beliefs. I don’t think there’s a secret formula to winning cricket games that can be found if only we conduct enough regression analyses. But I do sense that a sport with so many numbers has done little to understand the probabilities of outcomes for players and teams, and the actions and conditions that affect those probabilities. It’s also harmless fun.

Back on ‘The Couch’, CKN Dhananjai started to give examples of the information he would make available to Indian players.

to play a Morne Morkel, a batsman is already given information about what he does, his instances of bowling a bouncer every three or four balls, and if he is hit for a boundary in a particular ball, what is his follow-up ball, and all that stuff.

This is granular, highly specific information. The technically skilled batsman, capable of absorbing and applying that information, is now on a par when facing Morkel, with the intelligent player, who through his own observation has discerned the pattern in Morkel’s bowling, or perhaps can detect from the South African’s run-up and delivery stride when the bouncer is coming.

Dhananjai’s second example is for the fielding team.

There are many cricketers in the world today who like to hit and run, and we have analytics on that, so you know that if they hit and run, there is an opportunity for a run-out.

The cover point who studies the new batsman’s body language to detect the nervousness that will lead to a poorly judged run has no advantage over the fielder who has listened to the analyst’s briefing and has the ‘hit and run’ batsman pointed out when he arrives at the crease. It’s hard to imagine the creative and cunning tactic of the young Jack Hobbs being tolerated – Hobbs would gift new batsmen a run or two to him in the covers before swooping and running out the complacent batsman.

It’s not just a player’s intelligence that is being neutered in this data-led approach to coaching and match preparation, but individual responsibility; the desire for self-determination that would have a batsman either study a bowler from the pavilion or quiz him over drinks after the game to identify and absorb his opponent’s variations. Those lessons are received passively now in video presentations about the opposition.

It was CKM Dhananjai’s response to the final question of the Couch Talk interview that made me want to distance myself from this analytical approach to the game. He was asked: ‘do you actually get to enjoy a particular game of cricket?’

That’s an interesting question, and a tough one, actually. As a fan… I don’t think I can ever watch a cricket game as a fan, to be honest. There lies the answer. Even if I am watching something on TV sitting at home, it is very difficult to watch it as a normal fan because of the fact that you have been immersed in this day in and day out for more than ten years now.

His dedication to stripping the game down to probabilities and predictive analysis, have left this former cricketer unable to watch the game purely for fun.

It never rains but it pours: Australia and South Africa share an English summer

For a few days in early July, the cricket teams of Australia and South Africa will overlap, both being at play in England. With the exception of the international limited overs tournaments, it’s hard to pinpoint when this last happened. But step back exactly one hundred years, to 1912, and for four months the two teams toured England, playing matches against the counties, Tests against England and Tests against each other.

This summer is the centenary of Test cricket’s only ‘world championship’. The world’s top three teams – and only Test playing nations – competed throughout that season. Cricket followers in England were treated to: Hobbs, Woolley, Barnes, Fry, Rhodes, Faulkner, Taylor, McCartney, Gregory and Bardsley.

The  conclusion of influential witnesses to this feast of top class cricket appears to have been: that it should not happen again. How had a venture of such ambition failed to engage and develop an appetite for more?

The series was the brainchild of South African magnate, Sir Abe Bailey. After the slow start that has become the norm for all countries new to Test cricket, South Africa won their first series in 1905/06 against England. Six of their first seven series were played at home, but this success spurred on the idea of a grand challenge on English soil.

One of the explanations for the Triangular Tournament’s flat reception was that the South African team was in decline and provided poor opposition in the Test matches. In eleven completed innings they topped 200 four times. They escaped defeat in only one of the tournament games – a wash-out against Australia.

Nor were Australia the draw they might have been. They were not at full strength. Personal differences amongst is elite cricketers saw players of the calibre of Victor Trumper and Clem Hill left out of the touring team.

