IN DEPTH: My Favourite Innings, by David Griffin - Part Two

In the second of a two-part series, Heritage Officer, David Griffin, looks back the Derbyshire innings which have shaped his life follwing the Club, starting with the best of the 21st century. 

When I was asked to select my ten favourite innings by a Derbyshire player my initial reaction was to start a chronological list in my head beginning in the mid-1970s. By the time I reached the 1980s I already had about fifty contenders so I went back to square one and decided to adopt a different approach.

I decided upon just two criteria; firstly, I have only considered centuries, and secondly, rather than looking at the usual ways of assessing an innings – the match situation, the skills on display, the quality of the opposition, the match result – I have chosen those innings which simply thrilled or satisfied me; innings which were simply enjoyable.

So, here are my favourite ten hundreds, from number 10 to one, with the only other criterion that no player is included more than once. We start with the most recent and move backwards, with part one covering the 21st century and part two going as far back as 1976!

5. Mohammad Azharuddin 129 v Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in 1991 – County Championship

The Indian Test star Mohammad Azharuddin was a joy to watch. With a magnificent array of strokes all around the wicket, I could easily have selected any of his Derbyshire hundreds, including the doubles he made at Chesterfield and Leicester, but for sheer exhilaration and wonderment, this one was the pick of the bunch.

In 1991 Mohammad Azharuddin was arguably considered to be the best batter in world cricket and Derbyshire supporters discovered why once he had become accustomed to the early season English pitches. He scored over 2,000 first class runs in 1991 and surely no Derbyshire cricketer has ever possessed such a wide variety of strokes.

This was his fifth hundred of a summer in which Derbyshire were chasing the County Championship title – they eventually finished third – and if Derbyshire were to challenge the top of the table it was imperative to win this late August game at Trent Bridge.

The home side used just three balls short of 100 overs in reaching 300 and Derbyshire set about matching that total in quick time in order to give themselves more time to win the game.

Azharuddin seemingly possessed wrists of steel and his ability to guide the ball to the boundary – on the offside or legside – with just a flick was unsurpassed by anyone else playing the game in the early 1990s.

In this innings, time was of the essence and he set about the Nottinghamshire bowling with abandon stroking 12 fours and three majestic sixes with the most thrilling moment of the innings coming off the final ball he faced. Derbyshire wanted to declare at tea to prevent the loss of any overs between innings but needed to reach 300 to gain a crucial extra bonus point. With one ball remaining before tea, Derbyshire were on 294 for three as Andy Pick raced in from the Radcliffe Road End to bowl at Azharuddin.

With remarkable bat speed and a flick of those steel-like wrists, Azharuddin drove the ball high over long off for six and in the same moment turned and headed for the pavilion and tea. Truly remarkable.

4. Kim Barnett 127 v Kent at Chesterfield in 1990 – Sunday League

Barnett scored a record 66 hundreds for Derbyshire and I cannot recall a better – or more important one – than the 127 he made in a match-winning cause at Chesterfield in 1990.

It came in the Sunday League game sandwiched between the first two days of a Championship game which attracted the best crowd of the summer at Chesterfield and produced a match of extraordinary intensity and excitement.

Derbyshire had mounted a largely consistent campaign in the Sunday League which had taken them to the top of the table with 10 wins and three defeats from the first 13 games.

The television cameras were at Queen’s Park for this important game and a large crowd assembled to witness the action. One week earlier Derbyshire had defeated Glamorgan at Swansea to lift the spirits of those supporters who had seen their side crumble to  a disastrous defeat at the hands of Hampshire at Portsmouth seven days previously, being dismissed for just 61 to lose by 189 runs.

But Derbyshire’s title chances remained in their hands; win the final three matches – all at home against Kent, Middlesex, and Essex – and they could not be overtaken at the summit.

In sunny conditions Barnett won the toss and invited Kent to bat first on a pitch which was quick with plenty of bounce and a lightning-fast outfield, but Kent’s 276 for four left the home crowd – if not the players – deflated.

Trevor Ward had made 80 off 59 balls and Graham Cowdrey threw the bat at the end of the innings to reach 36 not out – off 16 balls –  and there were few present who expected the chase to be easy.

As regulars and occasional spectators alike chatted during the interval it was clear that for Derbyshire to get anywhere close to Kent’s enormous total, the much-vaunted batting line-up of Barnett, Peter Bowler, John Morris, Chris Adams and Adrian Kuiper would have to perform to their maximum.

Of concern too was the knowledge that Derbyshire had never chased down such a huge target in a one day game and would therefore have to break a record. As Barnett and Bowler emerged through the crowd in front of the pavilion to open the Derbyshire innings, a sense of anticipation and high drama hung in the air.

Yet again, as so often together, the duo rose to the challenge, adding 146 for the first wicket. Quick singles and crashing boundaries mixed with sensible running between the wickets meant that the most successful opening pairing in the county’s history gradually began to reel in the batting landmarks. The fifty partnership came, then a hundred, both in even time, before Bowler was out for 54.

But this game and this situation was made for Barnett. A lionheart of a cricketer, the most redoubtable and successful of all Derbyshire run scorers he made 127 off 101 balls before he was run out, exhibiting magnificent strokeplay in powering to a wonderful century. When he was out he hurried to the pavilion, head bowed, with seemingly every spectator on their feet giving him a deserved ovation.

Recounting the innings many years later, Barnett explained that when he rushed off, head shaking, it was in frustration at failing to see his side to victory in such an important game. However, he added that as he reached the pavilion he saw Kuiper emerging, wearing a cap, no helmet, and as they passed each other, Kuiper muttered: “I’ll finish it skipper.”

