New radio interview tonight

I will be on North Derbyshire Radio's Sports Show, anchored by Matt Rhodes, tonight between 7pm and 8pm.

I will be discussing the passing of county legend Brian Jackson, the new contract for Ben Aitchison, the rise of Harry Moore and the new county fixture lists.

You can hear it here. I am on at 35.50

Aitchison signs new one-year deal

The announcement of a new deal for Ben Aitchison this morning is quite possibly the best bit of business Derbyshire might do this winter. 

I hope that the news is indicative of his fitness for 2025, because for me he is, with Zak Chappell, the best red ball bowler in the club. There is a joy in watching Ben, when the rhythm is there, that comes with watching all bowlers of serious talent. At 25 he is yet to approach his peak, but has already shown that he can dismiss very good batters. While he has only 60 first-class wickets so far in a short career, they have come at good average which, with luck, will continue to come down.

Add to that an ability to strike handy tail end runs - and I suspect that is an area of his game that can improve still further - as well as being a great asset to our catching in the slip cordon and you can see what good news this is. 

The question mark is on his having proved his fitness and being able to sustain that over a long county season. I suspect he will be kept for red ball cricket only, but I will be crossing fingers and toes that he is going to be back to his best. 

Almost certainly the 2025 version will see a slightly remodelled action, almost always a consequence of back surgery. There might also be a change in the length of his run-up, because I felt he wasn't quite as nippy from the shorter one as when he first joined the county.

The question will be whether such changes protect his back AND allow him to retain his command of a cricket ball that made him such an astute signing in the first place.

He isn't the first seam bowler to experience back issues and he won't be the last. Plenty before him have experienced these and come back stronger after rehabilitation. 

Here's hoping that Ben is among them. 

There is no doubt he has what it takes at this level and I wish him all the best.

Brian Jackson

I'm very much saddened by the announcement today of the death of one of Derbyshire's favourite and indeed finest sons in Brian Jackson, at the age of 91.

I enjoyed several conversations with him during the time I was putting together my second book, In Their Own Words, Derbyshire Cricketers in Conversation. From an early stage he was someone I wanted involved, because his career was so fascinating. He didn't play for the county until he was 30, then took 456 wickets in just six seasons, at an average of a shade over 18 runs each.

He was a magnificent bowler and his surname did him no harm, especially in the early days, when the less discerning thought he was 'Les's lad', while the even less discerning thought Les was still going strong...

He found it amusing and during the course of our chats there were plenty of laughs. I won't go over the ground that was covered during them, because you can read it for yourself in the book, but he was as pleasant company as he was awkward to face from 22 yards. I was thrilled when he agreed to come along to the launch of the book and he, together with Peter Eyre, David Milner, John Eyre, Edwin Smith and Wayne Madsen were in attendance to answer the many questions from a delighted audience. 

He was struggling then, on crutches with bad knees. He hadn't decided at that point whether he could handle the surgery, but was persuaded to and gained a second lease of life. He spent considerable time as a volunteer driver for the NHS, ferrying people to hospital appointments and was very good company for all of them.

I never saw him bowl,  but the figures speak for themselves and his partnership with Harold Rhodes in the 1960s was the stuff of nightmares for opposition batters. Especially in 1965, when the two of them headed the national averages, Rhodes taking 119 wickets at eleven, Jackson 120 at twelve. It was heady stuff, reminiscent of the previous decade when his namesake and Cliff Gladwin carried all before them.

The experience he had gained as a professional in the Staffordshire League with Knypersley stood him in good stead, telling me that he knew he could handle the pressure after seeing his name on billboards outside the grounds there. 'Norton (featuring Garfield Sobers) v Knypersley (featuring Brian Jackson)' was a particular favourite.

He will be sorely missed by many in the High Peak, where he made his home, as well as by the many friends and team mates over the years.

Derbyshire has lost one of the very best in Brian. An outstanding cricketer and equally fine man.

Rest in Peace.

Remaining fixtures out

The remaining fixtures were released today and supporters can now plan when they are likely to watch Derbyshire in the coming season. 

Before that, they may be as well to take advantage of the forthcoming Black Friday sale and buy a warm beanie hat or jacket.

Three of our seven home County Championship matches take place in April and that is not often an indicator of good (or warm) weather. So we have just sixteen days of four-day cricket between the start of May and the end of September. One of those is at Chesterfield for the festival week, when we entertain Lancashire this year, but it also coincides with our planned holiday, so my options quickly became quite limited.

