Playing to Win

Martin Chandler | 8:23am BST 14 September 2025

Published: 2025
Pages: 201
Author: Nicholls, Barry
Publisher: Wakefield Press
Rating: 4.5 stars

Back in 1972 I could fairly have been described as a nascent cricket tragic. Like so may others my eight year old self had watched spellbound as Derek Underwood worked his magic in the final Test of the 1968 Ashes. The lack of any television coverage in the UK meant I could only follow the 1970/71 series from a distance, but I readily understood the significance of England winning back the Ashes on Australian soil.

So in 1972 I was planning to watch as much cricket as my schooling would allow, and I was not disappointed. The series ebbed and flowed. England won the first Test, before Bob Massie swung the ball round corners at Lords’ to square the series. Australia were always ahead of the game in the third Test, until English second innings resolve earned a draw. The fourth Test was, once more, Underwood’s and it looked like England might wrap up a 3-1 series win at the Oval, until Paul Sheahan and Rod Marsh steadied the Australian ship and secured 2-2 draw which, although I didn’t think so at the time, it has to be conceded they fully deserved.

It has always baffled me that there were not more books on the series. As it was we had just two, one from John Arlott and another, never to my knowledge published in the UK, to which Aussie skipper Ian Chappell lent his name. So it was a series ripe for a respective account and I was delighted when I learnt that Barry Nicholls was writing one. That was a few years ago now, and I did fear once or twice that he might have given up on the project. It seems he was, however, just biding his time and the book has now appeared and certainly lives up to expectations.

In terms of the way it is set out the book is as you would expect. There is a look at the background, more particularly the 1970/71 Ashes defeat for Australia and the changing of the guard from the Lawry era to that of Chappelli. It is then usual in this type of book to read short biographies of the tourists, and Playing the Game is no different, but the quality of those pen portraits does demand comment.

Amongst the tourists were some famous names, but also some like David Colley, Graeme Watson, Jeff Hammond and Ross Edwards who are nothing like so well known. Nicholls does not just go through the motions with these profiles. They all have substance and certainly introduce the reader to these lesser mortals. Which is not to say that the looks at the lives of the likes of the Chappells, Rod Marsh and Dennis Lillee are not illuminating as well, because they most certainly are.

The main part of the book is, naturally, devoted to detailed accounts of the five Test matches. Nicholls is inevitably assisted by the fact that there was plenty of decent competitive cricket played, but what marks his narrative out is just how ‘Australian’ it is. His accounts of the matches, and the occasional digressions into other tour games and events that took place on the trip are constructed around the recollections of those involved as much as they are from contemporary reportage.

Sadly not all of the those interviewed are still with us, an inevitability when a project based on the events of half a century ago is ongoing for as long as this one has been. But the input of as many as thirteen of the Australians provides precious insights. And how many of the England players did Nicholls speak to? Not one.

Over the years I have taken to reading the acknowledgments at the front or rear of a book before I look at anything else. When I read the list of interviewees in Playing to Win and saw not a single English name (Patrick Eagar apart) I could immediately see the book’s achilles heel. It just wasn’t going to be impartial.

But in fact that proves to be a strength rather than a weakness, and the result is not in fact a biased account, rather it is just one written entirely from an Australian perspective. The grievance about the Headingley wicket is much more interesting for not having any input from England, and the difference between the touring experience then and now is remarkable.

Chappelli was acutely conscious of his players’ welfare, but even he could not do anything about a schedule that, after the final Test, meant that the Australians still had three ODIs, three First Class matches and two other one day fixtures to play. One of those First Class matches was against Lancashire. The Red Rose won by nine wickets and, remarkably, did so without Ken Shuttleworth or Peter Lever. I recall being overjoyed at the time, and have never forgotten that victory, but now realise that in truth it lacked any real significance.

Playing to Win isn’t quite perfect. I would have liked the scorecards of the Tests to have been reproduced rather than just potted scores, and the selection of photographs is a little underwhelming. But the narrative is five star stuff and, as an added bonus, I see no reason at all why an English writer should not go out and speak to Alan Knott, John Snow, Barry Wood, Peter Parfitt, Geoffrey Boycott, Norman Gifford, John Price, Keith Fletcher and Geoff Arnold and look at the 1972 Ashes through an English lens.