CB Fry's XI

After Armstrong, Benaud, Constantine, Dexter and Edrich it must be time for a bit of Fry.

1. Roy Fredericks (WI)
2. Jack Fingleton (AUS)
3. CB Fry (ENG) (Capt)
4. Tip Foster (ENG)
5. Andy Flower (ZIM)
6. Aubrey Faulkner (SA)
7. Andrew Flintoff (ENG)
8. Frank Foster (ENG)
9. Bruce French (ENG) (Wkt)
10. Arthur Fielder (ENG) Fazal Mahmood (PAK)
11. Tich Freeman (ENG)

If some teams are a chore to select, others are a pleasure. This is one such delightful XI.There are names to conjour with aplenty: Fry, Faulkner, the (unrelated) Fosters, Freeman... And names one wishes to have been able to include too such as Percy Fender or Chuck Fleetwood-Smith. But there can only be XI and these are they.

UPDATED: Commenter Tommy T has persuaded me that I boobed in omitting Fazal Mahmood, Pakistan's first great quick bowler.

This is a side laced with brilliance and melancholy in almost equal measure. Poor Aubrey Faulkner killed himself while like so many great cricketers CB Fry was also prone to depression. Yet, to have seen him bat, or Tiny Tich Freeman beetling away all afternoon at Canterbury, or... well, one could go on. To the selection then:

Fingleton and Fredericks offer a pleasing contrast as the opening pair. Fingleton, who gains points for being a journalist turned test match cricketer rather than vice versa, was all nudges and doggedness; Fredericks, by contrast, belonged to the whirling dervish school of opening batsmen. A fierce hooker of the ball he can be relied upon to get the innings off to a rapid start. (Incidentally, would todays cricket writers be permitted as literary a title as that given to Fingleton's account of the 1948 Ashes series, "Brightly Fades the Don"?)

To observe that CB Fry  - perhaps the sine qua non of a certain type of English gentleman of his era - owed much to Ranji does not diminish the scale of his own achievements (heck, they might be even greater in this era in which we're relaxed about bowlers chucking the ball). Fry batted with an imperial grandeur that belied the intelligence and thought he applied to his cricket. He is the obvious selection to skipper the side, not least because England never lost a test in which he captained the "mother country".

He was the supreme all-rounder: in addition to captaining England at cricket, he played for them at football too, was for a spell the holder of the world long-jump record while only injury, I think, prevented him from winning a rugby blue at Oxford. As if that were enough, he was for a while considered, thanks in part to his association with Ranji and his presence at the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva, for the position of King of Albania.

But following Shrewsbury and in alliance with Ranji, Fry, as Cardus said, did much to reinvent batting, paving the way for the modern method and the modern game. In Cardus's words:

he belonged -- and it was his glory -- to an age not obsessed by specialism; he was one of the last of the English tradition of the amateur, the connoisseur, and, in the most delightful sense of the word, the dilettante.

Following Fry is RE "Tip" foster, another virtuso from the Golden Age who, like Fry, also represented England at football. Though he played only eight test matches (and never faced the Australians in England) he demonstrated his class with the 287 he made on his test debut at Sydney in 1903-04. Had work and other commitments not prevented him from playing much county cricket it's reasonable to presume he could have achieved even greater things. As his Wisden obituary (he died in 1914 from diabetes complications aged just 36) put it:

It was characteristic of Mr Foster that... he could at any time return to first-class cricket and play as well as if he had been in full practice all the season. A case in point occurred in 1910. He only played once for Worcestershire that year, but he scored 133 against Yorkshire.

