by Kalyanbrata Bhattacharyya
John Edrich was one batsman any cricket side anywhere in the world at any point in time would have loved to have in the team. Dependable, dogged, stubborn, obdurate, unflappable, phlegmatic, ... whatever adjective one may choose to use on his approach to batting, shall be appropriate. He had the rare gumption of understanding his limitations and playing within it.
Runs in the family
A short and stocky left-handed batsman, Edrich was born at Blofield, Norfolk, on the 21st of June 1937 into a family of cricketers and learnt his craft on a concrete pitch at home.
His four cousins, Eric, Bill, Geoff, and Brian, played in First-class cricket and all were much senior to him. None of them played for Surrey, the county John Edrich represented all his life.
Only Bill Edrich from Middlesex was one of the key players of England in the pre- and post- second war period and played Test cricket from 1938-1955 on 39 occasions. Along with Denis Compton, they were known as ‘The Middlesex Twins.’ He mostly batted at the number 3 position and occasionally opened the innings with Sir Len Hutton. In the golden summer of 1947, he totalled 3,539 runs, when his duumvir, Denis Compton, scored 3816, and their combined aggregate of 7355 runs is still the record in English First-class cricket. His finest hour came at The Oval in 1953 when the duo won the Ashes after losing it to Australia twenty years ago in England.
John Edrich received his formal education at the Bracondale School. He was coached by the former cricketer Cecil Boswell, a First-class cricketer from Essex in the 1930s. Andy Sandham from Surrey, the first cricketer to score a triple century in Test cricket, 325 to be precise, against the West Indies at Kingston, Jamaica, in 1930. That too in his final Test match. (He got to know of his feat later, because the match was deemed a Test post facto)
Sandham taught him a thing or two about the technique of batting, and finally, Arthur McIntyre, the Surrey wicket-keeper in the 1950s, prepared him for higher deeds.
Edrich wrote humorously in his autobiography, ‘Runs in the Family’ that it was almost written on the wall that he was not destined to be a Colin Cowdrey since precise timing, finesse and elegance were not his forte. Therefore, he settled for the kind of batting that was dour and productive. After playing in four First-class matches for the Combined Services during his tenure in the national service he made his debut for Surrey against Worcestershire at The Oval in 1958 in their final match.
The Surrey team at that time was studded with luminous cricketers like Peter May, Ken Barrington, Alec Bedser, Eric Bedser, Jim Laker, Tony Lock, Peter Loader, Arthur McIntyre, Mickey Stewart, and others, and cementing one’s place among such a galaxy of stars was no easy task.
Into top league
In 1959, his aggregate was 1,799 runs at an average of 52.91, which included 124 and 113 against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, and he finished the season with 7 centuries.
Before going out to bat at Trent Bridge with his partner, Mickey Stewart, he was edgy, when the latter, senior by a couple of seasons, encouraged him with the words, ‘you’ve got a good wicket out there; all you’ve got to do is play as you’ve always played and you’ll get runs.’ Following this impressive performance, he was soon in the reckoning for representing his country.
By that time Len Hutton and Bill Edrich had retired, and Trevor Bailey was on the wane. England was found wanting in a durable pair of opening batsmen. Arthur Milton, Reg Simpson, Peter Richardson, Jack Ikin, Don Kenyon, Mike Smith, Brian Close, Raman Subba Row, Geoff Puller, Eric Russell, and a reluctant Colin Cowdrey were tried but mostly in vain. Only Geoff Puller and Peter Richardson sparkled at times and in such a backdrop, the pair of Mickey Stewart and John Edrich from Surrey was a much sought-after welcome relief for the desperate England selectors.
They made their debut in Test cricket after a few years. Ray Lindwall, the legendary pace bowler from Australia, who was covering the Ashes series in 1961 in England for a newspaper, wrote that Edrich was summoned to the nets before one of the Test matches, but regrettably was not asked to bat at all.
Stewart made his debut against Pakistan in 1962 at Lord’s and Edrich appeared against the West Indies at Old Trafford the following year. He scored 20 and 38 but the English selectors persisted with him for the next match, the historic one at Lord’s. He was out caught behind, trying to glance the first ball from Charlie Griffith in the first innings and was dropped for the next two Test matches.
