[ad_1]
Cricketer John Edrich, who died aged 83 after suffering from leukemia, was one of the best English first-rate batsmen of the 20th century. Short, stocky, bushy-browed and brave, he played 77 times for his country between 1963 and 1976, and had an especially good record against the two best teams of his day – Australia and the West Indies. In 1970-71, his excellent batting performances were one of the key reasons England managed to win the Ashes in Australia for the first time since 1956, and with Geoffrey Boycott in the late 1960s and early 1970s he created a formidable opening partnership that provided many good platforms in test matches. His best score, 310 without against New Zealand, is England’s fifth highest in testing.
In county cricket, Edrich was a prominent figure for Surrey, whom he captained in his final days and with whom, from 1958 to 1978, he racked up most of his 39,790 career runs, one of the highest scores in history. and with an impressive average of 45.47. By the end of his career, he had also become one of the few cricketers to score 100 hundreds (103 total), putting him in the company of greats like WG Grace, Jack Hobbs and Wally Hammond.
Edrich’s greatest asset was his great focus and discipline, along with the unusual ability to treat each ball as it came, no matter what had happened before. He was tough too, shrugging off countless nasty injuries inflicted by the world’s fastest bowlers, some of which might have permanently baffled minor characters. While he was more belligerent than elegant, he could display aggressive, almost nonchalant intent when he felt like it, and he was a ruthless dispatcher of bad deliveries, using his strong forearms to hit the ball at midwicket or through the covers. There was no better example of his flamboyance than his 310 at Headingley in 1965, during which he scored more runs in bounds (52 fours and five sixes) than anyone has ever managed in a test inning.
Above all, Edrich loved racing against Australia. Seven of his 12 hundred tests were against him, and he scored 2,644 runs to 48.96 in 32 games, with an even better average (55.78) on Australian soil. When England regained the Ashes 2-0 in Australia with Ray Illingworth in 1970-71, Edrich was a lynchpin, averaging 72 and, with Boycott, laying a number of excellent foundations for series victory. Boycott, a right-hander, and Edrich, a southpaw, admired and respected each other, in part because they shared the same hatred of losing. “John had one of the greatest temperaments I have ever seen,” Boycott said. “I’d rather open an entry with him than with anyone.”
Edrich was born in Blofield, Norfolk, into a family of sugar beet farmers. Four of his older cousins from Edrich’s side played county cricket, including Bill Edrich for Middlesex and England. John started at five, progressing to become team captain for the Bracondale School in Norwich and to play cricket for the South Walsham club. In his teens he appeared for Norfolk, and in 1955 he was offered a place on the Surrey staff. After a successful season in the second XI, in 1956 he was called up to national service, making his first-class debut that year for Combined Services against Glamorgan.
When he returned to the Oval in 1958, he made his debut in the last game of the season, at age 21. His second game came early in the 1959 campaign, when he scored centuries in every inning against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge. and in quick order it marked four centuries in its first seven entries. In the first week of July he had scored another three hundred and had been chosen for the Players against the Gentlemen at Lord’s, often a forerunner of the England team.
Soon after, however, Fred Trueman broke his knuckle, and when he was back in shape, Frank Tyson crashed a ball into the same joint, breaking it again and ending any thought of an England call-up in its proper first season. . However, it was off to a remarkable start. “It was like I knocked down the door and walked in, still with Norfolk mud sticking to my boots,” he recalled.
Despite that breathless entry onto the county scene, Edrich had to wait another four years to play for England, in part, apparently, because the selectors had unfounded reservations about his rather unorthodox hitting technique. He made his Test debut at age 25 against the West Indies at Old Trafford in 1963, opening with Surrey teammate Micky Stewart against Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith at their hostile peak, and scoring 20 and 38. He was eliminated after the next. match, but he returned to the team for the final test and was chosen for the 1963-64 tour of India, where illness meant he could only play in two tests. Outside of the England side when Australia toured in 1964, he was hired to start with Ted Dexter in the second tryout at Lord’s, reaching 120 on his Ashes debut. However, after poor results in subsequent matches, he was again on the sidelines and missed the winter tour of South Africa.
It had been a shaky start to her testing career, coinciding with the breakup in 1964 of her brief marriage to American tennis player Pat Stewart. But the following year he met Judith Cowan, an Australian nurse, who agreed to become his second wife and convinced him that she had a future in the game. With renewed vigor, Edrich celebrated his selection for the third home test against New Zealand in 1965 with his 310 not out, but in the next game against South Africa at Lord’s he was knocked out and hospitalized by the first bowler, Peter Pollock, keeping him away. . of the rest of the series. It was a typical stroke of bad luck for a man who was famous for suffering injuries. Always in the line of fire, Edrich broke his fingers so often that he had to graft a piece of bone from his leg into his hand.
He made his return on the 1965-66 tour of England to Australia and New Zealand, scoring two successive testing centuries at No. 3 in Australia before an appendix operation reduced his involvement in New Zealand. In 1966 he was named one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year, and in 1968 he was voted best player in the Ashes series drawn at home, in which he averaged 61.55 and scored 50 in five consecutive innings. He played two centuries against the West Indies at home and a couple more against New Zealand in the summer of 1969, and during the 1970-71 tour of Australia he played in the first international game of a day, in Melbourne, taking the best player in the world. match. award with an 82.
Edrich remained a mainstay of the England team for the next five years, and was the patron of the team during one match on the 1974-75 tour of Australia. England lost that game, but played a valiant shot in the second inning after two of their ribs were snapped by the first ball they faced from Dennis Lillee. Transfer to the hospital, finally returned to score 33, not out. Similar bravery was required in his final test, at the age of 39 in 1976, when he opened the innings with Brian Close against the West Indies at Old Trafford, and the pair weathered a hideously intimidating barrage of fast bowling to put 54 for the first time. . wicket of England’s second total innings of 152. He finished his test run with 5,138 runs at an average of 43.54.
In county cricket, Edrich had five captaincy seasons with Surrey from 1973 to 1977, which included a victory in the 1974 Benson & Hedges Cup final. But he was too autonomous and undemonstrative to be a leader, and his years in command they were unstable and, in general, little distinguished.
In 1977, the year he was named MBE, Edrich scored his centennial at the Oval, and after one more season he left the game to become the chief marketing officer for a bank in Jersey. He served for a year as England coach in 1981, after which he moved to Cape Town. His son’s death in a car accident in 1992 prompted his return to Britain, where he and Judith most recently lived in Ballater, Aberdeenshire.
In 2005, Edrich nearly died of a rare and incurable form of leukemia, but after experimental injections of mistletoe, he made a remarkable recovery, allowing him to resume his normal activities. In 2006-07 he was president of Surrey, where the Edrich doors in the Oval are named after him.
Judith died earlier this year and is survived by her daughter.
• John Hugh Edrich, cricketer, born June 21, 1937; died on December 23, 2020
