The spotlight on Joe Root’s record against Australia is a natural? byproduct of an intense Ashes rivalry. However, compared with the record of one of his fellow members of “The Big Four�?club in Kane Williamson, the one relative blemish on Root’s track record seems less stark than it might otherwise appear.

The current appraisal of Root comes as part of the year-long sabre-rattling ahead of another Anglo-Australian clash, beginning in November 2025. Former Australian left-hander Darren Lehmann and �?to no one’s surprise �?Ian Chappell, a man seldom short of a cricketing opinion, have weighed in on Root.  Lehmann has stated that Root should not be considered an all-time great since he has yet to make a Test ton in Australia and has even placed the Yorkshireman a rung below Williamson and Virat Kohli. Chapelli, meanwhile, is full of praise for the former England captain, saying �?em>Root was born to make runs.  He’s a joy to watch, as he balances a solid technique with the desire to core at every opportunity�?

Technically, though, Chappell has observed a flaw in the Root armoury which could account for his less flattering record on Australian pitches, arguing �?em>the more worrying statistic in Australia is the number of times he’s caught behind. Keepers have had a bonanza as ten times they’ve clasped Root’s edges in 27 innings. While he could counter with “you’ve got to be good enough to nick ‘em�? it does suggest he needs to re-assess the extra bounce Australian pitches provide.�? 

Lack of centuries aside, it is worth noting that Root has notched nine half-centuries agai?nst the Australians. Compared with Kane Williamson, Root’s overall record against the Aussies is sup?erior �?40.46 as opposed to an average of 36.95 for the New Zealander.  Against India, Williamson’s record is considerably the inferior, with an average of 37.86 over 20 runs fewer than Root’s 58.03, while on a head-to-head against each other’s country Root has a mean of 54.06 as opposed to Williamson’s 39.62 against England.

Batting against South Africa, West Indies, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, the Kiwi has the statistical edg?e over the Yorkshireman. However, an average of 62.82 for Williamson against South Africa and 46.53 for the Englishman against the same opposition does not exactly embarrass Root. Neither do direct comparisons against Pakistan (66.04 and 49.34), Sri Lanka? (74.02 and 62.54), and West Indies (60.62 versus 56.03).

Where Williamson has a definite edge is in his accumulation of two Test hundreds against the Australians. As for Ian Chappell’s thoughts on Root’s adaptability to Australian surfaces, the New Zealander, by contrast, is acknowledged as having a very specific approach, quite distinct from his peers. Eschewing an exagger??ated lunge in the forward push, Williamson’s initial movement is firm yet not as pronounced as his contemporaries. Equally key is the ability to play the ball late.

Ricky Ponting has observed that Williamson �?em>doesn’t make a big stride forward�?and that he �?em>plays the ball later than anyone�?  Former England captain Nasser Hussain, assessing Williamson’s technical prowess, noted the economy of movement, hand positioning and footwork that are the bedrock of his success. Advancing the theory of an imaginary “box�?Hussain noted �?em>imagine you’ve got a box round about your waist height and just below. If you get your hands outside that box you’re playing the ball early. If you can keep it in your box, you’re playing it late�?  

Hands positioned outside the imaginary “box�?would also, Hussain argued, increase the likelihood of following the ball outside the off stump and nicking a chance to ‘keeper and slips. Hussain was in little doubt that it is this compactness which has contributed to Kane Williamson’s success. Maybe a similar adjustment by Root on Australian wickets would pay dividends and give credence to Chappelli’s view that the England man needs to re-assess the bounce on those surfaces.

What will ultimately deliver that much sought after Ashes century for Joe Root is the method Ian Chappell so eulogised. It is a technique shaped by the modern age, but also one which begins from first principles and is a method which, at its core, is a product of the Yorkshire sod which produced some of the greatest batting technicians in the history of the game. When Neville Cardus described Sir Leonard Hutton as someone who played with a �?em>blueprint in his mind�?he could easily be describing Joe Ro?ot almost 70 years later.  ??;

Stylistically Root’s Yorkshire cricketing lineage is apparent in everything from the light grip on the bat handle to the legs-apart stance at the crease, while the balance on the balls of the feet is redolent of Sir Geoffrey Boycott himself.  Alert, side-on, and able to transfer to the back and front foot with easy dexterity, Root displays a classicism that stretches back to Hutton and Sutcliffe, though to Boycott, Bill Athey, and now Harry Brook, a method which is so typical of his home county.   &nb??sp;

Watching footage of Mike Gatting’s England in Australia on their victorious 1986/87 tour, the likeness between Athey and Root is startling. Sure enough, Root’s gifts are of a rarified nature in contrast with Athey’s narrower mode of operation, but the essential Yorkshir??e boilerplate of stance, footwo?rk, and positioning bears the stamp of the White Rose county.

Like Williamso?n Root’s busy nature at the crease and innovative strokeplay are indicative of a player who has grown up in a multi-format cricketing landscape. As such, the gasp-inducing classical strokes which were once so typical of Root’s English antecedents like Hammond, May, Cowdrey, Dexter, and Gower are perhaps not so evidently at the fore of his repertoire. Instead, tellingly, the Root audience will marvel at the deployment of the ramp and its reverse iteration, both strokes it is difficult to imagine his illustrious predecessors attempting, although the pioneering Dex??ter might well have added such shots to his range.

Joe Root is England’s finest modern player and a titan of the current batting landscape. The disparity between his overall record and his figures against Australia are certainly tangible, although not, say, as marked as Ian Botham’s record against West Indies a??nd his achievements against the rest.  If the Yorkshireman takes on board the observations of Ian Chappell next winter maybe his wait for a Test hundred against the old foe will come to an end. In the week that Root and fellow Yorkshireman Harry Brook sit atop the men’s ICC Test batting rankings, his followers will take heart that this modern batting great has still plenty left in the tank and, maybe, a bit to prove.

Having retired from all cricket at the end of the 1982 English season, Brearley opted to move full-time to the life of the mind and the profession of psychoanalysis.   As an undergraduate Brearley had read Classics an??d Moral Sciences at St Johns’s College, Cambridge, and subsequently embarked upon a lectureship in Philosophy at Newcastle University, a task which he combined with playing cricket for Middlesex.  As his professional cricket career neared its end, though, Brearley began to train in psych?oanalysis in preparation for his life beyond the game.

The context of C.L.R James’s work – that of a Trinidadian-born intellectual and historian tracing his love of the game while simultaneously being the subject of colonial rule �?was, and is, doubly significant given Brearley’s observations of class differences in the English domestic game.  James�?work was published in the same year, 1963, in which the last Gentleman v. Players game was played.  Coming a year before Brearley received his county cap from Middlesex, the English game’s domestic version of cricketing apartheid was becoming a tired anachronism. In 1961, at the Scarborough Festival where a Gentleman v. Players fixture was in full swing, a young Brearley, just 18, had turned up at the dining table sans the obligatory dinner jacket. Later, ahead of the final game of its kind Brearley had dismissed the notion of the fixture as being one for �?em>old colonels�?

Brearley’s subject, C.L.R. James, was all too aware of the contradictions inherent in his fixation with a game which was a colonial implant. Such conflicts were evident even in his choice of team. As the academic Paul C. Hebert wrote in his review of Beyond a Boundary:

  For James, choosing a team to play for required navigating a complex system of overlapping social structures in which people sought to maintain whatever advantage their skin colour or class position gave them. White teams like Queen’s Park and Shamrock would not accept James because of his race, playing for Stingo, the team of “the plebeians, the butcher, the tailor, the candlestick maker, the casual labourer, with a sprinkling of the unemployed�?was not an option because it represented a step down for a middle-class man like James. Of the remaining possibilities–Maple, a team made up of “the brown-skinned middle class,�?where members tried to safeguard the social advantages of a lighter complexion, and Shannon, “the team of the black lower-middle class”–James chose Maple, a decision, that “delayed [his] political development for years�?by further isolating him from the popular masses.

