Test Match Special

England v West Indies: Ollie Pope performs at Trent Bridge

Jonathan Agnew is alongside Alastair Cook, Michael Vaughan & Fazeer Mohammed for reaction to the first day’s play between England and the West Indies at Trent Bridge.

Century-hitter Ollie Pope reflects on a "strong" day for England and West Indies spinner Kevin Sinclair says they let England get too many runs as poor fielding and dropped catches hurt his side's determination to limit the home team.

Plus, author Simon Lister joins Aggers to talk about the first permanent black captain of the West Indies, Sir Frank Worrell. Ebony Rainford-Brent joins the chat to discuss her unique link to the West Indian great.

Duration:: 40m
Broadcast on:: 18 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

"Hey corporate types, Billy Idol here. Just because you use Workday to drive long term success, it doesn't make you a rock star. Rock stars drive fast cars, not business operations." Be a finance and HR rock star with Workday. Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my hundredth mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. Honestly, when I started this, I thought only I'd have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at midmobile.com/switch, whatever you're ready. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes of CDTails. PBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. You're listening to the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. Hello, I'm Jonathan Agnew. Welcome to Test Match Special Podcast from Trent Bridge, where Ollie Pope was the key performer. Seals again. From the broad end, runs in, bulls, to Pope, it's short. His short arm, jab that away. As in the legs side, it bounces a couple of times for hitting the boundary. And Ollie Pope, with a clenched fist, waves towards the dressing room. 600, lots of lovely shots, a little bit of luck he had been dropped a couple of times. But he came in at 0-1. To come, we'll hear from Pope and the West Indies spinner Kevin Sinclair. His analysis of the day's play from Alistair Cook, Michael Horner, first of all Hubbard. I'll also talk to the author Simon Lister about the first permanent black captain of the West Indies, Sir Frank Warhol. Eppie Wainford-Bred also joins us for that, chef. She found out she has a unique connection to Frank. You're listening to the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. It can bowl out for 416, put into bat by West Indies this morning. It surprised a few, but it possibly just indicates the lack of confidence that West Indies have had. They didn't feel very well. They dropped catches. They also took some good catches, mind you, but the ground fielding wasn't great. Crawley was out in the first over, so England were not for one. But then, ducky, in particular, put some pretty wayward seam bowling to the sword. Scored 43 by the end of the fourth over. That's Moore runs ever scored in the first four over to the first innings of a test match. It went all over Trent Bridge, I must say. He made 71, Route 14, Brook 36. He was noticed here. There are lots and lots of starts by all the way down. Good starts as well. Only Pope went on to reach 100. He made 121, and he was dropped twice. Stokes 69, Smith 36. Wokes a nice 37, Atkinson 2. Schur was the last man out for five, which stranded on 13, not out. So 416, England losing six wickets after T for 157 and the 35 overs that were bold. In that first session, by the way, having been naught for one, there are 134 for two at lunch, so it suggests and indicates how fast they were scoring. Bowling was, as Ari Joseph, he went for six and over. He had to take three wickets, three, four, 98. Jaden Seals is very expensive to start with. Pulled it back a bit, two for 90, from 15 overs, and it was the two spinners. Sinclair called in this morning because Moti reported ill, only playing his second test match, two for 73. He gave us one of his famous somersaults celebrations when he took at the first, we get to four, Harry Brook, and Cavum Hodge, part-time left-time spinner. He had two catches out in the deep, two for 44 from 10 overs. So I've got Alistair Cook and Michael Vaughn with me for this little review of the day. Let's start with you, Michael, shall we? How did you see that one? Well, I'm thinking of Craig Brathway, Windsor, Tossy Boles. He bowls England out on day one, so he'll be delighted. And then he looks at the scoreboard and he sees 460. He's probably not as pleased as he could have been. I think we've seen today from both teams at times, there's been some brilliant stuff. We've also seen some garbage from both teams at time. It's been a bizarre day because, I mean, that's start to get a wicket in the first over. Zach Crawley gets one that bounces, just seems a little bit of good catch. And then the next few overs, bend up, it just seemed to just hit a boundary every single ball. And then all that momentum from the first over, and that justification of bowling first was gone. Yeah. And I guess the difficulty for this Western is the tack is they are a bit wayward, so what do they need to back up this little bit of waywardness is an outstanding catching. And if they caught the chances to Alipot was dropped twice, Harry Brook was dropped quite simply at Gully Point from Athanas, Jason Holder dropped. That's a real easy grab for someone like Jason