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Pring recalls how the brilliant Derek Randall prepared for the season, and captures on camera Terry Alderman's painful apprehension of a pitch invader
DEREK PRINGLE
MAR 24
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GUEST POST
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A new season beckons and cricketers all over Britain will be hoping and preparing for a bumper haul of runs and wickets. At county level this is mostly done as a team through fielding practice, nets and middle time in sun-rich places like the UAE, but there are also individual means to reaching a state of preparedness for the challenges ahead.
For Derek Randall, once of Nottinghamshire and England, the big issue was breaking in any new kit his sponsors might have given him. Back then, and Randall’s career spanned from the 70s until the 90s, new bats were sandpapered and oiled and new batting gloves made supple by stuffing newspaper inside them.
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For leg protectors straight out of the packet, Randall had the novel idea of breaking them in at home and Ian Botham once reported seeing both Randall and his wife doing the washing up while each wearing a new pair of Gunn and Moore pads
. “Gorra ger ‘em comfortable and moulded to me legs or I won’t feel right in t’ middle,” was how Randall explained it at the time.
Randall, pictured at the top in a portrait taken by me in 1985 on an England ‘B’ tour to Sri Lanka, was cut from colourful cloth. A fabulous strokeplayer when the mood took him (which critics would say wasn’t often enough), he was nevertheless in a league of his own as a fielder, at least until he threw his arm out some time in the 1980s.
Supple, predator-quick over 25 yards, and with a dead-eye for the stumps, you took quick singles at your peril whenever he patrolled the covers.
I got to know him properly when I roomed with him on the 1982/83 Ashes tour of Australia. Ian Botham, along with a slew of other senior players, refused to share with him on account of his snoring, though I soon discovered he had other unsavoury habits.
A ball of energy, much of it still unquenched by the day’s end, Randall would think nothing of rousing me up at 4.30am.
“Wake up Youth,” he'd say, using a sobriquet he applied to anyone under 30.
“What’s up?” I’d ask, curious about why I was being stirred.
“I can’t sleep youth.”
“Er, let’s see if I’ve got this right. You’ve woken me to tell me you can’t sleep.”
“Aye youth, wanna cup o’ tea?”
And that was his default for just about any problem or aggravation he faced - a cup of tea. He must have made and drunk thousands of them on that tour which lasted well over four months (though not as many as Jack Russell would have supped had he been there).
Despite his insomnia he played the innings of that 82/3 Ashes series, at least for us, in the opening Test at the WACA in Perth. On the fastest, bounciest pitch on earth, he cut and carved Dennis Lillee, Geoff Lawson and Terry Alderman to distraction. You need to have strong back foot shots to prosper in Perth and Arkle had plenty.
I had the privilege and it really was a privilege of seeing part of his second innings’ 115 from the other end (he also made 78 in the first innings), as we compiled a 50 partnership for the eighth wicket.
Lillee and Rod Marsh, Australia’s wicket-keeper, sledged him almost every ball. But Randall, or Arkle as most of us called him after the famous racehorse, lapped up the abuse. While verbal barbs can get to some Arkle loved to chat especially at the crease. Essentially, it took his mind off why he was there, relieving the pressure we all felt in trying to make runs in Ashes series.
We didn’t prevail in Perth but we didn’t lose either, which is almost as good as a win at the WACA, a venue England have won at only once; in 1978 when Australia were weakened by defections to Kerry Packer’s World Series. Otherwise, England’s record there is abysmal: Played 14, Lost 10, Drawn 3.
It was in that Test that Terry Alderman, Australia’s swing king, dislocated his right shoulder while tackling a pitch invader. The incident happened at drinks on the second day. I was on the players’ balcony with my camera, having been bowled by Lillee for a 47-ball duck, and afternoon drinks were being taken. As everybody got up for a stretch, the press photographers included, a group of about 25 yobs ran on to the field.
A few police followed but nobody thought much of it until one of them tried to nick Alderman’s sunhat and cuffed his head in the process. Having spent more than 130 overs in the field at this stage Alderman saw red, gave chase and tackled the oik bringing him down with a rugby tackle that would now incur at least a yellow card. Unhappily, he popped his shoulder in the process.
I captured the sequence on my camera though it moved too fast for a long lens not steadied by a tripod, which is why the images are somewhat blurred.
Terry Alderman pursues and catches a pitch invader
Apart from TV grabs I believe these are the only photos of the incident before and during impact. As mentioned, the press snappers were all taking a break and their cameras, on tripods, were focused down the pitch. By the time they realised there was a story to be snapped, Alderman was being stretchered off and the police had apprehended his tormentor.
Being highly parochial the Aussie press claimed Alderman’s misfortune was due to an English plot, the chief protagonist having only just emigrated to Perth from England (the suggestion being he’d not been there long enough to be a dinky-di Aussie). The reality was that you could drink at the cricket all day long and they were pissed. As a result, alcohol was banned from being sold during the middle session for the rest of the match.
Alderman played no further part in the Test or the series and missed a year’s cricket recuperating after surgery. Lillee also missed the remaining matches with a recurring knee injury. In their place Australia called up Jeff Thomson and Rodney Hogg. Together with Lawson they combined to help Australia win 2-1.
For Arkle the sparkling form of Perth did not travel and he passed 50 again only once in the rest of the series. He kept making cups of tea though and breaking his pads in with the missus
