From: vigneswa@ecs.umass.edu
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket
Subject: Rebel Tours Records:  Countable?
Date: 12 Jan 93 19:03:35 GMT

Gooch in limbo over lost century

By Christopher Martin-Jenkins

	Graham Gooch, scorer of 98 or 99 first-class hundreds prior to
the present  England match  in Lucknow, will not  be certain until the
last day of the  first Test in  Calcutta of the official status of his
109 in a losing cause against  South Africa's unofficial  Test team in
Johannesburg in March 1982. Until doubts were raised by journalists in
India it had been assumed that it was first-class  but an off-the-cuff
view by the ICC secretary last week suggested otherwise.  Gooch is due
to play his  100th Test  match at Calcutta, starting on  Jan 29 and he
appeared to have the opportunity to  emulate Geoff Boycott and  Zaheer
Abbas  by reaching  his 100th century  in a Test.  A  century  in  the
current match would confuse the issue further. A predictable volley of
dismay  followed last  week's  instant ruling, for if this  particular
innings were to be relegated, it would mean that all performances both
in that  series (which also  saw hundreds for  Bob Woolmer, Jimmy Cook
and Peter  Kirsten) and  six other  disapproved tours to  South Africa
would  have to be  discounted  from the  records.  Furthermore, if the
criterion were to  be membership  of the ICC, South Africa's  30 years
absence since 1961 would mean the reassessment of an entire generation
of players. The ICC are meeting at Lord's on Feb 2 to debate the venue
for the next World Cup. The status of unofficial tours to South Africa
between 1981-82 and 1989-90 will now be added to the agenda. Statisti-
cians  will hope  that commonsense  prevails and  that the  matches of
three or more days' duration will remain first-class, as on merit they
clearly were.  It is true  that some  high-class  two-innings  matches
played outside ICC jurisdiction during the Packer schism have not been
included  in the records, but  that was a  prospective decision, not a
retrospective one. 

	Whatever the verdict, Gooch will have  tacit support from afar
at Calcutta. Agreement was reached yesterday for ball-by-ball coverage
of all the main games of England's tour of India and Sri Lanka  on BBC
Radio.  Starting times vary but transmissions of the Tests and one-day
internationals on Radio Five will range from 03.30 GMT to 11.15am. 

Rebel Tour Records:

	Lost matches there have been seven "rebel" tours, the first in
1981-82, with 47 "first-class" matches  in which 41,532 runs have been
scored, including  59 centuries.  1,334 wickets have been taken, inclu-
ding 42  five-wicket hauls  in an innings  and seven  instances  of 10
wickets in a match.  S J Cook, K C Wessels and P N Kirsten, all  still
playing in S. Africa, have scored three  centuries in "rebel" matches;
R G Pollock and  K S McEwan recorded  four each while S B Smith scored
five. S T Clarke took five wickets in an innings seven times, with two
10-wicket matches, while V A P Van der Bijl recorded three five-wicket
innings and one 10-wicket match.  There have been  two visits to South
Africa  by "rebel" English  sides; two from the  West Indies; two from
Australia and one from Sri Lanka.
 

Thanks: The Daily Telegraph (Jan 09)
========

Vicky:
UMass, Jan 12
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket