wpdavid
Hall of Fame Member
Delivered Gower's first ball in test cricket, which goldylocks famously hooked for four.
He also prevented Chris Old from taking 5 wickets in a single over.
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The Worst Batsman You've Seen
- Thread starter GuyFromLancs
- Start date
He also prevented Chris Old from taking 5 wickets in a single over.
zaremba
Cricketer Of The Year
Well done wpd. I never knew the second fact. I never knew there was a second fact.
The Sean
Cricketer Of The Year
Ha ha, quality knowledge.
wpdavid
Hall of Fame Member
Neither did I, but a quick browse at the 'almanack' section on cricinfo wrt the game where Gower debuted did the necessary. Nice chance to remind folks that Chris Old did once take four wickets in a test-match over.
Actually the funniest thing about the almanack report is the final comment about Gower's innings, which inform us that DG lost his wicket to an "uncharacteristic" loose shot. I suppose the writer wasn't to know what was to come, but it made me smile anyway.
Lillian Thomson
Hall of Fame Member
Remember it well, especially Jim Laker almost wetting himself in the commentary box. I've got it on tape somewhere as well.
Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
There are bowlers in Devon League Second XI cricket who can bowl in the 130s kph. Pace is relatively irrelevant once you get to good club batsmen. All of them have the eye to cope with it.
It's all about how good your shot-selection is to score runs and how well you cope with what bowlers do with the ball. The better-quality club batsmen would be as unlikely to be beaten purely for pace by a 90mph (145kph) delivery as an international-class batsman would be.
zaremba
Cricketer Of The Year
Haha, that's good.
If you look on YouTube you'll find a video of Gower's 136 at Perth in 86/87 where he's treating a pretty decent Aussie attack as though they're his infant children bowling at him on the beach with a tennis ball, and he goes and gets out to the loosest lamest dismissal I've ever seen.
zaremba
Cricketer Of The Year
I wondered if I'd be picked up on that. Anyhow yes any attack with Bruce Reid in it was a decent attack, Geoff Lawson knew what he was doing and from the highlights they showed of that series on ESPN Classic a few months ago I thought Chris Matthews looked surprisingly handy.
Anyhow needless to say Gower contrived to get out to Greg Matthews who really was genuinely short of the mark as a Test bowler.
Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
Lawson may have known what he was doing, but that Test was one of only 2 he played between mid '85/86 and '89. He was a cripple or a useless hack at that point. Bruce Reid, it may surprise you to hear, averaged a mere 40 up to the midpoint of the 1986/87 Ashes. It was only with his return to the side alongside Craig McDermott in 1990/91 that he became a truly top-notch Test bowler. Before that he wasn't all that crack.
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The Sean
Cricketer Of The Year
I'll let you in on a little secret Mr Z - he wasn't.
Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
Meant 1986/87, just in the relatively unlikely event you were unaware - think the ol' Scrumpy Jack was having a decent influence by the time of that post. And were you genuinely not aware that Reid wasn't much of a bowler for his first few Tests?TBH I'm not going to die in a ditch over this issue...
However the fact that the 1985/86 Ashes was a watershed for Reid is a fact that had escaped me - as indeed was the existence of that series