Received from Chris Terry 04/02/03 recalling Ramblers v Zombies played at Brook, May 2nd, 1965

TEN WICKETS IN AN INNINGS

On a summer’s day, many years ago, I was sitting on a bench in front of the Pavilion steps, at Brook.  Someone on the veranda above said “Chris”.  I looked round.  It was Big Mike (FT Gauntlett), a 22 stone living legend.  “Catch” he said and dropped a cricket ball.  Either out of self preservation or because I spotted a glint of silver, I caught it.  I still have that ball and the “glint of silver” records the taking of ten wickets in a single innings, at Brook, a few weeks earlier.

The Ramblers had many strong opponents against whom I would have been delighted to take ten wickets.  I was always rather sorry that the only time I performed the feat, in my entire career, was against a side who’s very name implied that they were fast asleep – they were called the Zombies.

Furthermore, my recollections of the actual events giving rise to Big Mike’s gesture of kindness are extremely hazy.  For example, I only remember one of my ten team mates that day….. and only then for entirely the wrong reasons.  He was called Mike Bacon, a jovial “help your self and pay later” off break bowler.  Mike had impressed me by scoring 50 in his first match for the Ramblers and, in so doing, had broken a brick in the wall above the window of our subterranean changing rooms.  However, on the particular day in question, Mike Bacon hadn’t distinguished himself at all, either with bat or ball, as he subsequently explained at length in the pub.  “I deliberately bowled badly to give Chris a chance to get ten wickets” he protested.  He may well have been telling the truth.  The difference between Mike just bowling and Mike deliberately bowling badly, were indistinguishable to the inexperienced eye.  It was equally impossible to identify, with any accuracy, the precise moment when he took it upon himself, either owing to the state of play or a fit altruism, to stop just bowling and to start bowling badly.

I do remember that I was bowling down the hill (but I nearly always did).  Unusually for Brook, the wind would have been in the east and, very usually for Brook, the ground would have been slightly damp.  In such conditions, an in-swing bowler is almost unplayable on that ground.

Loftily conducting operations from Mid Off, Big Mike, who had an excellent cricketing brain, would have scented blood and moved in for the kill.  In those days, that entailed putting half the team at Short Leg.  If that particular half included Lionel Wood, the ball would stick to his enormous hands like a fly to paint.  He and his brother Tony caught six, in similar conditions, at the Bank of England ground, off my bowling, on another occasion.

If Gordon Smith* were added to the equation, the batsmen were in a truly perilous position.  Joining the Ramblers, from Merrow, aged over 50, Gordon had the reflexes of a steel spring.  He maintained his alertness by throwing half a tennis ball against a wall and catching its unpredictable return for an hour or so every day.  If Gordon really trusted his bowlers, he’d stand up to any of them, regardless of pace, and if the batsmen were out of his ground, for so much of a fraction of a second, Gordon and the fortunate bowler had another scalp.  Gordon was so quick that Merrow thought he cheated.  I never saw him cheat.

Cover point might have been David Childs, who ran like a panther and had a throw like a dart, straight in over the top of the stumps.  He was far and away the best Ramblers' Cover Fielder ever.  It was an imprudent batsman who took a run to David, whose motto was definitely “there’s never a run to cover”.  (It was David’s brother who painted Big Mike’s 50^th birthday present, which now hangs in the “Dog and Pheasant”.)

Gerry Cogger, the old Sussex pro and coach at King Edward’s School can not have been playing in that particular match.  If he were, he would have got 60% of the wickets.  That was about his quota per match.  If I were lucky, I’d get the other 40% or have to share the other 40% with the likes of Mike Bacon, if he weren’t  “deliberately bowling badly”.

I never played against the Zombies again as far as I can recall but about fifteen years later, one of their number, guesting for another side, also at Brook, recognised me.  It seemed that I had found a place in Zombie mythology because, as soon as my identity was revealed by the ex Zombie to his new playmates, that perfectly respectable side immediately started batting like mesmerised rabbits.  That’s what’s fun about cricket.  It’s all in the mind.