He was recalled for the final match at The Oval where he ended the series with 25 and 12. Thus, in the first six innings in Test cricket, his aggregate was a paltry 103 runs.
Triple hundred
Edrich visited India in 1963-64 under the leadership of Mike Smith. He played in two Test matches at Delhi and Kanpur since like many of his team-mates he was indisposed, mostly owing to throat infections, injuries, and stomach upset. He played in the final two Tests, scored 41 and 35.
When Australia visited England in the summer of 1964, he was overlooked for the first Test match at Trent Bridge. Geoffrey Boycott, who partnered him successfully in many Test matches later, made his debut and was injured. That paved the way for Edrich for the second Test match at Lord’s where he played a pivotal role under duress and scored 120 in 317 minutes out of a total of 246 runs. Phil Sharpe with 45 was the second-highest scorer.
Thus, he scored a century on his debut Ashes Test match, a coveted distinction among the contenders for the urn. That was the first glimpse of the characteristic grit, intensity of purpose, and obduracy in his batting in trying circumstances. However, in spite of this remarkable performance, he was overlooked for some obscure reasons for the subsequent tour to South Africa in 1964-65, where Geoffrey Boycott and Bob Barber opened the innings for England.
Edrich was back in the team soon when New Zealand toured England in the summer of 1965 and he hogged the headlines with a superlative 310 not out at Headingley in 450 deliveries, spanning over 8 hours. He was thus very much in sight of surpassing Sir Garfield Sobers’ record individual score of 365 not out against Pakistan in 1958 at Kingston, Jamaica, had it not been for Mike Smith who declared the innings closed at 546 for 4.
He turned out to be the eighth batsman to register triple-century in Test cricket and enjoyed a second-wicket partnership of 369 runs with Ken Barrington. The latter scored 163 after being dropped in the previous Test match at Lord’s following a painfully slow 137 in 437 balls at Edgbaston.
Though defensive and cautious by temperament, Edrich hit the ball to the fence 52 times in this innings, a record valid to this date, hit 5 sixes, and this stupendous performance alone fetched him 238 runs. New Zealand responded with 193 and then following on, were all out for 166, and Edrich entered into the record book for one more reason. He earned the distinction of standing on the cricket field for the entire duration in a Test match since he opened the innings, remained not out, and fielded during the two innings played by New Zealand.
England won the match by an innings and 187 runs and Wisden named him as one of the Five Cricketers of the Year in 1966.
The South African team visited soon and Edrich, batting at number 3 for the first time, registered a duck in the first innings. In the second, he was hit on the forehead by a rising delivery from Peter Pollock. He retired hurt and could not participate any further in the series. In the meantime, he fractured his forefinger four times and eventually, a piece of bone from his leg was grafted so that his hand could be rendered useful. Cricket historian Abhishek Mukherjee commented that Edrich once happened to say in a humorous way that he could thus earn the unique distinction of being the only batsman who could be declared out leg before wicket if the ball ever struck his fingers!
The year 1965 turned out as the golden summer in his life as his aggregate was a staggering 2,319 runs which included 8 centuries. In nine successive innings his string of scores was 139, 121 not out, 205 not out, 55, 96, 188, 92, 105, and of course, the historic 310 not out. With such a notable sequence of runs, Edrich had now come of age.
Edrich was now an automatic choice for the subsequent twin tour to Australia and New Zealand in the summer of 1965-66. Since England by that time found a competent opening pair in Boycott and Barber, Edrich was relegated to bat at the number 3 spot. He batted with success and scored 109 at Melbourne, 103 at Sydney, and finished with 85 at Melbourne again. During the tour to New Zealand, his form deserted him, 36 in the second Test match at Dunedin being his highest score.
Come 1966, and the formidable West Indians arrived in England. Four opening batsmen like Geoffrey Boycott, Bob Barber, Eric Russell and Colin Milburn were tried but Edrich was ignored. Milburn was the only success in the first and the second Test match and everybody else struggled, in general.
Edrich was recalled for the inconsequential fifth match at The Oval since England had already lost in three of the four Test matches. He batted at number 3 and in the lone innings, scored 35 and England won by an innings.
