The England Captaincy 1967–71
‘No other captain could have led the side so well and performed the numerous duties of captaincy so flawlessly in the exacting circumstances of this tour.’
Wisden on Cowdrey leading MCC in the West Indies, 1967/68
I KNEW Brian Close. Not well but well enough to form a firm impression of him. I first came across him in South Africa during the winter of 1973/74 when he captained a Derrick Robins team touring the country. For a sports-mad nation starved of Test cricket, the tourists, who were as close to a fully fledged international side as you could get, attracted great interest and huge crowds wherever they played.
I was not playing for Eastern Province but as I knew a number of players from the two sides, I spent a lot of time in both dressing rooms and with them afterwards in the bar. There was no doubt whose show this was. Close led from the front, both out on the field of play and afterwards in the pavilion at St George’s Park. The extraordinary things that man could do with a full glass of beer could have put Paul Daniels out of a job. To say that he was the life and soul of the party is a bit like suggesting that Ian Botham enlivened the odd Test match.
Talking of Ian Botham, by the time he had made his debut at Somerset, Brian Close was the club captain and it was in matches against the Wurzils, as they were known, that I saw Close at close quarters, if you will forgive the pun. He was surrounded by a group of fun-loving, but talented, youngsters and they were very fond of pulling the old man’s leg, sometimes mercilessly. But it was clear that they held him in the highest regard and listened to him when he spoke. He had the gift of authority and he turned a bunch of under-achievers into a trophy-winning side. He was also, let us not forget, a mighty fine cricketer in his own right.
You may be wondering why I am beginning a chapter with a thumbnail sketch of Brian Close. Because it is with Close that this particular narrative starts. The man chosen to succeed Colin as captain of England for the final Test at The Oval against the already victorious West Indians in the summer of 1966 was Brian Close.
With popes, football managers, presidents, headmasters, whatever sort of chief executive you choose to mention, a change always seems to come with a violent swing of the pendulum. So it appeared with the new captain. Close was a northerner, a native of Yorkshire, the self-proclaimed ‘God’s Own Country’; Cowdrey was a southerner, Kent was his county, known as the ‘Garden of England’. Close was blunt and outspoken: Cowdrey was agreeable, conciliatory and modest. Close was a punchy, occasionally reckless, leftie: Cowdrey batted right-handed in a more classically moulded and orthodox style. Close was a professional: Cowdrey was an amateur. And that perhaps says it all.
However, on closer inspection, certain similarities emerge. Both were youthful prodigies, taken on a punt to Australia with MCC, Close in 1950/51 and Cowdrey in 1954/55, arguably before they were ready. Both had chequered international careers, though Cowdrey’s was the more enduring; he played 114 Tests and Close only 22. And their bravery in the face of fast bowlers was equally admirable.
What Colin thought about being replaced by Close is not recorded. Probably not a lot. By that I mean he most likely did not give it much thought, preferring to lick his wounds back at Kent. There is no reason to believe, by the way, that he and Close, though not bosom buddies, did not get on perfectly amicably whenever their paths crossed or whenever they shared an England dressing room. As luck, and a certain amount of bold leadership, would have it, England defeated the West Indies at The Oval. Close took a lot of the credit, justifiably, and that seemed to be that as far as the England captaincy was concerned. Colin was now right out of the picture.
There was no tour that winter and Colin was not selected for the three-Test series against India, which England won 3-0, at the beginning of the 1967 season. Nor was he picked for the first Test against Pakistan in the latter stage of the summer. However, weight of runs in the county championship made demands for his recall difficult to ignore and he was restored to the England side for the second and third Tests, both of which England won. Close’s grip on his team seemed firm and incontestable. Colin did not set the world alight with his form; he scored 14, 2*, 16 and 9.
When asked what was most likely to blow the government off course, Harold Macmillan, prime minister at the time, famously replied, ‘Events, dear boy, events.’ Just before the third Test at The Oval, an event had taken place, one that was to have extensive consequences, not only for the two protagonists involved but the game of cricket too. In a match between Warwickshire and Yorkshire in mid-August at Edgbaston, the two sides captained by Mike Smith and Brian Close, there had been an unseemly scene at the conclusion of the final overs. Warwickshire had been set a target of 142 runs in 100 minutes. They had fallen nine runs short and the game was drawn.
However, Yorkshire had only bowled 24 overs in that one hour and 40 minutes, unconscionably slow, at a snail’s pace, you might say. As the Yorkshire team left the field, Close took exception to one of the Warwickshire supporter who barracked him and, it was alleged, he manhandled him. The story broke the next day. Yorkshire were accused of blatant time-wasting and Close of assault. Close denied the assault but made no apology for his tactics. Lord’s stepped in, a disciplinary hearing was convened and Close ordered to attend.
All this happened in the days leading up to the Test match. Colin was very much aware of the press interest in the affair because speculation was rife and he was, once again, slap bang in the middle of it. Was Close going to be sacked? And was Cowdrey going to be asked to lead MCC on the forthcoming tour to the West Indies? He was horrified. He knew as little as anybody else of the goings-on behind the scenes at Lord’s and hated the press intrusion. Everywhere he went, through the Hobbs Gates at The Oval, at the doors of the pavilion, to and from the nets, he was hounded and pressed for comment, of which he had none and made none. He must have felt like fleeing, as he did from Lord’s as a schoolboy. He was no schoolboy now; he was England’s senior player and he was in the eye of the storm.
In the event, Close was stripped of the captaincy and told that he would not be leading the side in the West Indies but in order to spare him embarrassment, as the team for this Test had already been picked, news of his sacking was withheld until after the match had finished. The game proceeded but newspaper speculation did not abate. Close led his team to an impressive eight-wicket victory to seal the series 2-0, an amazing feat of single-minded application, considering the furore swirling about him.
Colin was none the wiser about the selectors’ deliberations until the Saturday of the game, when the chairman took him aside and confided in him that they wanted him to captain the side that winter. Yet again, he felt he was caught between a rock and a hard place. His sympathy was with Close and the situation he had found himself in. ‘But I was back in the nightmare of the previous summer,’ he later wrote. ‘The publicity then had left its mark and I could not bear a repeat.’
But a repeat was precisely what he was getting. He had to accept. As his friend and mentor, Les Ames, said to him, ‘You do not alter any decision that may be made over Brian Close by moving out of the picture.’ Colin knew he was right. If your country comes calling, you must go. On the Monday, once England’s victory had been secured, the touring side was announced, with Cowdrey as captain. The Fleet Street presses were red hot that evening. And the story had a sting in the tail. When pressed by a persistent reporter whether Close would have been first choice as captain had the Edgbaston incident not taken place, Doug Insole, the chairman of selectors, was forced to admit yes. Thank you, Doug, second choice again and now everybody knows it. It was just as well that the two of them were firm friends. That they remained so says much about Colin’s magnanimous nature.
Incidentally, as a direct consequence of Close’s time-wasting, the laws of cricket were amended to stipulate that a minimum of 20 overs must be bowled in the last hour of a match. Though that hour seems to last much more than 60 minutes, given the funereal rate that those 20 overs are bowled in the modern game.
That four months elapsed between the announcement of the team and setting off for the Caribbean worked to Colin’s advantage. The controversy slowly died down, if not disappearing altogether, and he was able to put it out of his mind and concentrate on his plans to take on the unofficial world champions in their own back yard. On previous occasions when he had been asked to step into the breach, there had been no such period of preparation; he had, more or less, walked through the door of the dressing room to take charge of someone else’s team.
This time it felt different. Yes, the majority of the players had flourished under Close and were upset at his dethronement but these were professional cricketers and they were used to these upheavals, unwelcome though they may be. Cowdrey was now in charge and they all had to get on with the job. Captains come and go, selectors come and go, team-mates come and go – that is the way of the world of sport. Nothing for it but to band together and make the most of it. Because if they didn’t, it was going to be a mighty long tour. West Indies had thumped England in 1963 and 1966 and with Sobers, Kanhai, Butcher, Griffith, Hall and Gibbs on board, there did not appear to be any cracks in their supremacy.
Colin thought otherwise. He alone believed that the fearsome fast bowling pair of Hall and Griffith, if not a spent force, had reached their peak and were on the slow descent down the other side. In Snow, Brown and Jones, he was sure he had the equal, if not the superior, pace attack and as everybody knew, the key to success in the Caribbean was fast bowling. So, like any general worth his salt, he sat down and drew up his strategy for the forthcoming campaign. The Five Year Plan, he called it. If that sounded a bit like one of Stalin’s brainwaves for 1930s Communist Russia, we can forgive him for that. Up until now, forward planning at MCC had stretched no further than the next membership sub-committee meeting. In this, Colin was ahead of his time. Besides, he always felt more comfortable when he had time to organise and prepare.
Not wishing to tempt fate and no doubt touching every piece of wood within reaching distance, he studied the future international programme. He was 37, going on 38, and he reckoned, with a favourable wind and barring injury, he had perhaps another five years left of playing at the top level. He was in fine fettle, batting as well as ever and felt ready, champing at the bit, you might say, to take charge of the England team. This was his time and he was determined not to waste it. For the task ahead was formidable. They were about to take on the West Indies in the Caribbean.
Following that tour, back home in 1968, the Ashes would be at stake, not won since 1956. Then there was a winter tour to South Africa, to face a team that were rapidly emerging as one of immense talent and potential, followed by a return series against the same opponents at home. And then – whisper it quietly – there was the Holy Grail for any captain of England, the opportunity to lead MCC on an Ashes tour of Australia in the winter of 1970/71. It had been his lifetime’s ambition to take a team Down Under in search of the Ashes. Dare he dream? Yes, he did. That would be a fitting way to sign off a long career. Whatever transpired, he reasoned, there would be no doubt in anybody’s mind at the conclusion of this five-year cycle which country could consider themselves world champions. For England, he wrote, it would be ‘five campaigns of the highest and most demanding order’.
Looking at the team they had selected, he had every confidence. In Boycott and Edrich, he had a redoubtable pair of openers; in the middle order, he had the vastly experienced Barrington and Graveney; spin was provided by Titmus and Pocock; the wicketkeeping duties, as well as useful runs, would be determined by one of Knott or Parks and the fast-bowling trio of Snow, Jones and Brown would not lack for variety of attack nor rawness of pace. Furthermore, England’s recent record, with one or two notable aberrations, had not been half bad. No, this was a team in which he could place his trust. The question was whether they would trust him.
To this end, he produced another rabbit out of the hat. He organised a pre-tour, two-day get-together. A boot camp it most certainly wasn’t but indoor nets at Crystal Palace were appropriated and sessions set aside for discussion and planning. He gave a speech, more of a rallying call to the troops, outlining his vision and how he wanted to implement it. He was getting rather good at this sort of thing, an accomplishment which would stand him in good stead as part of his duties as captain of an MCC touring team and one for which he was to become acclaimed in later life.
In brief, he explained that he had accepted the captaincy in circumstances unfortunate and beyond his control. But, for better or worse, he was now the captain and this was his thinking. Continuity, both of selection and ethos, was critical, he believed, and therefore he saw in front of him a squad of players which would form the nucleus of England’s assault on world domination in the next five years. Some would fall by the wayside – they always do – and others would come in to fill their shoes but he was convinced that together they had the talent, the experience and the resolve to take on all-comers. He ended with these words, ‘I hope we shall unite as one in this period to achieve solidarity, both on and off the field.’
Whether this Churchillian address aroused his listeners to a fever pitch of passion is not recorded. Cricket pros are sardonic and hard-nosed by nature but even the most cynical would probably have been nodding their heads in agreement. What he had said made sense and besides, dear old Colin was dear old Colin; he had his heart in the right place and nobody doubted his commitment to the cause.
What the troops thought of the indoor nets would be much easier to figure out. Waste of time, they would have quietly said. How can a gloomy net inside a dimly lit cavern with a restricted run-up and a low ceiling possibly replicate the conditions in the Caribbean? Of course they couldn’t. That was not the point. It was a show put on for the cameras and the press, to drive home that this team meant business.
