I'm browsing my Christmas present: the Daily Torygraph book of cricket... and have already come across a gem. 12st October, 1984: Sebastian Faulks on Ted Dexter's bid to find find a 'proper' fast bowler. He says of Dexter
Quote:
|
He is looking not for a bowler as such, but for an athelete who can chuck the thing down at a tremendous pace
|
It seems "young men were invited to enter through forms distrubuted in pubs". One of six recruited at Edgbaston was David Dismore, who could "run 60 yards in under 7 seconds and bowl a ball nine[ty] yards off a couple of paces" (my guess at the "ninety rather than nine: they were apparently looking for folk who could get the ball 70+ yards before it bounced - which is perhaps why they ended up trialling a javelin thrower).
Dexter's juvenile idiocy is perfectly captured by a simple quote about the above-mentioned Dismore: "If he can get it that far the muzzle velocity must be tremendous".
No wonder English cricket then entered a bleak period that culminated in Fraser missing tours in favour of lesser guys with greater pace and Bicknell noting that the England management would have rejected Pollock as "too slow"!
ps. Are Ern and Ted Dexter really one and the same?