Cricket at the Crossroads: Class, Colour and Controversy from 1967 to 1977

CONTENTS

Title Page

List of Illustrations

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1: GENTLEMEN AND PLAYERS

CHAPTER 2: THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

CHAPTER 3: THE CLOSE AFFAIR

CHAPTER 4: ENGLAND’S 1967–68 TOUR OF THE WEST INDIES

CHAPTER 5: THE 1968 ASHES (PART I)

CHAPTER 6: THE 1968 ASHES (PART II)

CHAPTER 7: SOUTH AFRICA’S INTERVENTION (PART I)

CHAPTER 8: SOUTH AFRICA’S INTERVENTION (PART II)

CHAPTER 9: ENGLAND’S ALTERNATIVE 1968–69 TOUR AND A SUMMER AT HOME

CHAPTER 10: AN END TO THE SOUTH AFRICAN TOUR AND ENGLAND V THE REST OF THE WORLD

CHAPTER 11: THE 1970–71 ASHES (PART I)

CHAPTER 12: THE 1970–71 ASHES (PART II)

CHAPTER 13: THE 1970–71 ASHES PART III)

CHAPTER 14: A CONCLUSION TO THE 1970–71 ASHES

CHAPTER 15: AT HOME TO PAKISTAN AND INDIA

CHAPTER 16: THE 1972 ASHES (PART I)

CHAPTER 17: ENGLAND’S TOUR OF INDIA AND PAKISTAN, AT HOME TO NEW ZEALAND AND THE WEST INDIES

CHAPTER 18: ENGLAND’S 1973–74 TOUR OF THE WEST INDIES

CHAPTER 19: THE SUMMER OF 1974

CHAPTER 20: THE 1974–75 ASHES

CHAPTER 21: THE 1975 ASHES

CHAPTER 22: AT HOME TO THE WEST INDIES

CHAPTER 23: THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA

EPILOGUE

INDEX

Plates

Copyright

List of Illustrations

Colin Cowdrey (in sweater) leads the MCC to the West Indies in 1967. Fred Titmus the professional is trim in blazer and tie.

The MCC selectors in 1965 - note M.J.K. Smith, the absent-minded professor, reading the newspaper.

Garry Sobers, as captain of the Rest of the World, receiving a trophy at Lord’s.

Colin Cowdrey (left) after the 200th Test between England and Australia, Lords’s, June 1968.

A crowd watching a test match at Lord’s, sometime after the construction of the new tavern stand. Note the spectators sitting on the ground, a practice that was discontinued after the West Indian pitch invasions of 1976.

Brian Close in typically pugnacious mood.

Floodlights and barbed wire at Lord’s, Easter 1970.

The end of the road for the 1970 South African tour.

Basil D’Oliveira cover drives during his historic innings at the Oval in 1968.

Tony Greig batting against Australia at Old Trafford, June 1972.

Colin Cowdery is caught and bowled by Gleeson at Melbourne during his tour from hell in 1971. After dropping two vital catches and failing with the bat he did not play again in the series.

Illingworth is chaired off the field in Sydney by his devoted team of professionals on 17 February 1971. Underwood has just taken the last wicket and England have won the Ashes. From right to left: Knott, Underwood, Luckhurst (face obscured), Illingworth, Edrich, Shuttleworth (looking like a young Fred Trueman and fielding as substitute for Snow), Lever (fair hair), Fletcher (cap), D’Oliveira.

Tony Lewis enjoys a moment with Mrs Indira Gandhi in 1972 after being picked to captain England, despite never having played in a Test match.

John Snow, one of England’s great fast bowlers, playing in his last Test against the West Indies at Headingley in 1976. His action seems to have lost little of its power.

Geoff Boycott playing an uncharacteristic attacking shot at Trent Bridge in 1977, returning from his three-year self-imposed exile: 187 runs, dismissed once, over 12 hours at the wicket.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To say that the writing of this book has been a labour of love would be an understatement. Being asked to write by a commercial publisher a book about my favourite period of cricket would feature at number two on my fantasy wish list, second only to being asked to join the Test Match Special commentary team. However, this particular fantasy could not have been fulfilled without the help of others, let alone their support and encouragement well above and beyond the call of duty.

Various former England players, including participants in that memorable game at Edgbaston in August 1967 (see Chapter 3), kindly agreed to be interviewed.

