Why I'm writing a book about James Vince...

... But can't think of anything at all to say about Jimmy Anderson

‘Play that, Vincey…’

I suppose the first thing to say is that what I’m writing is not actually a biography of James Vince or anything like that, more something about what James Vince and players like James Vince represent. Here’s the first paragraph, which hopefully explains it a bit better than I am doing here:

This is not a book about James Vince, at least not in the biographical sense. I don’t know James Vince, I have no relationship with him other than having watched him play cricket sometimes. I’ll admit now that I’ve done zero proper research, and even if I had, I really don’t care what his batting average is [all that his average shows is that it’s pretty similar to the averages of hundreds of other professional cricketers] or how many times he’s played for England [all you need to know is that it’s not often enough]. I have spoken to him once, and like many of James Vince’s innings, that turned out to be inconclusive, somehow incomplete, very James Vince. Instead what I am is a connoisseur of the Vince aesthetic, and that, really, is the subject here.  

Vince is a lovely player to watch, but it’s not really that. He is prone to making cameo appearances in which he looks better than he really is – at least different to how he really is – but it’s not really that, either. For whatever reason, Vince is one of those cricketers that has my synapses making connections. Through him it seems possible to write about other things, some quite intangible concepts, everything from art and beauty to how good is good, and what it means to play cricket: I mean, why bother, when you’re just going to be reduced in the public mind to one very particular thing?

Vince settles well as an avatar for these subjects, and I’ve found in the times I’ve been writing about cricket that there are certain players – Barry Richards, Mark Ramprakash, Kevin Pietersen, Chris Gayle, Geoffrey Boycott to name a few – that I have written about a lot, and others that I have barely or never mentioned. Why is that?

I honestly don’t know. It’s true of other things I’ve written, too. The Years of the Locust began because I read the first few lines of a report on the news wires at the Brisbane Courier Mail in about 1998. I can still remember them:

‘Rick Parker wanted to be Don King: rich, intimidating, powerful…’

Even as I read, I knew there was something there, a story that I would write. Who knows why? Maybe I’ve forgotten all the other times I read something and felt the same and nothing came of it, but I don’t think so. Martin Amis – and I’m not attempting to associate my name with his here – said that it begins with a sensation at the back of the mind, in the subconscious, and you have to wait for it to move forwards. When it does it can feel inevitable, like it was there all along.

All of this came up because Jimmy Anderson is retiring, or being retired, or getting eased up the pavilion stairs with a carriage clock and a voucher for B&Q. When the story broke, I thought not of Jimmy, but of all of the cricket writers who’d be taking calls from their editors and having to come up with tributes and retrospectives and encomiums and reminiscences at the drop of hat, and how difficult that is to do.

To me, Anderson’s career is a bit like Alastair Cook’s in that it has been an endless blur of achievement and consistency. There’s so much of it that the particulars are hard to recall. I remember sitting at Lord’s when he bowled (I think) Sourav Ganguly all ends up, and also maybe got Sachin? He bowled very fast that day from the Nursery End. I remember the battle he lost with Virat Kohli at Edgbaston that went on (I think) either side of lunch. And when he got out against Sri Lanka with about two deliveries left.

Jimmy Anderson with a haircut that I had completely forgotten…

But that’s the random nature of memory. They are the impressions left behind. They don’t particularly stir me – well the Kohli one does, but that’s because Kohli is another I’ve written about. Jimmy, like Alastair, is something of a blank page, the cricket equivalent of happiness writing white.

I salute all of those who can do it. I can’t. I wish I could. There’s no market for a James Vince book after all. I’m not insane enough to think that. Cricket books don’t sell when they’re about big names and events, let alone players that most people have barely heard of.

But as I say, it’s not a book about James Vince. It’s called Vinciness, and I think it’s going to be about 20,000 words long (a standard 270 page book is between 70-80,000) and in the immortal words of Spinal Tap, its appeal is bound to be ‘more selective’. I’ve always wanted to self-publish something, to be able to control everything from the size to the font to the cover and what’s inside, to make it an object (hopefully) worth having, so I’m going to do it as a very limited edition at some point. Why? I honestly don’t know, other than it’s there.

Hopefully James Vince himself will never hear about it, and thus won’t think it’s all got a bit Baby Reindeer. And good luck to whoever gets the call to assist Jimmy with his inevitable doorstopper. I can tell you who it won’t be…

NB: Even as I write this, James Anderson has announced that the first Test at Lord’s will be his farewell. Did I mention that’s where I saw him knock over Sachin? I think…