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Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published 1983
Copyright © David Gower Promotions Ltd 1983
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780002170543
Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2016 ISBN: 9780008240172
Version: 2017-01-13
CONTENTS
Richard Hadlee, with the New Zealanders
Dennis Lillee, with Rodney Marsh
Epilogue: David Gower, by Derek Hodgson
It seems almost a little late to be writing about heroes. To me, heroes were the people I watched in my schooldays, when the curtains were drawn and the television switched on for the start of a Test match; and the players involved appeared far more mystical than they ever could after my own adoption by the game that I had admired from afar for so long. Sobers was an undoubted hero, as he was no doubt to thousands of other followers – how could anyone with his natural ability and grace not be? Another who easily qualified and who still seems to be playing well in South Africa, was Graeme Pollock, whom I saw score a hundred at Trent Bridge against England in the first Test match my parents ever took me to see. Similarly, John Edrich, when he scored three hundred against the New Zealanders, became another hero.
To me, then, these people, apart from coincidentally all being left-handed batsmen, were extraordinary and worthy of idolization, and that is how they mostly remain. Some of the mystique disappeared when I started to play first-class cricket amongst them; though I shall never play against Sobers or Pollock unless, in the latter’s case, the situation in South Africa changes rather quickly. I did just manage to overlap the start of my career with the finish of John Edrich’s. My first captain was Ray Illingworth, whose presence when I first reported to Leicestershire overawed me.
What I have gained, therefore, is an understanding of the characters involved, so that the people I have chosen to write about in this book have no lesser ability than my boyhood idols and are thus heroes of the same standing but without the mystique.
Some of them I have played against often; some I have played little against but those have made an impression on me in other ways. It follows that some of these players I do know very well, while with others it has been no more than the odd conversation and casual acquaintance. I can call some of these names close personal friends, while others are virtually strangers.
It would have been easier, I admit, to choose to write only about those I know very well, but that would have meant the omission of several very famous players. I wanted to include players from all over the world who reflect the general standard of the game today. In doing so I apologize to those many players, friends of mine and others, who no doubt feel that they have done enough to merit a mention.
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