A striking parallel can be drawn between Mr Foster's career as a batsman at Oxford and that of FS Jackson, at Cambridge. Both were very good bats at school, but in their early days of University cricket there was little suggestion of the heights they were destined to reach. Steadily improving for three seasons, each in his last year -- Jackson in 1893 and Foster in 1900 -- blossomed out as an England batsman of the first rank. In his position at the wicket -- he stood with both eyes turned full on the bowler -- and his general style of play, Mr Foster was quite modern but, in adapting himself to swerving bowlers, he did not, like so many batsmen, lose his brilliancy on the off-side. Nothing could have been finer than his hitting past cover-point, and his late cut was a model of safety and clever placing. After his two hundreds for the Gentlemen in 1900, CB Fry said of him that no one, except Ranjitsinhji, could wield a bat with greater quickness. 

Andy Flower is the best batsman produced by Zimbabwe in recent years and even in this batsmans' age a first class average of more than 50 is not to be sneered at. That he combined his run-making with wicket-keeping for his country (though not, generally, for Essex) is remarkable.

Aubrey Faulkner was one of the most remarkable players of his era. Though he began as a specialist bowler, he built himself into a batsman capable of averaging 40 in first-class cricket - played, of course, on uncovered wickets. in his first-class career - which was interrupted by the Kaiser's War - his leg-spinners claimed nearly 450 wickets at fewer than 20 runs apiece. There seems little doubt that he would have prospered in any era.

The second all-rounder in this selection, Andrew Flintoff, needs no introduction. Suffice it to say that at his best in 2004-05 he would have merited a place in any World XI. Let us hope he can rise to those heights agin even if one also rather fears he won't.

Frank Foster and Arthur Fielder are two more stars from the Golden Age. Fielder was a fast-bowler instrumental in helping Kent win the County Championship for the first time in 1906. He once took all ten wickets for the Players against the Gentlemen (then, remember, perhaps the most keenly-contested non-Test match affair in England) while he was also a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1907. Angus Fraser may consider himself mildly unfortunate to be overloooked, while the great Australian bowler of the 1880s JJ Ferris is also left on the sidelines, in part because it is even harder to assess players from the game's earliest international days than it is those from the Golden Age. Fielder could bowl fast for long spells, however and on the 1907 tour of Australia took 25 wickets at 25 in just four tests. The Aussies were glad to be rid of him and, alas, there have been too few English bowlers of whom that could be said.

UPDATE: Be that as it may, after careful contemplation and some persuasion, Fielder just loses out to Fazal Mahmood who was the trailblazer for so many great Pakistani cricketers. True, his leg-cutters were helped by the matting wickets he played on in 1950s Pakistan, but all players must make do with and exploit prevailing conditions. He was a Pakistani Alec Bedser and, as this account suggests, I should not have overlooked him in my initial selection:

Those who didn't see him play might wonder if he was really that accurate and wholeheartedly committed ... Did his legcutter really, as Frank Tyson once wrote, jump from leg stump towards the slips regularly? Did it really spin more than Richie Benaud's legspinner, as the man himself claimed? (Ken Barrington, bowled by one such miraculous delivery, was prompted to call him, pint in hand and sorrow in tow, "the bloody greatest").

Well, cold numbers tell a big story: he took 13 five-wicket hauls in just 34 Tests, and he took ten in a match on no fewer than four occasions. A further six times, he ended with four in an innings. Add to that his impressive economy rate - just over two an over - and the picture looks even better.

He played a key role in each of Pakistan's first, and most celebrated, victories. What is set in stone - in cold, hard numerical fact - is his part in first ensuring Pakistan's entry into Test cricket, and then making it among the most accomplished of any new nation.

Frank Foster also played little test cricket - just 11 tests - but he was,

A fine allrounder, a superb medium fast left arm bowler, and a natural hitter. He is best remembered, perhaps for his partnership with Sid Barnes on the 1911-12 Ashes tour, where their pairing was all but unstoppable.

Indeed so, his 45 test wickets came at just 20 runs apiece, no more expensive than his wickets in first class cricket overall. Foster only enjoyed six years of cricket before, aged 25, the First World War provided a new enemy for English cricketers. A motorcycle injury, alas, sustained during the war ended his career completely. Had it not done so it's sensible to suppose that his name would shine more brightly today than it does. Nor was he just a bowler: he not only skippered Warwickshire to their first championship in 1911, but his 305* (scored in a single day) was a record score for the county until Brian Lara's 501* against Durham.

