Chris Lewis

Wickman never understood what people saw in Chris Lewis. It was during that phase when every player in the country who could bat and bowl to any kind of standard was thirstily called an all rounder by the tabloids and then compared to Ian Botham.

Wickman hesitates to write this next paragraph but it needs to be said. Why were journalists, selectors and people like Mike Atherton (who kept selecting and captaining the man) so obsessed? Wickman thinks it was because we were scarred by a decade or so of West Indian maulings. Roberts, Garner, Holding, Marshall, Croft, Ambrose, King et al had broken and bruised a couple of generations of English batsmen and we wanted our own West Indian to come in and terrorise oppos. How ironic it would have been if he'd managed to break a West Indian nose or two.

England persevered with him when most of the evidence was that he didn't swing the thing and he didn't propel it in a threatening manner. They persevered with the famously and hilariously misnamed Malcolm Devon. At least Dev was truly quick on occasion (that spell at The Oval against the Jaapies was phenomenal). Chris Lewis was just average. And don't think this is too much of a leap of imagination. Wickman is almost certain that during this time period the game was desperately searching through St Reatham, Brixton, Wandsworth and the like for a 6'8'' second generation West Indian. They would turn up at schools hoping to discover some badass gangly freak with hands like buckets who would don the lions and look to kill some Antipodean folk.

When he batted he had a sort of limp, away from your body pendulum style which bore about as much resemblance to how Botham batted as Cooky does to his Flintoffness. When he bowled (if you believe today's papers) he would slink in to the popping crease (loving that terminology) like a panther and sort of ooze the ball up to the other end at pace.

But Wickman can NEVER remember Chris Lewis being any more frightening on the box than a five year old daughter dressed as a witch on Halloween. If what they wanted was a West Indian intimidator then the comparison with any of the WI old guard or Ambrose is just laughable.

When Ambrose destroyed England for 46 in WI (top scorer one C Lewis) every ball looked like it would rip the throat out of an England bat. When Malcolm Marshall was blackwashing David Gower's England home and away in the mid 80s every single ball looked like it would take the edge and land in the hands of first slip. Graham Gooch was obliged, on the basis of having been selected, to at least turn up in the middle but he probably spent more time walking in and out than he did at the wicket in those two series.

Chris Lewis was nothing to a young England supporter of the day. He didn't ever fulfill his talent. His image was rubbish. He had neither the aristocratic mien of a Gower nor the brutal power of a Gatting, Gooch or Botham. He perhaps had the run up of a Hadlee but the delivery of a paperboy. He was distinctly average. Add to that but he never convinced Wickman that he gave a damn.

To hear that he might have smuggled drugs into the country to profit from the misery of others is not a surprise on that basis. Derek Pringle said he was shocked in The Telegraph today. Wickman just wasn't. The guy played without heart, without passion, without soul. And now he has cheapened even those vanilla performances.

As Morse would have said... "Oh Lewwwwwwwwwwwwwwissssss".

India Series Starts Tomorrow

Wickman is as excited as a dog who knows it's dinner time. At 4am, when all is quiet, the India England series - which has sucked up more words than the last world Scrabble championship, kicks off. Actually, kicks off is wrong. How do you describe the beginning of a cricket series?

Forgetting that for a moment, the England team has been lauded to the rafters for returning to India. Good on them. Good on them too for remembering, with their generous donation of half a match fee (no seriously, no sarcasm), that cricket is not quite as important as life and death.

But Wickman's not excited by England. Oh no. Wickman just can't wait to get a glimpse of these Indian fellas. Wickman watched as much of the Boreder Gaviscon trophy earlier in the Autumn as time allowed and he liked what he saw. Mishra is beguiling. Ishant Sharma - a sort of fiery hatstand - looks class. Yuvraj - who has now played more one day internationals than the entire England team - doesn't look like getting out. Dhoni - perhaps the ugliest batsman in the world who seems to be playing shots that his muscles have learned on a forestry course - is back in the runs. Gautam Ghambir has, for no discernable reason, become world class overnight. And Viru makes Chris Gayle look like Geoff Boycott. And then there is the little master (and we aren't talking about Paul Collingwood here) who is creating records every time he goes out to bat. Wickman just can't wait.

