A damned fine spell
A few of us had a small dinner the other day to thank Angus Fraser for his distinguished stint as the Independent’s cricket correspondent. Not quite reeling off 45 overs from the Nursery End, but a damned fine spell anyway. The evening was, as such occasions should be, wine-fuelled, good-humoured and jam-packed with cracking stories, most of them unrepeatable.
Gus was one of those remarkable players who just stepped over the boundary ropes when they finished their career in the first-class game and then, seemingly effortlessly, took up a career as a first-class journalist (think Mike Atherton of the Times, the Telegraph’s Derek Pringle, or the Guardian’s Mike Selvey). Such a pity it doesn’t work the other way; there can’t be a cricket writer anywhere who hasn’t harboured fantasies of being called up to open for England.
As a journalist Gus was pretty much like he was as a player: hugely industrious, modest and selfless, very loyal and totally dependable. And, of course, bloody good too. He played 46 Tests for England, taking 177 wickets, twice in the West Indies taking eight in an innings. He played 17 years of first-class cricket, all of them, and this is getting rarer nowadays, for just one county, his beloved Middlesex.
When Gus retired from the game, that fine cricket writer Michael Henderson observed: ‘In Fraser’s world the sky was never blue and the sun rarely shone. There were squalls and showers and he observed it all with a face like thunder. But beneath that unsentimental exterior beat the stoutest of hearts.’ Gus himself said that his own favourite description of his sometimes tortured and always lengthy run-up was that he ‘bowled as if his braces had been caught in the sightscreen’.
Now he’s going to need all his industry, dedication and good humour in his new job as head of cricket at Middlesex. With its HQ at the most famous ground in the world, Lord’s, it’s a glamorous county, but one of Middlesex’s problems is it doesn’t own the ground, it only rents it, and Gus’s office is in unglamorous Finchley. Owning your own ground can make all the difference — look at what Durham have done from nothing at the ground they own, Chester-le-Street. It’s now a Test ground — and Durham are county champions.
For Middlesex the glory days of the 1980s are long gone. In recent years they haven’t won much beyond last year’s Twenty20, and have had more captains than an Airplane movie. But Gus starts from a great position: he has the respect and affection of every county pro, and he himself just loves Middlesex. He really believes in the four-day game as the cradle of Test cricket. If anyone can turn things round it’s him, and I can’t believe there’s anyone who cares about the game in this country who doesn’t wish Gus Fraser well.
The sight of empty seats at the ABN Amro Open in Rotterdam nearly had me running for the Eurostar — the tennis was sensational, and it wasn’t just about Murraymania either. The grand slams have always been hugely entertaining, of course, but watching Nadal’s quarter- and semi-finals, against Tsonga and Monfils, in a run-of-the-mill indoor tour event, you knew the game has never been in better shape. Towards the top of the rankings, everyone seems to have the athleticism of Becker, the sliced backhand of Edberg, the power of Sampras, the serve of Ivanisevic and (almost) the fun factor of Connors. With apologies to Cruyff, it’s total tennis — and it can’t all be down to flashy rackets.
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