Swards of honour

Our independent schools have a proud tradition of cricket — and cricket grounds.Former England batsman (and Old Tonbridgian) Ed Smith picks his favourites 

 The excellence of the cricket grounds of England’s independent schools is a double-edged privilege. On the one hand, they are some of the most beautiful grounds on which to play and watch cricket anywhere in the country. On the other, the public schools contribute an increasingly high proportion of England’s professional cricketers. That’s great for the public schools; not so great for everyone else. In recent decades English sport has improved in many respects, but it’s hard to argue that meritocracy is one of them.

My dad was a teacher at Tonbridge School — had he not been, I would have gone to grammar school, as my sister did. I was doubly lucky at Tonbridge. First, we lived on a house that backed on to the school playing fields and my parents had to come up with very inventive excuses or else I would have them bowling at me in the nets. Secondly, I was exceptionally lucky that Tonbridge is such an outstanding cricket school. Looking back now I’ve retired, I can see that I was in the right place at the right time and how much that helped me. It is an uncomfortable truth that Tonbridge’s cricket facilities were as good as if not better than any I experienced in my professional career.

My favourite school grounds are inevitably skewed by personal bias. I’ve tried to avoid only choosing grounds where I scored runs. But I can’t help selecting grounds in the south because that was the circuit where we played out matches. There are lots of attractive grounds farther north that I never got to know.

Stowe is a stunning setting for a cricket match. If any vista makes every other school in England jealous, it is surely Stowe’s elegant classical façade — and it’s hard to imagine any headmaster could be more at home there than the deeply civilised and refined Anthony Wallersteiner. As for the cricket pitch, it is so pretty that it wouldn’t surprise me if an imaginative schoolboy, looking for a ready-made excuse, exploited the aesthetic riches of the house and gardens: ‘Sorry I dropped that catch, sir, I was wondering which bits were by Vanbrugh, which by Adam and which by Soane?’ And who could blame him? I’ve played at schools that look onto Cape Town’s Table Mountain, but I think Stowe shades it.

Cheltenham College, where Gloucestershire CCC has an annual cricket week, is one of the few school grounds that still hosts first-class matches. It feels more forbidding and Victorian than Stowe’s country house languor, but it’s a beautiful place to play, especially if you’re batting. I always liked playing first-class cricket at what we called ‘out-grounds’ — in other words, away from the county’s main headquarters. An empty concrete stadium feels desolate; a full school ground feels alive. And you’re closer to the crowd, closer to the spirit of county cricket.  Cheltenham was like that. It was nice to feel that you were playing inside a real community.

Wellington College is another favourite ground, though this time all my memories come from school days. The background is provided by a typically handsome set of school buildings. But what makes Wellington really special are the trees — the oak, lime and copper birch that line the boundary. They are at their best in May and early June.

One of the distinctive qualities of the Wellington ground is that it can sometimes host three matches on the same day. While the First XI is playing in the middle, younger teams compete beyond the long leg and long on boundaries too. It’s an English equivalent of the Bombay ­maidan. Wellington is definitely not the place to turn up expecting an easy game. It’s always been an extremely competitive sporting school. Now, under the phenomenal Anthony Seldon, it is still ­formidable in sport — and in everything else as well.

Perhaps I should pretend that Tonbridge isn’t my favourite ground. But I’d be lying. The only problem with the Head, as the cricket pitch is known, is that it’s just too small to host county games. Everything else about it warrants the description first-class. The wicket usually rewards good bowling as well as good batting. The outfield is second only to Lord’s. The spectators have as good an experience as the players. The pitch is more enclosed and atmospheric than other school grounds — the chapel frames one boundary, while a tree-lined avenue marks the opposite side. A high grassy bank behind one sight-screen gives the effect of a natural amphitheatre. And it’s in the heart of the school, not hidden away in a corner. If you were still batting at lunch, you felt the whole school was watching you.

Perhaps that’s one reason why Tonbridge produced a dynasty of batsmen, from Colin Cowdrey downwards. On a sunny day, as you ground your bat on the crease waiting for the bowler, hearing the high-pitched tap that willow makes on dry and compacted earth, with the smell of freshly cut grass in your nostrils and the wicket the colour of whitish straw, having watched the previous ball skate across the smooth outfield for four like a puck on ice — with all these delicious thoughts in your batsman’s mind, it was almost impossible not to feel that rarest and most dangerous emotion: pity that anyone would be so stupid as to be a bowler.