Contributed by Mark Windsor
He made his England debut in 1949 at the age of 18 & played his last international game 27 years later at the age of 45 in 1976. He played 22 games during his international career which span over 4 different decades scoring 887 runs at the average of 25.34 with a top score of 70. In addition he has picked up 18 wickets at the average of 29.55.
Even though his international career didn’t have any significant no’s, in the county scenes he was a Yorkshire legend scoring 33000 plus first class runs in addition to 3458 list A runs. Further he has taken 1171 first class plus 65 list A wickets while captaining Yorkshire & playing for Somerset. His thought process as a captain was “I’ve always believed that the team is more important than the individual”.
He also captained the England side in a few occasions as well. It was during the 1963 West Indies tour of England which was the only time he got to play a 5 match series where went on to show his courageous & fighting attitude when he almost took England to a victory at Lord’s. That too against the fearsome West Indies bowling duo Hall & Griffith. During an era where no helmets & not much protective gear was available, he took the attack to the West Indies during the last day chasing a target of 234. With no other batsmen scoring more than 20, he made his career best of 70 & when the game was finally ended in a draw England were on 228/9 just 6 runs short of the target. During this innings he got hit several times which the image below shows well.
13 years later he faced the visitors & ended up with similar bruises after facing the likes of Michael Holding, Andy Roberts & Wayne Daniel. This time around he was 45 years old & he was called in to fill the already shorthanded England side. Well past his physical prime he answered the call in an heroic manner by facing the chin music from West Indies pacers spending almost close to three hours while scoring 20 runs before being dismissed. That’s a type of courage we hardly see anymore from an international cricketer.
Ultimately it was his last international game as well since he was dropped from the next game. On his 92nd birth anniversary here’s remembering former England all rounder late great Brian Close.