Ted Dexter Current Opinion and Memories

Home truths.

My friend Johnnie Stephens handed me a copy of the Chris Waters biography of the late Freddie Trueman: "Ferocious" to some, FST and even Frederick Sewards on occasions.
" There are a few brickbats thrown in your direction" Johnnie told me " but nothing you can't handle". And he is right. They are more pinpricks than anything but perhaps the more irritating for that. Not to say it isn't a good read.

I am flattered to be mentioned on 10 separate pages, the same number as Peter May which means very exalted company in my book but the emphasis on put-downs, however minor is wearisome. Take the Gordon Pirie incident on board the Canberra when Fred decided not to join in the gentle exercise routines. Fred is depicted in all his rugged, no nonsense Yorkshire colours as something of a hero. What people forget is that in those days there was no "squad" system. A number of the younger players may not have ever met Fred, let alone played with him in the same team. Finding some joint activity seemed like a good idea - I believe "bonding" is the modern term - and yet Fred declined. The sequel is that Fred was the only player to break down on the whole trip.

Then Fred is quoted as " advising me to play two spinners" in the third Test which we lost. I take full responsibility as Captain for making the mistake of keeping the winning side from Melbourne but any idea that I wilfully went against his advice is way wide of the mark. I remember a whole group of us looking at the pitch including all the senior players, not to mention Alec Bedser and my other co-selectors. It was a close call - and anyway, who can say with certainty that we would have won had the extra spinner played.

Perhaps some of these niceties might have found their way into this Trueman story had the author taken the trouble to spend a little more time in my company. Most of the people who are treated less than kindly are passed away and unable to respond. Yet here am I, reasonably compos mentis and casually bypassed. I shared a room with Fred in 1959 and nobody else alive that I know has enjoyed that somewhat dubious privilege. I toured with him in West Indies in 1960. I captained him in 1963, In fact I spent the whole of my career playing with and against our Fred.

The only direct quote from me is in answer to a question concerning Fred being docked 25 percent of his bonus after the 62/63 tour. This one/off enquiry is dignified in the book with the word "interview" which seems unlikely, given the brevity of my response saying how Fred was "always going on about" his supposed shabby treatment. I had no intention of washing dirty linen in public then and I will not do so now. But as to whether some minor rap over the knuckles was in order, I feel the same way now as I did then.

The supposed North South antagonism gets a fairly regular airing throughout the story though I don't feel that this old saw was very high on Fred's agenda. We were certainly on the best of terms personally at all times, whether as room-mate, opposing player, team-mate and indeed as Captain. In fact the last time I saw him was when Susan and I stayed the night with him and Veronica in their cosy home in Flasby. " Bring your dressing gowns. There are no en-suite whathaveyous here. We don't want any embarrassment".

Indeed, there was nothing other than warm hospitality, a nice drop of champagne and a short' informative lesson on the local birdlife which he loved so much. That is as pleasant a way for me to remember him as any, though his larger than life cricketing character will always loom large in the background.
Another potential niggle is that from friend and foe there is a strangely repetitive theme going the rounds concerning my Captaincy style on the 62/63 tour . It seems that my decisions were taken on a whim or a fancy under the general heading of a new theory every minute. With an older and wiser head at the helm the critics suggest we would have won the Series and flown back with the Ashes.

Ho! Hum! A gentle reminder of the situation may not go amiss. We were up against a settled and successful Australian side, playing at home under one of their most successful Captains, Richie Benaud, who had a reputation for dynamic and aggressive leadership, Press interest in the Poms was lukewarm and the bookmakers were quoting odds against us.

As it turned out it was the underdogs who made the running. Twice in the warm-up games we scored over 400 in the day which made people sit up a bit. We made good on my pledge to bowl our overs at 15 overs per hour - only the current ICC requirement, you may think - except that we are talking about 8 ball overs!! And boy o boy was the media heat turned up when we went one ahead at Melbourne. It took me a couple of hours simply to get away from the airport on arrival in Sydney after interviews with every newspaper and radio station in the State.