When Barnett was out there were still 43 runs required, but such was the haste with which Morris (45 off 20 balls) and Kuiper (22) batted that there were 10 balls remaining when Derbyshire triumphed by six wickets. The roar which greeted the winning runs could surely have been heard for miles around.

Without doubt it was a great innings, but it was a hugely important innings; without Barnett’s hundred Derbyshire would probably have lost top spot in the table. But within a month, Derbyshire were crowned champions of the Sunday League and if any one performance exemplified Derbyshire’s worth as winners, this was it.

3. Dallas Moir 107 v Warwickshire at Chesterfield in 1984 – County Championship

I selected this innings because of the sheer joy and fun it evoked. Spectators may enjoy a lower-order player coming in to bat in difficult circumstances who then launches a spirited fightback with the cricket ball fizzing to all parts of the ground, but the opposition side on the receiving end never see the funny side.

In early July 1984, after Warwickshire had smashed Derbyshire’s attack to all parts in making 444 for eight declared at a rate of more than four runs per over, Derbyshire were 264 for six when Dallas Moir, a giant of a man who bowled slow left arm spinners, arrived in the middle. In an entertaining and thoroughly demoralising knock – from a Warwickshire perspective anyway – Moir scored 107, reaching three figures off 75 balls hitting 12 fours and seven sixes.

Fellow left-armer Norman Gifford, who had taken two for nine off his first 11 overs, conceded 72 runs off his next nine overs without claiming another victim. Four of Moir’s sixes were off Gifford, the second of which cleared the corner of the bridge which leads out of the ground into the town centre and two others were sent directly over the sightscreen. And England’s Bob Willis wasn’t spared either, Moir smashing him for two sixes over long on.

In those days the Walter Lawrence Trophy, awarded for the fastest first class hundred of the season, was based on time at the crease rather than balls faced. The leader going into this game was Warwickshire’s Alvin Kallicharran who had scored a hundred against Northamptonshire in 94 minutes. Kallicharran watched from the outfield as Moir reached 99 in 80 minutes, seeming certain to beat the West Indian Test star’s mark. Unexpectedly, Moir then spent fifteen minutes before scoring his hundredth run.

This was a performance which in terms of sheer unadulterated entertainment was  both remarkable and memorable and Moir deserved the standing ovation which greeted his return to the pavilion.

2. Peter Kirsten 213 v Glamorgan at Derby in 1980 – County Championship

South African Kirsten was a little genius and I could have selected several of his 20 first class hundreds for Derbyshire, but this innings demonstrated how he could accelerate mid-innings and dominate a bowling attack almost at will.

This game was played during the era when the first innings in Championship cricket was limited to 100 overs. Consequently, the prolific Kirsten, who scored a county record six double centuries, found himself unbeaten with power to add on five occasions with more than 200 runs against his name but with the innings forced to close.

He began his knock against Glamorgan as he usually did – confidently and with quickly run singles, always looking to put the bowlers out of their stride. In 1980 the boundaries at Derby were as big as any on the county circuit, around 90 yards, and the outfield was slightly damp when the game began.

Kirsten batted beautifully alongside his fellow overseas colleague, New Zealander John Wright, who fell for 94 with the score on 213 for two. Thereafter, Kirsten cut loose and was simply unplayable.

He went in at tea with his own personal score on 105 and with 82 overs gone just 18 remained before Derbyshire would be required to bring their innings to a forced close. After the tea interval, Kirsten scored a further 108 runs in those 18 overs and when he walked off with 32 fours and five sixes to his name, everyone in the large Saturday crowd rose to acclaim him.

Rather like the Barlow double hundred four years earlier, this Kirsten innings reminded me that Derbyshire now had world class overseas cricketers fit to rank with those playing at other counties and with Kirsten and Wright in the ranks, few opposition bowlers enjoyed facing Derbyshire.

No Derbyshire player has ever scored a triple century, but the certainty of Kirsten’s strokeplay would surely have seen him reach that landmark had it not been for the 100 overs limitation.

1 Eddie Barlow 217 v Surrey at Ilkeston in 1976 – County Championship

Barlow arrived at Derbyshire at the age of 35, renowned as a world class all-rounder but one who had never experienced the lengthy and busy county schedule. When Derbyshire played Surrey at the modest Rutland Recreation Ground at Ilkeston in July the home side had not enjoyed a particularly happy summer winning just one of 11 Championship matches, losing five and drawing five.

But against a Surrey side boasting a Test-class bowling attack including Goeff Arnold, Robin Jackman, Pat Pocock and Intikhab Alam, Barlow produced a magnificent innings which lives long in the memory almost 50 years later.

Barlow came to the crease early on the second day and spent much of the morning session playing watchfully. After the lunch interval Barlow launched what can only be described as an assault on the Surrey bowling scoring 138 runs between lunch and tea and smashing 25 fours and six sixes. To a teenager, only used to the obdurate batting associated with the Derbyshire side of the early to mid-1970s it was astonishing to watch; Barlow was doing to Surrey what other players usually did to Derbyshire. And members and journalists spoke and wrote of an innings the like of which they had never seen from a Derbyshire cricketer.

I have always ranked this innings above all others, my favourite by a Derbyshire cricketer. Some might argue that rose-tinted spectacles have elevated the quality of the innings above its real position, but I can only write about how that innings made me feel. Barlow was rapidly becoming my favourite cricketer – he remains so to this day – and his 217 was so dominant (the next highest score was Alan Hill’s 35) that it made me realise just what was possible when a talented player like Barlow was in your side. Seated on the boundary with my friends from Ilkeston with another five weeks of the school holidays lying ahead, that day seemed like paradise.

Derbyshire Falcons T20 tickets on sale now!