In this, Colin was ahead of his time. Nowadays, teams go off to the jungle or to the desert or to the swamps or to the forest to bond; then the whole idea was a novelty. Furthermore, the concept of an England squad, enshrined in central contracts, is nowadays accepted as custom and practice; back then, England teams were plucked from the counties on an ad hoc basis. Getting the press on board was a stroke of genius. Colin was only happy that the lads seemed to have got behind him and that he had prepared everybody, himself included, as well as he could possibly have done. Now, the proof of the pudding was in the eating.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to recount that the pudding had already been eaten, seeing as they set off on Boxing Day. Time was taken to acclimatise. They needed it for the early showings from MCC were far from encouraging. Colin was not unduly alarmed; it was nothing that he had not expected and was something he had accommodated in his plans. He had always believed it took roughly three weeks for a touring side to adjust to a new country and different playing conditions. In this he was proved right.
It doesn’t need a brain of Einstein proportions to get this but it still surprises me that cricket boards around the world persist in parachuting touring teams into immediate action and expect them to hit the ground running. Colin believed that his side would be ready for the first Test, and they were. He would have been happier if his main strike bowler, John Snow, had not fallen foul of a nasty virus and was clearly not fit to play but there you are, the best-laid plans of mice and men.
And here’s another thing. The gentle and mild-mannered Colin Cowdrey, considered by more than a few to be too nice to be a captain of England, was revealing a more ruthless streak. Tom Graveney outlined to me the significant change he had noticed in his friend’s demeanour, ‘I’d always believed he was too much of a good-natured sort of bloke to be a wholly convincing England captain. But on this tour he cracked the whip.’
Indeed. Jim Parks imparted this piece of information about a selection decision that Colin made before the Tests had even started, ‘He came up to me after one of the warm-up games and told me that Knotty was having a shocker and that they just couldn’t pick him for the first Test. I was going to play instead of him.’ The juxtaposition of ‘Knott’ and ‘shocker’ seems astonishing, even impossible, for the generation brought up on the unshakeable assumption that Alan Knott was the greatest wicketkeeper ever to have donned gloves. But there you have it, from the horse’s mouth.
Jim may well have been his rival for the keeping berth in the England side but he has ever been a fair and honest man. He knew the potential of the young Kent wicketkeeper and recognised that the future belonged to him. But he privately agreed that Knott had not had an auspicious game. So he quietly prepared himself for duty while the news was broken to a dismayed Knott. The point here is that Knott was in situ – he’d made his England debut earlier that summer against Pakistan – and did one poor game justify the chop? Furthermore, Knott was a team-mate of Colin’s at Kent. Would future car journeys for the two of them around the country develop into frosty, silent tracts of time?
Whatever Knotty thought of the news – it is doubtful he was best pleased – the decision had been made and Parks played. ‘I broke my finger in the third Test,’ said Parks. ‘Knotty came back into the side, and the rest is history.’ History records that the incomparable Alan Knott remained England’s first-choice wicketkeeper from that day until his final Test, against Australia at The Oval, in 1981.
On his previous tour here in 1959/60, Colin had noted with some surprise the lack of adequate practice facilities, nets particularly, at the main venues. It was the same for both sides but he reckoned this shortcoming affected the home side more than the visitors. The West Indies team was drawn from a loose confederation of islands spread over the Caribbean, many of whom would have jetted in to Port of Spain, Trinidad, where the first Test took place, short of practice and in need of a net. The tourists, by contrast, had been involved in their warm-up matches – first-class, it should not be forgotten – and were more battle-hardened.
This was an ascendency that would steadily dissipate, Colin predicted, as the series wore on and the West Indies found their stride but he expected, correctly as it turned out, that they would be undercooked in the first and probably the second match of the series. It was important to take full advantage of this while it lasted.
Colin won the toss, a good start. Boycott hit Hall for four fours in his first two overs, an even better start. Yes, we all know that Boycott could bat stodgily at times but he had all the shots and sometimes, when the moon was in the right quarter, he was willing to unfurl them in all their technical perfection. He and Colin played beautifully, though neither went on to score centuries. However, Graveney and Barrington did; Barrington’s was his fourth in successive Tests and Graveney’s was no less than ‘a glorious exhibition of cultured batting’, according to Wisden. England’s total of 568 was their second highest in the West Indies. The best of starts.
Tom Graveney laughed when he recalled this innings. ‘I had just heard that I had been awarded the OBE in the New Year’s Honours List. To stick two fingers up to my team-mates who kept on telling me that OBE stands for Other Buggers’ Efforts, I went out there to make sure that this time it was my own effort. And then, I never got another run all tour!’ Not quite true, as the scorecards tell, but he did fail to rediscover the fluency of that first innings. He was currently experiencing something of an Indian summer in his Test career. Although he was unwilling to ascribe this late flowering of form wholly to the appointment of his friend to the captaincy, he always felt that he flourished as an England batsman when he believed his captain had confidence in him. ‘Colin batted me three or four, where your best batsmen should be. That was the vote of confidence I needed.’
Although the young Clive Lloyd announced himself with a maiden Test hundred on his debut, West Indies fell five runs short of saving the follow-on. In their second innings, David Brown, ‘bowling with great fire, shot out Butcher, Murray and Griffith in one over, to reduce them to 180/8 at tea’ in the words of Wisden.
I sought out David on his farm in north Worcestershire for memories of this tour. He remembered this spell of bowling all right. ‘Aaargh!’ he cried, the anguish still evident in his voice, ‘I had Wes Hall within a gnat’s whisker of bowling him the last ball before tea. It nipped back, cut him in half and how it missed the leg stump I shall never know.’ After tea, you never looked like taking another wicket. ‘I wouldn’t quite say that. Boycs dropped a sharp chance at short leg off Hall, but he didn’t usually field there, did he? Anyway, I’d shot my bolt by then.’
Hall and Sobers put on an undefeated ninth-wicket partnership of 63 and West Indies escaped with a scarcely deserved draw. England departed Trinidad greatly buoyed by their performance despite the disappointment of not being able to force the win. ‘If only I’d had Snow to call upon,’ Colin lamented.
How much he was missed was illustrated, to devastating effect, in the second Test in Jamaica. England’s first innings was held together by a magnificent, fighting 101 by their captain on a surface already beginning to crack. Altogether, he batted for six hours and 96 overs to steer his side to a total of 376. This innings was put into context by John Snow, who exploited the untrustworthy pitch as only he could, to skittle the West Indies for a paltry 143, taking 7-49, including Sobers for a first-ball duck for the second time in succession.
The one before no doubt remains firmly embedded in the reader’s memory. It was at The Oval when Close had stuck himself suicidally close to Sobers at short leg and instructed his fast bowler to bowl a bouncer. This he duly did, Sobers hooked, got a bottom edge which ricocheted off his thigh pad to nestle gently in the hands of an unblinking Close, who had not moved a muscle. It was without doubt the greatest short leg catch I have ever seen. There was no need for Close to loiter nearby this time (though he was in the press box, reporting for one of the dailies); Snow had his man LBW.
West Indies, for the second time, were forced to follow on. With half the side gone and the score on 204/5, ‘we were unquestionably sailing home to victory when a bottle, swirling high up in the sunlight, not only changed the course of the match but transformed it into one of the most remarkable Tests ever played’, wrote our hero, with a rare poetical flourish that he surely did not feel at the time. One bottle followed another, and another, the mood turned ugly and soon the local police had a full-scale riot on their hands.
Before we examine the possible reasons for the disturbance, the measures taken to quell it and the immediate aftermath, let us recall the exact circumstances of the spark, which set the whole thing ablaze in the first place. I am indebted to Jim Parks’s sharp recall of what happened. ‘Basil was batting and Basil was bowling – er, Basil Butcher batting, that is, and Basil D’Oliveira bowling,’ he added with a grin. ‘Anyway, I was standing up at the time. In previous matches, I had noticed that Butcher tended to flick the ball away off his legs if the ball strayed down the leg side but often in the air. So I went up to Bas and suggested I stay back, he would slide one down the leg side and let’s see if we could strangle Butcher that way.’
Note that Parks did not refer to D’Oliveira as Dolly. Nobody did. That was a coinage of the world’s press. To his friends, team-mates and opponents – and it would be difficult to differentiate between any of these categories – he was simply known as Bas. He did exactly as Parks had suggested. Butcher suitably obliged and Parks took the tumbling catch. ‘The trouble was,’ said Parks, ‘he didn’t walk.’ That may have been so but in fairness to Butcher, it must be said that it is not always clear to the batsman, who is perforce for a second or two unsighted, whether the catch has been taken. So he stood his ground before, reluctantly it seemed, the umpire gave him out. But Butcher’s hesitation had given the crowd, now pretty well rum-fuelled and soured by their team’s capitulation, an opportunity to vent their displeasure, convinced that their man had been the victim of English cheating. So the bottles started to fly.
John Snow, down at third man, was right in the front line. He turned and made gestures appealing for calm. It must have surprised even the most ardent disciples of this fiery, enigmatic man that he, of all people, was trying to play the peacemaker. In this he was doomed to failure.
Tom Graveney remembered the riot on his first tour of the Caribbean, way back in 1953/54. On that occasion, there had been a run-out decision against the home side, which the local population had disagreed with. A hail of bottles rained down on the England players and things threatened to get out of hand. ‘Then Johnny Wardle, one of the team jokers, picked up a bottle, pretended to drink from it and proceeded to give one of the best impressions of a rubbery-legged drunk I’ve ever seen,’ he said. ‘Immediately everybody started to laugh, the mood lightened and a full-scale riot was averted. But this was different. This was ugly.’
David Brown takes up what happened next, ‘Colin wanted to go with Garry Sobers, who was batting at the time, over to the area where the trouble was worst, to plead with everybody to return to their seats so that the game could continue. Garry was not too keen but he went. It was futile. A bottle came whistling over, narrowly missing Jeff Jones’s head, and that was it. We scarpered.’
The riot police in their white helmets and wielding their truncheons waded in, which only seemed to inflame passions and increase the level of violence. They commenced firing tear gas canisters. ‘Wrong decision!’ Jim Parks guffawed at the memory. ‘They took no account of the wind direction. The cloud of gas, instead of drifting towards the trouble makers, came in the opposite direction towards us in the dressing rooms.’
It was said that the air conditioning units inside the pavilion sucked in the tear gas, where the Governor General, Sir Clifford Campbell, and senior members of the Jamaican government were being entertained. By this time, the chief of police had ordered a complete evacuation of the playing area and a disconsolate Colin Cowdrey led his team off the field. Those who were left on it.
Back in the dressing rooms, the players watched with some alarm as a pale grey cloud of gas, 20 feet high and 60 feet wide, slowly blew towards them. As best they could, they wrapped their heads in wet towels, finding the whole experience thoroughly unnerving. ‘Most unpleasant,’ reported the Daily Telegraph correspondent, with rare Swantonian pithiness.
Later, Colin cogitated on the reason, if not the cause – palpably Butcher’s dismissal – for the ugly scenes. Perhaps it was a local political demonstration that had little to do with the cricket. Or perhaps it was a communist-inspired insurrection. Or perhaps it was simply a case of too much rum, a hot day and West Indies disappearing down the pan.
He had not much time then and there for sociopolitical analysis; he was soon in deep discussion with the Jamaican Cricket Association about what to do next. The hosts, as well as the club members and the genuine cricket supporters, were horrified by what had happened and deeply ashamed at the damage that had been done to the reputation of West Indian cricket. Colin, who always had a soft spot for people from these parts, was affected by their genuine expressions of apology and sympathetic to their plight and was mindful to agree to whatever the Jamaican Cricket Association decided.
In the event, play was not abandoned for the day and on reflection this was a mistake, he felt. They should not have been made to go out to play again that day. It somehow didn’t feel right. Grateful for the England management’s supportive stance, the association’s chairman made this immediate, unusual, quixotic gesture to the visitors. Clearly England had been disadvantaged by any delay in proceedings; therefore he proposed that extra time, equal to the amount of playing time lost, be added on to the scheduled hours of play, even if it meant continuing on the sixth day. In the event, a period of 75 minutes was agreed. Not that England would need it. They were going to win easily.
Creekit – it’s a foony old game, as Geoff Boycott never tires of saying. He may well have said it on this occasion too, if anybody could hear him among the coughing, spluttering and wheezing of his England team-mates, their heads covered in wet towels. No game is over when the greatest cricketer the world has ever seen is still at the crease, even if the odds are stacked against him.
