My favourite cricketer: My Darling John

JOHN ETHERIDGE grew up in awe of John Edrich and not just because their names were similar – although it did play a part

The words remain seared on my brain to this day. “Tenacious, courageous and totally phlegmatic …” is how the article began and the childhood need for a dictionary made it seem even more impressive. This was my hero: a left-hander, not Sobers or Pollock but a nuggety chunk of grit and determination called John Edrich. Crikey, even his name was like mine.

Test Cricket: A Pictorial History of the World’s Greatest Game is not one of cricket’s seminal works but the Edrich profile made a huge impression. I have just plucked it from the shelf and discovered more than 40 years later it was edited by Martin Tyler, famous football commentator and one-time flat-mate of Bob Willis. So thanks, Martin, it was you who taught me what phlegmatic means.

But then, I was already an Edrich devotee. The similar name was only part of the reason that Etheridge liked Edrich. My first Wisden was 1960’s, discovered in a jumble sale for 6d (two and a half pence) on the advice of my dad. I had never heard of the Almanack at that stage but Edrich had a breakthrough summer in 1959 and I was soon immersed in his deeds at The Oval and beyond.

Then came cricket on TV. My earliest memory came in 1969 when JH Edrich scored two centuries against New Zealand. In 1971 mum took me to Bentalls department store in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, where Edrich and Derek Underwood held indoor nets for star-struck children. Some basic technical advice, a few throwdowns and an autograph – what could be better?

Soon, my Wisden collection was growing. I read and re-read a hundred times the report of the Headingley Test against New Zealand in 1965 when Edrich scored 310 not out. There was a time when I could virtually recite it word for word. I could still have a decent crack at it. I particularly like that bit where Edrich had his quiet periods and “then he would let fly again”.

Back in the mid-1960s Edrich was a free-flowing batsman and prodigious hitter of sixes. He cleared the boundary 49 times alone in that summer of ’65 and passed 2,000 first-class runs as early as July 17. He became the tenacious, courageous accumulator only later. 

Edrich might not have been an aesthetically pleasing batsman but he was mightily brave. Nobody stood up more gamely to Lillee and Thomson in the pre-helmeted days of the mid-1970s.

^{Edrich with an oversized bat thoughtfully provided by a spectator} 

Then, on that infamous Saturday evening at Old Trafford in 1976, Edrich and Brian Close, combined age of 84, somehow survived with their wickets and bodies intact in the face of a brutal 80-minute battering from Michael Holding and Co. 

A spectator helped reduce the battle-zone tension by bringing out a 12-inch wide joke bat for Edrich. After play, as they drank tea and compared bruises, Mike Selvey, who was making his Test debut, tells how Edrich suddenly burst into a form of hysterical laughter. “What so funny, Edie?” asked Close. “I’ve just looked at the scoreboard for the first time, Closey. And I’m one not out.”

A year earlier, in 1975, I scored the whole of the Lord’s Test. That’s right, I sat at home in front of the box, with the radio also on, and notched every ball. That is approaching unnatural geekiness for a 14-year-old in the summer holiday. I should have been talking to girls although, in fairness, that did come later.

It was the match when David Steele made his Test debut and was described by Clive Taylor, former cricket writer on The Sun (although the line is often credited to John Arlott), as a bank clerk going to war. Clearly imagery used in The Sun’s cricket reporting has declined since then.

We also had a streaker – or a ‘freaker’ as Arlott described him on air – called Michael Angelow, of all names. Most importantly, though, Edrich made 175 and, after he passed three figures, permitted himself a string of sumptuous cover drives. For most of the second half of his career, there was rarely much more than clips through the leg side or square cuts. The mighty pulled drives of his twenties had been put to bed forever. 

I know Edrich was thought by some to be a grumpy member of a grumpy Surrey side in the 1970s. But, when I got to know him quite well during his time as England’s batting coach under Ray Illingworth, he was never anything other than charming and helpful. He was the go-to man for journalists who wanted to borrow the team’s golf clubs.

My wife, in one of her more amorous moments, penned a fax and sent it to me at our hotel in Kimberley, South Africa on the 1995-96 tour. My pet name for her is Inny, which looks a little like Illy in her scrawl. The fax went to the wrong room and it is fair to say Edrich was more than a touch confused receiving a piece of paper declaring: “My darling John, I love you, I miss you and I want to kiss you. All my love, Inny (Illy).” It took him two days to work it out before, eventually, he sheepishly handed it to me and said: “I think this is for you!”

This article first appeared in the April 2013 issue of The Cricketer