Holder. I just think if they caught their chances that are probably bolding them down for around 300. And I think that would have been a really good day for the Western is now they come out to bat tomorrow. It'll be a good pitch. It'll be fine. The sun's going to shine, but you just look at 416 with the Western is inexperienced in their batting department. I think that's a big score for them to chase. Yeah, not for one after three balls, 19 for one at the end of the second over. Was it 50 or 50 or for one at the end of the fifth over as well? That poor old seals, his first over was just a nightmare, wasn't it? He started with a harmison. He started with a wire that barely hit their own power. Poor old Steve, you always say a harmison. The many bowlers are wide, you know. Yeah, we're not like that. Everyone knows what you can mean. If you listen to Steve, he'll be chuckling, you'll know what I mean. But he started with one of those and then bang, bang, bang, bang, the ball just went round the part. I think he hit four fours on the road and it's just classic bowling. The next one obviously after the wide, after the bowling, I was on there and I thought, well, he was West Indies best bowler at Lord's, so he'll come into this game with a bit of form. He bowls a wide. He then probably thinks, oh God, this is not coming out quite right. Drag's one down. Ben Duckett is not going to miss a cut shot whether it's, you know, like his first or second ball or a hundred ball. That's just where he scores. Yeah, no, so he went full, didn't he? He went full bit floaty, crunching drive. Really good shot to play. Then he went, then he dragged back, dragged down. Then he came round the wicket, served for a full one and he's got to complete the repertoire in four balls. He did show a good character because that must be horrible for me and you will know far more than I do when you've gone for 28 in your first two overs. When he came back, didn't actually look like he had affected him that much. He's still bold. He's bold, okay. He's bold better. Which I mean, he also good balls too. That's the first rating thing. I actually think it's a really interesting wicket because, you know, even just late on there, just now that changing Seals balls are ball too. Chris Wokes, he sneaks it. Just bounce off a length and there was a little bit of seam movement there. So the old ad is you don't really judge a pitch until both teams have batted and bold on it. I think England's attack will get, I won't say they'll get plenty, but I think there'll be enough there for them tomorrow if they get it in the right zone. But the way that England caught that Lord was exceptional, can they back up their catch in here at Trembridge? And if they do, you know, I would expect England to ball the Western is that I wouldn't say cheap play. I won't say it be 121 like Lord's, but I think England will have enough tomorrow to be potentially batting just after team. It is the bounce interesting because, you know, it's both Jamie Smith and Ben Stokes off the Spinner, you know, cloth balls, which you would expect them to hit six. You know, they weren't, you know, they weren't great balls or the back of a length. They were there for hitting and both of them clocked them. I wonder if there is something, whether it is just gripping or bouncing more skinny. I don't know, but I think only by speaking to the England lads who've actually batted on there, they'll tell you actually, you know, from here, we're 150 yards away. We can't tell those little differences you feel when you're batting when you're in there, which, and those two examples of people who can hit big bombs, not, you know, cloth them is maybe that bounce is pitching. Sorry, pitch is bouncing a little bit more than we think. Yeah, I mean, last week it was like, I'm going to ask you, actually, you said that it was basketball was brave. Do you think basketball was back today? No, no, you think I don't think it was? An indicator of me would be stoked. So he just played. I mean, he played nice. He played nice. I mean, Brooke plays as Brooke played. Why didn't they go shortly? I mean, there is definitely a conversation we had about Harry Brooke and the short ball. They didn't do it lads, which I thought was surprising for a start, but they bounced him out at lads as well, and they still didn't go short here when he first came in. It was a totally utterly legitimate tactic because of what had happened before. They weren't holding length. They weren't bowling enough balls in a good area. So sometimes you get criticized as a captain. I'll go in for the short ball. It's, you know, it's too obvious. You know, why are you doing that? A guy's just come in. You've got to make, you know, the first ten balls. Anyone can nick the first ten balls. You've got to ball the ball in the right areas to make the bats some nicks, those balls. And because Westin hadn't doing it, if you would have said to, you know, all of us out there and Harry Brooke was at first ball and you've got short leg, square leg, three men out, third man, no slips. You could say it's a justifiable tactic. And it's, you know, and sometimes that gets the ball of going. It might go for a lot of runs, but let's be honest, they were going for runs anyway, trying to hold lengths. I thought that they missed a trick for their lucky, well, for West Indies, they only got 30 