COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP ENDS WITH A BANG!
After the drama of last week, Derek Pringle compares the current County Champions with the all-conquering Middlesex side of 1993
Reaction & analysis on Middlesex's thrilling win with full First-Class averages PLUS... Derek Pringle looks back at the Middlesex County Champs of 1993
There might have been the need for some joke bowing as an encouragement to break the deadlock in their final Championship game against Yorkshire, but only the churlish would claim Middlesex as anything but worthy County Champions for 2016.
Any team which remains unbeaten throughout an arduous 16-match campaign has a claim to greatness but Middlesex prevailed with nearly everyone, from top to bottom of the batting order and pace attack to spinner, making a meaningful contribution. That is a true team effort and the beauty of a long-haul competition like the Championship, which rewards collective endeavour as much as individual brilliance.
After one of the most thrilling conclu- sions to a season in living memory, comparisons with their closest rivals have already been made. But how does this Middlesex side compare to the one which won the 1993 Championship, a hiatus of 23 years?
Then as now (and this is based on the presumption that America will come to its senses), a Clinton was President of the United States of America, but there are stark differences between the eras too. For instance, the Maastricht treaty which Britain signed up to and which established the European Union had just come into effect, its objectives now obliterated by Brexit.
There were similarities and differences among the cricketers and cricket of the two ages as well. In 1993, counties were allowed one overseas player and Kolpaks were unheard of. Indeed, most of the rest of team were raised locally, or at least from neighbouring counties, giving any achievement the satisfying sheen of community. These days cost and availability, especially of foreign cricketers, or those with British antecedents, drives selection as much as anything, with player flying in and out to take up brief tenures as and when injury, form or imbalance dictates. In that sense managing a county team in 2016 is a more pragmatic than it used to be , if more impersonal.
The 1993 Championship was the first where all games were scheduled to last four days. There was only one division too, and while everyone played each other once (which accounted for the 17 matches), there was the inequity of not playing everyone home and away, which is what happens now there are two divisions, Not that playing Essex, Warwickshire or Glamorgan (all good teams then ) away but not at home proved much of an impediment to Middlesex in 1993. They crushed all three.
They say bowlers win a Championships so let’s look at the attacks of both eras. Back in 1993, the six main bowlers were John Emburey, Phil Tufnell, Angus Fraser, Neil Williams, Mark Feltham and Norman Cowans, though Cowans played only five of the 17 matches.
Those six took 24 wickets with four of
Is Malan better than Gatting, or Compton better than Ramprakash? Is Rayner a better spinner than Emburey or Tufnell? The answer is no...
them averaging under 25. That suggests pitches were less flat than those this season, certainly at Lord’s. Four-day cricket may have been the order of the day but most groundsmen still prepared them as if for three. That suited Middlesex’s mix of skilful seamers and two fine spinners, Emburey and Tufnell, who that season took 127 wickets between them.
The current side used four main bowlers over the summer – Toby Roland-Jones, Steve Finn, Andy Murtagh and off-spinner Ollie Rayner. That quartet took 180 of the wickets to fall during 16 matches. Only one of them, Rayner, took his wickets at an average below 25.
One glaring difference between the two eras is in the number of matches won, six this season and 11 back then. Of course the draw is worth points now, five as compared to nothing in 1993, so teams would inevitably risk more to win. But pitches do appear to start better these days and wear less, which may account for both the extra draws and the fact that James Faulkner’s side won only two matches at Lord’s this season in contrast to the six won by Mike Gatting’s team 23 years ago.
The point made about the pitches is reflected in the batting figures as well. None of a line-up sporting Gatting, Desmond Haynes, Mark Ramprakash, John Carr and Mike Roseberry, passed 1,000 runs while only one, Gatting, passed 900. This year, Nick Gubbins made 1,409 runs while Dawid Malan made 951 and Sam Robson 899.
There are similarities too. For instance both teams have mature cricketers (aged between 26-36) who are good pros taking up most of the places, though where the 1993 side really scores is in its knowledge of how to win matches and even Championships, having won four in the preceding 12 years. Modern cricketers are fitter and stronger than their predecessors but that does not mean they would automatically outgun them on the cricket field. Contracts that extend to 12 months now instead of six, as they used to, means that fitness training and strength and conditioning will start in November as opposed to nets on 1 April, which used to herald a new season.
Fraser, who played in 1993 and is now Middlesex’s director of cricket, believes the intensity of matches is greater now than it was in 1993.
“There were no central contracts then, so the work load those of us who also played for England had to endure was massive,” said Fraser. “Inevitably, it meant we coasted some of the time as that was the only way to survive.
“That doesn’t really happen today.We invest more in players now, in terms of money, time and resources, so we expect more of them. Consequently they play their cricket at a higher pitch. Which may mean a few more injuries, but that’s why we develop squads and not just teams.”
Fraser gets coy when I ask how his team in 1993 would get on against his charges now, so I have to make the crude but crucial comparisons between the key players.
Is Robson a better opening batsman than West Indian legend Haynes? No. Is Gubbins better than Roseberry? Yes. Is Malan better than Gatting or Compton better than Ramprakash? No. Is Rayner a better spinner than Emburey or Tufnell. No. Then the big one. Is hat-trick hero Roland-Jones better than Fraser? No, of course not, though Steve Finn does shade Neil Williams.
More evenly matched are the feisty wicket-keeper batsmen Keith Brown (then) and John Simpson (now) and some middle-order players like Carr and Stevie Eskinazi. But I’ve a feeling that while white-ball cricket has made a quantum leap from the game in 1993, red-ball cricket has not progressed as much, which gives Gatting’s side the edge.
A win in three and a half days then to the 1993 side on the pitches of their era, with possibly a hard fought draw the result on today’s surfaces.