268 The blow by blow account of Ali's amazing onslaught     
By Trevor Jones                      

published 2002 by Sporting Declarations

Christmas is coming so we must clear the decks before we are deluged with new cricket books (he says, hopefully).  Publishing his new work perhaps a tad optimistically in time for the seasonal period of present- purchasing, Trevor Jones of various Surrey record books fame, has produced an interesting and varied 72 page booklet.  

The work is unique in that it covers a single match: the 2002 C&G game between Surrey and Glamorgan in which a whole scree of competition records were set, including an amazing 268 by Alastair Brown out of a seemingly impregnable 438-5 in 50 overs.  So impregnable was this huge total that Glamorgan came within 9 runs of matching it, thanks to a searing 119 off 69 balls by Robert Croft (in fact as Trevor demonstrates, Glam were even ahead of the run rate for a while thanks to the fast start given to them by Croft in reply). 867 runs in a single day (100 overs).  People will remember the game for Brown's contribution, but even without him, 599 runs were scored, still 6-an-over.  Apart from Croft, starring roles came from Surrey's Adam Hollioake and Glam's Darren Thomas who rebounded well from an absolute (and record-breaking!) mauling with the ball to almost bring Glam victory.

The booklet has everything you could want as a memento of the game: Over-by-over descriptive detail of all the action; value-added interviews with key players (Trevor clearly has earned access to the players after all his work on the club in recent years); colour pictures; a wagon wheel for Brown's innings; details of records broken and set by the game; career stats and even innings manhattans for each side.

Trevor uses the forum to make the point that maybe Brown should have had more England opportunities and it is difficult to argue with this although a "first-class" (i.e. English county game) career average of 43.6 is marginal.  Had he been an equivalent bowler rather than a batsman (but not with an average of 43!), maybe he would have had an opportunity at test level - despite the odd collapse England have not really been short of top-order batters in the past few years.  A more reasonable case could maybe be made for slotting him into the one-day international side, notwithstanding the presence of specialists such as Nick Knight and quality players such as Trescothick, Thorpe, Butcher, Hussain, etc.   A Glamorgan follower could probably still make a case for Croft too.

Anyway, whilst not prose as such, the booklet is an interesting memento of a game which will live long in the memory of not just the few hardy souls at the Oval who actually attended the game.  The layout looks a little home-spun, but the content is all there and at £6.99 this should appeal to Surrey fans in particular.

Copies from Sporting Declarations Books. 

© idontlikecricket.co.uk    2002