A fat player can hold his own in cricket

By A. C. de Silva

CRICKET: It is the only team game played outdoors that comes to mind in a flash where a really fat player can hold his own. The story goes that in the old days around 1820 a batsman by the name of William Ward, in an innings spread over three days, scored 278 for the M. C. C. against Norfolk which was only improved on by Persy Holmes of Yorkshire when he made 315 against Middlesex in 1925 and that score was further improved on later by Hobbs with 316.

It also said that William Ward was a banker who put up the money to save Lord's Cricket Ground, for which all cricketers owe him a debt.

He was also a massive fellow weighing more than 20 stone, who for 50 years and more wielded a bat weighing just over 4 lb. As the average bat weighs about 2 lbs, 3 ozs and the weapon with which Albert Tret hit the ball over the pavilion at Lord's was 3 lb, one can imagine what a powerful fellow Ward was!

Then Alfred Mynn was described as one of the finest cricketers. He was the biggest man around the place. He stood well over six feet and must have weighed at that time 23 or 24 stone; nor was there anything clumsy or awkward in his movements, which were on the contrary, stately and dignified at all times. He was a fine batsman against fast bowling, but not so good against slow bowlers.

Later on, there was that unmistakeable cricketer W. G. Grace, though slim, lithe and a wonderful runner in his youth, put on weight after 30 years and was more than 18 stone in his later years; but that did not stop him, or prevent him from hammering 1,000 runs in May one year at the age of 47 and maintained his position as the best batsman in the country. It is true he no longer ran out to slow bowling, but whereas in the past he had hammered the ball, in later on in life, he merely leaned on it and with a twist of the wrists propelled it where he wanted, for in batting, weight can be a great asset.

Warwick Armstrong was another fat man whom his opponents feared greatly. While on his way to England with the 1921 team, which he captained, he went down to the boiler room to assist the stokers and reduce his 19 stone. All he did, however, was to convert muscle into fat and when landed at Southampton, he was 3 lbs heavier than when he set out!

Then between the wars Lancashire had a slow bowler named Dick Tyldesley, member of a famous cricketing family, who played for England in Tests. He, too, tipped the scales at 19 stone but could tie up one end all day while Macdonald scared the batsmen with his thunderbolts from the other end.

Cowdrey fine slip fielder

Then coming on to more contemorary times, there was that famous England player Colin Cowdrey who has never been one of those 'lean and hungry kind'. At Tonbridge, he was a fat little boy, and at Oxford a fat young man; and his well rounded form has graced cricket fields all over the world since.

On his day none could bat with greater facility, and though he can move quickly if need be, there is little necessity for him to run for he is one of the finest slip fielders that England had at that time.

There was also another fat lad in his early years that made into the England Test team and he was that homely shaped Colin Milburn of Northants who did strenuous exercises that he was able to get his weight down from 21 stones to 19 which even then was a trifle excessive as he stood no more than 5 feet 9 inches in his socks.

Ever since Milburn was a small boy, he could bat. At school, they called him fatso. In one game he made 200 not out when stumps were drawn, and continued the next morning to bring his total to 340. Not many boys can claim a score like that.

His father, a miner at Burnopfield, County Durham, was big and burly too, and a grand cricketer. He took only three paces and sent the ball down as fast as anyone with a 22-yard run. And when he really cracked the ball, few could follow its flight. So, it was not astonishing that Colin should make his entry into senior league cricket at the tender age of 12, when he weighed 12 stone. At ten he had weighed 10 stone and seemed to put on a stone each year, for at 16, he was 16 stone and in his late teens tipped the scales at 20.

Though he looked big and beefy, Milburn stood top in his class. Milburn has been dubbed "the Modern Jessop" by certain writers who know little about Jessop and nothing about cricket. Jessop's methods were quite different. He used to run out to good length bowling and massacre it; Milburn used to stay in his crease and forced it away by sheer force with his powerful forearms.

Milburn's cutting, forward and square, sent the ball like a rocket to the fence before the fielders could move a foot.

Had he not insanely tried again and again to hook Majid Khan when an obvious trap had been laid, he might have gone on to make 200, so solid did he look while playing forward and back. In his first five county games in 1965, he hit 17 sixes and 55 fours and 322 of his 444 runs came in boundaries.

Milburn and Roger Prideaux who stands 6 feet 2 inches and also delights in hitting the ball, were the finest opening pair in England at that time and had hoisted 200 between them in 1964. In 1964 Milburn and Roger Prideaux made centuries against Gloucester and Milburn got 100 before lunch.

Milburn - too fat

In 1965 they told him that he was too fat, so he spent the winter on a rigid diet and had plenty of exercise: but all it did was to take off a mere stone and make him miserable - and an unhappy man can't play good cricket. So back he went to the fleshpots, for he enjoys his food.

Like good wine - or cheese - Milburn seems to mature with age. He is sometimes apt to be tied down by spin at the start of his innings, but once he gets a sight of the ball, the bowlers usually pay heavily. This he proved against the West Indians in 1966 when in the second innings of the First Test he scored 94. He and Russell put on 53 runs in 28 minutes for the opening partnership and when Hall came on for his second spell, Milburn hit him for a mighty six and treated Gibbs likewise before Gibbs bowled him round his legs.

In the second innings of the Second Test he made 6 and 126 not out and in the third 7 and 12. In the Fourth, Barber opened with Boycott and Milburn was dropped to No. 3. He was hurt but came in at the end to make 29 not out.

Milburn's big problem is his weight. Oddly enough, during the summer when he plays cricket, it goes up!. He eats only one solid meal a day and trains in a special plastic zip-up suit; but in 1965 when he reduced to 16 stone at the start of the season, he put on weight each month, and at the end of September, weighed 18 stone!