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by Sa'adi Thawfeeq

The name of John Edrich is synonymous with English cricket because five members of his family have appeared in county cricket. Of them two, his uncle Bill Edrich and John himself have gone one on to play Test cricket for England.

Edrich is no stranger to Sri Lanka having come here twice with MCC teams on their way to Australia in 1964-65 and again in 1970-71. The diminutive Surrey left-hander who represented his country in 77 Tests between 1964 and 1975 and in seven one-day internationals was in Sri Lanka with his wife exploring the possibilities of bringing a group of England supporters for the forthcoming tour to here by the England cricket team.

England are due in mid-November for a series of three Tests and three one-day internationals and Edrich who is a consultant to a UK based travel agency All Ways Sports Tours spent a few days in Sri Lanka looking at hotel and accommodation facilities in Galle, Kandy and Colombo where England are due to play the three Test matches against Sri Lanka.

"We had a bit of a problem in Kandy with regard to the quality of accommodation. But hopefully it should be sorted out," said Edrich. The package which his travel agency is offering also includes sight-seeing at Sigiriya, Giritale, Dambulla and the Elephant Orphanage.

Edrich, who brought a group of 300 supporters on England's last visit to Sri Lanka in 2001, is on this occasion bringing a smaller group so that he can devote much time and pay individual attention to each of them. "England has by far the largest following of supporters overseas. Cricket plays a big part in their lives. They live for cricket," said Edrich now 66 years old, but looking smart and fit.

"I have been to this country as a player on two occasions and I have found the people warm and very friendly. From a cricketing point of view nothing has changed. It was nice to meet people whom I've played against at the Cricket Board," he said.

Edrich was assisted in his fact finding visit by Target Travels, a subsidiary of Ranfer Group who will be the local ground operators during the English tour. Ranfer Group whose director is Travice Fernando, the former Peterite and CCC captain are well into the tea business with associate companies in Kenya and Malawi.

Edrich has been involved in the travel business for nearly two decades having served 11 years with Kuoni Travels.

"Why I undertook to be involved in travel is that it gave me an opportunity to be with cricket supporters who had supported me during my playing days. It is another way of saying thank you to them," said Edrich.

Edrich's cricketing career belonged to an era where limited overs cricket had not yet become established. It was almost towards the tailend of his career that he managed to play a few one-day internationals for England although he played quite a number of one-day games for Surrey in the Gillette Cup which was the first organized one-day limited-overs competition in England and started in 1963.

Strangely for a batsman who was solid in his approach, Edrich became the first player in the history of one-day internationals to score a half-century and also win the first man-of-the-match award when he made a top score of 82 off 119 balls against Australia at Melbourne in 1971.

"I had no difficulty in adjusting from Test cricket to one-day cricket because my game evolved around pushing the ball into the gaps," said Edrich.

Edrich stands high among the pioneers of enterprising batsmanship during the sixties. He loved to hit the ball and his penchant for hitting boundaries saw him score 52 fours and five sixes during his career best innings of 310 not out for England against New Zealand at Leeds in 1965. The 238 runs he scored from boundaries alone is still a world record.

Another innings he cherishes most is the 120 he scored on debut against Australia at Lord's the previous year. Overall, he scored 12 Test hundreds for England in accumulating 5138 runs at an average of 43.54.

Edrich admitted that with the advent of television and commercialism the game has changed so much from the time he played. "One-day cricket started to emerge in the sixties to bring back the spectators who had got stale from watching long drawn out matches," said Edrich.

"In this modern age where TV plays a big role and the public are clamouring for more one-day games, we've got to accept the changes. But two captains leading a country is foreign to me," said Edrich.

"Australia does it better than most countries, but it is not easy to have two captains leading a country because it is very difficult on the players," he said.

Edrich was past 25 years before he broke into the England Test side against West Indies in 1963. He opened the batting with Mickey Stewart, Brian Bolus, and Bob Barber and later formed a long alliance with Geoff Boycott. He later dropped down to no. 3.

Some of his contemporary England players were Colin Cowdrey, Ken Barrington, Ted Dexter, Peter Parfitt, Tom Graveney, Jim Parks, Basil D'Oliveira, Alan Knott and John Snow.

Edrich's advice to young cricketers is that the game of cricket is a great leveler and that each day is a new day.

"I remember the time when we regained the Ashes in Australia under Ray Illingworth's captaincy in 1970-71. We won the series 2-0, but four years later when we went back to Australia we were thrashed 4-1," recalled Edrich.

Some of the great bowlers with whom Edrich had long standing battles against were Wes Hall, Lance Gibbs, Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Wayne Daniel, Colin Croft, Dennis Lillee, and Jeff Thomson ("I think he was the fastest of them all").

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