The three captains: F Mitchell, CB Fry, SE Gregory

Memorable cricket was played, however. Jack Hobbs scored a century on a wet and then drying pitch at Lord’s against Australia that he modestly noted as being, “specially pleasing to me”. Australia’s Matthews’ became the first and only bowler to take two hat-tricks in one Test match in the opening encounter against South Africa at Old Trafford. Sidney Barnes was in irresistible form for England, taking 39 wickets at an average of 10, proving deadly against South Africa at the Oval, returning 8-29 (13- 57 in the match.) But none of the matches was tight as comfortable victories or soggy draws ensued.

With England’s wettest June since records began just behind us, and a month’s rain falling in a single July day, it is pertinent, but no consolation, that the summer of 1912 suffered similarly. Rain took playing time out of more than half of the matches in the triangular tournament – played over three days. A Country Vicar (writer in The Cricketer) wrote of the day at the end of June when he and his wife had planned to travel to Lord’s to see England play Australia:

We awoke to the sound of rain – not just a passing shower, or a gentle drizzle, but a steady, relentless, persistent deluge. It was hopelessly wet.

We remained at home – a bitter disappointment!

Many of the matches were contested on pitches exposed to the weather. In a tactic that seems very distant, batting sides wanted to get out to the middle soon after a rain delay, while the pitch was dulled by the wet and before its spite was awakened by the drying sun. Scoring was further depressed by slow, sodden outfields.

The quantity of Test cricket played has multiplied in recent decades. Yet the record for the number of Tests played in a single English season – nine – continues to be held by this summer one-hundred years ago. Each side played the other teams three times. And this, for some, was another reason for wanting the Triangular Tournament set aside as an experiment. Jack Hobbs wrote:

the enlarged programme interfered very seriously with county cricket and anything that has that effect cannot be good for the game. . Nine test matches in one season cut too much into the county cricket programme – the backbone of the game.

International cricket spoken of as international football is now and not as the commercial underpinning of the sport that it has become. Hobbs had nine innings in the series, and another 51 that summer, the vast majority for Surrey. That puts his complaints of international ‘over-kill’ into some perspective, particularly when stood alongside his modern day county confrere, Kevin Pietersen, who despite his own stand against the bloated international schedule, won’t bat ten times this season for Surrey.

The commercial side of the tournament features prominently in Wisden’s overview. It reports total receipts of £12, 463 4s.2d (£1.2m in today’s money). The MCC and each county received a little under £160 (£16,000). In 2007, the ECB distributed £1.75m to each first class county. The cause of these disappointing figures, exacerbated by the weather, was the lukewarm interest in the matches between South Africa and Australia at Nottingham and Manchester, despite their scheduling for Bank Holiday weekends. It’s the ‘attendance’ risk faced by any multinational sporting event: the quality must be exceptional to overcome the absence of partisanship.

Amongst modern cricket fans keen to see Test cricket retain its primacy, there is support for a World Test Championship. The Triangular Tournament was exactly that and similar challenges to those faced in 1912 would have to be overcome if a modern equivalent were to be successful. There would be less dependence on ticket-sales as television rights and sponsorship would be the competition’s commercial engines. But the competition would remain prey to poor weather, drawn matches and host nation indifference towards many of the contests. My view is that Test cricket’s formula for success continues to be pairs of well-matched sides meeting each other infrequently, but over concentrated series of matches.

Australia will leave England very shortly, their number one ODI ranking narrowly retained despite defeat. South Africa begin their warm-up for a Test series that could see them supplanting the hosts as the top ranked Test match team. These rankings, overrated statistical constructs, are nonetheless transparent and official tables of merit. They allow every international fixture to fit into a wider framework. To me, one of the charming features of the Triangular Tournament of 1912 was that the method of determining the winner had not been agreed before the contests began. In fact, it remained obscure until the eve of the ninth and final match between England and Australia. Both were unbeaten (although England had more victories) and so this match was declared as ‘winner takes all’, and six days made available to reach a positive result. England triumphed at the Oval on day four, 22 August 1912, completing four victories to Australia’s two.

Note: a comprehensive history of the tournament, its planning and aftermath is found in Patrick Ferriday’s ‘Before the Lights Went Out’.