Bears/Pears Cricket Thread 2014

[ACVilla]

Hope this helps, ACVilla. 

Car Parking

Match day car parking is available at Edgbaston Stadium on a first come, first served basis, priced at £5 for members, £10 for non-members, which will be payable at the machines or Main Reception or RES Wyatt Stand Reception.

Car parking for all disabled visitors is available on-site at Edgbaston.

Off site car parking is also available at the Cannon Hill Park Red Gra and Edgbaston Nature Centre on Pershore Road
- See more at: http://www.edgbaston.com/1775/birmingham-bears-v-durham-jets-spectator-guide.html#sthash.mUGkyfNF.dpuf

Cheers.

[ACVilla]

Birmingham Mail

The day Warwickshire's Brian Lara reached a record 501 against Durham

Flashback - Brian Halford recalls a record-breaking day at Edgbaston 20 years ago

Jun 06, 2014 09:35
By Brian Halford

June 6, 2014, today, will bring Durham’s cricketers to Edgbaston to face Warwickshire in a Twenty20 match.

All being well the weather will be good and the excitement high. There will be thrills galore. Sixes, fours, flying stumps, leg-byes – that sort of thing. Maybe even a few broken records.

But however exhilarating the T20 feast of entertainment is, the occasion will struggle to match events which unfolded there when Durham visited Birmingham 20 years earlier to the day.

June 6, 1994, is a date which will tower forever in cricket history.

It was the last day of a rain-affected championship match already sentenced to end in a draw. In reply to Durham’s 556 for eight, Warwickshire resumed on the final morning (the third day having been washed out) on 210 for two.

Visiting captain Phil Bainbridge refused to negotiate with opposite number Dermot Reeve to make a game of it, so it was left to the Bears to bat on.

And what happened? Well, something that had never happened before, has not happened since and might well never happen again. A batsman scored 500.

The close-of-play score: Warwickshire 810 for four. Keith Piper finished 116 not out – not bad but overshadowed ever so slightly by Brian Lara’s unbeaten 501.

The bare statistics of Lara’s masterpiece – 501 runs from 427 balls in 474 minutes with 62 fours and ten sixes – are astounding but even they cannot portray the full majesty, control and unprecedented scale of the innings.

Lara’s innings was the highest score by a batsman in first-class cricket, contained the most runs by a batsman in a day’s play and the most from boundaries in an innings. It also made him the first player to score seven centuries in eight first-class knocks – he was in decent nick.

It was a virtuoso day’s work which entranced the cricket world, had people flocking to Edgbaston as the news spread and, in the days before instant internet updates, was monitored minutely via radios througout the country and, indeed, the world.

And as engrossed as anyone by the history unfolding in Birmingham was a young all-rounder called Dougie Brown, down in Northampton.

Brown had seen Lara’s innings begin on day two but was missing the rest as he was playing for Warwickshire 2nd XI against Northamptonshire.

“Brian was 111 not out at the end of the second day,” said Brown, now Warwickshire’s director of cricket.

“I saw those runs but then a second-team game started in Northampton. We were playing down there and gradually news came through of what was happening back at Edgbaston.

“There was a lot less mobile communication in those days, but Neal Abberley phoned people back at the ground and we knew Brian was past 300 and then 400 and we were asking ‘what’s the world record?’ It was clear something very special was occurring.”

And someone very special was responsible for it: A batsman who was to leave his signature all over the record books for West Indies and Warwickshire – and whom Brown rates as highly as can be.

Among the pantheon of all-time great batsmen, it is Lara whom Brown would choose if challenged to name a player to bat for his life.

“When people are asked who they would have batting for their lives they usually say Steve Waugh or Sachin Tendulkar,” Brown said. “Fair enough, they are great players, but for me it would be Brian Lara.

“I would trust him implicitly to bat for my life. If you look at some of the great Test innings ever played, he has played them. Like the mammoth one against Australia when Stuart McGill was turning it square out of the rough. Just unbelievable batting.

“It was a privilege to play alongside Brian for Warwickshire. When he first joined, there was I, a young lad from central Scotland, batting with a world-record holder. I hadn’t even played in the championship at that stage and suddenly there I was with Brian Lara in the dressing room. I had to pinch myself.

“He brought a lot more than runs to Warwickshire’s team. We all drew belief and momentum from him. Just to bat with Brian and be around him gave you belief and made you raise your own game.”