Although James had authored the pamphlet The Case for West-Indian Self Government in 1936, he had also devoured, with relish, the Western literary and philosophical canon from a young age.  Speaking to an African-American scholar he said of himself �?em>I am a Black European, that is my training and outlook�?

For the cricketer turned philosopher turned psychoanalyst Brearley, his own contradictions were apparent and were also evident to the man himself. Asked about the antipathy which Australians crowds had displayed towards him during the 1979/80 England tour, Brearley professed that �?em>in the externals�?such as accent and university background he represented �?em>the kind of Englishman that they (the Australians crowds) were very suspicious of�? However, as Ian Botham’s biographer Simon Wild??e ha??d noted, Brearley was a much more layered personality when it came to his English teammates. Wilde wrote:

�?em>He (Brearley) was well grounded and pragmatic �?he was a doer as well as a thinker. His antecedents were far from grand and �?perhaps helpfully a??s far as Botham was concerned �?from the North. His grandfather, who came from Heckmondwike in Yorkshire, had been an engine-fitter as well as a lively fast bowler; his father Horace, while maintaining the family passion for cricket as a batsman, became a teacher in Sheffield and then in London. Brearley himself seemed happiest surroun??ded by hard-headed Northern cricketers such as Hendrick, Miller, Randall, Willey, Boycott, Taylor, and (if family origins count) Botham, while one of the few players with whom he failed to hit it off was Phil Edmonds, born in Zambia and every bit the bolshie colonial.�?/em>

 This very same independence of mind and originally of thought was evident to the journalist Paul Edwards, who, in a The Cricket Monthly interview, observed of Brearley �?em>He is suspicious of the British establishment yet also dislikes north-west London and Guardian-reading conformity. Kerry Packer was never his style, yet he understood the motivations of the cricketers who joined World Series Cricket and he was insistent they be picked on merit for the England team he captained in 1977�?

The ability to comprehend contradictory poses and concepts is perhaps inherent in Brearley’s training and mindset. It is also central to the Socratic method with which Brearley had applied to his subject C.L.R. James. Essentially, a technique which fosters self-discovery, since it involves in-depth questioning and discussion, the Socratic method in turn can reveal a greater depth of self-awareness and understanding, and even tease out and appreciate a subject’s own inherent contradictions. Just as Brearley was able to observe the injustices of apartheid when touring South Africa in 1964/5 and be vocal about the treatment meted out to Basil D’Oliveira by the England selectors in 1968/69, and take moral stances on both, so Brearley was able to insist that his own Packer-bound England teammates should be picked on merit.   

The popular image of Brearley is of English cricket’s grey eminence, certainly when considering his intellectual prowess and career post-cricket, alongside his literary output and demeanour as captain. As Jonathan Calder remarked in his Liberal England blog, �?em>When Brearley became England’s captain in 1977 it was almost as though Jonathan Miller or Michael Frayn had been put in charge. Brearley was a representative of liberal North London in an age when cricket was still run by the establishment.�?How ?ironic, then, that Mike Brearley’s finest cricketing hour should be synonymous with a man, in Ian Bot??ham, whose political outlook is the very antitheses of North London’s cultural establishment.

While Atherton debuted in the dreadful 4-0 home thumping that was the 1989 Ashes series, Hussain began in the Caribbean tour which followed in 1989/90. Ramprakash began his international career against West Indies in 1991 and, despite never topping the twenties that summer, looked the part.  Graham Thorpe was the last of the quartet to enter international cricket when he made a Test century on debut against Australia at Trent Bridge in 1993.  Thorpe was also the oldest to debut, at 24, while the other three all made their introductions to the Test arena at the age of 22.  The last to depart the international stage in 2005, Thorpe is also the one whose record – in sheer statistical terms, at least �?stands comparison with the some of the best of his era.   

Having mad??e his first-class debut in the summer of 1988, the Surrey left-hander established himself as a regular in the 1989 season. After four overseas tours with England A, Thorpe finally made his England debut against Australia in that summer’s Trent Bridge Test.  At the age of 24, he would go on to become a mainstay of the English middle-order until his sudden exit at the age of 36 in 2005.  ?;

Unlik??e Atherton, Ramprakash and Hussain, Thorpe never played alongside Botham, Gower, or Lamb. Although he played the first eighteen months of his international career alongside Graham Gooch, the Surrey man never imbibed the culture of the champagne-set as personified by those charismatic hedonists? of the late 70s and the decade and a half which followed. When Botham, Lamb, and latterly Gower all took their leave of international cricket against Pakistan in the summer of 1992, it was at a time when the cult of the eighties dilletante was being brutally phased out.

Just as Thorpe never graced an England lineup with the departing heroes of 1992, he also operated at a time of home terrestrial television and before the arrival of Kevin Pietersen. Indeed, his international career reached its end after the second Test match �?his hundredth �?against Bangladesh in the summer of 2005. What followed was that series against?? Australia in the second half of the summer, and the arrival of Pietersen to supplant Thorpe hi??????????????????????????mself.

Following the 2-1 Ashes victory, OBEs, parades, and parties at 10 Downing Street, England’s ??cricket team became the property of television subscribers and a fan base largely peopled by a travelling band of the comfortably off.  Thorpe, then, can be located in a timeframe wedged between two distinct eras.  Although he rubbed shoulders as teammates with many of the heroes of 2005, his mainly undemonstrative on-field career came to an end before Michael Vaughan’s men bested Australia that year. As Pietersen’s cocksure approach and pyrotechnics took flight, England’s personality took on a different shade, with Flintoff becoming the most accomplishe?d in a long line of Botham successors. Thorpe’s diligence and calm competence, along with Ramprakash’s earnest and ultimately flawed precocity, and Atherton’s updated Lancastrian take on the M.J.K Smith persona, became almost forgotten totems of a different age.

Which performances, then, were the hallmarks of Thorpe’s international career? In a hundred Test match career where he finished u??p with an average of 44.66, only against India (35.37) and South Africa (35.88) did his mean dip ??below 40. He averaged in excess of 50 against New Zealand and Pakistan, 49.42 against Sri Lanka, and 45.74 against the world’s best, the Australians.  Similarly, in 27 Tests against the West Indians he struck 1740 at 42.43. Averaging 45.17 in 49 home Tests and 44.16 in 51 overseas contests is also testament to his consistency and mastery of different surfaces. Moreover, batting in his favoured position of number 5, he averaged 56.21 at Test level.

Among Thorpe’s signature innings during his England tenure is his debut 114 in July 1993. Unbeaten when Graham Gooch declared the innings, the left-hander had batted without fuss?, but with a positivity and sense of calm which brightened an English summer which, once again, had been typified by some nervy and technically maladroit batting displays. In an attacking sense, very few English batting displays can hold a candle to Thorpe’s 2002 unbeaten double-hundred against New Zealand in Christchurch. Although he was later overshadowed by Nathan Astle’s fastest double-century in Test history, Thorpe’s 200* came from 231 balls and comprised 28 fours and four sixes. It was in early 2001, however, that Thorpe played his most accomplished Test match innings. In the deciding Test of a three-match series against Sri Lanka in Colombo, Thorpe mastered Muralitharan to score an unbeaten 113 out of total of 249. With only Atherton, Trescothick and Vaughan reaching the twenties, T??horpe was out on his own. Similarly, his unbeaten 32 in a winning total of 74-6 led England home to victory in a low scoring match.

