A much talked about photograph showing Close hooking Wesley Hall during his extraordinarily courageous innings of 70 in the famous Lord’s Test match against West Indies in 1963.
Brian Close did not bruise easily. His forte was sheer courage and unflinching attitude towards any possible physical injury. Kalyanbrata Bhattacharyya pays homage to this brave and indomitable soul.
If one has to choose a cricketer whose forte was sheer courage and unflinching attitude towards any possible physical injury, be it while batting against the fastest of bowlers, or fielding at short leg, perilously close to the bat, the palm goes unhesitatingly to Dennis Brian Close of England. His fortitude in the cricket field is now a part of folklore.
Early days
Close was born in Yorkshire to a working class family and lionized Hedley Verity, the famed left arm spinner from Yorkshire and England in the pre-war period, who lived close by.
He turned out to be a good sportsman in his school days and was the most dominant cricketer in his local area. He was coached by George Hirst, the legendary all-rounder from Yorkshire and joined Rawdon Cricket Club in 1942 when he was eleven years of age. Almost immediately he was inducted for the under-18 side and for the Yorkshire Second XI. He also signed for Leeds United Football Club as an amateur.
As a student too, he excelled and secretly nursed the desire to be a doctor in future and his teachers believed that he had the qualities to be admitted to the Oxford or Cambridge university for higher education had he not been so absorbed in cricket.
Eventually, he became the first player from Leeds to play international youth soccer and represented England against Scotland in 1948. However, his focus shifted entirely to cricket after he was selected to play for Yorkshire County Cricket team in 1949 along with another legend, Freddie Trueman.
He made his debut against Cambridge University and in the subsequent matches against Oxford and Essex, he took 8 and 5 wickets respectively, bowling right-handed at medium pace. In the latter match he also top scored with an undefeated 88 .
He was chosen to play in the traditional Gentlemen versus Players match in 1949 and top scored with 65 for the Players team. When he reached 50, Billy Griffith, the wicket-keeper for the Gentlemen congratulated him and Close replied ‘Thank you, Billy’. This was treated as an instance of impudence that Close did not address the Gentleman Griffith as ‘Mister’ and he was reprimanded by Brian Sellers of Yorkshire. Sellers was generally described as the archetypical representative of the stiff upper lip gentry.
In his first season he achieved the ‘double’ of scoring more than 1000 runs and taking more than 100 wickets, and he remained the youngest player to achieve this feat till 2009. Till date, he is the only cricketer to realize this coveted achievement in one’s debut season.
Test cricket
Close soon caught the eye of the selectors and was called to play against New Zealand in the third Test match at Old Trafford, Manchester and thus he became the youngest player to represent England in Test cricket at the age of 18 years and 149 days. John Reid, the legendary New Zealand all-rounder, also made his debut in that match.
Close was out for a duck hitting at the square leg boundary to the bowling of Thomas Burtt in the lone English innings. He was instructed by Freddie Brown, his captain, to go for quick runs. He captured one wicket for 39 runs.
Brown wanted him in the subsequent visit to Australia in 1950-51 though Bill Bowes, the Yorkshire coach was not in agreement. Bowes argued that this difficult tour might have an adverse effect on the future of such a young man. However, Close joined the team and he was the youngest member in the side.
John Ward, the one time Australian umpire wrote that possibly he gave the impression of being brash and abrasive but he manifestly lacked the guidance he needed and by the end of the tour he was virtually not in talking terms with his team-mates. He played in only one Test match at Melbourne and scored 0 and 1. In the first innings he was caught by Sam Loxton to the bowling of the mystery bowler, Jack Iverson while attempting to sweep him and this dismissal led E W Swanton, the celebrated cricket journalist to say that it was the worst shot he ever saw executed in any first-class match.