Tich Freeman should require little introduction either. Only Wilfred Rhodes took more first-class wickets than Freeman and no-one is ever going to knock Freeman into third spot on the all-time list. 3,776 wickets says it all. Wisden, again:

Freeman's wonderfully well controlled leg-breaks, with a skilfully disguised googly or top-spinner interspersed, his well-nigh perfect length and cunning flighting frequently puzzled the most experienced opponents and on no fewer than 17 occasions he dismissed 100 or more batsmen in a season. His most triumphant summer was that of 1928, when his victims totalled 304 for 18.15 runs each, a feat without parallel in first-class cricket, and five years later he took 298. His wickets exceeded 200 in five other seasons: 276 in 1931, 275 in 1930, 253 in 1932, 212 in 1935 and 205 in 1934. Three times - a feat unequalled by any other bowler - this short but stockily-built man, known in the cricket world as "Tich", took all 10 wickets in an innings

Nuff said.

And so to the final selection: Bruce French. I had contemplated giving Andy Flower the gloves and selecting another batsman, probably Stephen Fleming. But in the end I decided that the advantage of Fleming's additional runs cannot quite overcome the disadvantage of employing a sub-standard wicket-keeper in a team that also selects two wrist-spinners. Flower kept wicket for Zimbabwe faute de mieux and not even this fine cricketers' admirers would consider himself a stylist behind the stumps. At this level - albeit an imaginary level - every chance matters.

French was not, incidentally, a complete mug with the bat, averaging 18 in tests and he was a good enough keeper to delay by a couple of years Jack Russell's entry into the England side. In other words it is reasonable to consider French among the half dozen or so best practioners of his craft at the time he as playing. That, as much as anything else, is an all-but iron rule for selection in this series.

And, frankly, admirable, elegant, fluent batsman that he is - and when well-set splendid to watch to boot - few people would make a claim of greatness for Stephen Fleming. An average of 40 is no mark of brilliance in this debased batsman's age. Equally pertinently one might point to his average of 25 against Australia and ask just how many extra runs he is likely to contribute against a top class attack anyway?

No, there is room for purism too and if one is selecting a brace of googly merchants then it seems necessary to emply a specialist wicket-keeper to serve them properly. If that means losing a few runs on the swings in order to gain them on the roundabouts then so be it.

This is, then, a fine side that would be as enjoyable as many to watch even if it does not quite hit the heights of greatness we shall explore in the next two weeks as the G and H XIs take to the field.

Comments

[tommyt]

better late than never and sorry to hear you have been ill, which may of course have impaired your judgement somewhat.

In many ways I am delighted to see French included, as you liked Somerset, Richards and Botham, I liked Notts Randall and Hadlee. French was a good keeper and, by 80's standards a reasonable bat (Bob Taylor might well make the T's and has batted at 11 for England).

You have left out a few folk who merit consideration. Your opening pair work well but the under-rated Graeme Fowler, who played 30 tests whne Gooch was baned, never let England down and offered something of a counterpoint to Tavare without ever selling his wicket lightly.

So then to the attack, the old chucking bastard and Flintoff are huge advantages to this team (who I would back to get to the QF of any alphabet world cup).

Fazal Mahmood is a more than worthy reason why you might want to look beyond the golden age once or twice. Another whose career was hampered by geo-politics he was the first great quick from the subcontinent. He played in 30-odd test matches and had an average of 24 whilst almost single handedly delivering Pakistans first win (in I think any test) against England.

On the top order.

Fleming you mentioned - I would be tempted to find a place for him at 3. I heard Atherton describe him as a good but not great player the other day. Look in the mirror Mikey.

