My Favourite Cricketer: Bob Woolmer, by Hendo

Test Match Sofa's Nigel Henderson (aka Hendo) takes a look back at one of cricket's tragedies in our next part of our continuing series My Favourite Cricketer.

I’m not in the habit of looking into other men’s eyes, but his really were exquisite. The cyan blue of a Caribbean sea, intense and deep, like two gorgeous lagoons. The perfect eyes to watch the ball right onto the bat and then dispatch it with the minimum of effort all the way along the ground to the extra cover boundary or coax it away, languidly, square of midwicket, always with immaculate balance.

That evening in 1975 when he stepped out the back of the Pavilion entrance on to the Oval forecourt after his magnificent match-saving 149 against Australia, was as close physically as I ever got to Bob Woolmer – the 12-year-old me was at the back of a six-deep crowd surging forward for autographs that police tried to part to allow him through to his sponsored car – but I wasn’t desperate for his signature. I just wanted to see him at short range and the fact that I did, and momentarily stared into those liquid eyes, must have left its mark for me to remember it more than 36 years after the event.

What I needed confirmed by looking into his eyes was not just his ability as a batsman but a sign of his kindliness – why it was important to me that my sporting heroes were also decent human beings perplexes me probably just as much as it does you; I don’t need that now – and that brief moment was enough to convince me. (I was glad to see, more than three decades later, that in the outpouring of grief after his tragic death in Jamaica, his basic decency was something that those who played with and against him and reported on his deeds were united in communicating).

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I can’t remember when I first saw Robert Woolmer play, but it was natural that I should warm to him because, although brought up only a few Tube stops from the Oval, Kent were my side then. Call it glory-hunting, jumping on the bandwagon or whatever, that successful team of the early 70s was just a treat to watch. There were the stars for sure – Asif Iqbal, a demon between the wickets, as nippy and as lithe as James Taylor is today, Alan Knott, quite simply the world’s best wicketkeeper batsman of many an era whatever Rodney Marsh might have to say about that, Bernard Julien, the left-arm quick with a dashing approach to batting in the lower order, and Deadly Derek (need I say more) – but even the journeymen of the team stood out: David Nicholls, the roly-poly left-hand opener, Norman Graham, the gangling giant of an opening bowler and defintive No 11, and the genial all-rounder John Shepherd, probably the blackest man I had ever seen.

And among them, boyish, without a trace of arrogance and seemingly at ease in his own skin, Bob Woolmer, a sprightly medium pace bowler first and foremost but who showed enough promise with the bat to score an unbeaten fifty at No 7 on his county debut in 1968.

And it was his batting to which I was most attracted and for which I remember him most. I had to rake back through the cricketing archives to discover when he really made the leap from lower-middle order to the top of it, but it seems he was being auditioned for the move as early as the start of the 1971 season, when he batted at No 3 in the champion county’s traditional opening fixture against the MCC at Lord’s. Natal must have seen something in that classic technique that I grew to love, giving him the chance to bat at four or five in the Currie Cup during the winter of 1973-74 and the following summer Kent followed suit. When he finally made the England side, in 1975, it was on the back of two fine batting performances for Kent and the MCC against the touring Australians (a hat-trick in the second of those matches couldn’t have harmed his chances, either).

Opening for England eventually came by default, a year later. He had been used sporadically in that position in the summer by Kent and when that season’s international series against the West Indies had repelled the claims of Barry Wood, John Edrich, Brian Close and Mike Brearley, the selectors remembered his defiance from the Oval a year earlier, and asked him to step into the breach alongside David Steele.

How to describe his approach? He wasn’t spectacular and he wasn’t merely solid. This was an era long before the bludgeoner with a 3lb bat. He was a touch player, who stroked the ball even when it was propelled at him in violent fashion, and I so loved his style that I for several years was addicted to the Gray-Nicholls willow that he used.

