Cricket: A Modern Anthology. Jonathan Agnew

Greig subsequently fell from grace, accused of disloyalty, John Woodcock, the eminent cricket correspondent of The Times, explained to his readers:

      What has to be remembered, of course, is that he is an Englishman, not by birth or upbringing, but only by adoption. It is not the same thing as being English through and through.

      Greig’s other disadvantages as an England captain – his gamesmanship, his mastery of the art of needling opponents, his violent mood swings, impetuosity and so forth – were presumably also attributable to his insufficient Englishness. However, some, in the summer of 1976, were convinced that his declared intention to make the touring West Indians ‘grovel’ was attributable specifically to his South African background. Certainly the remark enraged the touring captain, Clive Lloyd, and gave added spice to the bowling, as forty-five-year-old Brian Close and thirty-nine-year-old John Edrich joined Steele in the firing line, and Greig confessed himself frightened for the first time in his life. But it was all astonishingly good for business and the TCCB found themselves with a total of £950,000 to share out at the season’s end from their various enterprises. This was an increase even in real terms, a qualification that everyone had to get used to making in those ultra-inflationary times.

      Greig, meanwhile, who so far had not won a match as captain, found welcome relief on the tour of India with its slow bowling traditions. Wisden cooed with satisfaction over England’s victory and Greig’s inspired and inspiring leadership. It was also pleased that the Cricket Council had dealt so promptly and conclusively with the accusation that England’s bowlers, Willis and Lever, had been guilty of ball-tampering. They had adopted the unusual practice of sticking gauze strips to their foreheads with vaseline, purportedly to keep the sweat from running into their eyes, but the Indian captain, Bishen Bedi, had complained that they were in fact using the sticky substance to keep the shine on the ball. The Cricket Council, after telephoning the England captain and manager, utterly refuted the foul allegation.

      That winter’s tour was, however, to be remembered chiefly for the Centenary Test match, commemorating the anniversary of the first match played on level terms between English and Australian players. More precisely it was remembered for the subsequent discovery that Greig, the England captain, had used the intervals of play to recruit members of his team to the service of Kerry Packer, son of an Australian media tycoon. Packer had tried to negotiate with the Australian Board of Control for the right to televise matches exclusively on his commercial Channel 9, and when they peremptorily refused had decided to run his own international contests, hiring all the teams.

      Greig’s sorties on Packer’s behalf were conducted in great secrecy, and no one at Lord’s had any inkling of what was in store. All the talk was of the great news that a sponsor had been found for the county championship: Schweppes were offering £360,000 for three years, a generous sum considering the limited amount of television coverage that could be expected. Even when in April rumours began to circulate that a number of South Africans had signed to play for Packer in an eight-week series in various parts of the world, no one thought much about it. The Australian tourists arrived on schedule, armed with contracts newly negotiated with the ABC (£12,000 a man and a pension scheme, the word was), and old-stagers shook their heads at what things were coming to. Then Packer announced that he had signed thirty-five Test players, including thirteen Australian tourists and four current English players, Greig, Knott, Snow and Underwood.

      The TCCB’s response was to relieve Greig of the captaincy, because of the breach of trust, and to call a meeting of the International Cricket Conference (formerly the Imperial Cricket Conference, adapted to accommodate loose cannons like South Africa and Pakistan), where it was agreed that no action be taken for the immediate series, but that afterwards five conditions be imposed on players who contracted to play for Packer. These conditions were not wildly unreasonable, but were paternalistic in the best MCC traditions. However, this soon became academic, for when the ICC met Packer he insisted on his original demand of exclusive television rights, the ABC saw this as blackmail and refused, the ICC stood by them and the trial of strength resumed.

      Packer signed another dozen or more players, including two current English Test men, Dennis Amiss and Bob Woolmer, to play what he called ‘Super-cricket’ and what the establishment referred to as a ‘circus’. This was a conscious attempt to relate the Packer scheme to Old Clarke and the All-England XI, which was a horror story told in the best circles about a dastardly plot to wrest the game from MCC’s lawful grasp. In 1866 the happy ending had come when MCC had laid down the conditions on which they would engage the rebels for future matches. In 1977, when the TCCB and ICC tried to do the same, they found themselves in court answering an application for an injunction and damages from the Packer organisation and three of their contracted players, headed by the infamous Greig. Furthermore, they lost the case with costs, some quarter of a million pounds. As a Guardian leader put it, ‘Mr Kerry Packer may be a bounder and a cad. But he is a legal bounder and a High-Court-sanctified cad.’

      To rub salt in establishment wounds, Richie Benaud, who emerged as the brains behind Packer’s scheme, announced that it would not be played under MCC laws, which he had the temerity to call mere ‘rules’, and preparations gleefully began for World Series Cricket (WSC). Furthermore, it was evident that some counties were more concerned to retain the crowd-pulling power of their overseas players than to uphold TCCB dignity. Sussex expressed relief that they were not to be deprived of the services of Greig, Snow and Imran Khan, the Pakistani star. Gloucestershire’s treasurer likewise declared himself ‘ticked pink’ that Mike Procter and Zaheer Abbas would be staying. The Hampshire captain, R. M. C. Gilliat, of Charterhouse and Oxford University, said it was ‘good news for Hampshire cricket’. There was, of course, much huffing and puffing from choleric upholders of tradition, but as the TCCB made no move to appeal against the judgment there was little they could do but seethe.

      Loyalist indignation was further aroused when Sussex declined to follow England’s lead, and renewed Greig’s captaincy for the 1978 season. (Nottinghamshire proposed and Lancashire seconded a motion to expel Sussex from the championship.) Kent followed a more politically correct line when they removed Asif Iqbal as captain, but they were careful not to try to dispense with his services as a player. All but the fiercest accepted that the counties had little choice but to honour existing contracts with the ‘rebels’ (though it was assumed that it would be a different story a year later: the judgment had said nothing about renewing contracts). Warwickshire took a similar line. Stiff upper lips were de rigueur and crossed fingers were hidden under board-room tables.

      Two things saved the bacon, if not entirely the face, of officialdom. First, World Series Cricket was not the immediate runaway success Packer had predicted, for although it attracted television audiences of a sort, and floodlit matches were a great novelty, the jazzed-up proceedings did not seem to stir up any great concern for who won or lost. Second, the assault on the citadel had led to some rallying round amongst lovers of the authorised version. The TCCB landed £1 million sponsorship from Cornhill Insurance for the Test matches. Fees went up from £3,000 to £5,000 (plus winning bonuses) for tours and from £200 to £1,000 for each home match. Players were thus given pause before they rushed to sign for Packer, and some English players of a certain age or temperament saw this as an opportunity to thin the ranks of overseas players on the county scene, which they now dominated. Personal ambitions and old feuds came into play.

      World Series Cricket put a further twist in the ravelled skein of Geoffrey Boycott’s fortunes. Not everyone was as pleased as Wisden with the choice of Mike Brearley, the Middlesex captain, to replace the alien Greig. Sceptics who thought his batting below standard also pointed out that he had not spoken out against the Packer ‘circus’, and hinted darkly that the only reason he hadn’t actually joined them was because he wasn’t good enough to be made an offer: Boycott, by contrast, had been amongst the first to be invited but had ostentatiously refused. Instead he had offered his services to England in her hour of need, and had scored his hundredth century on his home ground, as England took advantage of Australia’s greater disarray to put it across them in that summer’s Tests.

      The Cricketers’ Association had members on both sides of the argument – which essentially was whether Packer’s intervention was likely to benefit all cricketers or would merely further