Last-Wicket Stand: Searching for Redemption, Revival and a Reason to Persevere in English County Cricket

(+)

Foreword by Ryan ten Doeschate

THE 2019 cricket season will live with me forever. Captaining Essex to the County Championship title and being a part of the side that won the Vitality Blast competition for the first time was a dream come true. After so many failures at the knockout phase, we were desperate to get our hands on the latter trophy. Meanwhile, for our medium- to long-term vision, it was critical to win the Championship again so quickly after 2017. It reaffirmed our ambition to be a fixture in Division One and to be a club that puts a big emphasis on four-day cricket.

It is important to remember these successes but, deep down, we all know that ‘life is change’. We are all in perpetual transformation, either consciously moving towards a new self or subconsciously shifting with the times and circumstance. As I approached 40, I started to notice journalists increasingly wanted me to reflect and look back on my career. I’m not ready to sum it all up yet. However, these requests have forced me to take a step back and finally put some proper thought into assessing the gifts the cricketing gods have showered on me. It is surreal to look back on my own transformation. In the summer of 2003, I was in South Africa, had just graduated from university and was half-heartedly applying myself to a career in finance and accounting. I was still clinging on to the smallest hope that I would get a break in cricket but, to be honest, I was starting to feel I had missed the last train for that particular life. Then came my ‘sliding doors’ moment. I had been away on a golf weekend and was about to fly out to Holland to play club cricket and pursue a career in ‘something finance-related’. But, after some convincing, I reluctantly agreed to play for a representative team against Essex at Newlands. At the time, I was not much more than a steady club cricketer, but Graham Gooch spotted something. My journey had begun. I would go on to have the honour of captaining Essex CCC and help to recreate some of the historic heights that the club had enjoyed ‘back in the day’.

While this book is about cricket, it is also about redefining yourself. On a professional level, I am adjusting to stepping down from the captaincy in the winter of 2019, and from being an all-rounder to a batter and a very part-time bowler. To be honest, this is child’s play for me. Remember, Essex had signed me as a medium-pacer back in 2003. It did not take too long to figure out that I would not cut it as a bowler. Still, I am also dealing with the fact that I am in the twilight years of my career; my very own last-wicket stand if you like. I have a group of young batters who are ready (or very close to ready) to take my spot. Then there is a major personal change. I became a dad for the first time at the end of 2019, so my life away from the cricket pitch has altered dramatically too. Passing on the captaincy and the timing of my impending fatherhood was entirely coincidental. My desire to step down was mainly influenced by the team’s natural progression to a new identity of its own. This metamorphosis always transcends the individual.

Cricket, and more specifically county cricket, is continually evolving too. Right now, the sport is approaching a watershed moment; even an existential crisis in the eyes of some. The Hundred is an attempt to grow the sport and, most importantly, its coffers. It is pitched to attract new audiences and recycle the proceeds back into all levels of the game. As a player, I understand the desire for a new competition but even its staunchest supporters must acknowledge the potential downside for those counties who have been excluded from hosting a franchise.

Personally, I believe this new direction does not need to be seen as a zero-sum game and will not end up that way. But that means at the very least, as much effort should be directed to ensure that this progress does not work to the detriment of the established structure. Paraphrasing Sir Isaac Newton, to improve the future, one stands on the shoulders of giants. If county cricket is not the proverbial giant, it is the pillared legs that have supported and sustained the game in this country for well over a hundred years. Much of that strength has come from the very people who have championed the established first-class game. Let’s not forget them.

It is vital that players care and recognise their positions as short-term custodians of the game and the clubs they represent. There is an obligation to the loyal fans and the history of the individual counties. A mercenary approach is morally wrong and an attack on the very integrity of the game. The myriad of new global tournaments can detract from a player’s attachment to ‘their team’. A modern-day cricketer can easily play for seven different sides in a year. But there is scope for travelling the world, fulfilling short-term contracts and maintaining genuine care for the teams and communities you represent. I tried really hard to reinvigorate that sort of passion at Essex and the players were fantastic at buying in. We could not have had two better head coaches in Chris Silverwood and Anthony McGrath to lead this change. I do not think it’s a coincidence that they are both Yorkshiremen. The purpose, the search for meaning, the reason for caring and committing is complex and I’ve always thought it a chicken and egg scenario – winning teams are happy rather than happy teams are winners.