odds. So he didn't change, he hasn't changed the game, but I thought it was of a message of intent, Harry Brooke, and Bito England, like, against Westin, we're coming here, we're coming to actually show some character and, you know, make uncomfortable here. Do you think he has got a problem with the short ball? I mean, Australia hadn't had a go at it. Said Lords was a disappointing way of getting out. Yeah, I mean, I like it. Magnificent talent. Yes. You know, he's a wonderful player to watch, but I do think that against the better bowling attacks, I think he's going to have to rein himself in just a little bit. I just watched him today, got 30, I really played some love to shop, but he was dropped. There's a couple of wild swings in there as well. And I just think these better bowlers, they don't mind players going out playing like that. Just got to have the ability to bat a period of time. And yet they're going to challenge him with a short stop. Without any question, India next summer, then Australia, just a few months after, with those bigger boundaries in Australia, they will the pepper him. They really will. And then the bowl channel into length and try and just get him. You know, today, he played one or two beautiful shots through the offside, but it is away from his body. And the extra bounce in Australia, you could quite easily see them packing that kind of gully region, saying, OK, well, yeah. And then we'll boil you into around good length outside of stunt and you'll flow your hands and we'll try and catch you in that position. So I'm not saying he's got a glaring weakness, but it's like any young player and he's come out of the traps and he's averaging 60. He's got 400s already. He's only played 14 games. You can't go for what a player. But now teams have seen him and we've seen him and all the data's there for everyone to see. Yeah, that'll be the area that teams, he's probably going to be good enough to overcome it. You know, I think he's very talented. I think he'll have enough to be able to duck and weave and work it out. But that's exactly how they're going to bolt him. And you too, very fine batsman. With the notion of a coach working on his ability to play the short ball now, is there a danger that gets into his head that actually I do have a problem with this and I got out that way there. I mean, do you think that that's sort of a sensible way to go to try and help him with this or are you kind of avoiding it? Do you don't want to drop that in there? Well, you have to know the guy first. That's the ultimate rule of character. If I went up to Harry Brooke and I know him socially, you know, played against him and I said, "You've got to problem the short ball. We need to do that. That ain't going down well." People who coach work with him know what works best. For me, it's just clarity for him. He's got to decide almost every time he bats how he's going to play the short ball. Because, you know, with a certain situation on this pitch, doesn't he need to duck it on this because it's too quick for me. He actually gets in trouble when the ball's actually outside his eye line and he tries to drag it. He's being caught when the ball's almost fist up when normally most people get in trouble when it's in under the armpit and you cramp for room. He gets in trouble because he sees runs there and I think he's got to be clear, right? The ball's out here. What am I going to do with it? And when you're clear in your mind, you can then decide. So, whether he's going to say, "If he's out on this line, outside my he's obviously right-handed, so outside he's right eye, I'm leaving it alone. If it's at my head, I'm going to take it on." Is that kind of clarity that you need to have? And once you've got that, then you can work your method. That's what I think because he can play the shot. I think we're going to chat to Ollie Pope in a second. I'm just looking down at the far end. There I think he's got his headphones on. Ollie, it's BBC to Ollie Pope. Can you come in Ollie? Come in. I'm here. How are we doing? Well, okay. Well played. You must be very happy. Yeah, no, really good day. I think the way we went about it, getting put into bat, getting 416 on the boards, obviously a really strong day and happy to get the three figures and make it count. How do you feel walking out at naught for one in the first over? Yeah, no, I actually felt all right. I think that's just the nature of batting at three. Sometimes you're going to come in at 200 for one and other times you're going to come in a naught for one. I thought she's exact missed out today, but no, I felt good. I knew it was a pretty good pitch and it helps when Ducky at the other end, but I think hit that second over the day for 19. Suddenly you look up and the scoreboards moved on quite quickly. Yeah, I mean, that was just, I mean, okay, entertaining from our perspective up here, but you could just feel that any initiative that the West End is picked up with that earlier book, it was just kind of just burst, just taken away. Yeah, I mean, it makes a big difference. I think coming in naught for one has always, you always feel a little bit of pressure knowing that you don't want to be naught to. And then, yeah, after Ducky's over, suddenly you look up, you're 24 and we're 40 or before we knew it, so it felt like the sort of the ball was back in our core, which was