Guinea pig lays trail to Mailey masterpiece

In 1958 the great Australian legbreak and googly bowler, Arthur Mailey, published his memoirs, entitled 10 for 66 And All That. This was a reference not only to the immortal alternative view of English history by Walter Carruthers Sellar & Robert Julian Yeatman, but to his own finest day on a cricket field when, as a member of Warwick Armstrong`s 1921 side, he took all 10 Gloucestershire wickets at Cheltenham - for 66 runs.

Mailey (who died in 1967, aged 81) was as fine a writer as he was a bowler, and an outstanding artist whose cartoons and caricatures of his fellow players decorate the book. He began his book with a typically relaxed and unostentatious introduction:

"In Gloucestershire`s first innings Armstrong, going on early, took 2-53; Mailey, given the ball when the tail-enders batted, got away with 3-21. In the county`s second innings, Armstrong, after he had been belted to the extent of 0-54, threw the ball to Mailey saying rather sarcastically: `Here, you can have a go at the good batsmen now and I`ll have a crack at the tail-enders`. Result: 10 for 66 and all that - and all this."

I thoroughly enjoyed re-reading Mailey`s book, which I had only intended to glance at to check out his story of how he dismissed his hero, Victor Trumper, (stumped) in a Sydney first-grade match before the First World War. Mailey was unknown; Trumper considered the greatest batsman the world had yet seen. When Trumper, having misread the youthful Mailey`s googly, walked past the bowler on his way back to the pavilion, he smiled, patted the back of his bat, and said: "It was too good for me." Arthur Mailey wrote that he felt no sense of triumph - he felt "like a boy who had killed a dove".

This poetic phrase came to mind when Heartaches CC were honoured with a match against J. Paul Getty`s XI at Wormsley recently. Amid the distinguished line-up representing Mr Getty was Chris Tavare, in ours my nephew Alexander Rice. The latter has developed into a fine seam bowler and is always referred to by his captain as "my nephew" when he plays, although were he to be 25 minutes late for a crucial Heartaches fixture, he would revert to being my brother Jonathan`s son, be heavily fined and dropped for the Harold Pinter game.

In a remarkable rerun of the Mailey-Trumper scenario, A. E. H. Rice eventually bowled C. J. Tavare with a ball that in his view swung away and then cut back. Alex said later that he "felt like a boy who had killed a guinea pig", which doesn`t quite have the literary resonance of Mailey`s words. Chris Tavare merely said he was glad he hadn`t inspired the christening of a tortoise.

What the former Kent and England batsman did not know was that he had been Alex`s hero throughout his formative years, even to the extent that Alex had named one of his two guinea pigs Tavare.

Thus, when I astutely tossed Alex the ball I was aware of the conflict of emotions that would be taking place within his youthful breast. In a remarkable rerun of the Mailey-Trumper scenario, A. E. H. Rice eventually bowled C. J. Tavare with a ball that in his view swung away and then cut back. Alex said later that he "felt like a boy who had killed a guinea pig", which doesn`t quite have the literary resonance of Mailey`s words. Chris Tavare merely said he was glad he hadn`t inspired the christening of a tortoise.

The naming of animals after cricketers has a long and grim tradition in my family. I well recall the tears shed in 1955 when Edrich and Loader were one morning found floating on the surface of the water in what had obviously been an inadequate bowl for two such lively tenants, and the tragic loss of almost the entire 1953 Oval team when 10 died after a mass escape from their cage exposed them to the mercy of the cat next door. Only Graveney survived the carnage.

Perhaps my biggest mistake in this area was the decision to designate Tyson as the handle for my boxer. Technically the name was not my choice as he and his brother, Bruno, were christened by his breeder, but I should have changed it. I kept it as a tribute to Frank, of Northamptonshire and England, but no one believes that, and as the pugilist Tyson`s reputation has suffered, so has that of the dog, who is too dim to adapt to a change in his twilight years.

But back to Mailey. How fortunate that my nephew`s unorthodox approach to the naming of guinea pigs brought me back to a book unread for 30 years. It is a quite outstanding work, of humour, history and perception, with first-hand reminiscence of major figures from Trumper to those still in action today, such as Jim Swanton and Richie Benaud. May some bright publisher reissue 10 for 66 And All That; failing that, beg, steal or borrow a copy. (I don`t lend my books to anyone.)