Issue 30

I was 21 and battling shoulder injuries but trying to get back in the National set up having injured my shoulder in my 4th cap in 2002 (don’t ever ask about that match!!!!). So, when I got asked to play in an MCC select side against the Scotland u19s I jumped at the chance. The added bonus I found out later was that Rahul Dravid (and Fraser Watts!) would be playing.... in MY TEAM!!!!!! When team manager Euan “Crocky” McIntyre asked if I wanted to open the batting, I jumped at the chance. “With whom” I asked... desperately hoping it would be my new mate Rahul. “Rob More” he replied. He was obviously keen on the left/right combo and protecting Dravid from the dangerous new ball bowling of the u19’s!! I was out of form (as I generally was since 2002!) and so was determined to knuckle down and spend some time at the crease.... secretly hoping that Rob would get out so I would get to bat with “The Wall” (that’s Dravid BTW for you youngsters!). Rob and I proceeded to do our best impersonations of the Wall playing Test cricket and grafted to about 60 odd off 20 overs. Then, to our surprise, we see Crocky running out with a pair of gloves that neither of us had asked for. The plan from the boss was not exactly what we expected..... “for *** sake...one of you GET OUT ..... we have not come here to watch YOU bat”!!!! Surprised and slightly annoyed, as I was just beginning to find some form, Rob and I came up with a plan of “smash everything and run everything” Smash and run lasted way longer than it should have, with the youngsters dropping catches and missing stumps at every opportunity! Eventually they hit when I was 4 yards past the stumps and the umpire gave me out! He was obviously in on it too! So I walked off, gutted that I wouldn’t get to bat with a Test Match legend and even more annoyed that my innings had been “unfairly” cut short!.... however, I smiled and wished Rahul good luck as our paths crossed. /over HAPPY BIRTHDAY RAHUL DRAVID In honour of the great Indian (and Scottish) batsman’s birthday on 11 January, Stevie Gilmour recalls an innings with him (well almost) during his spell playing for the Scottish Saltires.

/Cont’d I sat and jealously watched Rob settle back into his innings with one of my heroes, now hoping that Rahul would somehow miss a straight one so I could at least chat to him about batting! My luck really wasn’t in that day as Rahul stroked the ball around Lochlands Park with ease before gifting his wicket to one of the young lads for a classy 54. As he calmly walked off and sat down, I wondered how long I should leave it before going for a chat and learning everything I could from him! As a sport psychology student I was much more interested in his thought processes than anything technical. The piece of advice I remember most is when I asked what he was thinking when he faced up to the fastest bowlers in the world... he said.... “I LISTEN TO MY BREATHING” .... amazing.... (what was even more amazing was that Fraggle bowled 17 overs (of fast medium pace!) straight from one end later that afternoon!!) I watched Dravid bat a few times for the Saltires that summer and will never forget how much time he had facing Shoaib Akhtar at the Grange - gracefully caressing 95mph thunder bolts through the covers off the back foot. A great lesson from one of the true greats of the game. Happy Birthday, Rahul. New Year Quiz Solution: 1,4,8 Watts towers LA, DF Watts, Charlie Watts (Rolling Stones); 2,18,23 BN Forrester - African Queen and Hornblower were written by CS Forester; 3,7,22 BigMac, AndyMac and AppleMac; 5,10, 19 Parker (Thunderbirds), Parker pen, Hugh Parker; 6, 11, 18 - 3 Mrs Simpsons - Wallis, Kerry and Madge; 9,13,24 - Daryl Hannah, Hannah Arendt, Hannah Rainey;12,16,21 IA Macleod (aka Moon), The Moon, Daphne Moon (Frasier) 14,17,20 Shaun Barnacle Barrat, Trevor Bailey (aka Barnacle), Cirripedia (barnacles)

Cricket: It really is for everyone Sarah Beith only took up cricket recently. As a late convert she says she recognises that she needs to make up for lost time by practice, practice, practice. So it is highly likely that if you see someone in the GL nets in anyl weather at any time of year, it will be Sarah. But in between times, like a true convert, she has been taking cricket elsewhere. ‘I work at The Donaldson Trust which is a Scottish Government Grant Aided Special School for young people with complex additional support needs including autism, sensory impairment and communication difficulties. ‘ There is also exciting news of further developments in Scottish Disability Cricket. A Super 9’s development league is being set up and funding available for 3 disability Cricket Champion Clubs in 2021, 6 in 2022 and 9 in 2023. Plans are for 6 League Days, 4 outdoor (Summer) & 2 Indoor (Winter) where teams will play multiple games on each day and produce the first Cricket Scotland Disability League Champions. Details will circulate to all all clubs in Scotland soon. ‘Over the last few months I have been coaching our young people how to play cricket. They love the sessions and are improving every week including learning some of the basic rules!! ‘We are playing with plastic equipment but they are eager to play with the ‘hard’ ball. Maybe I should have left my kit at home because they are now referring to the equipment we have as “the toy stuff”’ Sarah’s work at Donaldsons has been warmly commended by the disability team at CricketScotland. Great work Sarah!

