The A-Z of Derbyshire Cricket - A is for Adams: Chris Adams

The original idea for the A-Z of Derbyshire cricket came from Nathan Fern, then of the Derbyshire CCC marketing team. I presented my thoughts on the best candidates for each letter of the alphabet once he had done so and it generated a lot of interest.

That was three years ago and I’ve had several e mails asking if I could highlight the posts from earlier, as the readership is now considerably higher than it was at that time. So here they are in – somewhat unsurprisingly – alphabetical order. They are presented in the way in which they first appeared, but are now captured by labels for future reference and with the same header. Hopefully that will make them more accessible and I’d like to think that they will create talking points and generate comments over the long winter.

It could all have been done by web poll, but I’m wary of the merit of such polls as they give unfair weighting to the opinion of young people, who are generally (but not always) more technically competent and confident. You may disagree with me, but the comments boxes allow your opinions to be heard and I look forward to them.

As an example, I recently saw a web poll that declared Garry Barlow was the greatest-ever songwriter and Take That the greatest-ever group. I’m not so sure that you could discount Lennon and McCartney for the former, not to mention Gershwin, Berlin or Rodgers and Hammerstein. Are Take That better than the Beatles, or the Rolling Stones? Is Barlow a writer of greater, lasting material than Jimmy Page and Robert Plant in Led Zeppelin? Not so sure…

Comparing players from different generations is impossible, as the game has evolved dramatically. WG Grace would probably not make 200 runs in a season today, but was a giant of his era and crucial in the development of the game. Was Wally Hammond better than Peter May, or was Dennis Lillee better than Harold Larwood or Tom Richardson?

Nathan’s first choice at A was the worthy Albert Alderman, opening batsman in the Championship side of 1936. For me, the selection was the antithesis of voting for modern players and was perhaps a vote for an old-timer for nostalgic reasons, especially coming, as it did, in a year when we celebrated our 140th anniversary.

Was Alderman better than Chris Adams? I didn’t see him, but my Dad did and reckons he was ‘workmanlike, but nowt brilliant.’ While his solid batting in 1936 contributed to the success that summer (as Denis Smith was woefully out of touch) he experienced many fallow seasons. He was a sticker, like Alan Hill and Steve Stubbings in more recent times and was probably worth a few runs more than his average suggests. Nathan pointed out that they were runs made on the uncovered wickets of the time and there were some truly great bowlers around in the 1930s, perhaps more than is the case today. By extension, there were some quite ordinary ones too, of a lesser standard than the average today. Alderman averaged 25 from over 500 first-class innings, largely at the top of the order.

Chris Adams’ form in 1996 could have won us the Championship and it was sad to see a player with so much talent ultimately flower elsewhere, as the highly successful skipper at Sussex. He played some fine innings for us though, learning a great deal from Dean Jones. He averaged just under 39 in first-class cricket and a run more in the one-day game, as well as an impressive 30 in T20. A very good player indeed, was Chris Adams.

Selecting Alderman also means that you overlook the claims of the brilliant Mohammad Azharuddin, who played some majestic innings for the county in an albeit brief stay. I would suggest that he played three of the best ten innings I’ve seen by a Derbyshire player, with his double century at Queens Park against Durham on a spinning track a quite sublime piece of batting.

It all comes down to preference. Alderman’s long service, Adams’ few seasons or Azharuddin’s year and a half? After a little thought, and aided by the way that the Indian genius (not a word I use lightly) left under something of a cloud, I’ll plump for Chris Adams. Perhaps if we’d noted his credentials and aptitude for captaincy a little earlier, the recent histories of Derbyshire and Sussex may have been considerably different.

In closing, a suggestion for what may prove the problem letters of X and Z.

For the former, I could give a few dozen examples of X-certificate batting over the years.

Z? No names, but there have been a few batsmen who have enabled spectators to catch up on their sleep.

Zzzzzzzz….