Although viewed as a quiet man, Thorpe was no shrinking violet and often had his clashes with authority. Ahead of his return to the England set-up in 2003 Angus Fraser had questioned Thorpe’s ability to conform to the group ethos. David Lloyd, Bumble himself, had also questioned Thorpe’s attitude, basing his views on his experience of the left-hander while England coach during 1996-1999. When the torment of a failing marriage took its toll, Thorpe took an indefinite leave? from the game in 2002, only to return and play more sporadically for England until his final retirement in June 2005.  His final stretch in England’s middle order, from the South African return in 2003 to that final encore against Bangladesh in 2005, saw him rack up 1511 runs at 54.  

Six years after Thorpe’s retirement in 2011, David Gower reckoned him the second-best England bat he had played with or commented on, while his Cricinfo profile lauds him as �?em>the most complete England batter since the Gooch-Gower�?era.  Although he did not, perhaps, convert as many fifties to hundreds as he should have, the sixteen he did notch were composed in a manner many of his England peers struggled to match.   Temperamental and tormented Graham Thorpe may have occasionally been, but he was also one o?f England’s unsung and underappreciated batting gems of the last thirty years.

One modern England player, however, would meet Dexter’s exacting technical standards and ga??in his seal of approval.  Unsurprisingly, England’s modern batting great Joe Root was the man Dexter believed carried the torch and the player to whom Dexter would most willingly offer his guidance and dispense his wisdom on the technical aspects of the complicated business of batting at international level.

It might seem surprising that in his twilight years an octogenarian former England captain should communicate so freely with an icon of the modern game, a game in which club-like bats, �?em>Bazball�? The Hundred, Twenty20, and shortened boundaries proliferate, but it should not, perhaps, since Edward Ralph Dexter �?“Lord Ted�?�?was a cricketing revolutionary himself. More than any other cricketer of his generation Dexter embodied a love of cricketing classicism and an adherence to the pr??inciple that cricket was a side-on game, with a daring, progressivism and foresight that saw him challenge the very establishm?ent of which he seemed to be such a pillar.

Those of a certain vintage might well remember Dexter as a slightly dotty, eccentric chairman of selectors for England during the period 1989-1993.  Prior to his stewardship of the national team, he had been a thoughtful and trenchant analyst of the game for the BBC.  Ashes failures aside, his tenure as chairman was not without its moments: a hard-fought 1-2 series defeat against West Indies in the Caribbean in early 1990, and a 2-2 drawn series against the same opposition at home in 1991 were not without merit. Similarly, his structural changes to the county game and to the national side during the same period took time to bear fruit, although pay dividends they certainly did.  Central contracts and four-day county cricket were among the changes Dexter brought to the nat??ional game during his time in English cricket’s top job.

Still relatively young at 58 when he left the chairmanship in 1993?, Lord Ted continued to observe the modern game. As befits a man who was instrumental in popularizing the fledgling limited overs game in England in the early 1960s, Dexter differed from many former players in seeing the merits of Twenty20. Speaking in 2018, Dexter gave a somewhat qualified endorsement of the short format:

“I admire the ingenuity and power of the players. Some of the strokeplay now is superb. My worry is that schools will note that Twenty20 can be all over, bang, bang bang, in a couple of hours, saving the schoolmaster’s time.�?/em>

Where Dexter never shifted though was in his belief of the first principles of the game itself: �?em>Cricket is a sideways game �?always was and still is�?/em> he observed in his blog; one of the most original and forthright set of posts and observations on cricket and life to come from a former player. He was also not in the least parochial in his cricket watching, casting his beady eye over players from around the cricketing world. In 2012, in an interview with the Hindustan Times, he spoke glowingly of Indian right-hander Cheteshwar Pujara, who he described as �?em>wonderful, classical and one of the most correct players I have seen for a long, long time“.

Similarly, in January 2016, during England’s tour of South Africa, Dexter wrote of the ?young Tembo Bavuma:

�?em>I can pay the diminutive Bavuma no greater compliment than to compare him with the great Tendulkar. Look how still he remains as the ball is bowled. His bat is geometrically vertical in defence. When he drives ther??e is a good stride forward but he forces off the back foot and pulls the short ball with equal aplomb. I will be surprised if he does not continue in the same vein for a while to come�?/em>

It is, however, in his relationship with Joe Root that we see Dexter’s best-known link with the modern game in England. Michael Atherton, who Dexter made England captain in 1993 at the age of 25, has said Lord Ted �?em>loved watching Root bat �?both the busy intent and classical method of his play�? Concerned ??over an apparent dip in Root’s form in November 2019, ??Dexter took to his blog to note:

�?em>Most to worry about is Joe Root’s lack o??f runs. Even when he?????????????????????????? does get a few, it is a stuttering process with no rhythm. He is taking twice as long as before to score. I think he knows what is wrong but is finding it difficult to put it right. His clean cut footwork used to be the key. Now there is an impression of him running around with many movements going nowhere. He used to be one of those rare batsmen who put 20 or 30 on the board without you noticing. No longer.�?/em>

Again and again, Dexter turned to the basic principles and to the simplicity of footwork, stance, and positioning to rectify the wrongs that lead to downturns in performance at the top level. Unsurprisingly, since he was in the opinion of Gary Player one of the greatest amateur golfers he had ever seen, Dexter even talked cricket technique on the golf course. Of Joe Root’s technical lapses and the adoption of a more front-on stance in 2018, he observed �?em>I tried to remind Joe Root of it the other day. I play golf with Mark Nicholas [the cricket commentator] and I said to him: “I’ve got to send Joe a note, he’s getting squarer and squarer in his stance.�?/em>

With?? Root’s Yorkshire cricketing lineage harking back to that of Herbert Sutcliffe, Leonard Hutton and Geoffrey Boycott, whom Dexter said was the last of the line of the English classical school as far back as the early 1970s, it is unsurprising that Lord Ted should have revered Joe Root in the way he did, right up to his death at the age of 86 in August 2021. On his death Root said �?em>I never really had the pleasure of spending much time with him but he did send me a couple of emails out of the blue when I wasn’t playing so well, telling me how to get back where I wanted to be�?/em>

Technical orthodoxy for Ted Dexter did not translate to batting being staid and strokeless but, instead, he viewed it as a found??ation for complete batting, both in defence and attack. As he observed of the 1984 touring Sri Lankans:

“A succession of Sri Lankan batsmen came in, each of them with ??the bat on the ground, each one moved his feet, everyone was beautifully straight, and everyone could pull and hook. The general impression was that they were much better players than our guys. The fact that they could score 491-7 declared in their first innings at Lord’s illustrated that the Sri Lankans had inherited what should have been English qualities. Certainly the public noticed the difference between the two sides and their approach to batting. There were so many comments about the textbook style exhibited by the visitors that you would have thought correct batting was an innovation. It just went to show that we had completely lost our way�?/em>

When Chappell decided the mind and body could take no more, he opted to skip the Ashes series in the 1981 English summer. The mythology of Botham’s Ashes also has an Australian side to the story, not least that of the man who would lead the Aussies in England, Kim Hughes. The preceding Australia summer of 1980-81 is the background to that England tour, how the Australians came to take the squad they?????????????????????????? did, and how competing factions would influence the outcome of an Ashes Test series which has long since entered English cricketing folk lore.

All this seemed some way off on the first day of September 1980 when the Centenary Test had just reached its conclusion. F??ollowing the drawn Test’s post-match ceremonials, BBC’s Peter West spoke to both captains on the Lord’s balcony.  Bearin??g the facial expression of a man contemplating imminent root canal surgery rather than a future tour as captain, Greg Chappell responded to West’s enthusiastic probing about a full 6 Test Ashes summer in 1981:

“We’re looking forward to it. Hopefully, God willing and everything else, I might be back again for another tour next year. But, you know, I’m playing each season by ear at the moment, so I see how I go in the Australian summer next year and worry about (The Ashes series) April, May next year�? At which point Peter West said �?em>I think a player who might just accompany you is a man who has got the man of the match award�?/em> before summoning Kim Hughes over from his spot on the balcony. Chappell, almost lugubrious by that time, walked away with his English counterpart Ian Botham as Peter West focussed his attention on The Golden Boy himself. The? juxtaposition of Chappell’s world-weariness with Hughes�?boyish exuberance in this post-match segment is filled with pathos given what we know of the fortunes of both men in the year that followed.

