Farewell to three men of renown

They flourished in different eras. A montage of their highlights would show very few similarities, but it would reveal that each was a hard man in his own way, with a distinctive talent. Two of them were all-rounders who might have been headliners in more favourable circumstances. One performed that most formidable job – opening batsman – with true class and resolve. Each was a man of renown; a character without whom cricket’s rich and panoramic folklore would be much poorer. 

Clive Rice – 23 July 1949-28 July 2015

Poised, decisive, balanced, skilful, ruthless. Clive Rice was one of the best all-rounders ever to play the game – possibly the best never to play the game of Test cricket. When all-rounders, the glamour boys of cricket, held centre stage in the big theatre, he was off Broadway.

Everything about him was elite. His first-class batting average of 40 encompassed 48 first-class tons and 137 fifties, with a highest score of 246. His bowling average, over a long career, was 22.49, with best figures of 7-62. With his sheer physical ability, aggression, astute cricket mind and winning way, he’d have been first-picked for any team, anywhere.

As a leader, he fashioned great teams in Transvaal, Natal, and Nottinghamshire, winning numerous domestic competitions with all of them. He could transform games, and often did, with bat, ball or brains.

Reality was no complicated matter for him. If a man wanted to meet it head-on, Rice admired him. If he wanted to deny it, or defy it, Clive was just the man to deliver the brutal awakening.

Clive Rice was an extraordinary cricketer from an extraordinary era of exiled South Africans, flourishing in a time when giants walked the Earth.

Arthur Morris, 19 January 1922-22 August 2015

At his peak he was considered the very best of openers, and many a formidable Australian total was built on the solid footing he provided with his blade, alternately tender and punishing. Smallish, studious and slightly portly, Arthur Morris looked a juicy target for a ferocious fast-bowler, but the longer he was at the crease, the larger he got. The mollydooker was famous for impeccable timing and manners. He was the second-last survivor of a Jurassic era: the time of the Invincibles. As their playing years receded, their legend increased, and the survivors grew in importance to Aussies.

Declining form in the last few years of his career made a certain act of sportsmanship all the more remarkable, and revealing. In 1952-53, against South Africa, he was 99 when he was involved in a mid-pitch mix–up the new kid, Ian Craig. Morris resolved it by running himself out when a ton was needed to impress the selectors.

In any all-time Australian side, Morris is generally picked as one opener. The rest – Ponsford, Hayden, Lawry, Langer, Bardsley, Trumper, Simpson, Warner – can sort themselves out.

Brian Close, 24 February 1931-13 September 2015

He deserved more. Larger than life, bellicose, friendly, enigmatic, brash, Close was a very good all-rounder who might have been even better had he not found ways to be left out. A measure of Close’s unconventionality was that, though he played only 22 Tests for England, he captained them seven times – winning six and drawing one!

If he had as much of his undoubted talent as he told us he had, he was an eccentric billionaire. There is no doubting many things about Close: he was a very unusual man. He was quintessential Yorkshire. He was Yorkshire embodied. He also had more guts than a man ought to have. Once, fielding boldly at short leg against a manic hooker, he was sconed by a savagely-hit ball. A loud, woody “clock” reverberated around the ground. As he fell to the turf, he was heard to yell, “catch it!”

A measure of his courage was the way he stood up to Caribbean terrors Griffith and Hall in 1963, saving the game at Lord’s and almost winning it. He advanced down the pitch and copped a frightening battering, but made 70. No-one else scored above 20. England fell six short. Thirteen years later, he was recalled to repeat the feat, at 45. He strode into the firing line of a vindictive Roberts, Holding and Daniel and chose taking their heavy mortar on his body over giving even the slightest impression of backing away. The film is compellingly ugly. They wanted to hurt him.

If Close decided on a course, he pursued it, regardless of consequence. Often, it won the day. Other times, it made him a target for laughter. But even after his playing days ended he was making a difference, and his influence at Somerset was so great, the development of Richards and Botham were attributed to him as he fashioned a hardnosed team.

His stubbornness, pride, talent that didn’t always hit the mark, sometimes rampant ego – tinct with irony – made Brian Close an incomparable character of the game.

Published in Inside Cricket, November, 2015