August 2005 – Ian Louis Harris

Who’s Got the Stomach For Days Three & Four Of The 2005 Edgbaston Test Match, Plus Who’s The Daddy by Toby Young, Lloyd Evans & Jeremy Lloyd, Kings Head, 6 & 7 August 2005

Image produced in collaboration with DALL-E

When reviewing the 2005 Ashes series, the great commentator, Richie Benaud, would relate tales from letters he had received from senior people, captains of industry even, describing hiding behind the sofa unable to watch the denouement of some of the tighter matches, such was the level of emotion invested in these incredible multiple-day sporting events that we call test matches in cricket.

The Edgbaston test, which several of us fortunate folk known as the Heavy Rollers experienced live in part, was such a match. While our live experience, which started so brilliantly for us the night before…

On The Eve Of The 2005 Edgbaston Test, A Heavy Rollers Extravaganza At Tye Towers, 3 August 2005

…and then progressed to Days One & Two, two utterly absorbing days at the test match itself…

Unforgettable Days With The Heavy Rollers, Days One & Two Of THAT Edgbaston Test Match, 4 & 5 August 2005

…was over as a live experience for us at stumps on Day Two, of course it continued for us as a television and radio experience for the next couple of days.

Before that, someone (often it was Nigel), will have helped me get at least part of the way, if not all the way, to Birmingham New Street for my train and I probably got to Janie’s place around 9:30/10:00 at night for a shower and then some deep sleep.

No doubt Janie and I played tennis in the morning, ahead of hunkering down with the radio and/or television for most of the Saturday.

It was a seesaw of a cricketing day if ever there was one. England looked to have surrendered their second innings for too little, then Australia similarly found it difficult to avoid frequent dismissals.

But Janie and I could not stay at home all day and watch cricket – we had tickets for a dinner and show at The Kings Head, Islington: Who’s The Daddy, a satirical farce. Not the sort of show that Janie would normally want to see, except that this show was largely about a larger than life journalist/editor named Boris Johnson and his affair with fellow Spectator journalist Petronella Wyatt. Without reaching to breach any professional confidences here, Janie had professional reasons (as well as idle curiosity) to see this show.

This photo from around that time, adamprocter2006, CC BY-SA 2.0. I can report truthfully that Janie has never treated Bojo, although she had seen him in person…as have I, subsequently, in my case when I accosted him with my tennis racket in 2016.

Janie and I set off for Islington quite early, with England in a good but not yet totally secure position. Michael Clarke & Shane Warne were at the crease together albeit seven down but accumulating runs. I think the only reason that the match was still going on at that hour was because England had taken the extra half hour to try and finish the match, but that idea didn’t seem to be working. I’m pretty sure Janie did the driving, thank goodness. We were listening intently. We parked up near the theatre and sat listening to the last couple of overs. Then Steve Harmison bowled THAT ball to remove Clarke on the stroke of stumps.

The same Daily Motion web site that enhanced the previous report has a video (45 minutes this time) showing the Day Three & Four denouement of this incredible match.

That Steve Harmison ball at the end of Day Three is at c22’30”.

Janie and I were in celebratory mode as we entered The Kings Head. Australia still more than 100 behind, just two wickets left…what could possibly go wrong?

We didn’t think all that much of the show. Our (coincidentally cricket loving) friend at The Guardian, Michael Billington, was quite kind about it, but it was pretty much slammed by Sholto Byrnes in The Independent. Indeed, londontheatre.co.uk sums up the piece and its reviews very well. Not great.

No matter, we were in a great mood. England were on the verge of a vital win…

…or were they?

I’m pretty sure we played tennis again, early, on the Sunday morning. Then we hunkered down in the near-expectation that England would quickly take a couple of wickets and we could relax for the rest of the day.

I must say that I personally never got to the “hiding behind the sofa” stage, but there was a lot of oohing and aahing, that’s for sure. I started off watching in the living room, then migrated to the bedroom so I could put my feet up and await what I thought was the inevitable win…then I wasn’t so sure…then I starting to think it was an inevitable “yet again” loss on the way.