Botham, on the day of his reappointment as England captain for the upcoming winter tour to the Caribbean, was much more upbeat tha??n Chappell, who looked both resigned and exhausted. The England captain’s comparative levity is striking when contrasted with Chappell, even though Botham had been through the wringer in a summer where he had experienced his first serious downturn in form as an international player during the series defeat against West Indies.

Chappell had good reason for his dark mood. Awaiting him on the return home for the 1980/81 season was a daunting schedule.  By the conclusion of the Australian summer, Chappell and his Australian side would have?? completed?? a passage in their careers in which a single 100-day period contained 80 days of cricket, many of which would include back-to-back limited overs games over weekends.

The composition of the Australian team for the 1980-81 season would take on, in part, a strangely ??early 1970s tint, with the return of one of Ian and Greg Chappell’s favourite larrikins. Having apparently signed off from international cricket at the conclusion of the 1977 Ashes series, Doug Walters came back into the fold for the 1980-81 home summer.  Nudging 36, he would put on hold his position as an executive for the company distributing Symonds cricket bats and don the Baggy Green once more. This time, though, he would cover his straggly, lank hair with helmet and visor while at the crease, giving him the appearance of an ageing village cricketer. There was nothing of the village slogger about his batting, though, as he ended the summer with 397 runs at 56.71, including a century against New Zealand in t??he final Test of the three-match rubber in Melbourne.

Alongside Walters, Lillee, Marsh, Pascoe and skipper Greg Chappell, were players who had become the Australian “establishment�?in the absence of those big boys who had played at night for?? Packer during 1977-78 and 1978-79.   John Dyson, Graeme Wood, Allan Border, Bruce Yardley and Rodney Hogg had all made their Test and ODI bows during the interregnum. Another, the incumbent vice-captain Kim Hughes, had begun his Test career on t?he last overseas tour before the split, the 1977 Ashes series in England. Together with Geoff Lawson, who debuted against New Zealand at Brisbane in the first half of the 1980-81 summer, the old and the new were uncomfortably welded together into the new, unified Australian team, a side led by a man who was increasingly wearying of the demands of his office.

The first red ball assignment of the season was a three-match Test series against New Zealand, which the Australians won comfortably by a 2-0 margin. Chappell’s men romped home by 10 wickets in the humidity of Brisbane in the 1^st  Test. In a low scoring affair, where the Kiwis managed just 225 and 142, Lillee was at his best with a second innings 6-53. Moving westward for the 2^nd Test in Perth, the New Zealand batting again looked feeble as they tumbled to 196 and then 121 in the second innings.  Lillee, Pascoe and Hogg had softened up the opposition batting, enabling Jim Higgs to take a second innings haul of 4-25 with his leg-spin. With the 3^rd Test resulting in a?? draw, the Australians took the series with apparent comfort. On the fina?l day, however, Geoff Howarth’s men shut up shop chasing 193 for victory and eventually closed on 128-6, thus saving themselves from a 3-0 series defeat.

With the World Series Cup running parallel alongside the Tests the schedule was already beginning to make its imprint on mind and limb. The ODI tri-nation season began on 23 November?? in Adelaide with the home side taking on New Zealand. This was followed up with Chappell’s team then taking a trip to Sydney for the game with India on 25 November.

With the 1^st Test against New Zealand completed in three days on November 30, Australian bags were then packed for the trip back east to Melbourne for more white-ball fixtures on 6 & 7 December.  After Australia had beaten New Zealand by 4 wickets at the MCG in the second of those games on 7 December, they moved right across to the western edge of the continent for the 2^nd Test match at Perth on 12 December. At this point of the season, however, the Australians were just about half-way through the demands of the international summer, with a th?ree-Test series against the visiting Indians to come plus more one-dayers. Years later Chappell reflected on the upsurge in playing time demands which had followed the Packer schism:

“The first season after WSC we were playing alternate Test matches against West Indies and England.  Bruce Laird had his hand broken against the West Indies and couldn’t play against England. We couldn’t understand why England would get the benefit of what West Indies had done. We were playing Test matches intertwined with one-day games, there was no flow to the season, adjusting from one format to another. We played all the double-headers in the one-day matches– Saturday and Sunday we were playing two days in a row. It was hard enough from the playing point of view but exceedingly demanding from a captaincy point of view. Two one-day games in a row were physically and mentally more demanding than a Test match. The workload on key players was immense, and towards the end of the season they were pretty much exhausted.”

After completing one Test series against New Zealand in Melbourne on 30 December the Australians beg??an another against India in Sydney on 2 January. The home side won by an innings and 4 runs thanks to the captain’s sublime 204. Exhausted or not the old wafting punches and clips through the leg-side pervaded an innings in which 27 boundaries were struck. A 172-run partnership with Dougie Walters was a reminder of a time when the demands were not quite so onerous.

Once again, an attack consisting of Lillee, Pascoe, Hogg, and Jim Higgs proved too formidable for the visiting team. After the 1^st Test there followed a three-week surfeit of one day cricket which resulted in both Australia and New Zealand qualifying for the World Series Cup finals. The 1^st final was scheduled for 29 January in Sydney before which the Test series with India resumed for the second five-day game in Adelaide o?n 23 January.

The 2^nd Test was noteworthy for Kim Hughes�?highest Test score: a sublime 213 which would silence the doubters, not least of which was Ian Chap?pell in the Channel 9 commentary box, who had suggested that Hughes�?future selection was in doubt. Following the conclusion of the Test match in Adelaide the focus would turn once more to the white ball format for a scheduled 5-match finals series. Already seething at the imposition of a quintet of games to decide the Benson & Hedges World Series Cup, Chappell was close to physical and mental collapse by the time that New Zealand won the first of the games on 29 January.

Despite pulling a game back and thrashing the Kiwis at Melbourne two days later, there came another the following day on 1 February, again at the MCG, which would strain Trans-Tasman relations to near breaking point.  Perhaps not since Bodyline in 1932/33 have events on a cricket fi??eld been so prominent in deciding relations between two countries.  ?In bald statistical terms Australia won the match and went 2-1 up in the final series. Statistics, though, cannot convey the turn of events that suffocating Melbourne afternoon.

In summary, the home side chalked up 235/4 batting first in conditions so hot that Trevor Chappell described them as a �?em>bloody oven�?/em>. In reply, New Zealand arrived at the final ball of their allotted 50 overs on 229-8, effectively meaning that they could, at best, tie the game by striking the last ball of Trevor Chappell’s over for six.  Greg Chappell then instructed his younger brother to bowl the final ball underarm at Bruce McKechnie. To the clear disdain of the skipper’s old pal Rod Marsh behind the stumps �?‘no mate, no�?– Chappell the younger complied with the instructions of his elder brother, a man who had up to that point taken on a stature in Australian public life which was almost princely.

At the game’s end, following Bruce McKechnie’s hurled bat, the Australians tried to make immediate sanctuary in their dressing room. There followed a harangue from selector Sam Loxton before they even arrived there. So crushed was Loxton, who had just seen his old school values publicly soiled, that he burst into tears.  Loxton’s emotive eruption was largely confined to players and those in close proximity to the dressing room. The final verdict �?and most damning – was delivered from the pulpit of Channel 9 that night by the Sage of Penrith himself, Richie Benaud, who delivered a headmasterly sermon, the target of which was Greg Chappell:

“I think it was a disgraceful performance from a captain who got his sums wrong today, and I think it should never be permitted to happen again. We keep reading and hearing that the players are under a lot of pressure, and that they’re tired and jaded and perhaps their judgment and skill is blunted. Perhaps they might advance that as an excuse for what happened out there today. Not with me they don’t. I think it was a very poor performance, one of the worst things I have ever seen done on a cricket field. Goodnight.”

