THE ULTIMATE
The gloves are off: Chris Read bows out and is James Foster set to follow?
End of the glove affair?They gave Chris Read an honour guard the week before last, and a standing ovation too. He still has two more games to play, but they’re both away, one at Northampton and the other at Hove. So this particular innings, against Worcestershire, was his last at Trent Bridge, which has been his home ground for 19 years now. Typically, Read didn’t much care for the fanfare: “Does anyone?” he asked afterwards. “I was just desperate not to get out first ball, I’d have felt a right prat.” In the end he made a breezy 38, an innings which you can picture in your mind even if you weren’t there to see it, all jackrabbit singles and clipped cover drives. Then he was out LBW, to Ed Barnard, who wasn’t even born when Read made his List A debut.
A week later, James Foster got an ovation, too, after Essex won the County Championship for the first time in 25 years. Unlike Read, Foster hasn’t yet said he’s quitting county cricket, but it sounds like he might do. His contract is up this season. Essex have offered him a one-year extension, but, like Read, he already started out on his second career as a coach and according to reports, he thinks this might be a good time to go. He’s one step behind Read then, just as he was back in 2000, when the two were a couple of kids jockeying to replace Alec Stewart, England’s Methuselahan wicketkeeper, in the Test team.
Live County cricket: Middlesex v Lancashire, Surrey v Somerset and more – live!
Rolling report: Keep up with all the latest in the County Championship with Will Macpherson at Lord’s
Read moreRead and Foster were both precociously talented. Read hadn’t even played a first-class game when he was picked for England’s A team. Foster, a couple of years younger, had played four when he was called up for the A tour of the West Indies while he was still studying at Durham University. By then, Read had already made his Test debut. He played in the summer of ’99, during that sorry series against New Zealand when England slipped to the bottom of the world rankings and their new captain, Nasser Hussain, was booed as he stood on the balcony at the Oval. Which makes Read the last man still playing in first-class cricket who played Test cricket for England in the 90s.
Read kept well, but not well enough to make everyone forget about his embarrassing dismissal by Chris Cairns, who bamboozled him with a slower ballthat Read, thinking it was a beamer, tried to duck under as it dipped and it slipped between his legs to bowl him. Stewart took over again, ‘till he decided to skip England’s tour of India at the end of 2001. Which is when Foster was called up. He played a series of gritty innings, 40 in three hours in a draw at Ahmedabad, 48 in three more in a draw at Bengaluru. He also became the only man in history to stump Sachin Tendulkar in a Test.
In the end, Read and Foster won fewer caps between the two of them than Geraint Jones did on his own. This even though Rod Marsh was adamant that Read was the best English wicketkeeper since Alan Knott, and that Stewart himself, once he’d finally retired, said Foster was the best ‘keeper in the world at standing up to the stumps. It was their misfortune to be playing in the after-Gilchrist era, when a ‘keeper wasn’t only expected to be able to bat, but had to be able to do it so well that he could change a game too. But more than that, they both suffered from the vagaries of fate. For men who held almost everything, it seemed the one thing they couldn’t catch was a lucky break.
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Read moreOn Foster’s first day back on the circuit after that winter tour, he loaned his arm guard to his team-mate Andy Clarke, who lost it, apologised, and then promptly broke Foster’s unprotected arm with a short ball in the nets. So Foster lost his place in the team. He played one Test in Australia that winter, when Stewart was injured, and that was that. At least until he was called up to for the World T20 team in 2009, when England decided to pick that odd squad of grizzled county specialists which lost to the Netherlands at Lord’s, Foster’s key contribution to the tournament a brilliant stumping to dismiss Yuvraj Singh in the game against India.
Foster at least had the support of his first England coach, Duncan Fletcher. Which was something Read never enjoyed. Fletcher was quick to make up his mind about players, and convinced himself early on that Read didn’t have what he needed to make it in Test cricket. Marsh, who was one of England’s selectors at the time, was convinced otherwise, and the two had so many arguments that Read’s weaknesses were magnified out of all proportion as Fletcher publicly pressed his case. He complained that Read was too quiet in the field, lacked the necessary defensive technique as a batsman, left too many catches to the slips, and had the wrong attitude in training. Fletcher admitted later he had been too harsh.
So Fletcher dropped Read once, in the West Indies, in the final Test of England’s breakthrough tour to in 2003-04, because his batting wasn’t up to snuff, and then again, at the start of the 2006-07 Ashes, after he had played in the last two Tests of the summer series against Pakistan. Then, when Peter Moores took over from Fletcher in 2007, he preferred Matt Prior and Tim Ambrose, who had both played under him at Sussex. And, bittersweet compliment this, Prior later admitted when he started work with England’s wicketkeeping coach Bruce French he told him: “I want you to turn me into Chris Read” because “I thought he was the best gloveman ever.”
