Insider information
To London yesterday for a much anticipated luncheon with my father and brother with one of the former’s oldest surviving friends.
Our guest of honour was on remarkable form, given that he’s nearly three years older than my parent and has recently had some health issues. He held court as in his heyday, spoke jovially with everyone he came across at the club – member or member of staff – and was a fount of wonderful gossip and anecdotes.
I must be circumspect in order to protect the innocent, including the speaker, but we had a great time of it as he held forth.
In a prelude to the task of picking his all-time greatest England cricket team, he was asked whether Joe Root would make the squad. “No” came the instant reply.
On the main subject, he picked Jack Hobbs – whom he had known well and on one occasion played cricket with – as one opener and Len Hutton as the other, although (on good authority) he had it that the Yorkshireman was a pretty dull and uninspiring character, and not a good captain.
Our guest told of a first-hand anecdote that, on one occasion during the MMC tour of the West Indies in the winter of 1953-54, one morning the management found the team congregated on the ground floor but with no sign of Hutton, the captain.
A member of the management team went up to his room, knocked on the door, and found Hutton still in bed, muttering and complaining that he couldn’t take the West Indies fast bowling anymore. A stiff talking-to from the management later, Hutton then appeared downstairs and got on with the job of captaining the side on what was an unhappy tour, albeit one on which he personally did passably well with the bat.
At either Number 3 or 4, our guest would have picked Wally Hammond (“essential”) – though he added in an aside at our lunch table that, of course, Hammond once caught VD on an MCC overseas tour.
He would also have picked Peter May – “without doubt, the finest batsman I ever saw – no question”.
Asked whether he would have found a place for Colin Cowdrey, the reply came back negative.
Cowdrey was a very fine batsman, but as an individual he was difficult, extremely self-centred and – because of his character – neither a popular man, nor one he (our guest) would want in his team.
I could go on … but won’t.
We spent two hours together, covering many subjects great and small, and then parted, promising to do it again before long.
Which we shall.