What had caused what Chappell refers to as his Melbourne �?em>brain-snap�?that February day? It seemed the writing had been on the wall all season, although a brush with officialdom on the morning of the game brought things to the surface. Prior to the start, with temperatures nudging 40c, Chappell sought out ACB chairman and chair of selectors Phil Ridings regarding a possible reduction in the overs due to the heat. When Ridings denied, stating that this was only possible because of inclement weather, Chappell replied �?em>Phil, this is far from clement�?

Moreover, as captain, the phone could be ringing from 6am right through until midnight. Chappell was, he remarked, a �?em>sitting duck�?with nobody on hand to help him shoulder the burden. Looking back on events in 2020 he mused �?em>I was struggling. I was struggling to sleep. I was struggling to eat, and it was really affecting my ability to perform. It all bubbled up at the MCG on February 1�? As the final delivery of the New Zealand innings came round, Chappell formulated his get-out plan. He had clearly had enough and recalls thinking “You know what? I’ve had a gutful of this. These people (the administrators) aren’t listening�?and adding, in reference to the underarm “I wonder if they’ll take notice of this?�?    

The final match of th?e World Series Cup �?won by Australia, thus ensuring a pyrrhic series victory �?is almost forgotten, apart from the sporting welcome given to the incoming Chappell from opposing captai??n Geoff Howarth as he made his way to the crease. Winning the fourth final and making the score 3-1 overall obviated the need for the dreaded fifth final game. The immediate and most significant cricketing upshot of the fiasco was the swift rewriting of the laws governing underarm bowling. Courtesy of Sir Donald Bradman, the underarm was outlawed from the World Series Cup rule book. Additionally, the 5-match final series was thrown overboard, with the powers that be opting instead for a best of three format.

That the Australians were immediately rattled by the underarm incident is perhaps obvious by their capitulation to Kapil Dev in the final Test of the summer against India which ended on 11 February. Chasing a modest 143 the home side were bundled? out for 83, an ominous sign of things to come later in the year in England.

Worse was to follow. On 11 March Greg Chappell, perhaps predictably, announced that he would not tour England, choosing to stay at home for �?em>business reasons�?/em>.  For a man who would later admit that he was �?em>just gone�?/em> that 1980-81 summer, this was a tour too many. Len Pascoe would sit out the Ashes tour, too, having opted to have surgery on his troublesome knee.  Spinners Bruce Yardley and Higgs would not make the selectors�?cut either although, oddly, slow left armer Ray Bright did. Somewhat controversially given his excellent summer with the bat, veteran campaigner Doug Walters? was finally put out to grass, although the man himself had never considered himself a �?em>certain??ty�?/em> for the Ashes tour given his meagre record in England.

Jeff Thomson was another not selected for Ashes duty, while Graeme Yallop would return at the expense of Walters. Rookie Dirk Welham secured his birth, whereas the dashing David Hookes did not.  While Greg Chappell would pursue his business interests and rejuvenate mind and body, the leadership of the team passed to the new guard in the form of Kim Hughes, while his deputy for the trip Rod Marsh �?the man who would not be king �?simmered in resentment.

Storm clouds were hovering over the Australian team as they arrived in England in May 1981, both meteorologically and metaphorically. A team that had experienced the trauma of the underarm and its aftermath was still coming to terms with Greg Chappell’s deci?sion not to tour, while the senior members of the old gu?ard still standing, Lillee and Marsh, gave qualified support at best to his chosen successor Kim Hughes, a man they regarded as little more than an interim leader.

The experience of Kim Hughes as captain of Australia has garnered a body of literature in itself.  Geoff Lawson and Mike Whitney have most prominently attested to the shocking lack of cohesion and team spirit in England in 1981, while even those close?? to Lillee and Marsh squirm in discomfort when pressed on the issue.

The effects of the Australian summer of 1980-81 are manifold, but perhaps the ultimate cricketing casua??lty was the career of Kim Hughes, who was ultimately undone partly through his predecessor’s waning desire for extensive touring, a habit which would continue until Chappell had himself retired and Kim Hughes was driven into cricketing obscurity and replaced by Allan Border??.

Greg Chappell has since remarked that his actions that Melbourne afternoon four decades ago were a �?em>cry for help�?– such was the anxiety that had enveloped him.  With hindsight, Greg Chappell realised just how unfit for leadership he was at that time, exhausted as he was from the relentless treadmill of international cricket. He has even stated that he would not have demurred had the ACB removed him from his post in the aftermath of the underarm, even adding that this would have come as a relief.  Speaking in 2020 he recalled �?em>I wasn’t even aware until that day and almost until that moment just how strung-out I was and how unfit to captain Australia I was�?/p>

In 2021 we know more about the psychological demands of elite sport and several high profile �?em>cries for help�?/em> since Chappell’s day have increased the understanding of its dangers among those who manage the game.  Perhaps the biggest leap forward is that the modern-day player, glimpsing the signs of burnout, can feel able to publicly state their need for a break from the game without resorting to the cover of the euphemism �?em>business reasons�?     

Hanif Mohammad was born in Junagadh in Gujarat, India in 1934, scion of a notable cricketing family. Although brothers Wazir and Raees are perhaps less well known, two more siblings went on to represent Pakistan with the greatest distinction. Having entered Test cricket himself in 1952, Hanif was followed into the international arena by brothers Mushtaq and then Sadiq. Mushtaq, leg-spinning all-rounder and future captain, and Sadiq, punchy left-hand opening partner of Majid Khan, are names redolent of the glamorous but unfulfilled 1960s and 1970s, in the days before Imran Khan dissected his country’s game and recalibrated it for the 1980s and beyond. Hanif, however, is a name synonymous with the young nation entering Test cricket following Partition. Just thirteen when that seismic event of nation building took place, Hanif was representing the newly founded Pakistan by the time he was 18.

He is, of course, an iconic figure for two innings above all others. At the age of 22, touring the Caribbean for the first time, he stunned the West Indian bowlers into a state of total enervation. With an impeccable defence and with adept mastery of the short ball, Hanif batted 16 hours and 10 minutes for his 337. Even now it is an incredible feat of endurance to comprehend. Perhaps still more remarkable is the statistic of just 24 boundaries in that marathon rearguard action. Following on with a deficit of 473, Hanif blunted the home side’s attack to achieve the draw.

To top an innings like that requires something special, of course. For his next trick Hanif waited a year until the January of 1959. In the Quaid-e-Azam trophy semi-final of that year, Hanif’s Karachi were paired against Bahawalpur. The visitors were bowled out just before Tea on the opening day when an in-form Hanif paced to the middle to take guard for Karachi. Nearing the close of play on the third day, following a day of rest, Hanif set off in search of two runs which, he thought, would leave him with one more delivery to push for another two.

That extra couple would, Hanif calculated, take him to an unprecedented 500. Sadly, the scoreboard was wrong, Hanif was left high and dry going for a second run and he was dismissed for 499, not the 497 the scoreboard had led him to believe. In the process he had broken Bradman’s existing record of 452, an innings which would stand as the highest first-class score until broken by Brian Lara in 1994.