My first memory of Carlton Park, Grange Loan, as the ground is described in mid 1950s fixture cards, is from a sunny Saturday afternoon walk with my parents in the late 1940s. A match was in progress and we stopped to watch for a little while. The distinctive topography of the ground immediately caught my eye. It appeared to my young eyes that the match was being played on the side of a hill but I now reckon that the wicket was probably situated about where the artificial wicket is located. Although I do not know who was playing I do remember that one of the batsmen was wearing an orange coloured cap. The year may have been 1948. Other visits followed and I did see celebrated pro Tom Crosskey score a century in 1950 which was his last season at Grange Loan. These visits became more frequent but I am unable to pinpoint when I could be classed as a regular amongst the group of local schoolboys who would play games using the trees on the southern boundary as stumps on practice nights and during afternoons during the summer holiday. Bill Polson may be best known to Carlton members for his long service to the organisation of representative junior sides. Bill also has a long association with Mitre CC (now Edinburgh South CC). He shares some memories of his boyhood association with Carlton - vintage score books and all. This group would be utilised to push the heavy roller up and down the square for 10 or 15 minutes as part of the preparation of the pitch for the match due on the Saturday. In 1951 I was given a present of a Sports Trader Series scorebook and sat as close as I could to the old score box which was situated at deep backward square leg, assuming a bowler from the pavilion end. The first match at which I did this was on 4th August when Carlton played Hawick & Wilton. At that time I did not know that a wicket was recorded with a w and fortunately no wides or no balls were bowled. What did occur was that the Hawick professional, A.B. Creber, bowled 24 overs and the small book only allocated 15 for each of eight potential bowlers so I had to write Creber’s name again lower down the page. /over

/cont’d In this match Johnny Murdoch made 44 and he was one of the three Carlton players who were the most prominent in the early 50s. The other two were Tom Sommerville and Ian Scott but neither of that pair were playing in this fixture. The other main players at this time were Bill Courtney, who captained the club in 1955 and 1956 and Bill Relph, who was skipper in 1958. Courtney was a stylish top order bat and accurate medium pace bowler, who I guess got some extra bounce because of his height and Relph usually batted at 4 or 5. Johnny Murdoch was an all rounder, fairly small and usually wore a plain dark blue cap. Both Tom Sommerville and Ian Scott were taller and frequently opened the bowling together. Tom was also a good bat but Ian normally batted low down the order. In the field, and often when batting, Tom wore a red and yellow hooped cap but it was not possible to discover its club of origin. Below - pages from Bill’s scorebook for Carlton v Watsonians, 3 August 1953, a low scoring victory for Carlton In addition to sharing the new ball, both Tom Sommervile and Ian Scott were musicians but in rather different fields. Tom was Head of Music at James Gillespie’s and a church organist while Ian played the piano in the sort of small band which would play at wedding receptions or in hotels. Tom also coached the Gillespie’s cricket team then a girls only school. My personal scorebook from 1951 shows Sommerville taking 9 for 31 against Dunfermline on 1st September and a week later 5 for 31 against Perthshire and in the same game, coming on as first change, Ian Scott took 5 for 14. Except that he was opening the bowling, Ian started 1952 as he finished the previous season with 5 for 25 against Forfarshire. These scorebooks show that team totals were much smaller than they are todaye.g. in the Forfarshire fixture above Carlton had made 84 (A.V. Pope 5/17) but the county side were dismissed for 55.

/cont’d Only a week later the Second Eleven beat Meadowbank 63 to 18 (Bill Simpson 5 for 8, Gordon Hutchison 4 for 8) while other examples from First Eleven matches were Brunswick 95 (Sommerville 7/34) Carlton 51(C. Taylor 7/19) and Carlton 90 Watsonians 84 (Sommerville 5/23, Scott 3/32.) Do I hear a muttering of “uncovered wickets”? A local theory for scores getting bigger was that more effort went into the preparation of wickets following the arrival at the club of Scotland batsman the Rev. James Aitchison in 1954 together with Bill Ellis, another quality batsman, joining from West Lothian. They formed a formidable opening partnership. In 1955 left handed bat David Tattersall, a student from Darwen in Lancashire, added further strength and in the following year together with Courtney and Aitchison gained the unexpected distinction of being the only players based in Scotland to appear in the list of winners of a Double Century Award promoted by the Brewers, William Younger relating to an ale with that title. The award went to players scoring 200 or taking part in a partnership of 200 or more or to players in a match in which two players scored a hundred. Tattersall and Courtney put on 219 for Carlton’s first wicket against Kirkcaldy. Happy Days! Summer Sport - some recent pictures from our sister Carlton CC in Melbourne The Essential Companion to Lockdown Fantasy Bob Winter Series Now Running