The grand arrival of Tawanda Muyeye and the beauty of Hove

PAUL EDWARDS: As spectators return to grounds across the County Championship, Sussex and Kent's rain-swept clash last week offered up countless storylines, not least a first-class debut for a star of the future

We will never take cricket's gentle rituals for granted ever again

Are the margins of the season all that bad? I'm not so sure

There were only 12 runs in a deeply drawn game. But I suspect the batsman will not easily forget them. Neither will I.   

One of the many advantages of attending a cricket match in person is the freedom to look wherever one wishes. Watch a game on TV or a live stream and you see what the director decides you will see. Listen to the radio and you will be told what the commentator chooses to tell you. Read a match report and you will understand what has happened only to the extent that a writer has been able to communicate it to you. Please do not think I am denigrating any of these media; on the contrary, I think they are all immensely valuable, particularly that last one.

All the same, less than 72 hours after this piece has been completed, a limited group of supporters will be able to watch county cricket for the first time since September 2019. I would take a large bet that one or two of them will shed a quiet tear. I may do so myself. 

For the two months of last season and the first six weeks of this one, I have watched first-class matches. There have been a dozen in all and some of them have been very fine indeed. However, even as I have once more fallen victim to cricket’s endless spell, I have missed the supporters during every single session of play. To see spectators return on Thursday (May 20) morning at Bristol will be like the season begins again. 

And when the salt of the cricketing earth do come back to the game they love they will be able to exercise the glorious freedom of looking where the hell they want. Last Thursday morning at Hove, Kent’s players broke into a round of applause. Sometimes these ovations are hard to explain. I have occasionally thought they were greeting a rather private accomplishment such as a colleague beating his previous best Call of Duty score or finally copping off with the object of his lust. But there was no doubting the reason. For a rather shy but smiling 20-year-old stepped forward and received a Kent cap. Tawanda Muyeye was about to become a first-class cricketer. Something like five hours later the debutant would discover just how tough that life could be.

After making 1,112 runs for Eastbourne College Muyeye, Harare-born but qualifying as a domestic player, was the 2019 Wisden’s Schools Cricketer of the Year. He had made a couple of double hundreds in that season and cited Sir Viv Richards and Kevin Pietersen as two of his idols. The Almanack talked about him emptying bars and another piece referred to the 56 sixes he had whacked. It is a College record.

On day one he batted seven minutes, faced eight balls and made one run before he was pinned like a butterfly to a display board by Ollie Robinson. It was the third leg before appeal of the over. The first two were hopeful; the third was very confident, although not, thank God, that invention of the arrogant celebrappeal. 

^{It was a week to remember for Tawanda Muyeye}

For the next two days or so Muyeye fielded and then watched the showers blow in from the west. The rest of us came to terms with the possibility of a draw and were settling down for a quiet couple of days when Jofra Archer informed Ben Brown on the third evening that his elbow was hurting and he couldn’t bowl. At which point everyone wanted to talk to the Sussex coach, Ian Salisbury, and all our phones started ringing with people asking what the hell’s happened and why. Just on the deadline for the Sunday papers, too.

Now let’s move to the fourth afternoon. The Archer business is rumbling on like indigestion but with spectators not present, there was a good case for agreeing to the draw at around 3:00pm when Hove was being threatened by further showers. But incipient stalemates often hide personal accomplishment. For example, Jack Leaning had made only his second first-class century since 2017 and Kent’s Ollie Robinson was bidding to join him when Tom Clark had him leg before 15 short of the mark. I fear the ball hit the bat before the pad but no matter, now. Clark had taken his maiden first-class wicket and that brought Muyeye out to play his second innings at big school. 

There were a couple of singles and a few defensive shots. In truth, the Sussex bowling was not particularly threatening. Robinson was being rested and may not play another first-class game until the first Test Match against New Zealand. So Clark sent down some decent medium pace and Travis Head bowled some off-spin from the Cromwell Road End. One of the Australian’s deliveries was a filthy long-hop which Muyeye pulled for four. He batted half an hour before the draw was agreed and faced 32 balls. 

^{Is this the last we'll see of Ollie Robinson in Sussex whites this season?}

If, as I hope, Muyeye enjoys a long career, the innings will become submerged in other events, other achievements. But for at least one spectator, the recollection is unlikely to fade. Along with Jack Carson’s dismissal of Zak Crawley on that hectic third evening and the fine bowling of Kent’s Nathan Gilchrist, it will be added to his vast store of memories from a sport whose capacity to isolate the individual within the team is one of its greatest attributes.

Plans are well-advanced for the return of spectators to Hove. Apparently, they are hoping to accommodate 800 or so for the match against Northants beginning on May 27. My guess is that places are already oversubscribed and I hope the fortunate supporters see a full match. When I left the ground after my latest visit, a Sussex official apologised I’d not seen more cricket. It was typically kind but unnecessary. My trip to Hove had been enriched by the rich greetings of the stewards each morning, by the cheese-and-onion sandwiches made at Canhams, the best takeaway on the circuit, by the view down Selborne Road and by the good cricket I had seen. 

Sussex’s home has become something of a cliché in recent years: classic seaside, deckchairs, fish suppers etc. Yet the ground transcends those things. It reaches back into the richest of pasts while understanding the realities of a sometimes hard-faced present. Coming to know and love Hove has been one of the greatest privileges of my career.