And no one gives England a rats chance in a cat filled maze. Sigh. We've gone from a joyous Indian Summer against South Africa to a frankly horrifying Indian Winter which could end with armchair fans like Wickman fearing turning the box on in the morning almost as much as he did in the last Ashes.

Baubles

Wickman was having a tidy up and found these. We picked these babies up at the end of season Fullers League Dinner.

The dinner (the food anyway) was good. Beer was cheap as per. But the rest of the evening? A bit bewildering if Wickman is honest.

For some reason the organisers decided that it would be a good idea to honour a whole bunch of people that don't play cricket on the evening. It started with some geezer from the committee who was retiring. They let him up on stage. He decided to tell a very old golf joke. It wasn't a very good joke. He's not a raconteur of much note. Result? Boredom.

Then a procession of people from other clubs who do a bit behind the scenes were invited up. It looked like the entire committee. Clap clap clap clap clap for what seemed like half an hour as these boys tottered up to grab fifteen minutes of bemused onlooking from the rest of us.

We perked up a bit when they handed out the baubles because we picked up a couple. Good stuff. Great season. Two promoted sides, one finishes in third. Surely we'll pick up a club of the month spot? Especially since we WERE club of the month on the Fullers site earlier in the year? Did we buggery.

One of the "clubs of the month" - if Wickman remembers correctly and believe me he took to the liquid anaesthetics pretty hard during the golf "joke" so this might be false memory sydrome - was a club whose 1xi didn't turn out xi players all season, whose seconds are about to rejoin Fullers after a season in which they often had only eight out on a Saturday (welcome back boys why don't you join forces with Mellett and chums?) and their 3xi was docked 40 points for selection irregularities or some such.

Along with the red wine it left a slightly odd taste in the mouth. Never mind eh? It's not every year you have three teams in the promotion run off and two go up. We'll have to content ourselves with enjoying the cricket in Surrey Div 5.

At least Dusty Miller, the hired entertainment, was on his usual form. If Wickman hadn't heard his whole routine at the Oval in August he might have really enjoyed that bit...

Martin Crowe Loses Mind

Wickman is indebted to Wickman Jr who has pointed out to him that Martin Crowe is seriously upset after the Trans Tasman Cup or whatever rubbish bauble Aus and NZ play for ended in a drubbing for the Harry Potter of cricket and his IPL rejects.

Crowe says here that this is New Zealand's "worst moment in Test Cricket" before going on to slate John Bracewell and babble on about how Ross Taylor and Jamie How are thick as the excrement of pigs.

Wickman reckons Martin must have a screw loose. If this isn't the worst moment in New Zealand Test cricket history - a second innings scoreline etched in the brains of every English (and Welsh) schoolboy cricket fan - then Wickman's an Aussie.

Even Russell Crowe probably remembers that innings. He no doubt uses it to summon up feelings of great shame and embarrassment when he needs to act out those feelings in some performance or other. Probably.

Get Well Soon

New reaches Wickman that JT is not well. Get well soon John, no one wants a season of the Great Nips wearing the white coat in the 1s... not least of which, the Great Nips himself.

The “should England play in India” debate

Spare a thought for poor Reeky Punting. No sooner has Australia handed the Gavaskar-Border trophy over to Argy-Bhaji, MSD, Sachin and the lads than terrorists cause an outrage in Mumbai. Just imagine. A couple of weeks earlier and he and the Australian team would have been able to hightail it out of there claiming a draw.

Non-Asian teams have a pretty poor record when it comes to turning up to play on the sub-continent. Wickman can’t recall the last time an Australian team played a test series in Pakistan or Sri Lanka. Actually it was March 2004 when the Aussies last played a game in Sri Lanka. Where the Barmy Army see beautiful beaches and the old world charm of the fort at Galle your average Aussie sees a terrorist in every palm tree. Wickman would have to check but he can’t remember the last time a series was played in Pakistan by anyone (no one turns up to watch Test cricket there anyway) apart from India or Bangladesh.

With the growing number of outrages being perpetrated in India, could it soon become, like Pakistan, a no-go for nervous non sub continentals? There’s a huge amount of hokum being written in the papers about whether England should go back to India to start the ludicrously short Test series. Today, Michael Atherton, who writes for the paper that Wickman takes, suggested that England have become paranoid about the threat against them. He says that there’s no history of terrorists targeting cricket in the sub continent so the lads should be all right. Wickman paraphrases it but you get the picture.

