Roger Alton Roger Alton

Spectator Sport | 21 February 2009

A damned fine spell<br /> <br type="_moz" />

issue 21 February 2009

A damned fine spell

A few of us had a small dinner the other day to thank Angus Fraser for his distinguished stint as the Independent’s cricket correspondent. Not quite reeling off 45 overs from the Nursery End, but a damned fine spell anyway. The evening was, as such occasions should be, wine-fuelled, good-humoured and jam-packed with cracking stories, most of them unrepeatable.

Gus was one of those remarkable players who just stepped over the boundary ropes when they finished their career in the first-class game and then, seemingly effortlessly, took up a career as a first-class journalist (think Mike Atherton of the Times, the Telegraph’s Derek Pringle, or the Guardian’s Mike Selvey). Such a pity it doesn’t work the other way; there can’t be a cricket writer anywhere who hasn’t harboured fantasies of being called up to open for England.

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