The summer of 1950: The spin twins, the 3 Ws and snobbish selections
Seventy years ago county cricketers, many doubtless happy to have put their winter jobs behind them, were back in the nets, preparing for the new season that for most would begin in the last week of April. It promised to be an interesting summer, also an important one, for there was an Australian tour to come in the winter. With this in mind, there had been no MCC tour in the winter just finished; better to give players like Hutton, Washbrook, Edrich, Compton, Evans and Bedser a winter’s rest.
The West Indies were touring, and this aroused some lively expectation. They had won a series against a weak MCC side, captained by the 45 year-old Gubby Allen, in 1947-8, and the three Ws – Frank Worrell, Everton Weekes and Clyde Walcott were already recognized as master-batsmen. Weekes indeed had hit four centuries against India in 48-9. Moreover they were bringing what was believed to be a battery of fast bowlers; an excellent test and experience for batsmen due to face Lindwall, Miller and Bill Johnston in the winter to come. As it happened, these fast bowlers would contribute nothing much, but in April almost nobody had heard of the summer’s bowling stars, two 19 year-old spinners, Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine.
England suffered an early setback. Denis Compton had injured his knee playing football for Arsenal and needed an operation. Still the first Test at Old Trafford was won comfortably, the little Lancashire slow-lefthander, Bob Berry, taking 9 wickets in the match. (This would be the sum total of Test wickets for him, but then he played only once more for England: oh Selectors!)
Lord’s was the turning- point, a crushing West Indian victory, with a big century from Clyde Walcott. But the heroes were the two barely heard-of spinners, “those two little friends of mine,/Ramadhin and Valentine”. Valentine was orthodox slow-left-arm, a gangly youth who was provided with National Health spectacles when they discovered he was so short-sighted he couldn’t read the figures on the scoreboard. Ramadhin bowled both off-breaks and leg-breaks with no easily discernible change of action. Clyde Walcott said to Len Hutton the first time he faced Sonny, “I’ll be interested to see what you make of this boy, Len. I’ve been keeping to him for weeks now and I still can’t read him” – a very nice piece of gamesmanship which must surely have delighted Stephen Potter, author of the bestseller “Gamesmanship”.
The West Indies won the last three Tests of the four-match series, the “two little friends” taking 60 wickets between them, and the other “Ws”, Worrell and Weekes, scoring big hundreds. There were some English successes. Washbrook scored fine hundreds at Lord’s and Trent Bridge. Then at The Oval Hutton batted throughout England’s first innings of 344, finishing on 202 not out. But, as preparation for Australia, it was hardly ideal.
There was first the question of captaincy. Yorkshire’s Norman Yardley, who had led England against Australia in 1948 and was captain in the first three Tests of the summer, declared himself unavailable for business reasons. Likewise Middlesex’s George Mann, a successful captain in South Africa in 48-9; Watney Mann, the family brewery required his services. A professional was still unthinkable as captain, though some favoured Tom Dollery who was captaining Warwickshire with some success. So speculation turned to F R (Freddie)Brown of Northamptonshire, and a dashing century for the Gentlemen against the Players at Lord’s clinched his appointment.
Brown had had a stop-start career. A Cambridge Blue, he had played half-a-dozen Tests before the war without notable success, and had been a member of D R Jardine’s side on the Bodyline tour, without being required for the Tests – as a leg-spinner he was obviously superfluous. He had suffered in a Japanese POW camp, losing four or five stone in weight, and had played no first-class cricket in the first years of Peace. Then a Midlands industrialist and member of the Northants Committee lured him back to the game by offering him a managerial position in his firm and the captaincy of the county club, where he soon effected an unusual, though still moderate, improvement.
On the playing side Brown was to prove an unexpected success. He batted aggressively and determinedly, and bowling swingers as well as his wrist-spin, took valuable wickets. The Australians admired him. Bruce Harris, covering the tour for one of the London evening papers found a Melbourne costermonger advertising cauliflowers with “hearts as big as Freddie Brown’s”.
In other ways Brown was an unsympathetic captain. He began badly by making it clear to the MCC that he didn’t want Bill Edrich in the tour party. Actually, Edrich, a success in Australia in 46-7, when he had averaged 46 in the Tests, might have been a better captain. A professional before the war, he was now playing as an amateur, but, as neither a Public School nor University man, I suppose he was the wrong sort of amateur for the MCC.
Brown’s objection, shared by some of the committee, was different. Edrich was well-known to be fond of a party, the sort of chap who thought the night was just getting going about the time the pubs closed. Brown thought he would be disruptive. So he was left at home, and this was a blunder. Three years later Len Hutton, though no party animal himself, insisted on bringing Edrich back as his opening partner against Australia.
Six young and inexperienced players were selected for the touring party: Bob Berry, not required for the Tests, Brian Close, still only 19 and doing his National Service, Gilbert Parkhouse of Glamorgan, and three Cambridge undergraduates; David Sheppard (the future Bishop of Liverpool) and John Dewes, both of whom had scored lots of runs that summer on the benign wickets then found at Fenner’s; and John Warr, a fast-medium bowler. None proved a success, and it was evident that Brown had little rapport with the young men. He took a particular dislike to Brian Close whom he thought too full of himself. So although Close had scored a fine century against Western Australia, he played only in the Second Test where, admittedly, he failed, as did almost everybody in that low-scoring game, and was then dropped, to be seen no more.
Parkhouse, a professional like Close, got two Tests, made a start in each innings, but was then discarded. Brown was more tolerant with the Cambridge amateur batsmen, though they were no more successful. Nor could it be said that in picking them the selectors had been building for the future. Dewes, becoming a schoolmaster, dropped out of first-class cricket even before the future Bishop.
As for John Warr, a delightful humorous man, who would have a good county career, latterly captaining Middlesex, his only two Tests were on this tour, and his figures alone suggest his selection was a blunder: one wicket for 281 runs.
The series was lost 4-1. It was not a complete disaster. Hutton was the best batsman in either side, averaging 80 in the Tests, Alec Bedser the best bowler, Godfrey Evans the better wicketkeeper. Nottinghamshire’s Reg Simpson came good with an innings of 156 not out in the last Test in which England defeated Australia for the first time since Hutton made his then world record score of 364 at The Oval in 1938.
Even before the tour party set sail for Australia many had pointed to the more experienced professional batsmen who might reasonably have been preferred to the young amateurs. Fred Trueman, who would first play for England two years later against India, would to the end of his days express indignation at the selection of John Warr rather than Derbyshire’s Les Jackson. But Jackson, an ex-miner, playing for an unfashionable county, would continue to be ignored, though he was someone no batsman looked forward to facing. His face never fitted. His omission from the England side was one of the clearest examples of the pernicious “Lord’s influence” on selection.
Even now, I am ashamed to admit that as a rather snobbish Prep School boy, I was delighted by the selection of Dewes, Sheppard and Warr.
Still the 1950 summer was a great one, decorated indelibly by the batting of Worrell, Weekes and Walcott, and the bowling of the spin twins, Valentine and Ramadhin. They would never again enjoy quite such a summer, but what a summer it was for them.