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Pitch Publishing Ltd - Christopher Sandford

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189 pages

English

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Laker and Lock is the first dual biography of Surrey and England 'spin twins' Jim Laker and Tony Lock, who helped their county and Test teams to an unparalleled run of dominance in the 1950s. Besides their peerless achievements on the field, the two men had little in common. Laker, the elder by seven years, was Yorkshire born, cool, phlegmatic, known to sulk, and not greatly enamoured with the class distinctions then inherent in English cricket and society as a whole. Lock, a southerner, was dynamic, ebullient, indefatigable both on and off the field, and tended to wear his heart on his sleeve, an attitude no less at odds with the prevailing social order. Both men courted controversy. Laker's post-retirement autobiography caused such a furore that he was made unwelcome at Lord's and the Oval for years afterwards. Lock suffered the stigma of being labelled a 'chucker' and ultimately moved to Australia, where his retirement was clouded by allegations of sexual abuse. This is the full story of the pair's uneasy partnership.

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Críquet

Cricket

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Publié par	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	18 avril 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781801502498
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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First published by Pitch Publishing, 2022
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Christopher Sandford, 2022
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright.
Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781801500869
eBook ISBN 9781801502498
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Contents
Acknowledgements
1. The Copper and the Delinquent
2. Arms and the Men
3. Dull Cricket is not to be Seen
4. Too Much Coffee
5. Total War
6. Over to Me
7. Salvaging the Wreckage
8. My World was Completely Shattered
Source Notes
Statistical Index
Bibliography
Photos
To Adam
Also by Christopher Sandford
FICTION
Feasting with Panthers
Arcadian
We Don t Do Dogs
PLAYS
Comrades
MUSIC BIOGRAPHIES
Mick Jagger
Eric Clapton
Kurt Cobain
David Bowie
Sting
Bruce Springsteen
Keith Richards
Paul McCartney
The Rolling Stones
FILM BIOGRAPHIES
Steve McQueen
Roman Polanski
SPORT
The Cornhill Centenary Test
Godfrey Evans
Tom Graveney
Imran Khan
John Murray
HISTORY
Houdini and Doyle
Summer 1914
Macmillan and Kennedy
The Man Who Would be Sherlock
John F. Kennedy and Great Britain
The Zeebrugge Raid
Summer 1939
Victor Lustig
Acknowledgements
I OWE a debt a gratitude to many individuals who contributed to the shaping of this book. Most of them did so by kindly answering my questions about Jim Laker and Tony Lock, or by providing material on those great cricketers and their time. One or two others helped the cause more inadvertently, such as the gloriously feckless public officials of Washington state, where I mostly live, whose accordion-style cycle of lockdowns and other restraints at least provided an opportunity to write another book while waiting on our rulers caprices, refurbished as these individuals now are into a sort of sanitary dictatorship devoted to the religion of health. Nonetheless, it goes without saying that neither our political masters, nor any of the names listed below, can be blamed for the shortcomings of the text (some of whose statistics have been rounded up or down for clarity s sake). They are mine alone.
For archive material, input or advice I should thank, professionally: AbeBooks; Jon Alexander; Alibris; America ; Dennis Amiss; Arundel Wealth; Mike Atherton; Callum Berrill; Jack Birkenshaw; Bookfinder; Emma and Geoff Boycott; Simon Brand; the Brazen Head ; Mike Brearley; the British Library; the British Newspaper Library; Jane Camillin; Central Lutheran; Church of St Mary le Ghyll; Emily Clark; Common Ground; CricketArchive; the Cricketer International ; the Cricket Society; the Cricket Society of Scotland; Sophie Cross; the Daily Mail ; the Davenport Hotel; the late Ted Dexter; Emerald Downs; Essex CCC; Keith Fletcher; the General Register Office; Paul Godsland; the late Tom Graveney; Grumbles; Stephen Hall; Nigel Hancock; Hedgehog Review ; the History Press; Robin Hobbs; Richard Holdridge; Jane Jamieson; Rob Kelly; Imran Khan; Leicestershire CCC; Barbara Levy; Limpsfield Church of England School; Limpsfield Parish Council; the Rev Sheena McMain; Christine McMorris; Malvern College; Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas; the MCC; the late Keith Miller; the Mitchell Library, Glasgow; Modern Age; the late Richard Morgan; the National Archives; National Gallery; Northamptonshire CCC; The Oldie ; Peter and Jill Parfitt; Jim Parks; Pat Pocock; Nigel Popplewell; Sir Oliver Popplewell; Kevin Powell; Derek Pringle; the Radleian Society; Tim Reidy; Renton Public Library; Neil Robinson; Rebecca Romney; Sandy Cove Inn, Oregon; Seaside Library, Oregon; Seattle CC; Seattle Mariners; Robert Simonson; The Spectator ; Micky Stewart; Andrew Stuart; Raman Subba Row; Surrey CCC; Surrey History Centre; Jon Surtees; Sussex CCC; Roger Tolchard; Derek Turner; Gavin Turner; University of Washington; Daniel Vernon; Vital Records; Western Australia Cricket Association; Wisden Cricket Monthly ; and Simon Wright.
