Dexter v Benaud: M.C.C. Tour Australia 1962-3
By E.M.Wellings - 1963
Wellings writes in detail of the tour by the English cricket side (always in those years called Marylebone Cricket Club - or MCC) of Australia. Reading this in 2012, one is compelled to compare the game then to the game now. The most glaring difference is the absence of limited overs cricket (not least 20/20 cricket). Other differences include:
The large number of first class matches on the tour outside the tests - MCC played six first class matches before the first test and ten in total outside the tests. These days it is not uncommon for a touring side to play no first class matches outside the tests. Beyond the first class matches, MCC played twelve “minor” matches - one or two day matches (but not limited overs) against Victorian Country XI and Western New South Wales and the like.
The over rates are much quicker - Wellings berates MCC for averaging 101 balls an hour over the first four tests - in the last test they manage 120 balls an hour in the first innings and 144 in the second. In the late 20th century and early 21st, the official target is 90 balls an hour, and this is irregularly achieved.
Wellings complains frequently that the play is not exciting enough, that the batting is too drab, the field placements too defensive. This sort of complaint would be heard often enough in the following two decades, before finally the aggressive batting necessary in limited overs cricket broke into test cricket in the 1990s.
When I was a boy in the 1980s I was given an encyclopedia of the history of cricket, and included in this tome were profiles of the greatest of all time players - about 80 in all. Of these, seven featured in the 1962/63 series - Barrington, Cowdrey, Dexter and Trueman for England, and Benaud, Davidson and McKenzie for Australia. A glorious series, one would think, should have taken place. Yet Wellings spares none of the above for criticism, except for Barrington, who batted throughout the series in an attractive manner to make 582 runs at 72.75. McKenzie, still young during this series, is well liked by Wellings as a fast bowler of the future - he took 20 wickets at 30.95 - although Davidson’s series figures were better.
He has little time for the captains - Benaud and Dexter, who he criticises of giving an endless stream of TV interviews saying what splendid cricket they will play, only to play lugubriously for draws.
How would Wellings like today’s cricket? He would loathe the increasingly slow over rates, and deplore the celebrity status of cricketers, particularly say in India. But I hope he should enjoy the increasingly assertive batsmen, even in test cricket, and the resurgence of spin bowling.