Christopher Martin-Jenkins most generously made time available from his impossibly hectic schedule as president of the MCC to offer insight, help and encouragement.

Keith Bradshaw allowed me access to the MCC archives, and Adam Chadwick and Neil Robinson kindly facilitated this.

Frances Edmonds, wife of Phil and a noted author in her own right, introduced me to her daughter Alexandra, who in turn passed me her unpublished dissertation on the socio-political background to the D’Oliveira affair.

Olivia Bays shepherded the book through publication with signal efficiency.

Lorne Forsyth had the vision to see that a book like this could be commercially viable, and the courage to make it happen. That he also has an encyclopaedic knowledge of cricket was a welcome bonus.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge an enormous debt to Remy Kawkabani: true gentleman, true friend.

INTRODUCTION

In 1967 British society was outwardly conventional and conservative. Those attending cricket, or even football matches, did so in a jacket and tie, and gave up their seats on trains and buses on the way home. Yet underneath this hard, polite exterior lay something altogether darker – an implicit belief that one person could be naturally inferior to another (and therefore treated as such) simply on grounds of class, colour, or ethnic background.

For those who were subjected to such a belief, or who took exception to it on grounds of principle, it could easily lead to anger, an anger which would at various times during this story spill out into the open. On two occasions in particular, this anger would swirl around the MCC in its cricketing bastion at Lord’s. On each occasion they would ignore it to secure their short-term objectives, but on each occasion, by ignoring it, emerge with their reputation badly dented.

There was also uncertainty born of frustration and confusion. The old ways were being swept away, to the consternation and dismay of some, and the exultation of others. Yet, whichever side of the fence you were on, nobody seemed to know quite what was going to replace them.

There was anger and despair born of the bitter social divisions which had always plagued Britain, perhaps uniquely so. Not for nothing did foreign competitors refer mockingly to the constant labour unrest that paralysed the UK’s factories as ‘the British disease’. Between 1967 and 1977 over 60 million working days were lost to strikes.

These divisions – between north and south, working class and middle class, ‘them’ and ‘us’ – had always been explicit within the game of cricket, with cricketers being classified officially as either ‘gentlemen’ (amateurs) or ‘players’ (professionals), and both treated and described differently. The distinction was formally abolished after 1962 and the MCC tour of Australia that winter, managed by no less a personage than His Grace the Duke of Norfolk, was the last to take place under the old system, with the players being accorded different treatment according to whether they were amateurs or professionals, even down to how their names were recorded and to which events they were invited.

There was anger born of a growing recognition that successive governments had badly mismanaged the economy, and yet it was the people who were going to have to pay the bill. This period would see the highest rates of income tax in history, a devaluation of the pound, Britain going bust and having to ask for an IMF bail-out, and retail prices trebling, leaving professional cricketers, already poorly paid in 1967 and without a trade union to argue their cause, dramatically worse off in real terms.

In due course, a sea-change in economic management would come from a grocer’s daughter from Grantham, and a sea-change in the fortunes of professional cricketers would come from the grandson of a penniless horse racing punter from Tasmania.

Yet in the meantime, it was in the game of cricket that many of these conflicts and tensions would play themselves out. Of course individual character and personality would play their part, as would both destiny and chance, but underpinning much of what would happen on and off the cricket pitch during the ensuing decade was a strong, ongoing and increasingly resented sense of ‘them’ and ‘us’. During the ten years from 1967 onwards the cricket world would be shaken to the core as the consequences of this division played themselves out. By 1977 both British society and the sport itself would look quite different.

CHAPTER 1

GENTLEMEN AND PLAYERS

It was a sweltering afternoon in 1967 as the England cricket team stepped off a BOAC jet in Barbados and dutifully posed for photos, led by their captain Colin Cowdrey. The beginning of a cricket tour is always aflutter with anticipation. Which newcomer will give glimpses of potential that may be richly fulfilled in the future? Will one of the struggling players find form and confidence simultaneously and leave for home at the end of the tour with their reputation enhanced, and their place in the side secure? It is at this point, of course, that those of a darker imagination will pose the third pertinent question: will one of the established veterans slink moodily onto the plane home, suffering the awkward glances of his fellows, undone by injury or inconsistency, and facing the grim possibility that his Test career may be over?