I had a quick look at the possibility of going to Old Trafford to see us there, but the first couple of hotels I looked at were quoting £200 for the Saturday night...I might still consider going, but probably staying outside the city and taking the train or tram in.

I will see a bit nearer the time, but the fifty over competition has been mixed up a bit, with Derbyshire playing the winners of the last two seasons, Leicestershire and Glamorgan, in the group stages, as well as Nottinghamshire on a Sunday at the County Ground.

How much I get to see in person is a moot point, but I will undoubtedly be watching in some way or another.

What do you think about the fixtures? 

Book Review: Blood On The Tracks- England in Australia, the 1974/75 Ashes by David Tossell

I clearly remember watching the nightly highlights of the England tour of Australia in 1974-75 with my Dad. It was the first time such highlights had been on television in colour, though it mattered not, when we had a black and white until a couple of years later. Dad always used to joke that he could make it colour, by sticking some Quality Street cellophane over the screen.

I also recall him shouting at the TV as the day's 'excesses' by Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson showed an England batting lineup, missing the best player in the country, Geoff Boycott, hopelessly exposed against high quality pace bowling. 

'It's all very well them getting excited now,' he said, 'but the buggers didn't like it when Harold Larwood put the fear of God into them.' It was a fair comment, just as McDonald and Gregory had been too quick for England before that. A cyclical game, cricket, but these two looked terrifying from a distance of continents. At twenty-two yards I have no idea how you handle it. Fifty years on, the highlights clearly show the challenges from two quick bowlers at the pinnacle of their powers.

Tour books are a staple of cricket literature, but I got to the end thinking that I couldn't recall a better one than this, by David Tossell.

It is so admirably researched, before you even consider the writing, which makes it as fast-paced and compelling as any any thriller. Which is what it is, even if at this distance we all know the ending and indeed 'whodunnit'.

The font size and layout is admirable, the photos excellent and the linear scorecards a real bonus. It looks and feels like a proper book and it certainly delivers. It is methodically arranged from the selection of the party through to the challenges of the tour itself, on and off the pitch. 

The author has been short-listed seven times for the British Sports Book Awards and has written about sport for over four decades. Such  experience is clear in a book that makes for such  compelling reading. 

England were underprepared and unwilling to take any risks with the selection of young - or at least younger - players. There were several who could have gone, almost certainly should have, but instead we saw Fred Titmus go at the age of 42 as one of the spinners, while early injuries on fast, bouncy pitches saw Colin Cowdrey sent for at the same age. While they did as well as anyone, apart from Tony Greig and Alan Knott, it was nonsense, created by an antiquated selection process that had been flawed for decades. 

Their opponents selected younger men with points to prove. Of course, they had no idea if Dennis Lillee would be properly fit, or stay fit after months in plaster with a stress fracture of his back. Equally, they didn't know that Thomson would in one series go from fast and erratic tyro to one of the most frightening sights in the game. Had it been boxing, they would have stopped it after the first Test, when it was clear that England were outgunned and outclassed. Australia had rocket launchers at either end, while England had nothing to compare. There was no contest.

This is my second offering from Fairfield Books in so many weeks and is every bit as good as Stephen Chalke's fine work on Brian Close. 

If you are looking for a Christmas read that you will return to again and again - the hallmark of the very best writing - then you cannot go wrong with either of these titles. 

While the cricket season of 2024 is an increasingly distant memory, David Tossell has delivered a book to keep any enthusiast warm and engrossed over the darkest, coldest months of the year.

I could not recommend this more highly.

Blood On The Tracks: England in Australia, the 1974/75 Ashes is written by David Tossell and published by Fairfield Books

A question of seamers...

In my leisurely moments,  of which there are pleasingly many since I retired, I've been giving some thought to Derbyshire's seam bowling and a perhaps left field approach to resolving outstanding issues. 

We know that in Zak Chappell, Pat Brown and a raft of all rounders we have people who can use the ball well. I have high hopes of Martin Andersson, who I think will prove very useful with bat and ball. But with Sam Conners now gone to Durham, thereafter we hit the questions.

Of course Harry Moore will be in contention, but he doesn't finish school until the end of June, by which time a lot of red ball cricket will likely have been played. 

Can Nick Potts emerge from a couple of difficult summers as a genuine county seamer? Will Ben Aitchison return from back surgery and will he be the bowler he was AND stay fit? 

Such questions are impossible to answer, at this stage, but there is also the question of our second overseas player. I understand it is going to be a seam bowler and that the most likely scenario is a return for Blair Tickner, assuming all is well with his wife. 

