Cricket
Characters
Alan Gibson
Whatever may happen to the Packer troupe, or gang, or brave company of Pioneers (you get into trouble with somebody or other, however you describe them) two famous names will probably disappear from the first-class scene this season: Close and D'Oliveira. I limit myself to 'probably' because they have such a habit of bobbing Up after sinking for the third time, it would be rash to be certain. Close was forty-six in February. D'Oliveira will be forty-six in October. This is the assurance of Wisden, though there have been rumours that b'Oliveira might be a year or two older, and there are some notable precedents for cricketers knocking a bit off their age if they come late into the first-class game. Close's career has been far longer. He first played for Yorkshire in 1949; D'Oliveira first Played for Worcestershire in 1964, and it was 1965 before he was qualified for championship matches. Close has had many successes in the county game, but Li Oliveira has done better in Test matches.
Close was born at Rawdon, a Yorkshireman; D'Oliveira at Cape Town, a 'Cape Coloured'. At the beginning of this season, Close had scored more than 34,000 runs, average thirty-four, and taken nearly 1200 wickets, average 26. D'Oliveira had scored nearly 17,000 runs, average 39, and taken 500 wickets, average 27. Many (though not all that many) have had more impressive figures. Both men have been at the centre of bitter arguments. Close has sometimes provoked the arguments himself, or at least joined vigorously in them. Looking back, I should think he has been right as often as he has been wrong. D'Oliveira has been careful not to seek trouble, never joined in the arguments. That he has caused so many is Just because he happened to be who he was, where he was, when he was. Both will no doubt be remembered, a crieketing generation hence, as 'characters'. It has always been a custom of cricketers Past middle age to derogate the current generation because all the 'characters' have gone. Often the character has been developed, sometimes perceptively, by journalists. Sir Neville has recorded how he met Emmott Robinson, when both were getting on a bit and Emmott said to him 'Tha knows, Mr Cardus, tha invented me'. But practically any cricketer who plays long hough becomes, in retrospect, a character, tor one reason or another. Johnny Lawrc,frce, a sound all-rounder of modest ambitions and achievement, a quiet, peaceable nlan, is remembered in Somerset as a character because he was a Methodist, and would not play on Sundays. P. J. K. Gibbs of Derbyshire became a character becuase he was (or had the reputation; not always justly of being) a stodgy batsman; T. C. Dodds of Essex because he was a dashing one. Dennis Brookes, an efficient but unobtrusive player, did it by his sheer devotion to Northamptonshire in bad times and good. At the Oval the same people who used to have to look at their scorecards to remind themselves who he was, now say 'They don't breed 'em like Constable any more'.
Close has had a double character (at least). We think of him now as the Old Bald Blighter, immensely knowledgeable, stern, fearless. He came to Somerset as, or so we thought, an epilogue to his career, which has turned into an extra volume. It reminds me of the old Dissenting ministers who could not resist just one extra petition at the end of the long (extempore) prayer, which seemed, for a small boy, to last longer than all the rest put together. He has been criticised in Somerset because of severity towards younger players, and certainly he scowls and growls at them a good deal: but Somerset has more promising, largely home-grown talent among its young men than any other county, except perhaps Kent, and it has developed under Close. When he was .recalled to open for England against the West Indies fast bowlers last year, we were not sure whether he would succeed, but we knew he would die in the breach rather than run away.
The courage is not new. When hit on the head fielding close to the wicket for Yorkshire (as happened on a number of occasions) he would call out 'Catch it' as he fell. But the image of the sage, venerable patriarch is. For when he was beginning himself there were many who, while recognising his talent, thought of him as a young fool who badly needed discipline. He had, I dare say, too much praise too soon. 'Another Woolley', some Englishman said to Jack Fingleton when Close made his first (and only) tour of Australia. This was nonsense. He bore no resemblance to Woolley, apart from batting left-handed. His reluctance to take advice was one reason for his disappointing England career. When he did become England captain, he shrew it away by a stubborn refusal to apologise in a situation where it was clearly required. I have had occasion to observe before that Yorkshiremen are really Latin American in temperament, and the contrast between the young and the old Close makes an interesting example.
D'Oliveira, on the other hand, is the perfect Englishman: restrained, wellmannered, gentle, the calm centre of the storm like an army officer commanding a square at Waterloo. When he first came to England, he had to conquer the temptation to stand up whenever a white ticketcollector came along the train. Now you would take him, on casual acquaintance, for an Old Malvernian. He has revealed little of himself to the public, except in his play, which was attacking in the back streets of Cape Town, but became more defensive when he had to adjust to English wickets. He has always played with a short back-lift, but has some beautiful strokes just the same. The books he wrote, even though they were edited skilfully by the late Clive Taylor, tell you very little about the man, or what he really felt when he was the focus of a row shaking the world of cricket. He shelters himself within himself. He behaves impeccably, and inscrutably. They will soon be calling him a 'great character' all the same: and who is to say they will be wrong?
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