ON a gravestone in a cemetery in Alderney, a three square kilometre island that is part of the Channel Islands, closer to France than it is to Britain, are engraved these words: “So clear you see those timeless things.''
The author of those words was an aspiring young British poet with humble beginnings in Basingstoke, Hampshire. It turned out, he was not destined to join the likes of W.H. Auden and Dylan Thomas in the Who's Who of British poetry in the 20th century.
But if you are one of those lucky enough to be among the fossilised few who had spent considerable time listening to the BBC's Test Match Special on radio in an era when they were more familiar with fixing drinks in the commentary booths than with spot-fixing, you might be able to recall fondly more than a few “timeless” words uttered by that wannabe poet-turned-cricket-commentator.
The last of those were spoken exactly 30 years ago, to this day, on September 2, 1980 in the Centenary Test at Lord's.
“Nine runs off the over, 28 Boycott, 15 Gower, 69 for two and after Trevor Bailey it will be Christopher Martin-Jenkins.''
The Voice of Cricket, the Voice of the English Summer, then departed from the commentary booth for the last time. Boycott took his gloves off to join the entire Australian team, the spectators in the stands, and possibly many a listener too, to give the great man a standing ovation.
But those last words were spoken without so much as a hint of emotion — with that typical Hampshire burr and without any fuss — in a state of almost affectless calm, by a man who had been the most celebrated voice of the game for 34 years.
Character-revealing moment
It was as character-revealing a moment as any in the great John Arlott's unmatched career as a commentator and columnist. He simply did not want to call attention to himself even at a moment that must have meant so much to him. The game is bigger than any individual. And the game goes on.
Of course, cricket has gone on. We are now in the era of crass commerce and high rhetoric, a time when absurd predictions are made by putative experts on television, where the reigning culture is one of frivolity and lack of analytical depth.
While there is nothing more ridiculous than to believe that things were so much better in “our days,” whatever that period might be — the 1950s or the 60s or the 70s — and to attempt to romanticise the sepia-tinted past, few cricket lovers of middle-to-old age can be accused of gushing nostalgia and an inability to come to terms with the present if they were to look back to Arlott's days with misty fondness.
His was an imperishable voice, the voice adored by a generation. Sport is so wonderfully democratic that it provides us all kinds of reasons for following it, for falling in love with it. You adore Sachin. Someone else finds watching Federer's tennis an almost spiritual experience.
The author of this column fell in love with cricket for one simple reason: he couldn't stop listening to Arlott. It was an addiction that began in the pre-teen years and continued well into adulthood.
As cricketing heroes go, this one never made a Test hundred at Lord's or starred in a World Cup final. But, what the hell, the old bloke could keep your ears glued to the old Murphy radio, couldn't he?
Elevating
The best of sport elevates even as it entertains; and Arlott's commentary, delivered in that unmistakable leathery voice, was at once entertaining and elevating, no matter what happened on the field.
Today, we have Stump Vision, Hawk Eye and dozens of other technological innovations. But then, can any technology match the genius of a single good commentator, especially one gifted with as cultured and well-stocked a mind as Arlott's?
“Lloyd hits him high away over mid-wicket for four, a stroke of a man knocking a thistle top with a walking stick.'' This, from the 1975 World Cup, is most people's favourite.
He painted such timeless word pictures that the play almost became irrelevant, you didn't care who won or lost. You didn't care if Boycott plodded long for an all-day unbeaten 64 or Garry Sobers blitzed his way to a mesmerising 100-odd in under a session.
I remembered another Arlott gem when pondering the teenaged Mohammed Amir's fate. “Butcher is sheepishly looking down the wicket like a small boy stealing jam.''
Amir might yet come to suffer a punishment far in excess of what a schoolboyish candy-store “crime” might warrant, but that is entirely another issue.
But one is almost glad that the great man is not around to describe the goings-on in the cricket fields today in the age of boosterism in the media.
A good man
For Arlott was not only a cricketing icon but also a good man. “He was retiring as I took full-time place in the press box but he was kindness itself,'' says Ted Corbett, familiar to the readers of The Hindu 's sports pages.
Amidst all those shrill absurdities that one hears on TV these days, can anything match this, from Arlott? “Hollies bowls…Bradman goes back across his wicket and pushes the ball gently in the direction of the Houses of Parliament, which are out beyond mid-off.”
History morphs into myth sometimes, but Arlott is out beyond anybody's reach.
