Historical footage: Impressions of some greats

[JBMAC]

Found a bit of the champion Windies team of the mid 60s, who I've had a bit of a liking for since they got forgotten about in Fire In Babylon

You can tell which is Wes Hall here because look at the bloody size of him - google suggests he's not actually colossal on numbers but he really sticks out here

Wes Hall stood at least 6ft6". Second fastest bowler I ever faced and a great bloke to have as coach. His stint in Qld was very well received by both players and the cricketing public. Nothing ever worried him.

 

[fredfertang]

Wes Hall stood at least 6ft6". Second fastest bowler I ever faced and a great bloke to have as coach. His stint in Qld was very well received by both players and the cricketing public. Nothing ever worried him.

Don't tease JB - who was the quickest?

 

[JBMAC]

Don't tease JB - who was the quickest?

Fred, without a doubt Jeff Thompson. His biggest problem in his early days in Qld was he had difficulty in controlling direction.

 

[watson]

Favourite Thomo Youtube video...

 

[Red]

Jesus. How Thommo never killed anyone is beyond me.

 

[Midwinter]

Fred, without a doubt Jeff Thompson. His biggest problem in his early days in Qld was he had difficulty in controlling direction.

JBMAC is now one of my heroes, having faced Wes Hall and Thommo, and who knows inbetween, and Lived !!!

 

[fredfertang]

So how did the JB v Thommo personal contest pan out? or were you fortunate enough to play on the same side?

 

[JBMAC]

So how did the JB v Thommo personal contest pan out? or were you fortunate enough to play on the same side?

It was interesting fred. When he first came up from NSW he and I played for the same club team and I would face him in the nets only and he really had no control of direction. Then he switched clubs the following season and I suppose I becam one of his "bunnies" Whenever he bowled a shortish ball though he would apologise. He was VERY fast and had developed a reasonable accuracy. The odd one strayed but he had developed the sandshoe crusher which he could deliver on a regular basis. Not knowing how the ball would come out of his hand made him difficult to play. I feel sometime I would just hang the bat out and trust providence.

 

[fredfertang]

I feel sometime I would just hang the bat out and trust providence.

Which explains why you have lived so long JB - you are clearly a very wise man!

 

[watson]

Here's a 26 min documentary that follows the Springboks around England during their 1965 Tour. It shows all the South African and English players (Barlow, Pollock, Barrington etc) in action, but the best footage by a long way is of Peter Pollock bowling. There is also a minute of Colin Bland scoring his 127 at the Oval. Unfortunately, there is no special footage of Bland fielding, just one pick-up and throw.

Johnners narrates the whole thing, and there is a typical 60s soundtrack intro. Even if you don't like cricket it's a nice historical snap-shot just-the-same.

 

[fredfertang]

Thanks for that Watson - really enjoyed - that's just before my time as a cricket watcher so was particularly thrilled with two aspects of it.

First up was to see some footage of Dave Larter whose career was ruined by injury, but he'd obviously made a great impression on my Dad who always talked him up. Looked a distinctively useful bowler on that.

The other reason was an England bowler from the first step, who didn't get a name check at all. He was the left armer right at the beginning, Fred Rumsey. Fred I do remember because he played four seasons of List A only for Derbyshire in the early seventies. In those days he was certainly built for comfort more than speed, but was still sharp and did very well. Again my Dad would enthuse about him and what might have been if he hadn't got fat and lazy, and he looked quick too

Keep 'em coming

 

[watson]

This Rothman's documentary is about the England V Rest of the World matches of 1965. It's worth watching just to listen to John Arlott's voice for 18 minutes, but it does feature a little of Hunte and Barlow, then Hunte and Hanif batting together. There is very good slow motion action of Hall and Griffith bowling, and a notable miss-field by Colin Bland who looks clueless as to where the ball is.

For Fred there is brief footage of the tall lanky Larter winding up again. Definitely very quick. From what I can gather England had an embarrassment of riches in the mid 60s. The likes of Rumsey, Cartwright, Brown, and Allen would walk into todays squad but are now merely historical footnotes.

 

[JBMAC]

This Rothman's documentary is about the England V Rest of the World matches of 1965. It's worth watching just to listen to John Arlott's voice for 18 minutes, but it does feature a little of Hunte and Barlow, then Hunte and Hanif batting together. There is very good slow motion action of Hall and Griffith bowling, and a notable miss-field by Colin Bland who looks clueless as to where the ball is.

For Fred there is brief footage of the tall lanky Larter winding up again. Definitely very quick. From what I can gather England had an embarrassment of riches in the mid 60s. The likes of Rumsey, Cartwright, Brown, and Allen would walk into todays squad but are now merely historical footnotes.

