History has decided that Mike Brearley was a great captain, particularly because of his effect on the 1981 Ashes series, but never a test batsman.
But it did not always look that way at the time. As I once blogged, Brearley was selected for an England touring party as early as 1964, when he was aged only 22. You can see him in the photograph above in the middle of the back row, next to a bespectacled Geoffrey Boycott. The two of them were to play their last test together in 1981,
Brearley was not picked for any on the tests in South Africa that winter and was soon playing only in the university vacations, like an old-fashioned amateur, because he was lecturing in philosophy at Newcastle.
While I was studying philosophy at York, we found out that he had also applied unsuccessfully for a lectureship there. The late Roger Woolhouse, who had got the job instead, claimed he couldn't help sensing our slight disappointment in him.
Mike Brearley returned to playing full time as Middlesex captain and was still a good enough batsman to be picked for England under Tony Greig in 1976. He was one of the experienced heads favoured by Greig in what he saw fit to call his campaign to make the West Indies "grovel".
Brearley did well enough to be selected as vice-captain for the 1976/7 tour of India that winter. So when Greig was sacked for his role in the establishment of World Series Cricket, he was the natural choice a captain for the 1977 home Ashes series, which England won with surprising ease.
The rest, particularly his second coming in 1981, was history.
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