A barnacle stuck like (Mc)Glew

posted by John Winn

The first test series I was old enough to follow with a degree of understanding through the press and radio was that between England and South Africa in 1951. England came into the series buoyed by their first test victory over Australia since 1938 when F. R. Brown's team was successful at Melbourne in the fifth game of the 50-51 series. The series against South Africa was won by three tests to one although Nourse's men came within four wickets of levelling the series at The Oval. England were not to lose another series until the defeat of May's eleven in Australia 58-9.
This successful period for the England side was, however, played out against increasing concern about the health of the first class game. A good way to gauge this concern is via the 'Notes by The Editor' section in the 1950s' Wisdens.Hubert Preston and his son Norman were the editors at that time and as the decade went on their editorials increasingly contain references to 'listless play', 'lack of ambition',the need to 'revive first class cricket', and so on.
In the edition of 1950 Hubert is reasonably optimistic for the previous summer had brought good weather, a close fight for the championship and a better than expected performance from the visiting New Zealanders. The post war boom in attendances soon goes into decline however and the younger Preston's editorials of the mid fifties encourage a change in the points system and an improvement in over rates as remedies. Occasionally optimism breaks through as when all five tests against the South African team under Jack Cheetham are brought to a definite conclusion in the lovely weather of 1955 and when another glorious summer, 1959, brings out the best in county batsmen, typified by Yorkshire's run chase to clinch the title at Hove. Such cheerfulness is short lived for the one sided series against South Africa in 1960, marred by the controversy over Geoff Griffin's action and the beginnings of protest against the visitors' government's apartheid policy earns the epitaph 'The sad season.'
By the mid fifties two runs an over or worse has become the norm for test cricket. Last week saw the 53rd anniversary of Trevor Bailey's innings at Brisbane when he took just three minutes short of six hours to score fifty but the 'barnacle' was not without rivals for has there been a batsman better suited to his name than the South African, Jackie McGlew? Against Australia at Durban in 57/8 McGlew took 313 minutes to reach fifty and just over nine hours before he was able to raise his bat to acknowledge his century. A nice illustration of the torpid batting of this era is that of the eight lowest scores in a full day's test cricket, five were set in the fifties.At the top of the list is the 95 mustered by Australia and Pakistan in Karachi in 56-7, Australia 80 all out, Pakistan 15 for two. What would Sehawg make of that?
This winter has seen some excellent test cricket much of which has been televised by Sky at times to suit those who keep 'normal' hours. Australia have shared exciting series in South Africa and at home against New Zealand and there have ben few more dramatic finishes than that in the Mumbai test between India and West indies last month. Yet as far as it is possible to judge from the TV screen, and despite scoring rates approaching four an over, crowds have been very small. Earlier this week in the 'Bradman Oration' Raoul Dravid urged the cricketing authorities to seriously consider day-night test cricket as a remedy for poor attendances. It will be interesting to see what support is like for the Boxing Day Test at the MCG when India are the visitors. With Sehwag and Warner opening the batting for their respective teams it certainly has more appeal than much of the test cricket of fifty years ago. Worth staying up for?