When Pembrokeshire played Barbados

Pembrokeshire and officials - PIC Pembroke County Cricket Club website

There was an air of desperation in Simon Katich’s voice, certainly air of disappointment. The pride was gone, the desire wasn’t there and unlike him, the players weren’t making the most of their abilities.

As a summariser, his views were cutting and summed up the series; that they were made after the first day’s play of the first test between Australia and West Indies when the home side had amassed 438/3 were the most disappointing of all. It didn’t bode well for a competitive series and that’s how it proved to be. Only 40,000 turned up for the Boxing Day test at Melbourne, the lowest crowd attendance for that test in years.

Only a few weeks earlier, West Indies legend Sir Garfield Sobers had broken down in tears as he addressed a news conference in Sri Lanka bemoaning the lack of pride in West Indies cricket and the way current players chase the dollar and not the dream by plying their trade in global 20/20 competitions and not on the grand stage of Test cricket.

West Indies cricket has been in the doldrums for nay on two decades now, their once glorious past now a downward spiral of constant failure and inadequacies.

Those born from 1990 on hold no fear of West Indian quicks, of dashing batsmen and panther like fielders, they just see a side there for the taking.

In rugby terms, the West Indies of today were the Welsh team of the 90’s, utterly inept with no silver lining in sight.

It wasn’t always like this. They used to be a big draw and you would measure your own abilities against them. Scoring a 50 against them was the equivalent of a hundred against lesser opponents and removing Sir Vivian Richards was more difficult than bowling out an entire team.

West Indian cricket really came to the fore in the 50’s and 60’s when the Three W’ Worral, Wallcott and Weekes (all Barbadians) created havoc with their brilliance before Sobers (another Barbadian) confirmed his genius with six 6’s in an over from Glamorgan’s Malcom Nash at Swansea’s St Helen’s.  In the 60’s the Windies also had a fearsome fast bowler called Wes Hall.

In 1969, he came to Pembrokeshire to play and he didn’t come alone, he came with the rest of his Barbados team and they played against our county.

The end of the swinging sixties was a completely different era. For a start, Pembrokeshire actually played more than the odd token game than it does today and the game was played on the old Esso ground which is now a housing estate opposite Milford Haven Golf Course.

It was the finest pitch in the county, if not Wales and the Barbadians said as much after the game.

The way cricket was reported back then was different too. The Western Telegraph didn’t cover every game in the first and second division and few scorecards were actually published. In fact, a trawl through the paper on micro film at Pembrokeshire Archives suggests it was more in tune with football than our summer game.

1969 was the year in which Joe Vernon resigned from the Pembrokeshire football league committee after it was decided to streamline the league into four divisions.

There was great debate as to who would replace him, not that anyone would really want to fill the void left by this long standing official.

“Joe Vernon is the Pembrokeshire league it’s as simple as that” said a colleague on his resignation. “The next man will have a huge job on his hands” No pressure on the next incumbent then.

It was also the year in which the Telegraph featured a picture of the bikini clad Gale Williams on the front page describing her as a ‘pretty girl’ which she undoubtedly was.

She had been drenched in water at Narberth Carnival after volunteering to sit under a bucket of water that would be poured over her providing a target was hit by balls being thrown at it.

No doubt a few Narberth cricketers of the era would have lined up to drench her although today’s political correctness would  have come down hard on such an innocent picture claiming it to be sexist and degrading.

In other news, the wife of a consultant opened a school fete while a farmer’s wife was beaten by two points in a national ‘who is the best young farmer’s wife’ competition. Tasks for the competition included cooking and shopping among others.

More insidiously, a mother of six from Tenby was found dead in a car. Her husband, Frederick George Bolton aged 42 was charged with her murder.

The week preceding the game the Telegraph only gave a fleeting mention to it whereas if a team containing no fewer than five test stars was to play Pembrokeshire this summer, it would create plenty of column inches.

Fortunately, the game itself had a better showing a week later although the headline kind of gave the game away with regards to how it panned out.

County crash to innings defeat it read.

Pembrokeshire were dismissed for 55 in the first innings after Barbados ‘demolished the county’s batting order in a few hours with a ‘display of batting and fielding rarely seen in these parts.’

Barry Wood, who earlier in the season produced a blistering and brilliant innings of 77 in the Harrison-Allen v Neyland was out for one. Peter Hall of Cresselly (any truth in this?) was joint top scorer with 12. The other player to score that was Pembroke’s Dai Hayward who had the dubious honour of facing the first ball from Hall.

David Morris (that’s the umpire known as Dai to you and I) could only muster four, so too did Jack Capon who contrived to run himself out. Another Neyland man, Tommy Jones was out twice off consecutive no balls!

In reply, Barbados scored 396 for five declared as Seymour Nurse scored 134 and Robin Bynoe 138 after opener Phil Lashley was hit on the forehead and forced to retire. Both centurions played for the West Indies.

They put Pembrokeshire to the sword hitting ‘brimful of fours and sixes, both players reduced the county’s bowlers to non-existence’. The article went on to describe it as ‘poetry in motion’.

For the record, Barbados declared just after 12.30pm on day two.

Pembrokeshire made a disastrous start in the second inning losing four wickets for three runs at lunch and only an ‘adventurous partnership of 43 between Peter Hall and Barry Wood gave the score any respectability.’

Hall went for a ‘swashbuckling’ 32 an innings in which he is rumoured to have hooked his more illustrious namesake for six although there is no record of this in the report while Wood was out for 24.

Pembrokeshire were all out for 76 a loss by an innings at 296 runs but that didn’t matter, it was the chance to pit yourself against such players that was the highlight, what chance of that today with so few county games played?

The two teams together with officials - PIC Pembroke County Cricket Club website