Hows about Keith Fletcher for an extra bat -by my count we have a fair few bowlers in this team (chuckers included). Fletcher averaged a decmial place less than 40 over 60 tests in 15 years. He was pretty average against pace, more so than your controversial omission of Denness, so I am not going to die in a ditch here - particularly given his last ball diving catch which prevented Randall from leading Notts to victory in the 85 NatWest final.

The next two weeks will be fun - could Gatting scrape in ? Was Grace that good really ? Lets not mix up the Headleys or Hadlees either.

[Louis]

I'd have Fleming in there to skipper the team (his ave of 40 sits just as pretty as that of Fry; low 30s)and add another batsman whilst handing the gloves to Flower and giving French the heave ho.

[Shippers]

I am just heading to bed, but this is the team I had prepared in advance of your offering... (I will send detailed abuse in the morning).

Roy Fredericks
CB Fry (cpt)
Stephen Fleming
Tip Foster
Andy Flower (wkt)
Aubrey Faulkner
Andy Flintoff
Frank Foster
Tich Freeman
Ken Farnes
George Freeman

I think Flower quite adequate enough for the gloves and would include Fleming instead of French. As one who spent his formative years at Trent Bridge in the era of Broad, Robinson, Randall, Rice, Hadlee, Hemmings, French and Saxelby (look him up!), I think Brucie a gifted keeper but hardly the kind of legendary stylist who demands inclusion.

This is hardly Don Tallon v Bob Taylor.

I can see the case for Fazal Mahmood, certainly over Fielder, but I prefer Ken Farnes (not least because I was considering Fazal for a place in the Ms. If he is an F, perhaps he is preferred to Farnes) but your greatest omission is George Freeman, one of the greatest fast bowlers of his age and third name on my sheet after Fry and Faulkner. I will expand in the morning.

[potions]

JenPen, your winters are so extreme you must feel the joy of spring all the more when it comes. It’ s in the air- the animals are at it like it’ ll be banned tomorrow or something. Last night I was up with insomnia for a while, and listened to a pair of lusty raccoons courting for about half an hour. I swear, if all the love in the air could be visualized, there would be showers of little love hearts popping over all the bushes.

[culinary arts]

does the logic that leads you to pick Flintoff on his 2004-5 form constrain you to having to consider Gooch based on his performances since, say, winter 1989-90?

[Shippers]

Potions makes a good point. The inconsistency police are on your case, Massie.

As a fully paid up member of the hating Graeme Gooch fraternity, I have nonetheless found it impossible to leave him out of my G XI. He will not open - that privilege handed to greater men - but we all await the amusing justifications for your (understandable but not, I fear, adequate) prejudice.

[Shippers]

apologies, it was culinary arts with whom I intended to agree, much as I too appreciate the spring symphony of amorous animals

[Shippers]

Fs – THE FINAL WORD
Now young Alex, here is what I believe to be the definitive word on the F-team, which I think we all agree has been the most enjoyable to date.
I am prepared to accept your admonitions against six bowlers and even the need for a specialist wicket keeper.
But I will now make the case for two omissions from your original XI, which I believe to be utterly compelling.

We are agreed on the need to include Fredericks, Fry, (Tip) Foster, Flower, Faulkner, Flintoff, (Frank) Foster and Titch Freeman.
Throw in Bruce French and that leaves us with one batting position and one bowler to find.

BATTING
I would start by saying that Jack Fingleton is a fine individual, for the journalistic reasons you champion, but for a man who played when he did, in a domineering Australian side, his Ashes average of 31 is bordering on the pitiful. By his own admission he could not play the pull shot and was unsuited to English conditions. He averaged just 20 on English soil. Given your belief that the Ashes is the apogee, and England were certainly stronger opposition than South Africa in those days, I think this is a serious black mark. It is one that you have regularly advanced against other batsmen during this project. I think, if you were an Aussie, you would hold Ashes performance as vital. I would also add that I fully expect you to use Gooch’s relative failure against the Australians against him next week. You will have no leg to stand on unless you send Fingleton back to the pavilion.
He can hack a demotion to the second XI, where he will enjoy a drink and an anecdote with Percy Fender.
Fry spent most of his England career opening and he can do so here.
In return I will drop Stephen Fleming, who fine cricketer as he is, warrants inclusion only when his captaincy is considered too. With CB taking the coin toss, we can sideline Fleming.

