1) ….. but my innocence In the Garden of Eden we used to pitch stumps at 2.30 and pull them up at 7.30, prompt. The pitch was a bit dodgy so the game was often over before then anyway.

Tea was taken between innings and if the batting side did well it was up to the captain to declare. The timing of a declaration was the mark of a captain. Some were cautious, some reckless, and some struggled to tell the time, but a good captain could set up an exciting game and increase his team’s chance of winning.

An over-cautious declaration sometimes induced the fielding captain to put on a couple of joke bowlers, and the hint was usually taken.

That was Club Cricket, but the First Class Game was much the same. Better pitch, better players, longer game – but similar principles held.

It couldn’t last, this state of innocence, and already in the long grass just over the boundary rope the Evil Snake Cynicism was lurking.

2)….. but my cynicism In those innocent days a batting team’s progress was always measured in runs per hour, but the Snake whispered into the ear of one struggling captain that if he could, perhaps, persuade his bowlers to slow things down a bit, not bowl quite so many balls, it would actually make it rather harder for the batsmen to keep up with the required rate.

And, once this Evil Idea had escaped into the world, there was no putting it back. Cricket had changed for ever. Innocence had been lost.

Club Cricket quickly adopted the overs format, with a compulsory declaration, and players began to use terms like winning or losing draws, to the amusement (or despair) of their elders.

For a while the English First Class game was unaffected. Then a little incident at Edgbaston, involving a famous Yorkshire captain, as it happened, resulted in a 20-overs-in-the-last-hour rule being introduced.

Other forces were at work. The 3-day game was becoming outmoded. Pitches were too good, and they were now covered, tail-end batsmen had improved, and often the only way to get a result was to have a declaration and bash on the 3^rd day. To set this up joke bowlers were employed, and not just for a couple of overs, as in the old days.

The game was becoming a farce.

The answer was to increase the matches to four days, hoping the County game would mirror Test Cricket, where these things did not happen, except in games where Hansie Cronje was involved.

This was a success, but there was a price to pay. In Test Cricket the concept of a ‘sporting’ declaration did not exist; the habit was for a batting captain to put the opposition completely out of the game before even contemplating a declaration, and this became the norm in County Cricket also.

One of the arts of captaincy had been lost.

3)….. but my stupidity All of which brings us, inevitably and sadly, to the events at Taunton, May 2010.

The principle behind the old ‘sporting’ declaration was this: you gave your opponents a chance of winning the game in order to increase your own chances of winning.

Here, at Taunton, without the declaration, the odds on the result would have been – Yorkshire 0%, Somerset 0%, Draw 100%.

Following overnight discussions, perhaps fuelled by cider (who knows?), we were treated to 80 minutes of joke bowling and farcical fielding and then a declaration of staggering stupidity.

The odds had altered – Yorkshire 0%, Somerset 70%, Draw 30%.

Sorry, guys, but I rate this as the Dumbest Declaration of All Time. Even if we had delayed until lunch, that would merely have shifted the odds more in favour of the draw. Yorkshire’s chances would have remained zero. From the overnight position we were in a no-win situation; there was no conceivable winning scenario.

Footnote – some games to enjoy

1948 Essex v Australians at Southend-on-Sea. The Aussies made 721 on the first day and Essex bowled 129 overs, or 21.5 per hour. A game from the Age of Innocence.

1950-51 Australia v England at Brisbane, a superb game from those innocent days, with creativity from both captains.

In great heat and humidity England’s bowlers performed brilliantly on the first day, bowling Australia out on a perfect pitch for 228, Bedser and Bailey the heroes.

That night there was an immense thunderstorm. Australian pitches were covered, but here the covers floated away. When play restarted on day 3 the pitch was said to be ‘impossible’ to bat on, and England were 68 for 7 when Freddie Brown declared in order to get the opposition in on it.

The Aussies themselves were 32 for 7 when Hassett declared. Brown countered by changing his batting order, hoping to save Hutton and Compton for the next day when the pitch might have rolled out less difficult. But England were 30 for 6 by close. On the day, 20 wickets had fallen for 130 runs.

On day 4, batting number 8, Hutton played what some considered to be his greatest ever innings, 62 not out on a still difficult pitch, but he ran out of partners and England lost by 70 runs.

1953 England v Australia at Headingley. Trevor Bailey had been involved in both the two games above, and now his time-wasting saved England from defeat. It was said that he took seven minutes to bowl an over, tying his bootlaces several times. The draw was achieved and England went on to win the Ashes at the Oval.

1967 Warwickshire v Yorkshire at Edgbaston. The match in which Brian Close pushed the limits of sportsmanship a bit too far for the powers that be.

1967/68 West Indies v England at Port of Spain. Probably the last genuine sporting declaration in Test Cricket. Sobers set England 215 to win at around 4 an over and Boycott and Cowdrey knocked off the runs with ease against the home spinners. Even a player (and a man) as great as Sobers had to endure spiteful criticism from his countrymen for his miscalculation.

1999/2000 S Africa v England at Centurion Park. The infamous Hansie Cronje forfeiture match which Nasser Hussain’s England gratefully won, and so did the Indian bookmakers. Cricket’s fall from innocence was complete. [Archive ref: f44905, t1483]