Derek Underwood passed away...

1968 at the Oval after a late last day downpour which looked like preserving Australia’s 2-1 Ashes series lead. The crowd helped to mop up the pitch and waited with bated breath as Underwood was handed the ball with just 30 minutes to the close with 6 wickets to take. He took 4 wickets for 6 runs in 27 balls to help to win the test ,taking the last Australian Wicket, with just 5 minutes to spare. Finishing with figures of 7-50 in the Australian 2nd innings.
In similar circumstances playing for Kent against Sussex he took an incredible 8 wickets for just 9 runs.
His 297 test wickets for England is still unmatched by any other spinner. Still 42 ahead of the next best Graeme Swann.
 
My first game at Grace Road was county v Essex , Jim Laker was playing for the visitors, i think Graham Cross was involved, might be wrong, usually am
 
Gillies59 said:
My first game at Grace Road was county v Essex , Jim Laker was playing for the visitors, i think Graham Cross was involved, might be wrong, usually am
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Many a team he sank that’s why he’s called the Tank, still got his signed testimonial programme somewhere, it’s massive A4 at least 😂
 
1968 Oval Test v Australia.
England 1st Innings 494, (Edrich 164,D’Oliveira 158, Graveney 63).
Australia 1st Innings 324, (Lawry 135, Redpath 67, Mallett 43).
Underwood 54.3 - 21 - 89 - 2
England 2nd Innings 181 (Cowdrey 35,Knott 34,Dexter 28).
Australia 2nd Innings 125.
Lawry c Milburn b Brown 4
Inverarity lbw b Underwood 56
Redpath lbw b Underwood 8
Ian Chappell lbw b Underwood 2
Walters ct Knott b Underwood 1
Sheahan ct Snow b Illingworth 24
Jarman b D’Oliveira 21
Mallett ct Brown b Underwood 0
McKenzie ct Brown b Underwood 0
Gleeson b Underwood 5
Connolly not out 0

Snow 11-5-22-0
Brown 8-3-19-1
Illingworth 28-18-29-1
Underwood 31.3-19-50-7
D’Oliveira 5-4-1-1
Fall of wickets 1-4..2-13..3-19..4-29..5-65..6-110..7-110..8-110..9-120..10-125.
Opener John Inverarity was last man out for 56 and nearly “carried his bat” for the Innings.
 
….Great footage of the last day drama on YouTube introduced by John Arlott (9 minutes 22 secs) if anyone knows how to post it on here. Thanks in advance
if someone could be so kind.
 
borebage53 said:
….Great footage of the last day drama on YouTube introduced by John Arlott (9 minutes 22 secs) if anyone knows how to post it on here. Thanks in advance
if someone could be so kind.
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Here you go. 10 men round the bat. Not a helmet in sight

 
They rolled Colin Milburn around the square to soak up some of the water. He proved to be the early prototype idea for the later Brumbrella!
 
borebage53 said:
Thank you LGFOX. Lots of sawdust on show too. Commentary by Benaud and company!
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It’s a shame it’s in b/w. I just love the scene of 10 men round the bat with no protection
whatsoever. Great names of the day. Was the big guy in the video Colin Milburn. He was a size wasn’t he.

Edited to say. You beat me to it!!
 
D’Oliveira was one of the Wisden Cricketers Of The Year in 1967. But poor form followed in the away series of the West Indies in early 1968. He kept his place in the England side for the Ashes series but despite scoring 87 in the First Test he was dropped for the next 3 matches. Recalled for that final Oval Test he hit the first 3 balls he faced consecutively to the boundary and his magnificent 158 in that 1st innings seemed to guarantee his place for the forthcoming 68/69 tour of South Africa. This was the start of the “D’Oliveira Affair” when pressure was put on the MCC by the South Africa apartheid government not to allow a Cape coloured born cricketer to be part of the tour. Initially picked he was then controversially replaced before finally being reinstated as a late replacement for Tom Cartwright. Prime Minister of South Africa B J Vorster cancelled the tour and South Africa spent the next 22 years excluded from Test Cricket!
 
……South Africa issued a vehement denial that Vorster’s initials of BJ stood for “blow job” which a lot of right minded commentators attributed to him at the time!
 
That postponed SA tour is interesting in that if it Dolly hadn’t have been picked they’d have gone? . Is that correct Borebage? Quite unique in that I can’t recall one person of colour in the England set up in those days apart from him.
 