Janie kept insisting that it would all come good in the end, but once the lead had been reduced to 20-30 runs, she couldn’t sit still nor could she bear to watch.

By the time the England victory came, I was, by then, absolutely convinced that England were about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

But in the end we celebrated, Janie reminding me that she had been insisting that it would come good for England all along. Yeh, right.

Here is a link to the Cricinfo scorecard and resources for this match.

I had , in a moment of extreme lucidity disguised as madness, procured, the previous autumn, six tickets for Day Five of The Oval test, just in case England were able to take the 2005 Ashes series to the wire. I had kept very quiet about this purchase, just in case the social workers of The Children Society, on learning of this purchase, conspired with a couple of doctors and had me put away for gross insanity.

A coupe of hours after the Edgbaston victory, it felt like the right moment to fess up to this purchase. I called Chas, who was in one of those “trembling voiced Chas” states, but he did make some informed comments on the outcome of the match and immediately said yes to the idea of joining me and Daisy at Day Five of the Oval test, should the series come to that.

I told Chas that I intended to call Nigel next.

Chas told me that it might be best to leave it another couple of hours or more. “I called him a few minutes ago and he still could barely speak”, explained Chas.

Nigel doesn’t lose his voice lightly.

I did speak with Nigel later that day, who was still somewhat of a quiver. It is a shame he wasn’t able to join us at the Oval, but still that Oval story will make for another excellent Ogblog piece, not least because it will be awash with Charles Bartlett’s colourful pictures.

Unforgettable Days With The Heavy Rollers, Days One & Two Of THAT Edgbaston Test Match, 4 & 5 August 2005

All Photographs By Charles Bartlett Except Where Indicated (This one by a steward, probably Paul Guppy, on Charles’s camera)

Even before we got to Edgbaston, the 2005 Heavy Rollers gathering was going to be one of the most memorable ever, by dint of the wonderful late afternoon and evening we had spent at Tye Towers the previous day, playing cricket and enjoying a glorious summer barbeque together.

On The Eve Of The 2005 Edgbaston Test, A Heavy Rollers Extravaganza At Tye Towers, 3 August 2005

We all stayed at Tye Towers. Janie recalls that I sent her a lengthy SMS message (now lost in the mists of time and/or recoverable only by the security services) waxing lyrical about the wonderful time we were having.

Charles got up early the next morning and took a stroll around “the estate” with his camera, taking all the following pictures before 7:00 am.

We thought we had allowed bags of time to get to Edgbaston & into the ground for the first ball. We were used to going to Edgbaston for the first day of the test match. But we hadn’t accounted for the massive early queues (previously unprecedented at Edgbaston – at least in then recent times) and the additional security required, as there had been a major terrorist incident on London transport only a few weeks earlier. Indeed, Nigel’s son, Adam – himself an occasional Heavy Roller and guest star in our charity cricket matches – had been on one of the bombed trains; mercifully Adam far enough away from the explosion not to be injured.

*Adam Hinks – rolling with us the following year*

Returning to the queue on the morning of 4 August 2005, our mood regarding the match to come was one of great hope but diminished expectation, on the back of England having played a poor game at Lord’s leaving England 1-0 down in the five match series. I had spent a couple of days at that Lord’s test…

…a link to my Ogblog postings on that match will appear here in the fullness of time…once those postings are writ…

…we all knew that England would need to up its game considerably to catch up and overtake Australia in the series. This Edgbaston test was crucual.

Then, suddenly, one of our number (I think it was Charles but it might have been Harish) took a call from Kyle Bullock, who was working at The Children’s Society HQ at that time.

Kyle had played in the annual Z/Yen v Children’s Society cricket match in Regents Park a few weeks earlier. Kyle had cruelly dismissed me in that match with an off-spinning delivery that bounced and spun even more than I had anticipated, clipping my glove and thus yielding a catch. To add to the cruelty of that dismissal, the spitting cobra of a spinning ball had clipped a joint on one of my fingers which, despite the so-called protection of a glove and the relative slowness of the ball, had led to trigger finger pain that was sustained for several months. Kyle simply thought this was funny whenever I mentioned it to him.

