The belief system that Woodcock (and Evelyn Wellings) gave me

In my previous post to commemorate the passing of former Wisden editor John Woodcock I noted how his aggressive criticism of contemporary English and Australian cricket in the 1985 and 1986 Wisden Notes by the Editor led me into a longstanding obsession with old county cricket.

What I want to discuss here is the belief system I have inherited from reading those Notes. Today, indeed, I will admit that my reaction, essentially amounting to

“Hey! This is something I did not know!”

and based on the notion that what was written was plain fact that the editors had directly observed – was too rapid and even thoughtless.

 More than that, my speeches mouthing 1980s Wisdens’ Notes By the Editor (alongside other comments) actually went far beyond what Woodcock or other Wisden writers like Evelyn Maitland Wellings said. The most memorable example of this was when in the 1990s I said that:

“if the 1985 Australians would not have finished in the first four in the [1985] County Championship, they [the 1985 Australians] would have finished last in the 1956 County Championship” [1956 being the year when Jim Laker achieved his record-breaking performances against the Australians]

The quote above reflects my assumption that standards in 1956 – when Jim Laker took 46 wickets in five Tests – were at least in spin bowling so much superior to 1985 that no 1985 team, not even Lloyd’s all-conquering West Indians, would have had the smallest chance of defeating the English spin bowlers of 1956. Don Bradman in the 1986 Wisden, and Ashley Mallett a dozen years later, both implicitly said that at all events on the pitches of 1956, Jim Laker and Tony Lock would definitely have defeated Lloyd’s West Indians. (What they actually said was that on pitches favourable to spin at the SCG, the Windies had failed against far less skilled spin bowlers than Laker, Lock or many other pre-1970 spinners were).

I would say loudly to those around me:

“it would take years for any 1980s team to adapt to the genuine tweaking spinners that existed in the 1950s. Laker and Lock would have demolished the West Indies’ invincibility”

Beyond the emotive rants and mouthings, I might summarise in point form what Woodcock told me, reinforced by other articles like the late Jack Bannister’s ‘Don’t Blame the Ball’ from the 1991 Wisden:

1. standards of cricket in England and Australia were much higher before one-day cricket became dominant
2. one-day cricket destroyed the extremely skilled batting technique that older batsmen were required to develop
3. modern [1980s and 1990s] players would be hopeless if they had had to play against older bowlers on uncovered pitches
4. modern bowlers would never bowl the exceptionally skilled old batsmen out, even with the best possible luck
   
1. I frequently said that Herbert Sutcliffe on his 1931 form would if he played upon 1990 pitches have been either “run out” or “not out” in every innings he batted in
   
5. many old batsmen would on 1980s and 1990s pitches consistently gain far higher batting averages than Don Bradman’s 1938 record average of 115.62
6. some older English bowlers would have done far better than any modern ones
1. for instance I frequently said that the Harold Larwood of 1928 and the Brian Statham of 1959 would have averaged under 20 in 1990, and that Bill Bowes would surely have averaged under 26
7. that spin bowlers were what attracted crowds and that this was evident from the figures
8. that radical reforms were needed – regardless of how commercially unviable they were – to restore the amount of spin bowling and increase attendances at first-class games

Although I have modified these views over time, the emotional attachment to the idea of a sport with vastly more spin bowling has never disappeared for a variety of reasons.