His schoolfriends all adored Compton or Edrich but for David Nobbs it had
to be Len Hutton, the master technician who made himself into a stylist
There was never any choice in the matter. Len Hutton had to be my childhood hero.
I first came across him when I was three, although I didn’t realise it at the time. We were having lunch in my grandparents’ dark dining room in rural Essex. The room smelt of silence and Gorgonzola cheese. That day, however, the silence was broken by the wireless. I remember the slow, measured tones of the commentator, then a burst of excitement. Many years later I deduced that I had been listening to Hutton making his world record 364 at The Oval.
The war came and went. It was 1946. I was 11, and my Uncle Kenneth took me to my first cricket match – Surrey versus Yorkshire, again at The Oval. We sat on a wooden bench, right at the back, under the gasometer. There was a good crowd. Surrey were dismissed for not much more than 100, with the Yorkshire spinner Robinson taking eight wickets. By the close of play, Yorkshire had struggled to 150 for 5. Hutton was playing on a different surface from everybody else. They were on an awkward slow turner with variable bounce. He was batting on a billiard table. He was 91 not out. He was a god.
In 1947 England thrashed South Africa. Compton and Edrich carried all before them. Hutton failed to reach 30 in six innings. I was at school in Kent. All the boys worshipped Compton and Edrich. Only I, stubbornly, faithfully, stood up for Hutton. His failures darkened my summer.
He came good in the fourth Test at Leeds, sharing an opening stand of 141 with Washbrook and going on to make a century. The sun was shining again.
In 1948 things got worse. He seemed nervous against Lindwall and Miller. The selectors dropped him for the third Test. People were saying that he wasn’t the player he had been before the war, that an injury in the gym, involving a slight shortening of one arm, had affected his technique.
The selectors replaced him with George Emmett of Gloucestershire. I didn’t hate Emmett – it wasn’t his fault – but how I hated those selectors. Now I was in a real quandary. I wanted us to do well against Australia, of course I did, but how I wanted Emmett to fail.
He duly failed, Hutton returned at Leeds with scores of 81 and 57. I listened to the fifth Test on holiday in Swansea. England batted first. Len made 30. Not brilliant? The next highest scorer was Norman Yardley with seven. England were dismissed for 52.
In 1950 I was allowed into a pub for the first time, in the tiny village of Little Yeldham in Essex. The pub had a TV, and our family didn’t, so my cousin John, 11, and I, 15, sat in a tiny darkened room in the Stone and Faggot and watched a tiny TV set. Again, the venue was The Oval. West Indies had made more than 500. England struggled, dismissed for 344. Again, Hutton seemed to have brought his own pitch. He carried his bat for 202. Of course he did. I was watching.
In 1952 he became the first professional cricketer to captain England. The world was changing. In 1953, Hutton’s England attempted to regain the Ashes. The first four Tests were drawn. At The Oval Australia won the toss and made 275. England responded with 306 (Hutton 82). I went to the last two days of that historic match. I saw Australia begin their second innings brightly. Hutton, that cautious Yorkshireman, had spin on at both ends by the time the score reached 20. There was near hysteria in the ground as Lock and Laker reduced Australia from 59 for 1 to 61 for 5.
Needing 132 to win, Hutton ran himself out for 17; he was mortal after all, but we won by eight wickets and ran across the ground to celebrate in front of the pavilion. Hutton lost the toss in every Test, but won the Ashes. Of course he did. I was there.
In Australia, in 1954–55, Hutton at last won the toss, put Australia in, saw them score 601 and win by an innings and 154 runs. Did I panic? Yes, utterly. Hutton didn’t. This time he pinned his faith on pace, and we won the next three Tests.
What a record the man had but it wasn’t just the results that thrilled me. He was a joy to watch. He had great economy of style. I recall the effortless ease of his leg-side strokes, the perfection of his late cuts, the glorious freedom of his cover drive, nose over bat, bat almost stroking pad. He wasn’t tall, he didn’t have the willowy elegance of a Graveney, but his sheer technical perfection elevated him into a stylist. If a cricket manual had come to life, it would have been Len Hutton.
He could be exciting too. I remember watching him charging down the wicket to hammer Roly Jenkins, the Worcestershire legspinner, through the covers with savage elegance. It was magic.
They say that his most astonishing innings was his 62 not out, on an unplayable (to everyone else) Brisbane ‘stickie’ in 1950. Again, it was as if he had taken his own pitch with him.
Many years after his knighthood and his death, I went out with a Yorkshire lady, who had lived in Pudsey.
“Hutton,” she said. “Oh, I knew Len Hutton. He was a friend of my uncle. He used to come to our house.”
I paused.
“Will you marry me?” I said. What else could I have said?
She did, incidentally. Of course she did. I was there.
DAVID NOBBS is the creator and writer of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin and the Henry Pratt series