Despite all this, many fear that the County Championship format is at risk of losing its relevance and may suffer a slow death. While this may be considered alarmist, many have mooted at least a partial demise via the loss of some of our counties. I am a huge fan of county cricket and would be bitterly disappointed to see it phased out. It has no peers in domestic first-class competition around the world and still enjoys a decent following. The shorter formats are more exciting and, as attendance figures show, blatantly more popular. But, for players, I truly believe that the Championship is still the most coveted title in the domestic game.

Being fortunate enough to have won two titles with Essex, I know just how tough and strenuous it can be at the top of Division One. Draws have become a rarity and nine wins seems to be the new magic formula for lifting the Championship. This does not leave much room for slip-ups. From July till the end of the 2019 season, we knew we could only afford one or two poor days if we wanted to keep our title challenge alive. The elation and satisfaction that this produced exceeds anything I have experienced in playing cricket around the world.

Championship cricket is the breeding ground of the England Test team. While not necessarily top of our weekly ‘to do’ list, one of the goals of any county is to produce players for their country. Essex have a rich history of producing Test players with Graham Gooch, Keith Fletcher, Nasser Hussain and Alastair Cook amongst England’s finest. It was a truly proud moment for everyone at the club when Tom Westley graduated out of the Essex team and into the Test arena in 2017.

The county game will remain important to the ECB while the five-day international game is popular. The appetite for Test cricket varies greatly across participating nations but the game is trying to move with the times. Its recent transformation means you rarely see a dull day now, let alone a whole Test or entire series. Despite a ‘quick-hit’ culture and endless entertainment options, thankfully it retains an especially strong following in the UK. The 2019 Ashes could hardly have demonstrated this any more clearly.

But away from the Test team conveyor belt, the financial numbers and even the playing side, county cricket still has so much to admire. The format lends itself to an intimate personal connection. You see familiar faces, you have the time to stop for a quick chat, there is far more downtime in play to observe and absorb what is going on behind the advertising boards. At a non-Test playing venue like Chelmsford, there’s a unique internal connection with the non-playing staff. In sporting parlance, it is a family club. One of the hallmarks of the 2017 title was that it felt more like a triumph for the club than just the team. This connection is extended to the wider community, albeit to a lesser degree. As players, we try to be aware of what we are giving to our loyal supporters, and while a satisfying scoreboard cannot always be guaranteed, effort and commitment should never be questioned. The insight from the stories in this book, the musings of a passionate and caring supporter, gives food for thought to someone who has had the privilege of being inside the field of play and only goes to strengthen the affection for, and the responsibility to, the fans of our game.

For as long as I have known him, Rich Clarke has been a fiery yet quiet advocate of the club and county cricket in general. I can attest to his passion for Essex CCC; it’s not unusual to see him pop up on the third morning of a match somewhere many miles away from home. We both support Arsenal and have spent a fair amount of time chatting about both football and cricket over the years. Having worked at Arsenal, and close to the action at that, Rich knows and understands the mechanics of the most revered league in the world, and with that the dangers at the highest end of commercialised sport. His extensive experience across codes and continents puts him in the perfect place to assess the state of county cricket. In this book, he parallels his life’s landmarks and major milestones with county cricket’s arrival at an equally important juncture in its own existence. He manages to intertwine and compare some of these personal struggles and challenges, such as turning 50, with the difficulties faced by the sport he so loves.

We all have to be honest, many of the arguments for maintaining the existing structure of county cricket are based on sentiment. Even an arch advocate such as Rich attests to that. But sentiment is the currency of romantics and fools in the increasingly commercially driven sports world. County cricket will have to transform itself to stay relevant. It will need to sustain a level of competence and professionalism that can keep feeding and strengthening the national team. The suggestion that the number of first-class teams will eventually be reduced seems plausible and dare I say even sensible. Obviously, Essex are one of the non-Test hosting counties and would appear to be in danger of facing the chop if a reduced roster is pursued. As a result, there is an even greater need to be a competitive first-class team on the pitch – it may be a deciding factor in our very existence. The same is true for all the other non-Test counties. There is time for both individual club and county cricket itself to transform and adapt. To remain relevant, it must react to change and evolve into something that is purposeful beyond the sheer delight it brings to so many.