Thanks for that Very enjoyable to watch

 

[watson]

Thanks for that Very enjoyable to watch

Pleasure JBMAC!

 

[watson]

This great one hour video was made in 1986 and documents the first 92 years of NZ cricket. If features interviews with the great Jack Cowie, Bert Sutcliffe, and John R Reid. Bert Sutcliffe recalls his battles with Neil Adcock. There is excellent footage (relatively speaking) of Cowie bowling and John R Reid batting against South Africa in the 1960s. Of course it features NZs first ever Test win against Australia, bowling-out Geoff Boycott's England team for less than 130, and its one wicket win against the West Indies in 1980 thanks to some truly comical fielding.

In 1986 all of the living NZ captains at the time from Curly Page (1930s) to Jeremy Coney gathered to pick their ATG NZ team. The video shows that they came up with;

01. GM Turner
02. CS Dempster
03. BE Congdon
04. B Sucliffe
05. MP Donnelly
06. JR Reid
07. KJ Wadsworth
08. RJ Hadlee
09. RC Motz
10. WE Merritt
11. J Cowie


This is a must watch for fans of NZ cricket.

 

[watson]

In 1972 Garry Sobers hit 254 against Australia at the MCG. Don Bradman was so excited by the innings that he helped make a documentary on the innings.

Basically, the video consists of Bradman reviewing some of Sobers best shots in normal and slow motion, and then making a retrospective analysis. It's not often that you get to watch Sobers thrash boundaries while listening to Bradman's commentary at the same time.

(Don't miss Sober's straight drive off Dennis Lillee at the 13 min 50 sec mark. The best of the lot.)

 

[harsh.ag]

This great one hour video was made in 1986 and documents the first 92 years of NZ cricket. If features interviews with the great Jack Cowie, Bert Sutcliffe, and John R Reid. Bert Sutcliffe recalls his battles with Neil Adcock. There is excellent footage (relatively speaking) of Cowie bowling and John R Reid batting against South Africa in the 1960s. Of course it features NZs first ever Test win against Australia, bowling-out Geoff Boycott's England team for less than 130, and its one wicket win against the West Indies in 1980 thanks to some truly comical fielding.

This is a must watch for fans of NZ cricket.

This is excellent. This thread has become gold in the last 15 pages.

 

[watson]

Interesting piece by David Frith about 'Cricket on Film'. The most saddening part was that Jessop, Hirst, and Rhodes were filmed during their famous 1902 Test against Australia, yet no idiot thought to look after the reel.

Cricket on film
A moving record

David Frith


Death is not absolute so long as there remain photographs or sound recordings or moving images, preferably in colour. For cricket lovers, the camera must feel like man's greatest invention: thanks to celluloid and a crank handle, W. G. Grace, Victor Trumper, Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond and Don Bradman live on - if only in two-dimensional form and in shades of black and white, though later with audio.

It is frustrating that today's technological wizardry took so long to arrive. The earliest surviving conventional motion film is the little sequence of Ranjitsinhji wielding a wild bat in the Sydney nets late in 1897, although we have Eadweard Muybridge's multi-camera sequences from the 1880s of naked batsmen and bowlers from Pennsylvania University; the processed frames are viewable on his zoopraxiscope. A film clip of Clem Hill batting at Sheffield in 1896 was once listed, but nobody now knows where it is. Nor was proper care taken of shots of A. E. Stoddart's team and Victoria walking on to the field around the time of the Ranji mini-film.

Elsewhere, clips of Bobby Peel, George Hirst and Bobby Abel show them motionless, either perplexed or embarrassed. So almost 40 years had passed since the first Wisden before people paid to see the cricketers magically in motion in Biograph peepshows. As newsreel companies sprang up and picture houses lured audiences, it became a way of life. Topical Budget, Pathe´ News, British Movietone, Warwick Bioscope, and Gaumont British all devised captivating stories and images, and by the 1920s there were over 20m attendances a week at UK cinemas. Gems such as the film of Gilbert Jessop, Hirst and Wilfred Rhodes in England's one-wicket victory in the 1902 Ashes Test at The Oval have been lost, but recently two barrels filled with early film shot by Mitchell & Kenyon, the Blackburn-based company, were found; further discoveries should not be impossible......

Wisden - A moving record

 

[watson]

Here is a couple of minutes of Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali opening the batting for India at Old Trafford, 1946. Unfortunately we see more of Mushtaq, but there is a lovely late cut by Merchant. The second half features what looks like Sohoni and Lala Amarnath bowling. Amarnath is the one bowling off 3 or 4 paces, and off the wrong-foot.

http://www.howstat.com/cricket/Statistics/Matches/MatchScorecard.asp?MatchCode=0277

 

[Chrish]

Most extensive footage of Sobers batting I have seen! Narrated by none other than Don