Without question Lara was one of the finest batsmen cricket has ever seen but his approach to certain aspects of the game raised a few eyebrows from time to time (taking his mobile phone on to the field during a championship match at Northampton was not exactly great role-model material).

But Brown is adamant Lara was, in many ways, “misunderstood”.

“Perhaps Brian could be a little bit flippant in his attitude at times,” he said. “But I think that was because he played such an unbelievable amount of cricket. I think, as a person, he was misunderstood. He was quite a selfess character.

“When Brian made his debut against Glamorgan he was on 99 when last man Tim Munton went in. They were offering him singles and he was turning them down. I thought ‘this guy is awesome’ – he is turning down a century. Then, after four balls in the over, they brought the field in of course and he hit a four and a one!

“He had a reputation for being quite precious and distant but in fact he was anything but that in the dressing-room environment. There was always banter flying round and he was part of that. He would spend time with the less experienced players and was really generous with his time and also with his money.

“He worked very hard on his batting. Sometimes in the gym he would not do all the work that other players did but he did what he needed to do. As a batsman, he was properly driven.

“I think he found the day-to-day side of it a challenge, playing one day then travelling that night and playing somewhere else the next. But he dealt with it, as proved by the runs he scored.”

Brown was fortunate enough to be in Lara’s team most of the time but did oppose him a few times (and dismissed him twice) in ODIs for England v West Indies. He cites one small example from those clashes as a glimpse of Lara’s imperious talent.

“In an ODI in Sharjah I was bowling to Brian with Alec Stewart keeping wicket and Graeme Hick quite wide at slip,” Brown said. “Brian guided the ball between Alec and Graeme for four and our captain, Adam Hollioake, gave him some verbals, saying he was lucky. The next ball Brian played it through the same spot, a perfect shot, deliberately played, very late. Brian just looked at Adam and smiled.

“It was a privilege to be on the same field as him. Luckily, a lot of the time he was on my team!”

20 years.........that genuinely made me shout out "20 years ago, jeez"

[Simon Ward]

Indeed feeling old AC!

[adrenachrome]

I had moved to live in the US about a month before, so I missed it.   

20 years!

[ACVilla]

I remember "watching" it on teletext.

For me, BC Lara is by far and away the best batsmen I have wer witnessed.

A real joy to watch the way he went about batting.

[adrenachrome]

I wholeheartedly agree ACVilla. A genius in true sense of the word.

I was fortunate to see some great and entertaining batsmen like MJK Smith, Amiss, Jameson, Kanhai and Kallicharran, but Lara was sublime.

[paul_e]

I was meant to be going to the final session with my grandad that day, but he was taken ill on the sunday so we missed it, I was there on the saturday though so I can claim to have been in the ground for part of that innings.

[PGW]

I was at that game and was there for the whole day but i knew that i would have to leave the ground and pick up my 3 sons from St Mary's Junior school in Selly Oak,
all three were Junior Bears at the time so were familiar with the trappings of cricket,more so the one day Sunday League stuff, anyhow i got them from school and told
them that history was being made that day and rushed back down to Edgbaston with them in tow where i managed to get them to sit all attentive to the goings on,i think
what helped them keep their attention was the fact that Keith Piper was batting at the other end....they all loved him( best uncapped wicket keeper i have ever seen,in my opinion).
     A day of history of which i loved being party to and taking the boys down....

[simboy]

good grief was it 20 years ago? Working in Birmingham city centre, in an office above Harry Parkes. Couple of mates and i got down there about 4ish [i think]. Awesome player, great to watch.

[Chris Jameson]

Stunning piece of fielding from Adan Lyth and Aaron Finch in the hit and run to dismiss Smith at Old Trafford.

[Whiney MacWhineface]

Stunning piece of fielding from Adan Lyth and Aaron Finch in the hit and run to dismiss Smith at Old Trafford.

Agreed, but I have greater respect for Rashid's caught and bowled. It that millisecond, with the ball literally howling at you, every instinct is "hide", not "catch".

[Chris Jameson]

Think he was still feeling it at the end of the innings!

[andyaston]

Durham 146-7 (20 overs)

Bears 89-3 (11.4 overs)

[Chris Jameson]

Finch has just possibly the biggest six I've ever seen. It was at least a 10!

[andyaston]

6 wicket win for the Bears