A Striking Summer: How Cricket United a Divided Nation by Stephen Brenkley
This is a hugely enjoyable cricket book about the 1926 Ashes series in England set against a sustained period of industrial action across the nation. If you like your cricket this book will be down your street. If, however, you are expecting a sports book that explores the social, cultural and political trends of a historical era through a high-profile sporting contest, say in the manner of books by Duncan Hamilton or David Kynaston, then you may be disappointed.
That doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy this book but the references to the General Strike and the struggle between Baldwin’s government and the unions felt to me like an add on or a bit of contextual colouring. The promise to show that this divided nation was united by the cricket seemed a bit of a stretch. Yes, the country, as it always is, was fixated on a sporting battle between traditional opponents but I never fully understood how it impacted on the wider mood of the country.
That caveat aside, though, this focus on the Australians months long sojourn around Britain is fascinating. In some senses, much of the cricket action and response to the series is incredibly familiar. The public was nervously excited about the tests; the Australians had been dominant for a decade, with a fiery opening attack, legendary batsmen and a much more athletic fielding side than England. The Aussies were popular (partly a by-product of their involvement in World War I) and confident. England, by contrast were riven by doubts that manifested themselves in fevered conjecture about who should be in the team.
There were, however, striking differences between cricket then and now. The obvious one being the split between the amateurs and professionals. So, for example, the England captain had to be an amateur and a certain sort of decent chap. Of course, such a choice could often have a negative impact on the quality and balance of the team; and, in this series, this became a particularly controversial issue when England replaced their experienced and popular amateur captain, Arthur Carr, for the fifth and final test in rather unusual circumstances. They put in place Percy Chapman, an inexperienced cricketer with even less captaincy experience, in a match they had to win to regain the Ashes after four drawn tests. Carr had been part of the selection committee that made this decision but then let it be known that he was perfectly fit even though this was, supposedly, the rationale for the decision. It was in direct contradiction to the messaging from the selection committee’s chairman, Plum Warner. Mind you, Plum had ways to get his point across – he was the cricket correspondent for an establishment newspaper, The Morning Post. He posted reports about the tests throughout the series: no conflict of interest there, then.
This is just one of the subplots as the narrative heads towards a dramatic climax at The Oval. There’s the fact that both sides were incredibly old by today’s standards – there was only one player for England in his twenties who played in the last test and Wilfred Rhodes (top of the county bowling averages) was recalled at the age of 48. Oh, and the Aussies’ team had a higher average age.
Test matches only lasted three days, pitches were uncovered and many of the players would have a good few drinks after the game before jumping into their motors and driving across the country to their next county game the following day. There was, though, the age old discussion in England about whether or not Bert Strudwick, the 38 year old wicketkeeper, a skilled glovesman with a test average of just over 8 should be replaced by a lesser keeper but better batsman.
This is an excellent book to dip into as it is a combination of test match reports, including contemporaneous commentary, and excellent three or four page pen portraits of the cricketers. Here’s Carr’s advice to Larwood after one match when he bought his abstemious young bowler a beer: “All really fast bowlers need beer to help keep them going. You cannot be a great fast bowler on a bottle of ginger pop or a nice glass of cold water.” It’s full of details like this and an easy, enjoyable read for a cricket fan but don’t expect more than that based on the book’s sub title.