NOT MANY PEOPLE have counties named after them. Worcestershire was of course known for many years as Fostershire because of the seven Foster brothers – B. S., G. N., H. K., M. K., N. J. A., R. E. and W. L. – all of whom played for the county. So did H. K.’s son C. K. But the same honour was accorded Mike Procter during his sixteen years with Gloucestershire. Especially during his successful captaincy from 1977 to 1981, the county became known as Proctershire, so great was his influence and popularity. He was tall, fair, chubby-faced and strong as an ox. He bowled very fast off a prodigiously long run. He charged in at a terrific rate, hair flopping, ground shaking. He must have been an awe-inspiring sight to a batsman. He delivered the ball ‘off the wrong foot’ square on to the batsman, with a whirlwind arm action. As a result he bowled mainly in-swingers, but occasionally resorted to fast off-breaks.
He only played in seven Tests, all against Australia in South Africa. In three Tests in 1967 he took 15 wickets and in 1970, 26 wickets in four Tests, making a total of 41 wickets – an average of a fraction under 6 wickets a Test – 5.85. This compares with Syd Barnes’s average of 7.00 and just beats Clarrie Grimmett’s 5.81. Otherwise Proccers beats all the other Test bowlers for rate of strike. Of course it’s not really fair to compare his figures with bowlers who have taken 300, 200 or even 100 more wickets than him, but it does give some sort of clue as to what he might have achieved had he played in more Tests. It is difficult truly to assess his speed, but when fully fit he must have been as fast as any of his contemporaries.
He came over to England with his friend, Barry Richards, in 1965. Both intended to qualify for Gloucestershire and they both played in one match – against the visiting South African side. They didn’t do too badly either. They were top scorers in a total of 279, Richards 59, Procter 69, and put on 116 for the fifth wicket in just over ninety minutes. Wisden reported that Proctor (sic) was the dominant partner. They finished that season as dressing-room attendants at the Oval during the fifth Test against South Africa – a useful way of absorbing Test match atmosphere.
They both came back to England in 1968, Richards to play for Hampshire, and Procter for Gloucestershire, and from then on until he had to retire in 1981 due to bad knees Proccers was the mainstay of Gloucestershire. Besides his bowling he was a magnificent field anywhere, and as a batsman pure and simple would have been worth his place in any Test side. He was a magnificent stroke-player who scored at a very fast rate. Because of the amount of bowling he had to do, he didn’t achieve as much as Richards with the bat, but I reckon there was little between them in actual technique. What a difference in temperament, however. Richards, the casual rather bored player who needed crowds and incentive to bring out his best, and Proccers, who just loved to play cricket. He was a great trier and never gave up, and he gave everything he had towards helping Gloucestershire. And they loved him for it.
What’s more, he brought success to W. G.’s old county. In 1976 and 1977 they finished third in the County Championship, only just behind the leaders. In his first year of captaincy Gloucestershire won the Benson and Hedges Final at Lord’s. He was an inspiring captain and cared for his players, who would have followed him anywhere. A perfect example was in the Benson and Hedges Final. A young player called David Partridge had not made much impression in the match. He didn’t get an innings and so far as I remember dropped a catch, and was looking rather out of things fielding under the grandstand balcony. When it became apparent that Gloucestershire were going to win, Proccers called him up to have a bowl. His three overs were expensive, and cost 22 runs, though he did take the valuable wicket of Alan Knott, but the point was that Proccers wanted him to have a share in the victory. A most thoughtful piece of captaincy.
Proccers performed some splendid feats. He scored 1,000 runs in a season nine times, and took 100 wickets twice. He did the hat-trick four times in county matches – in 1979 in two successive matches against Leicestershire and Yorkshire. What’s more, in the Leicestershire match he also made a hundred before lunch! And there’s more to come! In his hat-trick against Yorkshire at Cheltenham all his three victims were lbw – something he also achieved in his 1972 hat-trick against Sussex, bowling round the wicket at a tremendous pace.
As if all the above was not enough, he once scored six hundreds in consecutive innings for Rhodesia. So all in all a remarkable player who because of his skills, guts and keenness would always be my all-rounder in any world eleven – just so long as Gary Sobers was unfit to play!
I have always called him Unders, but then I never had to play against him. Those who did, call him Deadly. A very apt name, as anyone who saw him wheeling away for twenty-five years will testify. I was lucky enough to see him as a seventeen-year-old in his first sensational season for Kent, when he became the youngest bowler ever to take 100 wickets in a season – 101 actually, and he took exactly the same number in 1964. But his third season was a comparative failure – he only took 89!
