Your First Match

Mine was Worcs V Glos from 15/05 - 17/05/68

Pears in batting order:

Headley
Fearnley
Ormrod
Graveney +
D'Oliveira
Turner
Slade
Booth ++
Gifford
Holder
Coldwell

My first live match was Essex v Nhants at Colchester on 17 Aug 1986
http://static.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1980S/1986/ENG_LOCAL/SUNLG/ESSEX_NORTHANTS_SUNLG_17AUG1986.html

Gooch
Hardie
Border
Pringle
Lilley
Prichard
Fletcher
East
Foster
Lever
Acfield

Apparently I saw the last day of this match in 1957 while on a family holiday. I'm sure I was very impressed by Jim Laker's 6fer but since I was barely into my second year at the time I don't recall too much about it.

http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/22/22648.html

My first live match was England v Australia at the Oval in 2001 -

Day 2 or 3 can't quite remember - but I know Steve Waugh was batting...

http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63940.html

I have a vague recollection of being dragged to a game at the SCG in 68-69 as a kid who cared more about the grouse lollies and chips you could get than the cricket. My real first game was the 71-72 Aus v World XI game at the SCG. I was blown away by the colour on the Sydney Hill. There was just under 30,000 at the ground but to a country boy it looked like a million. The sides were:

Aus:
KR Stackpole
RJ Inverarity
*IM Chappell
J Benaud
GS Chappell
KD Walters
+RW Marsh
KJ O'Keeffe
TJ Jenner
RAL Massie
DK Lillee

World XI:
HM Ackerman
SM Gavaskar
Asif Masood
Zaheer Abbas
RG Pollock
*GS Sobers
AW Greig
+FM Engineer
Intikhab Alam
RS Cunis
BS Bedi

We arrived at the ground late and squeezed into a spot in the Brewongle Stand. Sobers was batting to Massie who immediately dismissed the great man after a couple of boundaries to reduce the World XI to 6-68 (Massie finished with 7-76).

I went to Day 3 of this match & had to watch a Bruce Francis century.
http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Scorecards/30/30577.html

The teams
Qld
Trimble, Loxton, Lucas, Dudgeon, Joyce, Surti, Maclean, Morgan, Paulsen, King, Duncan

NSW
Francis, Turner, Collins, Davies, Wilson, Benaud, Colley, Pawley, O'Keeffe, Hendricks, Renneberg

.

First live match for me was also in the 1971-72 season.

The Combined XI played the touring World XI at the TCA ground. From memory ... Ian Chappell made 90, including several sixes onto the roof. Sobers made 46, and IIRC was caught by Greg Chappell off a ball hit twenty miles into the air (well, it seemed like that to a 13 year old). The pies were good, too.

WideWally wrote:had to watch a Bruce Francis century.

You make it sound like hell on earth. Why was this guy picked for Aus again?

Because he played for NSW ... and Essex. Total qunt.

lardbucket wrote:Because he played for NSW ... and Essex. Total qunt.

What he said



Must have been the worst specialist batsman to play for Australia. He had a Sheffield Shield average of 27.64

FFS

Francis only played because Lawry's file was marked 'NTPFAA' and none of the other openers in Australia that year were making runs at the right time. Trimble had his worst season ever, Woodcock started the year poorly, Derek Chadwick faded quickly after doing well in earlier seasons, Ken McAullay faded even more quickly, Graeme Watson wasn't viewed as a serious opening option, John Causby was past it, Eastwood had lost it, Loxton and Seib had lost it (or never had it), and Alan Turner was performing so poorly for NSW that he was eventually dropped, or at least dropped down the order, as well. Neither Redpath nor Sheahan (both of whom opened later for Australia) were opening for their State at that stage, and the selectors were so unimaginative that the only makeshift opener they were brave enough to try was Inverarity. And Francis of course. Did I mention that he was utter filth, and that his fielding was even worse than his batting?

I hate to sound like a Johnny come lately but I think the first proper match I attended I was the '96 Natwest final Lancs vs Essex. Best remembered for Glenn Chapple's astonishing spell and Crawley not being given out LBW at the start of his innings. My particular memories are Adrian Rollins's bemused expression when he was done by a jaffa and Gooch being trapped LB by the mighty Jason Gallian.

Not as old and wrinkly as some on here either:

Mine was a mighty Yorks team:
White, Blewett, Byas*, Vaughan, McGrath, Harden, Hamilton, Blakey+, Silverwood, Fisher, Sidebottom

beating the Lankies:
Watkinson, Atherton, Crawley*, Fairbrother, Flintoff, Lloyd, Hegg+, Austin, Chapple, Martin, Muralitharan

mainly thanks to 4 wickets from the bog-standard medium pace of Greg Blewett. It made up for his batting, when Craig White got out just shy of 50 I think Blewett was on about 2, he then edged one through the slips for 4 then promptly got out.

Eric Air Emu wrote:I hate to sound like a Johnny come lately but I think the first proper match I attended I was the '96 Natwest final Lancs vs Essex. Best remembered for Glenn Chapple's astonishing spell and Crawley not being given out LBW at the start of his innings. My particular memories are Adrian Rollins's bemused expression when he was done by a jaffa and Gooch being trapped LB by the mighty Jason Gallian.

Twas Robert Rollins, his brother. I was pretty confident we'd won that final at the break too...

Aye me too JK.

The formula was almost guaranteed ......

1. Win the toss
2. Choose to bowl
3. Skittle 'em cheaply due to the early start in September
4. Knock the runs off with overs to spare
5. Celebrate the win

That was one of the biggest shocks in the history of the competition ( the scale & manner of the win I mean)

Indeed, gutted I was. Felt worse after that game than when Eddie Hemmings hit that 4 off the last ball to win.

