Bowler's Name?

Tom Hicks

Description

Bowler's Name? is a tale of a life in cricket's margins. Tom Hicks is no household name, but he often rubbed shoulders with cricketing royalty, going from the village green to walking out as captain at Lord's. As an ambitious youngster, Hicks dreamed of reaching the top. But trying to make it big and balance the demands of university, family, a full-time job and a penchant for post-match fun was no easy feat. Settling for an unglamorous life as a minor county player, cricket took him to all corners of the country, and then across the globe, getting an insight into the nether regions of a cricketing world that was rapidly vanishing. Through the eyes of a cricket nut, Bowler's Name? takes us on a journey of success, failure, hilarity and often sheer madness. If you've ever wondered what it's like to face 90mph bowling, to have lunch with Mike Gatting or to infiltrate an England post-match party, Hicks is your man. Bowler's Name? is for fans of cricket idiosyncrasies, lovers of the underdog and anyone who has tried and failed.

Sujets

• Críquet
• Cricket

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 26 avril 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785319242
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2021
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Tom Hicks, 2021
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright.
Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781785318412
eBook ISBN 9781785318412
---
eBook Conversion by www.eBookPartnership.com
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Early Days
2. Growing Up on the Village Green
3. First-Class
4. A Leading Role
5. Some Real Legends
6. An Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman meet on a tropical island
7. On Trial
8. Switching Codes - Some Rugby-Related Tales
9. The Leopards - Dorset CCC
10. The Art of Captaincy - Amateur Style
11. In the Club - Becoming an MCC Member
12. A Watching Brief
13. Signing Professionals, Sponsorship and Skodas
14. Keeping Up With the Joneses
15. Smells Like Team Spirit
16. Who s the Fastest?
17. Best Batsmen
18. Socialising With Some Big Guns
19. Broken Bones and Bowing Out
Postscript
Photos
Acknowledgements
ALTHOUGH I never achieved my first-life ambition of captaining England, this book represents the fulfilment of a second ambition, and hopefully goes to show that not all the effort and energy put into supporting me has been wasted. And there has been a huge amount of support from so many people, not all of whom can be listed here by name, but I owe thanks to everyone I played with and against on the cricket field, and those who make cricket happen from behind the scenes - the umpires, scorers, administrators, tea-makers, groundstaff. You are all kindred spirits and custodians of this great game. Thanks for being part of my journey.
Above all, I have to thank mum and dad. For the countless hours driving me and Guy around the country (mostly to Taunton), sharing our successes and making sure we didn t take failure too hard. I m glad that you have been able to be there for so many of the good times and I hope I ve made you proud, despite the poor decisions. To my little brother, Guy, for far too much to encapsulate here. I couldn t ask for a better brother. And my auntie/big sister Annie, who I know will be crying with pride reading this. In fact, I couldn t be luckier with my entire family - any family which thinks getting together as a group of 35 for a week at Christmas is normal deserves a mention. I ve also been fortunate enough to marry into another remarkably large and equally warm family. Thanks to David and Susan for letting me look after Penny (or vice-versa). Penny - what can I say? You make me so proud every day: I am in awe of you as a person, a wife and amazing mother, not to mention having the most classical cover drive. I love you. And of course the little monkeys - Toby, Jessica and Oscar - who I hope all grow to love the game as much as I do. I hope sport brings you challenge, friendship, success and failure, but above all, fun. Never forget that.
Although not quite family by blood, my summer Mum and Dad - John and Pug Caines - deserve acknowledgement for looking after me on many long Dorset nights, and Tom has been a central part of my life ever since the under-10s. Cricket brought me together with him, Ralph Dorey, Charlie Warren, Tim Lamb and Matt Swarbrick as kids, and gave us lifelong friendships, despite our recent diaspora (look it up, Swarbs).
