Saturday, June 07, 2008

Rodney and Aaron Redmond

Long, long ago in the summer of 1973 - Life on Mars year - the first side to tour England was New Zealand. We cricket fans looked forward in particular to seeing their aggressive new opening batsman Rodney Redmond. He had played his first test against Pakistan the previous winter and scored 107 and 56 in his two innings.

As it turned out, Redmond had trouble adjusting to his new contact lenses, played poorly and did not feature in any of the tests. The result was the New Zealand opened with the far less aggressive Glenn Turner and John Parker.

Redmond did, however, play in two one-day internationals (an exciting new development in those days) at Swansea and Manchester after the test series was over. (Have England played at Swansea since?)

The result is that Rodney Redmond holds a rather undesirable record: the second highest score by a player to have played in only one test. His 107 has been beaten only by Andy Ganteaume, who made 112 in his only test innings (against England at Port of Spain in 1948).

I mention this because I have discovered that the Aaron Redmond who is opening for New Zealand in this series is Rodney's son.

STOP PRESS: Redmond c Ambrose b Broad 2.

Commentators speculate that we shall not see him in a test again.

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