But down to the nitty gritty. Was it by chance that the brick wall defences of the great Bill Lawry were first undermined and then dismantled? Was it down to the great fast bowler Freddie Trueman? No, it was down to careful planning between Edward Dexter and the Worcestershire medium pacer Len Coldwell. Between us we cut off his oxygen supply of quick singles used to rotate the strike. As we marooned him at one end, so the frustration of his partners grew at the other. We halved his run rate and forced him to rethink his whole game plan. His scores thereafter were 8,8,10,16,11 and 45.

Fast forward to last summers series against the South Africans when the demolition of England in the first Test was not a pretty sight. I sent an e-mail to Andrew Strauss in similar vein to the Lawrie strangulation. I had no clever plans for two great players like Amla and Kallis but I had a plan for Graeme Smith who had just scored 131. Once again it worked nicely, cutting off his singles on the leg side getting it into his head that life was no longer so easy. In his next five inning he averaged less than 30 and took twice as long to get them.

This current England team makes a virtue of seeking continuous improvement. This is admirable but I see no obvious signs of it happening. Short term I would insist on the fast bowlers bowling a regular supply of slower balls, something they do every other week in 20/20. It is not that the slower ones take the wickets but they keep the batsman guessing, playing fractionally later at the quicker ones. I would ask the batsmen to reserve 15 minutes of every net session to ensuring that the back foot remains parallel with the crease at all times. The number of times I see false strokes made with both toes pointing straight up the pitch is both alarming and distressing.

Longer term I would insist that Monty Panesar runs up straighter and plants his feet in a line going towards the target. Currently he starts moving from half-way behind the umpire and winds up with his front foot way out in the line of the return crease. Now he has to bowl all round his front leg and never gets his left hip through properly. The result is lack of turn which is amplified by the angle of attack. And that is not all - as if it were not enough!

When a bowler approaches the crease from a wide angle (as John Emburey did in his later unproductive years) he may think that he has "cocked the spring" i.e. wound up his shoulders against his hips, whereas he has done nothing of the sort. Monty should put down some cones to straighten himself out.

So there you are. Another of those whimsical Dexter theories.

Two high profile deaths in the cricket world so close together is tough going . Both Tony Greig and Christopher Martin-Jenkins were an integral part of the game: both giants in their own spheres, they are sorely missed.
The young Tony appeared on the Sussex scene just as I was about to call it a day and I barely had time to form an opinion of his ability at the time. Fast forward three years when I was called back to play under his captaincy at Hove and it was a different story. “Come on Ted, I’ll bowl you a few in the nets”.
The next thing I knew, I was at full stretch defending my self as much as my stumps against a hail of quick, bouncy missiles. I might have known he had more in mind than a gentle practice session – more an opportunity to display a new found power and confidence in his skills. The only other time I remember being such an Aunt Sally was when Les Jackson was out to impress his Captain enough to be selected the next day against Australia at Headingley. Putting the two in the same bracket is meant as a credit to both of them.
I seldom get to attend the annual Cowdrey “Spirit of Cricket” lecture at Lord's but when I heard that Tony Greig was the speaker last summer, I made a point of being there. His brilliantly conceived theme was to demand that cricket administrators should act with equal integrity and respect for each other, as that expected of the players. That he ruffled a few feathers, notably in India, was to be expected but, though he was a mite surprised at the level of reaction, there was no hint of retraction when we met again some days later.
It was a shock to hear of his lung cancer diagnosis before the year was out and a greater jolt to hear that a heart attack had brought about his death. He was a large strong man who drove himself hard but always managed many smiles along the way.
I had less close personal involvement with CMJ, the most influential cricket journalist, author, commentator and editor of his lifetime. Yes, we inevitably attended the same dinners where I tried to make sure that I was not on the list of speakers. He tended to eclipse the others whoever.
Mostly I count myself among the millions of listeners to Test Match Special where he played many a masterly innings on the air. Never was his inimitable style and voice more welcome than in recent years returning by car from France in French cars which all have long wave bands on the radio (German cars do not). You tend to be able to tune in about 150 kilometers from Calais when all is suddenly homely and familiar – a marvelous feeling.
I was always an admirer of his son Robin's cricketing talent. CMJ once asked me to watch the teenage all-rounder bat on the basis that he might be susceptible to the short stuff. Happily I was able to give his anxious father a positive report.
Perhaps it was this early involvement which made me follow his subsequent professional career with more than a casual interest. He always seemed to deliver when most needed with both bat and ball and as a key player in a team which won three County Championships in five years, it is a palpable shame, and very possibly England's loss that he received little or no International recognition.
So the cricket circus will whirl away regardless with new critics and new players coming and going as ever before. But in both professions they will need to look to their laurels if they are to reach the standards of these two highly skilful and committed individuals.

