https://x.com/i/status/1843310280031469580 -not quite Closey catching the ball in his arse, but a fair effort anyway! (via That's So Village on Twitter if the link doesn't work)
'76 was my first time watching Tests on BBC, ( I don't think I even knew Tests existed before then- summer hols midweeks were mainly spent with a couple of mates pretending to be our heroes at a local park in the heatwave!) Having spent my formative cricketing years 74/75 watching Barry, Gordon and Andy R at United Services ground and on TV in the JPL, who needed to watch England? So seeing these old boys opening for England was a bit of a shock!
I’ll never tire of watching that footage, it’s brutal, almost cruel, but can’t recall seeing it live. It was the Saturday night, wasn’t it? Odd bits of that summer, the first I watched pretty much all of, as seven / eight year old, have stayed with me forever. In this game it’s Selvey’s early wickets, Greenidge’s two hundreds and, strangely, Frank Hayes being out first ball. Wasn’t there a dropped catch in the cordon on the hat-trick ball? The things you remember and all that. Maybe the Close / Edrich battering was deemed not suitable for family viewing 😊
I'm sort of the same - I remember bits of it, most vividly from the Oval, and of Viv scoring loads of runs, more than seemed possible. Am sure I didn't have a clue what was really going on, or what it all meant...
Clearly some sort of therapy session going on here for men of a certain age, and happy to join in. Personally I’m fairly sure I did watch it live - or at least some of it - but didn’t quite understand its significance. Close and Edrich were old men, but when you’re 10 all cricket is played by old men. I liked Edrich - his 175 against Australia at Lord’s the previous year was the first Test century that made a real impression on me - and I knew how visceral fast bowling could be. I’d seen Lillee and Thomson 18 months before and Holding live at Lord’s weeks before, but this was something else.
Actually Tony Greig’s 110 at The Gabba in 1974 was the first Test century I remember. Carving Lillee over the slips and signalling his own boundaries. I’m not sure they called it ‘attitude’ then, but Greig certainly had it.
https://x.com/i/status/1843310280031469580 -not quite Closey catching the ball in his arse, but a fair effort anyway! (via That's So Village on Twitter if the link doesn't work)
I did love this. Perhaps there is a kernal of truth in the story...
'76 was my first time watching Tests on BBC, ( I don't think I even knew Tests existed before then- summer hols midweeks were mainly spent with a couple of mates pretending to be our heroes at a local park in the heatwave!) Having spent my formative cricketing years 74/75 watching Barry, Gordon and Andy R at United Services ground and on TV in the JPL, who needed to watch England? So seeing these old boys opening for England was a bit of a shock!
I’ll never tire of watching that footage, it’s brutal, almost cruel, but can’t recall seeing it live. It was the Saturday night, wasn’t it? Odd bits of that summer, the first I watched pretty much all of, as seven / eight year old, have stayed with me forever. In this game it’s Selvey’s early wickets, Greenidge’s two hundreds and, strangely, Frank Hayes being out first ball. Wasn’t there a dropped catch in the cordon on the hat-trick ball? The things you remember and all that. Maybe the Close / Edrich battering was deemed not suitable for family viewing 😊
I'm sort of the same - I remember bits of it, most vividly from the Oval, and of Viv scoring loads of runs, more than seemed possible. Am sure I didn't have a clue what was really going on, or what it all meant...
Clearly some sort of therapy session going on here for men of a certain age, and happy to join in. Personally I’m fairly sure I did watch it live - or at least some of it - but didn’t quite understand its significance. Close and Edrich were old men, but when you’re 10 all cricket is played by old men. I liked Edrich - his 175 against Australia at Lord’s the previous year was the first Test century that made a real impression on me - and I knew how visceral fast bowling could be. I’d seen Lillee and Thomson 18 months before and Holding live at Lord’s weeks before, but this was something else.
No helmets. Jesus.
It would be genuinely unwatachble now...
Actually Tony Greig’s 110 at The Gabba in 1974 was the first Test century I remember. Carving Lillee over the slips and signalling his own boundaries. I’m not sure they called it ‘attitude’ then, but Greig certainly had it.