I always enjoyed watching him bowl in those early days. Fair-haired, fresh-faced and already with those large flat feet. His parents followed him around wherever he played, and I could always be certain of a good cup of tea and a bun during the tea interval, when I would join them at their car. They were intensely proud of him, and supported and encouraged him in everything he did. He was a unique bowler. There has never been one quite like him. He was near-medium pace and usually cut the ball rather than spin it. His main weapons were his perfect length and line, his flight and variations in pace. He also had a well-disguised ‘arm’ ball, bowled a little faster, and from which Alan Knott made many leg-side stumpings.
His accuracy frustrated even the best batsmen. They could never collar him, and it was extremely difficult to hit him over the top. He always liked to start with a maiden over, after which he would get in a groove and was quite happy to bowl all day. He just loved bowling. ‘If you don’t bowl you cannot take wickets,’ he once said. As you can imagine, every captain enjoyed having him in their side. It meant that you could block one end, and experiment at the other.
On a rain-affected pitch he was practically unplayable, as in addition to turn he got bounce out of the pitch as well. Strangely, he was not quite so devastating on a dry pitch which was cracking up and losing its top surface. But he will go down as one of the greatest slow bowlers – only Wilfred Rhodes and George Lohmann were younger when they reached their 1,000 wickets. Unders did it in his seventh season at the age of twenty-five. His 297 Test wickets could well have been at least a hundred more had he not decided to sign for Kerry Packer and later go on the ‘rebel’ tour to South Africa. Like most of the others who did the same, he did it for the sake of family security, and gave himself a strong financial base. It is difficult to criticise anyone who puts his family before his own career, but I personally felt very sad at his decisions. He and Alan Knott were both sadly missed by England, though after the famous Packer law case, they were allowed to play for Kent during the English summers.
He enjoyed batting and became the automatic night-watchman for both England and Kent. He had a good defensive technique but loved to play his favourite scoring stroke – over mid-wicket’s head. Not strictly orthodox but often effective. In his capacity of night-watchman he always showed tremendous guts against the fast bowlers, in spite of getting a sickening blow on the mouth (before helmets) from a Charlie Griffith bouncer in his first Test at Trent Bridge in 1966. Possibly his happiest moment was when he scored his maiden century at Hastings in 1984 at the age of thirty-nine.
Unders decided to retire at the end of 1987 and he was sadly missed by Kent, and even by his opponents. He is such a nice, modest person, with a hearty laugh, and real enjoyment of life. A final example of his love of and dedication to cricket was the way he made himself into a good fielder. With his flat feet he was not naturally athletic, but he was a safe catcher and had a good arm which he used effectively from his usual position down at long leg. Let’s hope that someone somewhere discovers another Unders, with both his skill and technique and his lovable reliable character.
It would be difficult to find a more unlikely-looking athlete than Clive Hubert Lloyd. Spectacles, drooping head – often covered by a white floppy sun hat – a round-shouldered figure with a shambling, gangling gait. As he walked to the wicket he would prod the ground impatiently with his bat. And what a bat! It was the first of the real heavies, weighing at least 3 lb., possibly more. The handle was of double thickness, and once at Robertsbridge in Sussex, where the bats are made, I tried to get my hands round it and failed. I thought my hands were fairly big, but his are very large with long fingers.
He is six feet five inches tall and had immensely strong forearms which enabled him to wield his giant ‘club’. He was one of the hardest and biggest hitters I have ever seen, and his favourite stroke was the lofted drive, when the ball seemed to ‘sail’ clean out of the ground. He was equally severe on anything short, hitting the ball off the back foot just wide of cover, or hooking it hard and high over the square-leg boundary. In contrast, he could defend as well as anyone if necessary, since his basic method was so correct.
Early in his career the England bowlers used to think he was a sucker to the ball just outside his off-stump, before he got his eye in, but in later years there was not much sign of this. His figures cannot portray the extent to which he could turn a match by his hitting, nor the number of times when, but for him, a high run-rate required for victory would never have been achieved. Even so, 7,515 runs – fourth only to Viv Richards (8,540), Gary Sobers (8,032) and Gordon Greenidge (7,558) – for the West Indies in Tests at an average of 46.67, and 31,232 first-class runs at an average of 49.26 do prove that he was one of the outstanding batsmen in post-war years.
These figures do not of course include his performances in limited-over cricket, where he excelled, both for the West Indies in their two Prudential World Cup Final wins in 1975 (102) and 1979 (13), but also for Lancashire in their run of victories in the Gillette Cup Final. They did the hat-trick – 1970, 1971 and 1972 – and won again in 1975; and Clive contributed scores of 29, 66, 126 and 73 not out.