That was a really hard loss to take tbh, between 1981-1992 we'd possibly been the best side in the country and had lost the likes of Foster, Lever, Pringle etc - by comparison the mid 90's were dire and we were just rebuilding. I think this was Goochies last full season too.

Looking at the scorecard
http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/current/match/419380.html

I have to say that lineup looks a bit weak - looks like Stuart Law was injured for the final and we had Mark Ilott coming in at 8 FFS!

Thankfully we beat Warwickshire in a final not long after to get over it! 57 all out FFS, and finals in those days were live on the BBC. Fookin embarrasment!

After much urging my father (who preferred football) took me to the 3rd day of 2nd Test England v. Pakistan at Trent Bridge on the not-so 'Glorious' 12th of August 1967 when England added 123 runs at a cost of 4 wickets with Kenny Barrington making 75 of them in about 4 hours' play on one of the coldest, dankest days of the year, let alone of a miserable summer with mist rolling off the Trent (or at least that's what I thought it was - it may have been outraged patrons burning their tickets).

My chief memory is of Barrington being constantly slow-handclapped and him walking down the wicket holding up his bat with one hand as if requesting volunteers to take his place although no one took up his offer, sad to say. They (or we) were probably too busy huddling together for warmth. Although Barrington reached his century as well as overtaking Neil Harvey's aggregate in Tests (a strange record announced on the PA for those without portable radios) many thought he should have been dropped for the following Test at The Oval as he had been after a similar slow century against NZ two years earlier but Boycott had already been dropped earlier that summer after making 246* (his eventual career best score in Tests) against India at Headingley and that had obviously not had the effect of pour encourager les autres and KFB was retained.

Gluttons for punishment, we went again on the Monday which was an unusually fine and sunlit day only to find that rain had got underneath the covers and play had been called off for the day. My father was not best pleased by this as he had paid to put his car in a private car park. This curtailed his visits to cricket matches, which usually bored him rigid anyway, and were usually guaranteed to be rained off or bitterly cold. The two exceptions were the England v.Australia ODI at Edgbaston in August 1972 when the closing stages were almost enveloped in smoke from a neighbouring garden fire and the World Cup Final in 1975 when his car broke down on the motorway coming to pick me up the night before and which we consequently missed, much to my everlasting regret.

Underwood cleaned up the Paksters on the Tuesday, when we did not go, to claim an easy victory. Looking at the Pakistan team it is surprising how easily they were rolled over considering the number of notable players in the side:

Link

My first unaccompanied visit was also to Trent Bridge at the beginning of the following season to see Notts play Lancashire in the first round of what was then the Gillette Cup which was played at the end of April. Conditions were equally as dank and miserable as for the previous Test and it was concluded in a downpour. However it was remarkable as it was Gary Sobers' first match for Notts and Jack Bond's first match as Lancashire captain with Statham and Higgs opening the bowling for the visiting side. Although conditions were more reminiscent of a Boxing Day fixture for County or Forest across the river most of Nottingham's Afro-Caribbean population seem to have turned out to welcome their hero who duly obliged with heroics:

Link

77/78 Aus v Banindia

J. Dyson
G. Cosier
P. Toohey
C. Serjeant
R. Simpson
K. Hughes
A. Mann
S. Rixon
W. Clark
J. Thompson
J Gannon

Basil u r a qunt for making me recall that line-up

G.Wood wrote:77/78 Aus v Banindia

J. Dyson
G. Cosier
P. Toohey
C. Serjeant
R. Simpson
K. Hughes
A. Mann
S. Rixon
W. Clark
J. Thompson
J Gannon

Basil u r a qunt for making me recall that line-up

I aim to please

The only thing I remember from the day (apart from my next door neighbour picking his nose) was that Serjeant took 45 minutes to get off the mark with a cover drive for 4 off Bishen Bedi and then got out the very next ball.

qunt

G.Wood wrote:The only thing I remember from the day (apart from my next door neighbour picking his nose) was that Serjeant took 45 minutes to get off the mark with a cover drive for 4 off Bishen Bedi and then got out the very next ball.

qunt

Actually, you're right, it was a shoite team, Ah, the happy, happy days of the Packer era. Without them we would not have known what a stellar player Brian Rose was!

Aust v WI, Jan 30 1982, Adelaide Oval.

BM Laird
GM Wood
J Dyson
KJ Hughes
GS Chappell*
AR Border
RW Marsh†
B Yardley
DK Lillee
JR Thomson
LS Pascoe

I spent my summer holidays in Adelaide that year and the opening day was my last day in Adelaide before heading home so my Uncle and Aunty took me and my sister to the game. I was beside myself with excitement - first live game, first test and it was the mighty West Indies! The whole day felt like a carnival. I still remember all the sights and sounds like it was yesterday and being on the train home from the city afterwards with all the yobbos (of which my Uncle was one!) and their eskies and just thinking test match cricket was the best thing in the world. Nothing's changed.

Gary 111 wrote:Not as old and wrinkly as some on here either:

Mine was a mighty Yorks team:
White, Blewett, Byas*, Vaughan, McGrath, Harden, Hamilton, Blakey+, Silverwood, Fisher, Sidebottom

beating the Lankies:
Watkinson, Atherton, Crawley*, Fairbrother, Flintoff, Lloyd, Hegg+, Austin, Chapple, Martin, Muralitharan

mainly thanks to 4 wickets from the bog-standard medium pace of Greg Blewett. It made up for his batting, when Craig White got out just shy of 50 I think Blewett was on about 2, he then edged one through the slips for 4 then promptly got out.

Jeezus Gaz, are you the Forum Afridi? Have you had your 21st yet?

My first test.

http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63642.html

Can clearly remember Cronje smashing Warne all over Wanderers.

I could make some lame remark about smashing all over a mountain, but that would be tasteless.