Tagged with 2009 Retirements …

Sep 13 2009
general balls, poms, umpires

So Farewell Then: John Holder

It’s not often that the Balls has something nice to say about umpires, but we can’t let the impending retirement of John Holder go unmarked.

For one thing, he’s the man who invented the bowl-out, the only downside to which is that it often takes place behind closed doors. Believe me, there’s no finer sight than a fast bowler running in off their full run and repeatedly failing to hit an unguarded set of stumps, whilst a batsman who only turns his arm over in charity games hits two out of two.

Another reason is that umpiring in England is, to borrow a phrase, hideously white. Holder’s retirement means that only his namesake Vanburn remains as evidence that there is no colour bar for English officials.

The main reason for mourning Holder’s departure is that, simply, he’s a very good umpire. Good enough to stand in 11 tests and 19 ODIs. Good enough to be featured in many of the televised domestic games. And good enough that, despite increases in television scrutiny, you very rarely hear him accused of making a mistake.

There may be sound reasons for having a retirement age of 65 for umpires, but losing an official so obviously capable as Holder is a sad and unwarranted consequence of it.

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Sep 12 2009
aussies, general balls, poms

So Farewell Then: Jason Gallian

now coaching at a school near youThere were times during the 1990s when any aspiring young Australian cricketer was faced with two stark choices. One was to wait for someone in the Test side to die and take their place, the other was to declare themselves to be English.

Jason Gallian was one of the first to take the latter course and it rather upset Cricket Australia, to the point where someone there must have sat in an office with a box of pins and a little Gallian doll as, no sooner had he made the England side than his body started falling apart.

First up, he was asked to face the last of the great Windies attacks on an Edgbaston pitch so bad that the game was over in seven sessions, with England losing by an innings despite no player in the game scoring more than 79.  Gallian broke a finger in that game and his Test career never recovered. He played only twice more before being discarded forever.

His career thereafter was a mixture of injuries and falling out with clubs (and Kevin Pietersen), ending this year at Essex.

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Sep 11 2009
general balls, poms

So Farewell Then: John Crawley

CWB continues to look at the cricketing lives of those retiring at the end of this month

If ever a player lived up to his nickname, it was ‘Creepy’ Crawley. He seems to have crept through two decades of cricket leaving no discernable trace. How any player can have an international career spanning nine years and 37 matches and yet fill it with so few memorable moments is beyond me. Even his finest moment came amidst a much more memorable performance – his 156* was made during Murali’s match at the Oval in 1998. If anything, he will be remembered more for walking out on Lancashire during 2002 to join Hampshire, thus pre-empting Chris Schofield’s acrimonious departure by almost 5 years.

In first class cricket, Crawley scored almost 25,000 runs over 19 seasons, approximately 24,996 of them on the leg side. He also kept wicket occasionally, including once filling in for a session during a test match, but was more often to be found wandering the outfield looking vaguely cadaverous.

Where most cricketers spend their winters playing cricket elsewhere, Crawley has recently used his to study for qualifications in marketing and has been part of the sales and marketing team at the Rose Bowl for the past few years.

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Sep 10 2009
county cricket, poms

So Farewell Then: Mark Butcher

CWB continues to look at the cricketing lives of those retiring at the end of this month

OK, so Butcher has, technically, gone, beaten into submission by a series of injuries and the shameful decline of the club he has represented man and boy. He is now to be found in the Sky commentary box, where he mixes metaphors with Nick Knight, Ian Ward and the DearGodwhythehellishestillallowedto commentate Charles Colville.

In truth, Butch did well to last as long as he did. Few players would survive an episode as career-buggering as having an affair whilst being married to their captain’s sister, fewer still when that man was (a) captain of club and country and (b) Alec Stewart.

The sad thing for Butcher is that he scored 4288 Test runs but all anyone remembers him for are

(1) That unbeaten 173

(2) Bowling Gary Kirsten with an offbreak just as the latter was about to break the South African record for the highest Test score

(3) Being the least reliable slip fielder of modern times

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Sep 09 2009
county cricket, general balls, poms

So Farewell Then: Andrew Caddick

CWB reviews the cricketing lives of those retiring at the end of this month
In the era between Hadlee and Bond, what New Zealand wouldn’t have done for a bowler like Andy Caddick. Instead, they carelessly allowed England to claim him.

Blessed with the feet of Paddles and the ears of Dobby, Caddick was one of those rare fast bowlers who gets better with age. Even more unusually, he remained relatively injury free for large chunks of his career.

The maddening thing about him was that you were never sure which Andrew Caddick would turn up, the purveyor of steepling bounce and movement from just short of a length, of the deliverer of six long hops or full tosses per over? Ultimately, this inconsistency put an end to his England career, although he continued to believe that he was good enough for the side until comparatively recently.

With the ball, Caddick was probably better than he actually was. With the bat, he was far worse. How someone with a Test average of 10.37 got to play 13 games batting at number 8 beggars belief – although that this was the era of Tufnell, Giddins and Mullally is probably some explanation.

At the end of the day, this is a tale of a career gone on for too long – had he retired two years ago, Somerset, at least, would have missed him. By playing on for two injury-plagued seasons, even they have got used to not having him around.

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