Essex are a proud club and we will continue to improve. It is more than an appetite just to sustain our recent success – we are willing to lick the plate too. It is this type of an attitude that will make county cricket and all its clubs indispensable in the years to come.

Here’s to the future.

Introduction

THE WORLD was fighting off the threat of a virulent pandemic as this book was being completed. The UK was in lockdown and there appeared to be only one thing of which we could be certain, the country would emerge as a different place in its wake.

The previous five years had been dominated by the fractious factionalism of Brexit, with Leavers and Remainers fighting a long and bitter battle for the future of the UK. All that dissipated in the early months of 2020 as COVID-19 swept across the globe, taking down country after country. Now, the primary battle was to stay alive.

So we washed our hands, stayed at home, ‘flattened the curve’ and, above all, supported our National Health Service.

England cricketer Jack Leach likened the role of the public to his part in a doughty 76-run last-wicket stand with Ben Stokes that secured victory in the third Test at Headingley and kept alive the 2019 Ashes series. The Somerset tail-ender contributed just one run, a stolen single behind square to bring the scores level. Then Stokes bashed the winning boundary to create one of the great cricketing moments of the summer. ‘Being boring is boring guys!’ he tweeted. ‘But if it gets the job done it’s definitely worth it! We are all batting at 11 so let’s not get ahead of ourselves and start playing shots. Defend your stumps, one ball at a time and let Stokes do his thing.’ Even in such trying, unprecedented times, the nuance and complexity of cricket had provided the perfect simile for life.

In comparison to this, my own last-wicket stand, and that of county cricket itself, suddenly seemed beyond trivial. By the time it is fully eradicated, COVID-19 will have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and wrecked millions of lives. The global economy is expected to take its hardest hit in a century; this will mean people lose their jobs and many will face poverty. In contrast to such hardship, sport is inconsequential and highlighting the supposed problems of one comfortably-off individual is frankly pathetic.

You know this, I know this but then, deep down, we always did. Those of us with an intrinsic love of cricket, football or any other sport always understood it mattered for nothing, even if it paid our mortgage. Yet what was the reaction when someone would tell us ‘it was only a game’? One of the few silver linings of the strange period under lockdown in 2020 is the potential for a recalibration of our priorities. From rediscovering the importance of the NHS and neighbourly support to an emphasis on physical fitness and mental health, in this period many of us resolved to do better and simply be better. We can only hope this is one permanent positive from a truly tragic time in our modern history.

The vast majority of this book was written well before anyone had heard of COVID-19. In the early months of 2019, my priorities were very different. On a personal front, everything appeared to be fine. Having returned from living abroad at the end of 2016, my family had settled into English life once more. My wife won the race between us to get a permanent job so I became a consultant and the primary carer of the family. I expected this to be a temporary situation. I had always been able to command the higher salary plus I needed the structure and fulfilment of a career. Though my wife is extremely capable at her job, she was always struck by the nagging guilt of a working mother. There was no patriarchal plot in this. I was happy enough as a househusband for a while, she was happy enough as the breadwinner but our preferences were around the other way.

However, I had played my hand badly by leaving myself without permanent work as I approached my 50th birthday. Like many before me, I failed to see my own impending invisibility in middle age. At this point, it is important to proffer the first of many apologies that will follow in this book. There was so much for which I should be grateful, not least the family around me. However, the working world defined my identity, and it had always told me to compete and compare. In such circumstances, unless you are constantly winning, bitterness, anger and depression will eventually snare you. In that British way, I kept calm-ish and carried on but all three would become my captor to a greater or lesser extent.

Meanwhile, county cricket was having its own identity crisis. The Hundred was on the horizon. In 2020, for the first time since competitive cricket had started in England in the late 19th century, the first-class counties would not be the principal focus. Instead, eight city-based franchises were set to dominate the key period during the summer. Like many devotees of the four-day Championship format, I feared a hidden and potentially destructive agenda. I resolved to record this ‘last summer’. So I followed my county, Essex CCC, throughout the campaign. From the genteel pre-season friendly at Fenner’s, home of Cambridge University to a beer-soaked Vitality Blast Final at Edgbaston. I was there for the first ball of the Championship season and the winner-take-all final game at Taunton. I had followed Essex throughout my life and briefly worked for the club as a freelance journalist a decade or so earlier. Part of my brief had been to write a semi-serious, slightly historical, slightly morose column under the pseudonym of The Grumbler. After that ended, I retained the persona on social media.

