COVERED SPRING 2021

33 @TRENTBRIDGE HISTORY Notts were all out for 180 in response, a decent first innings lead but only resulting in a solitary batting bonus point. By close on the opening day, the visitors had reached 33-1. In more recent times, with twenty-one wickets falling on the first day, the pitch police would have hammered on Ron Allsopp’s door and confined him to the Lord’s dungeons. No such thing happened though as Allsopp, who had been cutting the green grass of Trent Bridge for nearly 30 years and been head man since 1974, survived. Down in Hove, the Sussex bowlers had picked up a full complement of bonus points in dismissingYorkshire for 153. Play resumed at both venues on Monday. I abandoned the library and watched from the Long Room. Richard Hadlee took quick wickets, then Eddie Hemmings followed suit, before Javed Miandad produced a stubborn knock. Determined not to see Glamorgan capitulate, Miandad made an annoying 75 before Hadlee had him caught by Bruce French. After lunch, I went outside to watchTodd andTim Robinson score the 30 runs required. Spectators swarmed in front of the players’ balcony, clapping and cheering their heroes, as Rice made a brief speech. There were tears in the eyes of Reg Simpson, who was not one to regularly show emotion. After waiting 52 years for the moment, and after being present when Notts last won the title, Simpson, Cricket Chairman at the time, joined the players for the celebrations. In due course, the team visited Buckingham Palace to receive the trophy. In 1929, there was no such prize to collect; Lord Norris believed cricket should just be played for the honour of it. The London pundits had named three counties as possible title winners as the 1981 season lay in wait: Middlesex, whose 1st XI were all Test players and whose opening attack featured tearaway Australian Jeff Thomson andWest Indian Wayne Daniel; Somerset, withViv Richards, Joel Garner and a young Ian Botham; and Sussex, with Imran Khan and Garth Le Roux. Those three counties occupied second, third and fourth place at the close of the season, so perhaps the pundits weren’t totally askew.They just ignored the champions. The five principal stars of the season included Clive Rice, an unknown South African when KenTaylor signed him almost entirely on his whole attitude to the game (Taylor had gone to Eastbourne in 1974 to watch him play, but the match was almost washed away). Richard Hadlee, the New Zealander, was signed in haste during the Packer rumpus in 1978. Hadlee was in England for a minor competition predominantly as a fast bowler, before he played for the Kiwis’ national side in the latter half of the summer; where he came in at number ten in theTests. Hadlee and Rice were Notts’ opening bowlers.The main spin option was Eddie Hemmings, whomTaylor signed in 1979 fromWarwickshire. Hemmings had made his First-Class debut in 1966, but by 1978