a nice place to be. Yeah, I imagine it had a call from the maternity unit and just to hurry up and get a move on, but I don't suppose that happened. No, no, it didn't happen. No, he's all good, but, yeah, it was playing like it tonight. You've added beautifully for that sentiment. Yeah, 600s for you now, Ollie, and all against different opponents too. Yeah, no, I mean, it's nice to make them count. I think, yeah, obviously, it's nice to against different attacks and hopefully I can really cash in for the rest of this series and the rest of the summer. Tell us about the pitch, because, you know, I've subjected it here, we could say, look, there was some way it would seem boring, but occasionally there was some really good balls out there as well. How do you read it? Yeah, I think exactly that. I think we tried to put them under pressures and attack. We hit it all around the ground, but at the same time, whenever they were able to sort of stack up a couple of overs in the right area, there was a couple of player misses. Obviously, drop catches made a big difference today, which I'm obviously always grateful for as a batter. But no, I think, look, it's a good pitch. At the same time, there's enough balls in there to hopefully go and take 20 wickets in this game. Yeah, you did have a couple of that offs today. What do you feel? Next ball, you just just forget it completely, just put it away. You're pretty grateful at the start. I think I was just waiting on a little bit of luck there, which came my way. But then you kind of go, you're pretty relieved, you turn around, and then you go, right, let's make sure I make the most of this. So, yeah, it's a nice feeling, and it sometimes just gets you back in your box. It's a bit like a player miss sometimes, as well, when you play a bad shot. Well played today, Ollie, there's some lovely shots in there as well. 121 well played. We'll talk to you soon. Cheers, thank you. There we go. Ollie, very honest, but a bit luck there. Yeah, there was a bit of fortune, but he played some beautiful shots. He's so much of an energiser. I was saying to toughen all downstairs that he almost bats as if someone's got a little feather, and he's tickling him. A bit agitated sometimes. He's always a little bit on rollerbades, and he's always looking to move the scoreboard on. But when he plays, and I think he's quite a difficult batter to bowl to. I think he's quite difficult to keep quiet, he gets balls behind the square on the offside, then he's got shots through extra cover, he's got that flick through. From off stump, he's got the pull shot as well. So, I think it's quite difficult for a bowling unit to keep him quiet, because he does take risks. We've been kind of looking at English cricket for many, many years, and number three's generally in the history of the game. I've been a technically correct, you know, leave the ball, see off the kind of shine, get it to the 30th over, and then you start to kind of accelerate in the gears. Well, Ollie goes pretty much from ball one. He goes out there, this is the kind of remit of this team. They go out there trying to put the pressure back on the bowlers, and at times he's going to play one or two shots that you go, "Ooh, where does that come from?" And even when he's in, even today, when he got to 50, you think, "Well, you're in on a good pitch, you know, just go and play." Every now and again you go, "Ooh, where does that shot come from?" But that is the way that he's playing, and he's done well the move to take into number three. He's been a good one. His big, big kind of goal in his test career is to go and play really well against the high-quality teams, India and Australia. You know, I think against sides like the West Indies, Sri Lanka, I have no problem with Ollie Pope. I think he'll just climb into the runs. His real big mental challenge is, can you go and do it against the Indians next summer, in Australia in a year and a half time? That's to take him to that next level, you know, the level where we all start to go, "Ooh, what a world-class performer." He'll only become that once he's done it against the really quality teams. In fact, I always have a word from you. A bit of an emotional rollercoaster from a West Indian perspective today, I guess, the first I vote. Whoa, not for one, you know, put into bat, and this is an opportunity. How do you look at it at the end of the day? I think frustrating is how I term it, because again, the opportunity is missed. I mean, Ollie, as you said, was honest enough to point that Ollie, you don't miss opportunities like that in Test Match cricket. Yes, they came with them swiftly and so on, but this is the highest level of the game. The stumping chance missed, even a catch missed towards the end of the day. It was generally untidy, and I think what we're seeing is a team that appears to be low on confidence, not just because of what happened in the first Test Match, but again, because they haven't played a lot of cricket together as a team, they're still feeling their way about, on this English tone already there, on day one of a second Test Match of three, so it's a difficult challenge for them, and some of the weaknesses are being shown up, and primarily the inability to concentrate for long periods, because this is what the match cricket is all about. You can bowl the jaffa today, but if you can't