In respect of this particular team that December afternoon it was the first of these questions that must surely have lain uppermost in the minds of the attending journalists; both those meeting the plane on arrival and those travelling with the team from England, which latter crowd included a certain Brian Close, of whom more shortly. For this was a team chosen consciously to mark a break with the past, featuring a crop of mostly younger players who, it was hoped by the selectors, might form the bedrock of the England team for some years to come. To those who had followed England in recent years it had a somewhat unfamiliar look to it.

The era of Fred Trueman and Brian Statham was over, both having played their last Tests two years previously. John Murray, until recently rated unquestioningly as the best wicketkeeper in the country, was missing. There were some who felt he had been unlucky to be overlooked after his batting heroics against the West Indies in England in 1966, but in truth 1967 had been a wretched year for him.

Missing was the evergreen Tony Lock, one of the best left-arm spinners ever to play the game and who had reinvented himself with a new action and a new county as well as playing first-class cricket for Western Australia. He would therefore have been eligible for selection. However, he was 38 while his obvious like-for-like replacement, Derek Underwood, was just 22, and even he did not make the tour, despite his obvious promise.

Missing too was Bob Barber, felt by many to be the natural opening partner for the slower-scoring Geoff Boycott; he had declared himself unavailable because of business commitments. Nor, for the same reason, was there any return of the cavalier Ted Dexter, one of the most exciting batsmen ever to play for England; he had not played a Test since 1965, much to the disappointment of crowds around the world.

This was a team chosen for its blend of experience and youth, then, with the youthful element particularly applicable to the bowlers. The biggest concession to age and experience was Tom Graveney, at 40 the oldest man in the party. He was very much the joker in the pack, having forced his way back into the side in 1966 after a spell in the wilderness, and having played so well since then that it would have been simply unthinkable to leave him out. From the line-up, the selectors hoped and believed, would emerge a cadre of talented players who would form the future core of the side for the next five years or so.

Before the tour party left England, Colin Cowdrey had convened an indoor training session, at which he had laid out what he called a Five Tour Plan, ending with the Ashes series in Australia in 1970–71. He explained to the players that, stealing an idea from football, he expected them to form an ongoing squad from which England sides would be chosen during this period, though, as he admitted, ‘one or two of us may fall by the wayside’.¹

The pairing of Cowdrey, the urbane Home Counties gentleman, and Fred Titmus, the chirpy cockney professional, both of whom were 35, must have seemed to the selectors a match made in heaven, bringing together two complementary individuals who between them could communicate with and inspire any member of the side, no matter what their upbringing or circumstances.

Cowdrey’s background was public school and Oxford (both of which he captained), and he made his debut for Kent at the age of 18, moving on to captain them as well. One of the most graceful batsmen of his generation, he married into a wealthy family which enabled him to finance playing cricket as an amateur. Very much an establishment figure, he would end up as one of only two cricketers to be awarded a peerage (the other being Learie Constantine), at the personal instigation of John Major, the former Prime Minister. He was, in short, exactly the sort of cloth from which English cricket liked its captains to be cut, whether at Test or county level.

Titmus, on the other hand, had come up the hard way. Born to working-class parents in a tough area of north London, he was a natural sportsman, playing professional football for Watford and making his debut as a cricketer for Middlesex at the age of just 16. A fine offspinner, he had a trademark arm ball that drifted away towards the slips, so that many of his victims were either caught or stumped by his teammate and close friend, John Murray. A genuine all-rounder, at one stage of his career he achieved the double of 100 wickets and 1,000 runs no less than five times in six seasons. By 1967 he had been captaining Middlesex for three years, and was therefore seen as a natural deputy to Cowdrey, well able to lead the side occasionally should Cowdrey wish to rest himself, or become unavailable through injury. He was a perfect and natural choice as the platoon sergeant of the squad.

It is difficult for a modern reader to appreciate just how tangible and significant was the distinction between the amateur and professional cricketer or, as it was more often expressed, gentleman and player. Every season, for example, the gentlemen played at least one first-class fixture against the players, often viewed as a Test trial. On many county grounds the professionals were not allowed to share the same dressing room (or even pavilion) with the amateurs. They were expected to call the amateurs ‘sir’, and refer to them as ‘mister’. Even the way their names were represented on the scorecard made clear their status. As the sixteen-year-old Fred Titmus trudged nervously out onto the Lord’s turf to make his debut for Middlesex, it was to the sound of a P.A. announcement regretting that the printers had made an error. ‘F.J. Titmus’, the announcer said apologetically, ‘should read Titmus, F.J.’