LGFOX said:
That postponed SA tour is interesting in that if it Dolly hadn’t have been picked they’d have gone? . Is that correct Borebage? Quite unique in that I can’t recall one person of colour in the England set up in those days apart from him.
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Quite a few Indian born cricketers had previously played Test Cricket for England. The most prominent of those being the Nawab of Pataudi Senior who played for both India and England, KS Ranjitsinhji,Duleepsinhji. Indian Prince’s who had been educated at Cambridge or Oxford University’s were qualified to play for England even if they had previously played for India.
Ramon Subba Row was English born of an Indian father and English mother.
Even the England captain in that 1968 Oval Test Colin Cowdrey had been born in India during Empire days.
Leicestershire cricketers Clive Inman and Stanley Jayasinghe were from Ceylon. Although they didn’t play for England.
In 1965 Jayasinghe publicly refused to play for Leicestershire against the white-only South Africans who were touring England, after his own experiences of racism playing against the South Africans in 1960.
 
England were left without a summer test series in 1970 because the scheduled South Africa tour had to be cancelled due to the politics. A hastily planned England v Rest of the World was arranged to fill the void. The World XI won the series 4-1.
Interestingly 5 players who would have originally toured with South Africa were included in the World XI teams. Eddie Barlow,Graeme Pollock,Peter Pollock,Mike Procter and Barry Richards.
Gary Sobers captained the World and Ray Illingworth for England.
The rest of the world squad were Farokh Engineer,Lance Gibbs,Intikhab Alam,Rohan Kanhai,Clive Lloyd,Graham McKenzie,Deryck Murray and Mushtaq Mohammad.
 
borebage53 said:
England were left without a summer test series in 1970 because the scheduled South Africa tour had to be cancelled due to the politics. A hastily planned England v Rest of the World was arranged to fill the void. The World XI won the series 4-1.
Interestingly 5 players who would have originally toured with South Africa were included in the World XI teams. Eddie Barlow,Graeme Pollock,Peter Pollock,Mike Procter and Barry Richards.
Gary Sobers captained the World and Ray Illingworth for England.
The rest of the world squad were Farokh Engineer,Lance Gibbs,Intikhab Alam,Rohan Kanhai,Clive Lloyd,Graham McKenzie,Deryck Murray and Mushtaq Mohammad.
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That’s a great story about the ROTW team series. I went to see Aggers on Sunday in Richmond and he told the Boycott wind up story about this series. Just brilliant

 
borebage53 said:
Quite a few Indian born cricketers had previously played Test Cricket for England. The most prominent of those being the Nawab of Pataudi Senior who played for both India and England, KS Ranjitsinhji,Duleepsinhji. Indian Prince’s who had been educated at Cambridge or Oxford University’s were qualified to play for England even if they had previously played for India.
Ramon Subba Row was English born of an Indian father and English mother.
Even the England captain in that 1968 Oval Test Colin Cowdrey had been born in India during Empire days.
Leicestershire cricketers Clive Inman and Stanley Jayasinghe were from Ceylon. Although they didn’t play for England.
In 1965 Jayasinghe publicly refused to play for Leicestershire against the white-only South Africans who were touring England, after his own experiences of racism playing against the South Africans in 1960.
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I remember Clive Inman playing for us. Played at no.4? Think Brian Davidson took over from him in that position? Never realised there were so many non English players of colour who had played for England.
 
Douglas Jardine the England captain during the infamous “Bodyline” Ashes series in Australia was another who was born in India. Children of the Raj.
 
borebage53 said:
Douglas Jardine the England captain during the infamous “Bodyline” Ashes series in Australia was another who was born in India. Children of the Raj.
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There were many weren’t there. Cliff Richard, Joanna Lumley and Spike Milligan amongst others. Wasn’t one of our own born there too? Englebert
 
It was only in 1962 that the distinction between Gentlemen and Players in English cricket was finally abolished. Gentlemen were amateurs and Players were Professionals. Players were never chosen as England captains only usually Oxford or Cambridge or Posh school educated “Gentlemen”. Wally Hammond had to switch from Player to Gentleman status to become England captain in 1938. The first Player to become England captain was Len Hutton in 1952 and only because he steadfastly refused to take the same route as Hammond had done.
Even on scorecards Gentlemen had their initials in front of their surnames and Players had theirs after the surname.
Since 1963 all County and Test cricketers have been professionals.
 
Inman was from Ceylon originally. Also the Amateurs and Players had separate changing rooms.
Loads of England captains were born outside England. Tony Lewis, Mike Dennis’s, Tony Greig, Ted Dexter was born in Milan.
 
I read Colin Milburns book,great read. He was “great friends”with Linda Thorsen who was Tara King in the Avengers.
I used to go to the Cheltenham cricket festival every year if the county were there at tea on one of the days a load of old cricketers who had been having lunch came on to the pitch and we went over to talk to them.
I had a long conversation with Ken Shuttleworth, John Snow,Monte Lynch to name a few, I asked Ken if he was still in touch with his old mate Ken Higgs, he gave me a look and said “at the moment no, he died 9 months ago”.
 
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