As we shall see later, the lofted sweep shot was the one which was the cause for his undoing on many occasions . When Close returned to the pavilion, an eerie silence greeted him and Freddie Brown, the captain, when told that Close had been sulking in the room and virtually weeping, commented, ‘Let the blighter stew. He deserves it.’ Later, he nursed a number of injuries and was criticized for malingering and insubordination and thus his first overseas tour ended in failure and embarrassment. Many critics wrote that he was picked a bit too early.
A total score of 1 run in 3 innings is surely not worth infusing confidence in the selectors’ mind and Close was dropped subsequently from the English side.
He was recalled in 1955 against South Africa and he also visited Pakistan as a member of an under-25 side. During these years his form in county cricket was good and he achieved one more double in 1952. He was again dropped against Australia in the famous Laker series in 1956 and summoned in 1957 against the West Indies for two Tests at Edgbaston and Lord’s. He was not considered for the tour to Australia in 1958-59 and West Indies in 1959-60, and played in only one match against India at Headingley, Leeds in 1959 and overlooked for the series against South Africa in 1960 at home.
A tale of two Tests
In 1961, when Colin Cowdrey reported ill for the match against Australia at Old Trafford, Manchester, Close was called to participate in the famous Test match for his seventh outing in twelve years. On the final day after the lunch interval, Richie Benaud went round the wicket in desperation to pitch at the bowler’s rough, created by the thumping footsteps of Freddie Trueman while bowling and Close initially hit him for a six over square leg. Trying to repeat the shot, he mistimed and was caught by Norman O’Neill off a skier and it cost the match for England. Most felt that the shot was atrocious and some experts even went to the extent of suggesting that he should never be chosen to represent England again.
Close however, argued that he wanted to win the match in which Ted Dexter played a stellar knock of 76 earlier, the target was reachable, and hence speeding up the proceedings was the need of the hour. Benaud, incidentally said that had Close’s gamble paid off, England could have won the match.
However, the selectors were peeved and he was dropped for the series in India, Pakistan and Australia till West Indies visited England in 1963.
For the first time did he play in all the five Test matches in a series. In the dramatic second Test match at Lord’s he played the innings of his life time. The final session on the fifth day was heading towards a close finish when Close arrived with a sense of occasion at the wicket and partnered Ken Barrington. With Wesley Hall and Charlie Griffith bowling at their fastest, Close swept, pulled and hooked belligerently. At times even chose to dance down the wicket almost midway while Hall in utter disbelief, stopped delivering the ball and in his follow through went towards extra cover in his perplexity; never in his illustrious career did he see anybody walking down the wicket to play him.
He missed many of them and was struck on the torso a number of times but not once did he flinch or rubbed the injured area. He was finally out caught by wicket-keeper Deryck Murray for 70 while trying to hook Hall and a famous photograph in the book, West Indies in England, Lord’s 1963’ by Alan Ross shows Close proudly revealing his bruised and battered body the next day.
The match ended in a draw, with England tantalizingly close to victory with only wicket left. Colin Cowdrey , with his left hand plastered following a fracture of the arm bone to a rising delivery from Hall earlier in the innings, joining David Allen as the last English batsman and only two balls left with four runs to win.
This extraordinary innings prompted The Wisden to select Close as one of the best five cricketers of the year in 1964.
Captaincy
Soon, the English selectors forgot Brian Close for reasons not clear to anybody and he was overlooked for a number of years till they turned towards him to lead against the all-conquering West Indies at the Oval in 1966.
He was thus appointed the captain of England in difficult times. The West Indies had been touring England and Gary Sobers, their captain was in his best form and Seymour Nurse batted like a champion. Mike Smith was sacked from captaincy after the first Test match at Old Trafford and Colin Cowdrey lost two of the thee Test matches he led thereafter.
The English selectors turned to Close under whose leadership Yorkshire had won the county championship. Close tried to inject the spirit of self-belief in the England side and when England reached 166 for 7 against 268 scored by the West Indies, something unusual happened. Tom Graveney who made a masterly come back in the series at the age of 39, went on to score 165 and John Murray, the wicket-keeper scored 112, batting at number 9. Ken Higgs and John Snow, the fast bowlers, contributed 63 and 59 respectively and England ended with 527.
