by Arunabha Sengupta
His father was a builder in Fulneck, near Pudsey in Yorkshire. And he was a friend of Herbert Sutcliffe, the great opening batsman, who lived at Pudsey with two aunts. Hence, Sutcliffe was well acquainted with the cricket of the young lad.
He had just about started with Yorkshire, when Sutcliffe presented him a book he had recently written. In that he had described the 18-year-old as ‘a marvel, the discovery of a generation’. After all, the aging yet brilliant Sutcliffe and the young and brilliant Len Hutton had put on 315 for Yorkshire—twice.
Hutton never really went to church. However, his family was steeped in Moravian Presbyterianism. The primary concept of Moravians was stillness of the mind. It was that stillness of the mind that allowed him to bat 13 and a quarter hours to score 364 at The Oval. When he went past Don Bradman’s 334, the master beat the others to the wicket to be the first one to congratulate him. In between Hedley Verity had helped him relax, by taking him to Bognor to visit relatives. Hutton always had splendid Yorkshire men guiding him with down to earth pragmatism.
His coach George Hirst, with whom he formed perhaps the greatest coach-protégé duo in cricket, told him, “Whatever tha does, doan’t get like Victor Trumper.” He meat don’t be superstitious like Trumper, it had made the Australian miserable. Hutton put his right pad on first, because Jack Hobbs used to do so. Other than that he did not attach attributes of luck to any number, ground, bowler or object. The first advice Bill Bowes gave him, likewise, was practical. “It’s time tha had a new bat.”
1345 runs at 67.25 with five hundreds in 13 Tests before the War. And then, in March 1941, while attempting a fly spring in the army gymnasium, the mat slipped from under him. The left arm was broken with severe complications, the ulna at the base of his left wrist was dislocated. Orthopaedic surgeon Reginald Broomhead operated with skill, with serious bone grafts from both shins. The left arm was left two inches shorter.
He never again gripped the bat without discomfort, wrists swelling up often. Besides, it made it practically impossible to play the hook shot. Miller and Lindwall knew this. They bounced him and bounced him again. All the Messerschmitt brag did not stop Keith Miller from trying to maim the best batsman of England because he was difficult to dismiss. Yet, against the duo Hutton scored 1736 runs in 21 Tests at 53.
He carried the fragile post-War England batting on his shoulders. When Ramadhin and Valentine wrecked havoc at The Oval, he carried the bat with 202 not out in a total of 344.
Yet, he never entered the pavilion of Lord’s before the War and for several years after it, because he was a professional. Such were the days.
But in 1952 he became the first professional captain of England in the twentieth century.
Many objected, including important establishmentarian voices like Jim Swanton. But he led the England to an Ashes win in 1953.
When England lost the first two Tests in West Indies 1953-54, the clamours reached a crescendo. Besides there was a stream of attacks for his supposed diplomatic faux pas, his inability to keep wayward team members under control. But Hutton scored 169 at Georgetown and it was 2-1. In the final Test at Kingston, he got 205 batting almost nine hours in gruelling heat, and the series was tied 2-2.
By then he was the greatest batsman of the world, no questions asked. When the MCC halted in Bermuda, the immigration officer stamping Alex Bannister’s passport, the members of the ship-to-shore tender, the hansom cabby, the bell hop of the hotel … everyone repeated, “Hutton … Hutton out first ball, sir.” It was an achievement that would reverberate in the island for decades. The result of the match did not matter.
By the beginning of 1954, he had 6684 runs at 61.71. The average did come down to 56.67 after his last tour, to Australia and New Zealand. He had spent too much of himself in the Caribbean.
But, what a success that final tour Down Under was for England and Hutton the captain.
It was his Yorkshire pragmatism and humour that helped him tackle the most severe pressure tactics. The Australian Press expected bravado. Hutton sat there, smiling, pausing interminably, and answering the posers dry and witty: “No, we ’avent got mooch bowling. Lock and Laker aye, good bowlers, but we ’ad to leave them behind. Batsmen? Well we ’avent got any batsmen really. We’ve got these youngsters, May and Cowdrey, but we haven’t got all batsmen…We’ve a lot to learn from you.”
He had planned the tour perfectly. He did not get a lot of runs, but his hand-picked pace attack destroyed Australia. 3-1. Tyson’s tour.
On non-match days he would sit in his room, listening to the radio and looking at the wall. While Compton and the others would paint the town red, if someone asked whether he would like a drink he would say, “You haven’t got such a thing as a cup of tea, have you?”
He dearly strived for cricketing success, but shunned adulation. When an inebriated cricket fan sat next to him and asked what his name was, he said “Joe Soap.” The chap spent the rest of the evening calling him Mister Soap.
But he was very human. He promised young Colin Cowdrey’s father that he would look after him during the 1954-55 tour. Then a cable arrived announcing Cowdrey senior’s death. Hutton sat at dinner, working out how to commiserate. Cowdrey later wrote: “Len came around the back of my chair, put his hand on my shoulder and said ‘I’m sorry’. There were tears in his eyes… He never mentioned my father again, but from that moment he made certain I was occupied every moment of the day.” Hutton partnered Cowdrey in golf matches as well.
He was a master reader of the game. In his last Test match at Auckland, England seven down, just one run ahead, Hutton was batting with Tyson. He told his partner, “A few more runs and we will win by an innings.” He was out immediately after that, but Tyson, Appleyard and Statham stretched the lead to 46. In their second innings New Zealand were all out for 26.
For all his steadfast professionalism, Hutton could be a very attractive batsman. Some of his fluent 30s received as much accolade as his 364.
And he had a restrained but wry sense of humour as well.
During the Ashes Test at Lord’s 1953, Lindwall and Miller were bowling flat out. Hutton got 145, Compton 57, and they shared a stand of 102. After a particularly hostile over from Lindwall the two met mid-pitch. Hutton said, “We must be mad, Denis. There must be easier ways to make a living.”
Alongside Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe, Len Hutton stands as the greatest opening batsman ever born, anywhere.
He was born on 23 June 1916.