A Flick of the Fingers

Martin Chandler | 11:21am GMT 15 March 2015

Published: 2015
Pages: 192
Author: Burns, Michael
Publisher: Pitch
Rating: 4 stars

However good a book is it can sometimes leave its reader with a slight sense of frustration, and A Flick of the Fingers is the most striking example of that I have found. No doubt a labour of love on the part of its author rather than a exercise in penning a bestseller, Michael Burns skillfully avoids the traps that were inevitably in his path in writing a biography of Jack Crawford a man who was, until now, one of the most interesting former England cricketers whose life has not been recorded in this way, but inevitably he cannot do the impossible.

Crawford’s was a prodigious talent. He made his Surrey debut at 17 and to this day only Brian Close has been capped by England at a younger age than Crawford’s 19 years and 32 days. Despite such a head start a little over two years after it began Crawford’s Test career ended. His performances in his seven Tests against South Africa and five against Australia did not prove to be the stuff of legend, but were sound enough and there is every reason to believe that had his life taken a different turn he might have gone on to achieve greatness.

It was the closing years of the Golden Age that saw Crawford enter First Class cricket. From a family of seven he was the third son to play First Class cricket, his two older brothers, Frank and Reginald, both playing with some distinction, Frank in particular, for Leicestershire, then as now one of the weakest sides on the county circuit. For Jack however, the third son of a cricket mad Parson, who was chaplain of a substantial mental hospital near Croydon, the Oval beckoned. It is in large part thanks to Crawford senior that the book is as good as it is, as the zeal with which he compiled and maintained the scrapbooks on Jack’s career were the means by which Burns was able to put so much flesh on the bare bones of a largely forgotten life.

As a cricketer Crawford was an all-rounder. With the ball he seems to have been something akin to the great Sydney Barnes, and whilst Crawford was clearly not such a magnificent bowler as Barnes the fact he outbowled ‘SF’ over the course of the 1907/08 Ashes series is ample testament to his quality. Quite what he did with the ball is an interesting question, but his unconventional off spin was bowled in a way which gives Burns’ book its title. When Crawford coached in Australia his method caused one of his charges, great Australian cricket writer in the making AG ‘Johnny’ Moyes, to use the word agony when discussing the effect on his fingers of following Crawford’s instructions. With the bat Crawford seems to have represented everything the Golden Age stood for, quick scoring, powerful hitting and above all style and grace and, albeit in an era when that facet of the game was much undervalued, he seems to have been a fine fielder as well.

In 1906 and 1907 Crawford did the double, and in 1908 he missed out by just two wickets on achieving it again before in 1909 he had his annus horribilis. The problem arose out of Crawford refusing to captain Surrey in a game against the touring Australians because he was concerned about the weakness of the side that he was given. The autocratic committee did not appreciate Crawford’s forthright behavior, and even less that the very blunt correspondence exchanged on the matter was leaked by Crawford to the press. A life ban from the Oval followed and Crawford left for Australia.

Burns illustrates in various ways how Crawford’s father seems to have always wanted to play a dominant role in his son’s life, and why despite his amateur status the lack of a private income meant Crawford’s existence was never financially secure. 1909 also saw Crawford suffer a loss of form for the first time and Burns cites all these as matters affecting Crawford that summer. It is difficult to criticize a man for looking to secure what he is worth in life but Crawford’s actions with Surrey, and the more so later in Australia and New Zealand, as well as the story of his first marriage all suggest that, certainly as a young man, he was not a particularly pleasant individual.

After leaving for Australia Crawford had taken the trouble to write and apologize to Surrey so the ban was then lifted and, in a nice touch, A Flick of the Fingers, begins with the Boy’s Own story of Crawford’s reappearance for the county against the Australian Services XI in 1919. Crawford was only 33, no great age now and certainly not then, but the pressing need to find a regular income meant a handful of games in 1920 and 1921 apart his career in First Class cricket was over.

It is striking that a man who seems to have been less than reliable in matters of business should ultimately have spent the final 25 years of his life with the same employer, Elders and Fyffes, a company engaged in the banana trade with the Caribbean. In his younger days Crawford had done some writing for the press, yet the years up to his death at the age of 76 in 1963 were ones in which he kept a low profile. He did marry again in due course, but had no children, and that is the slightly frustrating aspect of the book. It would be fascinating to know what Crawford, in the autumn of his years, had thought of young man who had given so much pleasure and caused such controversy back in Edwardian times, but sadly there was no one left for Burns to ask.

Despite the opportunities the passage of time has robbed Burns of A Flick of the Fingers is a book I have no hesitation in recommending, although it is not quite perfect. Even though the interest in Crawford’s career is not measured in terms of runs and wickets, the lack of any sort of statistical appendix is still a little irritating as, when I want to dip into the book in future will be the lack of an index. There are some fascinating photographs, sourced no doubt from the family scrapbooks. Amongst them are some excellent images of Crawford in action. All would appear to have come from the pioneering camerawork of George Beldam, although as those of his bowling are taken straight from Great Bowlers – Their Methods at a Glance the quality of the reproduction might have been better. The source of the shots of Crawford jumping out to drive and demonstrating the pull are not however from the companion volume on batsmen – they are eye-catching to say the least and are almost, as the saying goes, worth the entrance money on their own.