But is that the best option? 

With money tight, is there, for example, a case for Luke Fletcher?

I will be honest. I don't really see Luke a Derbyshire player, any more than I saw one in Samit Patel. In both cases there is little doubt that the best days are behind them, but equally I could see a case for a red ball-only contract for Fletcher.

If Ben Aitchison is unable to return, he is an experienced bowler of 36 who has taken nearly 500 first class wickets at a good average, mostly in division one. He knows local pitches and how they behave and would be a good 'go to' for the skipper. 

36 isn't old and one has only to look at the likes of James Harris, Tim Murtagh, Chris Wright, Darren Stevens, Toby Roland-Jones and others of similar age in recent seasons to see their merit. 

The caveat, of course, is that Fletcher was fit and willing to bend his back for the cause, extend his career and MAYBE be a sage counsel for young seamers on the way up. He would be an option if Aitchison was unable to return (but I SO hope his injury issues are behind him) but also a cheaper option than an unproven overseas player.

Let's be honest, you wouldn't have to shell out for air fares with Fletcher, nor accommodation or car, but it would have to be a bloke with something to give and not, with respect, the one we saw on loan in 2016, when he bowled about the same pace as me, pre-retirement. 

I am not saying at this stage it would be a preferred option, but I could certainly see it as one. Given the choice between a 'proven fit' county seamer and an overseas of questionable ability, it should be considered.

Mickey Arthur hasn't gone especially well with his overseas seamers so far. I'm prepared to give Tickner the benefit of the doubt, because had our slips held the chances he created, he would have done better last year. Without off-field issues on his mind, perhaps he could be a success.

But Suranga Lakmal certainly wasn't, nor was Daryn Dupavillon. The former made some sense, as an experienced international bowler, but he had never had a sustained workload at that level and couldn't bowl the required overs on the county circuit. Meanwhile Dupavillon looked very ordinary, perhaps a reflection of first-class cricket in South Africa these days. 

While I always look forward to the cricket season, I have to say I have too many questions needing answers to have any degree of confidence ahead of 2025.

Not  boosted by the news that Caleb Jewell has been dropped to Tasmania Seconds, because of poor form...

It's a talking point - which is hopefully where you come in. 

Thoughts? 

Vitality Blast Fixtures released

So the T20 fixtures are out, which makes the season seem that little bit closer, even if the fallen and falling snow gives a reality check that there is a long winter ahead. 

Like many of you, I have added the fixtures to my calendar, but realistically I don't see myself travelling down south for forty overs of cricket. The only one that could have been a possibility is the game at Durham, but in time-honoured fashion it has coincided with already purchased tickets to see blues legend Bonnie Raitt in Glasgow. I doubt that she will have the game on as a backdrop to the stage, so that looks like being one to catch up with after the event. 

My main interest is in the release of the other fixtures, which I understand could be next week. Hopefully some of those dates work for me and a trip to see the county live, but it is always difficult, especially when red ball cricket is confined to the bookends of the season, to make any plans in confidence that the weather will be kind. 

As I have written before, there are few more depressing places than a damp cricket ground, especially when the alternative is returning to a somewhat soulless hotel room. Actually, a wet cricket ground at the seaside is probably the worst thing of all, rendering even the delights of Scarborough a challenge!

I can only hope for things working out and a better performance to watch than I saw at Chesterfield last summer.

Now THAT was a long journey home..  

Book Review: Les Jackson and Cliff Gladwin - Masters of their Craft by John Shawcroft

As a young man, I came to know the name of John Shawcroft almost as well as the players that I watched in Derbyshire colours.

He was the author of some of my favourite cricket books and will always be the doyen of Derbyshire cricket writing. His book on the 1936 championship winners is a classic and still in my top ten books of all time, while his club histories give chapter and verse on the club from the time that it started. 

It has been a pleasure to get to know him over the years and his latest work is a worthy addition to the collection, pulling together the careers of two of the county's favourite sons. 

Cliff Gladwin and Les Jackson were twin scourges of county batting line ups in the 1950s. During that decade, Derbyshire probably needed only the addition of one more reliable batter to win a second county championship. They were often able to cobble together sufficient runs to give a strong attack something to work with, but were too often there or thereabouts, rather than leaders of the pack, because there were times they fell apart. Surrey were very strong in that decade, but Derbyshire ran them close and in 1954 might have taken the title, but for bad weather in the run in.

