Essex revival recalls a pre-sky golden age
County’s form will be welcomed by anyone who marvelled at the domestic scene in the 1990s, writes Simon Briggs
As Middlesex moved towards winning the County Championship last summer, my colleague Jonathan Liew – who had supported them fruitlessly for the previous 23 years – wrote that “the prospect of an end to the drought feels so simultaneously thrilling and disorienting”.
Now it is my turn to reveal my own gathering excitement/anxiety over Essex’s potential coronation. Yes, August may only be halfway done. But after nine of their 14 championship matches, Ryan ten Doeschate’s men remain unbeaten, with a 41-point lead over the field.
The last time Essex were a serious force, Nirvana’s grunge-rock had just come into fashion, Michael Douglas was modelling a range of V-neck sweaters in Basic
Instinct, and The Sun was claiming to have won an election for John Major’s bickering Tories. As for cricket, Australia’s Ashes hegemony was so young that we hardly realised it had started. Only in 1993, when Shane Warne famously spun his first ball the width of Mike Gatting, did the penny begin to drop.
The shock was all the greater because, on the domestic front, Gatting and his fellow beardie Graham Gooch bestrode the landscape like Hector and Achilles in whites. As kingpins of the two mightiest counties – Middlesex and Essex
– the Big Gs shared nine championship titles in 12 years.
In those pre-centralcontract days, your first allegiance was to the county. So while the national team lurched from one debacle to the next, spectators around the shires enjoyed some thunderous clashes, all for the sort of sum that might buy you a gingerbread latte today.
It was a golden age for the counties, who had access not only to a deep pool of home-grown talent, but also overseas players of the quality of Allan Border or Mark Waugh. Middlesex could number Desmond Haynes and Wayne Daniel among a strong Caribbean contingent who – in that less enlightened age – were carelessly dubbed The Jackson Five. And floating sports fans still knew everyone’s name, thanks to the dozens of cup matches that were televised on the BBC.
Today, such familiarity has been stolen away by the Sky Sports paywall, while the profusion of global Twenty20 leagues has robbed the County Championship of its former pulling power.
Yet this vibrant Essex side retain a League of Nations feel. Ten Doeschate is Dutch, while off-spinner Simon Harmer played five times for South Africa. Pakistan’s left-arm quick Mohammad Amir might be a Test legend by now, had he not lost five years of his career to the spot-fixing scandal. Will this diverse crew manage to get over the line, when grown-up cricket returns in a fortnight’s time at the end of the Natwest T20 Blast? I hope so. Next month, it will be 20 years since Gooch retired at the end of a uniquely prolific career (24 years, 67,000 top-flight runs) that must make him county cricket’s answer to Roger Federer. It is about time he saw his heirs – many of whom he has coached – back on top of the tree.
And then there is the memory of Doug Insole, the godfather of Essex cricket, who died recently after a lifetime of service to the county. What better way to honour his passing?
Middlesex and Essex share both a historic rivalry and an emblem: three seaxes, differentiated only by the colour of the background. Over the past couple of seasons, they have also been sharing a revival. As the giants of the 1980s rise again, it feels like time to dig that dusty Stuart Surridge 333 – complete with swirly Gooch signature – down from its perch in the attic.
It is about time Gooch saw his heirs – many of whom he has coached – back on top