Peter Trego, king of the cult cricketers

PETER’S PRINCIPLES

In the week in which Pakistan recorded their first Test series win against Australia in two decades, and the most convincing Test win in their history; in the week in which Australia suffered their worst defeat in 34 years; in the week in which Misbah-ul-Haq scored the fastest fifty in the history of Test cricket, equalled Viv Richards’ record for the fastest ton, and drew level with Imran Khan and Javed Miandad as the most successful captain Pakistan have ever had; in the week in which the BCCI decided to sue the stony-broke WICB for $42m; in the week in which Sachin Tendulkar revealed that he was so scarred by India’s ineptitude under his captaincy that he considered quitting cricket, and that Greg Chappell tried to rope him into a coup against Rahul Dravid; in the week in which Mark Ramprakash was appointed as England’s batting coach; in this week, of all weeks, there is only one fit topic for any cricket columnist worth his salt.

Imagine my surprise then, when, during Guardian cricket’s Monday morning planning meeting, not one of my colleagues spotted what was, undoubtedly, the hot topic of the moment. “That’s all very well, Selve,” I told our esteemed correspondent once he had finished holding forth on which of the week’s big issues he was planning to tackle in his Wednesday column, “but …” It was a foolish move. For I knew that once I’d spoken, Selvey would surely want to seize the story for himself. Old, ingrained, instinct, took hold. I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to be the one to break the big story. “But … Peter Trego has signed a contract extension at Somerset. Till the end of 2016.”

Oddly, Selve seemed none too concerned about my revelation. He blinked, slowly, twice. Stranger still, my editors didn’t seem to be in a rush to junk their front page and draw up a fresh design, one that gave the story the space it surely deserved. In fact, casting around the internet, it seems hardly anyone has picked up on it at all. I can only assume the bosses think that the Trego contract extension story is, somehow, insufficiently sexy. They can’t have seen the Gray-Nicolls trailer for their new PT Lucky 7 bat, which features a delicate pencil sketch of our hero, one eyebrow cocked, naked from neck to navel, while the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage blasts out in the background. “To have something that’s about you,” Trego explains, “and, you know, having a little bit of, sort of, artistic, umm, you know.” Well, who wouldn’t be lost for words? The PT Lucky 7 is, as Gray-Nicolls say, “a unique concept”. It features motifs taken from the very tattoos that cover Trego’s arms. “The swallow, the birds, the dice, the little candy skull.”

There are so many things to love about that video. Like the fact that Trego has his eyes tight shut during a large part of the montage of his best shots. And his response when he’s finally presented with the finished bat. “Oh,” he says. “Oh, that’s nice.” A grin spreads across his face. “Yeah.” He sounds like a man who has just happened across a re-run of Baywatch while he was channel-hopping. Which funnily, enough, seems to be exactly what happened to him the other day.

And so many things to love about Trego, whose batting must be the most enjoyably uncomplicated thing to come out of Weston-super-Mare since Ritchie Blackmore wrote the riff for Smoke on the Water. Jeffrey Archer’s Kane and Abel is a distant third. John Cleese’s collected works were, for the record, struck from contention in this particular competition because he described the town as “a tedious little place” and “the seaside last resort” in 2011. “The Germans bombed Weston-super-Mare in 1940, an event which has baffled historians ever since as they have toiled with the question … Why?” Cleese said. “There was nothing in Weston that would have been worth more than the bomb.” All of which may be true, but, you know, that doesn’t mean you can go around saying it just because you’ve got a book to shill.

Trego made his Somerset debut way back in 1999. Fifteen years later, he has become, in the spectators’ eyes, the heart and soul of the club. There were the prodigal years between 2003 and 2005 when he wondered off and joined first Kent then Middlesex. But we don’t talk about them. Neither does he, except to say how much he regrets doing it. (Other highlights from that same interview: “Q: What came first, the chicken or the egg? A: It was probably a pterodactyl that laid the egg that became the chicken. So I guess the egg.”) He was soon back where he belonged, in the lee of the Quantocks.

And since then he’s scored a shade under 6,000 runs for the club at an average of 34, and taken 279 wickets at the very same figure. That’s just first-class cricket. And in among the figures, of course, are the stories such numbers can’t tell. Like his 54-ball hundred against Yorkshire. In limited-overs cricket he’s been better still. The man averaged 83 in 2012. 83! He has, in his time, opened both the batting in the one-day team and the bowling in the Championship team. He would, you guess, perform pretty much any role the team asked him to, so long as he could have a good grumble while he was at it. He loves to sledge his own skipper. (“Nothing to be grumpy about, was there? Yet what he said to me when we passed each other mid-pitch as I stole a single to pinch the strike, with him on 49 and ready to beat me to a half-century, is not repeatable in a family newspaper.”)

Trego is about as a good as a player gets without ever being picked to play for his country. He could have, probably should have, been included in England’s limited-overs team at some point in the last few seasons. As he’ll tell you himself. Time was when every England squad was received with the cry “I can’t believe it!” “What is it Pete?” someone would shout back. “They’ve left me out again!” He had a handful of matches for the England Lions back in 2010. He did well enough. Averaged 30 with the bat and the ball. Made 73 from 55 and took five for 40 in one match against West Indies ‘A’. But that was as close he ever got.

That fits. Somerset are something of a nearly-but-quite side themselves. If England don’t want him, their fans are happy enough to have him all to themselves, swinging the bat with abandon at seven, swinging the ball when it’s his turn to bowl, slow and steady as she goes. He took eleven wickets in his last game of this season, against Yorkshire no less, and made 41 in the first innings too.

I guess every county has their cult heroes, their champions of the grandstands. But the thing is, you see, there’s none quite like Peter. Unless you can name me another on the circuit who quit cricket so he could go play as a goalkeeper for Margate FC in the Conference South. Let alone one who once scored a goal for Chippenham Town in an FA Trophy tie against Hemel Hempstead with a 70-yard free kick from the edge of his own area. No. Didn’t think you could. The man is nothing if not an original.

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