produce it consistently, you're not going to have the success, especially against an England team that is looking to score at every opportunity. Let's get some reaction from the Western addressing them, shall we? Henry Moran, as he's speaking to the Spinner Kevin Sinclair. What's your assessment at the end of what's been quite a long day? I think we did brilliant. Having said that, we put down a few, you know, Pope, you know, put him down a few times, he come and get 100, so I think that hurt us a bit, but yet still, I think we did fairly well to bowl them out once again. Too much runs in the end, but I would say it was a good day for all of us here as a team. So you do think it's a few too many runs, more than it should have been perhaps? Yeah, definitely, because I think we put down some difficult ones that hurt us, but like I said, I think we come back and did really well, I come and get too hot, come and get some, make it as well, you know, and put us right back in the game, we get the crucial wicked of the captain, Ben Stokes, so yeah, I think we did really well today, man. Brilliant start, and then things seem to go crazy out there. Yeah, definitely. There's something that we talked about in interest room in terms of the boundary bars, I think we was guilty of that today, too many boundary bars, but like I said, yesterday we pulled it back and we bring ourselves back right in the game as a team. Now talk me through this celebration, it's not something that I think fans here at Trent Bridge have ever seen in a test match. Well, if I had played the first game at last, they would have got it if I got more wicked, but some area basically I'm from, I used to practice any background, you know, some as something, so whenever I get it, I just look to do that as a representative of my era I'm from, in Bobby's, you know, I'm Saddam. Can't imagine Kirtley Ambrose doing that. Ah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, I could leave that with that. What about the batting then tomorrow? It has to be better than what we saw at Lord, so what's been the message around the camp? Ah, look, I'm not going to criticize, but I think we as a group and as a young team, you know, on any given day we could, you know, show the world what we capable of. We have in 100% support from the management staff, I think on a given day once we, you know, get those partnerships, you know what I mean, and not get wicked in clusters. You know, I think that's how I'm passing the first test, so once we do the basics for long, I think we're going to put up a good show. Just finally, what's this surface playing like, do you think? Ah, it's a pretty good surface of batting and balling. You know, once you get a ball in the right area, so I think you're going to get results. And butter, you know, I mean, look the way at poor plate, you know, you score half a ball that was in his zone, so to speak. So I think once you wait a little bit, be patient. I think, you know, a lot of runs out there for you as a batter. Lovely. Well played today. Thank you so much. Sound of character, doesn't he? Oh, he's a great guy. He's gone for having had a brilliant day there to be well, perhaps there are 50, bad balls will drop too many catches. But are you worried about the prospect of the batting tomorrow for you? Worried very much so, because, again, because of what we saw over the pitch, it's not as if it's a complete road. No. If you ball properly and you ball consistently against players who probably aren't really attuned either mentally or maybe even technically to batting for long periods, seeing off a tough spell, it could be very challenging. But again, they'll back themselves, you've got to back yourself, you've got to believe that you could upset the odds and maybe go against the grade. But the challenge is you've got 400 runs on the board already. And that is already a mountain to climb. And therefore, it's going to be very, very tough for the Westernies in that morning session. And really will test their metal because Craig Bathwood has been struggling for runs. He's been the anchor for quite some time. He's barely gotten a run over the last year and a bit. And if he falls early, there isn't a lot of experience. In the middle order, it might be spectacular, it might be flashy, it might be entertaining, but whether it will be consistent enough to frustrate England on day two, that's going to be the challenge. What do you think, Mark, on tomorrow? Oh, I think that's a bit better than we saw at Lord's. But I just think England will have two. Moises, as fast said, just enough there. And if England catch well, I would think England will be batting again tomorrow at some stage. Okay, there you go. Good luck tonight with the question of sport. Thank you very much. Well, I've got the, your teammates. I've got the caps in, I'm going to hold stuff and stuff. Well, if, well, you should, yeah, you should win the top of the shore. Yeah, yeah, you'd hope so. The TMS Podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt, and we're the hosts of grown-up stuff, How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts. It's a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting. Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more. Let's learn about all of it, and then some. Listen to grown-up stuff, How to Adult on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search grown-up stuff. Next week marks the hundreds anniversary of the birth of a hugely significant figure in West Indies. Craigets, the Frank Warrell, was the first permanent black captain of the West Indies, but he had to wait until 1960 to receive that honour. He died only seven years later, after he diagnosed with leukemia. He was only 42 years old. The story of Sir Frank is told in a new world, the brief but brilliant life, of a Caribbean cricket pioneer, and it's written by Simon Lister, who you may remember previously authored, "Fire in Babylon." Simon's happy to see you. It's such a fascinating topic, isn't it? I mean, as soon as you start dipping into West Indies cricket, and the culture, the insularity, and so on, I mean, it's an intriguing situation, which still exists to some extent, although not as much, obviously, in moral's time. Yeah, they were certainly different times of Jonathan, and I think through engineering, actually, I interviewed him about Frank because he knew him well, and he said, "You know, the thing about Frank was that he was a great West Indian cricketer who became a great West Indies, and that phrase stayed with me throughout the writing of the book, and it's true because, you know, what Warrell did by becoming that first permanent black captain was he shut a door on the past, and that never again would a man be chosen to lead the West Indies based solely on the color of his skin, and that had really been the case for the best part of the 20th century, and the West Indies in general, and the Barbados that Frank grew up in, I think, was a place of stultifying conservatism, and it was very much arranged along class and race and color, and people like Frank weren't supposed to excel. People like Frank weren't supposed to leave, so when he got that job in 1960, he smashed everything, and he said to the ordinary people of the West Indies, "We can excel too. This is our time." Was it like an unwritten rule about the captain? Because George Hadley captained in a couple of games previously, didn't he? The Great Jamaican, but that was more of a sort of an honorary situation, I think, was it just sort of understood that it was always going to be a formerly a white person who captained the West Indies? Absolutely, because cricket followed the social arrangements of the West of the Caribbean, so when Frank was growing up, the man who ran the local cinema was white, the police were white, the judiciary was white, the priest was white, and it was the same in cricket, and of course, the great Leary Constantine, he captained for a day in 1935 when Jackie Grant was injured, and as you say, Hadley did it for a test in '47, '48 when Gubby Allen bought the English out, but the fact that we can remember those instances really tells you everything you need to know about the social and political and cricketing arrangements that existed in the country for so long. It's looking at the very start of the book, a great quote from C.L.R. James, who of course is the most extraordinary writer on my screen, where Indian society isn't easy for outsiders to understand is one of his quotes, but it is very complicated, and the forward written by Clive Lloyd, it just seems so fitting that he should be the man, and Clive writes here where all, I'll go back a bit, people think a Trinidadian is the same as a Jamaican or a Guyanese, but it's not like that, but all different people from different backgrounds, different cultures, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Portuguese, Chinese, knitting all these people together was the most important thing. Frank understood this, and knew how to get players to work for him for the common good. I believe that Frank Warhol unified the West Indies through his captaincy, and when my turn came, my job was to continue his good work, and I hope I did it well, and of course he did, because Clive was similar, but he didn't have the barriers to break down that Warhol had. No, and he learned a huge amount from Warhol, as did Gary Sobers, as did Rohan Kanhai, because Gary, Frank, I should say, really changed everything, because suddenly he led a team where the players respected him. He treated them as men, not as subordinates, and in return, they gave him their best cricket, so Lance Gibbs, Rohan, Charlie Griffith, the young Derek Murray, they adored Frank, and he'd take them to dinner one at a time, and he'd say, "I don't want to talk about cricket, tell me what you're going to be doing in five years' time," because he cared for them as men. They weren't just almost sort of like pieces of property under these previous white captains, and by the way, none of them were really very good at cricket. So there's this huge frustration, weeks, Warhol, Walcott, they played almost all of their career, under lesser men, and that must have been immensely frustrating for them as professional athletes. I suppose in a way like the professionals in amateur situation here, except this was divided by race and by upbringing, which is basically what the problem was here. Definitely, and actually, one of the most poignant things that I discovered was that for weeks and for Warhol, the other two great Ws, it was too late. They'd spent most of the 50s being exhausted by the demands of playing for the West Indies, the demands of not being paid very much, and also having to subsume