The Spin Richards, Hick and Lara how David Foot saw three of the greatest innings
almost 2 years in The guardian
A new book draws together writing from David Foot’s 50 years on the county circuit, with a 1985 day in Taunton the highlightIn the 50 years in which David Foot reported on county cricket, there were perhaps three innings that captured the public imagination more than any other: a blistering 322 scored in only four and a quarter hours by Viv Richards at Taunton, an epic 405 by the young Graeme Hick, also at Taunton, and a world-record 501 by Brian Lara at Edgbaston. It was David’s happy fate to watch every ball of all three.As a boy, growing up in rural poverty in Somerset, David had dreamed of becoming a cricket writer. “Will I ever become a real, a REAL journalist? Will I have the opportunity of writing ‘specials’, getting to the heart of human nature?” he asked himself in a teenage diary, written while serving a drudge-filled apprenticeship on the deeply conservative Western Gazette in Yeovil. Continue reading...