Allan Lamb

I believe my first international was, uh, seeing England play at the Basin Reserve, and I think as far as I can sort of work out the game that it was, it was the series before the 1992 World Cup.

And I remember it vividly because Alan Lamb came out to bat, and he walked out, and all of a sudden everyone started baaing like a sheep.

[chuckles]

And I said to my dad, "What's going on here?"

And he had to obviously explain to me the, uh, the nature of the player's surname.

So, uh, that, that's, that's probably my earliest cricketing memory at an international stadium.

And do you remember what, uh, Alan Lamb did with the bat? Did he, uh, did he score any runs, or what do you remember most about from the, uh, the, the calling of the, you know, the Lamb imitations? [chuckles]

I can't recall how many he got that day.

Was that the one...

Was, uh, my long-term friend and ally, Mr. Lamb, Alan Lamb, involved in the- He was ...

the organization thereof? Yes, he was.

Even Brian Lara was there, David.

Um, but we had those ups and downs.

We had a lot of fun.

We had sort of the Bothams, the Lambs of this world, and lots of other gr- you know, great characters in our team throughout the '80s.

But then, of course, as time goes on and the other teams become dominant, Australia become dominant through the '90s, you know, the, the, the world game opens up.

And Lamy...

Alan Lamb pulled a calf muscle.

I think he was, would have been 40, 50, 60, maybe not out.

And we were going really well.

But we had this incredible spirit and belief that we were going to win.

And somehow that came through, whether it was the Gower effect, whether it was Gatting's form.

whether it was the fun of Alan Lamb, who was a brilliant, brilliant tourist, kept everyone going when things were hard.

There were so many reasons for it.

Right.

Alan Lamb told us you once walked out to bat in Perth without no bat.

Is that beefy or bollocks?

bollocks?Beefy

Flicking them off your hip.

Uh, here we go, beefy or bollocks.

Uh, Alan Lamb told us that you gave a mobile phone, uh-

Yes, beefy

Tick

... played in December with, uh, Beefy Botham, the Your Lordship, and Alan Lamb-

Yes

... and, uh, and Alan Border.

Um, yeah, I've been following Northamptonshire on and off for a very long time.

Uh, the glory days of, of Allan Lamb and Ned Larkins to, um, the rather less impressive spell we had under John Sadler a few years ago.

Uh, and been a, a season ticket holder at Wantage Road for probably the last decade now.

I saw an ex-, uh, Northants player last night.

any British... citizenship or anything like that now if you don't

mind no I have a visa based on my I've had a few different visas but no I don't have residency I'm going to be applying actually soon but I have Irish and Scottish history but you know long from far too long ago from grandparents but my point is it's very very common these days for people i know so many people who um you know have a partner or a wife or a husband who are from a different country and so their children have you know what you say mixed nationalities or mixed heritage so it's perfectly normal for that to happen in the realm of professional sport um and it's happened it happens you know every country does it I'm not accusing England of being worse at it than Australia or New Zealand or America, but you look at the Olympics, you look at the Football Cup, you look at Rugby Union, you look at cricket... you know what everyone from Tony Gregg to Alan Lamb to whoever else kept the vessels playing for Australia in cricket in the 80s and 90s it was South African it's happened for so long but there seems to be and you can explain this to me Lee why are so many English rugby league fans so against it when it seems okay for England to do it in other sports I don't get that hypocrisy personally I think a

lot of the English fans look at it from the point of view of a local English person missing out, if I'm honest, which I understand.

As the sole Englishman on this two-man panel for Super League 360, I can honestly tell you that I'm all for heritage players.