themselves under people like John Goddard, Dennis Atkinson, and as skippers, and they pretty much gave the game away, and all three of those men that could have been good captains of the West Indies, only Frank prevailed. When did the tide start to turn then, because he's appointed, what, 1960, wasn't it? Yeah, March 60. So there must have been a build-up to this. It must have been simmering. There was, and there was a great sense of nihilistic hope across the West Indies in the late 1950s, and lots of people began to speak of the congruency, of some sort of unity in the West Indies, and the best thing that they could think that represented that was to have a black captain of the cricket team. But it's interesting because, I mean, it's such a treat to write this book, and I had a, you know, 20 years ago, you couldn't have done this, because there's this amazing repository, the British regional newspapers are out there, and I found out a huge amount of stuff about Frank and his life and interviews with him, just from Manchester Evening News and stuff, and one of the most interesting things I discovered was that I think Frank was really ready to give the game up in '57, '58. I don't think becoming captain of the West Indies was right at the top of his master plan, and it happened almost by accident, and it happened, he was at university, he was at University of Manchester, he wanted to make himself a better man, but that wasn't necessarily by being captain of the West Indies, but then there was a tragedy. In September '59, Collie Smith was killed in a car crash, Gary Sobers was driving that car, weeks and war weeks in Walcott had more or less given the game up, and boy Gilchrist couldn't play anymore, because his behaviour was so appalling, they couldn't pick him, and the heart had gone from the West Indies side, and Frank wanted to give the game up, he wanted to play professional cricket to make money in the leagues, but his sense of duty prevailed, and he went on that tour, probably against his better judgement, '59, '60, the Peter May Tour, and of course during that time there was this huge ground swell, a campaign led by Seal R. James for him to become captain, and he kind of walked into this cul-de-sac, you know, he had to embrace his destiny, and thank goodness he did. Tell me about his relationship with Barbados then, because he was Barbadian, as I was saying earlier during commentary, he's one of the number of cricketers you drive through Barbados, oh you come to the war all round about, and you've got the weeks round about, so there's his round about, so he was Bayesian, but ended up in Jamaica, so what happened with his relationship with Barbados? He had a complicated relationship with Barbados, he was born in 1924, by the time he was six, both his parents had left the island for the USA to earn money, so he's brought up by his grandmother, so he had a disordered childhood to a certain extent, and he himself admitted that he had a persecution complex by the time he was a teenager, probably what we'd call paranoia today, and I think he identified with that the fact that he wasn't supposed to be a certain person, that he couldn't do certain things, and as we said earlier, you know, Barbados was a really conservative place before enduring the war, and I think Frank, to feel that he could be the best person he could be, had to leave the island, so in '47 he went to Jamaica, bigger island geographically, slightly more liberal in its outlook, he could be more anonymous, I mean when Frank got runs, you know he got a treble hundred at 19 for Barbados in Trinidad, he comes back into the cinema with his friend, everyone stands up and applause goes in his seat, you know, but he actually didn't like all that sort of attention, and I think he felt put upon in Barbados, I think people didn't, lots of people didn't want him to succeed, so I think going to Jamaica was probably his answer to get away from all that. But he was driven, as I understand it, by actually the bigger picture of the West Indies, much like Clive Lloyd was later, he wasn't just Barbados centric, he knew there was much more to the region than that, and that was kind of behind that issue. Absolutely, he abhorred the insularity of Barbados, and he wanted to bring the best thing about his captaincy, was it brought a unifying feature to the West Indies that didn't exist anywhere else, and when he left cricket he worked for the University of the West Indies, which was the only other unifying symbol across the region, so yeah, he was a federalist, he believed in the unity of the West Indies, but one of the best ways of doing that was to have a black man leading the cricket team, and actually when he died, and they organised a memorial service for him at Westminster Abbey, which was extraordinary. A sportsman had never been recognised in that way before, E.W. Swenson gave the address, and he said essentially Frank was a bringer together of people, and I think that was a wonderful phrase, and he wanted to change people's lives through cricket, and that's what he did. What about Frank borrow the batsman then? He was a great batsman, he's a world-class batter, he was great on wet wickets and dry, he used his feet against the spinners, he was brilliant on the matting in Trinidad, as we said he had these massive, totally got daddy hundreds, you know, by the time he