SPECTATOR SPORT
Unlike two peas in a pod
Frank Keating
EVEN IF England's cricketers continue to salvage some self-respect in the final Test match in Antigua, and however green the shoots of optimism they might unpack on their return home on Thursday, the appointment last month of Raymond filing- worth as a determinedly hands-on chair- man of selectors freshens the arrival of a new cricket summer with an intriguing piquancy.
How will Illy, hard-nosed professional Yorkie, work with the present coach, Keith Fletcher, gnomic chuckler from rural Essex? Illingworth is diving into the pool in which Ted Dexter drowned — the same deep end in which Fletcher has been flail- ing (he is 18 months into a five-year con- tract and until this week's dramatic Barba- dos Test he had supervised 11 mostly abject defeats for England in 13 matches).
Illingworth played 61 Tests, on the whole as sporadically as Fletcher's 59. Tempera- mentally, they are not from the same pod. As opposites, they might possibly succeed In harness, as some marriages do, or histo- ry's grandest opening partnerships with bat or ball — Hutton's pragmatic calm and Washbrook's pugnacity, Lillee's gleaming fierce intensity and Thompson's more lan- guid venom.
Fletcher would be that eccentrically absent-minded and favourite schoolteacher you enjoyed being taught by; Illingworth the one who put the fear of God into you in the classroom and whose beady-eyed edu- cational wisdom you only appreciated with gratitude when you'd left. When Fletch was England's captain they played Sri Lanka's inaugural Test match in Colombo. Many celebrations and speeches. Fletch had known the island, of course, when it was still Ceylon. Thus his unconscious compro- mise every time: 'How happy we are to be in Sri-Lon.' When Derek Pringle first joined Essex from Cambridge, Fletch vaguely knew there had been a promising player at the university the year before, Alistair Hignell. Somehow he thought they were one and the same, and through Pring's first county spring he was addressed by his captain as Pringle himself told a nice story in the Independent on Sunday:
Once, as Essex took the field on the first morning of a match, Fletcher turned to me and demanded, 'What the hell are you doing here? You're bleedin' Twelthers. Get off.' Although I was unused to my captain's blunt charm, it was impossible to take the oversight personally, for he presided over his team like a patriarch, commanding unquestioned respect and affection.
You could not imagine the same stories being told about Ray Illingworth. You could not see Fletcher living half his year, as Illy does, playing bridge in a resort com- plex in Spain. Fletch is a muddy-gumboot- ed vegetable gardener who loves fishing English rivers and, in season, shooting par- tridges. In his post-match press conferences when things were rock-bottom in the Caribbean, Fletcher's shrugging country- man's honesty would always overwhelm tact and diplomacy. In Guyana, he put down defeat to 'We bowled crap', a week later in Trinidad to 'We batted crap'. In the current issue of the Cricketer, Illingworth filled in one of those ubiquitous magazine question- naires which asked, 'Current players admired'. Wrote Illy, simply, 'None'. Fif- teen summers ago, when Fletcher's Essex was such a larky fun side, Illingworth fore- cast: 'Essex have never won anything and never will with such a load of madmen and clowns.' Since when Essex have gloriously won six Championships and five Cups.
February 1971, Sydney: T. Jenner c K. Fletcher b D. Underwood — the catch which won the Ashes for England under Illingworth's captaincy. Everyone grabbed stumps and bails, but sadly, in the confu- sion, the captain got nothing. Back in the dressing-room, Fletcher pulled Illy aside and from his pocket took the match ball with which he had made the final catch.
`Ere, Skip,' he said, saved this for you.' Aah.
Illy and Fletch. Perhaps it might yet be the dream ticket.
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