And personally: the Rev. Maynard Atik; Pete Barnes; the late Richie Benaud; Alison Bent; Rob Boddie; Creed Bratton; Robert and Hilary Bruce; Jon Burke; John Bush; Lincoln Callaghan; Don Carson; Steve Cropper; Celia Culpan; the late Deb Das; Chris Davies; Monty Dennison; Chris Difford; the Dowdall family; Barbara and the late John Dungee; Jon Filby; Lisa Fischer; Steve Fossen; Malcolm Galfe; Tony Gill; James Graham; Freddy Gray; Jeff and Rita Griffin; Steve and Jo Hackett; Duncan Hamilton; Alastair Hignell; Charles Hillman; Alex Holmes; Jo Jacobius; Mick Jagger; Julian James; Robin B. James; Jo Johnson; Lincoln Kamell; Aslam Khan; Carol Lamb; Terry Lambert; Belinda Lawson; Eugene Lemcio; Todd Linse; the Lorimer family; Nick Lowe; Robert Dean Lurie; Les McBride; Dan McCarthy; the late Charles McIntosh; Dennis McNally; the Macris; Lee Mattson; Jim Meyersahm; Jerry Miller; Sheila Mohn; Yvette Montague; the Morgans; Harry Mount; Colleen and the late John Murray; Greg Nowak; the late Chuck Ogmund; Phil Oppenheim; Valya Page; Robin and Lucinda Parish; Owen Paterson; Bill Payne; Peter Perchard; Marlys and the late Chris Pickrell; Roman Polanski; Robert and Jewell Prins; the Prins family; Ailsa Rushbrooke; Rupert Rushbrooke; Debbie Saks; the late Sefton Sandford; Sue Sandford; Peter Scaramanga; Danny Seraphine; Silver Platters; Fred and Cindy Smith; the Smith family; Debbie Standish; the Stanley family; David Starkey; the late Thaddeus Stuart; Jack Surendranath; Belinda and Ian Taylor; Matt Thacker; Huw Turberville; the late Ben and Mary Tyvand; William Underhill; Derek Underwood; Diana Villar; Ross Viner; Lisbeth Vogl; Phil Walker; the late Charlie Watts; Alan and Rogena White; Debbie Wild; the Willis Fleming family; the late Aaron Wolf; Heng and Lang Woon; the Zombies.
My deepest thanks, as always, to Karen and Nicholas Sandford.
C.S.
2022
Let them loiter in pleasure, or toilfully spin - I gather them in, I gather them in.
Park Benjamin, The Old Sexton
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. If Laker doesn t get you, Lockie must.
Popular refrain of English cricket grounds in 1956
1
The Copper and the Delinquent
FOR ONCE the sun was shining in an otherwise dismally wet season at the Kennington Oval on the morning of Wednesday, 16 May 1956 as the opening pair of Ian Johnson s touring Australian side went out to bat against Surrey. Irrespective of who should win or lose it, the three-day match seemed to be set for a run feast. The captains had thumbed the wicket in a listless sort of way before they tossed, but Johnson didn t hesitate to bat when he won. Earlier in the week the tourists had scored 547/8 declared against a strong Nottinghamshire attack at Trent Bridge. At one stage in the match, Colin McDonald, on his way to a score of 195, had unleashed a stinging cover drive that had hit the pavilion fence and bounced back almost to the bowler s hand. On its ferocious passage from the bat, Nottinghamshire s substitute fielder Jack Kelly had rashly put one of his hands in the way of the ball and was so bruised by the encounter he played no more cricket for a month.
Surrey had chosen to rest their stalwart medium-pacer Alec Bedser, down with gastric trouble, for the Australian match. Broad-shouldered, huge-handed and consistently accurate, Bedser had returned figures of 7-41 and 7-28 for his county in a fixture earlier in the week against Glamorgan. His absence was keenly felt that bright spring morning at The Oval. As Keith Miller strode through the ground s Hobbs Gates shortly before ten o clock, he remembered looking down to see a newspaper hoarding proclaiming ODDS ON AUSSIES , and, on a neighbouring stall, STERLING CRISIS: LATEST - two of the classic headlines of the England of that time , he later remarked, and perhaps both still as pertinent today as they were nearly 70 years ago.
Apart from the overall balance of power between the two teams that morning, it has to be said that Surrey s 34-year-old Jim Laker was an unlikely candidate as the destroyer of the highly regarded opposition batsmen. A somewhat lugubrious figure at the best of times, Laker had arrived at the ground after a sleepless night helping to nurse both of his infant daughters through a bad case of the flu. After inspecting the wicket he d gone on to announce that his arthritic spinning finger was giving him particular gyp that day, and that on the whole he would prefer not to play. Not for the first time in their long association, his captain, 38-year-old Stuart Surridge, had had to talk him round. In the event Surridge threw Laker the ball after just 50 minutes play, at which point the tourists score stood at 60 without loss. He kept bowling unchanged for the next four and a half hours, at the end of which the visitors were all out for 259 and his own analysis read 46-18-88-10. It was only the second time in cricket history that an English bowler had taken all ten Australian wickets in an innings, and the last occasion, also at The Oval, had come in 1878.
Even in the midst of the rapidly unfolding drama, with crowds racing in to the ground to see possible history in the making, Laker contained his excitement. The Times s correspondent left an enduring picture of the off-spinner s essentially stoical approach to his craft. He came on to