5 Questions with Dan Waddell

(Originally published May 2015)

How and when did you first join Acton? Where did you play your cricket previously?

I joined Acton in April 2011. I hadn’t played league cricket for a long, long time - way too long in hindsight but life had got in the way a fair bit - and I had got bored of playing literally pointless hit and giggle friendlies. I can only enjoy cricket when it has a competitive edge to it, so I’d basically retired. But my oldest boy was at school with Peter Ruis’s son, and did football training together. Peter and I talked cricket, I spoke about how much i missed it, and he suggested I joined Acton and play in the 3s with him. I turned up at nets, got a 50 in a friendly v Kew and I still haven’t played a game for Acton 3s!

 I played all my junior and young adult cricket in the Bradford League for three different clubs, as well as a season in the Yorkshire League playing for York. I moved to London in 1997 and ended up working most weekends, which didn’t leave too much time for cricket. I probably needed the break though - I played lots of representative stuff until my late teens and barely missed a league match for 12 or 13 years.

What are the biggest differences between the club cricket you played in the north and the Middlesex league?  

Surprisingly little. When I played in the north, the view was that southern cricket was all shandy and dandy, tea and stickies on the lawn, and blokes called Rupert smashing a quick 50 and then sodding off to a dinner party (turns out he’s actually called Seb…). In truth it’s played just as hard and as competitively as any northern league cricket. The main differences are the crowds - in the south you get none, whereas a few clubs in the north have a decent following. Then there’s the pitches, which in the Bradford League in particular, give more help to the seamer. The wickets in the County league are very batsman friendly. I genuinely wish I could travel back in time 25 years and bat on some of them rather than the northern puddings I cut my teeth on.

What are the highlights so far in your Acton career?

The year the 2s finished second in my second years as captain is a fond memory. The first division is a ridiculously high standard of 2s cricket - there are blokes playing in it who would walk into a first team anywhere else in the country, and other clubs have more resources to draw on, so for our 2s to punch above their weight like that is satisfying.

But personally, the highlight (gets his trumpet out...) is  when I got a call up to the 1s for the deciding game of 2014 season aginst Highgate. If we won, we went up, but if we lost we probably wouldn't. I put on nearly 150 with Madu which helped win us the game and earned promotion, which the team richly deserved. It was nice to contribute and prove to myself that even at 42 I could still do it at a decent level. I always seem to have done my best when a game is on the line and the sakes are high, so it was immensely satisfying to do it in a promotion decider.

Who has been your toughest opponent?

I had the good fortune to play with a seam bowler called Peter Graham at Pudsey St Lawrence. What a bowler he was. I’ve played with and against some great seamers, including Darren Gough, Peter Martin, Chris Shaw, Richard McCarthy and Chris Pringle but PC, as he was known, was a joy to watch. Then I left Pudsey and I had to play against him, and it was less of a joy to be honest. He barely bowled a bad ball, hit the deck at decent lick, moved it sideways, and knew exactly how to set you up and get you out. Which he did to me nearly every time i played him. Thankfully he recruited me to play for him when he took over as captain at another club, and I could go back to standing at slip admiring him rather than having him making me look stupid. He died a few years ago, way before his time. Those who played with him or against knew him as a great bloke and a terrific bowler.

And finally…. what is your all time Acton XI?

Tough one this, as I’ve only been at Acton six years. So I’ve confined this team to those I’ve played with, which I know rules out a fair few Acton legends. For example, I never played with David Basterfield, but he’s told me a great deal about his career, which means I’m omitting a man who scored more than two million career runs, at an average of 99.95 - better than Bradman. Who nows how many milions more he might have scored with modern bats? (DB says six million, in case you're wondering.)

1. Adam Forsdike - I like gunfire at the top of the order and Ads gives you it. You also have to admire a bloke who messages you via the his smart TV remote when he’s woken up shitfaced and lost his phone and is going to be late for the meet. No other club breeds such resourcefulness. I’m surprised he found his remote though ,as the dozy f*cker loses everything else. He’s the youth policy in this team, though unfortunately has the athleticism of a man three times his age. 

2. Alex Manning - General has a good cricket brain and the demeanour of a man who would make a great Tory MP in somewhere like Totnes. Great keeper but he doesn’t get the gloves for me as he’s far too sane, but he’s scored a lot of runs at the top of the order in the 2s and has a good temperament for batting.

3. Hennadige (Madu) Soysa. Watching Mads smash it all over the place against Highgate while leaning on my Kippax was brilliant. For a small man he hit taaaaall ball. Lovely bloke and a great coach, too. 

4. Yogi. I’ve not seen anywhere near as much of Yogi as I’d liked to have done, but I've seen enough. He’s quality.

5. James Hunt. Jambo gets in the team as its only a seamer, a talented bat, a great fielder and the chin music behind a great night out. He’s also responsible for one of more blunt assessments of a bowing attack I’ve heard, as I walked to the wicket to meet him after another first team call up, this time v Enfield who had a quickie bowling some serious heat up the hill. ‘It looks exactly as it does from the side, Dan,’ he said. ‘He’s bowing fucking short and fucking fast. Good luck.’ *knuckle punch* ‘Er, cheers Jambo.’

6. Alex Brennan. AB has done a brilliant job skippering the 1s through a few ups and downs. He's the James Wade of the team. A machine who throws excellent darts. Great cricket brain, excellent bowler, underrated batsman, and importantly he’s not captain so we don't have to hide the shoelaces if we lose...

7. Keith Hunt. You always know what you're going to get with Corned Beef: lighthearted japes, an easygoing…hang on, wrong bloke. CB is another with the insane competitive, winning instinct that makes Acton a great place to play league cricket. Since moving down from the 1s he’s been a star for me with the ball, winning matches, geeing up the team and not at all letting me know about that time I bowled him from the wrong end. I can hear him now. ‘Why the f*ck is AB batting ahead of me, Dan?'

8. Ian Reeve. Beefy was my first captain at Acton and was one of the reasons I fell in love with the place. He and Wurz made sure it was always a laugh. Also an underrated medic - my knee went once and Beefy was able to suggest a herbal remedy that had a surprisingly immediate effect. There’s no one else I’d want bowl with the game on the line or come out and bat in an arsenipper with 30 or 40 needed. A real gamer.

9. Matt Turnell. Again, I know I haven’t seen the very best of Matty but I've seen enough to know what a top class spin bowler he was and still is. When he’s bowling well, he’s the easiest player to captain in the world - sets his field, doesn’t bowl a bad ball. I could do it in my pipe and slippers, sitting in a rocking chair. Not a bad idea to be honest, given the way my fielding is going.

10. John Reeve. Haven’t played as much with JR as I’d have liked to have done. He carries the club on his back and does the same with the teams he plays in. I’d have loved to see him in his pomp with the bat and ball but watching him bamboozle players with his spin is reasonable compensation. He has the ball and the batsman on a string. It’s performance art. A play in three acts – the smile on the batsman’s face when he first faces JR; the look of panic as he thinks, ‘How the hell am I going to score here?’; then the groan as he runs past a loopy one. Curtain.

11. Wurz. If there’s a crazier, more endearing keeper on the planet then I hope he’s in a cage. I loved every second of playing with Wurz in the 2s. He was the team's soul and heartbeat. A pumping, racing heartbeat whacked up on Knox Pump and Hot Blood. He dragged us back into games with sheer energy and willpower. Never forget, he’s also a great keeper. He once kept on a wet one at Ealing after a thrown pad strap had scratched his cornea. He had one working eye and one working knee. He didn’t make a single mistake. We won.