Not many batsmen have been reported to the police for aggression – at least not on the field! But once in a match against Kent at Dartford I saw him pepper a row of adjoining houses with a string of giant sixes. An elderly lady was so terrified that she dialled 999 and called the police for help!
Clive never seems to have been handicapped by his glasses, which he has had to wear since, as a young boy, he was injured in breaking up a fight. He did try contact lenses for a short time in 1973, but soon gave them up. Like other great batsmen such as Sobers and Compton, however, he did have great trouble with his knees, though thanks to several operations he was able to continue batting as well as ever, right up to the end of his career. Indeed, in May 1988, in a charity match against the West Indies touring team led by Viv Richards, I saw him make a swift 37 not out against their bevy of fast bowlers, with several sixes soaring over the boundary in the typical Lloyd fashion.
The knees did affect his fielding, however, and he was forced in the end to spend most of the time in the slips. He had been a superb fielder in the covers – as good as Colin Bland, and there is no higher praise than that. He was like a giant cat prowling about and would pounce on the ball with tremendous speed, hurling the ball at the wicket like a rocket. But although he was a great loss in the covers, he caught many good catches at slip, and in all caught 89 for the West Indies, second only to Gary Sobers. To complete his all-round ability he occasionally bowled right-arm medium-pace, although of course he was a left-handed batsman.
Off the field Clive is a friendly person, gruff but with a good sense of humour, and is a surprisingly amusing after-dinner speaker. He became a British citizen in 1984 and settled happily in Cheshire, where he has done much charity and social work, mostly connected with finding work for the young unemployed. He and his wife also converted a house to become a rest-home for the elderly. He is a compassionate man who also likes to coach and encourage young cricketers.
He has a strong personality which, combined with his other qualities, made him a natural leader and a great captain of the West Indies. His record is remarkable. He was their captain in 74 Tests, of which the West Indies won 36 and drew 26, and at one time they went 26 successive Tests without defeat, including 11 successive wins in 1984. And of the eighteen series in which he was captain, only two were lost.
It’s not just these results which made him such a successful captain, however. He had the ability – like Sir Frank Worrell – to weld together all the differences and rivalries of the West Indian islands, and inspired loyalty from what became a happy and united side. From the commentary box it often looked as if his captaincy was a ‘piece of cake’. He just stood in the slips and rang the changes on his four fast bowlers, with the very occasional spinner thrown in. Of course it wasn’t really as simple as that, but it would have been fascinating to see him captain a weak side and then judge his tactics and judgement.
He had one hiccup during his years of captaincy. In 1978 he had a disagreement with his board of control over the Packer affair. He was a leading player in the World Series cricket and resigned as captain of the West Indies at Georgetown just before the Test against Australia in March 1978. Ali Kallicharran took over the captaincy for the remaining three matches and went to India as captain in six Tests a year later, but by the end of 1979 all was forgiven and Clive was back at the helm in Australia.
There was one side of Clive’s captaincy with which I didn’t agree. On the field he could be ruthless, quite unlike the friendly figure off it. He seemed to tolerate the frequent bowling of bouncers from his plethora of fast bowlers, which brought a nasty smell of intimidation into the game. People go to watch batsmen playing strokes, not ducking and weaving to avoid injury. A perfect example was the Close-Edrich partnership at Old Trafford in the third Test in 1976, when they were both battered all over the body by Roberts, Holding and Daniel and had to duck and weave their way through a most unpleasant evening. Neither the umpires nor Clive did anything about it, though Bill Alley did warn Holding towards the end. Clive has always maintained that it was up to the umpires to take the necessary action allowed by the laws. Technically of course he is right, but for the sake of cricket I still feel he should have stopped it. He later admitted that ‘our fellows got carried away’!
I also disagreed with his tactics in employing a slow overrate. Unfortunately, all other countries have also been guilty from time to time, but I don’t excuse them either. Clive used it in order to give his fast bowlers with their long run-ups a longer rest between overs. He somewhat cynically defended himself by saying that if they had bowled more overs in a day, they would have won their Test matches a day or so earlier! He also made the point that the crowds didn’t seem to mind, as there were always big attendances at all the West Indian Tests. One thing he couldn’t deny, though. West Indies’ usual slow over-rate made it virtually impossible for any opposing side to have sufficient time to build up a big enough score to beat them.
In spite of these personal criticisms of mine, however, there is no doubt that Clive will go down in history, not only as a great batsman and fielder, but also as a man and captain who had a tremendous influence for good in West Indies cricket. I doubt if many will ever captain their country more times, and I wish this recent British recruit a very happy and prosperous retirement.
