My Favourite
Neil Squires
is the rugby
union and golf
correspondent
of the Daily
Express. His first
love was cricket,
specifically
Yorkshire cricket,
and he can still
be found at
Headingley on
occasions when
he should be
writing about
Owen Farrell or
Rory McIlroyRight
Richard Lumb
braved the West
Indian quicks and
opening up with
‘Our Geoffrey’ BOBTHOMas/GeTTYIMaGesPlenty of people would choose
Geoff Boycott to bat for their lives;
not many would choose him as the
person they would want to spend
most of their professional life with.
For Richard Lumb that was the hand
which fate dealt him as a Yorkshire
opener in the 1970s.
Imagine the conversations between
overs, imagine the nerve-shredding
uncertainty of never knowing when
the next run-out would strike, imagine
the sheer, mind-numbing boredom
of seeing that wall-like forward
defensive shot again and again.
Trapped in the worst kind of
marriage, it would be enough to
drive a man to the brink. Yet Lumb
stuck it out for 15 miserable years.
You receive a lot less for arson.
It was a turbulent enough era
to be a Yorkshire cricketer and
Yorkshire watcher with the Greatest
County struggling on the field and
in constant turmoil off it. One can
only imagine what it was like to be
22 yards away from the centre of a
storm that was cricket’s equivalent
of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.
It must take a certain personality
type to survive for so long in
such toxic surroundings. Self-
harmer? Masochist? Well, maybe,
but also a highly single-minded
individual. Talk about an ability to
compartmentalise. Lumb must have
operated in a head space somewhere
out near the Asteroid Belt.
Growing up in Yorkshire, none of
this struck me at the time – I was
interested in the bare bones of runs
and results – but as the picture was
filled in during teenage years so my
respect and admiration for Lumb
grew. I began to see Yorkshire’s
invisible man in a new light.
A steady accumulator as a batsman,
he rarely set fields aflame with his
strokeplay. There were respectful
intervals between boundaries. In
fact they were such collectors’ items
that members I knew even made up
a rhyme for a four off his bat. “Ee ba
gum, what’s come over Lumb?”
There was nothing poetic about his
obdurate occupation of the crease- as a rule it was more fun to watch
him on Ceefax.
He was not ideally suited to the
one-day game – let’s just say Lumb
wouldn’t have raised much in the
IPL auction – and was made the fall
guy after Yorkshire failed to knock
off a target of 69 in a rain-reduced
10-over slog in the 1978 Gillette Cup
quarter-final. Boycott, as captain,
dropped himself down to No.9 in
the order but his decision to leave
Lumb as opener backfired. His
contribution of 10 from 23 balls
hardly got the chase away to a flier.
In the longer format – the three-
day game as was – these stoic
virtues were of much more use and
his double act with Boycott proved
both durable and formidable.Yorkshire were nowhere near the
force they had been – the county
finished in the bottom half of the
Championship five times in the 1970s- but their opening partnership
represented a source of strength.
Between them, Boycott and Lumb
compiled 29 century partnerships
for Yorkshire in first-class cricket - second only to Percy Holmes and
Herbert Sutcliffe in the roll-call of
Broad Acre openers.
The chunkiest came against
Somerset at St George’s Road,
Harrogate in 1979. For those present
at one of Yorkshire’s sadly-missed
outgrounds, it was a Sunday treat.
The pair put on 288 for the first
wicket at a fair old lick – getting on
for four an over – with Lumb, the
first man to 1,000 runs that season,
leading the charge. Content to block
out Joel Garner at one end, Lumb
made (relative) hay in picking off Ian
Botham and the Somerset spinners
Vic Marks and Dennis Breakwell.
Lumb outscored Boycott in making
159, but Boycott still managed to
steal the attention by pulling his
hamstring turning for the run that
brought up his century. He batted
on with a runner until Yorkshire
declared with him unbeaten on 130.
Another priceless red-inker.
Boycott could not help but hog
the headlines and dominate the
averages, but Lumb – a decent
enough player to have represented
England at youth level – ground on
in his shadow, carving out a good
career as a county cricketer.
In 245 first-class matches he
scored 11,723 runs, at an average
of 31.17 with 22 hundreds. This,
remember, was in an era before
helmets were commonplace and
when West Indian quicks were
10-a-penny in the English game.
Lumb was one of three Yorkshire
batsmen who had to retire hurt with
a damaged thumb as Wayne Daniel
wreaked havoc for Middlesex at
Abbeydale Park in 1977. He was one
of only nine able to front up again in
the second innings.
Life was no bed of roses for
the workaday county opener but
the hardiest could survive and
sometimes even prosper.
Lumb had a particularly fondness
for the Gloucestershire attack,
making four centuries against them
including his top score of 165 not
out at Bradford Park Avenue, in his
final season with Yorkshire.
That was 1984, when Yorkshire
finished fourth from bottom in the
Championship, second from bottom
in the Sunday League and were
knocked out in the first round of
the NatWest Trophy by Shropshire,
for whom Coventry City goalkeeper
Steve Ogrizovic opened the bowling.
Talk about finishing in style.
Boycott, so self-absorbed he may
well have been unaware his long-time
opening partner had gone, played
on for two seasons. As for Lumb, he
finally found serenity thousands of
miles away in South Africa.Richard Lumb had a thankless task, opening the batting with
Geoff Boycott for 15 years. Neil Squires takes his hat off to him
There was nothing
poetic about his
obdurate batting
- it was more
fun to watch him
on Ceefax
30 | thecricketer.com