National and international acclaim followed, along with a telegram of congrat??ulations from Bradman himself. Having being massaged with olive oil prior to the rest day, Hanif has always made light of his mammoth feats of mental and physical resolve. As he recal??ls:

“Concentration had never been a problem – it came naturally. I played only one lofted shot in the innings, a straight drive for four – and I broke Bradman’s record with an on-driven boundary, a small, appreciative crowd there to cheer it”

He departed the Test scene in 1969, just short of his 35th bir??thday. First-class cricket had not seen the last of him, though, as he continued to perform in the Pakistani domestic game until 1976 when he was 42. His 55 Tests brought him 3915 runs at 43.98, with twelve centuries. In the first-class game the little master compiled 55 centuries and 66 fifties at an overall average of 52.32. His recent years have been troubled ones as his battles with liver cancer have sapped much of that legendary fortitude. On he goes though, past 80, the Grand Old Man of Pakistani cricket.

Hanif’s health problems have been exacerbated by the seeming indifference of the Pakistani Cricket Board towards his illness. Following surgery in 2011 in London, Hanif later spoke out in 2013, following his 79th birthday. Convalescing at home, he remarked:

“The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) didn’t bother to inquire from me about how I was managing things and this is very painful. I have come to the conclusion that there is no respect or care for sportsmen once he retires in our country and this is very painful for me”

His tale seems the all too familiar one of the retired sportsman. Having retired from the game when he could not possibly have imagined the sums being earned nowadays, Hanif –  a genuine great of the game – has found himself in a position of increasing penury. It was after Hanif spoke out on his 79th birthday that cricket fan and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif informed him that help would be on its way. Hanif, having run up medical bills of some seven million Rupees, received assurance from Nawaz that the PCB and the Pakistani Sports Board would examine his case.

Hanif has good cause to feel slighted on the cricketing front?, too. A trailblazer for the game in his country, he has yet to receive official recognition from the Pakistani Board for his Test triple century scored back in 1958. As he observes:

“The PCB has recognised and rewarded Inzamam and Younus for scoring triple hundreds, but my feat hasn’t been acknowledged by them to date. I played in an era where cricketing gear wasn’t appropriate and neither were the pitches. We took body blows for our country, sustained bruises and broken bones but yet our achievements have been overlooked, which is a shame.�?/p>

Whatever the PCB’s motivations, Hanif is still respected and revered by the current generation of Pakistani players. The praise of one in particular must make the old man proud. A hard-working Pathan with prodigious powers of endurance himself, Younus Khan is in no doubt as to Hanif’s status in the history of the game. Speaking at the birthday celebration of the man he calls “the legend”, Younus said:

“I’ll take upon the task myself of pleading our living legend’s cause. I will appeal to the government and the concerned authorities to not just give Hanif an academy but a proper institute should be built in his name where players can learn the trade. Today our hero is alive and we should act quickly to honour his services instead of mourning in the future. Players like Hanif are the nation’s real heroes because they played in an era where there were hardly any facilities as compared to today”

In his two cricketing autobiographies Imran Khan issued praise only sparingly when it came to the batting talents of his compatriots. Only Asif Iqbal, Javed Miandad and his own cousin Majid received quali?fied praise. Moving across the border to India, it was a diminutive son of Mumbai, Sunil Gavaskar, who Imran felt was the most complete Asian batsman.

A man dubbed the Little Master in his own playing days, Gavaskar combined matchless technique, unwavering powers of concentration and the ability to attack in exhilarating style when the moment took him. Had Imran stopped to ponder, he would have realised that one of his fellow countryman was pulling off similarly legendary feats as he spent his own gilded youth in Lahore. That man, Hanif Mohammad, was Pakistan’s and the subcontinent’s original Little Master.

The man known as Hogan to?? his compatriots, who made a recent comeback lasting just three deliveries at the age of 49, still retained that unmistakably stylish presence and stance at the crease, though given his body’s rather rickety service history perhaps it was a return that was always bound to end in tears. It was for the stamp of the very highest class that he brought to New Zealand’s cricket that he will always be remembered. Called up to a side that contained players such as Glenn Turner, Geoff Howarth, openers John Wright and Bruce Edgar and, of course, Richard Hadlee, the 19 year year old brought with him the baggage that only follows the very special: a schoolboy prodigy, here was a player who was not only expected to be great but who already looked great, too. While those around him fell into individualised batting stances; an exaggerated crouch here, a waft of the bat there, Crowe’s classical style was almost a throwback. His record aside, it may be for his fulfillment of the purists�?ideals that he is remembered so fondly.

The Auckland born Crowe was first called up for New Zealand’s home series against the touring Australians in 1981-82. With Greg Chappell returning as captain and having beaten Pakistan at home and drawn with Lloyd’s West Indians, this was no mean test for the debutant. It also came just a year after the controversial under-arm incident in the 1980-81 World Series Cup. Chappell, if not then quite as unpopular in New Zealand as Douglas Jardine had been Down Under in 1932-3, was still the focal point for whatever animosity Kiwi supporters still felt over the incident. To his credit, Chappell proved conciliatory and sportsmanlike throughout despite being accidentally barged to the ground by a supporter at the conclusion of the first one day game in Auckland. This was still a strong Australia, though, with more than a whiff of the Packer years about it. The frail batting from the 1981 England trip had been bolstered by Chappell’s return as it had by that of Bruce Laird’s inclusion, too. Kim Hughes was firing on all cylinders and the bowling attack consisted of a firing Thomson, Alderman and a Lillee who was now the world’s leading Test wicket taker, spluttering along with whatever fuel remained in the tank. Though the series was drawn 1-1, Crowe had scraped together just 20 runs from 4 single digit innings. Coming in much lower down the order than he would perhaps have preferred, it had been a tough introduction. Things did not get much easier as he missed the Tests at home against Sri Lanka during the 1982-83 season. Following that, however, he did get the selectorial nod and received a tour berth for the 1983 World Cup and subsequent 4 Test series against England.
New Zealand’s World Cup ended before the semi-final stage but Crowe still had time to leave an indelible mark on English audien?ces with his 97 at the Oval in the tournament’s opening game against England. Showing a composure beyond his then 20 years, he struck 8 boundaries, farmed the strike to protect a vulnerable tail and made the lion’s share of New Zealand’s 216. The Test series went England’s way, 3-1, although the Kiwis took the Headingley Test in what became known as L?ance Cairns�?match. After a painful 29 ball duck in the opening Test at The Oval in mid-July, Bob Willis spectacularly removing his off stump, the young apprentice regrouped to reel off a series of cameos that would give a taste of what was to come in the years ahead, beginning with 33 in that Oval Test second innings. There followed 37 in the first innings at Headingley, where he dropped anchor to partner John Wright in setting New Zealand’s match winning total; a measured 46 in the second innings of the Lord’s Test and a 34 in the first innings at Trent Bridge. Though he hardly set scorecards alight, Crowe had made his impression. Summarising the series, Wisden wrote “The twenty-year-old Martin Crowe, while still getting the feel of Test cricket, did enough to show that he should be the bulwark of his country’s batting for years to come.�?As the series concluded and New Zealand headed off home to prepare for the three Test series against the English tourists, Crowe’s fledgling career at Test level stood at 183 runs from 7 matches at an average of 15.25 with a best of 46.Having found his way, Crowe was clearly ready to raise his game. He would not have long to wait. The first Test at Wellington in January 1984 would be his date with destiny.

