A debut from the gods
Watching James Rew's dream unfold into its inevitable end
Maybe the higher up you go at a cricket ground, the loftier your perch, the more starry your view becomes. Maybe here, up in the gods, you start to feel like one yourself…
Yesterday at the Oval, James Rew walked out to bat as England’s number six. The score was 170-4, and, disconcertingly, he had to pass Joe Root, who was stomping off having reviewed a marginal leg before decision and not much enjoyed the result. Has there ever, in the history of the game, been such a disparity between outgoing batter and the incoming one? Root had just fallen to the 24,327th delivery he received in Test cricket. Rew, as if he needed reminding, was yet to face a single ball. What would he give, at that moment, for just one of Root’s 13,998 runs?
Tom Blundell remained up to the stumps. Matt Henry switched to around the wicket. It must have been an out-of-body experience for James Rew, that first delivery. No matter how you prepare, how long you have visualised the moment, it can’t have been like this, not 170-4 on a muggy afternoon at the Oval, the captain out, the early serenity of the afternoon’s play broken open, this lifetime’s dream now a visceral reality.
Henry ran in and bat somehow searched out ball, which made a good, solid sound as it ran back up the wicket. It was a moment big enough to fill the ground, big enough to be felt right up in the highest seats.
Rew batted all too briefly with England’s vice-captain and travelling circus act Harry Brook, who as is increasingly his want, played one shot of unreliable genius but otherwise looked skittish, like he couldn’t quite believe he hadn’t yet made another 30-ball half century but instead was getting pinned into playing French cricket by New Zealand’s up to the stumps tactic.
High in the Gods it’s all so clear, so easy to see, you see… Someone please tell Harry that all he needs to do is bat normally. Pretend it’s a spinner or something. It’s mad the way he lets it affect him. When Henry nipped one back, he was so plumb, so immobile, that he walked off before the finger was half-raised, the spin and turn and stomp away the most he had moved his feet in about five overs.
That brought out Jordan Cox, also on debut. Has a batter ever moved from junior player (add to Root’s 24,327 deliveries faced Harry Brook’s 3,767, his triple century, his average of 53) to senior partner more rapidly than James Rew?
From the starry perch, Cox looked like a boy in his first school uniform, fresh out of the packet, impossible clean and bright and whitey-white, the sleeveless sweater a size too large and bought with next term in mind, his straggly mullet having somehow evaded the barber before the big day.
Rew got a few runs on the board, but Cox had the time and the class, his first scoring shot a lazy square drive hit from one knee like Kim Hughes, the ball disappearing at a speed out of synch with the shot. Maybe he is that good. Later he hit a square drive off the back foot, the ball clipped at the very top of the bounce like that’s easy to do. One of the most technically accomplished shots in the game made to look like nothing.
They’d put on 40, which was more than England had the right to expect, probably, from a pair on debut. O’Rourke was back on, Latham sensing the moment even though he’d flogged the big fella through 15 overs in a couple of sessions. Like Archer, O’Rourke got a bit more out of the pitch than anyone else.
With the field spread out before us, the Gods watched the obvious play out. A deep backward square, a deep fine, a short midwicket. Rew had nailed one pull, but O’Rourke is sharper and he was firing it in as the captain wanted, mixing it up with some length stuff, too.
But the Gods – the real ones – smiled, and when Rew got a top edge it flew from sunshine into shadow, dropping fast on Ravindra at deep fine and poor old Rachin, who has been deserted by the gods himself, dropped another one.
That’s it, the bit of luck you need isn’t it, the bit of luck that life turns on from time to time. Only twenty minutes or so left now, and that’s what, four overs? Face half each and there are another 12 or so deliveries between you and the pavilion, between you and night’s sleep and another go in the morning… Just you know, don’t hook at it again. Simple really, especially if you’re high above the play, watching Latham keep the field in place, seeing Nathan Smith give Rachin a hug and telling him not to worry, we’ll get him, watching O’Rourke’s head go down not in disappointment but determination.
When you’re out there in the middle of it on debut, there’s probably not room in your mind for all of that. All you can think is something like, ‘stay positive’ or ‘play your normal game’ or ‘run towards the danger’ so Rew went for the shot again, not once but twice, the second time to a straighter one that flew high but not far from his glove into the hands of Mitchell running back from slip.
As he walked off, the dream over for now, the dream of the next morning and the chance of a proper score, the kind of score that might keep him in the team even if Jamie Smith comes back, gone, at least for now. It’s so easy to see, but only when it’s not happening to you.
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The football World Cup here, England are winning, and there is no better companion than friend of this substack Jonathan Wilson’s The Power And The Glory, deservedly crowned Sports Book of the Year at the Charles Tyrwhitt Sports Book Awards. It’s brilliant, and it’s out now in paperback here and here. Check it out!
And another friendly reminder that Vinciness is out now in paperback, yours for £10, and available here.
To make matters worse for Rew , he’s having a very ordinary time behind the stumps too .
Great piece. Henry also a sometime team-mate of Rew, of course.