And he was calm. My other abiding memory is from 1977’s Benson and Hedges Cup final against Gloucestershire. Wickets were falling all around him as Mike Proctor – inspired by his fans’ chants of “Kill, kill, kill” as he ran up – and Brian Brain ripped away the supporting cast of Clinton, Rowe, Asif and Ealham. But he pushed on until, on 64, he chipped a ball effortlessly off his legs and Julian Shackleton, at deep square leg right in front of me in the Grandstand, hardly had to move to take the catch.

I was bemused. He had timed the shot so well, and with such little apparent effort, I reasoned that he could, if he’d wanted, given it just the touch more leverage it required to send it spiralling over Shackleton’s head. Flawed genius, then? It was certainly the most graceful shot I had seen that had brought a wicket.

That season was probably his most successful in Test cricket; he hit 79, 120 and 137 in consecutive innings against Australia, but then he was lured away by Kerry Packer. How did I feel about that? Disappointed? Betrayed? Both probably. It felt like a talent not completely fulfilled.

When he returned to play for England at the beginning of the 1980s, he wasn’t the same, and there was a sense of disappointment again when he lined up for the South Africa rebel tour.

Courtesy: cricinfo.com

But I forgave him, never fell out of love with Woolmer, nor his eyes. I was delighted when he became such a successful coach – it felt as if that unfulfilled playing talent was finding another appropriate outlet. And a man was getting his due.

The day he died is etched unpleasantly on my brain: I was at my terminal on The Times sports desk, when news came through on Sky Sports that he had been taken to hospital unconscious. I was sickening for pneumonia myself, so that may add to the toxicity of my memory, but something told me he was not going to get better. Within half an hour, it seemed, the announcement that he had not made it came through. The sadness went deep to my stomach. He was only 57; what else might he have achieved. Those gorgeous blue eyes had looked out upon a cricket field for the last time.

Hendo's written these highly-recommended works.  Take a look,they're awesome reads.

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Cricket Australia: Sitting on the Fence

"The time is coming where you have to choose between what is easy, and what is right"

Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

It didn't take a rocket scientist - or a banking executive - to figure out that Australian cricket has both structural and talent issues. A 4-1 thumping in our last Ashes series, mediocre World Cup campaign and a captain with a positively Reiffel-esque batting average over the past three series (21.5) is proof enough for anyone with even half an eye and a tenth of a brain that Australian cricket has reached its lowest point since 1985.

While Ricky Ponting's tetchy leadership, Mitchell Johnson's latent outswinger, Greg Chappell's insistence on youth and Andrew Hilditch's residence in a fantasy world have contributed to this state of affairs, the root cause lies with James Sutherland and Cricket Australia. For too long they have tried to have their cake and eat it too by chasing the financial gains of Twenty20 and also lauding a the benefits of a competitive Australian Test squad.

By chasing both, they will achieve neither.

On one hand, commissioning Don Argus to report on their cricket management structures sounds good, even curative. But doing so while the other hand throws so many resources into the nascent Bigh Bash League (BBL), Cricket Australia is endorsing two policy decisions which negate the other. It is another curious leadership decision from CA whose actions indicate they are chasing the Goose that lays the Golden Eggs while paying only lip service to Test standards.

For much of the past twenty years as pitches become more standardised worldwide, cricket has degenerated into two groups: the "haves" and "have-nots". The "haves", fuelled by television revenue, good attendances and growth economies include the regular suspects: South Africa, England, India , Australia and perhaps even Sri Lanka. The second tier includes fallen powers West Indies and Pakistan, as well as New Zealand, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.

More accurately, these two groups could now be defined by the cricketers they produce. The West Indies' best now favour the shortest form, while the best of New Zealand, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe often eschew their nations to tour the world as T20 guns-for-hire. The fundamentals of creating world-class players in both formats require player pathway systems so different that only the mega-wealthy institutions in world cricket can afford the time it takes to do so.

courtesy: telegraph.com.au

World cricket hasn't so much been divided along lines of Test quality, but on the type of cricket on whcih each nation has focused. If kids are developed where T20 is prioritised, it results in a bunch of individual talents and a poor Test team. Where a Test technique can occasioanlly benefit T20, the reverse is rarely, if ever, true. To acknowledge any speculation David Warner has what it takes to play Test cricket exists is to question the value of life itself - the man bears as much resemblance to a Test opener as my 94-year old grandmother.