Gladwin was probably just short of true international class, a very good and unerringly accurate medium pace bowler at county level, who could cut down his pace and bowl off cutters when conditions suited. He developed a leg cutter that kept batters guessing and Edwin Smith told me that unlike many swing bowlers, he had an ability to swing it late. Sometimes he would swing it in AND cut it away on pitching, which made him a real handful.

He was a fierce competitor and could be brusque on a pitch, especially if a catch was put down or poor fielding cost him runs against his name. He could relate his analysis at the end of an innings without consulting the scorer and was an ideal, feisty leader of the attack.

Jackson should have played more than two Test matches, twelve years apart. In the intervening period, most county batters would have had him in their top three bowlers and it seems only his accent, perceived dour persona or non-textbook action kept him out. The establishment selectors were happier to select lesser bowlers from the 'right' background, usually the south of England.

It was nonsense and plenty of contemporaries have told me how he was a friendly and approachable team mate, a work horse willing and able to bowl from the start of play until lunch and then resume afterwards. He was more philosophical too, responding to missed chances with a shrug of his shoulders and usually 'bad luck, catch next 'un.' To quote Walter Goodyear, the former county groundsman over many years 'He were a grand fella, Les. One of the very best.'

They missed relatively few matches, tribute to their robust physiques and perhaps late careers (Jackson didn't play until he was 27, while Gladwin was 29 when cricket resumed after the war.) Not until the advent of Harold Rhodes was there an obvious successor and he replaced Gladwin when he retired at the end of 1958. By that time Jackson himself was 37, but between 1958 and 1960 he took a remarkable 443 wickets..

John Shawcroft has done his normal reliable job with this biography, which pulls together the  strands of their careers into one volume. He doesn't fall into the trap of suggesting they would be equally effective today, as modern covered pitches, together with different approaches to batting, would have been a greater challenge. But their control of line and length would have ensured they remained a handful.

They were two of the greatest figures in the county's long history and those who saw them were fortunate indeed. 

If you are looking for an addition to your Christmas wish list, you can't go wrong with this one for a Derbyshire supporter. It is another addition to the excellent Lives in Cricket Series by the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians, well illustrated and with a very readable font size, much appreciated by yours truly!

Les Jackson and Cliff Gladwin: Masters of Their Craft is written by John Shawcroft and published by ACS Publications.

Weekend warmer

There hasn't been a great deal to report from a Derbyshire cricket perspective.

The squad returned to training this week, starting the long haul to full fitness ahead of a very important 2025 season. Several members of the squad were speaking to members regarding renewals, which was good to see, but the acid test will be on improved fortunes in 2025. 

One of the players who will be key to that is Caleb Jewell. The Tasmanian has been struggling for form at the start of the Australian summer, with scores of 10, 32, 18, 5, 3, 61, 5 and 4 so far. Of course, form is a transient thing and those scores do not reflect his career averages, but we will need him firing far better if he is to make any difference to our prospects in 2025. 

A player who I believe is likely to be back in our colours next year, Blair Tickner, is faring better, with seventeen wickets in six innings bowled, so far. He took six wickets in the opening first-class match of the New Zealand summer, the rest coming in fifty-over games. I suspect the genial Kiwi will return in 2025 if his wife's health allows it, but we must wait and see. I am not wholly convinced on the overall standard in New Zealand outside the elite squad, but you can only play what is in front of you.

I have watched a bit of international cricket but the surfeit of games renders a lot of it dull, as mismatched sides engage in what is little more than range-hitting on batter-friendly pitches. A lot of the big names are rested from lesser series to avoid burnout. 

I watched what was effectively second teams from India and South Africa play yesterday and the Indians won with ease. Their strength in depth is far greater and this was reflected in an innings of 283-1 in which there were TWENTY-THREE sixes. I don't get an awful lot from matches where the bat dominates and you might as well just have a bowling machine and a guy with a tape measure to work out who hits the biggest six.

I'm sure I sat through seasons of Derbyshire cricket when there were probably fewer sixes (not maximums..) hit, but they were special events and worthy of note. When twenty per cent of deliveries in a game disappear into the distance, I find it oddly dull and repetitive. I switched off before the end of the first innings, somewhat in the manner of Groucho Marx when asked how he found television.

'Very educational,' he said. 'I went into another room and read a book...

I will be back tomorrow with a review of that book.

Meantime, have a great weekend!

Recognition for Derbyshire duo and new book for supporters to enjoy!

It has been fairly quiet week this week on the cricket front. 