When the cloud of tear gas had dispersed, the ground for the most part emptied of rioters and the playing area cleared of bottles and debris, Colin led his side back on to the pitch. There were still a few demonstrators about and sporadic outbursts of stone throwing and immediate police response did little to settle their nerves. The match took on a surreal atmosphere; clearly unsettled and thinking they shouldn’t be out there at all, England took a while to get back into their stride. Sobers sensed this and before anybody knew what was happening, he was off and away, playing as irrepressibly as only he could, evoking unpleasant memories, for England supporters anyway, of a similar impossible rescue mission at Lord’s in 1966. Colin remembered it well and wondered from his station at slip, with shots scorching the grass at Sabina Park, whether the West Indies captain was going to do for him again. Very nearly, he did.
Sobers was able to declare his innings closed at 391/9, carrying his bat for a peerless 113. ‘The whole episode had knocked the stuffing out of us,’ Colin wrote. They had seen a position of near invincibility melt away from them and now they were in a situation where they could not possibly win yet could conceivably lose. An awkward last session to bat out time and a pitch cracking up – anything could happen.
What happened next was as predictable as rain at Old Trafford. Sobers, as inspired with the new ball as he was with the bat, immediately bowled Boycott, had Colin LBW, both for ducks and England shortly found themselves at 19/4. The creeping alarm in the away dressing room was as palpable as that low, grey cloud approaching earlier that afternoon. Stumps were pulled at 5.30, as per the ground rules, but as expected, Sobers popped his head around the door and said, ‘Well, we’ll just have to claim the extra time tomorrow, Colin.’
Of course he did. Nobody expected otherwise. Colin would have done the same, had the roles been reversed. Incidentally, Colin had been given out incorrectly. He had hit it. But he made no fuss and quietly departed, shaking his head at yet another strange decision by the home umpires.
The next morning was expectedly torrid. England had 75 minutes to hold out, with West Indies needing six wickets. The crowd was in a fever pitch of excitement, though there was no hint of the previous day’s trouble, and the West Indians circled for the kill. Spin was now being employed at both ends, Gibbs with his fizzing off breaks and Sobers with his slow left-arm variety. The score progressed from 38/5 to 51/6 then 61/7. Only Test match cricket produces such nail-biting tension. Has that clock stopped, was all Colin could think, as David Brown strolled out to stem the tide.
‘Garry was bowling his left-arm spinners into the cracks,’ he told me. ‘I couldn’t lay a bat on them. One ball at me, he let go a bouncer. It whistled past my ear! Obviously, he had made a sign to Deryck Murray, the keeper, because he had gone back a few paces. And then he bowled me.’ Back in the dressing room, John Snow, no doubt with a wry comment, stood up, picked up his bat and made his way to the door.
‘Hang on,’ somebody cried. ‘It’s all over!’ Amid all the excitement and the drama, one man alone had kept a cool head and was perfectly aware of the unusual playing conditions agreed the previous day. The 75 minutes had elapsed. The draw had been secured. So Basil D’Oliveira, even though the over had not been completed, tucked his bat under his arm and followed Brown off the pitch. He was right. There had been no stipulation in the agreement about the number of overs to be bowled, merely time, and the 75 minutes had been played.
The umpires dithered, scratched their heads and eventually pulled up the stumps. The West Indians, obviously disappointed, realised the game was up and trooped off. England, perilously placed at 68/8, had escaped with a draw in a match they could easily have lost. But in departing Kingston later that day, their mood was far from buoyant, as you would expect of a team that has just dodged a bullet. They were downcast and not a little cross at having dominated the home side for two Tests and come away empty-handed.
Drama, like Banquo’s ghost, seemed to stalk this England team as they made their way around the Caribbean. Their next port of call was Barbados, where they repaired to their hotel on the west coast, the renowned Sandy Bay Resort, to lick their wounds, or to be more specific, bathe their tear-gassed eyes, with a bit of rest, recuperation, sunbathing and swimming. It was here, several miles from the cricket ground, that the second of three major incidents of the tour took place.
The Titmus Boating Accident was certainly no laughing matter, even if the major protagonist later attempted to laugh it off. Taking a dip in the seductively aquamarine waters of the Caribbean Sea, Fred Titmus swam over to a motorboat idling nearby. He hung on to the side as he engaged the occupants in cheerful conversation before attempting to haul himself over the side and on board. By the greatest of misfortunes and unbeknown to anybody in the party, this boat was of a most unusual design. The propellors were under the hull and to the sides instead of to the rear and, as Titmus grabbed the edge, his legs floated up and under the hull.
‘Suddenly there was a loud bang,’ reported an eyewitness and Titmus, unaware for a second or two what had happened, lifted up his foot and was horrified to see it coursing blood. Colin and team-mate Robin Hobbs helped him ashore where they wrapped the foot in a beach towel and carried him to a car. The dreadful injury was obvious to all bystanders. John Woodcock was one. He later wrote, ‘As I watched him carried from the sea, I saw little chance of him playing again.’ Two of Titmus’s toes were missing and the another two were hanging on by a thread of skin. St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Hospital is nearby and it was there that Titmus was driven with all speed.
Fred Titmus was not a Catholic but the Holy Ghost was by his side that day. As chance would have it, the surgeon on duty at the hospital was a Dr Homer Rogers, a visiting Canadian orthopaedic surgeon who specialised in ice hockey injuries. He took one look at the damaged foot and observed laconically, ‘Oh, we’ll soon have that sorted out.’ Titmus, whenever asked about the accident, always heaped praise upon Dr Rogers for saving his foot. He firmly believed that had he been left in the hands of less experienced practitioners, all of the toes, if not the whole foot, would have been amputated, and that surely would have been the end of his career.
As it was, Rogers told him that he had seen far worse injuries in ice hockey players and all had resumed their playing careers. He amputated the four little toes but left the big toe, vital for balance, intact. And Titmus did play again, the following summer. As Woodcock commented, ‘That he did is a remarkable story of good doctoring, good luck and irrepressible spirit.’ Fred Titmus continued to play a significant part in Middlesex cricket for years to come and, marvellous to relate, he made a return to Test cricket, at the same age as Colin, 41, on the MCC tour to Australia in 1974/75.
Of course, Titmus being Titmus, there were a few amusing stories accompanying the accident. Tom Graveney was deputed to ring the then Mrs Titmus back in England to reassure her of her husband’s well-being and no, it was not necessary for her to fly out to be at his bedside. Titmus’s social arrangements meant that such a mission of mercy could well have had unfortunate consequences.
Jim Parks, who had been sunning himself on another part of the beach and had been unaware of the unfolding drama, came back to the hotel and when apprised of what had happened, jumped into a car and drove straight to the hospital. ‘And there was Fred,’ he said, ‘sitting up in bed with a large grin splitting his face and a cigar in one hand and a brandy in the other!’ And where was Matron? ‘Probably poured him the brandy. You know our Fred.’ Asked by one of the visiting journalists how he was, Titmus quipped, ‘Fine. Only I feel a bit lighter.’
As Colin surveyed the bloody and damaged foot, he would have known in an instant that he had lost the services of his senior spinner and vice-captain for the rest of the tour. And it would not have taken him more than another moment’s reflection to fear for the professional career of his team-mate. As he admitted, he was ‘as close to personal panic as I have ever been in my life’.
His angst was heightened by the knowledge that it was his wife, Penny, who was at the controls of the motorboat at the time of the accident. Although absolutely no blame could possibly have been attached to her – and never was – he would not have been human if he had not felt pangs of guilt mixed with foreboding as he awaited the outcome of Dr Rogers’s expertise in the operating theatre. The news, when it came through, was a relief. The report was as sobering as it was welcome. Titmus had been very lucky, Rogers explained. Had the propeller struck half an inch higher on the foot, he would have had to amputate at the ankle.
Some years later, nine to be precise, I fell into conversation with Fred about the accident. At the time, he was coaching the Surrey team and I was waiting to go in to bat. For some reason I found myself in the Surrey dressing room – the viewing of the playing area was more advantageous at Guildford from that spot, being right behind the bowler’s arm – and I was trying to size up the bowling attack that I was soon to face. The trouble was that the window was quite high up which necessitated standing on a bench on tip-toe. Can’t be too comfortable for you, Fred, being short of a toe or two. He laughed. ‘Do you know how much compensation I got for that accident?’ he demanded. I confessed I did not. ‘Ninety fackin’ quid! Didn’t even pay me bar bill.’
As if the gods had decreed that was enough excitement for the time being, the ensuing Test match in Bridgetown was a dull affair, a bore draw as it is known in the business. The wicket was slow and lifeless and batsmen on both sides cashed in. When the batting side is so much in the ascendency, nothing much happens apart from the steady accumulation of runs and interest slowly wanes.
‘Edrich and Boycott for us and Lloyd for them batted superbly,’ Colin wrote, ‘and Snow, on an unhelpful surface, showed what a fine bowler he was turning into by taking 5-86 off 35 overs.’ Other than that, there was very little to say except that Colin’s misgivings appeared to be materialising; West Indies were indeed improving and the balance of power had shifted.
Tom Graveney did provide me with one observation about this forgettable encounter. It concerned Clive Lloyd, who had now completed his second century in his first three Tests. ‘Mighty fine player, Clive. And, my God, didn’t he hit the ball hard.’ Then he started to chuckle. ‘We reckoned he gave away a dozen runs every innings.’ What, by not running singles? ‘No, when he was fielding, he could never resist shying at the stumps and he was so quick nobody had time to back up and the ball would fly away for four overthrows.’
When West Indies eventually declared their first innings of the fourth Test in Trinidad at 526/7, those misgivings of Colin’s had become real fears. It was crucial in order to save the match and keep the series alive that England should reach something approaching parity when they batted. Thankfully, the captain was in one of those moods when he made batting look so effortless and every stroke is a joy. Jim Parks, watching on as a spectator, couldn’t see how anybody would get him out. Nobody did.
Well, none of the West Indian players anyway. It was one of the umpires who did for him, giving him out caught behind for 148. It was, according to Wisden, ‘a highly dubious decision’. Colin, as usual and significantly, I believe, in view of the muted controversy of ‘walking’ that forever seemed to swirl around his playing career, makes no mention of being the victim yet again of an umpiring mistake. He took the rough with the smooth, always uncomplainingly. Ironically, this injustice was to change the course of the match, and the series, though that was not apparent at the time.
Although Colin, together with Knott (69*), had ensured that England saved the follow-on and therefore presumably putting themselves out of danger of defeat, the possibility of victory seemed non-existent. Already, Colin was mentally preparing himself for the scenario of going into the final Test with the series locked at 0-0. This was dispiriting. England, he felt, had played the better cricket but now they were tiring and West Indies were getting stronger. All that was to be done was to hold on, keep their nerve and hope that the fates were kind to them in Guyana, in a match that was increasingly likely to be a winner-takes-all occasion. Then Sobers took a gamble.
To this day, arguments rage about Sobers’s declaration. It was the third dramatic incident that occurred off-field on this tour, the others being the riot and the boating accident. I can just about get away with calling a declaration ‘off-field’ because the decision is usually taken in the dressing room, as it was on this occasion. West Indies were pootling along in their second innings on the final day of the match. They were 92/2 and the game was meandering towards a draw. Suddenly, Sobers appeared on the players’ balcony and signalled to the two not-out batsmen, Kanhai and Carew, to come in. He was declaring. The decision astonished everybody.
Colin was anxious as they walked off the field; what was Sobers up to? The experienced pros, as well as the pressmen, were swiftly doing their sums. Ken Barrington, none more experienced than he, immediately came up with the correct bit of mental arithmetic; 215 to win in 165 minutes. ‘That’s 78 an hour, Skip,’ he informed his captain.
What was Sobers up to? What surprise had he hidden up his sleeve? Why declare now? Why declare at all? All these thoughts were swirling around Colin’s mind as batsmen padded up and discussion about how to respond seethed all around. Declarations are a notice of intent. Presumably Sobers thought he could win. But so could England. The game, dying on its feet, had suddenly been thrown wide open.
Barrington was convinced that Sobers had got his sums wrong and that this target was eminently achievable. Colin, naturally more cautious, was not so sure. The pitch was taking spin. To underline this, he only had to point to the first innings figures of Butcher’s (5-34) – and he was only a part-time leg-spinner. Also in their ranks, they had three genuine spin bowlers, Gibbs, Rodriguez and Sobers himself, in his slow style. ‘He was convinced we would put up the shutters from the start,’ Colin wrote of his adversary’s decision, ‘and he would torment us with four spinners wheeling away at 20 overs an hour.’
