Glad someone got the gag!
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Almost a whoosh!
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I got it too but I could not think of a witty response.Well done that man (I suppose I am the third man in this).
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These puns will definitely catch a few out or maybe drive some to despair. I know hullsaddler already cuts a dejected figure but we can soon get him back onside.
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I think itâs a rare case of a writer basing a book on a film. Graham Greene wrote the screenplay before he wrote the book. There have been some good adaptations of Greene novels over the years. The Stephen Rea/ Julianne Moore adaptation of " The End Of The Affair" is my favourite.
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Remember when WFC used to play WCC every year at Gorway,
I saw Colin Taylor hit a âsixerâ.
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The cubs were there?
Did he bat left-handed?
Thatâs a tradition that could be revived.
I remember a story I read from Robert Powell. He was playing in a charity match , and was chuffed to bits he got runs off Intekhab Alam. Someone said," You didnât notice?" " Notice what?" " He bowled left- arm to you."
Iâve known a few people who played club cricket and it is interesting to hear about how they came up against better players from time to time. One said that he found Brian Brain, the anagrammatic medium pacer who played for Worcester, unplayably fast. And, apparently, the spinner, Derek Underwood, was at the pace of a club fast bowler.
Iâm never quite sure how accurate it was to call Underwood a spinner. He was just as close to a medium pace cutter. Glamorgan won the Sunday league , many years ago with two of them. Roland Lefebre and " Basil" Barwick. It was surreal watching them. No pace at all, but the batsmen just couldnât get them off the square. If you got to 20/2 off their opening overs, you were doing well.
I suppose he was a spinner in the sense of that is how he got his movement, rather than off the seam. He was unplayable on a damp wicket; I remember one Ashes test, the series before the âDâOliveira Affairâ, when he was bowling with about 7 men around the bat.
DâOliveira himself didnât take many wickets but he was very hard to score against. Incidentally, Brett of that ilk got a ton yesterday, which means that he, his father and his grandfather have all scored 100s in the one-day format.
Bas took over 500 wickets in First Class cricket. How old he was when he first started playing at that level depends on which date of birth* you work from, but he was at least 32 when he initially played for Worcestershire, and at least 34 when he debuted for England.
Had he been able to have played normal sport as a young man, and at his peak, he would surely have bagged over a thousand dismissals, and scored many more runs too.
*1931 seems the generally accepted one now, but I think Pat Murphy, who helped Bas with an excellent autobiography, reckons it was 1928, which would have made him 37 on Test debut.
Bas used to claim, when playing, that he was younger, because he thought the selectors wouldnât have him in the team if they knew the truth.
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Thanks. Yes, I meant at test level.
I know the story well and have read the books, along with a more recent biography by Peter Obourne. He was my favourite player, not only as a cricketer but also as a person. As you say, had he played from his youth, perhaps for a non-apartheid SA or for England had he come sooner, he would have been one of the greatest players of all time. John Arlott said that one of his best cricketing memories was Dolly batting well against Wes Hall and Charlie Griffiths.
A humble and generous man.
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Money went back into my account just nowâŚincluding the booking fee!
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