The difference had been even more pronounced on tour, when the amateurs had travelled in separate cars and stayed in swanky hotels, dressing for dinner, while the professionals had to put up in boarding houses. For away matches in England the situation could be even more stratified, with the amateurs in one hotel, the professionals in another, but the professional captain on his own in yet another. The image of upstairs, downstairs and the butler’s pantry comes strongly to mind.

The distinction was abolished officially in 1962. For some years it had been increasingly difficult to find amateurs who were both wealthy enough to be able to play cricket purely for fun, and good enough to command a place in the side as a player. Even if both these conditions were satisfied, it did not necessarily mean that they would be willing to captain the side. Amateurs often came and went according to business and family commitments; being available to play every match of the season was a different matter. Yet amateur captains were what counties wanted.

‘The snobbery was always there,’ says England all-rounder Barry Knight. ‘Tom Pugh, who took over as Gloucestershire captain from Tom Graveney, was an amateur who could hardly play … pros were pros, amateurs, amateurs, even after 1962. The change was in name only. You always felt they wanted amateur captains.’²

In truth, there had been many situations where it was apparent to all that the captain was not worth his place in the team as a player, which could and did lead to tension both on and off the field. Even Yorkshire, that most no-nonsense of counties, had suffered, the great left-arm spinner Johnny Wardle being sacked in 1958 after allegedly criticising the amateur captain Ronnie Burnet, a club cricketer who had been plucked from the obscurity of the Bradford League at the age of 39 to be given the job over Wardle’s head.

This even occurred at international level. In the winter of 1929–30 there were two simultaneous England tours overseas. One, to New Zealand, was captained by Harold Gilligan (Dulwich College), who despite playing as a specialist batsman achieved a Test average of 17.75 in the series, while the other, to the West Indies, was captained by the Honourable Freddie Calthorpe (Repton and Cambridge), son of Lord Calthorpe and the uncle of cricket commentator Henry Blofeld. Calthorpe also played for England primarily as a batsman, and tabled only a slightly better average: 18.42.

Farce was an occasional alternative to tragedy. In Surrey’s eagerness to appoint an amateur captain after the Second World War, they turned to Major Leo Bennett, a good quality club cricketer who captained the BBC’s weekend team. Hearing that Major Bennett was currently at the ground paying his membership dues, they buttonholed him and offered him the job. Unfortunately it turned out to be the wrong Major Bennett, but by the time the mistake was discovered it was felt that it was too late to do anything about it. The Surrey committee resolutely refused to admit that he had not in fact been their first choice, and he duly captained the side throughout the 1946 season. Major Nigel Bennett was described by one writer³ as ‘a weak batsman and utterly lost as a county captain’. The Surrey players, however, while doubtless resenting their very poor performance that year, were gracious in their acceptance of his presence, not least, so it was said, because he had an extremely attractive wife who used to attend every game, bringing a waft of perfume and a welcome touch of glamour to the pavilion.

So, the distinction had now been abolished, and at county level most captains were what would have been categorised as professionals under the old regime; Titmus at Middlesex was a case in point. Yet old habits died hard, and counties still yearned for a well-spoken public schoolboy when they could find one. So too did England and, amazingly, would continue to do so for some decades yet. In recent years their captains of choice had been public schoolboys all: Peter May, Ted Dexter, M.J.K. Smith and Cowdrey himself, who had captained the side sporadically over the years when none of the first three were available, and had finally got the job for himself in 1966, only to lose it after just three matches.

Fred Trueman said:

Those charged with running the game and selecting England teams... were former schoolboys who went on to Oxford or Cambridge... They looked down on the pros and considered an amateur with a cricket blue from Oxford or Cambridge as a much superior choice when it came to selecting the England team.⁴

M.J.K. Smith had been captain for the first match that summer at Old Trafford where the West Indies attack of Wes Hall, Charlie Griffith, Garry Sobers and Lance Gibbs overwhelmed England, who lost by an innings, Smith scoring just 11 in the match. His opposite number, Sobers, by contrast, scored 161 and then showed yet another side of his all-round brilliance by switching to left-arm spin in England’s second innings; he and Gibbs bowled 83 overs between them out of the total of 108.