Which leaves me to state the case in the middle order for Nicholas Felix. Born Nicholas Wanostrocht, I originally ignored him, but find that to Cricinfo and Wisden he is universally Felix and thus a proud F-man.
Stated simply, Felix was the finest left-handed batsman of the 19th century, and for 25 years in the 1830s to the 1850s, before Grace’s arrival, would have been one of the first names on the World XI team sheet, alongside his Kent partner Fuller Pilch.

Described by the Cricketer as “one of the most remarkable cricketers of all times”, his average of 18.15 sounds pitiful, but he played on truly horrendous pitches, selected by the bowler in advance of the game for maximum devastation. Many featured bumps, hills and hollows on a length. Most experts agree that averages from this time have to be multiplied by 3 or even 4 to attain a true measure of a batsman’s skill (just as we should probably double Grace’s 33 later in the century to truly judge The Champion). Pilch, nearly universally regarded as the best batsman before Grace, averaged 18.61.

Simon Wilde, in his book Number One, says of Felix “was a great stylist and almost as skilled as Pilch at dealing with fast bowling”. Pilch, who saw him most from the other end, commented: “He knew the whole science of the game and had a hand and eye such as no one ever beat him at.”
Altham and Swanton’s History of Cricket talks of him as “that brilliant hitter” who graced the All-England XI of 1847, a side which stands comparison with any but the 1902, 1953 and 2005 teams. That same year he hit 113 for Kent against Sussex. Four years earlier he clobbered 104 for England v MCC at Lords, then regarded as the worst major track in the land, a bowlers paradise.

Given that your favourites are Renaissance Man figures, the Cricketer says this of Felix: “He was a talented man, being a classical scholar, musician, linguist, inventor, author and an artist. During his life he did much to improve cricket, for he invented the Catapulta, a bowling machine, originated India rubber batting gloves and, as an author, left behind him several books and small works on the arts of the game.”
Fingleton, eat your heart out.

THE CASE FOR GEORGE FREEMAN
While the case for Felix is very strong, that for George Freeman is unarguable.
Simon Wilde’s analysis of the views of contemporary batsmen grants Freeman the status of the best bowler in the world between 1867 and 1871. That makes him one of only 27 bowlers (and the only one with a surname beginning with F) to have held the crown.

W.G. Grace said that during his long career Freeman was the best fast bowler that he faced. This is a verdict that spans four decades. The Champion said: “When he hit you, you felt as if you had been cut with a knife or a piece of skin had been snipped off.”

His Wisden obituary stated: “By general consent he was the finest fast bowler of his generation.”

In just 26 county games for Yorkshire, he claimed 194 wickets at less than 10. In addition to whippy pace, his armoury also contained a lethal off break. On a tour of North America (the US then seen as every bit the equal of Australia as competition) in 1868, he took 27 wickets for 24 runs in one game against a rival XXII. He would have been the only player to represent both the Gentlemen and Players, but declined the invitation to play for the gents after his retirement.

In terms of this exercise, the clincher is that Freeman was partnered with Tom Emmett at Yorkshire, a man who made the E team. Wisden stated (admittedly in 1904), “it is quite safe to say that a more deadly pair of purely fast bowlers never played on the same side”. By general consent, Freeman was the superior of the two.

I am convinced that Fazal Mahmood is a worthy figure for this team, but I persist in the belief that Ken Farnes and the Aussie J.J. Ferris, great quicks the both of them, deserve inclusion ahead of your original selection Arthur Fielder.

