Saturday, December 29, 2012

A tribute to Tony Greig

Another of my boyhood heroes died today - and no I don't mean William Rees-Mogg.

There is a superb tribute to him by Vic Marks in tomorrow's Observer, and I can do no better than quote large chunks of it:
In the end the figures don't lie. In 58 Tests for England – and there obviously could have been many more – Greig scored 3,599 runs at 40 and took 141 wickets at 32, which does not compare too badly with Ian Botham (5,200 runs at 33 and 383 wickets at 28) or Andrew Flintoff (3,845 at 31, 226 at 32) ... 
When he scored a brilliant hundred at the Gabba on the 1974-75 tour of Australia he signalled his own boundaries off Dennis Lillee. This was a provocative act, not always appreciated by his colleagues ("Please don't make him mad," pleaded Derek Underwood at the other end). My guess is that Greig's histrionics did indeed rile Lillee somewhat (actually there is not much guesswork involved here); they made Lillee bowl shorter; they made him lose control. This was brilliant theatre from Greig; it was also shrewd tactics.

In Calcutta, in 1976, Greig was capable of scoring a seven-hour hundred at a strike rate way below the norm for Jonathan Trott while keeping 80,000 spectators entertained in the process. Greig wooed the Indians; they loved it when he fell to the ground poleaxed after a firecracker had been let off. Such adulation eased the path of his team around the subcontinent. Under his leadership that series was won 3-1 ...
He could swing the ball and, even though he did not make full use of his height, the odd delivery would bounce more than expected. But it was when he improvised with his off-breaks that he had the most remarkable success. In Port of Spain in March 1974 he took 13 wickets and therefore contrived to square a series against West Indies that England seemed bound to lose. Geoffrey Boycott scored 211 runs in that match and wryly observed that he and Greig had kept Mike Denness in his job as England captain ... 
Usually Greig manipulated the press brilliantly. He never shied away from a microphone and he could dictate the news agenda with easy charm. He understood how the media operated and how they could be used to his advantage far better than the current England setup.

And, of course, there was Packer. It took balls to forsake the England captaincy and to take on the establishment, but it was already apparent from his exploits on a cricket field that he had big ones. Greig often protested that he enlisted with World Series Cricket for the greater good. He was also candid enough to admit that he was able to secure his family's future by taking the plunge and aligning with Packer ... 
I made my debut in first-class cricket against his Sussex side in the Parks in April 1975 (I dropped him and he made a century, as it happens). More importantly I recall this Adonis of the cricketing world, who had just returned from Australia, a battered hero but one who would soon accede to the England captaincy. And I remember how he made time to chat away freely to us young, inconsequential students as if we were proper cricketers. That impressed us as much as the runs, the wickets and the golden locks.
Just two things to add...

The first is that when Greig led England to victory in India in 1976-7 his attack, though he also had the irreplaceable Derek Underwood, was based around three seamers: Bob Willis, Chris Old and John Lever. They must have been very good, because this winter only James Anderson and (in one test) Steve Finn even took a wicket for us in India.

The second is that after he lost the England captaincy Greig became a loyal, important member of Mike Brearley's team that won back the Ashes in 1977. His batting, his bowling - by then he was England's fourth seamer - and maybe above all his slip fielding, were central to that success. Standing between Brearley and the seam bowler Mike Hendrick, he formed part of what may the the finest England slip cordon I have ever seen.

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