New Zealand’s first innings 219 in that Wellington Test was below par given what was to come, Crowe himself having been clean bowled by Willis, as at The Oval in the previous summer, though this time for 13. England succeeded in making equally heavy weather of things until Randall joined Botham in a partnership of 232. In a match played in largely murky, overcast conditions, Botham played absolute havoc, hitting 22 fours and 2 sixes in his 138. Randall, more restrained initially, was no less effective, striking 20 fours and 2 sixes in his 164. As the tourists closed on 463 with a 244 run advantage it seemed that an innings victory was merely a matter of time. With both of New Zealand’s openers back in the hut with the score at 79-2 the 21 year old strode out to meet his captain, Geoff Howarth, in the middle. Exactly 200 runs later he departed the scene having made half of those runs himself. His maiden hundred was made from 247 balls and included 19 fours, an unusually high percentage. His main partnerships were with Howarth, 74, and a stand of 114 with the other centurion Jeremy Coney. Even in defence he looked assertive, creating an impression of impregnability that vindicated those who decided on his move up the order to number four. In 276 minutes he graduated from promisin??g youngster to Test batsman. Wisden, not given to hyperbole, remarked “Martin, the younger of the Crowe brothers, showed exceptional maturity for a 21-year-old, without making a visible mistake until the stroke that got him out, an edge to slip that gave Gatting his first Test wicket.�?It really had been that kind of innings. At a time when purists felt that the level of batsmanship had declined, and where the absence of technically proficient stylists was bemoaned by the likes of Ted Dexter and EM Wellings, the young Auc?klander arrived to settle the argument in favour of classism and assuage the concerns of those who feared that it had withered and died.

From that point he would go on, of course, to outstrip all his countrymen that had gone before him. The average would inevitably soar from the apprenticeship days of the first England tour, settling at 45.36 from his 77 Tests. In all he made 5444 runs, hit 17 hundreds and compiling 18 fifties. In the abbreviated format, his 4704 runs came from 143 matches with 4 hundreds and 34 half-centuries at a mean of 38.55. His overall first class average was 56.02, ranking him on a par with Boycott and above Vivian Richards. It is perhaps the measure of the man as a player that, at the age of 21, he filled the boots of the greatest batsman of the age, Viv Richards. The Antiguan, touring England with the West Indies, left a lacuna at Somerset that Sunil Gavaskar had also attempt??ed to fill four years previously. Crowe, fresh from his recent investiture as New Zealand’s Crown Prince in Wellington the previous winter, seemed undaunted. In summer 1984 he compiled 1,870 first class runs for Somerset and was made one of the five Wisden Cricketers of The Year. As he reflected on his remarkable year in the southwest of England, he said with typical self-effacement “I probably learned more in six months than in six years before, and developed a greater awareness of everything that goes on in the middle. I seem to be able to understand the game more now. I’ve been prepared to accept everything that’s gone on, and analysed why things have happened, and I’ve now got a lot of ans?wers that I probably didn’t have before�? Despite a poor start �?having been on the wrong end of 5 consecutive single digit dismissals �?he confounded any remaining doubters by striking 719 runs at 143.8 in the month of June.

In a top flight career stretching over a decade, picking out the gems is in itself an exercise in subjectivity. There are, however, certain moments in Crowe’s career that can be said to serve as testament to his technique, classicism and elegance. His 106 at Lord’s on his second tour of England in 1986 moved David Frith to remark that it was like watching “a heavyweight Greg Chappell�?– a likeness that is based on the soundness of technique and penchant for driving through the “V�? It was also, for English Test crowds, the first chance to see the finished product, the polished version of the boy that had arrived on their shores three years earlier. At the age of 22 in early 1985 he took on Marshall, Garner and Holding in Georgetown to make his maiden Test hundred against West Indies a big one, with 22 fours and a six in his 188. Statistically, his finest hour came at the end of January 1991 when he made the highest score by a New Zealander in Tests with 299 out of 671-4. In 1994, though, with injuries already threatening to curtail his career at the age of 31, he toured England for the fourth time and still hit 380 runs in the three Tests; the “old fashioned�?142 at Lord’s being his last great innings on English soil. However, perhaps the most memorable contribution from the late-era Crowe as a mature batsman and innovative, visionary leader came during the 1992 World Cup. Home advantage the Kiwis may have had but the captain maximised their effort to the full, often baffling opponents with successful experiments such as giving the new ball to off-spinner Dipak Patel. Sadly, injuries meant that he could not take the field in Pakistan’s innings during the semi-final as Javed and Inzamam carried their team home.

Ultimately there would be no semi-final victory for the home town boy that day in Auckland. His own record during the tournament was phenomenal: in 9 innings he compiled 456 runs at 114 with a strike rate of 90.83. With a frame that was already beginning to wilt from serious injury, he took the attack to all opponents and ever more stylishly so. When he caressed a low attempted yorker from Curtley Ambrose for a perfectly executed on driven four, everything screamed “technical perfection�? The weight distribution, elbow position and follow through all bo?re the stamp of the classicist. There were many such examples throughout World Cup 1992 as the bandana clad virtuoso in New Zealand grey became the leading batsman of the tournament. Then 29, it appeared at times as though he was auditioning on an imaginary New Zealand’s Got Batting Talent programme, so commanding, polished and stylish were his performances, so exaggeratedly perfect was his technique at times.

His retirement, when it came in 1995, was not unexpected given his chronic knee condition and other ailments. It was, though, unquestionably sad. His departure from the scene has seen him become a keen advocate of a World Championship of Test cricket and also devise a now defunct short format which some saw as a precursor of Twenty/Twenty, Cricket Max. From my formative cricket watching years, however, Martin Crowe represented what a top batsman should actually look like. The fact that he could also play a bit was a bonus. When Ian Chappell, John Wright and Tony Greig sat round a Cricinfo table to discuss what makes a great batsman, all agreed that the look is vital. That look, they argued,though difficult to define,constituted command, elegance and the virtue of having time to spare. Looking good and boasting a high average were not mutually exclusive either, the trio felt. The usual names were bandied about, selected from the panel’s playing careers: Barry and Viv Richards, Greg Chappell, Graeme Pollock. Turning to John Wright, Ian Chappell remarked “What about Crowie?�? Hogan??, no doubt, would have been justifiably proud to have been mentioned in such company, an ambition , perhaps, he harboured all those years ago as a precocious schoolboy in Auckland. There were many examples of his batting getting aesthetes a little hot under the collar, though maybe none were as fulfilling as ??that breakthrough century made in Wellington over 28 years ago.

From the great Ranji in the Golden Age through to the modern era, batsmen from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka cast perhaps the most exotic of spells. One such exemplar, a native of Hyderabad in the southern Indian state of Telangana, was Mohammad Azharuddin. Although he was latterly overshadowed by India’s late 20th century quartet of Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid and Laxman, “Azhar�?was, for a period, the very embodiment of eastern willow-w??ielding exoticism.

A man of inherent contradictions, perhaps Jonathan Rice best summarized this son of Hyderabad with his observation, in the Wisden on India Anthology, that “a Muslim educated at a Christian school, captaining the national side made up largely of Hindus and Sikhs, perhaps he never quite fitted in, but to watch?? him bat in his prime was sheer joy�? Nowhere was that joy and fascination more heartily felt than in England, against whom Azharuddin embarked on his Test career in the Indian summer of 1984/85.

Having debuted for Hyderabad in Indian domestic competition in 1981/82, Azhar was made to wait his turn for three full seasons during which time the national side had at their disposal such luminaries as Gundappa Viswanath, Sandeep Patil, Dilip Vengsarkar, Yashpal Sharma and Mohinder Amarnath. When the call came, in 1984/85 against David Gower’s touring England team, Azharuddin made his mark im??mediately and most emphatically. Making his Test debut at Kolkata on New Year’s Eve 1984, Azhar proceeded to cream centuries in three consecutive Tests, a feat not bettered since.

