Hobbsy’s biography is a reminder of how joyous county game once was

Last English leg-spinner to take 1,000 wickets in first-class cricket gave pleasure to thousands

If England go with six bowlers, it is too many. Six covers too many bases. You are almost not trusting your bowlers to be good enough.

I personally would pack the batting and pick the best five bowlers, with Root as the part-timer.

England’s problems have been not getting enough big scores on the board, and this Test team have to work out how they are going to make 400-550 on a regular basis, not just in one-off games.

If it is four seamers and one spinner, fine. Or three and two because of conditions, then fine. But do not be any more funky than that.

With the heat, and how dry it has been, I suspect they will go with two spinners. It is just whether they then trust Ben Stokes to be the third seamer. It looks to me like it will be a choice between Sam Curran or Rashid

(below).

Cricket lends itself to nostalgia more than any other sport. This is perhaps because of the length of its games – its traditional games, that is – and the impact they make on the memory; and because we associate them with long summer days and the company of friends while we watch. And, of course, cricket has a culture of its own – as does every sport – but which because of its nature has encouraged generations of fine writers and commentators to reflect on the game with a depth other sports cannot manage. Cricket became a spectator sport because it was entertaining; though the people who run it today seem to think that hardly any match of more than 200 balls in duration can qualify for that description. We of a certain age remember how entertaining and absorbing county cricket used to be, when played over three days and not the slow, attritional four-day game the authorities have ensured it has become.

I was forcefully reminded of this when a rather wonderful book turned up in my post the other day: Hobbsy: A Life in Cricket by Rob Kelly. Staring out cheerfully from the dust-wrapper is the last English leg-spinner to take 1,000 first-class wickets – Robin Hobbs (right), who played for Essex from 1961 to 1975.

The book begins at the end, in a manner of speaking, with the last match Hobbsy played for Essex at home; against the Australians at Chelmsford in August 1975. I spent an indecent amount of time as a schoolboy watching Essex in the late Sixties and Seventies; and

I was there. And, indeed, with the exception of Geoffrey Boycott taking Essex for 233 at the Garrison Ground in Colchester one Saturday in 1971, Hobbsy’s now legendary performance in Essex’s second innings in that tourist match remains perhaps the most vivid memory of my teenage spectating years.

The County Ground at Chelmsford was pretty rough and ready in those days. There was a pavilion, in the downstairs of which we junior members queued up to buy shandies while watching out for players strolling in from upstairs. I can still see Hobbsy, in my mind’s eye, with a pint of beer and a cigarette having a laugh at close of play, activities for which he would probably these days be sent to a re-education camp.

For the Australian match the ground was full, the members sitting on ancient, interlocking tubular steel and canvas chairs, the public often on rickety temporary grandstands of bare boards. The Essex scoreboard was mounted on the back of an old lorry that used to do the rounds of rather charming grounds on which the county used to play in those days.

Essex were a useful and rather wonderful side to watch. Hobbsy was head man of a cadre of three first-rate slow bowlers, the others being the left-armer Ray East and David Acfield, an off-spinner and former Cambridge blue. Essex also had a world-class fast bowler in the making in JK Lever, two superb all-rounders in Keith Boyce and

Essex lost by 98 runs, but none of us minded. We had seen a stunning game of cricket

Stuart Turner, a glittering overseas batting star in Ken Mcewan, and two future England captains: Keith Fletcher, known as “the Gnome”, and the magnificent Graham Gooch.

This, though, was Hobbsy’s day. Then the tourists played all or almost all of the counties, some twice, and counties did not field their second XIS: they had too much respect for their opponents, the game and the paying public. It was late August, and the visitors had endured a packed summer, including the first World Cup. Australia batted first and made 365 for six declared, with Bruce Laird and Ross Edwards making hundreds.

Hobbsy bowled more than any other Essex bowler, taking two for 116 off 33 overs; not his finest performance, but the wicket was, as he himself would show, highly unhelpful to the spinners. Essex replied with 338 for eight off just 66 overs, a typically entertaining display in which Gooch made 68, Mcewan 71 and Boyce – who seemed set for a century until run out, to the pained disappointment of the crowd – 79.

Jeff Thomson, then the world’s foremost fast bowler, took one for 64 off just 12 overs.

Australia replied with 325 for four declared, Hobbsy taking some punishment – none for 73 off 11 overs. Thus the tourists set Essex 353 to win, with time enough to do it. It was clear from the moment the Essex innings began that they intended to have a go, and make a game of it, to the delight and excitement of the crowd.

This was, though, a little like a cavalry charge against Panzers. Essex were reduced to nine men, as Fletcher had injured his shoulder and took no part in the last two days of the game, and Brian Edmeades, the opening batsman, was also too injured to bat. Hobbsy was captaining in Fletcher’s absence: and with two star batsmen non-combatant, Essex were 109 for five when Hobbsy, not renowned for his batting and whose career average was a shade over 12, went in.

Forty-four minutes later he returned to the pavilion having made exactly 100, taking Ashley Mallett, the Australian spinner, to pieces, having before that hit Jim Higgs for four successive fours. Mallett went for 27 off an over; Hobbs scored his second 50 off 15 balls, thus: 6, 6, 1, 4, 6, 6, 0, 6, 1, 2, 1, 0, 6, 1, 4. Rod Marsh, captaining the tourists, told Hobbsy he would bring Thomson on to finish him off. Hobbsy holed out rapidly, retired from first-class cricket and went off to play for Suffolk, but returned after four years to captain Glamorgan.

Essex lost by 98 runs, but none of us minded. We had seen a stunning game of cricket. Hobbsy played in many of them in his long career. He spent the night before his second XI debut in 1960 sleeping on top of a tomb in a graveyard, because his lift never turned up and the hotel was closed when he arrived.

It is a delight that this book has been published, capturing the life of a man who gave pleasure to thousands and, although playing in seven Tests, was part of the backbone of English county cricket. Is it impossibly nostalgic to think that the wheel might turn again, and such joyous cricket might be commonplace once more? I hope not.