Well, there was nothing for it but to see how things went. If quick wickets were lost, they could shut up shop and play out time. If they got off to a good start, then they should go for the runs. Simple as that. And that is precisely what they did.
Later, after victory had been secured, Colin pondered the reason for Sobers’s gamble. Several theories came to mind. First, Garry Sobers always was – still is – an inveterate gambler and this throwing down of the gauntlet, to break the stalemate, appealed to his risk-taking temperament. Secondly, he firmly believed that his two leg-spinners, Rodriguez and Butcher, would prey upon England’s ‘historic insecurities against this type of bowling’. Thirdly, he was fed up with England’s slow over rate, turgid scoring and perceived negative tactics. Fourthly, he could not stomach another draw.
He later explained his reason thus, ‘I made that declaration for cricket. If I had not done so, the game would have died. This way, the West Indies could have won. England had never scored at 40 an hour during the tour and I did not expect them to do so then.’
Fine words. Fine sentiments. But he had fatally miscalculated. And for this he was slated. Port of Spain for him became known as Port of Pain and he never lived it down. Colin was kinder. He said this of his opposite number, ‘In the face of fierce criticism, it was typical of him, true sportsman that he was, that he remained so generous in defeat.’
It was fitting that Colin, whose stature as an England captain was growing by the match, should lead his team home to victory. He said that it was important they did not lose early wickets. They did not. Edrich and Boycott put together an opening stand of 55 and the chase was on. Colin joined Boycott and by the time he was out for a masterful 71, the game was practically theirs. It still required some judicious batting from Boycott to reach the required 38 runs, with three minutes to spare.
Man of the match? Captain Cowdrey with a total of 219 runs. Not that they had such awards in those days. The cynical Trinidadian crowd might have awarded it to the home captain for declaring. Discourteously, Colin was booed as he came off the pitch. ‘His offence was to have played two superb innings and to have led England much more skilfully than Sobers led the West Indies,’ noted Wisden, tartly.
Two points need to be made about this extraordinary game before we move on to the denouement in Guyana. First, why was Colin’s controversial dismissal in the first innings so crucial for eventual victory? Quite simply, had he batted and batted, as he gave every indication of so doing, England would have reached, if not passed, the West Indies total, there would have been no time for West Indies to make a score and Sobers would not have been in any position to declare and set a target. Secondly, to modern readers a target of 215 in 53 overs (which was what it worked out) seems straightforward, easy even. All I can say is that it was different then. Limited-overs cricket, and attendant run chases, was in its infancy. Nobody should underestimate the tension of the climactic stages of a dramatic Test match in the Caribbean.
Strictly speaking, Guyana is not in the Caribbean, being part of the South American mainland, but it does of course share many cultural and historical connections with the region. One distinction its cricket ground does not share with the rest of the Caribbean, nor indeed with any other major cricket ground in the world, is that Bourda is below sea level. No surprise therefore that the pitch is usually low and slow and frequently flooded. And no surprise either, that Colin and his selection panel decided to dispense with their usual three-pronged pace attack in favour of playing two spinners.
I was reminded of this fact by David Brown during our conversation. Which of the three pacemen did Colin leave out? That was a disingenuous and slightly naughty question. I already knew the answer. ‘Me,’ he answered ruefully. How did you feel about that? He gave me an old-fashioned look. ‘What do you think? Not terribly impressed. And I told him so.’ Did that affect in any way your relationship with him? He relaxed into the more familiar Brown amiability. ‘Not at all. He was the captain. He had to make these decisions. He explained why and I respected him for it. Even if I disagreed. It’s what you do, isn’t it, when you’re part of a team.’
Perhaps so. But I have known players who have not been so sanguine when dropped by their captain. One such was Ken Higgs, the Lancashire seamer. It was Chris Cowdrey who told me the story. After retiring from county cricket, Higgs was persuaded to renew his career with Leicestershire. Whenever Kent played Leicestershire and Chris went out to face Higgs, he was immediately greeted by a vicious bouncer. ‘That’s because your old man dropped me,’ would be the snarled accompaniment. ‘It happened every time,’ said Chris, ‘so much so that I had no option but to laugh. He never forgave Dad for dropping him.’ So, not all fast bowlers are as forgiving as Brown.
With Titmus having gone home and Robin Hobbs, the other spinner in the party, deemed too inexperienced for Test match duty, the veteran Tony Lock, at the time playing for Western Australia, had been summoned to join the side. He, with Pat Pocock, would form England’s spin attack. Lock had made his England debut in 1952 and he and Colin went back a long way. Indeed, the older members of the side would recall that it was Colin who caught Lock’s solitary wicket at Old Trafford while Laker did for the other 19 Australians. Because of his fierce competitive streak and his mean bowling, Colin greatly admired Lock and that is the reason he believed that Lock was the right man for this particular task. Little did he anticipate that at the end of this taut, tense thriller of a Test match, it would be Lock’s batting, not his bowling, for which he would be eternally grateful. A gratitude that deepened with Lock’s help and encouragement when Colin was called out to Perth on that 1974/75 tour of Australia.
West Indies’ first innings was all about Sobers and Kanhai; they made 152 and 150 respectively. It was just as well the rest of their side were not in a greedy mood for the total might have been colossal rather than the manageable 414. Snow bowled magnificently on an unhelpful track to take 4-82 and Lock, though taking only a couple of wickets, was as miserly as ever. Yet again, England relied on Boycott (116) and Cowdrey (59) in their response before a collapse threatened to derail them. 259-8 is a perilous position. Had they been forced to follow on, the game would surely have been up, especially as the match was scheduled – unusually – to be played over six days. Two guardian angels, Lock and Pocock, the most unlikely saviours of a longish tail (Snow was batting at number eight!), put on 109, Tony Lock smiting the ball with uncommon belligerence to notch up 89, his highest first-class, let alone Test, score. ‘The cost of his air fare from Perth was beginning to look like a steal,’ Tom Graveney drolly observed.
Snow versus Sobers... again. Or that is how it seemed. John Snow was emerging as England’s foremost fast bowler and his battles with Sobers, unarguably the greatest cricketer ever to have laced on boots, were becoming the stuff of legend. Snow did not get him out but he did snaffle six other West Indians. His match figures of 10-142 underlined his growing stature and his value to this team. Sobers was simply magnificent. He batted chancelessly and it was only lack of partners that prevented him scoring his second hundred of the match. ‘Sobers’s 95* out of a total of 264 was a great innings,’ Wisden reported simply.
‘I always loved it when Garry got a big score,’ Graveney told me. Why, Tom? Were you in awe of his strokeplay? ‘Not ’arf. But that’s not the reason. If he batted a long time, he didn’t want to do much bowling.’ But it worked the other way too. If he didn’t bat for long, he would want to do a lot of bowling. ‘Ah, but you see, Andy, I was a batsman.’ He chuckled long and hard over that one.
England started the last day, the sixth, needing 330 to win. Whether that was a realistic target, whether they approached the final innings minded to seek the victory or to see out the draw, and thus claim the rubber, soon became no more than an academic question. Their score of 41/5 was calamitous.
All the hard work, all the good cricket played, all the best-laid plans lay crumpled in the dust. Lance Gibbs was spinning a deadly web, West Indian fielders were swarming around the bat and the West Indian umpires’ fingers were twitching. Colin alone stood firm, a captain intent on remaining on the bridge even as the waters came lapping around his feet. His fellow Kentish man, Alan Knott, remained faithfully at his side and together they blocked and blocked. After tea, improbably, they were still there. Eventually, the captain’s long vigil came to an end, LBW to Gibbs for 82. There were still 70 minutes for Knott and the tail to hang on. Those 70 minutes, as Colin pointed out in his notes, were ‘the longest and most excruciating of my life’.
Brown, a spectator in the dressing room but biting his nails as much as anyone, chortled at the memory. ‘Let no one say that Colin was a soft touch. Off the field, he was an utter gent; on the field, he was no pushover, I can tell you. He employed all the tricks of the trade to waste time. I can’t remember how many times he sent out the 12th man to change Knotty’s gloves.’ In his own, inimitable style, Knott remained obdurate while wickets steadily fell at the other end. As Wisden reported, ‘Knott was well nigh as assured as Cowdrey and no less courageous.’
It was a race between the clock and the West Indian bowlers. I say a race. In the England dressing room, it felt more like a slow march. Indignation knew no bounds as Pocock was given out caught, clearly off a bump ball. Jeff Jones (first-class batting average of 3.97), last man in, slowly trudged to the wicket. Last over of the day, of the match, of the series. Six balls to survive for England glory. Or six balls for West Indies to snatch victory and tie up the rubber. ‘A capacity crowd,’ wrote Colin, ‘will never forget the last over bowled by Lance Gibbs to Jeff Jones with every West Indian fielder sitting on his bat.’ How would Colin have known that? According to Brown, Colin spent that last over hiding in the toilet.
As he returned home, together with his victorious team, Colin must have reflected that life doesn’t get much better than this. He had only to read the Wisden report of the tour, penned by E.M. Wellings, to appreciate how high, both as player and captain, his reputation now stood. ‘I am quite certain,’ went the end-of-term report, ‘that no other captain could have led the side so well and performed the numerous duties of captaincy so flawlessly in the exacting circumstances of this tour... Now, for the first time, he had his own command and he assumed it with authority, growing rapidly in stature as a leader and becoming more and more assertive as a cricketer.’
The ‘exacting circumstances’ to which Wellings refers is a hint not so much at the unruly crowds and of course the riot but more at the standard of umpiring, which was poor, sometimes downright biased. In fact, he went so far as to hazard a guess that Cowdrey’s team had to be ‘30 per cent better to come out on top’. Substandard umpiring was always a bugbear of England teams abroad. It wasn’t surprising really when you take into account that only in England was the game professional, so you would expect the officiating to be proportionately better supervised. Of course it is different now, with a fully trained and well-paid cadre of neutral umpires circling the globe. Back then, ‘home umpires’ or ‘whingeing Poms’, depending on which side of the fence you sat, was the familiar soundtrack to MCC tours.
It was undoubtedly a happy team, both Graveney and Brown were keen to emphasise, despite the unpleasant incidents and considerable provocations. They played good cricket, often in the most testing of circumstances and above all, they kept their nerve at crucial junctures. Wellings believed they were ‘well-controlled’; in other words, there was never any doubt who was in charge. Graveney was convinced this was because, ‘Colin, at long last, was captain of his own ship.’ The team was thus cast in his own image: urbane, courteous, well mannered but patient, tenacious and tough as teak when battle commenced.
Mind you, as he pointed out in his notes, he was blessed with some pretty good players. ‘Snow, Brown and Jones were as potent a fast-bowling attack as any in the world, considerably faster and more hostile than the West Indies.’ That says something. More potent than Hall, Griffith and Sobers? Yes, it seemed he had been right all along. Hall and Griffith had seen their better days. ‘Snow was our match-winner,’ he continued. ‘He took 27 wickets in only four Tests and was a handful for even their best batsmen.’ Furthermore, he reckoned that Boycott and Edrich were developing into England’s finest opening pair of batsmen since the war. ‘Boycott in particular emerged as a superb player.’
No doubt, Geoffrey would agree with that sentiment. ‘Above all,’ Colin concluded, ‘I needed a number of players to play above themselves, especially when the chips are down, and that happened on my tour. Alan Knott, the find of the party, was an excellent case in point.’ Note the use of the possessive pronoun my. Colin really did feel this was his team. The Five Year Plan had got off to a good start.
Perhaps the last word on England’s triumphant adventure in the Caribbean ought to be left to The Times’s cricket correspondent, John Woodcock. ‘Yes, it was a happy tour, the unfortunate accident to Titmus notwithstanding. But there, I find that the happiness or unhappiness of a touring party is usually in direct proportion to whether they are winning or not.’
Back home, as a signal of Colin’s authority over England cricket at this time, he was appointed captain for the whole of the forthcoming Ashes series that summer before a ball had been bowled. As it happened, cricket lovers had to wait a long time for that first ball to be bowled; the weather was miserable, the traditional pipe opener at Worcester was completely washed out and rain severely curtailed the other matches of the tourists’ preparation. The weather did not improve; it was a wet summer and none of the Tests escaped delay and interruption. In all, it was calculated that the Australians lost over 100 hours of cricket during their tour. It was the soggiest and most disappointing Ashes series that many, including me, could remember. The Five Year Plan, you might say, got a soaking.
