I
was also surprised to learn that, even 35 years since his retirement, RGD’s 325
Test wickets have been surpassed by only three England players: Botham, Broad
and Anderson. That’s quite an achievement for a man with very dodgy knees in an
era of a gruelling county schedule and limited Tests.
I
don’t really remember him as a giant of the Seventies and Eighties. His career
tally 899 first-class victims sounds mighty impressive in the current world of
central contracts but back then that was par for the course. Fellow quickie Snow
took 1,174, Ken Higgs 1,536 and John Lever an astonishing 1,722. Yet when he
was fit he was rarely out of the England attack.
After
surgery on both knees in 1975, he wasn’t particularly prolific for Warwickshire
but he courageously bowled himself back into the national limelight, along with
a promising all-rounder called Ian Botham, at a time when several top stars
defected to World Series Cricket. Speaking of Botham, Bob Willis is also strongly
associated with the ’81 Ashes triumph but by then he was no longer certain of
his place, even in a struggling team.
Graeme
Dilley, Chris Old, Mike Hendrick were competing with Willis for three specialist
pace slots and, with England 1-0 down after the opening Tests, missing the
previous county fixture through illness put his selection in jeopardy. At 32, with
his crude, lengthy run-up, described at the time as resembling a goose
gathering speed to take off, he wasn’t a favourite of mine but credit where
credit’s due. At Headingley, a wicketless first innings was followed by one of
the most unlikely but destructive spell of fast bowling ever produced by an
Englishman. Botham may have given his side hope after his hit-and-hope slog the
previous afternoon but it was the Willis 8-43 which won that match, providing
the foundation for the memorable series success which bears Botham’s name.
I’d
also forgotten that Willis skippered England in 18 Tests and 29 ODIs in the
wake of Brearley’s temporary stint and Botham’s failure to lead but he finally
called it a day in ’84 just before the West Indies whitewashed us 5-0. As well
as his formidable tally of wickets he achieved them at fewer than three runs per
over and a Test average of barely 25, superior to any of our top seamers then
or any time since, including Botham, Broad and Anderson. His bouncers, too, were just
as lethal as anything sent down by Lillee or Roberts. True his batting was
rubbish and he may not have succeeded in today’s T20 tournaments, but in retrospect
the obituaries are spot-on; he was a cricketing legend.
I
didn’t hear him very often as a commentator but had a sneaking regard for his
acerbic comments in the Sky studio. He played the role as cricket’s grumpy equivalent
of Craig Revel Horwood to perfection, the pantomime villain who tells it as it
is. He was there doing his miserable monotone thing during the summer which is
why as an ignorant viewer I was taken aback by news of his demise. His mass of
curls may have been tamed decades ago but I will always remember him 38 years
ago ripping out Ray Bright’s stump, then with both arms raised continuing his
rip-snorting all the way to the Leeds pavilion. RIP Goose.
