Hissing Syd Soldiers On

DEREK PRINGLE, new contributor to this site, begins his series of unique photo-essays with fond memories of his old England colleague David 'Syd' Lawrence now battling MND.

Self portrait of Derek Pringle plus camera at Vishakapatnam on an England tour

Photographs of cricketers abound though few are ever analysed or described in great detail. Other than a quick strap line for context, photos are left to tell their own story; the old saw being that they are worth a 1,000 words.

One who does extract more from cricket’s photographic record is the writer Gideon Haigh, who understands that images can mislead as often as they explain. In a barefaced steal of his idea I’m going attempt something similar here with one slight twist: the photographs will be ones that I have taken over the 40 years I spent as both cricketer and cricket journalist.

If that sounds self-indulgent so be it; there must have been some reason I lugged two cameras (an SLR and a Rangefinder) around with me all those years. There won’t be any photos of cricketers in action as I didn’t have the telephoto lenses to compete with the pros. But I did have access to places they couldn’t go: the dressing-room, hotel suites and day excursions to places today’s players wouldn’t consider going to unless it had a golf course and a sauna.

So here we go……Pringle snaps with some crackle and pop.

David ‘Syd’ Lawrence captured by Derek Pringle at Edgbaston in 1991

You’d often hear captains of my era exhorting bowlers, especially the quicker ones, to “try harder, bend your back or release the handbrake etc.. etc,” in a bid to squeeze more pace from them. One fast bowler who needed no such chivvying was David ‘Syd’ Lawrence, but then looking at this photo of him in the Edgbaston dressing-room circa 1991 you’d be effing mad to mess with this bloke?

Actually Syd was a captain’s dream as he knew only one way to bowl - flat out. He was damned quick, too, and very few batters looked forward to playing the Mighty Glos whenever he and Courtney Walsh, his partner in pace during the mid-1980s, were on the scorecard.

Where Walsh would home in on batters and chip bits off them with his awkward angle and bounce, Syd would terrify them from the other end - the battering ram to his mate’s more targeted missiles. You needed quick reflexes but also bravery, not always a given back then with protective gear still in its infancy.

I faced a lot of bowlers during my 16 years in the game and none charged in as quickly as Syd. Well over 6ft tall and muscled like a prize fighter (as this photo reveals), he hit the crease like an express train with no brakes. Those facing him knew the ball was going to be quick, though any advantage that construed was swiftly dashed when you realised even Syd didn’t always know where it was going.

When bowlers strain for every last yard of mph as he did, veins bulging, something is bound to be sacrificed and in Syd’s case it was accuracy. Later on it was his body but we’ll come to that in a tic.

His pace and whole-hearted attitude won him widespread admiration, enough to earn him five Test caps for England as well as a single one-day cap in which he took four wickets. The crowning glory to his international career, though, was the seven wickets he took later that season against the Windies at the Oval - a feat which enabled England to win the Test and draw the series 2-2 when the visitors were still the best team in world cricket.

Syd bowled fast even getting some reverse swing - the prize wicket of his hero, Vivian Richards, one of five he took in the second innings.

A decent run in the England team beckoned but two Tests later, in Wellington New Zealand, his career was as good as over when he split his left knee-cap in half during his third over in the final innings of the match.

I was doing 12th man duties at the time and thought Syd had just stumbled in the foot holes; but then I heard the screams. This was a man who simply barged past the usual aches and pains of bowling fast so I knew it must be serious, and it was. So strong were his tendons that when I helped to stretcher him off I could see the top half of his kneecap bulging beneath the skin of his upper thigh about six inches below his groin. The other bit was halfway down his shin.

You don’t return to your old sporting life after something that serious but Syd was determined to give it a go. Having used some of his lengthy recuperation to indulge his entrepreneurial spirit and set up some bars and nightclubs in his beloved Bristol, he eventually persuaded Glos to let him have a second act on the pitch.

Five years on from his horrendous injury he played another four Championship games for the county, took eight wickets (which took his overall first-class tally to 515), but decided to call it a day at the end of the 1997 season when medical opinion suggested playing on would do him few favours.

Post-cricket Syd found other challenges, like body-building, to feed his competitive urges though, in another cruel twist of fate, he finds himself facing the greatest challenge of his life - battling Motor Neurone Disease.

For a big, strong athlete like him, few things could be as merciless as MND, a disease of the nerves that robs sufferers of the things most of us take for granted like walking and eating. Other recent sufferers have been the rugby players Doddie Weir and Rob Burrows.

Cricket, like many sports, tries to look after its ailing and there is a fund-raising dinner for Syd in Bristol, at the city’s famous Ashton Gate football ground, this Thursday evening. As someone who played with and against Syd, roomed with him on tour, and generally marvelled at how he could keep coming as hard as he did whenever he bowled, I shall be there along with many others from cricket supporting him and his family.

It’s the least we can do for someone who really did put his body on the line every time he played and I know everyone in cricket, as well as those beyond, wish him well.

FORMER GLOUCESTERSHIRE WICKETKEEPER ANDY BRASSINGTON HAS SET UP A JUST GIVING PAGE TO RAISE MONEY TO HELP SYD’S BATTLE AGAINST MND. CLICK THIS LINK TO SUPPORT HIM