A year later, India and Pakistan visited England and Edrich played in the first two Test matches against India at Headingley and Lord’s but he failed. He was ignored for the three Test matches against Pakistan even though the senior campaigners like Brian Close, the captain, and Colin Cowdrey, always a reluctant starter, had to open in the final match at the Oval.
Regular in the side
Thus, so far Edrich’s performance lacked generally in consistency, often excelling with distinction and then punctuated with relative failure for unfathomable reasons. It was only during the series against the West Indies in 1967-68 under the leadership of Colin Cowdrey that he formed a reliable opening pair with Boycott.
He started off with a modest 25 at Port of Spain, Trinidad, scored 96 at Kingston, Jamaica in the second Test match and followed it up with 146 in the next match at Bridgetown, Barbados.
In the fateful fourth match at Port of Spain, which England won following the magnanimous, yet somewhat controversial decision on the part of Garfield Sobers and challenging England to score 215 in 165 minutes, he scored 32 and a typically patient 29 in the second innings.
Boycott too was in supreme form and now the duo was often judged against the illustrious opening pairs, Sir Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe in the 1920s, or Sir Len Hutton and Cyril Washbrook in the late 1940s and ‘50s.
Sporting Heroes: A Photographic Encyclopedia of Sports, put it succinctly, ‘He and Geoff Boycott would surely have become one of the great opening partnerships of Test cricket had he not so often been dropped to number three.’ They opened on 35 occasions from 1964 to 1972 and their aggregate of 1672 runs would have certainly been more impressive if only Edrich was not forced to bat lower down or dropped so often, and Boycott did not go into self-exile from 1974 to 1977 when Edrich had been opening for his country and was in great form.
They were often compared to Bobby Simpson and Bill Lawry of Australia, one of the greatest combination of left and right handed opening pairs of all time.
Australia locked horns with England in the summer of 1968 and Edrich, a confirmed candidate by now, played in all the five Test matches. Success smiled on him as he scored 88 and 64 at Old Trafford, 62 and 65 at Headingley, his favourite ground, and finished the series with aplomb at The Oval with a match-winning 164.
This turned out to be one of the most historic matches in the annals of Test cricket since Basil D’Oliveira scored 158 runs and yet found his name missing for the forthcoming tour to South Africa for political reasons during the reign of the Apartheid policy.
Edrich scored five consecutive 50s and till then, he was the only person to achieve this feat in an Ashes series.
Against the visiting New Zealand team in 1969 he scored 115 and 155 at Lord’s and Trent Bridge, respectively and toured Australia in 1970-71 under the captaincy of Ray Illingworth. There he reached the acme of his career and batted at number 3 or 4, since Brain Luckhurst was chosen to open with Boycott except in two Test matches where Boycott was rested for injury.
The first three batsmen, Boycott, Luckhurst, and Edrich performed admirably and they were fundamentally instrumental in recovering the series in Australia after the controversial bodyline series in 1932-33 but one shall be amiss if John Snow is not mentioned in this context. He bowled superbly and the Australians succumbed to his pace, swing, and leg-cutters. Edrich scored 79, 45, 115 not out, 55, 74 not out, 130, and 57 in the six-matches series and in the process became the first batsman to score at least one fifty in each of his 10 consecutive Test matches, a record till that time.
He scored 648 runs and was in occupation of the crease for a record 33 hours and 26 minutes, and went past Wally Hammond’s stint of 32 hours and 27 minutes during the 1928-29 series where Sir Donald Bradman made his Test match debut.
Last days of international cricket
Edrich’s form dwindled in the subsequent years till he regained his form against India in the 1974 series. He scored 96 at Old Trafford and an unbeaten 100 at Lord’s, again at the number 3 position, since Denis Amiss from Warwickshire was in superlative form in the last few years, and Boycott was temperamentally not suited for any other position. Six months later, England toured Australia and faced one of the most hostile bowling spells ever in the history of the game. Mike Denness was the captain and Edrich was appointed as his deputy and he batted at number 3.