Kyle at Tufty Stackpole Match 31 July 2005

On the positive side, Kyle had played an important part in one of the most exciting cricket matches I have ever played, click here or below) just a few days before we set off for Bedfordshire and Edgbaston.

Far And Away The Most Exciting Game Of Cricket I Have Ever Played, Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society, North Crawley, 31 July 2005

At the time, we thought of Kyle as “an Aussie”. In fact, he is, like many people, someone whose nationality and sporting allegiance is somewhat divided between Australia and England. In fact, Kyle’s allegiance for those Ashes leant towards England, we subsequently discovered.

The reason I labour all of this seemingly superfluous material, is the fact that Kyle informed us, by telephone, that Glenn McGrath, Australia’s most reliable bowler at that time, had injured himself in warm-ups and was out of the match, possibly out of the series.

At first we all thought this was a wind up. I had already suffered that summer at the hands of Kyle’s spin and was not going to buy this unlikely-sounding story easily.

But within moments a whisper started to go through the queue and the ground, as plenty of people around us were listening to radios and/or taking calls from friends. The truth of this perhaps-series-defining story was confirmed.

We soon also learned that Australia had nevertheless elected to bowl having won the toss.

Our hope (and that of England fans everywhere) was well and truly restored.

Intriguingly, Nigel’s recollection of the McGrath incident is quite different from mine, as he, Jeff Tye and The Steeds came in separate cars from me, Chas, Nick and Harish. They were entering the ground at a different (probably slightly earlier) time. Nigel writes:

It was the amiable Brummie steward [Paul Guppy] who informed me/us of the ‘unfortunate’ McGrath accident…[Paul] appeared joyful in the sense of “ I know summink amazing that you don’t”. He sensed our doubts as he had, until then, had a tendency to enjoy the odd wind up, to put it kindly. “I should know, I helped put him into the back of a car”. His insights may have been shared elsewhere, but we self importantly formed the impression he had made a beeline for us! Word started to spread as a result…hopes began to escalate.

*Paul Guppy a couple of years earlier winding me up*

Here is a link to a match highlights video that, like this article, covers the first two days of the match. You’ll need to survive some adverts before you see just over 30 minutes of footage.

Above embedded video from The Daily Motion.

The video shows the queue of people entering the ground through the Pershore Road entrance, which is the entrance we use, but the queue was much longer than that shown when we arrived in it.

The video highlights for the first two days of this great match also include an infeasibly large number of shots showing us Heavy Rollers in the crowd – especially shots from the first session of the match. I suppose we stood out for the cameras that year, being lined up in our red Heavy Rollers shirts.

Here’s an example screen grab from the above video. Don’t ask how much fiddling around it has taken to grab that. It is c4’36” into the film.

*David (floppy hat), Jeff, Dan, Nick, Chas, Hippity, Monkey-face, Nigel, Me, Harish (obscured)* *– this photo grabbed from the Daily Motion as video above.*

Lunch was a typically wonderful picnic (see Heavy Rollers reports passim), I think a joint effort provided by the Steeds supplemented by the Tyes – not least Liz Tye’s iconic scotch eggs, which Nigel recalls her contributing on several occasions…surely this being one of them… and Samina’s samosas – Samina being a colleague of Nigel and especially Jeff’s from the Bedford office of The Childrens’ Society. Samina contributed samosas for our trip on several occasions.

*This picture of a home made scotch egg by Kolforn (Wikimedia), CC BY-SA 4.0*

*This picture of home made samosas by Fantaz, CC BY 2.0*

Chas, Nigel & Jeff were still star struck from their previous exploits blagging their way into the old Edgbaston pavilion – see Heavy Rollers write ups passim, in particular the 2003 one linked here and below…

Heavy Rollers Meet Saffers, Their Comeuppance And The Elements At The Edgbaston Test, 24 & 25 July 2003

In 2005 they did it again, with Chas taking several photos including the following:

*Kevin Pietersen, taken while wandering at or just after lunch*

The following ones from within the pavilion on the stroke of tea Day One…don’t ask!

