Having “seen Viv” is one of the great claims of our cricket-loving generation. I think that the game you mention from memory is the Gillette Cup Final against Northants, a few months after the ’79 WC Final – he scored 117, I was there too, heartbreaking but spectacular and never forgotten.
On the way home from playing yesterday I drove past Wellingborough School, a Northants outpost in the 70’s and 80’s, and thought, as ever, about the time, in a Sunday league game, that Viv hit the ball out of the ground, over the road and deep into the nearby Comprehensive. It’s a well told tale, maybe even exaggerated - I’ve even heard Graeme Swann mention it although, if I’m correct in dating it as 1978, it happened a year before he was born. Maybe he did it again?
Having “seen Viv” is one of the great claims of our cricket-loving generation. I think that the game you mention from memory is the Gillette Cup Final against Northants, a few months after the ’79 WC Final – he scored 117, I was there too, heartbreaking but spectacular and never forgotten.
On the way home from playing yesterday I drove past Wellingborough School, a Northants outpost in the 70’s and 80’s, and thought, as ever, about the time, in a Sunday league game, that Viv hit the ball out of the ground, over the road and deep into the nearby Comprehensive. It’s a well told tale, maybe even exaggerated - I’ve even heard Graeme Swann mention it although, if I’m correct in dating it as 1978, it happened a year before he was born. Maybe he did it again?
And Lords 1983, what a day!
I think you're right Tim, it must have been the Gilette Cup, and I would have sworn it was a few years later...