It was the end for Smith as a captain, though he would be recalled briefly and slightly puzzlingly in 1972. An outstanding all-round sportsman, he was England’s last double international (rugby and cricket), but he had never really established himself at Test level, scoring just three centuries in 50 matches, with a batting average of 31. Indeed, playing as he did in an age of talented batsmen, it is difficult to imagine that he would have played anything like 50 Tests had he not been earmarked as captaincy material.

Smith, ‘an absent-minded professor’⁵ who played in spectacles, was vulnerable against fast bowling, especially early in his innings. Cowdrey says that the selectors were also afraid for his personal safety, as this was an era before helmets, and Smith had problems spotting short-pitched deliveries.⁶ So, the selectors now turned to Colin Cowdrey, but he too was to find the brilliant West Indies side more than a handful.

The 1966 Lord’s Test was memorable chiefly because it marked the debut of Basil D’Oliveira, the first ‘coloured’ cricketer to play for England since the 1930s. As so often at Lord’s the game was badly affected by the weather, ending in a draw. England achieved a first-innings lead and ran out of time chasing 284 to win in the second innings, ending 87 runs short with four wickets down, led in fine style by a rollicking 126 not out from Colin Milburn. England had been in a position to win the match, only to be denied by a mammoth second-innings undefeated stand of 274 for the sixth wicket between Sobers and his first cousin, David Holford.

Cowdrey himself failed twice with the bat and was heavily criticised in the press for overly defensive tactics, in particular, failing to attack Sobers and Holford before they were set. At least one former England captain felt he was not only defensively minded, but also indecisive, as would be evidenced by his uncertainty after an over-generous (or sporting, depending on your point of view) declaration by Garry Sobers in Trinidad in 1968. Ray Illingworth, the northern professional, says wryly that one of Cowdrey’s biggest challenges as captain was deciding whether to call heads or tails.⁷

Trent Bridge was a better game for Cowdrey personally, but another disaster for him as captain, England losing after once again gaining a first-innings lead. Sobers, having been dismissed cheaply, opened the bowling with Wes Hall and took four wickets. Tom Graveney, one of his victims that day, would later say that, with the exception only of Ray Lindwall, Sobers was the bowler he least liked facing throughout his Test career. Sobers the batsman cashed in with 94 in the second innings, but the star of the show was Basil Butcher, who cut the English attack to ribbons in making an unbeaten 209.

Worse still was to come at Headingley, where West Indies batted first, declared on exactly 500 (Sobers 174), bowled England out, enforced the follow-on and bowled them out again to win by an innings. With the exception only of D’Oliveira, who top-scored with 88, much of England’s batting was deeply unimpressive, with Cowdrey again failing twice.

With the series lost, the selectors decided that the time had come for firm action. They dropped the diffident southern amateur Cowdrey and brought in Yorkshire’s Brian Close to captain the side, with a young Dennis Amiss receiving his first cap. What followed was little short of cricketing magic. England scored 527 after having at one stage been 166-7, largely thanks to two huge stands. First Tom Graveney put on 217 for the eighth wicket with John Murray, whose batting had been considered a weakness at Test level. Then, still more improbably, the opening bowlers Higgs and Snow put on 128 for the last wicket. With Snow then dismissing both West Indian openers cheaply, this time it was England’s turn to win by an innings. After the match Snow and Higgs were asked to pose for the press still holding their celebratory beers. The authorities, scandalised, substituted teacups.

A blunt, combative, northern professional, much loved and admired, Brian Close remains one of cricket’s enigmas. His early days were spent in a council house in the working-class suburb of Rawdon, the birthplace of the great Hedley Verity, with two of whose children Close grew up (Verity was killed in Italy during the war). He was an intelligent and hard-working grammar schoolboy who, most unusually in those days, was offered a place at university, which he decided to decline, preferring instead to pursue a sporting career, though he had thought seriously about becoming a doctor.