And one just after tea, proving that Chas, at least, hung around for the whole of the tea interval.

*You were a bit obsessed with KP at that time, Chas. Pinning hopes…*

The evening meal was at an Indian Restaurant (or should I call it a Balti House in Birmingham?) on the recommendation of the Steeds (“Peels”) and a jolly good recommendation it was too, as evidenced by the following sole photo of the evening.

*Some faces and arms almost as red as the red curries*

We stayed the night at Harborne Hall – our first of several stays there. Why we rejected the place in 2006 in favour of the worst hotel ever in the entire world…

The Worst Place We Have Ever Stayed In For Cricket, England v Sri Lanka at Edgbaston, 25 & 26 May 2006

…is a bit of a mystery. But I digress.

Another mystery is why Chas took one…but only one…picture on Day Two of the match.

I can only imagine that Chas felt that he had failed to catch an image of his favourite player on Day One, so returned with his camera determined to put matters right on Day Two…which he certainly did with the above image.

We had a great time on Day Two, much as we had on Day One. David Steed once again did the honours with a splendid picnic and all seemed well with the world as we left the ground at the end of that day.

Shane Warne’s dismissal of Andrew Strauss towards the end of Day Two kept us all thinking that, despite England’s healthy-looking lead, the game was far from over…

*Photo by PaddyBriggs at English Wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*

…and oh boy was the game far from over.

Here and below is a link to all of Charles’s photos from the match itself.

The wonderful Daily Motion highlights reel (repeated below) shows an insightful view of those two days of unforgettable cricket. Top viewing for Heavy Rollers and non-Rollers alike. For The Heavy Rollers, it was an unforgettable, life-affirming gathering over three days as well as an unforgettable match.

Above embedded video from The Daily Motion.

On The Eve Of The 2005 Edgbaston Test, A Heavy Rollers Extravaganza At Tye Towers, 3 August 2005

Jeff said that he’d cut a strip for our evening game…he REALLY cut a strip

(All photos kindly supplied by Charley “The Gent Malloy” Bartlett)

So much has been written about the astonishing Ashes series of 2005, not least the extraordinary match at Edgbaston. We Heavy Rollers were fortunate enough to witness the first two days of that classic match.

Yet one aspect of our wonderful experience of that match was truly unique to us Heavy Rollers: the evening and night before the test at “Tye Towers”, Big Papa Zambezi Jeff’s Bedfordshire residence, where we played cricket, enjoyed a magnificent barbeque and bonded like a band of brothers.

*Our banner unfurled that afternoon, before we played*

Make no mistake – Jeff’s wonderful offer to provide us all with accommodation that night and to turn his garden into a temporary cricket ground and barbeque venue was not our only option. Charley “The Gent Malloy” Bartlett had blagged us into the Edgbaston Cricket Centre for an hour in the nets that evening. Who knows how Chas used to pull off such coups? But we ended up rejecting Edgbaston’s kind offer in favour of Jeff’s place.

A King Cricket piece describing the choice of venue for our pre test yard cricket was published in April 2024 – click here. Just in case anything ever goes awry at King Cricket, here is a scrape of that piece.

I’m pretty sure that I journeyed to Jeff’s place reasonably early in the afternoon with Charley and Nick. For several years, Charles would kindly arrange to meet me at a suitably convenient Central Line station (was it Redbridge or Gants Hill or Newbury Park?) and then we’d travel up together. I’d get a train home. There would sometimes be lively debate as to the music we would listen to on these journeys. I might be mistaken, but I have a feeling that Neil Young had some prominence as the in car entertainment that year.

Anyway, for sure we three were all at Tye Towers quite early, as evidenced by the photographs Chas took mid to late afternoon.

*There’s me, in whites, sorting out the stumps. Jeff supervising, Nick indifferent*

I have no idea what the following picture of Nigel is about. Presumably he was owed ticket money by some and was much relieved to have received it.

*Or is this evidence of yard cricket match fixing?*

Once the yard cricket got underway, Chas put away his camera until the after match festivities, so we have no images of the pitch once it was completed, nor of the action.

