Faversham Times from Faversham, Kent, England • 23

CRICKET SOUVENIR SUPPLEMENT III Like father like son THE odds were that Mark Ealham was always going to earn his living from the game of cricket 0 A generation apart but Alan Ealham and his son Mark show a similar swashbuckling style at the crease Growing up first in the Ashford area then closer to Canterbury as the son of a well-established county player and having shown genuine signs of ability it was surely inevitable that he would follow father Alan Alan says: those days we were often away from home for 15 or 20 days When you got back naturally your wife and family wanted to see you but we were then playing at home so the only way was for them to come to the So Mark 28 next month grew up spending plenty of time at the St Lawrence Ground surrounded by cricketers It was inevitable he would follow in their footsteps In those days mum Sue had been the bowler at home in their garden in Chartham got him out a few times but had to do plenty of laughed Alan Now with five one-day internationals and five Tests behind him Ealham junior is one of leading lights But living in the country village of Elham a brief drive from the St Lawrence Ground he remains like his dad an unassuming but always sociable character very much a man of the people with no airs and graces about him Kent followers under about 40 will struggle to remember a Kent side without an Ealham playing as Alan and careers have in many ways overlapped certainly at good club level And with dad running the Kent second team for so long (as he still does) and being someone always willing to join in a charity game or local benefit match (if humanly possible) they have often played in the same team Former East Kent League stalwart Archie Wright a cricket legend in his own right recalls one local game in which Alan and Mark Ealham both scored hundreds for an AKCC side in their annual game against British Rail Ashford It was helds at the sadly now-gone Bath Meadow reputedly the best ground in that area Nigel Llong hit a ton for the Railway side in reply at least as a first-team player from the first-class game had seen him spend most weekends in the early 1980s back with his old home town club Ashford in the Woolwich Kent League Mark had made his first Kent League 50 at the age of 15 with dad there to encourage and congratulate him He played first for Kent seconds under Colin Page a year later said to Colin: picked him because Alan but Pagey was having none of that and there was no way it was said his father always encouraged him to play the very best cricket possible and upset a few people that But anyone now reading in a cricketing almanac the name Mark Ealham and next to it Kent and England must agree that Alan was right The young man made his county debut at 19 scoring 45 against Lancashire at Old Trafford fielder in the country As a off the old despite usually batting somewhere between six and nine for Kent Mark has shown a similar ability to despatch the ball to the far corners of the ground Those who saw it still drool over his rapid quick-fire century in a Sunday League game at Mote Park Maidstone last season And this summer against Australia Mark showed just what an outstanding and athletic fielder he too is with a magnificent catch off his own bowling in a one-day international Alan was a decent off-spinner although at county level he got very few chances with Graham Johnson being the favoured one in that they beat Somerset (1967) and to win the 60-overs competition again in 1974 after ending as runners up in between In the Benson and Hedges came wins over Worcestershire in both 1973 and 1976 then his own great moment of glory when he held up the cup after leading Kent to another great victory in 1978 that one against Derbyshire That came in the first of the three years that he captained Hop As yet son Mark has not finished on the winning side in a final having been a loser in 1992 and then again two years ago against Lancashire a record he will be aiming to put straight against Surrey at on Saturday And no one will be feeling prouder than his father if he does it In contrast clever nagging medium pace is surely what has helped to earn him international honours and won many a match for Kent when the faster bowlers struggled Up to now however Alan has got the edge on his son in one department at least Playing in no less than seven finals of limited overs competitions during his career Ealham senior finished on the winning side FIVE times! Some of those games are remembered for great innings or in one particular case for a quite superb catch by Jackie Bond for Lancashire that virtually won them the Gillette Cup in 1971 For the record Alan helped Kent land their first one-day cup final trophy when Having long since established himself in the Kent team as an all-rounder Mark played two one-dayers against India last summer with one Test against them and another against Pakistan before being hit by a delivery from the fearsome Wasim Akram that sidelined him for more than a month Playing a key role in Texaco Trophy whitewash of the Aussies and with runs and wickets in that memorable win at Edgbaston in the First Ashes Test of this summer Mark international career is blooming Those of us the wrong side of 50 virtually his contemporaries remember Alan Ealham at his very best as a powerful forcing batsman who scored thousands of runs for the county over a 15-year period that included most of golden days of the 1970s Sadly Kent play few games these days on the so-called at the likes of Folkestone or Dover my own particular neck of the woods But for all those wonderful hardhitting innings usually liberally laced with big six-hits and fiercely struck fours perhaps many remember Alan more for his quite magnificent fielding especially in the deep got an explanation for he smiled because when I was first in the side I hardly got to Joking apart his reputation soon spread and he was called up five times for 12th man duty with England as probably one of if not the best out GOOD LUCK ALAN COME ON KENT -WE'RE SUPPORTING YOU WE'LL BE KRAZY XF YOU MXSS OUT BAILEYS NISSAN 'THE HOME OF KRA ZY WIOC VAUXHALL INDUSTRIAL ESTATE CANTERBURY TEL: 01227 766777.