By dividing it's attention between a Big Bash league with privately owned franchises (eeeugh - I hate that word in relation to cricket) and an Argus report recommending that the best 66 players play Sheffield Shield cricket at any one time, Cricket Australia is, dividing it's resources in an attempt to promote the game. By doing so, they've ignored the great rule: punters love success, and in Australia that means a strong Test team.

If Divide and Conquer still applies on the battlefield, so too is it effective in the marketplace. CA has already done the dividing, leaving it now open for conquest by a crowded Australian sports market which asks supporters to invest more than ever.

Let's not forget that private ownership as a model has only worked in Rugby League and never in the long term for any other sport. In fact, News Limited, after pioneering SuperLeague, now still owns the entirety of the Melbourne Storm and North Queensland Cowboys, as well as 69% of the powerhouse Brisbane Broncos. Rupert Murdoch, like Packer before him, got what he wanted out of setting up a rival competition. The hideous failures far outweigh that partial success as the names Christopher Skase, Dr. Geoffrey Edelsten, Eddie Palmer and his beloved Brisbane Bullets and the Victoria Titans weigh heavily on Aussie fans' consciousness.

courtesy: news4u.co.in

The heavily-publicised BBL, intent on chasing dollars, imports the likes of Kieron Pollard and new fans will involve suspending first-class cricket during December, Australia's busiest Test month. How can Australia rebuild with the best First Class talent they have when that talent is not receiving games?

Cricket Australia has been forced into a position that all cricketing countries now must face: chase dollars, or what you feel is important. It's a nice coincidence when those options are one and the same. In Australia's case, that is unfortunately not the case. While paying lip service to the importance of Tests, CA has done everything but say "we're here for the dollars" by instituting a flawed BBL model at the expense of First Class cricket.

courtesy: zimbio.com

Only four years ago Austrlaian domestic cricket was the strongest on the planet - now no more, as players chase the dollars (and no-one's blaming them). Australia simply can't follow the Indian model (IPL) because there isn't enough support - or money - to go around. That Australian domestic cricket - or more crucially, given how many eggs are in it's basket, the new BBL - can't get a look-in on free-to-air television is a damning indictment of what Australians think about the grass-roots. Cricket captures the imagination in the backyard, when Australia plays and never through the likes of Gary Putland and the Melbourne Stars.

CA, to use the most cliche of cliches, is trying to have it's cake and eat it, too. Rather than committing - by dint of playing talent (like England has with Tests) or financial need (as the West Indians have done with T20), Australia continues not to choose its battles and try to succeed at everything.

The smaller countries of the world faced this challenge first, as New Zealand and Bangladesh have all but admitted for years that their best chance of attaining any success has been in the One-Day arena. Why else would players like Scott Styris choose to retire from Test cricket but not from the short format? Pakistan and the West Indies are already producing more guns for hire than good quality Test players. It's saddening to realise that the same is true of Australia.

As India wrestles with the impending doom brought about by Tendulkar, Dravid, Sehwag and Laxman's respective entries into Valhalla, even that powerful nation will, in time, face the same challenge. While England will not remain immune forever, the structures in place around the game in it's birthplace may allow a defence against the irrepressible schism that threatens to divide cricket.

It's true of any business struggling in a crowded economy that you should choose either to expand your services, or focus on doing what you do best. For 125 years, Australia has produced the best Test cricketers in the world. Over the past decade, that trend has been reversed as players are seduced by the quick runs and quicker bucks available.

In a recent revealing podcast on Test Match Sofa, Australian cricket writer Gideon Haigh revealed that the first priority of the Australian cricket team wasn't to win matches but to publicise the sport in Australia. When it comes to branding - the honeypot into which Cricket Australia has fallen - it is a simple fact that Starbucks produces coffee, Asics produces quality running shoes, Sri Lanka will deliver turning pitches - and Test cricket has been elevated to its highest form by teams from the Great South Land.

For Cricket Australia to forget that would be shameful.