The Final Test Page #9

Dont you really?

I have heard of such people.

Excuse me, Mr Whitehead, but isnt

this a built up area?

I should think so.

Why dont you like cricket?

Well the fact of the matter is

I find it so frightfully dull.

Frightfully dull?

Well of course its frightfully dull.

Thats the whole point.

Any game can be exciting -

... football, dirt track racing, roulette.

The measure of the vast superiority

of cricket over any other game ...

... is that it simply refuses to cater to this ...

... boorish craving for excitement.

To go to cricket to be enthralled ...

... is as stupid as to go to a

Chekhov play in search of melodrama.

- Oy!

- Did that policeman shout something.

I think he was holding up the traffic Mr Whitehead.

Oh how frightfully kind of him.

- What was I talking about?

- Um Chekhov.

Oh yes. Chekhov and cricket.

Great similarity you know.

Same sense of shapeless pattern, form, design.

Hes down to that superbly satisfied

art which conceals art.

Having the same passion for a

beautifully inconclusive ...

Your father would know what I was

talking about.

- Great artist your father.

- Do you really think ...

... hes that Mr Whitehead?

- My dear boy, there are ...

... two innings of his that I

shall remember to my dying day.

One was when Surrey needed runs fast.

He made 103 in just under an hour ...

... without a single vulgar or bucolic stroke.

The other was an occasion at Lords

in a test match ...

Get out of the way!

When in the two hours between ...

... lunch and tea, he made with

consummate elegance exactly ...

... 6 runs and broke the Australians hearts.

Oh a great man.

Man to be remembered.

We must be through the limit now, mustnt we.

- Well, I think thats ...

- Good we can open it up a bit.

Oh good shot, sir. Good shot.

- Row O? Row O.

- I beg ... - What the heck!

- Here! That seats taken.

- It is indeed madam, by me.

You cant come barging in taking

any vacant place you see.

- You ought to know better.

- Shh.

I will not hush and Id still like to know ...

... what youre doing in someone else's seat.

Its a very long story, Madam,

and though I should tell it ...

... to you quite beautifully this is not ...

Ahhh! Fool! Get back! Get back!

Dont get upset about it.

Well, they must come in now.

They cant make him ...

... face that last over.

Why dont those beastly umpires

call the luncheon interval?

Well, if thats what youre all

want to, why dont you shout ...

... at the beastly umpires.

Shout at the umpires?!

An interesting idea.

I must try it some time.

Too late now.

Lets hope they send in somebody else.

- Good luck, Sam.

- Thanks Jim.

Best of luck, Sam.

Good luck, Sam and dont worry

its a nice easy paced wicket.

Thanks Denis.

Oh its him Im afraid.

Excuse me.

Now here comes Sam Palmer to face

these anxious last 4 balls before lunch.

Looking as trim and as competent

as he did when he first came ...

... to test cricket 25 years ago.

A bit thicker perhaps, but ...

... just as reliable and reassuring looking.

Looks around the field.

Plots the fieldsmen in that ...

... experienced cricket brain of his.

And heres his first bowl from

Lindwall on the Pavilion end.

- Catch!

- Not out.

Hes hit him on the pad and an appeal for LBW.

Not out.

But it was a very close thing.

It was a very confident appeal.

Nevertheless, he gives another tug

at that cap of his ...

... pulling it further down over

his right ear as if it needed it.

And settles down to this next ball

from Lindwall.

... who comes in bowls to him

on a length from the leg stump.

He pushes it safely down there to

forward short leg.

Just two balls to go.

Heres the first of them.

Lindwall from the Pavilion end

bowls to him and ...

... he shoulders arms and lets

it go through outside the off-stump.

And now the last ball before lunch.

Catch!

Hes out.

Sams out.

Poor Sam Palmer. LBW Lindwall nought.

You can feel the ...

... disappointment for him all

the way around the ground.

That then is England 316 for 4

and we return you to ...

But wait! Wait. Just a moment.

Look at this.

The entire Australian side is

lined up in a corridor ...

... down from the wicket and theyre

cheering Palmer ...

... as he walks back to the pavilion.

And all the way around the ground ...

... people are standing up cheering.

Hutton stands back to let him

go up the pavilion steps first.

Good old Sam.

Good old Sam.

Get up, madam.

But he didnt score.

Ive never seen a crowd swarm over

the ground like this ...

... before the end of the match.

If hed made 300 runs, they couldnt

have given him a grander reception.

And now, although hes gone into

the pavilion ...

... the applause is still going on

as fiercely as ever.

- I dont think any of us here are ...

- Rum and orange Cora, please.

... ever going to forget the last couple of minutes.

- Beg your pardon, dear. You said rum and orange.

- Yes please.

- Bad luck, Sam.

- Oh well.

You should have done that, you know skipper,

standing back like that.

Its you they wanted to see.

Is that the way it sounds to you out there, Sam?

- Someone to see you, Sam.

- Right.

I dont believe you were out, Dad.

It didnt look out to me.

I was out alright.

Syd doesnt make mistakes.

Now skipper, this is my Reggie.

- Delighted to meet you.

- How do you do, sir.

- Looks like a cricketer, Sam.

- I know. Pity.

- Why pity?

- Well, hes going to be a poet ...

... and he ought to look like a poet.

Deceptive appearance, eh?

Come back 5 minutes before ...

... start of play, and well have

a little chat about thold man.

- What about thold man?

- Never you mind.

Dad. Ive got to ask someone to dinner.

Well, your aunt wont like that.

It wont give her time ...

... to do her shopping.

Who?

Alexander Whitehead.

- You dont mean it.

- Yes.

- He isnt coming.

- Yes, he is.

What? You mean he liked your poem so much?

Oh he hasnt even read my poem.

At least, I dont think he has.

He wants to meet you.

He must be crackers.

Oh and heres your pound back.

I didnt need to use it after all.

I beheld today an astonishing spectacle.

It was no less than the personal

Dunkirk of an ageing cricketer.

But, a crowd of many thousands

with the wildest enthusiasm ...

... hailed it as his greatest triumph, no less.

- Oh dear, theyre the wrong colour.

- Well, its the best I could get, Auntie.

Well, it will have to do, I suppose.

Really Reggie ...

... I do wish we could have had

a bit more warning.

Well, he wont mind. Hes very bohemian.

Bohemian?

Ha! That means caviar and champagne.

Auntie, Mr Hutton told me today that

Dad had given up that ...

... coaching job because of me.

Is that true?

Well, he did say something about

it being a bit awkward ...

... with you going to Oxford and everything.

I see. Well, youve got to get

him to take that job, Auntie.

And how, I should like to know.

You know what its like getting

your Dad to do anything.

Mules arent in it.

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