Flashback - my first test match memory

1981.

The Oval.

Botham's ashes.

As a schoolboy i had watched the test series on TV. Botham's hitting, the bollowing of Willis, all inspired by Graham Dilley taking the initiative with the bat.

I went to the oval test match. Memories of uncomfortable seating (benches), Lamb going down the wicket to the Aussie fast bowlers and Dirk Wellham. In the second innings Wellham scored a century but seemed to take an age in the nervous nineties. The home crowd soon got on his back and suddenly he could not get the ball off the square. Memories play tricks on you but it seemed like it took him ages to get to three figures but eventually he did.

First real memories of test cricket - an England Test Series victory - what a cruel world, to set such expectation in a young man, was it to contunue this way.............