A good enough footballer to play for Leeds and Arsenal and gain a youth cap for England, he too might have become a double international, but his soccer career was curtailed by a leg injury and the unwillingness of Yorkshire to release him for games which overlapped with the cricket season, so he decided to concentrate solely on cricket. His first season with Yorkshire, 1949, was little short of outstanding, as he became the youngest all-rounder to achieve the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets. He was selected to play for the Players against the Gentlemen, which was to prove memorable for more than cricketing reasons. On reaching 50 he was congratulated by the amateurs’ wicketkeeper, Billy Griffith, who said ‘well played, Brian’, to which Close replied ‘thank you, Billy’. He was later disciplined and formally reprimanded by the Yorkshire committee for not having addressed him as ‘Mr Griffith’.

That same summer he played his first Test match (at Old Trafford against New Zealand), when he was still only 18 years old. He remains the youngest player ever to appear for England.

He was duly selected for that winter’s tour of Australia, which proved a personal disaster. Lonely, homesick and struggling with a serious groin injury, he was later to single out some of the senior players, notably Denis Compton, Len Hutton, Cyril Washbrook and skipper Freddie Brown for failing to counsel and support him, accusing him of malingering, and forcing him to play while injured. Ironically, only the Australian captain Ian Johnson was sympathetic to his plight, expressing his concern to Brown (who allegedly referred to Close as a bastard and told Johnson to mind his own business).

The tour set the pattern of Close’s Test career. Thereafter he would drift in and out of the side after lengthy intervals, always underachieving (not least by his own high standards), increasingly convinced that there was an ‘anti-Close’ lobby out to get him, and with controversy rarely far away.

Most famously against Australia in 1961, with England chasing down a total for victory but with Richie Benaud taking wickets regularly from one end with his masterful legspin, Close decided to hit out, and perished in doing so. England lost, and Close was blamed. Many thought the criticism unjust, including Benaud. Close claimed that his tactics were agreed by his captain, Peter May, but the patrician May declined to back him up. Others argued that but for the slow scoring of Raman Subba Row, who took two and a half hours to make less than 50, Close’s tactics would not have been necessary. This may have been the reason for May’s diplomatic silence. Subba Row (Whitgift School and Cambridge) was a close friend of May (Charterhouse and Cambridge). Close (Aireborough Grammar School) was not.

Close was dropped after just that one Test in 1961 and did not play for England again until 1963. That year he was the hero of one of the classic Test matches at Lord’s where, against the hostile bowling of Charlie Griffith (who broke Cowdrey’s arm and in a later series felled Derek Underwood with a blow to the head) and Wes Hall, Close stood up to them in scoring a courageous 70, sometimes advancing down the pitch to meet them, and frequently taking balls on his body. The last over of the match, with Cowdrey emerging from the pavilion with his arm in plaster to allow David Allen to bat out the match for a draw, has passed into cricketing folklore.

Sadly that was the high point of the series for Close. He was steady, scoring three other fifties, but never the century which would have cemented his position in the side, despite being given the chance to play in all five Tests that summer. In fact, that 70 at Lord’s would remain his highest Test score. At the end of the series he was quietly dropped, and not heard of again until plucked unexpectedly from county cricket to captain England in that amazing match at the Oval in 1966.

There was no tour that winter, but the following summer, 1967, saw two mini-series, each of three Test matches, against India and Pakistan respectively. Close, the man in possession, captained England to five victories and a draw. Again, though, his own form as a player was indifferent. In six matches, against weak bowling attacks, he scored just 197 runs without once making a 50. As a bowler he was more successful, taking 20 wickets at 20.9, but these figures are flattered by one fine performance against India at Birmingham.

Close himself, in looking back on his career, mused on the possibility of having been cursed with bad luck, on getting out to blinding catches or unplayable deliveries, while the player at the other end was dropped three times and went on to make a century. The truth is probably sadder and more prosaic. As a player, he was probably never quite good enough. This is a harsh judgement, so let us temper it a little.

Brian Close was an outstanding all-rounder in county cricket, particularly in his first few seasons when his fast-medium bowling could be decidedly brisk, and he swung the ball late. He could bowl both seam and spin. He could bat anywhere in the middle order, but was probably a natural number six. He was a fine fielder anywhere, an outstanding close catcher, and a courageous short leg in the days before helmets. Just about anyone who has ever played first-class cricket claims to have been caught by the wicketkeeper following a rebound from Close’s forehead.

However, two factors fall