Middlesex CCC
The Test Era of Mike Brearley. Part 2
Astute Captain
By Seaxe Man
February 21 2011
Here comes the much awaited in depth 2nd part of the Mike Brearley captaincy days. This captures Brearley's astute leadership that led to success for the Middle in 1976 and how this led to captaincy of England . A captivating read.
The Test Era of Mike Brealey Part 2
By 1976, the selectors were starting to cast eyes in the direction of Middlesex and their captain Mike Brearley. The Metropolitan County were starting to show signs of life under Brearley. This emanated in the previous year, 1975, where The Middle reached both one day finals.
The addition to the Middlesex staff as I mentioned earlier of Alan Arthur Jones, who back then was considered to be the fastest white bowler not playing Test cricket, was having a very beneficial effect. Jones was something of a maverick, having already played for Sussex and Somerset where he famously fell out with the then Somerset captain Brian Close, and was released. Brearley liked what he saw and was prepared to take a chance, which paid off handsomely for himself, Middlesex and Jones.
Unfortunately, the following year at Canterbury, a match I saw, in the Gillette Cup v Kent. A match we won. Jones injured his back, and was never to recover from that completely. His figures on leaving the field at Canterbury, that day, were 8-2-23-5.The Kent clientele were not the happiest of bunnies that day. This had reduced Kent to 47 for 5 and was Alan Jones last significant performance for The Middle, which led eventually to us lifting the Gillette Cup defeating Glamorgan in the final. Jones later had a couple of years at Glamorgan before taking up umpiring.
A similar well judged punt by Brearley, was that in his estimation, John Emburey, released by Surrey, who after watching Ernie bowling a short spell in the nets, was worth taking on.
This demonstrated the gambling instinct in Mike, which so often in the future was to pay off.
Mike also found to time to write several books, the best known being, the The Art of Captaincy. Read by many. ( editors note: First cricket book I ever bought)
The selectors came calling for the First Test of the West Indies tour of 1976, famous for the then England Captain, Tony Greig, saying he was going to make them "grovel".
Brearley made his Test debut at Trent Bridge, Nottingham on May 3rd 1976. Oddly enough Larry Gomes, released by Middlesex, the previous year, made his West Indies debut on the same day. Opening with John Edrich. Brearley made 0 and 17. The match was drawn..
And so on to Lords. June 17,18, 19 (no play) 21,22. Here, his opening partner was Barry Wood. Brearley made 40 and 13. I well recall the Saturday, because in one of the hottest summers on record, there was a light drizzle all day long, preventing play. Mike Brearley if memory serves me, was left marooned on 40 no overnight on Friday. Subsequently, when play resumed on Monday, he was bowled by Andy Roberts without addition to his score. A might have been.
At this point the selectors decided to drop Mike and he played no further part in that series, eventually lost 3-0, with the Windies definitely not grovelling.
Brearley was replaced firstly by Brian Close, then David Steele and finally Dennis Amiss who made 203 at the Oval in a losing cause. The other two made little impact.
For England, Middlesex colleague Mike Selvey played in Tests 3 and 5, causing some excitement with 4 for 41 at Old Ttrafford..
For West Indies. Wayne Wendell Daniel another Middlesex colleague, played in all but the Lords Test.
This covered the first two Tests of Brearley's England career. He subsequently played 39 in total, which places him equal 11th on the Middlesex, England list, alongside Bill Edrich.
His 15,940 county runs, place him at 14th , in the all-time list of Middlesex batsmen taking a handy 212 catches.
1977 was Brearley's first Ashes Series. Cricket during the winter of 1976/77 was a maelstrom. Kerry Packer's Super Tests was mooted. Recruitment of top players from the main Test playing countries was the order of the day. The attraction as you can imagine, being WSC paying more dosh than the establishment Boards. The player's right to play for WSC was challenged in the High Court by the Establishment Boards, but "restraint of trade" was upheld and Packer was on his way. The number of players involved was considerable, especially Australians, but, the highest profile England player to fall for Mr Packerís considerable cheque book was England Captain Tony Greig. Greig was used by Packer as a recruiting agent for many of the others.