Denis Lillee recovered from his back injury, went into rigorous physical training, and was transformed into a superbly crafty and versatile bowler who lost some of his pace but added to the variety in his repertoire. On the other hand, Jeff Thomson, his comrade-in-arms, arrived with the kind of devastating pace hitherto unseen, and with his slinging bowling action, pace, and bounce, he blew the English batting lineup to the smithereens. They were helped by the parsimonious Max Walker, who maintained a tight line and length and gave little room for scoring.
A number of batsmen like Denis Amiss and David Lloyd were injured and a rising delivery from Lillee broke Edrich’s right hand, though he continued to bat with his customary resilience. As a desperate measure Colin Cowdrey at the age of 41 was summoned to bolster the fragile English batting line-up and this was his sixth trip to Australia, a record. After abject defeat in two of the first three matches Denness decided to step down and Edrich took up the mantle in the fourth Test match for the only time in his life.
In the second innings, he was hit on the chest in the first ball from Lillee but he continued to bat with his much-talked-about grit, guts, and unflappability and scored 33 runs.
An X-ray showed that he fractured two ribs in the right side of his chest and he missed the next match. However, he returned for the sixth match at Melbourne and scored 70. Even when the entire English batting line-up, barring Tony Greig, Alan Knott, and Colin Cowdrey to some extent, wilted without any semblance of resistance, Edrich scored 48,49,50, 33 not out and 70, attesting once again his imperturbability and fighting spirit.
Edrich responded with vengeance in the following Ashes series at Lord’s, often known as ‘The Steele Series’ for the magnificent debut performance of David Steele from Nottinghamshire at the age of 33.
Mike Denness was deposed and Tony Grieg, the only batsman who faced the hostility of Lillee and Thomson with competence barely six months ago, was appointed as the captain.
Edrich scored 175, his seventh century against Australia in the second innings and raised hopes for a possible England victory. He scored 62 and 35 at Headingley and finished with 96, his third such score, at his home ground, The Oval. The grit and grim determination were there for all to see and it was a clear indication that even at the age of 37 he was not yet a spent force.
Now, at the twilight of his career with none of his dour temperament attenuated, Edrich was summoned to fight out the visiting the West Indians in the summer of 1976. Even before the West Indies arrived, an unforeseen complication erupted owing to the infamous comment from Tony Greig, the England captain, ‘We shall make them grovel’.
It only helped to ignite in the minds of the West Indians the memory of their horrific existence in the bygone days of slavery and galvanized their volatile spirit. They were indignant and all the more committed to proving their mettle and targeted Grieg in particular, whenever he came out to bat. Edrich was past 39 years of age and the selectors summoned Brian Close who had been languishing in obscurity for over seven years.
He was nearly 46 years old but it virtually became a custom with the England selectors to call him for duty whenever they had to face express fast bowling. Thus, it was a record combined age of 85 years facing the fire and fury of Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, and Wayne Daniel, all of them barely past twenty years of age.
Edrich scored 37 and 76 at Trent Bridge in the first Test match, dropped for the Lord’s match, and recalled at Old Trafford on a treacherous wicket for the third one.
Edrich and Close scored 8 and 2 in the first innings, and 24 and 20 in the second innings, respectively. But the point of interest was one of the most hostile spells of bowling from Holding to these two veterans in the fading light in the afternoon on the third day.
Close was the primary target, was hit on the chest several times, and one lethal delivery virtually decapitated him. A nonchalant Edrich was witness to the proceedings from the other end and umpire Bill Alley had to interfere in order to warn Holding for intimidating bowling. Clive Lloyd later confessed that his bowlers were carried away in the late hours of the afternoon. Wisden reported, ‘The period before the close of the third day brought disquieting cricket as Edrich and Close grimly defended their wickets and themselves against fast bowling, which was frequently too wild and too hostile to be acceptable.’ And with that ended the illustrious career of these two most courageous, and unflinching batsmen from England and they bid farewell to Test cricket with glory and their head held high.
The style or the lack of it
Edrich was not a flamboyant, fluent, and stylish left-hander like Frank Woolley, ‘the Pride of Kent’, who preceded him, or David Gower, in more recent times. His forte was application, concentration, infinite patience and often he displayed guts beyond the call of duty.
He used to cut belligerently, pull with ease, and was particularly proficient at driving powerfully through mid-wicket or cover point. Often, he lifted the ball in vacant areas if the fielders were not in the deep.