Sobers, who scored 81 in the first innings came out to bat for the second time and Close almost instinctively, used a ploy against the great batsman. He asked John Snow to bounce at Sobers the first ball and stationed himself at his customary position at short leg. Sobers was unsettled at getting a searing bouncer the first ball, mistimed his hook shot, and the ball bounced from his body to the hands of the waiting Close who kept his eyes on the ball all along. England won the match by an innings and 34 runs.
Thereafter, he led against India and Pakistan at home in 1967, winning five of the six Tests that summer. Everybody expected him to lead the side to West Indies the next year. But Providence decreed otherwise and he was ignored for the job when he was accused of time wasting tactics in a county match against Warwickshire. Thereafter, he was lost in wilderness once again and the career of Close, it seemed, had come to an end after 18 years of rather indifferent performance.
Comeback against express pace
However, in a move beyond wildest imagination, Close was recalled to represent his country seven years later. He was 45, and had scored 88 and 40 for Somerset against the touring West Indies team in 1976.
Tony Grieg had already caught the ire of the West Indies cricketers by a provocative and indiscreet comment when he pronounced, ‘We shall make them grovel’ and the West Indians by their own account, were seething with rage and humiliation; this comment raking the raw memories of slavery and servility. Three young West Indian fast bowlers, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding and Wayne Daniel, had been honing their skill and Close was summoned.
It seems, Close was always the automatic choice whenever England had to face express fast bowling and thereafter dumped into obscurity. He played at Trent Bridge and scored 36 not out in the second innings .
In the next Test match at Lord’s he scored an impressive 60 and 46 in the two innings. He had been playing as a middle order batsman when suddenly, on the eve of the third Test match at Old Trafford, Manchester, Greig asked him to open the innings. His partner was John Edrich, the unflappable opener from Surrey, who rendered yeoman’s service for his team in the past. He was aged 39 and thus Close and Edrich summed up 84 years between them, battling it out against the venomous young West Indian fast bowlers in their early twenties.
Close wrote in the autobiography, I don’t bruise easily, that he approached Greig and indicated politely that there was one man in the team, Bob Woolmer, who had been opening for Kent regularly and Greig’s simple answer was,’ Ah, we think Bob is going to be on the international scene for a long time. We don’t want him to be killed off.’
In the fading light on the 3rd day Close and Edrich, two old warriors, without any protective gear other than the pads, gloves and the abdominal box, were subjected to one of the most hostile spells of bowling ever in the history of the game. In one over from Holding, Close was hit thrice in the chest and two rising deliveries virtually decapitated him and there was no respite at the other end since Andy Roberts had been hurling at the same speed as well. He was hit a number of times. The Wisden said, ‘Close and Edrich defended their wickets and themselves against fast bowling, which was frequently too wild and hostile to be acceptable’.
His knees buckled under the impact of the deliveries but never did he rub the injured area or grimace in pain and the umpire Bill Alley had to intervene. Close enquired with umpire what precisely did he tell Holding and Alley said that he had bowling too many short balls to which Close said, ‘Don’t worry. It’s the ones halfway down that are the problem!’
Clive Lloyd, the West Indian captain, admitted in a later statement that his bowlers were truly a bit carried away on that evening. Close himself later said, ‘It must have been the worst wicket I experienced in Test cricket. The faster the West Indians bowled the worse it got because the balls broke the surface of the wicket. They exploded and flew at you.’
It was Close’s sheer luck, rather than raw courage, that he was not fatally injured in that innings. If his batting against Hall and Griffith at Lord’s in 1963 was an attempt at domination, this time after thirteen years it was a story of defense, standing tall against the fastest possible bowling in the world. This was the last Test match Close played and thus he finished his twenty seven years of rather insignificant and inconsequential tenure in Test cricket with 2 and 20 and in his final innings. In the second innings he faced 108 balls in 162 minutes.