Memory will have to serve for the match itself and I might well need the help of others.

I believe I can compile a complete list of the people who played:

David “David Peel” Steed;
Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett;
Harish “Harsha Goble” Gohil;
Me;
Nick “The Boy Malloy” Bartlett;
Dan “Dan Peel” Steed;
Nigel “Father Barry” Hinks;
“Big Papa Zambezi” Jeff Tye;
Geoff “Tufty Geoff” Young (the only participant who did not also attend the match with us).

In the matter of playing conditions, I recall that we had some additional fielders to try and keep the batsmen honest:

The roller depicted in the above photograph, fielding at slip to the right-handed batsman;
In front of the flag pole, a mermaid statue (or something of that ilk) – those two objects combined to field at leg slip to the right-handed batsman.

Hitting one of those artefacts on the full was deemed to be out caught.

I contrived to get caught by the statue on one occasion. Lots of people had near misses with the roller and possibly even the odd dismissal on the off side, but I think I was alone in managing to strangle one to the mermaid.

Harish had an especially good evening at Tye Towers, as did Tufty Geoff, who was one of those irritatingly excellent yet self-effacing cricketers who tended to hide himself in the lower reaches of the Tufty Stackpole team yet consistently perform well for them when needed. Here and below is a link to a report on a subsequent Tufty match :

Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society, North Crawley CC, “Match Report”, 30 July 2006

Anyway, Tufty Geoff won the trophy that year, for both bating and bowling, while Harish picked up a “man of the match” or “play of the day” award, I think for his bowling. Indeed I think Harish pulled off several fine dismissals including my strangle down the leg side snaffled up by a statuesque fielder.

*Tufty Geoff picking up his miniscule trophy from me*

*Harish collecting his slightly larger trophy from yours truly*

Nigel reflects on the match and trophies as follows:

Can’t recall who was snaffled by the inert metal object but someone certainly was.

Jeff was equally displeased when I picked out the roof of his prized cabin-bar for two “maximums” using my prized Hansie Cronje Rawalpindi bat.
I expected glory not abuse! (Sadly I never owned a bat during my playing days and can only wonder what my numbers might have been if such equipment had come my way earlier? The bat was given to Hansie who didn’t like it so gave it to his brother who became the pro at Todmorden where it fell into the hands of my brother then me). Chas had earlier compared my running style between wickets to that of a “trotting pony”. Maybe that provoked some big hitting?

I supplied the trophies. It was a last minute decision. One each for batting and bowling. Having called in to a modest local establishment it was a question of enquiring “what have you got that I can take now?” Consequently the quality of the awards left much to be desired despite the price. So, it was no surprise that one of them required a small repair before it left for Bedford, thus provoking the comment, “you were done” from Liz Tye while we were preparing for the tournament.

I recall your comment after calculating the final scores, if not verbatim. “Perhaps there should be some recognition for the runner up?” Because the same player came a close second in both categories. (Clue- it wasn’t Harish). So near but……….

Looking again at the awards ceremony photos, I seem to be tucking in to a glass of full-bodied red wine there, which, given the very little I can remember about the rest of the evening (other than that delightful, oblivious, impressionistic sense that we were having a wonderful time) must have been pretty good.

Dan Steed recalls the event as follows:

My favourite Heavy Roller memory! What a few days, starting with such a wonderful afternoon/evening!

Well worth the trip from the edge of Birmingham to drive back to Birmingham the next day for the first two days of the “Greatest Test”!

Oh and the Banoffee pie….wow 😋, and watching a combine harvester at work at some late hour!

At this juncture we should recognise the enormous contribution that Liz Tye made to that wonderful evening, in the background, producing much of the food – not least Dan’s beloved banofee pie, and generally being a “hostess with the mostess” in every way.

The next few photos show the barbeque and festivities in full sway. I think we have used enough words to conjure a sense of the mood.

The next morning, it seems that Chas got up early and went for a stroll around the estate taking some more photos. I’ll use those in the next piece, but here and below is a link to all of the photos Chas took at Tye Towers, both the evening of 3rd August and the morning of 4th August:

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