The rare trait of in his character was forgetting the past and concentrate only on the next delivery. Brian Johnston, the peerless radio commentator for BBC, who addressed him as ‘Edders’, wrote in his book, ‘It’s been a piece of cake’, ‘He was the anchor-man supreme, one of the best judges of the line I have ever seen. He seemed to know to the nearest millimeter exactly where his off-stump was, and often had one’s heart in one’s mouth as he left a ball alone which just missed the stumps. He was also a quick runner between the wickets and a good judge of a run... opened... with Geoff Boycott in thirty-two Test innings and was only run out twice...’ Colin Bateman, the correspondent from The Guardian for twenty years wrote, ‘Unflinching, unselfish, and often unsmiling while going about his business in the middle, he was a fiercely formidable opener who knew his limitations and worked wonderfully within them.’
Edrich continued playing for Surrey and retired in 1978. He played in 77 Test matches and scored 5,138 runs at an average of 43.54 which contained 12 centuries of which 7 were scored against Australia and it seems that he relished batting most against England’s fiercest adversary.
In First-class cricket his aggregate was 39,790 runs and he scored 103 centuries with the average at 45.47. England never lost a match where he scored a century.
He was appointed as the captain of Surrey in 1973 when his comrade-in-arms, Mickey Stewart, stepped down and continued till 1977. In his first season as the captain, Surrey won the last six matches and ended up in the second position, though his colleagues were not particularly enamoured with his style of functioning. Pat Pocock, the off-spinner who represented England in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, and took an incredible seven wickets in eleven balls against Sussex in 1972, said that they even went to the extent of negotiating with the officials to replace him. He was appointed as the President of Surrey County Cricket Club in 2006.
Alan Butcher, who opened for England in a solitary Test match against India at The Oval in 1979, and the father of the more competent Mark Butcher, who served his country in 71 Test matches from 1997 to 2004, wrote in an article, ‘A grump among the punks’ for The Cricket Monthly, that in spite of being the best player in Surrey, ‘He rarely showed any empathy towards players, and we became accustomed to the sight of him, hands on hips, kicking the turf in disgust when a youngster bowled a half-volley. Playing cricket became a joyless exercise to the point where the team looked forward to John joining the England team when Arnold Long took over the Surrey captaincy... at a meeting, Robin Jackman explained the dissatisfaction and asked him to resign. Giving up was not in Edrich’s make-up and predictably he refused. This prompted Long to leave The Oval for Sussex, followed soon after by Geoff Arnold...’
He scored his 100th First-class century against Derbyshire in 1977 and thus he was only the third left-handed batsman from England after Phil Mead and Frank Woolley to achieve this distinction. He was appointed MBE for his services to the game in the same year and became a Test selector in 1981.
In 1995, he accepted the assignment of England’s batting coach, was often the adjudicator for the Man of the Match award . He played in the first-ever One Day International cricket match which was organized on the 5th of January 1971, after the third Test match at Melbourne was completely washed out, and in order to entertain the spectators who had already purchased the tickets, the match was born of serendipity.
Geoffrey Boycott faced the first ball to the bowling of Graham McKenzie and Edrich batting at number 3 with 82 in 119 balls was adjudged the Man of the Match. By temperament, he was taciturn, distant, and laconic in speech but was endowed with a dry sense of humour and John Thicknesse wrote in Wisden that when he had to bat on a difficult wicket he used to consult Wisden in order to see how many runs he had to his credit till then and exclaim, ‘Twenty thousand, eh? I can’t be such a bad player after all!’
In the year 2000, Edrich was diagnosed with a rare variety of hematological malignancy, Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, carrying a grim prognosis. He was feeling tired and lethargic and feared the ultimate. However, true to his batting style, he fought it with exemplary fortitude, and nowadays, he is often seen on the golf course thrice a week. He lives at Aberdeen in the north-east part of Scotland.
Indeed, John Edrich was one of the most dependable, faithful, and gutsy cricketer one could ever happen to see. He served his country with distinction in calamitous situations with a rare resilience and pulled his team out of abject crises in more than one occasion. Even though not a batsman of style and elegance, every cricket team would always look forward to have the services of a batsman of his traits in the side.