As the modern cricketer hops from Crowne Plaza to Holiday Inn, well rewarded and with plenty of time for golf, he or she might feel perfectly content. But life has not always been a merry-go-round of air-con and airports.

Hop off the train at Grindleford, where homemade bunting loops along the platform fence, highlighting books about trains in this national year of reading, and you’re in the Peak District. There’s been early morning rain and the trees, damply beautiful, are on the turn. Golden beech, rusty horse chestnut, hues of greens and yellows, disappear up the slopes of Padley Gorge and into the valleys.

Five minutes along Station Road, past hikers’ favourite the Station Café, famous for its huge mugs of tea, and you arrive at The Maynard, once the Maynard Arms, host to international touring cricket teams in the middle of the last century when they played Derbyshire and Yorkshire. In the snug, tucked in behind the reception desk and the bar, is a small homage to teams past, autographs, bats, black and white photos of young men, nearly all now gone.

According to the caption accompanying the team photo, the Australians first stayed here in 1930, to escape the noise of Sheffield, then a city of steelworks and smoking chimneys. A young Don Bradman, just 21, stares back in his blazer from the front row, legs stretched out, arms crossed. He’s part way through a magical summer which included 334 against England at Headingley, 1000 runs by the end of May and 974 runs in the Ashes series.

Australia returned to Grindleford in 1938, unpacking their suitcases for 10 days, from 28 June to 7 July, playing against Derbyshire at Queen’s Park, Chesterfield, and Yorkshire at Bramall Lane, Sheffield, when only rain prevented the hosts pulling off a famous victory. “Tremendous furnaces paint the night sky with rosy brilliance for many square miles on the northern and eastern sides of Sheffield,” writes “Easel” in the Maitland Mercury on 21 July that year, “but when the train emerges at Grindleford from the long tunnel, it enters a haven of rest where nothing but beauty meets the eye and greets the senses, ideal conditions for the Australian team to return to after their strenuous days of cricket.”

The Australians may have been much admired during that tour, but they were not perfect house guests. The rumours about Lindsay Hassett smuggling a complaining goat from the nearby hills into his room, to the dismay of roommates Stan McCabe and Bill O’Reilly, appear to be true. There is corroborating evidence from the Albany Advertiser, which wrote: “The goat, with a goat’s extraordinary taste in food, reduced McCabe’s bedroom to a remarkable condition, much to the delight of that rascal Hassett.” And Jack Fingleton remembered the incident in his book Cricket Crisis: “The next night everybody locked their doors, which was just as well because Hassett found a hedgehog.”

Yet the escapade was not enough to put the hotel off naming 15 rooms after the players. You can stay in the (Chuck) Fleetwood-Smith or the (Ben) Barnett, the Fingleton or the (Jack) Badcock. The gorgeous bridal suite, complete with roll top bath and enormous wooden bed looking out of a huge window over the hills, is named after Bradman – and his nearly perfect average. There are also rooms named after Hugh Tayfield, Percy Mansell, George Fullerton and Syd Pegler, members and manager of the South African side of 1951.

After the war years, the next Australian team to land on these shores was Bradman’s Invincibles of 1948, who completed an entire tour of England without losing a game, drawing with Yorkshire and defeating Derbyshire by an innings. They too stayed at The Maynard and were said to have bathed in the nearby river Derwent. The Rev Keith Bamford, speaking to the Derbyshire Cricket Foundation as part of a heritage project, said “Keith Miller was there in 1948 and apparently spent a little too long in the bar one night and missed the bus to Sheffield. A journalist there lent him £10 for a taxi, didn’t see any repayment for years and years, and many years later in Melbourne he was sitting watching the Test. Miller tapped him on the shoulder and gave him some money and said that’s for Grindleford.”

The dates might be slightly different, but it is a memory backed up by the journalist himself, Basil Easterbrook, writing in the Sunday Sun of 17 June, 1973. “Once in 1953, I was staying with the Australian Team at the Maynard Arms. Lindsay Hassett, the captain and George Davies, the manager, went off to London for a few days break and Keith Miller was left in charge. Nugget shared a room with Lindwall and on the second morning due to an oversight they received no early call.

“At 11am, Australia’s two great opening bowlers were peeling off their pyjamas at the Maynard Arms, while several miles away they were just closing the gates on 30,000 Yorkshiremen waiting for battle to recommence at 11.30.

“Hire a car Bas,” shouted Miller, as he and Lindwall fell about the bedroom trying to climb into their trousers. I got a Rolls-Royce from the local undertaker – the only vehicle available – and the three of us drove in some state up to the edge of the moors and then down the rim of the saucer that is Sheffield. We pulled up outside Bramall Lane at 11.28.”

