Beneath the Raglan Stand at Birmingham’s Edgbaston Stadium is a small cricket museum packed with balls that took historic wickets and bats that made famous runs. A bookshelf is lined with copies of the Wisden Almanac from years past. This hallowed publication is cricket’s equivalent of William the Conqueror’s 1086 Domesday Book.
I took out the 1979 edition as I knew it would contain a peripheral reference to one of the great ‘what ifs’ of my life.
In 1978, on the eve of the NZ under-23 tournament in Dunedin I was approached by the chairman of the NZ selectors Martin Horton and told that they were looking to take a young fast bowler on the forthcoming NZ tour of England, and they were particularly looking at me and Brendon Bracewell. As it happened, I was ruled out of the tournament the next day with an elbow injury, and Bracewell went on the England tour.
The 1979 Wisden recorded those tests, including the two wickets Brendon took in the opening over of the series.
The night I was ruled out of the tournament I had a few beers with the Bracewells at their flat. I remember it for being particularly taken with a friend of theirs, an attractive young woman named Maureen.
Forty-five years later that cricket connection remains, as we took our seats for the first test of the most anticipated Ashes series in a generation.
It was another hot day as we made the short walk from our apartment through the train station to the Edgbaston shuttle buses. On the way through we were guided by cheery volunteers in Edgbaston shirts. It was almost two hours before the start of play but there was a hundred-metre queue already. Thankfully the double-decker buses were lined up in sufficient numbers, and the line moved quickly. It was a similar deal on the way back, with all staff efficient and friendly. Probably the best crowd management system I’ve seen for a major event.
The game was much-anticipated due to England’s adoption of an ultra-attacking approach under the coach Brendon McCullum, and captain Ben Stokes. I played cricket with both men’s dads. England batted first and announced their intentions from the first ball, which Zak Crawley smashed for four.
The cricket lived up to the hype, with England scoring nearly four hundred runs on the first day while losing wickets regularly. The Guardian called it the most exhilarating first day in Ashes history (see snip). Given the long, dramatic history of the rivalry that may be a stretch, but it is just the kind of headline you want to see, having come so far. Though a big England fan (and not just because they are playing the most toxic team in world cricket) I had some concerns going into the game about a lack of genuine firepower in the English bowling attack, and question marks over their strategic thinking based on watching them in NZ last summer. In the end these concerns were validated. They declared near the end of the first day in a highly aggressive move, but it sacrificed the opportunity to add a further 80 or so runs that would likely have made a difference to the result. They also failed to ‘dig in’ sufficiently in their partnerships, and in the end did not have the firepower to finish off Australia in the final run chase.
Though Australia were boring and timid when they batted on day 2, and rain affected the third and last of the days we had tickets for, we enjoyed every minute.
Not just for the cricket, but for the crowd. Edgbaston is known as the best cricket crowd in England and you can see why, particularly in the famous Hollies Stand. The continuous noise, songs, chants and antics are more like a football crowd.
Sitting directly across from the Hollies Stand we witnessed, among other things: beach balls (which are supposedly banned from the stadium) bouncing around the crowd all day long, occasionally intercepted by security guards who would take them away to be stabbed, their ears ringing with loud chants of W*nker, W*nker, and so on. Darth Vader was escorted out of the stand at one point to much uproar, his crime unknown. Then there was the chasing of the pig. Each day one of a particular group of spectators came dressed as a pig. Every now and then the pig would make a run for it, tearing down the aisles and sprinting along the boundary, chased in furious pursuit by his ‘mates.’ When the pursuers caught the pig there ensued a frenzied enactment of bloody slaughter involving invisible axes and knives, and much squealing and life-and-death struggling. The ritual always ended with the pig’s lifeless body being carried off by his attackers, each holding a limb, to a spit-roast of the imagination.
In the concourse behind the stand a speedball radar bowling competition was underway.
The leaderboard showed a top speed of 59 mph. Pathetic, I said. I could beat that using my left arm. I started limbering up, as all the old adrenalin kicked in. Fortunately (in retrospect) Maureen ‘talked me down’ from entering, knowing that I would have attacked the task like a maniac (as usual) and pointing out that I was a 67-year-old with a dodgy shoulder who hadn’t bowled a cricket ball in anger for 25 years.
We got drenched running for the shuttles when the third day was rained out mid-afternoon, but not before being treated to some spectacular skies in the buildup. But we’d seen some of the most brilliant cricket and fan engagement you could hope to see, in three days that will live long in the memory.
Incidentally, the Hollies stand is named after Eric Hollies, a local who played 13 tests for England between 1935 and 1950. However, he is most remembered for a single delivery he bowled at 5:50pm on Saturday, August 14, 1948 at The Oval in London. The greatest batsman of all time, Sir Donald Bradman, strode to the wicket for his last innings. His career batting average was already a tick over 100, and if dismissed, needed to have scored just four runs to achieve the unheard-of average of 100. But Hollies bowled him out second ball, leaving the great man’s average forever frozen in time at 99.94, a fingertip from perfection.
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