Ted Dexter copy for the Cricketer Magazine
Deadline July 7th

I was cordially, if somewhat warily received, when my delayed meeting with the E.C.B. technical staff finally took place, not at Lord's as I expected but in a back office buried in the stands at Edgbaston.

What were they to make of a sixty-five year old blast from the past taking issue with what turned out to be carefully researched pieces of cricket coaching in their official manual? Should they treat him as a well intentioned old buffer who still believed that all our yesterdays were golden or listen seriously to what he had to say.

I was delighted to find that Hugh Morris, Technical Director, and Gordon Lord , Coach Education Manager were perfectly open minded and gave me a good hearing. That is not to say that I persuaded them to change their minds all that much. But they were kind enough to call it a fascinating discussion and to agree that we all held the same aim which was to ensure that “ all support to coaches should be of the highest quality.”

In fact, thinking back, it was I who was the more intemperate particularly over the explanation given for the “eyes level” requirement in the batting stance. I felt I was being blinded with science when the language reached the level of vertical and horizontal receptors. When I talked about “sideways” play, they started talking about biomechanical advantage and at one stage I regret to say that I called their approach a load of balls.

On this subject we basically agreed to differ. I cited the case of the squash player picking up shots in the back corners of the court. How ludicrous it would be to tell him that he had to have his eyes level before he could assess where the ball was going to be. For their part they pointed out that we were talking about cricket, not squash, and were able to quote from an optometrist report. “Balance is effected if the head and eyes are not level. Look at tight-rope walkers and dancers.” Now who was going off at a tangent?!

I return to my central point. Relaxation in the batting stance is essential. This is best achieved by standing with the left shoulder pointing to mid-on and the head turned to the bowler only so far as is comfortable. The left shoulder is then brought into the sideways position as part of the backlift and held there through all the straight bat shots.

This will usually mean that the head and eyes are tilted up to 25 degrees and I believe that attempts to keep the “eyes level” are a major factor in so many modern batsmen playing open-chested, toes pointing up the pitch as in French Cricket. Of course they can get runs. Anyone who wields a cudgel 4 ¼ inches wide against a ball of 9 inches circumference should be able to make contact from time to time. But are they as effective as they could be? That is the point.

On the subject of the right elbow position in the backlift, I am prepared to give a little ground when faced with the following .
“ Biomechanical analysis of players, including Greenidge, Tendulkar, Crowe and Richards shows how the unit created by the shoulder, arms, hands and bat retain a figure 9 shape, the plane of which adjusts according to the intended direction of stroke.” So be it. For my part, as long as they get the tip of the bat pointing to the sky with the face pointing to cover rather than at the ground ( see Lara, Gower, Botham ) they can do it any way they like.

Hardest to come to grips with was head position at release point when bowling. Here I maybe gained a point when Gordon Lord writes “there are examples of world class bowlers who clear a path for the bowling shoulder and arm by dropping the head away to the off-side. (see Curtley Ambrose and Darren Gough)
…… by achieving this position I accept that performance in terms of pace or rotation may well be enhanced. Well, now then, isn’t that what I have been saying all along?

Finally I made my point about the hand position for the high catch and the sheer impossibility of making a finger pouch for the ball if the catch is attempted at “eye level”. Here the technicians were prepared to go back to the drawing board but the matter failed to get a mention in the two-page follow-up letter to our meeting.

However there was an oft repeated slow motion sequence of Ricardo Powell being caught off a skier on the boundary at Bristol in the first match of the Triangular Series and it was comforting to see that the catch was made at chest height with the fingers parallel to the ground rather than facing skywards.

There may be a sense that you have to see your hands in front of your face by way of good preparation but that is nonsense. Nobody misses their mouth with a forkful of food. We know where our hands are without having to check before making a catch.

Finally a subject which really gets my goat i.e. when bowlers in the media start pontificating about batting. Simon Hughes is my current bete-noir with his simplistic notion that too much coaching stifles ability.