The only news of any important was that both Wayne Madsen and Zak Chappell will accompany Mickey Arthur to Guyana for the Global Super League, where the Derbyshire Head of Cricket will coach the Rangpur Riders.

The Global Super League will see teams from all over the world going head-to-head for a fortnight, with Hampshire (England), Victoria (Australia), Lahore Qalandars (Pakistan), Guyana Amazon Warriors (West Indies) and Rangpur Riders (Bangladesh) all taking part.

The competition begins on Tuesday 26 November, with the final to be played on Saturday 7 December.

The only other news from me was receiving John Shawcroft's new book on Cliff Gladwin and Les Jackson , part of the Association of Cricket Statisticians Lives in Cricket Series. I am currently working through it and thoroughly enjoying every page. I hope to do a full review before the end of the coming week, when I will also give details of how to buy a copy. 

In the meantime, here is a clip of Les Jackson bowling for England against Australia in 1961. He was forty at the time, so well past his fastest, but still bowled very respectably.

https://youtu.be/eMXCt3cOUOw?si=alpnOXxV4K4MUC1z

What surprises me is that I had always understood his action to be unconventional and described in some quarters as 'awkward' and 'non-textbook'.

Quite honestly, I don't see anything wrong with it. Slightly round arm perhaps, but he would only need to point to his career averages to defend his method.

I hope that you enjoy it, together with the undemonstrative manner in which wickets are celebrated!

Book Review: One Hell Of A Life: Brian Close - Daring, Defiant and Daft by Stephen Chalke

I think Brian Close was probably the first cricketer that I could recognise. 

The bald head, strong jaw and sometimes intense look under those bushy eyebrows certainly registered with me as a child. My earliest recollection of cricket was in 1966, watching an extraordinary comeback from a Close-led England against the West Indies at The Oval, a game won against the odds.

Fast forward eleven months to July of 1967 and he was skippering Yorkshire against Derbyshire at Chesterfield, the first day of cricket that I saw in the flesh. It was the final day and Derbyshire spent the afternoon battling to save a draw, something I would see many times in the years since. Earlier Close had made 60 before being despatched by Harold Rhodes, but had to leave the field after receiving a fierce blow fielding at short leg. 

'Split 'is shin open,' said Fred Trueman to my Dad, who was clearly surprised that a man, apparently hewn from the coal face that he worked, could be so wounded. 

Stephen Chalke's latest book notes numerous episodes in a career which spanned four decades that might have made a lesser man consider alternative employment. But Brian Close kept coming back for more.

He was a very good player and an outstanding captain, even if prone to distraction. He was undeniably one of the great characters of the game and few have generated more stories, some of them apocryphal, but likely based on a modicum of truth.

His England career was one of stops and starts, begining in 1949, when he was too young and ending in 1976, when he was too old, at 45 and recalled to face the mighty West Indies pace attack. Yet he did as well as anyone, his battle against Michael Holding in fading light at Old Trafford the stuff of legend. He captained his country seven times, winning six matches and drawing one, besides leading Yorkshire to six trophies in eight seasons.

He was his own man, which cost him dearly with the amateurs who ran the game and distrusted a northern man with his own strong opinions. Thus he wasn't trusted to captain the side overseas and it was very much England's loss. 

He was unconventional in his approach to batting, fielding, captaincy and life. Being his passenger in a car seems to have been fraught with danger, as he opened vacuum flasks and studied racing form on a newspaper spread across the steering wheel, little aware of the dangers on the road ahead. Several accidents on the road were indicative of his approach to life itself, which had more than its share of setbacks.

He was a heavy gambler, which cost the family dearly and an equally heavy smoker, which ultimately cost him his life. Very much his own person, in the words of his daughter, who said 'He wasn't a good Dad, but he was mine.'

Stephen Chalke's book is an honest appraisal of a Marmite man who, for all of his faults, comes out of this book well. There are plenty of funny stories and a few that will leave the reader wincing. It is a warts and all tale, drawn from conversations that the author had with many of his contemporaries and teammates. 

It isn't a biography as such, the author instead presenting the life and career through the tales of those who knew the subject best. But it is all the more readable for that and Stephen Chalke maintains his status as one of the genuinely great cricket writers with this, his twenty-sixth book.

For all of the competition outstanding competition from the others, this may well be his best yet. 

Add it to your Christmas list and you will not be disappointed.

Like me, you will get to the end and want to start all over again.

One Hell Of A Life: Brian Close - Daring, Defiant and Daft is written by Stephen Chalke and published by Fairfield Books