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Call me lucky, but with Botham and Willis on board, who needed luck?

FORTUNE favours the brave, and I had the bravest on my side.

RAYMOND Illingworth, when provocatively asked if I was the best England captain, replied: "The luckiest captain, more like."

Well, I don't know about luckiest, but I do agree about lucky. And as in other walks of life, but perhaps more dramatically in a role like this, you need a fair share of it, and at the right times.

I was lucky to play for England at all. My first Test came in 1976 when I was 34 (an age at which many cricketers are retiring from Test cricket), and was based on a theory of Tony Greig's. He saw Australia beat the burgeoning West Indies in Australia in 1975-76; batsmen like Ian Redpath and Ian Chappell blunted the raw but massively impressive fast bowling attack led by Andy Roberts and Michael Holding with the aid of a sound defence and plenty of grit, and Greig concluded that he needed batsmen who had experience. He picked John Edrich (39), Brian Close (45) David Steele (34) and me. Since 1949 Close, ever the optimist, had put the Test matches and their venues in his diary at the start of each season; 1976 was the first time he had not done so.

A few weeks earlier, I had required another piece of luck to get into the frame at all; on the day before the MCC vs West Indies match in late May, Richard Lumb dropped out because of injury, and I (no doubt as a result of the theory) was selected to take his place. So, instead of going from Cambridge to Chelmsford to play in a Benson and Hedges one-day match, I went to Lord's to open the batting with Dennis Amiss (33). After Dennis was hit on the back of the head by a Roberts bouncer, I batted a long time, against the fastest and most lethal bowling I remember facing before or after. Hence two tests, one at Nottingham, one at Lord's.

Hence also a visit with Greig to a man in Nottingham who made protective headgear for children with epilepsy. He made us both a small plastic skull-cap to go under the cap, with protection over the temples. I decided to wear it when, in 1977 (after the Centenary Test in Melbourne and the revelations about Greig acting as recruiting agent for the World Series revolution), I replaced Tony as captain. Another piece of luck; without that timing it would have quietly died and been forgotten (though not by me).

So, I played in five Tests against Australia that summer, wearing the little skull cap, believing that the tough Australians must have been scornful of this open display of vulnerability, only to discover when having a drink with them later that their attitude was that the idea was sensible but the product inadequate. By the next year cricketers round the world were wearing helmets not unlike the current ones.

So, here was one lesson: don't allow Australian cricketers to be taken at their own valuation, don't be over-impressed by their macho exteriors. Rodney Marsh and Dennis Lillee are, I've discovered, kind and genial men, full of emotion and sentiment. As international sportsmen they were indeed tough. They did not think of a Test match as an occasion for cheery banter; Derek Randall, who would chatter away on the field, often half to himself, puzzled them. When he came in to bat at Old Trafford, he is said to have said, "Eh oop, Marshy, how's things?". And got the stony reply, "What do you think this is, Randall, a garden party?". Now I count Lillee and Marsh among my friends. When we met up in Perth a few years ago, Dennis said how disappointing it was that we hadn't got to know each other better when playing.

But to go back. As I said I played in the Centenary test, when Lillee took 11 wickets, Randall scored 174 in the second innings, and England lost, heroically in the end, by 45 runs chasing a last innings target of 463. . When given the microphone as man of the match, Randall thanked Dennis "for t'bump on the side of my head. If it had hit me anywhere else it might have hurt".

At Headingley in the home series later that year, Randall celebrated making the catch that won the Ashes by doing a cartwheel on the field. In 1978-79, we toured Australia at the same time as World Series cricket was on. Again Randall figures in one of my most prominent memories, of the fourth Test, at Sydney. We had made a hash of the first innings, being bowled out for 152. At one stage, with Bob Willis ill and off the field, Australia was 1 for 126. The temperature was 34C. Yet, having restricted them to a lead of 142, Randall again made a magnificent century in the second innings, 150 this time. We then bowled Australia out (seven wickets shared between Geoff Miller and John Emburey) for 111 to win by 93 runs and to find ourselves 3-1 up in the series.

In the next year, there was a hastily arranged tour of Australia as part of the deal done with Packer. We lost 3-0, having declined to put the Ashes at stake for a mere three-match series. For the second of these Tests, again at Sydney, starting on January 4, the ground staff had gone off for their New Year's Eve party. They omitted to cover the pitch, and it rained for three or four days. The pitch was therefore wet and likely to be lethal. We had Derek Underwood in our side, the world's greatest bowler on rain-affected pitches. So I gambled on winning the toss, putting Australia in, and bowling when the pitch was at its worst. I thought we would then have won; and that even if we lost the toss we might scrape through. So I argued that the pitch was fit to play sooner than perhaps it really was. We lost the toss, and the match, though I have always felt that had Greg Chappell been given out caught behind when the score was 3 for 98, (Australia chasing 219) we would have had an equal chance of winning. We lost by six wickets.

And finally there was 1981. Luckiest captain? No doubt. First, to have Ian Botham in his pomp, and for Willis to bowl the spell of his life, taking 8 for 43. We won by 19 runs. This match was followed by Edgbaston (Botham's spell of five wickets for one run causing a collapse and a win by another narrow margin, 29 runs), and then Old Trafford (Botham 117 in an innings of unusually cultured brutality). This little month was like a time out of life, now framed by a no doubt sentimental memory like a wish-fulfilling dream. For the Australians involved, it must still be a not quite believable nightmare.

Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/call-me-lucky-but-with-botham-and-willis-on-board-who-needed-luck/news-story/1ac4df95d281ef598559bb79294228d4