Specific cricketing thanks go to all the clubs I have played for and all those associated with them. Child Okeford CC, Brook CC, South Wilts CC, Hong Kong Cricket Club and Farnham CC above all. To Oxford University CC, not least Jack Potter and Graham Charlesworth as head coaches. To Dorset County Cricket Club and Phil Lawrence as my first youth coach - still going strong at Port Regis. Amazing. And a special thought to Peter Moxam, Derek Bridge and Ken House, sadly now no longer with us, but who showed me what commitment and service to a county club is all about. The same goes for Sean Walbridge, Richard Scott, Julian Shackleton and Alan Willows as coaches. As for the players, it would be invidious to pick out too many, but Rints, DC, Parky, Lamby, Deaks, Swarbs, Rupes (and Jenny for the cricket tea chapter), Treags, Matty M, Aza - true Leopards, who made a massive impact on me. At the MCC, thanks to all those who managed games for me as Area Rep and all the tourists, not least Luke Stoughton, Phil Wise, Darren Bicknell and Darren Cousins. I hope I haven t given away too many secrets. The Clayesmore Cormorants, and Andrew Beaton and Greg Swaby, especially for being the driving force behind the club, Blanty, the Dikes, Morgan x 2, Gav Tew, all the Lacks. And back at school, Roger Denning for extending the cow-corner boundary, doubling my wicket tally. And my surrogate big brother Graeme Owton - heroes don t come bigger than you, mate. We ll get there with being colleagues one day.
Away from cricket, I have to thank the staff and leadership teams at all the schools where I have taught: St. George s Weybridge; Lord Wandsworth College; Wellington College; Uppingham School and Harrow International School Hong Kong - thanks to those who allowed me time to indulge my hobby and to those who had to cover for me. I promise it was worth it.
Chris Radmann, Virginia MacGregor, Polly Evans (Gutteridge), Olly Derbyshire for your advice on being a teacher/ author and to Andrew Murray and David and Pip Edwards for ongoing quality control. To Ian Higgins of The Grade Cricketer podcast and Farnham CC for advice and support. Also to the whole Catz crew - it takes me back .
Finally to Luke Sutton, who, from our very first phone call, has understood my vision and has been instrumental in making my dreams come true. I hope there is much more to come.
Introduction
WHEN I set out to write this book, it could have taken on many different angles. For a time I wanted it to be something of a cricketing cultural history, exploring this most English of games at a time when it was undergoing seismic change. The flannelled fools I grew up reading about are giving way to a game hardly recognisable to that which grew up in the green fields of Hampshire and Surrey. And my own cricket career came at a time just before this revolution: the Minor Counties no longer exist by that name, and the university game is a pale imitation of what it once was. So to be the last first-class Oxford captain to toss up at Lord s is a marginal note of which I am proud, and represents a world for which I am nostalgic. Not that I dislike the modern game at all - far from it.
The book might also have been more sharply focused on mental health, something which is rightly gaining far more exposure. I do touch on the challenges facing men in particular, which can be alleviated by sport, but which can also be horribly exacerbated by the pressures of sport. Cricket is unique in many ways: the brutal reality of only having one chance with the bat, the threat of the dreaded yips and long periods of time during which to brood on loss of form or a poor decision against you. It is uniquely lonely in being a team game played out as individual battles and can be unrelenting in exposing weaknesses not only in skill, but in character. Having to walk away from the game through injury, age or selection is a hard pill to swallow. Others have suffered more than me, and have done a far better job of articulating issues of mental health in sport. I would love it, though, if this book was able to open people s eyes to the fact that mental health issues are not just a professional player s problem. If just one person reaches out for support as a result of my story, I d be delighted.
It might have been a book about leadership. Indeed, there is a chapter devoted to captaincy, but it is more a parody of Mike Brearley s outstanding The Art of Captaincy than any serious treatise. Time will tell if there is a leadership book in me, and much of my leadership experience will have stemmed from the litany of mistakes I have made, many of which are captured, or at least alluded to here. My biggest failing, I think, is a common one: fear of failure. Looking back with the coolness and perspective of being long past it as a player, I can psychoanalyse the young man who dreamt of going from his Dorset county roots to becoming captain of England. I am convinced that the constant attempts at humour, playing the fool, and the far too many nights out were often a shield for failure. If I wasn t fully prepared, then I could always blame myself and imagine how good I might have been had I focused more. I rarely, if ever, gave myself the chance to be my very best, possibly because it would have been too hard to take if my best was found out to be not good enough. I learned that there is a lot of truth in the clich that you only get one shot at life, and have had to reconcile myself to my own choices.
So in the end Bowler s Name? ended up being a reflection of the cricketing life I actually led. I have given much of my life to cricket, but it has given me back so much more. This book is an attempt to capture some of the richness of my own cricketing journey. Some of it is serious, some silly, some may be controversial and might even border on the distasteful. It is my own story, or at least a version of it, and I am privileged t