The Second Golden Age of cricket

I was asked recently if I thought that the standard of county cricket today was the best that I had seen.

My answer is an unequivocal no. 

I firmly believe that from 1970 to the mid-1990's I was fortunate to see the new Golden Age of county cricket. Whatever the merits of the original, I find it hard to believe it could have been better than I saw in the formative years of my life and cricket watching. 

Quite simply, the greatest players in the world could be seen all summer long in England. The best batsmen, as we called them then, the best bowlers and effectively some of the greatest players the game has ever seen. 

You knew that every time you went to a match you were going to see world-class cricketers. Most sides had a couple from elsewhere in the world (not Yorkshire, of course..) and the standard was so high. 

I recall sitting down in front of the TV on Sunday afternoons, if Derbyshire were playing away from home. Just before 2pm the Sunday League coverage would start on BBC 2 and as soon as the teams came up, I would think quickly who was going to be involved that afternoon. 

Gloucestershire v Hampshire? So Mike Procter and Zaheer Abbas against Barry Richards and Gordon Greenidge. Yes please, that's even before you consider other fine players on display. If it was Essex I would marvel at the athleticism and all-round ability of Keith Boyce, or it might be Glamorgan, with the languid stroke play of Majid Khan and the pyrotechnics of Roy Fredericks. Sussex? Only Imran Khan and Garth Le Roux, serious pace from both ends. Or maybe Warwickshire? Rohan Kanhai and Alvin Kallicharran..Dad and I were as happy as pigs in the proverbial..

How could a young man, getting interested in a sport, fail to be excited at such opportunity? When Derbyshire signed Eddie Barlow (about five years after my Dad told me they should, during the England v Rest of the World series in 1970) I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  Derbyshire against Nottinghamshire was not just a local derby, it was Barlow v Sobers, or later Wright and Kirsten v Hadlee and Rice.  

As a bespectacled youngster, I wanted to be Eddie Barlow, modelled my run up on his and mopped my brow with my forearm as he did. When I read Gerald Mortimer saying that 'he fixed opponents with a Basilisk stare' I even cultivated that same look, though mine may have been confused with myopia...

How can anything compare to that? Nor were these stars here for 2 or 3 weeks then gone. Injuries permitting, they were contracted for the full season. It was literally, for a young boy, like being in the company of deities for a few hours. 

Standards were very high. I accept that today the fielding standards are generally better, but I still haven't seen a better cover point than Clive Lloyd and Phil Sharpe caught swallows at slip. The best wicket keeper in the world played for Derbyshire and we had three England players! There was no great financial disparity between counties, as there is today and you played all of the others, every season. 

I appreciate that new strokes like the ramp and reverse sweep have changed the game - they certainly weren't in the MCC coaching manual then - but in those pre-helmet days you wouldn't have tried them against Sylvester Clarke, Wayne Daniel and the many seriously quick bowlers that kept on coming. Nor was there the protective equipment, so there would be sleepless nights before facing those pace merchants.

Not always on a main ground, like today, either. Facing some of these fellas on a less well prepared out ground might have made a check of life insurance and critical illness policies de rigeur, while there were also wily spinners like Lance Gibbs, Intikhab Alam and our own Venkat to enjoy. 

Those pitches were levellers. In 1977, Derbyshire played most of their matches at Ilkeston and Chesterfield and Middlesex didn't like it too much when they racked up at Ilkeston from the home comfort of Lord's, with seven international players in the side. No central contracts, then..

54 all out they were, to Tunnicliffe and Hendrick, itself a recovery from 21-7, before Alan Hill made 70 to beat them on his own and we won by an innings and 177 runs in two days. Proper cricket, none of these anodyne pitches and Kookaburra balls. They don't like it up 'em, Captain Mainwaring...

There were less sixes, but bats had edges, not sides like today and boundaries were not brought in to encourage them. A six was a special event in a day, the cherry on the icing of the cake in which that icing was impeccable timing, balance and footwork. Much as I enjoy some of it still, nothing in the past five years has compared to watching Barry and Viv Richards in their pomp, nor watching Andy Roberts and Mike Procter hurl down thunderbolts. From the boundary we wondered how the batsmen saw it. From 22 yards away they likely thought the same thing...

Watching Michael Holding in his pomp was the eighth wonder of the world. 'Whispering Death', playing for DERBYSHIRE. Later Ian Bishop too, pace unlike anything I had seen before and certainly haven't since. It was magnificent, gladiatorial, a spectacle non pareil. Yet we also enjoyed Chris Wilkins and Adrian Kuiper. Goodness knows how far they would have hit it with a modern bat, when Wilkins dropped it in the boating lake at Chesterfield a time or two.

Barnett, Bowler, Adams, Morris - a snapshot in time, but what a quartet to lead your batting and how they entertained. It showed how strong the county game was that we didn't win more trophies, with such players in the county eleven.

Uncovered pitches gave a fairer balance between bat and ball, while 100-over limitations on first innings pushed the three-day games on to a likely conclusion and the thrill of a last afternoon declaration and run chase. 

Before anyone says 'but they score quicker today', they don't. Eddie Barlow, at Ilkeston against Surrey's international attack of Jackman, Arnold, Pocock and Intikhab, scored 138 between lunch and tea, en route to a most sublime double century. Peter Kirsten, with 18 overs of the 100 (a better hundred than the current one) overs to go, went from an unbeaten 105 to 213 against Glamorgan. Alan Hill, normally a dour opening bat in the finest county tradition, scored our first Sunday League century and what an innings it was.

Without the regular, high level international input and the top domestic players on display, today's county offer has to be of a lesser standard. Enjoyable, yes, but not comparable.

Finally, you also need to factor into the equation that they often had to do this and provide such fine spectacle when they were shattered. Fixture organisation made no sense and both play and travel were constant. It was a miracle that car accidents were not common, even more so that the entertainment level was so good.

I asked Tony Borrington about this during our long chat for my second book. It didn't make the finished interview, as I had to meet a word limit, but I went back to the recording today and this is what he said: 

In 1976, we had a 3-day game against Northamptonshire at Ilkeston then, when it ended, the next day started a game against the West Indies at Chesterfield. 

I was run out by Alan Hill without facing a ball and we were bowled out that day. That evening, a Saturday night, we had to drive down to Bristol for a Sunday League game, then back to Chesterfield to resume against the West Indies the following morning. 

They scored 497 that day, with Lawrence Rowe making 152 and Larry Gomes 197. Viv Richards was out for a duck but Clive Lloyd made 98. The next day, Bud and I put on 72 for the first wicket, but we were well beaten. We then had to jump in the car and drive over to Coventry and a 3-day game against Warwickshire, again starting the following day.

Then it was back to Chesterfield for another 3-day game against Somerset, with a Sunday game at Heanor in the middle of it!

Fourteen straight days of cricket.. we then had 2 days off, before driving down to Dover to play Kent in a 3-day game, with a Sunday match in the middle of it, too...

Listen to anyone involved with modern football and it is as if it didn't exist before the Premier League. Yet it was pulsating, exciting and featured wonderful, skilled players who entertained, most of the teams with a chance of doing well as it was a fairly level financial playing field.

It was the same in cricket. I have had the pleasure of chatting to many who played in that era and they enjoyed every minute. Just as we, sitting on the boundary edge, thrilled at our heroes taking on - and often beating - a galaxy of stars from across the country. 

It was the best of times, when the stars you saw on TV could be walking down the pavilion steps near you, the following week.

Unforgettable. No one who was there will disagree.