In this version, Easterbrook gets his money back 19 years later, via Ray Lindwall, “older, heavier, greying of hair, but the smile and the eyes the same,” pushing a fiver into the breast pocket of his jacket.

Local historian Alan Jacques, who was born above the village shop in Grindleford in 1951, remembers going up to The Maynard to get autographs from the 1965 South Africans, the last side to tour before isolation. “Some of them came out and asked us where was a good place to walk and we took them down to the riverside.” He still has his autograph book from 1963 too, which contains scribbles from four of the visiting West Indians, who were sitting on the wall outside the hotel – Lance Gibbs, Alf Valentine, Seymour Nurse and Derek Murray.

These days, though the local cricket club comes in for drinks and events, touring teams choose hotels with sharper corners and city footprints. Perhaps they could again be tempted to build in a few days break at the Noosa of hiking boots and peachy dawns. As Ian Johnson wrote for the Adelaide New in 1953. “It’s a very comfortable country pub on the side of a very lovely valley which allows the players a perfect rest.”

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County cricket lives on

Thought you’d put county cricket to bed until next April? No chance. A quick glance at the scoresheet from Durban reveals some familiar faces – 16 of the 22 players have tried their luck in the Championship.

Cut Marnus Labuschagne and he bleeds Glamorgan. He first signed for them in 2019, scoring three centuries in his first four matches, putting him in contention for the Ashes squad. He then became the first concussion substitute in Test cricket when he replaced a felled Steve Smith at Lord’s. Labuschagne returned to Sophia Gardens every year up to 2025. Smith had a brief spell at Sussex in 2023, to warm up for the Ashes, as did Alex Carey in 2019.

The centurion Matt Renshaw replaced Cameron Bancroft at Somerset in 2018, after Bancroft was banned for nine months, and made a hundred on debut. He then played for Kent, before returning to Taunton. Beau Webster tried his hand at Essex and Gloucestershire before signing for Warwickshire in 2025 and 2026, where he was part of the Championship-winning side. A youthful Mitchell Starc sprinted in for Yorkshire in 2012, Nathan Lyon played for Worcestershire in 2017 and Lancashire in 2024, before being hauled home early by Cricket Australia. Nic Maddison popped up at Chester-le-Street for six games in 2022, where he played alongside the prolific David Bedingham, who this year signed up for his seventh successive season in the north-east.

Aiden Markram dipped his toe in the water at Durham and Hampshire, while Ryan Rickelton had short dallies with Northants and Yorkshire. Temba Bavuma tonked a couple of centuries during a 2019 midsummer medley at Wantage Road. Then there is Wiaan Mulder, of Kent, Leicestershire and Essex; Keshav Maharaj, one of a handful of players to have pulled on both the red and white rose and Kyle Verreynne who hit the Championship-winning runs for Notts in 2025, and returned this year. Finally, Simon Harmer who has been wheeling in with his untucked shirt and sunglasses for Essex since 2017, when he fluttered Chelmsford hearts with the wicket that won them the title.

Stat of the week

311 With his career-best haul of six for 49 against South Africa, Josh Hazlewood moved to 311 Test wickets, taking him past Brett Lee on 310. With Mitchell Johnson on 313, Hazlewood could climb to seventh in Australia’s standings in the coming days.

Quote of the week

No worries, you can tell your story. That’s fine” – the response from Pat Cummins when Usman Khawaja phoned to tell him of his autobiography Sabr, rumoured to have updates on Sandpapergate and due to be released just after the end of Australia’s Test tour of South Africa.

Memory lane

14 October 2005 | Forget events at Kingsmead. Twenty-one years ago today, all eyes, OK, some eyes, were on the SCG for the first day of the Super Test, the all-conquering Australians against a World XI. The World XI, fierce on paper – with a middle order of Rahul Dravid, Brian Lara, Jaques Kallis and Inzamam ul Haq, and firepower from Ashes heroes Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison – was rudderless in the field, and folded in four (of the six available) days, bowled out twice by Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill. The idea of a repeat series was quietly shelved, where it remains.

Still want more?

• Josh Hazlewood reminds Australia of his worth with six for 49 to see off South Africa.

• “Franchise cricket isn’t as rewarding”: Jonathan Trott on Lions pride and England ambitions.

• And Saracens have sacked Totoa Auvaa, the rugby player who sparked English cricket’s captaincy crisis on a night out with Ben Stokes.