A dinner at the Museum Sussex CCC

Last night I attended a dinner at the museum in the cricket ground at Hove. I much prefer the intimacy and atmosphere of such a dinner to the rather formulaic lunches in large hotel banqueting suites which seem to go on forever. The original guest of honour was Darren Lehmann but more than one refused to attend even before the head coach was officially implicated in the ball tampering in South Africa. Darren Lehmann  duly resigned  his duties and replaced by Justin Langer who attended in his place.

Australia are playing Sussex today in a limited over game. Australia have played 43 matches against Sussex over the years, mainly red ball games.

Justin Langer in a direct speech recalled a game when he lost all his form and after scores of 7 and 0, both wickets taken by Jason Lewry.

He was on the verge of quitting, Damien Martyn had replaced him and at 31 with a loss of form and favour he did not seem to have any test future in the baggy green cap.

He trained hard, loosened up, stopped worrying and continued his partnership with Matt Hayden. Only Des Haynes and Gordon Greenidge scored more opening test runs as a partnership.

It’s always fascinating to be allowed into the mindset of a top class test batsman playing in a team that twice had 16 consecutive wins. The word formidable is too often used but in this case a fair description of one of the greatest ever test teams. One of the ways of judging such a team are those that did not play regularly. Think of Stuart Law, Darren Lehmann, Damien Martyn and Stuart Magill.

Justin Langer has certainly walked into the hot seat but judging by yesterday’s  dinner he is more than equipped to deal with the challenges.