Cricket: Veteran rolls back the years

Surrey 333; Derbyshire 46-2

SO BUTCHER played for Surrey after all... after all this time. It is 12 years since Alan Butcher last wielded a blade for the London side, and half a dozen since he appeared in his last first-class match, when he scored 59 not out for Glamorgan against Northampton at Luton. And while he was making a little bit of history for the championship leaders, Surrey, his son Mark was heading for his maiden Test hundred at Headingley.

Statisticians' fingers flicked through tome after tome of record books in search of similar father-and-son feats (none were unearthed). The pair had already been the first to play against each other in a Sunday League match back in 1991. Surrey had put Butcher Snr on standby on Wednesday night at 10.30pm while he was with the second XI, for whom he had made a duck in Taunton. His selection was confirmed 12 hours later and he dashed to London.

Butcher's call-up came about because Surrey had suspended their opener, Jason Ratcliffe, following an undisclosed breach of discipline arising from their AXA League defeat on Wednesday evening. They thus started against Derbyshire without three Test players (Butcher Jnr, Alec Stewart, and Ian Salisbury), and three other men ruled out through injury - Graham Thorpe, Darren Bicknell and Alex Tudor.

So, at 44, Alan Butcher went out to bat for the county he left in 1986, his last innings a duck against Gloucestershire at Cheltenham. The gap of 12 years was not the longest by a Surrey player; that honour went to Herbert Thompson, who played in 1896, his next appearance (when he too was coach) coming 13 years later in 1909.

Butcher emerged at the fall of the sixth wicket and, having been greeted by the umpire, Mervyn Kitchen, doffing his hat, announced his arrival by driving his first ball through extra cover to the boundary.

He had hit three more and seen Alistair Brown reach his fourth century of the season before falling lbw to Kevin Dean -a left-arm pace bowler who is half his age - having scored a respectable 22.

"I didn't feel nervous," Butcher said later, "but it was a strange morning."

Butcher lasted 45 minutes and was back in the pavilion in time to learn of Mark's feat at Headingley. "I'm delighted for him. It's a great weight off his shoulders. Unfortunately I didn't see any of it because we don't have the television on during play. But someone heard it on the radio and told me."

It was difficult to focus on the game with all the sideshows and statistics, but through it all Derbyshire's slow left-arm bowler, Ian Blackwell, in his first championsip match since May, was quietly working his way through the Surrey batting, finishing with the first five-wicket haul of his career. And there was more discipline on the field from Surrey as Brown garnered a harvest of runs carefully and brutally by turn, until he had arrived at the 18th first-class hundred of his career. By the close Surrey had just got the edge with two early wickets.