There’s no such thing as a weak Australian side. Who first mooted that is unrecorded but countless England captains, down the ages, have repeated the mantra. That said, Bill Lawry’s team that visited these shores in 1968 neither sent shivers down the spine nor stirred the blood. England had the stronger side, they were playing at home and they had just triumphed in the West Indies.
They should have reclaimed the Ashes but did not. They were ambushed in the first Test and thereafter Lawry and his men played a stubborn brand of cricket, intent on avoiding defeat, and England, partly to do with bad luck with the weather, but more to do with their failing to capitalise on opportunities when they arose, seemed powerless to do much about it. There was that thrilling finale to the series at The Oval, which England won, but that only papered over the cracks of a disappointing campaign. A decade is a long time without the urn.
After the frustrations of the second Test at Lord’s, which England would surely have won had it not been for the rain, a hugely satisfying and emotional milestone beckoned Colin in the third at Edgbaston. Nobody had ever played 100 Tests. Colin was about to reach that landmark. He had already passed the record of 91, set by his Kent team-mate, Godfrey Evans, and to say he was anxious was an understatement.
Never mind the record, this was a game England had to win and once again, rain decided to play the spoilsport. Day one was washed out. On day two, having won the toss and coming in when the score was 80, Colin produced another of those innings when he seemed to be on a different playing field to everyone else. On 58, he pulled up lame, clutching his hamstring. Wild horses would not have dragged him off, however. Geoff Boycott, the dismissed batsman, had to re-don his pads and act as a runner, one of the very few occasions that team-mates and opponents could ever remember him running somebody else’s runs. When he reached 60, Colin passed Wally Hammond’s record of 7,000 Test runs. Could he mark his 100th Test with a century?
Despite his handicap, he was timing the ball as sweetly as ever. There seemed no earthly reason why his supporters should not hope. Alas, stumps were pulled with Colin on 95 not out. Resuming in considerable discomfort the next morning, he managed to eke out the remaining five runs to record his 21st Test hundred, one of his very best. It came at a price though. He took no further part in the match, Tom Graveney deputised as captain and steady rain from 12.30pm on the final day put an end to any hopes England had had of forcing the win. There was no chance that Colin would recover in time for the fourth Test, another disappointing draw, which ensured that Australia kept hold of the Ashes.
‘Nothing happened in Acts One, Two, Three and Four. Then suddenly in Act Five, the stage was littered with corpses.’ So commented a pupil of mine after a trip to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford. You might be forgiven for believing that is a fair summation of the English cricket season of 1968. All the drama, excitement and bloodletting were saved up for the fifth Test and its immediate aftermath. And when the curtain finally dropped, reputations, if not bodies, were lying, broken, all over the place.
It all started with a phone call. Graveney gave me the inside story. Basil D’Oliveira, apart from being able to count to 75, had not exactly covered himself in glory in the West Indies and had been dropped from the team following England’s defeat in the first Test. This was strange as he had top-scored with 87 not out in England’s second innings but there you are...it was a summer of strange selection decisions.
Following the draw – and the loss of the Ashes – in the fourth Test (remember, Colin had been unfit and Graveney had led the side in his absence), Graveney received a call from his captain. ’Roger Prideaux is ill,’ Colin told him, ‘and we need a replacement. How is Basil playing?’ Graveney and D’Oliveira were team-mates at Worcestershire. ‘Back to his best,’ Graveney replied unhesitatingly. He admitted to me that this was not strictly true; D’Oliveira had been struggling for runs but there had been signs very recently that he was rediscovering a semblance of his old form. Besides, Graveney believed in his friend’s ability and mental toughness and never doubted his calibre as a Test match player. ‘Fine,’ said Colin. ‘We’ll stick him in.’ It was a fateful decision, one that was to reverberate around the cricketing world.
I cannot imagine that Colin’s choice of replacement for Prideaux did not send a frisson of alarm through the committee rooms at Lord’s. Basil D’Oliveira was a Cape Coloured and being barred by the apartheid laws of South Africa from playing first-class cricket in his own country, he had forsaken his homeland to try his luck in England. That he had made it to the England Test team was a story in itself, a triumph of talent and tenacity over prejudice and bigotry. Now, Colin Cowdrey was no political ingénue.
His later career gives the lie to any suggestion that he was naïvely unaware of the possible ramifications of his decision to pick D’Oliveira. He knew as well as anyone that the scheduled MCC tour that winter was to South Africa and as a man of colour, D’Oliveira would not be welcome in his home country. This needs to be kept in mind as the ‘D’Oliveira Affair’, as it was called, unfolded and Colin’s role in subsequent events came under the closest scrutiny.
Back to the game. On purely cricketing terms, there was an unarguable case for recalling D’Oliveira and so it was proved when he played one of the great Test innings of modern times. Consider the context as he strolled – Basil always strolled – out to the middle on the first day of The Oval Test. The Ashes may have been lost but England could still square the series; they were playing for pride and besides, their opponents were Australia.
England were in trouble, having lost Milburn, Dexter and Cowdrey cheaply. Edrich and Graveney stemmed the tide but when Graveney went, there was still much work to be done. D’Oliveira had just come back into the side and was playing for his place. Furthermore, there was a tour of South Africa in the offing and it had been his dream to return to the country of his birth, one that had branded him a second-class citizen and denied him any opportunity of representing them, now wearing the cap of his adopted country. What a beacon of hope he could provide in that bitterly divided land. And Alan Connolly, a vastly under-rated bowler, especially in English conditions, was bowling seriously well.
Spread over two days, an hour on that first evening and the following morning, he scored 158. Together with Edrich, who made 164, he held the middle of the innings together. The total of 494 had given them a fighting chance. ‘D’Oliveira,’ Wisden reported, ‘hooked the short ball superbly and next day drove magnificently.’ Graveney was equally fulsome. ‘It was an absolutely magnificent innings,’ he told me. ‘He had such powerful forearms and he struck the ball so cleanly that it would rocket to the boundary. He hooked and drove so commandingly.’
Colin wrote, with some insight, that he ‘batted as if this was a mission utterly divorced from a Test match’. Charlie Elliott, the umpire, put it another way. When D’Oliveira had scored his hundred, he muttered to him out of the corner of his mouth as play resumed, ‘You’ve put the cat among the pigeons.’ When he was out and had returned to the sanctuary of the dressing room, D’Oliveira sat quietly for a while, without removing his pads, seemingly oblivious to the congratulations of his team-mates, and gave that characteristic little blow out from the cheeks. He must have thought his place on the tour was secure.
Australia averted the follow-on, owing solely to a typically obdurate 135 from their captain, Bill Lawry. In search of quick runs, in order to set a total and give themselves time to bowl Australia out, England threw bat at ball, mustering 181. Australia had to score 352 to win, highly improbable given that the Ashes were already secured and all Australia needed to do was bat out time for the draw. For England, the prize was victory and the task was to take ten wickets.
‘Easy-peasy,’ Graveney grinned at me. ‘We had ’em on the ropes at 85/5 when we went in for lunch.’ At which point, a sudden and violent thunderstorm struck south London. In no time at all, the playing area was flooded and once again, in this sodden summer, it seemed that the weather was going to thwart England. When the deluge had ceased, Colin donned his blazer and, alone, went out to inspect the wicket. ‘Inspect the wicket!’ Graveney chuckled at the memory, ‘You couldn’t see the wicket. The square was under water. All the Aussies were laughing and joking in their dressing room. They were convinced that was it for the day. And quite frankly, so did we.’
But not Colin. Restlessly, he paced about, urging the willing groundstaff to ever more endeavour in their mopping-up efforts. In this, they were joined by a volunteer force of spectators. Graveney was convulsed with laughter at the memory. ‘Surrey members were walking around spearing the ground with the tip of their umbrellas to drain the water away. Wouldn’t be allowed today.’
At 4.45pm, the umpires deemed the conditions fit to play. In a nutshell, that meant England had 75 minutes (that number again) to take five wickets and save the series. What the Australians thought of this surprising turn of events can be scarcely imagined.
Or could it? By sheer coincidence, I was put in touch with one of the not-out batsmen who had to buckle on his pads and renew battle with the Englishmen. John Inverarity had stood firm throughout the morning while wickets fell around him. He was determined to carry his bat and see it through to the end and felt confident he could. He had given every indication of relaxed permanence and England knew that to have any chance of squeezing home, they had to get rid of him. He played in only six Tests – and this was his finest hour, incidentally – but he had a long and distinguished career playing for Western Australia. Later, he was chairman of selectors for Cricket Australia. His profession was teaching and for a time he took up a post at Tonbridge School, hence his connection with Colin Cowdrey.
What did your lads think of the crowd helping to mop up the water? ‘Mop it up! They were down on their hands and knees drinking it.’ Was it fit to play when you started? He was surprisingly sanguine about this. ‘Well, we played. And nobody died. So it must have been fit. Anyway, when the umps say time to go, boys, out there you go, don’t you?’ He did say that he swapped his usual batting boots for his fielding boots with longer spikes because he felt he was less likely to slip when batting. ‘I won’t say it was wet but the water did come over our boots walking out there.’
In other words, it was a moot point whether play should have recommenced. Here, I disagree with myself, if you see what I mean. When I was playing, I was always of the opinion that conditions should be, if not perfect, then adequate enough to perform at your best. Now that I no longer play, I believe that players are too precious about it all. They are paid to entertain and this they cannot do sitting in the pavilion. So I guess Inverarity had come to the same conclusion. It was not in the Australians’ best interests to restart; they had nothing to gain and all to lose. But the umpires took a different view, so out they went.
England of course couldn’t wait to get cracking. They knew the batsmen would not fancy facing Underwood on a wet pitch, even if they only had 75 minutes to survive. The problem was that, for a while, the pitch was too wet. ‘It was a fifth-day pitch,’ Inverarity reminded me, ‘and in actual fact it was more difficult facing Deadly in the morning before the storm, when the pitch was dry and dusty. So, although it was turning, it turned slowly.’
For a while, not a lot happened. Colin fretted and changed his bowling around, searching for a breakthrough. It was provided by D’Oliveira, a noted partnership breaker. ‘Basil nipped one back to Jarman,’ said Inverarity, ‘and it just clipped the bail as it went through.’ Immediately, Colin whipped off D’Oliveira and replaced him at the Pavilion End with Underwood. The pitch had now started to dry out and he was at last able to gain some real purchase as he fired the ball in. The Australians collapsed spectacularly and he took four wickets in 27 balls for only six runs. There is that famous photograph of the last ball of the match with poor old Inverarity, who had defied England for so long, padding up to Underwood and the whole of the England side in shot, gathered around the bat, appealing in unison for LBW. The umpire’s finger is pointing to the sky.
Was it out? Inverarity laughed. ‘Ask Charlie Elliott.’ But he’s dead. ‘Look in the scorebook, then.’ Taking pity on me, he finally admitted, yes, it was out.
How do you think Colin captained that day? Well, not just that day, but whenever you played against him? ‘He was a vastly experienced player and he knew the game, and the participants, backwards. So he usually arrived at the right decisions. And Colin was Colin. You know, a thoroughly agreeable bloke and people followed him because they were fond of him. Occasionally, I felt he dithered a bit and wanted everybody’s opinion before making up his mind. He wasn’t an inspirational leader, an up and at ’em sort of captain, but he knew his way around the block and nobody would want to rock the boat and take him on. He was like that. He got people to do things for him because he was so damn nice!’
Rather than dwell on Australia’s defeat, Inverarity was keen to take me back a few years, to the 1954/55 series. ‘I was ten at the time,’ he said. ‘My dad, who played for Western Australia, was invited, together with my mum, to a reception to meet the MCC players. When he came back home, he told me that he had been speaking to a delightful young chap by the name of Colin Cowdrey.’
He then fast-forwarded to the current tour, 1968 in England. ‘It was my first tour. One Sunday, I was invited down to his house in Limpsfield where we played tennis and pool and chatted a lot. Both Paul Sheahan and I were schoolmasters and if there’s one thing that Colin was interested in, other than cricket, it was schools and education. I met him again when he was on the 1970/71 tour and when I was over with the 1972 team, we met up again. He knew I was interested in a teaching post, so he arranged a meeting for me with David Kemp, who was, as you know, an influential figure at Colin’s old school, Tonbridge. As a result, I was offered, and accepted, a temporary post there to teach maths. That was 1976/77. That was what he did. He knew so many people and he liked to put individuals in touch with each other. He was a fixer.’