What a load of complete tripe Michael. Wickman reckons the fellas that took out 200ish people in Mumbai last week weren’t committed cricket fans who decided to get on with it because there was a lull in Test cricket. Wickman doesn’t think that they chose that particular week to get on with it because they knew the England team would be safely ensconced up North along with the Indian side. Wickman doesn’t think they asked all the people they murdered whether they had played international cricket before they murdered them.

Surely the only issue should be whether some people who play cricket for a living feel safe going to India after having seen a massacre occur in a hotel they had all stayed at. Wickman can’t think of many businesses that would insist on their employees travelling somewhere they didn’t’ want to go to. Why would the ECB? Pontificating now about whether the England boys should get on the plane is a bit rich – even if Michael would be going on the same tour to write about it.

Getting Wick with... Alison

Perhaps the most popular award of the evening at the Club Dinner was the creation of new Vice President for the Wick. Alison has been a Wick fixture since the 1980s - smuggled into the Wick by her beau of the time none other than Il Presidente Bobby Sissen. This photograph was taken on the evening and shows what two old men will do for a bit of publicity...

Christine Sewell - ex secretary and long time 1s scorer took her under her wing and Christine told Wickman that Ali eventually got around to getting interested in scoring and asked her to show her the ropes. "She was a natural and, as you will know, her scorebook is a thing of beauty because she has such lovely writing. She, like me, became fanatical about making sure the book was correct, everything added up and looked good!

"Ali is of course also great company - I have shared many good times with her both at the Club and outside it, and also enjoyed the numerous occasions on which we scored together (Club Day, midweekers, special days etc) although I believe we might have tarnished our reputations as top notch scorers at times because as the tally of drinks delivered to the scorebox mounted our concentration tended to lapse somewhat!

Am so pleased to hear that the Club has made her a VP - she richly deserves it."

Wickman agrees. Here is more detail about the woman behind the multi-coloured pen set and the commanding scorebox presence. Wickman sees no reference to the game when Ali marched out onto the sward at Ewhurst to remonstrate with JT...

1. Nickname(s): The Witch/Wickcher/Witchy Poo/Nano Brain (family nickname)
2. Highest Score for HWRCC: Undoubtedly the 2s top scorer on Saturdays from 1989 onwards until promoted to the 1s circa 2002. Sometimes top scores on Sundays by special appointment
3. Best Bowling for HWRCC: Physicality does not permit raising one's arm above chest height
4. Favourite Away Ground: Addiscombe - despite losing to them and allowing them to get promoted as I was treated like the Queen
5. Favourite Food: Toad in the Hole
6. Favourite Singer/Band: Alanis Morrisette/Coldplay
7. Favourite Movie: WALL-E
8. Favourite Book: My collection of cookery books
9. Favourite Pub/Club: Waggon and Horses in Surbiton. Too ollllld to go clubbing 10. Favourite Crisps:Pork scratchings
11. Favourite DBW Sandwich: Egg - ATS
12. Favourite Quote: "Mine's a G&T"
13. Best Wick Moment: Being made Vice-President
14. Worst Wick Moment: June 1988 - the day the club was razed to the ground a week after I officially joined the Wick - memory robs me of the exact date
15. Invite 3 People to Dinner (Dead or Alive): Maria Callas (ultimate drama queen), Chris Hoy (thighs) and Jeremy Copp (to pay the bill as we would be dining at the Fat Duck)

Agenda for AGM

HAMPTON WICK ROYAL CRICKET CLUB
Bushy Park, Park Road, Hampton Wick, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey
Telephone 020-8977 2378

An Annual General Meeting will be held on Thursday 11th December 2008 in the pavilion at 8.00 p.m.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING AGENDA

1. Apologies for absence.
2. Approve minutes of AGM held on 20th November 2007.
3. To elect Officers of the Club for the 2009 season.
4. To elect Team Captains for the 2009 season.
5. To elect the Club Committee.
6. To approve the accounts for the year ending 30th March 2008.
7. To approve amendments to HWRCC constitution.
8. To set subscriptions and match fees for the 2009 season.
9. Any Other Business. Tour. 20/20

N Clark
Hon. Secretary Then off for curry... Anyone who wishes to put their name forward for any positions for next year, please contact Wickman, Keith or Clarky to discuss...