Not that there was much to moan about at Essex since I had returned to the UK. Within weeks, the club had finally secured promotion to Division One and, in 2017, won its first County Championship title in a generation. As the next chapter explains, it was the perfect personal distraction at the time. Luckily for me, the 2019 campaign will go down as one of the best seasons in the club’s history. It was fast turning into a golden era and an oasis of joy amid considerable personal turmoil. In my mind, it was proof once more that, though sport could not heal, it might just provide a Band-Aid of distraction while your soul repaired itself. The Wisden Almanack would devote a prominent article to this very topic in the 2020 edition. The triumph of the first great cricket team from Chelmsford was recorded in David Lemmon’s wonderful book Summer Of Success: The Triumph Of Essex CCC In 1979. I poured over those pages as a child. This book endeavours to describe the stories and the numbers behind the games in a similar, if less detailed, fashion. While not reverting to scorecards, hopefully, you will find out who did what and when, with an estimation of how important it was at the time and a few amusing tales along the way. Essex and Somerset went toe-to-toe in the second half of the summer and I want you to feel every blow. In the Vitality Blast, you will understand how it felt in the stands as the trophy was decided from the final ball. There is no inside knowledge, every observation is my own or taken from publicly available media. If you want to know why Simon Harmer took all those wickets or how Sir Alastair Cook grinds out so many runs then these pages will provide a view, but it will be no better than yours. This is just one fan’s story.

The origins of each entry were written in the stands with my laptop perched on my knees. I have developed and embellished them in retrospect but the essence and the emotion remains the same. However, Lemmon’s book is from a very different time. My copy has a picture of an Essex CCC-clad teddy bear on the front; this one shows three maudlin men watch a game at Chelmsford under darkened skies. No one was asking such searching questions about the future of the County Championship 40 summers ago while Twenty20 and the term ‘status anxiety’ were yet to be invented.

If you only like the cricket tales then skip the personal side and please forgive my indulgences. It took a lot of courage to lay down my emotions for all to see. In fact, it was utterly against the grain. One of the reasons I feel at home watching County Championship games at Chelmsford is that nothing is asked of me. I can be a contented introvert. One of those silent, solitary older men who just sit there and watch. This book is about communicating how much the environment surrounding this game is loved, revered and important, even if it is not well attended.

The economics of domestic cricket have been hard to sustain for decades now. When the market for Test match rights appeared to soften, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) knew they must act. One of the main reasons for playing 14 four-day games a season had been the conveyor belt of players it provided for the national team. Tests were still a ‘cash-cow’ and some of the proceeds went back to hold up the 18 first-class counties. Even the most ardent county fan with the rosiest of tints on their spectacles would accept change was required. However, the introduction of The Hundred reminded me of a toddler trying to force a large square brick into a smaller circular hole. It was bashed this way and that, from all sorts of angles when a simpler, more straightforward solution was close to hand. I have tried to reduce my ire to one somewhat emotional chapter written at the height of the debate but the questions its development has raised regarding county cricket pervade this book.

What is the point? Is it worth preserving in its current form? Are its values still relevant? What meaningful contribution can it make? Was it ever that good anyway? How much should it change? How much can it change? Should it just disappear quietly over the next few decades while we all simply move on?

But then, in the summer of 2019, I was asking precisely the same questions of myself.

2017 (and the worst of a wonderful season)

IT IS very possible that I will never get over 2017. From a cricketing perspective, it was the year when it all came right in such unexpected fashion. Supporters of any sports team learn to live in hope rather than expectation. Deep down, even the most sour-faced misanthrope in the stands always retains an inkling that this could be their year, that youngster might just come good or the old warhorse has one more victory left inside.

We fans have to believe this, we must. If reason and experience fully triumph in the fight for our expectations there would be no point in watching any sport, let alone one as derided and ignored as English domestic cricket. The context for this tale, both on the pitch at Chelmsford and inside my head, was moulded by the events of 2017. Let us deal with the cricket first.

While there was much to admire in