Classic networking, you could call it. ‘Yes, but not for him but for others around him.’ On account of this typical piece of Cowdrey contact-making, John Inverarity and his family became close, personal friends. ‘When we arrived in England, he met us at the airport and drove us down to our temporary home. He loaned us a car and had us round for Christmas. Jeremy, his son, used to babysit for us!’ That was very brave of you and your wife. He laughed. ‘Ah, I see you know Jeremy. Well, the whole family were very kind to me, Jane and the girls and we never forgot it. We remained close and saw each other whenever I was in England or he was in Australia. I was so sad when he died.’
He still would not let me go without another illustrative story about Colin. ‘It was on that same tour of 1968. We were playing Kent at Canterbury. Colin was playing; he was captain. And here was this great batsman, on an easy pitch, which didn’t seem to be giving anybody else any trouble at all, scratching around at the crease as if he was an absolute novice. Strange that. There were days when he could look a world-beater and there were other days when it looked as if he didn’t know which end of a bat to hold.’ Ah yes, the puzzle that was Colin Cowdrey. I was becoming quite familiar with the enigma.
No more so was that enigma in evidence than in the days and weeks that followed England’s win at The Oval. The touring party for South Africa had to be picked, and quickly; public announcement of the team was to be made on the following day. Colin had already been named as captain, so that very evening he jumped into his Jaguar and crossed the Thames to meet the other selectors at Lord’s. The selection panel, in addition to Colin, comprised: Peter May; Don Kenyon; Alec Bedser; with Doug Insole in the chair. Also present were senior figures at MCC: Arthur Gilligan (president); Gubby Allen (treasurer); Billy Griffith (secretary); and Donald Carr (assistant secretary). Also in attendance was the nominated tour manager, Les Ames. I make no comment on the composition of the committee but I do note the number – ten. A lot of opinions, you might say.
According to Colin, discussions went on well into the night. It would not have needed a fly on the wall to tell us what took them so long. When the touring party was announced the next day, D’Oliveira’s name was not on the list of 16. Unsurprisingly, all hell broke loose. Or, as Colin was fond of exclaiming in his diaries, the balloon went up. Nobody, pressmen, pundits, fans, politicians, columnists, correspondents, soapbox orators, even the man on the Clapham omnibus, could believe that D’Oliveira’s omission had not been politically motivated.
MCC, so it was claimed, had been advised by their counterparts in the South African Cricket Association that their government would not welcome D’Oliveira back into their country as an official member of England’s Test team. So D’Oliveira had been sacrificed in order to maintain cricketing contacts between the two countries.
The selectors, including the captain, were not unprepared for this and had their defence to hand. Categorically no, it was asserted, they had not, at any stage, been subjected to political pressure; the team had been picked on cricketing grounds only. Then why had D’Oliveira, who had, incidentally, just scored 158 in a Test match, not been included among the top seven or eight batsmen in England? That can be explained by the fact that the balance of the side demanded a bowling all-rounder, such as Tom Cartwright, who had been picked, rather than a batting all-rounder, as D’Oliveira was, who had not been picked. It was a shame but there we are. Selection is a tricky business and sometimes, unpopular decisions have to be made.
‘I think we have got rather better than him in the side,’ said Doug Insole, rather insensitively. ‘Anyone who would swallow that,’ thundered The Guardian’s editorial, ‘would believe that the moon was a currant bun.’ Rather ominously, the Rev. David Sheppard weighed in with the comment, ‘The MCC have made a dreadful mistake.’ Tom Graveney, D’Oliveira’s great friend and team-mate, was incandescent with rage and his anger had scarcely abated as he talked about it many years later when I was writing his biography. ‘To get 158 and then get dropped? Nonsense. It was political.’
To this day argument over the affair rages. First, let us consider whether it is at all possible to construct a feasible scenario where D’Oliveira could have been left out on purely cricketing grounds. Yes, it is true that Cartwright was in a class of his own as a medium-pacer. D’Oliveira was no more than an occasional bowler, a partnership-breaker. His strong suit was obviously his batting. The batsmen chosen ahead of him were Cowdrey, Graveney, Boycott, Edrich, Barrington, Prideaux and Fletcher. No Dexter; he had declined to tour. All of those players had distinguished Test careers, with the exception of Prideaux. Fletcher was inexperienced but it was not unusual to blood a youngster on tour. After all, Colin had been taken to Australia before he had even scored a hundred for Kent. Prideaux only played two more Tests after his debut that summer against Australia, but he had not been dropped. He had been ill, so it would not have been unreasonable to restore him. However, the fact that D’Oliveira had just scored 158 was inescapable and in cricket, as in all team games, it is always a case of possession is nine-tenths of the law. He was the man in situ and the logic for his inclusion was surely watertight.
There was however a hidden subtext here, and one that had nothing to do with politics. D’Oliveira’s talent was undeniable. His story, his background, his tenacity in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles was the stuff of folklore and he was rightly lauded for it. Furthermore he was a thoroughly decent and honourable man, greatly loved by friend and foe alike. But he had a weakness, one that had manifested itself on Colin’s tour of the West Indies earlier that year. ‘You see, he was a man of colour, playing for the Mother Country,’ Jim Parks said to me, ‘and as such, he was feted wherever he went. Everybody would buy him a drink, and Bas being Bas, he couldn’t say no. That was his trouble really.’
Graveney went even further, half sad, half amused by his friend’s antics. ‘Kanhai got him on the rum and coke. And once he started... You know, before Bas came to England, he never drank. He had this weakness. He couldn’t handle it. And of course it got the better of him.’ Indeed it did. Basil, with a few drinks inside him, was impossible to handle. Colin was perfectly aware of this, though he was too discreet to make known his private reservations. It is possible that the selectors felt that this was a risk not worth taking. South African hospitality was – still is – legendary.
The political argument, that pressure to omit D’Oliveira was exerted from above, is more difficult to refute. The British government MCC, cricket boards around the world, informed observers, were all aware that a train crash was in the offing. If this controversy wasn’t going to highlight the growing moral repugnance of sporting contacts with apartheid South Africa, then something would. It was as plain as a pikestaff. Cricketers, and their administrators, were generally a conservative bunch; most, if pressed, would have deplored the mixing of cricket and politics and would have preferred to maintain playing links between the two countries, even if the South African regime and its policies left a nasty taste in the mouth.
Let us continue to play them, thus keeping open channels of communication, so that influence can be brought to bear and change effected. We can’t possibly deny the cricketing public the opportunity of seeing our chaps take on a young, emerging, exciting Springbok side including Peter and Graeme Pollock, Eddie Barlow, Mike Procter, Barry Richards, Lee Irvine and others, can we? That would have been the thinking, I guess, of MCC and I’m sure Colin, by nature a fixer and conciliator, would have been sympathetic to that view.
The selection panel could be criticised for wearing blinkers – after all, apartheid had been sustained for years by passivity from governments worldwide – and the imputation of moral cowardice is difficult to ignore. But put yourselves in their position. Knowingly to cut ties irrevocably with one of the Test-playing powerhouses is a heavy burden to bear.
Without exception, the selectors denied that they had been subjected to pressure, of any kind, from any quarter. I’m sure they were being honest in this. However, saying that no pressure was exerted is not the same thing as saying that no pressure existed. Pressure was all around. It is perfectly feasible that they were subconsciously affected by the ramifications of their decision-making. Alas, all those who were in that committee room at Lord’s are now dead, with the exception of Doug Insole. He has never wavered from the official line, that they omitted D’Oliveira on purely cricketing grounds, and it seems futile to pursue him further. He’s in his 90s now and must be sick of being asked to defend himself.
There have been dark mutterings about the minutes of the meeting having mysteriously disappeared but even if Sherlock agreed to look for them, I would remain sceptical of the point of the exercise. I have taken minutes at many a meeting and the written account I subsequently produced often bore little resemblance to what actually took place; either I could not exactly remember or I had unconsciously (all right, sometimes quite consciously) slanted it the way I wanted it to read. The point is, nobody read them and nobody cared.
MCC was not a government department, it did not have Hansard stenographers noting down every word, every interjection, every cough in every meeting. It was a private club and I bet a pound to a penny that the minutes, if they exist, would reveal nothing startling. I think we just have to accept Colin’s version of what occurred. For better or worse, that is what they decided. Whether it was the right call is another matter altogether.
Just when the storm was at its height and MCC felt that things could not get any worse, they did. About a fortnight later, Tom Cartwright, about whose fitness there had been some doubt, withdrew from the party; a stubborn shoulder injury had not healed enough for him to risk undertaking a long and arduous tour. To Colin, the response was straightforward. D’Oliveira, the unnamed first reserve, should take his place. ‘Fine,’ you can imagine him saying to his fellow selectors, as he said to Graveney, ‘We’ll stick him in.’
It may have appeared straightforward to him but to many observers, it was anything but. If the selectors had ignored D’Oliveira in the first instance because he was not regarded as a front-line bowler, why had they replaced a front-line bowler with a front-line batsman who only bowled occasionally? It didn’t make sense. But there was no other medium-pacer of Cartwright’s stature, Colin countered. Be that as it may, and few were convinced, the whole affair then took on a discord that expanded way beyond the confines of the game of cricket.
If anybody had any doubts about how widely it spread, then a speech given by the South African prime minister, B.J. Vorster, in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State, the very heartland of Afrikanerdom, provided a nasty reality check. In it, he railed against what he saw as the cricket authorities in England capitulating to anti-apartheid agitation and D’Oliveira’s belated selection had given force to his words, ‘We are not prepared to receive a team thrust upon us by people whose interests are not the game but to gain political objectives which they do not attempt to hide.’ Hmm, black pots and kettles come to mind.
He did not, there and then, call off the tour, being mindful of South Africa’s delicate relations with other world bodies of sport, most notably rugby, but he had left MCC precious little wriggle room. In short, he was stating what everybody had known for a long time; D’Oliveira would not be welcome in South Africa as part of an England cricket team.
A week later, MCC bowed to the inevitable and called off the tour. Criticism of them and the selection panel that put them in this undesirable position hardly abated however. David Sheppard, possibly the most vociferous disparager, was unhappy and accused MCC, and by implication his old friend and team-mate, Colin Cowdrey, of ‘a lack of foresight and weakness’.
From their time at Oxbridge, Colin had never been able to share Sheppard’s utter moral certainty and self-conviction in life. It was no wonder they found themselves at opposite ends of the spectrum in this affair. It seems clear to me that Colin, though publicly abhorring apartheid, was keen to act as peacemaker and go-between, keeping all avenues open for reasoned and sensible discussion, but got lost in the moral maze as he went along.
He felt enormously sorry for Basil and was greatly relieved and hugely obliged that he did not blame him for his dream being snatched away from him. Over a mournful but companionable dinner, Basil told him, ‘I’m terribly sorry that I should be the cause of you and the lads missing the tour.’
Rev. Mike Vockins was appointed secretary at Worcestershire shortly after this affair, a post he held for 30 years, and he got to know D’Oliveira well. Over coffee and chocolate biscuits in his study near where I live, he gave me his take on D’Oliveira’s view, ‘Basil always told me that he never blamed Colin Cowdrey for what happened. He said that Colin had, privately, assured him during this Test match that he would be “on the plane” but he always believed that he had been put under intolerable political pressure and been outvoted at the selection meeting. The two of them remained the greatest of friends until Colin’s death.’
I was interested in John Woodcock’s take on the whole sorry saga. ‘Ah yes, the D’Oliveira Affair,’ he reflected sadly. ‘It was not the MCC’s finest hour. Nobody came out of it well, I’m afraid to say. Except Basil.’ Undeniably so. Basil D’Oliveira had cemented his affection in the minds of the British public by his restraint and dignity throughout.
Although there were much larger issues at play here than just missing a cricket tour, Colin was bitterly disappointed that he would not now lead MCC in a tour of South Africa, something for which he had been planning for months. The Five Year Plan, though not destroyed, now had a whole chapter ripped out.
Being of a buoyant and idealistic disposition, he still harboured hopes that relations between the two cricket governing bodies had not fractured permanently. After all, South Africa were scheduled to play five Tests in England the following summer. Prime minister Vorster would not want to scupper that as well. Colin wrote, ‘I feel that eventual good will come out of it all.’ Chapter four of the plan was still on, surely. However, Peter Hain and the Stop The Tour campaign put paid to that.
