TOP HATS AND TEA ON THE VILLAGE GREEN

Cricket

Sam Knowles provides a detailed match report for an ancient fixture that provides the real fanfare to cricket’s newest format

“A match of cricket will be played at Firle Park on Thursday Sept 4, 1851, between eleven Gentlemen of Lewes and eleven Gentlemen of Firle. Wickets to be pitched at ten o’clock. A dinner will be provided by Mr. Mockett, of the Ram Inn, at two o’clock”

ith the imminent spectre of The

WHundred – the newest, most glitzy form of cricket – lurking on the horizon, a disgruntled Daily Telegraph reader expressed extreme distaste for innovation in the noble game on the paper’s letters page:

Sir – I see that The Hundred cricket is to employ “an allstar line-up of DJs and rappers” in an effort to attract a more diverse and younger audience. Have nightclubs considered earlier hours and softer music in an effort to attract a more diverse, older audience? No. I thought not. Hilary Mathews, Tring, Hertfordshire

The England & Wales Cricket Board was thwarted in its efforts to modernise the game in 2020, what with ‘one thing and another’ postponing the launch of The Hundred. Or so they thought.

The past 18 months have seen much confused decision-making at the heart of Whitehall and many a U-turn. But none have been more rapid and dramatic than the U-turn on cricket. At breakfast time on 3rd July last year, Boris Johnson told a radio interviewer that “changing rooms and teas and whatnot” meant the noble game of WG Grace faced an indefinitely prolonged hiatus. By the teatime press conference, Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty made his boss look silly – not for the first or last time during the pandemic.

“So long as players arrive changed, don’t use the pavilion, bring their own teas, and elbow bump rather than hug when they take wickets, cricket can

Photo by Graham Carlow

start again next weekend.” Cricket is, after all, a game whose field placings are the very quintessence of social – and indeed physical – distancing.

In a rebellious corner of East Sussex, the birthplace of Gentlemen vs Players cricket, the news was greeted with glee. And to celebrate the return of the noble game, it was decided that one of the oldest fixtures in recorded sporting history should embrace modernity – though with a decidedly Chappish twist.

Since at least 1851, the Gentlemen of Lewes have been entertained by the Gentlemen of Firle in the deep back garden of Lord Gage on the Firle Estate. While the first literary reference to the Gentlemen of Lewes emerges in 1753 – a fact celebrated on the badges of a club reborn in 2009 – the first documentary evidence of this fixture survives from almost a century later. In the Firle Cricket Club pavilion, a faded poster proudly announces: “A match of cricket will be played at Firle Park on Thursday Sept 4, 1851, between eleven Gentlemen of Lewes and eleven Gentlemen of Firle.” Wickets were pitched at ten o’clock, while dinner was provided by the most generous Mr. Mockett of the Ram Inn at two o’clock.

For the 2020 fixture, the captains of both the Gentlemen of Firle and Lewes decided to jab a finger in the eye of Covid. The long-awaited Hundred – long-awaited by all but Hilary Mathews of Tring and her ilk – may have been yet another pandemic postponement. But that was no reason for the format not to get its first airing as soon as Whitty had sanctioned the game’s return.

And so it was that the first recorded game of The Hundred took place on 22nd July, 2020. But there were no highlighter pen-coloured pyjamas,

“Again, the Gentlemen of Lewes invited their hosts – in top hats once more – to bat. Despite the imposing presence of Gandalf the White and the agriculturally effective touring manager of the Glyndebourne Opera House in the Firle line-up, they were restricted to a rather more gettable 86-6 this time. 13 of these were gifts from Lewes, nine of them wides”

disc jockeys or sheets of flame to greet every boundary. The teams may have decided to bowl ten, ten-ball overs, but there was no reason for this ancient, august fixture to be anything other than Victorian elegance itself. Players eschewed artificial fibres so far as they could, preferring Oxford bags and co-respondent shoes over Sport’s Direct’s plasinated whites. Umpires wore white tailcoats. And helmets were sometimes replaced by rather more suitable headgear.

The Gentlemen of Lewes invited the Gentlemen of Firle to bat, and Firle’s two openers – Yearsley and Samuel – strode elegantly to the crease in top hats. With this, the first game of The Hundred ever played, neither side had much of an idea what a ‘par’ score might be from 100 balls, fully 20 fewer than in The Hundred’s noisy, older brother, Twenty20. Yearsley was in hungry form, top scoring with 27, and the Lewesians restricted their hosts to just 72 from the first 80 balls. But

Match photos by Graham Carlow

in the last 20, Firle skipper Treloar and Christie hauled the home total to a respectable 109-5.

The visitors looked in rather too much of a hurry to see if the spirit of Mr. Mockett would be on hand at the Ram Inn, squandering wickets cheaply. Nevertheless, at the halfway stage, Lewes were 54-4, up with the run rate and with wickets to spare. But as the shadows lengthened, the ideas and runs started to dry up and the wickets tumbled. After a brief flurry in the middle order, the Gentlemen of Lewes lost their last five wickets for just 13 runs and were all out for a measly 79.

A year to the day since the first Hundred game played in England, the ECB tournament started in earnest, a year late, with the Oval Invincibles hosting the Manchester Originals (aka KP Nuts vs McCoys), attracting a world-record crowd for a women’s cricket match. That very evening, the second-ever men’s Hundred game took place… at Firle, with the rivalry from 2020 resumed. Again, the Gentlemen of Lewes invited their hosts – in top hats once more – to bat. Despite the imposing presence of Gandalf the White and the agriculturally effective touring manager of the Glyndebourne Opera House in the Firle line-up, they were restricted to a rather more gettable 86-6 this time. 13 of these were gifts from Lewes, nine of them wides.

At the halfway point at 41-3, again the chase looked secure. Yet despite some glorious cameos and a six into the Firle Place deer park from Lewes skipper Hall, the visitors this time fell but three runs short, on 83-8. So near and yet not really.

Residents of Hertfordshire may object to the newest form of the game, but perhaps – if they chose to visit the Gentlemanly swaths of green on the Firle Estate and drink in the glory of the oldest fixture in the newest format, top hats, tails and all – they might be rather less Mr. & Mrs Angry from Tring. n

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