One of cricket’s biggest joys is its inclusivity. The sport’s sheer complexity means that no matter what your shape or size, you can become a cricketer. And ever since the days of gentlemen and players, the entire social spectrum has taken up the leather and willow. Cricket, too, has seen more of its fair share of eccentrics over the centuries, and bizarre selectorial decisions are by no means unprecedented. This team of the unlikeliest England cricketers ever might well struggle to beat Michael Clarke and his men. But by gum, it would be fun to see it out on the field.
1. Baron Sheppard of Liverpool
1953 was a good year for David Sheppard – three years after his England debut, he not only became a Reverend, but also was picked as one of Wisden’s Cricketers of the Year. After averaging 37.8 for England, and scoring 113 in the Ashes Test in which Jim Laker took 19 wickets, he became Bishop of Woolwich in 1969, then Bishop of Liverpool in 1975. One of the Church of England’s highest-profile figures, he was awarded a Labour life peerage in 1998.
2. David Steele
Steele was that rarest of cricketers: a left-field selection who came good. Plucked from obscurity for his Test debut in 1975, aged 33, and famously described as a “grey-haired bank clerk,” he got comprehensively lost on the way from the Lord’s dressing room to the pitch. But against the fearsomeness of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, he scored 50, 45, 73, 92, 39 and 66.
3. Ranjitsinjhi
You could probably trace the rise of the IPL and sub-continental cricket back to Ranjitsinjhi’s fin-de-siecle cricketing exploits. In 1896, when he made his debut, what could be more natural than picking a Cambridge-educated Indian for the England team? After all, India didn’t have a cricket team until 1932. Many books have been written about Ranjitsinjhi – unsurprisingly, since he pioneered the leg-glance, averaged 44.95 for England and ruled the state of Nawanagar as the Maharajah Jam Saheb.
4. Denis Compton
In what way, you might ask, was the great Denis an unlikely England cricketer? Well, if he had emerged as a talent nowadays, instead of just before the second world war, he would surely have become a footballer – he played 54 times for Arsenal and played for the England football team during the war. As the famous Brylcreem Boy, he paved the way for David Beckham-style sporting superstardom. And he liked to party – tales abound of him pitching up at Lord’s at 10.40am, mid-Test Match, in full dinner jacket after a night on the tiles, then sauntering out to the middle and caressing a ton before lunch. Presumably before the hangover kicked in.
5. Derek Randall
Although a top-class batsman with 2,470 runs in Tests at an average of 33.37, Randall just didn’t look like a professional sportsman – more like an overgrown street urchin who had wandered on to the pitch by mistake. Frequently described as “Chaplinesque”, he was gloriously scruffy, and referred to himself as “Rags”. He fidgeted at the crease as if pursued by a swarm of bees. Plus he had a nice line in self-deprecating humour, once coming back with: “No point in hitting me there, mate: there’s nothing in it,” after getting his head out of the way of a Denis Lillee bouncer.
6. Wilfred Rhodes
A true great, Wilfred Rhodes took 127 wickets and scored 2,325 runs for England, becoming the first Englishman to pass 110 wickets and 1,000 runs. What was most remarkable about him, though, was that he played his last Test (in 1930, after debuting in 1899) at the age of 52. He still holds the record for oldest Test player, at 52 years and 165 days, and for most appearances in first-class cricket after playing 1,110 matches. Perhaps he provides inspiration for Australia’s current Dad’s Army.
7. Jack Russell
The west countryman was a superb wicketkeeper and a more than useful left-handed batsman – but above all, he was (and is) a major-league eccentric. His quirks included drinking 20 cups of tea a day (hanging teabags on nails for re-use), driving inside a sleeping bag with the bottom cut out (in order to avoid chills in his back) and lunching on two Weetabix, soaked in milk for precisely eight minutes. He would spend all his downtime painting – and indeed, is now very much in demand as an artist.
8. Darren Pattinson
Poor old Darren Pattinson – he was on the receiving end of perhaps the most bizarre selectorial decision of all time. Drafted into the England team in 2008 as a replacement for the injured Ryan Sidebottom, his selection baffled even the most assiduous cricket-geeks: he had just 11 first-class matches (mostly for Nottinghamshire) under his belt, and although technically born in England, had spent most of his life in Australia – his brother James would probably be in the current Australia squad had he been fit. He played one match and took two wickets for 96 runs.
9. Devon Malcolm
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, the properly rapid fast bowler was a huge crowd favourite, finishing with 128 wickets in Tests. Which is all the more remarkable given that he was as blind as a bat, with such extreme myopia that he looked like Mr Magoo off the pitch. His finest moment came at the Oval in 1994 when, after being struck on the helmet by a Fanie de Villiers bouncer, he ripped through the South African batting with nine wickets for 57 runs.
10. Bob Willis
The waspish Sky Sports pundit carved a massive niche in Ashes folklore with his match-winning spell of 8-43 at Headingley in 1981, after Botham’s heroics. With 325 Test wickets, he remains third on England’s all-time list, behind Botham and Jimmy Anderson. But his bowling was always a triumph of guts over technique. At 6 feet 6 inches tall, he redefined the word “ungainly”, with a bizarre curving run-up that was a riot of sharp-looking elbows and giraffe-like legs. And by the time 1981 came around, his knees were completely shot – but he still put in one of the finest bowling spells ever.
11. Phil Tufnell
The lovable scamp was one of the most marvelously gifted left-arm twirlers yet to play for England. But away from the bowling crease, he possessed all the athleticism of an asthmatic stick insect (as is often displayed in his capacity as team captain on A Question of Sport). His batting was a running joke, but he was even more of a liability in the field – once, while banished to the deep in Melbourne, eliciting the famous sledge: “Oi, Tuffers, lend us your brain – we’re building an idiot.”