With their choice of Pakistan as an alternative touring destination that winter, MCC swapped what might be deemed a domestic civil war for the real McCoy. Verbal conflict, press opprobrium and public anger were usurped by firebombs, firearms and machetes. The country was in chaos after a bitterly disputed general election, which would result in the total breakdown of law and order. One million died in unrestrained blood-letting, which prompted a war with India, military humiliation and the loss of East Pakistan, later to reinvent itself as Bangladesh. And into this socio political cauldron, MCC sent 15 unsuspecting cricketers.
Colin was still captain. His grip on the job was as secure as ever; there was no obvious rival and it was generally accepted he was doing a good job under circumstances that were far from easy. This tour was about to test his powers of blandishment and conciliation to the utmost. It is one thing to plead with a bottle-throwing mob, drunk on rum; it is quite another to confront gun-toting agitators, drunk on murder.
The party smelt trouble as soon as they set foot on Pakistani soil. The country was seething with unrest. All was confusion and turmoil. The itinerary was constantly changed, travel arrangements fluid and hotel accommodation hit-and-miss. The Pakistan Cricket Board was anxious for the tour to take place, despite the mayhem and violence that was being unleashed all around. Playing games of cricket would give the impression that all was calm and normal; at the very least it might provide a source of distraction from the rioting. The players felt isolated and not a little frightened. The impression that they were being used as pawns in a bloody game of chess was difficult to shake off.
That they were expected to play a Test match amid this lawlessness and violence seems surreal but play cricket they did. Beyond the stands, Lahore was burning; within the ground, the crowd was restless, with students in strident voice, their demonstrations teetering on the brink of open revolt. Disturbances were frequent and the game occasionally disrupted as police waded in to restore an uneasy semblance of order.
Commentators and onlookers often referred to Colin’s batting throughout his career, when he was playing at his best, as seemingly occupying a different plane to everybody else. On this first day, so at ease with the bowling was he that he could have been at Canterbury, with the famous lime tree just inside the boundary, or at Tunbridge Wells, with the rhododendrons in flower just outside the boundary, rather than in riot-torn Lahore, with fires lighting up the stands and rabble-rousers stirring their followers to a pitch of insurrection. He scored exactly 100 out of a total of 306. It was his final Test century and in many ways his most extraordinary.
Wisden recorded, ‘Among the hubbub of student unrest, his innings was a magnificent performance in which he kept his cool despite the many distractions.’ Beauty in the face of chaos; calmness and serenity as hell is let loose. How often has a Cowdrey innings been thus described, except in this case it was not a country’s fast bowling attack he was facing but a country’s population on the brink of civil war. His powers of concentration were never better in evidence than during his four hours at the crease that day.
The match, shortened to four days on account of the unrest, was a largely forgettable draw. Drama was saved for the off-field machinations that were a daily feature of this ill-fated tour. At the last minute, a Test in Dacca, in East Pakistan, was inserted into the schedule. When the players found out, they were horrified. Tom Graveney remembered a meeting, which he in his capacity as vice-captain attended, of the tour committee with the representatives of the Pakistani government. The politicians were desperate for the tour to continue and the detour to Dacca to go ahead if only to appease an angry populace.
Messages coming back from Lord’s were ambivalent. Of course, the players’ safety was paramount but if the tour could proceed, despite current difficulties, it would greatly assist relations between MCC and the Pakistan Board of Control. The advice given by British diplomats, both in Pakistan and back home, was at best vacillating and at times downright misleading. Graveney was adamant that they should not go to East Pakistan. News from there was that law and order had totally broken down. In his strongly expressed opposition, he believed he had the voice of the team, especially the younger and less experienced tourists. ‘Huh,’ he grunted. ‘The only reason we went was that the students in Dacca, who had control of the city, threatened to burn down the British consulate if we didn’t.’
His words fell on deaf ears. Nobody at that meeting is still alive but it is not hard to imagine its tone and content. Graveney, never one to mince his words, spoke up challengingly. Les Ames, the manager, was courteously attempting to lead his party as best he could through a political minefield. And that was no figure of speech; the acrid smell of burning buildings was in their nostrils. And Colin, no doubt with head in hands, was mournfully brooding on what had befallen his beloved game of cricket. The decision was taken to soldier on, ironic really, considering there was not a soldier to be seen when the team landed in Dacca. The army, and the police, had completely withdrawn from the city, leaving it in the hands of firebrand agitators and left-wing students.
‘We were escorted everywhere we went by these students,’ said Graveney. ‘They said they were in charge and we would be safe.’ Did youfeel safe? ‘Hmm. I did ask one of them why he wasn’t at university attending lectures. He just gave me a wink and pointed to his rifle.’
Much like the social fabric of the country, the pitch for the Test did not take long to unravel. It was basically 22 yards of rolled mud and it soon broke up. England were saved from defeat only by a superb unbeaten century from D’Oliveira. So, it was back to West Pakistan for the final Test of this unhappy campaign. The tension and violence in Karachi if anything had worsened and now the players were seriously concerned for their safety. Several of them openly expressed their desire to go home.
Graveney remembered a fractious team meeting in the hotel. He told me that he, as vice-captain, gave utterance to their fears and strongly recommended that the tour be abandoned. Cowdrey and Ames, having taken advice from the British Embassy, were still of the opinion that they should carry on. For the sake of cricket, and future relations between the two countries, argued Ames, they should not cut and run because of domestic adversity.
I have only Graveney’s testament of those difficult last days of the tour and now he is no longer with us for me to probe deeper. I did ask him about Colin’s leadership during this crisis. His affection and respect for his friend had not wavered but he did feel that Colin, and Les Ames, had been put under intolerable pressure by MCC to see things through, come what may. ‘Colin seemed...distracted. As if he really wasn’t sure what to do.’ Graveney wasn’t the only one to find fault with his captaincy.
Wisden gave him a bit of a roasting, ‘Cowdrey found the making of decisions more and more difficult in the bewildering circumstances.’ One assumes that the correspondent was referring to decisions off the field, for little of note was happening on it. My only response is that bewilderment would have been totally understandable given these exceptional circumstances, none of them to do with cricket. Colin Cowdrey was the captain of a touring team, not the president of a war-torn country, nor an army general ordered to restore control. His instinct was, always, to accommodate and to meet halfway. His loyalty to MCC and the game of cricket was unimpeachable and total. Let us do our best and get on with the game, would have been his mantra. It was so in the West Indies and it was so here. It wasn’t his fault they were caught in the middle of a civil war. And it probably wasn’t his decision to abandon ship anyway. That was more likely the manager’s and Ames’s inclination was to carry on too.
So the match started. That it was never finished came as no surprise to anybody who was there. While violence and disorder, total anarchy in effect, raged all around, England, by the third day, had amassed a total of 502/7. One wonders how much the Pakistani bowlers were intent upon their task; they must have been as frightened as the Englishmen. At last, the powder keg exploded, as it had been threatening to do for days. ‘When we saw the marquees on the far side of the ground set alight, we knew we were in trouble,’ said Graveney. ‘The army advanced on the mob, rifles ready to fire. This wasn’t just a riot, this was war!’
David Brown has the moment etched on his memory. ‘Knotty and I were at the crease. Knotty was on 96 not out. He’d never scored a Test hundred before. Suddenly, the whole Pakistani team started to leg it off the field. I ran too, but I had to pass Knotty, who was oblivious and taking guard for the next delivery. I practically had to drag him off. He wanted to stay to score his hundred.’
Back in the pavilion, the only sensible decision open to them was quickly taken. The team piled on to their bus and lay down on the floor on the glass from the smashed windows as the driver – ‘a brave man’ said Graveney – drove hell for leather back to the hotel. A flight out of Karachi was secured that very night. As an interesting footnote in cricket history, the Karachi Test remains the only game that finished before the first innings had been completed. Not that anybody cared. ‘After we had taken off,’ Graveney recalled, ‘the captain of the flight came on the intercom to inform us that we had just cleared Pakistani air space. And a great cheer went up.’
Colin was not with the party making their escape. Personal tragedy heaped on professional disappointment. He had been informed earlier on in the match that his father-in-law, Stuart Chiesman, had died. ‘I flew home immediately,’ he wrote. ‘In many ways, he had been a second father to me and our friendship was close.’
Wisden may have been critical of Colin’s captaincy in Pakistan but the England selectors clearly had no such qualms. There was never any suggestion of a change at the top for the forthcoming Tests that summer against West Indies and New Zealand. Now in his late 30s, Colin was enjoying his cricket, playing as well as ever and saw no reason, injury aside, why he should not realise his life’s ambition to lead England in Australia in 18 months’ time. In early May, it happened that Kent were playing Glamorgan in a Sunday League fixture. Nothing untoward seemed in the offing. Colin was batting with his usual composure and had reached 39 when he set off for a quick run. The Achilles tendon in his left foot snapped and he collapsed in a heap on the ground.
When such an injury occurs, the sound – not unlike the report from a pistol – is unmistakeable. To take that simile one step further, it was as if a marksman had lined up the Five Year Plan in the sights of his high-velocity rifle, squeezed the trigger and blown the document to kingdom come. Up until this time, Colin had remained remarkably free from injury, given his heavy schedule and heavy frame. ‘Oh, that I am fortune’s fool!’ He might well have echoed Romeo’s cry as he was carried off the field but in truth he uttered no such words.
Clearly in shock, he refused to believe he was seriously hurt. ‘He wanted to go out there and carry on,’ Chris told me. ‘He kept on trying to stand up and wouldn’t listen.’ In the end, pain got the better of him and he sank back on the chair. It cannot have been long before he came to the conclusion that his season was ended. Surgery was performed the following day and with his leg encased in plaster he had plenty of time to contemplate the final ruination of his plan for the immediate future of England cricket.
As he wrote dejectedly in his biography, it had been something of a sentimental yearning ‘to captain an England team that I had built, nurtured and encouraged’ to win back the Ashes in Australia and he had allowed himself to dream. ‘I was to learn of course that such romantic conceptions are not only born in the minds of fiction writers, but die there as well.’
The selectors moved quickly to appoint Raymond Illingworth in Colin’s place. To some, this came as a surprise. Illingworth’s Test career had progressed in fits and starts, he was now 37 years of age, he had left his native Yorkshire to take over the reins of captaincy at Leicestershire but had only been in the job for a month. His maturity as a cricketer was never in doubt; his lack of experience as a captain, especially in the Test arena, certainly was. Those who doubted his suitability, however, simply did not know their man.
Colin was in no doubt as to his competence, judging that his ‘calm, shrewd, steadying lead’ would bear fruit. He was right. West Indies were beaten 2-0 and New Zealand by the same scoreline. Any reservations about his value to the team as a player were dispelled at Lord’s in the second Test against the West Indians. England had collapsed to 61/5 before Illingworth, batting at number eight, rescued them with an innings of 113. The captain had cemented his place. Colin could only grit his teeth, watching on from afar, and persevere with his rehabilitation.
He returned for the start of the 1970 season, fully recovered, fitter than he had been for a long time, with appetite renewed and confidence unimpaired. However, it is not always as easy as that. He needed time in the middle and for a while, that just did not happen. A string of low scores for Kent meant that he was not considered for the first Test, against the Rest of the World. Peter Hain and his Stop the Tour campaign against the South Africans visiting these shores had been successful, so a Rest of the World team had been hastily assembled to play five Test matches against England in their stead. This had not been in the original Five Year Plan but nobody, least of all Colin, had a copy of that anymore.
However, centuries against Sussex and Essex prompted the selectors to recall him for the second Test. Not as captain, of course, because Illingworth was now firmly seated in the saddle and had given no sign that he was prepared to dismount. Why should he? The team was now his and they were doing well enough. That did not stop the press from resurrecting the unwelcome captaincy debate. Illingworth or Cowdrey to lead MCC to Australia that winter? The brusque northerner or the approachable southerner? The hard-as-nails professional or the courteous amateur?
The clichés were old and hackneyed but the press played them for all they were worth. Colin, frankly, could have done without it all and simply wanted to concentrate on establishing his place in the side again and Illingworth too was put out, believing it was an unwelcome distraction from the job in hand. The Rest of the World – Sobers, Lloyd, Kanhai, Gibbs, Intikhab, Barlow, Richards, Procter, the Pollocks et al – were seriously formidable opponents.