He cites Aravinda De Silva's precocious ability to whip straight balls through the on-side as evidence. What he seems to miss is that without perfect head and body positions such a move would be doomed to failure. Any coach who knew the most simple basics would recognise such perfection and leave well alone.

Ted Dexter Copy for the Cricketer Magasine
Monday 4th September 2000

I like listening to Angus Fraser on the radio. He is an agreeable man with a dry wit and his attitude to the game seems to have preserved a freshness which long service in county cricket sometimes dulls.

It was intriguing to hear him debating the cricket ball issue, especially the notion that all Test cricket should be played with a standard product. Apparently David Lloyd had suggested the machine stitched Kookaburra as the answer with less prominent stitching. This could mean more emphasis on swinging the new ball and a need for spinners if the “old” ball was no help to the “seamers”.

Angus felt that since batsmen were free to take their pick of the world's best bats, bowlers should have the same opportunity to pick the ball they like best. It is entirely logical and I tend to agree. Where he slipped up was saying that bat technology had progressed while the ball was still the same. Wrong!

Cricket balls are definitely not the same. The main difference is that the core of the ball has changed significantly, from strips of cork bound in layer by layer with twine, to a composite lump of cork and latex which constitutes two thirds or more of the overall sphere. The change was made largely in the cause of uniformity from the administrators point of view and was embraced by manufacturers because the process was less labour intensive.

I heard umpires Shepherd and Harper saying that the balls had lasted well in the recent Test series – not surprising when some of the innings have been rather short – but one reason must be that the core of the modern ball remains unchanged for the whole 80 overs, before a new one becomes due. It is self evident that the ball therefore remains harder for longer and gives the faster bowlers a lot more chance of success with the old ball. More broken fingers is another result.

It may even be that the “discovery” of reverse swing was due to this basic change.The cork and twine ball became too soft for the quick men to bother after 30 overs, so the opportunity to experiment with rough sides, smooth sides, wet sides and dry sides and different seam positions barely came along.

Going back to the bowlers’ free choice argument, they are lucky that the authorities have the need to maintain competition between manufacturers to keep the price down. They stipulate as closely as they can what the ball should be like and then test them to ensure that they conform to a standard. But there will always be variations and bowlers will always find the one that feels smallest in the hand and gives the most chance of swing and seam.

All that is fine until five day matches are reduced to two with thousands of dissappointed spectators. Repayment of hundreds of thousands of pounds for unused tickets is something the game can ill afford so it would be simply bad business not to look hard at the ball and the pitches to ensure as far as possible the right balance between bat and ball.

It is just as well that the Oval Test lasted into the fifth day and it was a delight that the West Indians included the leg-spinner Nagamootoo. Without him they would have hardly fared as well as they did because he broke up the key Engand partnerships in both innings, Trescothick in the first and Stewart in the second. Such a long, thrilling match will at least keep the arguments for change of ball or different pitch construction in perspective.

The series overall confirmed some of the eternal truths of Test cricket. That the outcome is usually determined by the best bowling attack and at long last England were able to put three experienced men together, Gough, Caddick and Cork with three hundred or so Test wickets between them. Often enough in recent years we have gone in with raw talent alone and you only have to see what happened to the promising Reon King to know that is not enough. When Craig White suddenly joined the party with a vengeance, there was no doubt where the advantage lay. Obviously Walsh and Ambrose would have been first pick for either side from the start but the support bowling was not enough to sustain the pressure they created.

It was definitely not a series for fancy stroke making, Lara excepted, with major contributions made by Atherton and Vaughan for England, Adams and Sarwan for West Indies, all of them prepared to defend correctly and wait for the scoring opportunities. It was gritty stuff for most of the time but never dull, all culminating in the full house thiller on the fifth day at the Oval.

A final word for Simon Hughes who made a spirited response to my comments two months ago about bowlers and their views on batting techniques.Simon's gentle barb in my direction was that he took time to accept my view of his bowling “because I was a batsman”.

Sorry to do this to you Simon, but the 1969 Playfair career records section tells me that Dexter.E.R took 419 first class wickets at an average of 29.9 – 5 wickets 9 times, 10 wickets twice.

The 1994 edition reveals that Hughes.S.P took 466 wickets at 32.48 – 5 wickets 10 times and 50 wickets in a season twice. I went back to 1969 to check my own season by season tallies to find that the criteria for a mention in the final column used to be 100 wickets, not 50. I did not get a mention.

