Being Outside Cricket

Sometimes I imagine what BOC would have been like had we all been here, and the internet in place, back in the good old days of the 1990s. Today’s On This Day takes us back to 25th November 1990. I recall it because I had had a great night out in the locality with a good mate, and we decided to go back to my house to watch the Test Match. It was the first test of the Ashes, at Brisbane, and the game was very evenly poised.

England had been bowled out on the first day, for 194. There was misery and woe, until England fought back brilliantly to bowl the Aussies out for 152, with Small, Fraser and Lewis all taking three wickets. A small, but handy 42 run lead had been augmented by 56 runs by England but with the loss of three wickets, including David Gower who had made 61 in the first innings. The match report, of course, picked on him:

“It was the second time in the match that Gower had been out in the over after the loss of an important wicket, and both times to strokes of poor conception.”

What followed was symptomatic of the next decade and a half. England collapsed in a total heap for 114, and Australia knocked off the 157 runs needed for no loss. The destroyer was a familiar foe. Terry Bloody Alderman. 6 for 47. Me and my mate crashed out, and as I drove him back home the following day, we could do nothing but shake our heads at this woeful capitulation. Maybe we should have gone out clubbing instead.

Scorecard

Sure this was the test when the press got on a couple of our players for going to the casino on the second night, including Allan Lamb, who was captaining in the absence of Graham Gooch. Again, a nice way to compare that era’s cricket journos and today’s. Or maybe it’s the players now.