In order to close off further public discussion on the matter, it was decided that the issue would be resolved after the third Test, earlier than usual but you could see the selectors’ point. Colin was batting when they met in the committee room in the pavilion at Edgbaston. If they had glanced out of the window, as I am sure they did from time to time, they would have witnessed a classical Cowdrey innings, all effortless timing and precise placement of shot. He was out, caught Murray bowled Peter Pollock, for 71, and no sooner had he unbuckled his pads than he was approached by A.C. Smith, one of the selectors, who told him that the chairman, Alec Bedser, wanted to see him in the secretary’s office.
Heaven knows what his thoughts were as he made his way along the corridor. Expecting the worst but hoping for the best, I imagine. The news was what he had feared. Gently, Bedser explained that they had decided to go with Illingworth. He was perfectly aware that this would be a great disappointment to Colin, knowing how much he had set his heart on the job, and he was very sorry for that. But the choice had been made. What else could Colin do but accept the inevitable? It was indeed a crushing disappointment but it could hardly have been unexpected. He mumbled something innocuous and turned to go before Bedser delivered a quicker ball. ‘We’d like you to go as vice-captain,’ he said.
Now this, the vexed subject of the vice-captaincy rather than the captaincy itself, was what caused him sleepless nights, much soul-searching and deep regret for the rest of his life. A vista of potential problems immediately opened up in front of him so he asked for time to think it over. Colin always liked to ponder and consider his options but in this case, delay only exacerbated the situation. Why would he hesitate? Did this signify equivocation on his part over the selectors’ choice of leader? Could it be construed that by reserving judgement he was indicating a reluctance to give the appointed captain his full support? No, none of this guided his thinking but the delay set tongues wagging and did him no favours.
This was going to be his fifth tour Down Under. He had been vice-captain on three of them, under May, Dexter, Smith, and now he was to be vice-captain again, under Illingworth. Ever the bridesmaid would have been his private misgiving. He had wanted to run his own show but that was now no longer possible. Fair enough, but should he have his arm twisted to act as the loyal lieutenant – again? If they did not want him as captain, then presumably he was not in their plans for the future. In which case, would it not be more sensible and more forward-looking to appoint a younger man, one whom they had their eye on as a possible future leader? All this makes perfect logic and he could hardly have been blamed had he expressed it.
But things never were entirely straightforward with Colin. As usual, he was anxious to do what was best for everybody, the team, the management, MCC, England cricket and its good name abroad. He needed time to think. As it happened, the announcement of the tour manager had thrown a considerable spanner into his works. David Clark went to school at Rugby and served in the Parachute Regiment during the war, being wounded, taken prisoner and remaining a POW until 1945. He made a belated first appearance for Kent at the age of 27 and became captain in 1949. He it was who gave a first-class debut to a promising 17-year-old schoolboy by the name of Colin Cowdrey.
Later, after retirement, he became successively chairman and president of Kent. He managed the successful MCC tour to India with Mike Smith as captain in 1963/64. So, in more ways than one, he would have been the perfect fit as manager now, with Colin as captain. Whether he had been appointed in the expectation, or even hope, that Colin would be made captain is unrecorded. The two naturally got on well and Colin had great regard for his administrative and diplomatic capabilities. The partnership with Illingworth was not such a natural fit. Perhaps Colin envisaged, if not trouble, then at least friction between manager and captain. If he did, then he was remarkably prescient. In any event, he felt that he owed his friend and mentor all the help and support he could give.
So, reluctantly, Colin agreed to be Raymond Illingworth’s second-in-command. It was a disastrous decision, which led to personal unhappiness, professional disappointment and a dismal finale, or so he believed, to his international career. ‘Oh dear, the vice-captaincy,’ said John Woodcock, running a crestfallen hand through his impressive full mane of hair. ‘He should never have taken it. It backfired on him in so many ways.’
The least said about the tour the better, certainly from Colin’s perspective, who found it a miserable experience. He devotes a mere two short paragraphs to the campaign in his autobiography and mentions it not at all in his notes. The irony is that Illingworth’s tour to Australia in 1970/71 was hailed as a famous success. England won the series 2-0, regained the Ashes and so demoralised the Australian team that they sacked their captain, Bill Lawry, before the final Test.
Illingworth gained few friends in the country for his aggressive and uncompromising approach but he gained the respect of his team, led them well, brought the best out of his two mavericks, Snow and Boycott, and performed well with bat and ball when the situation required. That he had trodden on a few Australian toes in the process was neither here nor there to supporters of England’s cause.
Then what ailed the vice-captain? The problem was twofold, as I understand it from reading between the lines of reports and observations from those who were there. First, he felt out of place and out of harmony with Illingworth’s regime. Then his form deserted him, the runs dried up, his confidence evaporated and the catches started to go to ground, hitherto unheard of. Eventually, he was dropped from the side, a humiliation which had to be borne alone. Whether the one led to the other is impossible to say. Sometimes a player can put aside personal problems when he is out in the middle and still perform effectively. On this occasion, Colin could not.
A hint of his state of mind is given in his autobiography when he contemplated the tour ahead. ‘Would cricket – the whole game – be richer for our visit?’ he asked. What on earth did he mean by that? He did not answer his own question, so we have to draw our own conclusions. My understanding is that he was worried that the hard-edged, combative, quarrelsome, even venomous, climate creeping into the modern game – something that was totally alien to him – would spoil the cordial relations that historically obtained between the two sides. If there was going to be a fight, he wanted no part of it.
His fears were not groundless. In the face of some provocation, it has to be said, Illingworth instilled in his side a sort of siege mentality, where they tended to close ranks and treat umpires, press and public as potential enemies. This would have horrified Colin. But it was a state of affairs that was to become more and more prevalent in Test cricket as the 1970s moved on. Either consciously or unconsciously, he became more and more detached from the team. His isolation did not go unnoticed. Wisden commented, ‘His cricket might not have been such a disappointment if he had allowed himself to become absorbed into the body of the team.’
A friend of mine, who happened to be staying in the same hotel as the England party – I forget at which venue – told me that he encountered Colin ploughing a lonely, if gentle, furrow up and down the hotel pool. When asked why he was not with his team-mates at the cricket ground, he gave a resigned shrug and said, ‘I’m not needed.’ Bob Willis was on this tour as a young, untested fast bowler. He told me, ‘Colin was not part of the inner circle of decision-makers. By this time, Illy had become totally disenchanted with the manager and had decided to rely on help and support from his senior pros, Boycott and Edrich. And Clark, being a fellow Kentish man as Colin…well, you could see that the management team was not a good mix. Colin seemed…disconnected. Bit sad really.’
Chris Cowdrey put his finger on the nub of the problem. ‘The trouble was that Illingworth hated Australians. And Dad loved them.’ I doubt he meant that Illingworth hated all Australians but it was undeniably true that on the field of play they were bitter enemies. Is this right or wrong? Should sport replicate the enmity of the battlefield? Illingworth would say yes. You do what you have to do to win. Colin would probably have demurred. What is not in any doubt is that Illingworth returned home with his victorious team a hero and Colin came back, saddened, dispirited and no doubt fearful for his international future.
Was Illingworth the correct choice, the right man for the job? ‘Of course he was!’ cried Alan Smith, one of the selectors. ‘Illy did a superb job. Much as I was fond of Colin, there is no doubt in my mind that we made the right choice. Nobody else could have got the best out of Snow and Boycs and the way he handled his team in the face of considerable provocation was outstanding. The cock-up was not the choice of captain but the appointment of the manager.’ Which wasn’t in your remit as a selector? ‘No. The manager was appointed by the MCC. The team was selected by us.’
The sad irony of the breach between captain and vice-captain is that it arose not from personal but cultural differences. There was no gulf in ages between the two; they did not come from different eras. But they came from different backgrounds, different environments, different traditions. Nothing wrong with that. Cricket is a broad church – always has been – and dressing rooms down the ages have accommodated all types. But Colin wanted to lead his side in his way, embracing his values and his methods, and Illingworth had a different vision.
There is a photo somewhere that I have seen that says it all. The team are gathered together, in their MCC blazers, before they left London. They are recording their tour song. As far as I can recollect, the recording did not make much of an impression on the charts, hardly surprising when you see that it is Brian Johnson who is conducting, not Gareth Malone. Everybody seems in jovial spirits. We know we can’t sing, seems to be the expression on most faces, but let’s give it a go and have a bit of fun. In the background can be spotted Colin Cowdrey. Now, a raucous sing-song may not have been his cup of tea so it would not be unimaginable if he felt a wee bit uncomfortable. But he looks haunted, as if he has taken a sideways glance along the seated row to the captain in the middle and thought to himself I could – should – have been there. And now I never will.
He never openly admitted to a rift with Illingworth, though some might say his silence spoke more plainly than words. But to dispel the common perception, or perhaps in an attempt to heal old wounds, he is nothing but complimentary about Illingworth in his notes for the unpublished book. The occasion, the circumstance, was the appointment of Illingworth as the England team manager in 1994 and Colin was analysing the problems facing English cricket at the time and how well suited to the job he felt Illingworth was. Another twist is provided by the fact that Illingworth’s tenure as supremo of English cricket proved to be less successful than his captaincy.
Colin’s appraisal of Illingworth’s fitness for the task makes interesting reading, and makes you wish they had more of a fruitful partnership when they were playing. ‘He demanded high standards as a captain,’ wrote Colin, ‘while instilling an air of confidence and encouragement in his team.’ So acquainted was he of Illingworth’s strengths as an all-rounder that he was keen for him to join Kent when it seemed he might leave Yorkshire because of a contractual dispute. In the event, he went to Leicestershire but Colin wanted him in his side. Whenever he had captained Illingworth in the England side, he had found him ‘quiet, straightforward, and well-organised with his bowling and field-placing’.
He looked back with regret to the first Test against Australia at Edgbaston in 1961, at the time when he was holding the fort for Peter May, who was still recovering from illness. In retrospect, he believed that was the time when he could – should – have secured the England captaincy for the next decade. He did not do himself justice and neither did Illingworth. ‘Many a time I have looked back on that day and wished he had taken 7-110, not 2-110. That would have established him more quickly as a natural successor.’ Successor to Colin, obviously, but a future England captain nonetheless.
He then made mention – quite touching really – of Illingworth’s magnanimity towards his son, Christopher, when he was playing for Kent. By this time, Illingworth had gone back to Yorkshire as their coach/manager. Owing to crises of various kinds – there always seemed to be a crisis at Yorkshire – he had resumed the captaincy and so, by a quirk of fate, the two of them were in direct opposition as captains of their respective counties. It was now 1982 and Kent, on the last afternoon, having had the worse of the game, were grimly hanging on. Chris, with 51 not out, had held Yorkshire at bay and denied them their victory, just, with nine wickets down. Illingworth shook Chris’s hand as they departed the field of play. ‘Tha were bluidy lucky with weather, lad,’ he said, ‘but well played.’
Colin appreciated that. It was just how the game should be played, tough, with no quarter given and none asked, but in the end you shake hands and accept success or failure with generosity of spirit. He was equally generous in these final words on his successor, and some may say rival, as England captain, ‘Raymond has known every type of weather, with great championship-winning sides at Yorkshire, success with Leicestershire and the thrill of captaining an Ashes-winning series in Australia. I congratulate him!’
Twenty years too late? He didn’t think so. ‘It was the press which had built up a Cowdrey/Illingworth feud over the decades, not us,’ he wrote. ‘He is a good man.’
All this was some time in the future. Colin’s immediate priority, once back in England with the new season of 1971 soon underway, was to regain his touch and reclaim his England place, if it wasn’t too late. Not quite. Not yet. Form made a welcome return, runs came a-plenty and he was recalled for the first Test against Pakistan at Edgbaston.
He spent the first two days watching from first slip as Pakistan amassed 608/7 declared. That was the game that Zaheer Abbas scored 274, his country’s first double hundred. For good measure there were centuries from Mushtaq Mohammad and his Kent colleague Asif Iqbal. Forced to follow on in their reply, England did manage to avoid defeat but Colin’s contributions of 16 and 32 were not significant and not enough to save him from being dropped for the second Test.
Later that month, he contracted pneumonia. Chris has a theory that it was brought on by his father’s habit of coming to cricket grounds already changed and going home still dressed in his kit, often damp from the day’s exertions. Whatever the cause of the inflammation of his lungs, it put paid to any further cricket that summer. And put paid to his Test career according to most informed observers, including him. That pretty well seemed to be that.
Until he picked up the phone at Christmas three years later.