If we’re talking about umpires, I’ve got a story from the other end of the pitch and succumbing to the left armer, including regular demises against Sains and Wilko (to name only a couple!).
On this occasion it was Gloucester against Essex at Bristol with Messrs Graveney and Payne batting in the lead up to lunch (the day is irrelevant). JK Lever was swinging it around bowling at the Jessop Tavern end where former Gloucester favourite, David Shepherd, was umpiring.
Grav and I were doing alright against the swinging ball, although Grav was having a little difficulty picking the outswinger with regular exclamations of “Oh shit!” coming out of Grav even when he was still stepping out to perform his forward push as the ball moved across him. His frustration was evident when watching me leaving it well alone when JK tried his alternative delivery to me. “How do you do that?” asked Grav from 22 yards away.
With a couple of minutes to go before the break, JK started his inswinger to me on the stumps and moving into my pads. Two or three runs through midwicket I thought, but missed it! Shep responded to the appeal quite quickly I thought and off he went with the bails for lunch.
Some twenty years later, I got Shep to come and speak at my local cricket club in Oswestry, Shropshire and he was doing a Q&A following his speech. I thought of a good starter to kick the session off. I described that day at Nevil Road, how close it was to lunch & the decision that forever records “I.R.Payne lbw b Lever” asking him what stump he thought it was hitting.
“Who cares Payney? I wanted my lunch!”
Memory added on July 4, 2021
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