The legal wrangling caused delay and it was not until the 1978/79 Australian season that Packer really got under way. The upshot of all this, was, that England needed a new captain for the forthcoming Ashes Series to be held in England. The selectors turned to Brearley to take the job. Mike was by all accounts a reluctant nominee, but eventually did their bidding.
Prior to the 1977 series, there had been during March. a Centenary Test in Melbourne, won by Australia by 45 runs. The Ashes were not at stake.Brearley opening made 12 and 43 , with Greig retained as captain.
The Australians had won the Ashes back in the 1974/75 series Down Under, featuring the fearsome duo of Lillee and Thomson, who literally blew England away. The following summer in England, after losing the first Test at Edgbaston, by an innings and 85 runs, Greig replaced Mike Denness as captain for the subsequent 3 Tests which were drawn, so Australia retained the urn.
It was a 4 Test series to accommodate the first World Cup, the Final of which was contested by Australia and West Indies. The Windies coming out on top in that occasion.
So on to Mike's debut as England captain. He had the considerable task of regaining the Ashes. The Australian side was still very strong featuring most of their 1975 side But, and it is a big but, Dennis Lillee and Ian Chappell were not with this party. Both I think had signed contracts with Packer. Brearley's first match as England captain was ironically held at Lordís.
(Part Three will cover the 1977 Ashes series in detail).
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:03:02:21:08:13 by BarmierKev.
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It looks like I missed out an a great era
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I wrote about how highly I rate Mike Brearley on 28th November, and at the same time I also wrote about Allan Jones' bowling.
Any chance of Middlesex scaling the heights of the Brearley era (or at least the second-half of that era) any time soon?
In 1976 Allan Jones took 69 County Championship and 26 List A wickets, in 1977 he took 15 County Championship and 26 List A wickets, in 1978 he took 29 County Championship and 17 List A wickets and in 1979 he took 17 County Championship and 18 List A wickets, so certainly with regards to his County Championship performances it appears to be true that he wasn't the same after his season-ending back injury at Canterbury in June 1977.
Whatever the reasons for the match not being completed in one day, we had to come back the following day requiring 49 off 54 with five wickets remaining, and eventually scraped home by two wickets with one ball to spare. I know that their financial plight is worse than ours, but I hope the Kent authorities didn't charge for 53 balls worth of cricket.
We ended up winning the competition, beating Warwickshire, Hampshire, Somerset and Glamorgan, admittedly with all of those matches taking place at Lord's, plus we jointly-won the County Championship.
There are a lot of things from that era that now seem unimaginable, such as the inability to complete a one-day match in one day, the difficulty in finding out latest scores and results and of course Middlesex winning trophies!
Posted by: Mr. Trellis (IP Logged)
Date: 22/02/2011 10:48
It was a wonderful time after watching the Middle for many fruitless seasons. I too was at Canterbury, but I was unable to get back for the 2nd day and was anxiously awaiting the result.
Like you Mr T I had to go back to work at BA on day 2, so had the same anxious wait.
Another point, re that match, which caused the Kent punters to go mental.
Mike Selvey had entered the game suffering with influenza.
After bowling his 12 overs, he left the field and went back to his sick bed.
The following day, he arose from his sick bed to guide The Middle home as JW menshed by 2 wickets.
Joining the fray at number 8 with with 22 runs still needed, he saw us over the line with one ball to spare.
He finished on 9no, Diamond 1no.
I would have loved to have seen the puce coloured faces of the Kent clientele that day.
There was of course a fair bit of whingeing from the Canters area,
But as usual, our erstwhile captain Mike, brushed it off.
S_M another great read, said before MJB was an inspiration and I hope the next part comes soon.
