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Mark Nicholas: A cricket geek in a Savile Row suit

Will Tubby and Mark keep their commentary gigs? (AAP Image/Chris Scott)
Roar Guru
21st December, 2016
8

There is much to admire about Mark Nicholas.

A more than decent first-class cricketer, attacking and progressive captain, poetic and free flowing writer, and insightful thinker.

But perhaps Nicholas is best described as a true cricket geek, albeit in a savile row suit.

In his semi-autobiographical book ‘A beautiful game: My love affair with cricket’, Nicholas dissects all aspects of the game.

Nicholas has a similar commitment to his hobby of choice.

His love of cricket was embedded from day dot by his father, with son inheriting the same kind of love and appreciation of the game.

If anything, Nicholas took it further and you feel his love for cricket is his love for his father, who died in the summer of 1968.

It became his loss and grief method for a bereft 11-year-old, and 48 years on it still burns. Love for both father and cricket.

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The professional cricket journey began for Nicholas in Hampshire in 1977, reporting for service at the Northlands Road Cricket Ground in Southampton.

I knew the ground well, having moved from London to Hampshire in 1975 when I was seven.

I also knew the bowels beneath the pavilion where he spent his formative Hampshire days. It was uninviting, cold and dreary to say the least.

And I knew the nets where Barry Richards hit a young Nicholas to the distant houses at the end of the ground where he traipsed to gather the ball.

He would have also spent many an hour in the winter nets, in what looked like a large plane hangar, or in my young mind, a large World War II bunker full of asbestos – it just had that look.

This is where young Hampshire hopefuls picked for the school boys and colts sides would freeze in early February.

They would ponder what it must have been like to face Malcolm Marshall and Andy Roberts in the fast net, where off the surface an average 15-year-old seemed as fast as anyone you had seen play the game.

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Nicholas’ description of his early Hampshire days is a delight, especially for Hampshire die-hards. For Australian readers, it shows that this is a man who served his apprenticeship.

His recount of his Hampshire captaincy days also describes the trials and tribulations of the daily grind of county cricket, the stars he played with and against, but most of all, his genuine love for his adopted county.

For the best part of 18 years, it was his life, and he has not forgotten what the county did for him.

He will go down in history as the modern day Colin Ingelby-Mckenzie that brought three one-day titles to the county after the barren years.

Of course, in the book, there are glimpses inside his personal life, not least his commitment and joys of working for Channel four in the UK and Channel Nine in Australia.

Channel Nine cricket commentators Mark Nicholas and Mark Taylor

The much-reported Kerry Packer story features Nicholas thinking his days may be numbered. You get the feeling this confident and debonair fellow thinks others are more interesting than he.

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To that end, he has done a remarkable job.

Shadowing one of his greatest mentors in Richie Benaud, perhaps standing over his shoulder while he was writing with the mantra ‘less is more son’.

But one wonders if in writing the book, he could have given us of more of Nicholas the man.

Perhaps it is to do with the fact, while he captained England A, he narrowly missed out on playing for England in 1989.

If he had got his chance, some think he would have gone on to captain the team, a la Mike Brearley.

Alas, it was not to be.

Nicholas says his best chance came in the late 1980s, before he was cruelly told by then England coach Mickey Stewart that he had just missed out.

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Truth be told, his numbers were not quite good enough.

However, there were others tried at the time with less talent. He and the late Peter Roebuck have much in common in cricketing terms – county captains, great writers and both unlucky to miss out on Test Cricket.

This is but a small criticism of wanting more of the man than the game, but without question, he has successfully written his ode to cricket, and it is to be celebrated.

This is best illustrated in his charity of choice, ‘Chance to Shine’, a program dedicated to spreading cricket to schools and under privileged communities. It is a testimony to his true love of the game and his gospel.

A cricket geek no doubt, and a nice suit to go with it.

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