Close lamented, ‘Apart from my age, this time no one could level one single criticism about the way I had played my Test cricket. The answer of course was very simple, but no one in any newspaper wrote it.’
Much later in 2015, when Close was fighting terminal cancer, Vivienne, his wife, asked Holding to meet and have a chat with the ailing man. Holding is on record to have said, ‘...One vivid memory is of Closey’s defiance on a cracked pitch at Old Trafford during the third Test in 1976, when he refused to flinch as we bombarded him — in the days before there was no limit on how many bouncers you could bowl in an over... As well as me, Andy Roberts and Wayne Daniel were bowling fast. For England to think that at the age of 45 he was the man they needed to face a strong pace attack shows how tough he was... when he was recalled by England 13 years later he didn’t say, “No, I’m an old man, I cannot do that.” He was willing to go out there and fight. He chose to be hit rather than give his wicket away, despite having no chest protection, no forearm guard and no helmet. In fading light, he survived an hour to reach one not out by the close. He finished with 20. He never complained.’
He played his last first-class innings in 1986 against the visiting New Zealand side and scored 4 runs and thus his first-class career spanned over a remarkable five decades, the only other cricketer to achieve this feat being Fred Titmus of Middlesex and England.
Yorkshire and all that
Close was appointed captain of Yorkshire in 1962 when Vic Wilson, the former skipper, retired and Bill Bowes commented, ‘… almost overnight it seemed that Brian Close matured… Close’s field placement was intelligent and antagonistic as any seen in the country for twenty five years.’ He was an immediate success and won the 1963 county cricket championship.
Later, he went on to win the championship consecutively from 1966 to 1968 and also led them to victory in the Gillette Cup in 1965 and 1969. However, he lost his Yorkshire captaincy in a dramatic situation. In 1970, Hon’ble Lionel Lister, the President of the Lancashire cricket club entered the Yorkshire dressing room to speak to him after Lancashire beat their arch rival in the John Player League trophy at Old Trafford. Close, not acquainted with him, allegedly misbehaved. Lister lost no time to speak his mind to Brian Sellers, his Yorkshire counterpart who in turn, asked Close to resign from captaincy. He disagreed and was summarily sacked from the Yorkshire team.
With this incident, ended his long tenure with the club. He received offers from counties like Lancashire, Glamorgan, Middlesex and Leicestershire but he settled for Somerset, though he declined to lead the side.
However, he had to take up captaincy later and gained a lot of respect and commitment from young players there. Vivian Richards and Ian Botham in their early days were particularly helped by him. Botham said, ‘There was a genuine enthusiasm for cricket which rubbed off on all those playing alongside him. You couldn’t help but get excited by the game.’
When Australia toured England under the captaincy of Ian Chappell in 1972, the English captain Ray Illingworth twisted his leg in the final Test match and Close was appointed to lead the side in the One-day series which he won two matches to one.
The man who didn’t bruise easily
Though Close’s guts against fast bowling was legendary, he will perhaps be equally remembered for his fielding abilities and plenty of stories about his stoic adventures abound in the cricketing folklore. Prematurely bald with a parched face and wrinkles and a visibly stooping gait, he used to stand at short leg, crouching and almost breathing down the batsman’s neck and he never ducked even when the batsman played a full-blooded pull or sweep past him.
One photograph shows Gordon Greenidge of West Indies , hooking John Snow savagely at Old Trafford and Close virtually standing and following the ball in its route.
Another, a split second later, has Greenidge sitting on the turf indicating happily the way the ball had gone while Close standing and not moving an inch looking at square leg. The sequence simply takes one’s breath away.
There is a story that once the ball hit him on the forehead on one side and ricocheted to the slip region and Close shouted ‘Catch it’! The other fielders gathered around him and one of them asked him with a quivering voice, ‘But Mr. Close what would have happened if the ball had hit you in the middle of your forehead?’ A nonchalant Close replied, ‘In that case he would have been caught in the cover!’ Once he asked a batsman who had been rubbing the area where the ball hit him, ‘How can the ball hurt you? After all, it is on you only for a second.’
It is said that Close was impetuous, a gambler by instinct and loved to dominate unless the need of the moment dictated that he should exercise discretion to valour. He often tended to lose his concentration, a trait often evident in his captaincy as well.
He always batted with the interest of his team uppermost in his mind and was gregarious by nature, though at times eccentricity took the better of him. He was without any kind of self-pity and a ruthless opponent and thus typified the Yorkshire persona. He almost always found an excuse for his getting out and once in a match when he was out to the second ball, he admonished the twelfth man for sending him a chewing gum with the wrong flavour. When in an attempt to pull John Price, the Middlesex fast bowler, he edged the ball, he told the players in the dressing room, ‘I had it covered for everything but uneven bounce!’ In another occasion he jibed at a team-mate that he warned him against the ball swerving but not cutting as well from the turf!
Bill Bowes commented ‘… tremendous ability spoilt by moments of extreme spontaneity and of determination marred by rashness.’, and Freddie Trueman in his characteristic hyperbole, once said that all he needed to defeat any cricket team in the world was Geoffrey Boycott as the opener, Philip Sharpe at first slip and Brian Close, all from Yorkshire, a short leg.
A stubborn man, he was unflappable, unflustered and argumentative and he enjoyed Glenmorangie scotch whiskey after the day’s play and was in the habit of chewing gum all the time, whether batting or fielding. He was named CBE in 1972 for his services to cricket, served as an English selector from 1979 to 1981. He was also elected to the Yorkshire cricket committee, chaired the cricket sub-committee, and had plenty of conflict with the captain, Geoffrey Boycott, another true character from Yorkshire, whom he sacked from the job of captaincy. Boycott, in turn also was highly critical of him and could never forgive him after he was dropped for slow scoring during his score of 246 not out against India at Leeds in 1967 and scored only 106 on the first day.
Close breathed his last in September, 2015. Llike his cricket, he fought against cancer for a long time with exemplary fortitude.
Ian Botham tweeted, ‘The best captain a young player ever had ...! Myself and IVA Richards owe you so much’
Michael Vaughan, another batsman from Yorkshire said, ‘He was a true inspiration to all of us. Thanks Brian for helping me as a kid growing up at Yorkshire’.
Dickie Bird, the legendary umpire who played for Yorkshire with Close in the early 1960s said, ‘He used to field in front of the bat and was hit on the head once, I remember. The batsman pulled the ball, it hit him on the head and it flew to cover. Somebody dropped it and Brian's first words were, "Have you caught that?".'
A road has been named after him in Yorkshire, named Brian Close Walk, which was unveiled by his widow Vivienne. He played in 22 Test matches, scored 887 runs and his highest score was 70 at Lord’s against West Indies in the famous match in 1963. He captured 18 wickets. In his career spanning over twenty seven years, he was picked and discarded no less than eight times and went overseas only once in 1950-51 to Australia and played in one Test match abroad. He led England in seven Test matches, won six of them, and drew the other. In first-class cricket he scored almost 35,000 runs, hit 52 centuries, took 1168 wickets and had over 800 catches to his credit, including one stumping as a stand-in wicket keeper.
By no means he could boast of a sparkling career, yet Brian Close finds place in the heart of cricket lovers and remains one of the most enigmatic and as somebody once wrote, a spectacular failure, in the game of cricket. Very aptly, Close titled his autobiography, ‘I Don’t Bruise Easily’ which is true both literally and metaphorically. Alan Hill wrote a biography on him entitled, ‘Cricket’s Lion Heart.’
Once in a county match when he lost the toss where much depended on calling it correctly, he said ruefully with a wry smile, ‘That is the story of my life. A complete farce!’ This cry from the heart perhaps sums up his entire life. He left the cricket field unheralded and unsung but we shall always remember him as one of the most charismatic characters the game has ever known.