Ted Dexter Copy for the Cricketer Magazine June Issue

Development of techniques for limited overs cricket has been going on steadily ever since the first major matches were played under the banner of “The Knock-Out Cup” (sponsored by Gillette) in 1963.

They were 65 0ver matches and the modern player will wonder how on earth there were enough hours in the day to reach a finish. There was ,of course, the famous televised match at Old Trafford in the sixties which went on into the late evening with Jim Laker telling us what was happening in the dark, but that was an exception. Mostly we completed in normal working hours.

The difference is that it is now a ball by ball game rather than over by over. A Captain is not thought to be worth his salt unless he intervenes regularly to reset the field, and if that means walking with due ceremony from slip to the end of the bowler's run-up, then so be it. If a batsman has the temerity to hit a four or six early in an over then it is obligatory to bring the game to a grinding halt while everyone regains their composure.

There were no fielding restrictions except the limitation of two behind square on the leg side but it was not long before circles were drawn and the first 15 over rule came into being. From these artificial impositions came the age of the “ pinch-hitter” with strict instructions to hit the new ball in the air into the open spaces.

But I have moved on too quickly. Individually there was experimentation from both bowlers and batsmen with the one trying to respond to each new move by the other.
“Giving yourself room” by stepping to leg was nothing new, already a feature of run chases in three day championship cricket but the advent of the blockhole ball and the importance of regular changes of pace came along more gradually. Meanwhile the essential agility in ground fielding was leading to longer training sessions and much practice in throwing direct at the stumps.

It was clear enough in the early days that the ball should be pitched up and straight and there is a case for this simple formula to this very day. However, the advent of heavier bats meant that thick inside edges went for twos and threes and pushed the bowling line more to the off-side - hence the sweeper fieldsman on the cover boundary employed by most teams nowadays.

Statistical analysis was perhaps a little slow to get going but it showed soon enough that quality bowling was nothing like the panacea it assumes in Test cricket. With restricted overs it is a fact that wickets are spread pretty evenly amongst the great and the fairly ordinary. Even more surprising is the fairly small differential between the runs per over conceded. The faster bowlers tend to be edged for four on an unlucky day with the slower men containing well for some, but not all of the time.

It was the winning Sri Lankan side that rather confirmed what the figures were suggesting i.e. that the ideal one-day side is made up of eleven batsmen who can all field like Jonti Rhodes and just do the best they can with the ball. Ideally this type of side prefers to bat second and backs itself to get the runs, however large the target.

The latest innovation which only appeared this winter is for the best fast bowlers to mount a full scale attack on the opening batsmen showing scant regard for the more restrictive playing condition regarding short pitched bowling. This tactic is only part of improved awareness of Captaincy which sometimes demands real aggression and quick thinking as opposed to the bad habits of some who kept defensive formulae to the finish, even when defeat was staring them in the face. Shane Warne was seen in a very good light in this respect during the games he captained when Steve Waugh was out of action.

It would be wrong not to mention the reverse sweep, given a rather permanent bad name by the infamous attempt by Mike Gatting in the final against Australia in India.
Less in evidence these days, it remains a powerful weapon in the right hands and it is probably only a matter of time before we see the first of a generation of switch-hitters, equally capable left and right handed. I believe they exist in baseball and there is no doubt that they would have value against the fair number of leg-spinners who are succeeding in tying down the lesser right-handers. How the umpires will deal with switching guard from one over to the next and even from one ball to the next remains to be seen.

Talking of umpires, they have had to move with the times as well, slowly redefining what is and what is not a wide ball, and finding it quite a struggle to achieve consistency between individual umpires and between the various stages of a fluctuating match. What is a wide to one batsman standing still, may not be to another who moves across his stumps and this is only one of a number of anomalies which the experts are trying to sort out in the Laws rewrite which is going on apace behind the scenes at Lord's.

So the shorter game continues to change and develop. On the few occasions when I coach batsmen these days, there is a different session for full scale attack when the only crime is “dot-balls” and getting out is preferable. Those who saw me bat will be relieved to know that I give no instruction on the sweep or indeed its reverse counterpart. Never fancied it myself for fear of getting a top edge into my nose. But if I had had a helmet?