Knotty was responsible for me making one of my worst-ever puns – and that’s saying something! At one time he used to play for Dartford, as did Derek Ufton, another Kent wicket-keeper. I was discussing which of them usually kept wicket for Dartford. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘due to Knotty’s commitments with Kent it was more Ufton than Knott!’
When he finally retired in 1985 – not owing to loss of form but to a dodgy ankle – cricket lost one of its great characters. He was not the usual run of Test cricketers. His health came before everything, so he didn’t smoke, drank only the occasional glass of sherry or wine, and went to bed early. He was meticulous with his preparations before play, hence the fact that he was seldom ready in time and could usually be seen trotting out behind the others as they left the pavilion.
He wore a shirt several sizes too big so that it didn’t restrict his movements. Underneath he always wore a flannel on the small of his back to soak up sweat. Like his shirt, his trousers were baggy, not tight round the bottom as they are today. His gloves had always been well-broken-in, so they looked old and scruffy, but they were comfortable. And he always had a handkerchief sticking out of his left pocket (Wally Hammond’s dark blue one was always in his right pocket) to make it easier to blow his nose. He thought of everything, and during a match interval would have a complete change of clothing after a shower. This did not give him much time for lunch, but he was a sparse eater. Once on the field he indulged in those strange exercises which became famous on television – swinging his arms, bending his knees and touching his toes. He had a genuine fear of stiffening up.
As a wicket-keeper he was for years the best in the world, far more consistent, especially for Kent, than Godfrey Evans. He was as agile as a cat, and brought off some incredible catches standing back to the fast bowlers. Just as Godfrey had been so brilliant standing up to Alec Bedser, so was Knotty when he stood up to Derek Underwood, who at his pace on a turning wicket was very difficult to take.
My one ‘quarrel’ with Knotty was that he did not always stand up to medium-pace bowlers like d’Oliveira or Woolmer. He claimed that he was more certain to take catches standing back than up. For a wicket-keeper of his quality that seemed to me nonsense. I am a great believer in the pressure that a wicket-keeper exerts on a batsman, when standing close to the stumps. We used to argue about it, and this led to quite an amusing story. Knotty asked me if I would write something in his benefit brochure. I said I would be very happy to do so, but on one condition – that if Bob Woolmer came on to bowl in one of the Tests against the West Indies in 1976, Knotty would promise to stand up to him for at least one over. He promised to do so.
Sure enough, Woolmer came on to bowl at the Oval. To my delight I saw Knotty go up to the stumps, then look round at our commentary box and give the thumbs up. The left-handed Fredericks was the batsman and to my horror Woolmer’s first ball was wide outside his leg-stump – not an easy ball for a wicket-keeper to take. I thought, oh my goodness, here come four byes. But needless to say, Knotty got across outside the leg-stump and made a brilliant take. He stood up for the next five balls, and then stood back for Woolmer’s subsequent overs – but he had kept his word.
It was very difficult to say whether Knotty or Bob Taylor was the better keeper. Bob certainly stood up more and was far quieter and more unpretentious, compared to the more spectacular keeping of Knotty. I think it’s fair to say that they were both equal and that they both qualify to be compared with the best Test keepers ever.
Knotty was, of course, by far the better bat. He could play either game – defensive or attacking. When defending he was strictly orthodox, playing with a dead straight bat, but when on the attack he was the greatest improviser I have ever seen, not forgetting John Emburey of the more recent players. He could cut and drive, and I saw him hit a six over extra cover in Auckland in 1971, but his favourite stroke was the sweep, played off the most unlikely balls, even those outside the off-stump.
The most astonishing innings I saw him play was his 82 in the fourth Test at Sydney in 1975. Lillee and Thomson were at the height of their powers, and were a terrifying combination with their devastating pace and short-pitched bowling. When they did pitch the ball up he hit them through the empty spaces in the covers for four. If it was short outside the off-stump he would deliberately steer it over the top of slips’ heads. In one hour after lunch he made 56, 33 of them in three overs against the second new ball. Lillee and Thomson were not too pleased, but how proud I was to have seen such a brave and brilliant innings. Remember, Knotty was a small man, but he was very quick on his feet and had tremendous guts. He didn’t have that jutting-out chin for nothing!
His record of 269 dismissals in 95 Tests would have been even more remarkable had he not signed up with Kerry Packer, and later had not gone on the ‘rebel’ tour of South Africa, but loyal as he was to England his family always came first and he was determined to set up a firm financial base for them. I see him only too rarely these days, but when we do meet the wicked twinkle in his eye is still there, his mischievous smile and his impish sense of humour. And when you see those piercing brown eyes you can understand why he was such a great wicket-keeper.