Published: Aug 26, 2012, 10:22 AM (IST)
Edited: Jul 12, 2014, 12:02 AM (IST)
These days it is difficult to miss the Oval tube station. There are figures of cricketers on the walls, even the turnstiles that slide open are shaped like white cricket pads. But it was not the same 91 years ago, when Leicestershire wicketkeeper Tom Sidwell could not find his way to the ground. Photo: Arunabha Sengupta
Ninety one years ago, Tom Sidwell, the Leicestershire wicketkeeper, got hopelessly lost in the London tube network and could not resume his innings. Arunabha Sengupta looks back at the unique day in cricket history when a batsman was absent-out because he could not find his way to the ground.
August 26, 1921
These days it is hard to miss The Oval tube station. There are maps which highlight the landmark with a cricketing symbol – stumps, bails, batsman playing a flamboyant drive. There are figures of cricketers painted in green and white on the walls. And even the turnstiles, that slide open when the Oyster card is swiped, are shaped like white cricket pads.
However, things were different 91 years ago. And Tom Sidwell, the wicketkeeper of the visiting Leicestershire county side, was hopelessly lost as he rode around the subterranean maze, trying his hardest to get to the ground. And he was in a tearing hurry. Unbeaten overnight, he was supposed to walk out to resume the innings with his captain Aubrey Sharp.
The county championship was drawing to a close and Surrey was gunning for the top spot, breathing down the neck of Middlesex. The home team had taken a big 96-run first innings lead, and then scored quickly to declare at 244 for four in their second innings.
Sidwell, an excellent wicketkeeper who was also a reliable bat, was sent in as night-watchman when the first wicket of the Leicestershire second innings had gone down for 14. He did his job well enough and was not out with a single to his credit when stumps were drawn on the second day.
On August 26, Sidwell left his hotel for the ground and was soon lost in the labyrinth of the London underground. Sharp was forced to resume the innings in the company of John King.
The batsmen were well settled in the course of their 68-run partnership, when Sidwell finally rushed into the dressing room, guilty and flushed. He did have to withstand a barrage of rebukes from his teammates, but was relieved that the captain was still in the middle.
Declared out while outside the ground
Percy Fender, the captain of Surrey, has several curious associations with the date. Exactly a year ago, he had flayed the Northamptonshire attack to score the fastest hundred in First-class cricket. Getting to three figures in 35 minutes, he had ended with 113 in 42 minutes with 16 fours and five sixes.
Now, a year later, going into lunch and discovering that Sidwell was present in the ground and ready to bat, he raised an objection. According to his logic, a batsman who was not indisposed but also not present to continue his innings had to be given out.
The umpires agreed, but wanted to verify the claim with the highest authorities. Lionel Palairet, Surrey’s secretary, spoke on telephone to Francis Lacey, the secretary of the MCC. The latter agreed with the view put forward by Fender, adding that Sidwell could resume if the Surrey skipper agreed.
Fender refused, arguing that if Sidwell batted against tired bowlers the concession “might have a material effect on such an important game”.
It did not seem to be important, as one hour after lunch, Leicestershire stood at 198 for four (including the wicket of Sidwell), poised for a rather unlikely win. Even if they managed to draw the match, it would be the end of any hopes Surrey had of winning the championship.
However, Alan Peach and Fender himself now combined to wipe out the lower order. The match came to an end when the ninth Leicestershire wicket fell at 246 – with Sidwell ending up in the record books as “Absent – Out”.
There were quite a few who thought that Fender’s action – although within the confines of the rulebook – trespassed into the periphery of the unsporting. In Fender: A Biography Richard Streeton wrote: Fender, for all his manoeuvrings inside the laws, was a stickler for the proprieties and could be intolerant if he felt the other person or team had only themselves to blame.
It did not get Fender the championship, though. On the same day, in another part of London, at the Lord’s cricket ground, Patsy Hendren and Francis Mann guided Middlesex to a five-wicket win over Kent, thus securing the championship.
Fender, Sidwell and August 26
The saga of Fender, Sidwell and August 26 was far from over. In 1926, again at The Oval, Sidwell managed to get to the ground in time, and came in at number 9 to score the first of his three First Class hundreds, a career-best innings of 105. In the same match, Andy Ducat – the man who went on the scoreboard in 1942 as ‘Not Out Dead’ – played for Surrey and hit a double century.
Fender, however, dismissed Sidwell in both the innings and Surrey went on to win by 119 runs.
(Arunabha Sengupta is a cricket historian and Chief Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He writes about the history and the romance of the game, punctuated often by opinions about modern day cricket, while his post-graduate degree in statistics peeps through in occasional analytical pieces. The author of three novels, he can be followed on twitter at http://twitter.com/senantix)