Strolling to the middle following the dismissal of his senior teammate and fellow Hyderabad native Mohinder Amarnath at 126/3, Azhar was finally dismissed with the score 341/5. Taking time to settle himself and eschewing risk, the 21 year-old compiled 214 for the fifth wicket with Ravi Shastri. Although the tourists had encountered the young batsman in earlier tour fixtures at Jaipur and Ahmedabad, the impres?sion created here was one of watchfulness and assuredness of technique. Flamboyance and flair, given the match situation, were in short supply. As Wisden observed:

“A willowy 5ft 11in, he confirmed the impression made at Jaipur and Ahmedabad of placid temperament, sound technique and flawless application, batting 443 minutes before being caught in the gully from a ball that lifted off a length. After a well-contested first day, however, the tempo of Azharuddin’s stand with Shastri, which was India’s record in all Tests for the fifth wicket, killed the match. �?/p>

Despite being on the losing side in the next?? Test in Chennai, Azharuddin played with considerably more dash on that occasion as he notched 105 in India’s second innings 412. Charmed by his exhibition, Wisden noted “Azharuddin revealed a brilliant range of off-side strokes s??quare with the wicket in becoming only the fourth player to score a hundred in his first two Tests before falling to Pocock, caught at silly point, early on the final day�?

His 122 in the final Test in Kanpur appeared to confirm that India had unearthed a special gem. Three centuries, a total of 439 runs and a?? mean of 109.75 ann?ounced to the cricketing world the arrival of this wiry, taciturn right-hander.

Azharuddin’s next encounter with England came in the early hal?f of the 1986 English summer. In a series which was largely overshadowed by the FIFA World Cup in Mexico, and by Ian Botham’s suspension from international duties, the touring team nonetheless caught England cold, trouncing them 2-0 in the three Test rubber. In six Test innings Azharuddin notched 157 runs at 31.40 with a high of 64. Outshone with the bat by Dilip Vengsarkar, who was simply imperious on that tour, Azhar showed flashes of the magic which was due to come. In the two match ODI series at the summer’s dawn he stroked a masterly 83 at The Oval in the opening game, piloting his country to victory and easily outpacing Sunil Gavaskar in the run chase.

Little did anyone know it but it would be another four years before Azharuddin, India and England would lock horns once more. In 1988/89 Engl??and’s tour of India was cancelled due to the Indian authorities�?refusal to accept the involvement of previously SAB contracted English players and, in particular, to acknowledge a touring party captained by Graham Gooch. In 1990, however, it was the very same GA Gooch who captained England against India on home soil, whil?e Azharuddin had by this time been elevated to the Indian captaincy.

Although the 1990 series between the two is most often remembered for the England captain’s ascent to greatness, the Indian skipper performed with a level of artistic brilliance which will not easily be dislodged from the memory banks of those who wit??nessed it. Despite going down to a 1-0 series defeat, Azharuddin produced two gems.

In India’s first innings 454 Azhar needed just 111 balls to produce a virtuoso 121, with an incredible 22 boundaries. Particularly harsh on a wayward Devon Malcolm, Azharuddin was not daunted by the match situation, in particular the mammoth 454 they initially required to avoid the follow-on. As he recalled, “It’s not as if we were always hitting the ball as if we wanted to take the cover off it. But there was so much loose bowling, especially from Malcolm, that it was easy to send the ball speeding down the slope.”

In the Old Trafford Test which followed his first innings 179 was rated even more highly still. Striking 21 fours and a six, Azharuddin recalled “I always knew that the ball was going when I aimed to hit it”. Indeed, Azhar’s total control over the direction of his strokes and the dexterity which he demonstrated in compiling his runs brings to mind John Arlott’s description of the incomparable Jack Hobbs�?similarly majestic adroitness. As Arlott recalled of his idol, “The Master�?Hobbs:

?“The spectator felt that the stroke he played seemed so natural as to be inevitable �?or as if a choreographer had designed it as the rhythmically and poetically logical consequence of the bowler’s delivery�?

Watching re-runs of Azharuddin’s “Twin Peaks�?from ?that English summer, it is not difficult to attribute those very same qualities displayed by Hobbs almost a century earlier to Azhar in 1990. Seasoned Indian cricket writer R. Mohan acknowledged:

“Having made his name as a stylist who used the power of his wrists to create the mesmeric effect of strokes played late, he had often been struggling in his attempt to put percentages ahead of style. It was an index of his re-emerging batting personality that he should score the centuries which fascinated Englishmen so�?/p>

The 1990 series haul was 426 runs at 85.20, with a solitary fifty sitting alongside those two unforgettable hundreds. Aside from the leisurely off-side strokes which seemed to punctuate each innings, he revealed a signature leg-side shot w??????????????????????????hich almost became his trademark. Moving towards the off-side, Azhar would turn the wrists toward midwicket as the ball made impact on bat, only for then to follow through with such ferocity that he looked likely to knock himself off kilter as a result. The resulting four, often untraceable from the moment of leaving the bat, was thrilling as it sped over the midwicket ropes.

England and India – and Azharuddin and Gooch – next met while England were touring during the 1992/93 season. A poor England were no match for India, who triumphed 3-0. Azharuddin’s 182 in the opening Test in Kolkota was compiled at a rate of 92.38 per hundred balls and was described by Wisden as “a masterpiece of uninhibited strokeplay matched with watchful defence�? Azhar’s 214 runs came at 71.33, while a diminutive son of Mumbai, Sachin Tendulkar, was establishing himself under Azharrudin’s tutelage.

Mohammad Azharuddin returned to England for the last time as a Test cricketer in 1996. Then 33, he was a man under siege, following a World Cup semi-final defeat to Sri Lanka months earlier which had seen his home fans burn effigies of him after the game. Under pressure from the start of the tour, relationships with his players were at times fraught, wit??h Navjot Singh Sidhu returning home early following a row with his captain. Doubtless affected by the fall-out following the break-up of his marriage months earlier, Azhar was accused of isolating himself from his players. In the circumstances, a return of 42 runs from five Test innings was perhaps understandable.

It was a sad footnote to his sparkling career against England, although the earlier images will never dim in the eyes of cricket followers. In total, Azhar compiled 1278 runs against England at an average of 58.09. His six centuries and three fifties?? is proof of a man who scored heavily when well set. In full flight he was something truly special, though, and even the big four of Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman and Ganguly would no doubt have to bend the knee to him in his most irresistible form. He was, as the Indian writer Dileep Premachandran observed, “a Michelangelo in the midst of housepainters�?

Azhar’s Test career record against England compares favourably to an overall mean of 45.03 from 99 Test matches and 6215 runs. In ODIs he was similarly prolific against Engl?ish teams, having run up 911 runs at 65.07 in 24 matches, with a top score of 95* in early 1993. In a career total of 334 limited overs games for India, Azharuddin notched 9378 ru??ns at 36.92, with seven centuries.

Like many batsmen of his vintage, however, the thorn in his side were the West Indies. In 14 Tests he failed to post a century against them, with a best of 97 as he totalled 539 runs at a comparatively meagre 28.36. An outstanding fieldsman, althoug??h he performed on a high plane in the shorter formats, the Test match was Azharuddin’s métier, just as it was with fellow Hyderabadi Laxman. Invariably batting third drop at the earliest, the Test match gave him the time and latitude to shape the team’s innings.

The English county game certainly benefited from his unique presence. In two seasons with Derbyshire he was the personification of ??politeness, modesty and kindness. Always on hand with a word for supporters and county members, he was invariably helpful to junior players and bore his rank as captain of one of the game’s elite cricketing nations with humility. In 1991 he hit 2016 first class runs at 59.29, including seven centuries and 10 fifties, with a further 500 in limited overs competition. Three years later, returning for a second stint, he hit 712 runs at 44.50 before the call of duty from India curtailed his county season.

Azhar clearly enjoyed his time with the county, recalling “I really enjoyed my time here, I am very proud to have represented Derbyshire and it is a beautiful place�? Of his work with the players themselves, he added ““I enjoyed playing with the likes of Devon Malcolm and Dominic Co??rk, who used to stay in my house and drive to games with me. I helped to teach Dominic how to be humble and I always knew he would play for England�? It was always felt that his influence was deep-rooted but in helping to instill a sense of humility in Dominic Cork, the English game’s debt to Mohammad Azharuddin is perhaps far mo??re profound than anyone ever imagined.