So Read and Foster fetched up on the county circuit, where, like so many other good players who never got to prove themselves in Test cricket, they’ve played on long into their 30s. Trying all the while, you guess, to fulfil all those unrealised ambitions. You guess both came as close as they could. Read proved himself a good batsman and a great county captain, who led Nottinghamshire to the championship in 2010. Foster led Essex for five years too, played his part in their championship victory this season, and has proven himself to be the sharpest‘keeper around. He’s made 871 dismissals so far, Read 1,101. But for all the chances they held, you can’t but think about the ones that got away along the way.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/sep/19/the-spin-chris-read-james-foster-cricket
A week later, James Foster got an ovation, too, after Essex won the County Championship for the first time in 25 years. Unlike Read, Foster hasn’t yet said he’s quitting county cricket, but it sounds like he might do. His contract is up this season. Essex have offered him a one-year extension, but, like Read, he already started out on his second career as a coach and according to reports, he thinks this might be a good time to go. He’s one step behind Read then, just as he was back in 2000, when the two were a couple of kids jockeying to replace Alec Stewart, England’s Methuselahan wicketkeeper, in the Test team.
Live County cricket: Middlesex v Lancashire, Surrey v Somerset and more – live!
Rolling report: Keep up with all the latest in the County Championship with Will Macpherson at Lord’s
Read moreRead and Foster were both precociously talented. Read hadn’t even played a first-class game when he was picked for England’s A team. Foster, a couple of years younger, had played four when he was called up for the A tour of the West Indies while he was still studying at Durham University. By then, Read had already made his Test debut. He played in the summer of ’99, during that sorry series against New Zealand when England slipped to the bottom of the world rankings and their new captain, Nasser Hussain, was booed as he stood on the balcony at the Oval. Which makes Read the last man still playing in first-class cricket who played Test cricket for England in the 90s.
Read kept well, but not well enough to make everyone forget about his embarrassing dismissal by Chris Cairns, who bamboozled him with a slower ballthat Read, thinking it was a beamer, tried to duck under as it dipped and it slipped between his legs to bowl him. Stewart took over again, ‘till he decided to skip England’s tour of India at the end of 2001. Which is when Foster was called up. He played a series of gritty innings, 40 in three hours in a draw at Ahmedabad, 48 in three more in a draw at Bengaluru. He also became the only man in history to stump Sachin Tendulkar in a Test.
In the end, Read and Foster won fewer caps between the two of them than Geraint Jones did on his own. This even though Rod Marsh was adamant that Read was the best English wicketkeeper since Alan Knott, and that Stewart himself, once he’d finally retired, said Foster was the best ‘keeper in the world at standing up to the stumps. It was their misfortune to be playing in the after-Gilchrist era, when a ‘keeper wasn’t only expected to be able to bat, but had to be able to do it so well that he could change a game too. But more than that, they both suffered from the vagaries of fate. For men who held almost everything, it seemed the one thing they couldn’t catch was a lucky break.
Sign up to the Spin
Read moreOn Foster’s first day back on the circuit after that winter tour, he loaned his arm guard to his team-mate Andy Clarke, who lost it, apologised, and then promptly broke Foster’s unprotected arm with a short ball in the nets. So Foster lost his place in the team. He played one Test in Australia that winter, when Stewart was injured, and that was that. At least until he was called up to for the World T20 team in 2009, when England decided to pick that odd squad of grizzled county specialists which lost to the Netherlands at Lord’s, Foster’s key contribution to the tournament a brilliant stumping to dismiss Yuvraj Singh in the game against India.
Foster at least had the support of his first England coach, Duncan Fletcher. Which was something Read never enjoyed. Fletcher was quick to make up his mind about players, and convinced himself early on that Read didn’t have what he needed to make it in Test cricket. Marsh, who was one of England’s selectors at the time, was convinced otherwise, and the two had so many arguments that Read’s weaknesses were magnified out of all proportion as Fletcher publicly pressed his case. He complained that Read was too quiet in the field, lacked the necessary defensive technique as a batsman, left too many catches to the slips, and had the wrong attitude in training. Fletcher admitted later he had been too harsh.
So Fletcher dropped Read once, in the West Indies, in the final Test of England’s breakthrough tour to in 2003-04, because his batting wasn’t up to snuff, and then again, at the start of the 2006-07 Ashes, after he had played in the last two Tests of the summer series against Pakistan. Then, when Peter Moores took over from Fletcher in 2007, he preferred Matt Prior and Tim Ambrose, who had both played under him at Sussex. And, bittersweet compliment this, Prior later admitted when he started work with England’s wicketkeeping coach Bruce French he told him: “I want you to turn me into Chris Read” because “I thought he was the best gloveman ever.”
So Read and Foster fetched up on the county circuit, where, like so many other good players who never got to prove themselves in Test cricket, they’ve played on long into their 30s. Trying all the while, you guess, to fulfil all those unrealised ambitions. You guess both came as close as they could. Read proved himself a good batsman and a great county captain, who led Nottinghamshire to the championship in 2010. Foster led Essex for five years too, played his part in their championship victory this season, and has proven himself to be the sharpest‘keeper around. He’s made 871 dismissals so far, Read 1,101. But for all the chances they held, you can’t but think about the ones that got away along the way.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/sep/19/the-spin-chris-read-james-foster-cricket