In theory it was the same country, in practice it was another world. Total is the difference between the way England’s young cricketers used to be treated and the way they are kid-gloved now.
When Shoaib Bashir arrived in India two years ago on his first England tour, and was detained at the airport for some visa issue, England’s captain and head coach, Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, stayed with him until Bashir was freed, whereupon they went in a taxi to the team hotel together.
When Josh Hull was given his Test debut in September – and this month, in England’s T20 series in the West Indies, it might be the new wrist-spinner Jafer Chohan – his parents were included in the huddle when he was presented with his first Test cap. When Brydon Carse was given his Test debut in Pakistan last month, Stokes himself made the presentation speech.
All these debutants, launched like an old-fashioned ship with royalty breaking a bottle of champagne over their bows, have taken like ducks to water: as bowlers, they have immediately taken wickets. Stokes burned up all three of his decision reviews in his first 11 overs in India earlier this year, two in his desperation to ease Tom Hartley’s nerves.
Lack of man-management was manifest
It was not ever thus. Before Rehan Ahmed made his Test debut aged 18 years and 126 days, and took a five-wicket haul in Pakistan’s second innings in Karachi to seal a 3-0 series win in December 2022, the title of England’s youngest Test cricketer belonged to Brian Close. His experiences came at the opposite extreme to TLC.
According to a fascinating and highly relevant biography of Close, titled “One Hell of a Life – Brian Close, Daring, Defiant and Daft” by Stephen Chalke, it was not so much his Test debut, aged 18 years and 149 days, that was the problem. It passed by so quickly: his parents’ house in Rawdon inundated with journalists on the Sunday when the team was announced, his Yorkshire championship game ending on the Tuesday, followed by a two-day game against the Army in Hull, then he actually had a day off – a rarity in those days – before the third Test against New Zealand began on the Saturday at Old Trafford.
Close bowled his off-spinners – he was a medium-pacer too – economically in a Test always destined for a draw as it was scheduled for only three days. When he batted at number nine, his captain Freddie Brown – keen to bring on youngsters after the War – told him to “have a look at a couple then give it a go”, so he was caught third ball on the square-leg boundary. He was dropped alright, but there was no keeping Jim Laker out of the next Test at the Oval.
It was when he was selected for the tour of Australia in 1950-51 that the lack of man-management was manifest. In 1949, the season of his first-class and Test debut, Close had done the first-class double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets. In 1950 he played only four first-class games, owing to National Service. No Lions tours in those days, no winter training camps in the UAE. He was on the ship to Australia, and left to sink or swim.
‘I didn’t know how to conform’
Close was, in many ways, a forerunner of Stokes: “a magnificently built young man with a natural flair for all games played with a ball and most sports unconnected with them,” according to a journalist on board. In the ship’s pool he was the best swimmer, as Close soon knew. However, he admitted: “I was lacking in discipline in that I didn’t know how to conform.”
The pool on board had railings around it. Close decided to run and jump over them to access the water. “Cut that out, that’s far too dangerous,” ordered the England captain Brown. So Close stood on top of the railings to jump in.
Differences nowadays do not stop a young player being integrated within the squad. Close was quickly perceived as big-headed and bumptious – and he had a Yorkshire accent. “He was a really naughty lad on that trip, very full of himself,” the Nottinghamshire amateur Reg Simpson recalled. The idea that Close – surrounded by greats like Alec Bedser, Denis Compton and Len Hutton – was trying to hide his insecurity did not occur.
“As amateurs we were not allowed, or encouraged, to mix too freely with the professionals,” another amateur John Dewes told Chalke. “I did try to be approachable. But Brian had a very broad accent, and this did not help him.” No wonder England kept losing to Australia before the distinction between amateurs and professionals was abolished in 1962. What teamwork?
Close scored a century in the opening first-class game against Western Australia in Perth. During it he strained or tore a tendon in his groin. When Brown asked him if he was fit for the second Test, Close said he would be alright. But he couldn’t bowl properly, and scored 0 and 1.
Downward spiral gathered pace
That dismissal for a duck highlights another major difference between then and now. After Hutton had been sawn off – given caught behind by the Australian umpire to a lone appeal – in the last eight-ball over before lunch, Close had to come in at 54 for four. Jack Iverson turned a ball down legside. Safety first was the whole ethos: play for the interval. Close went to sweep and was caught at backward square-leg. Even an Australian journalist, the former opening batsman Jack Fingleton, slammed it as “a nightmarish, incredible swish to leg.”
The downward spiral gathered ever-increasing pace. In Tasmania, Close showed a consultant’s report – stating that Close’s groin needed three or four weeks’ rest – to Compton, who was acting captain. Compton said he was playing in the next game, to give senior players a break.
Back on the mainland, by the final Test Close was not even going to the ground with the rest of the England team, but was out playing golf (naturally he could play left- or right-handed). Such was his loneliness that in a letter home to his best friend John Anderson he confided: “My brain seems to be muzzy and keeps wandering into all kinds of thoughts and my nerves are on edge. Oh to hell with it, I just feel like doing away with myself.”
He didn’t. He lived to play what was undoubtedly the bravest innings – the physically bravest – ever seen in England. The Lord’s Test of 1963 was a forerunner, when he walked down the pitch at Wes Hall, but Hall was pitching the ball up. When Michael Holding sent down seven consecutive overs, at Close alone, all of them maidens, at Old Trafford in 1976, when Close had been recalled at the age of 45, when there were no helmets, no chest protectors, no arm-guards, not even a thigh pad just a thin towel stuffed down the trousers, Holding did not pitch the ball up.
Even today, the ball that flew an inch from Close’s flung-back face makes one wince. Has anybody in sport been hit so hard and so often on the body: any boxer, any rugby forward? Certainly no cricketer. Fred Trueman, in the Yorkshire dressing-room next day, counted 16 deep and vivid bruises, but a few had merged into others, so he reckoned 20 hits in all. And not a word of complaint, or one gesture to the dressing-room for a physio.
Close eventually, as captain of Yorkshire the usual county champions in the 1960s, became the England captain – to be fired for slowing the over-rate down in a game against Warwickshire to 15 overs an hour (which is higher than the norm in Test cricket now). He had won six and drawn one of his seven Tests.
And in the end, after all their ups and downs, Close and Stokes became arguably England’s most sympathetic captains.
One Hell of a Life: Brian Close, Daring, Defiant and Daft by Stephen Chalke, Fairfield Books
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