was still a teenager, and one of his best knocks actually was here in 1950. I think if I had the test match time machine, if I could jump in and press the button and go to any test match I wanted to, I'd come to this one. Would you? Yeah, definitely, 74 years ago to the day almost, West Indies put on 400 in a day, which was extraordinary about the standards at the time, and Frank got a big 260, Everton weeks got a big hundred, and Rowley Jenkins was bowling for England, and Frank kept coming down the track to him sooner and sooner using his feet, and at one point Jenkins said, "For goodness sake will you let me loose the ball first?" And he was so graceful, I interviewed Jackie Hendrix, a lovely to make a keep, we played under Frank in Australia of course, and I said, "What would he like his batsman?" He said, "Well, Frank was never florid at the crease, he was never ornate, he was never flowery, and he had so much time, and I think probably his greatest shot was the late cut, and they say that he used to take it almost off the pimples of the Wicket Keepers gloves, and I guess if you're a classy player and you've got time, that means your world class." I mean, lots of people know about the legend of Frank Warhol, but he was a super-pricketer in his own right. Now let's talk about this connection to Ebony then, who's sitting here now. You had some tea, Ebony? I haven't actually. So did you clarify this? Did you stumble across a connection to Warhol? Yes, absolutely. Okay, far away. I mean, I didn't want to write a book that was a book about a great man who died 70 years ago. I was curious about the threads that connected Frank to today, and we found one, remarkably, because Frank had a cousin, he came to England during the war, he had a child, that chap child was Jenny Worrell, who grew up in England in the 50s and 60s, a married name was Jenny Wostrack, and I don't think it's wrong to say that she changed Ebony's life, and you can tell us all about it. Yeah, so who's this mysterious? When I was playing, I grew up playing street cricket in South London, and then I was invited to a tournament, and there was this lady that spotted me, so the age of about 12. She was connected to both Surrey and a lot of community projects, the projects that used to come into the state schools to discover kids. So this woman not only helped talent scout me as a 12-year-old, through my whole career from about 12 to 18, because mum didn't have a huge amount of cash, she was driving me around the country, teaching me to knock in my bat, getting me scholarships, and I would say the single reason why I ended up playing, but interestingly, I didn't know this connection either, because I knew of her as Jenny Wostrack, no one ever mentioned it, she actually, you saw her visibly as well, she was mixed race, but almost white passing to an extent, so I didn't even know about the Caribbean connection until her funeral, and then someone mentioned it, and I was like, "Whoa, if I would have known as a young person who became the first black woman to play for England, that the first black captain from the West Indies, it's his lineage and family who supported my whole career, you know, it would have been special." So yeah, she was the most important person, without her, I'd be nowhere in cricket, so yeah, really special connection. Yeah, it's amazing. Do you think people in the Caribbean sort of get Frank Worrell these days, and the part that he's, the role that he played, or was it still insular and difficult? I think it's, I think, you know, the passage of time is a great healer, and it was really interesting, because Frank said, one of the things he said in his in his autobiography was that there are no heroes in my country, and of course he was one of them, but he had to die at 42, which was a terribly early age, and one, yeah, and one thinks what he could have done for West Indian cricket, and also West Indian civic life, you know, had he been given a good life, but you know, you go to Barbados now, you buy a coffee with a five dollar note, you get Frank's, Frank is there, you know, there's a hamburger, a street food named after him in India, so his legacy lives on in different ways, but yeah, the West Indies is a complicated place, and Frank had to navigate those complications, but yeah, he was, he was a great cricketer and a great West Indian, I think. And have you got more interest in Frank Boral? Yeah, massively, and Simon showed me some of the footage of incredible, oh yeah, down at the oval and the when he getting sort of heralded, and I think it means a lot to the African Caribbean community in the UK, actually, and especially everything we were doing with ACE at the moment, I see it as part of the legacy kicking on actually through a lot of the work we do, so yeah, really, really inspired. Great, thanks, Simon. I'd love to see you again. Thanks so much. What a great subject. Thank you. It's important that the people that are remembered. Yeah, absolutely, I couldn't agree more. Well, thanks to Simon and to everybody for that chat, and that's it for this episode of the TMS podcast. Be sure to subscribe on BBC San so you don't miss any episodes, including the latest episode of No Balls, where Alex Hartley and Kate Cross tried to figure out who was the best all-rounder of the two of them. 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