The only question is whether you play Fazal instead of all rounder Frank Foster. My preference is to have the deeper batting, if we go with French for the gloves. Ditch Brucie and you can have Fazal as well

So this gives us the team
BATTING
Roy Fredericks
C.B. Fry (cpt)
Nicholas Felix
Tip Foster
Andy Flower
Aubrey Faulkner
Andrew Flintoff
Frank Foster
Bruce French
A.P. ‘Tich’ Freeman
George Freeman

BOWLING
G. Freeman
Foster
Flintoff
A.P. Freeman
Faulkner

With Fingleton as reserve opener, Fleming reserve middle order, and Fazal, Farnes, Ferris and Fielder ready to step in to bowl.

[Shippers]

THE 2ND XI
And how about this for a reserve team, preserving the notion of playing at least one spinner. They're more than a match for the E team, and a few others later in the alphabet too.

Jack Fingleton
Greame Fowler
Stephen Fleming
Keith Fletcher
Percy Fender (cpt)
Alan Fairfax/Grant Flower
James Foster (wkt)
Angus Fraser
Fazal Mahmood
Ken Farnes/JJ Ferris/Arthur Fielder
Chuck Fleetwood-Smith

[culinary arts]

How long do we have to wait for the G-team?

While we're waiting, here's mine:

Gavaskar
Greenidge
Ganguly
Gower
Grace
Greig (c)
Gilchrist
Garner
Gillespie
Grimmett
Gibbs

It's a fairly formidable batting line-up, and I don't think anyone would want to argue with a spin-attack involving Gibbs and Grimmett.

I see Gillespie as the weak link, and he only makes the team out of a desire not to see Tony Greig (who would probably make the team on batting alone) having to share the opening duties with Big Bird.

Certainly more competition for batting and all-rounding places (both Gooch and Trevor Goddard could count themselves unfortunate to be left out), Herschelle Gibbs not even coming close. Whereas outside the must-pick trio of Garner, Grimmett and Gibbs, there doesn't seem to be a great deal of talent around, unless I've missed someone obvious (or less obvious) in the more distant past, to the extent that Gough almost gets a look-in.

Of course, there's the probably irresoluable question of how W.G. Grace would fare with the more recent players. But in any case, I'd back this team against most.

[Shippers]

There is much to admire in culinary arts' side but there is no need for Gillespie (despite his absurd double hundred) thanks to Jack Gregory, once the world's finest fast bowler and a combative batsman to boot. He more than fills the Greig shoes as the all rounder (in addition to Gilchrist), making it possible to pick more specialist batsmen.
My dream openers are the same. I favour Gooch (for three years the world's best batsman and architect of what is regarded by Wisden as one of the two finest innings ever played - his 154 against the Windies) as an aggressive and combative number 5. There is also room for Graveney to play a consummate and elegant innings alongside the tail, which includes, in Gillie and Gregory, two sloggers for the ages.
Don't forget that the goodly Dr Grace was himself a bowler of great penetration and wicket taking ability.

1. Sunil Gavaskar
2. Gordon Greenidge
3. David Gower
4. W.G. Grace (cpt)
5. Graham Gooch
6. Tom Graveney
7. Adam Gilchrist (wkt)
8. Jack Gregory
9. Clarrie Grimmett
10. Joel Garner
11. Lance Gibbs

Bowling
1. Gregory
2. Garner
3. Grimmett
4. Gibbs
5. Grace

[Shippers]

The alternative is to play A.W. Greig as an alternative to Graveney. But he will bat below both Gilchrist and Gregory.

[culinary arts]

Agree on Gregory, now that I've heard of him and been able to read about him.

Given the pitches on which the Good Doctor took his wickets, I wouldn't want him in the team as a fifth bowler. Which means I'm keeping Greig (indeed, he remains captain, despite being by no means the first on the team sheet) even if I can't have him at 6.

Come on, Alex, where's your team?

[how to beat a drug test]

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