The cyclist sipping wine on the terrace of a Thames-side pub may not look much like an English hero, but anybody who loves cricket knows that he ranks only slightly lower than the angels. Thirty years ago Bob Willis bowled England to the most astonishing victory in the history of Test cricket, taking eight for 43 on a mad Monday in Leeds that held the nation entranced. Three decades later, not even the superb performances of the current England players, who are facing India at the Oval this week as the No. 1 team in the world, can efface the memories of ’81.‘Botham’s Ashes’, they call that series, with reason. The great all-rounder, stripped of the captaincy after the second Test of that summer, responded so mightily with bat and ball that nobody who saw him cart the Aussies to all parts will forget the majesty of his cricket. But his mate ‘Bobby’ was with him every step of the way, marching towards a career haul of 325 Test wickets, more than any other English fast bowler (Botham, the all-rounder, took 383). Now, friends off the field as they were comrades on it, they belong to the game’s immortals. A film about the ’81 series, From The Ashes, was released earlier this year and next month MCC are hosting a dinner in the Long Room at Lord’s to honour the men who were there.
‘As the film showed,’ says Willis, a youthful 62, ‘that summer was pretty messy, with riots all over England, alleviated somewhat by the royal wedding. But the 30th anniversary celebrations reflect in part the way that the media has changed. I can barely remember the 20th or the 25th anniversaries getting much of a mention. People seem to be besotted with nostalgia, and elements of the popular press kowtow to that desire.’
Up to a point, Bobby! Cricket-lovers have always been in thrall to that summer, and always will be, because Headingley — where England turned the game on its head to win by 18 runs — represented a miracle. ‘Yes, it is pleasant to be reminded of it. People still say things like “You don’t know me, Bob, but I would like to thank you for all you did for English cricket.” Everybody can recall where they were that day, though it didn’t really strike me until, driving back to Birmingham, listening to the Today programme on Radio 4, they led the news with England “coming from the depths” to beat Australia. I must say, I regret my grumpy interview with Peter West (the BBC commentator) afterwards’.
It didn’t take long for that other impostor, defeat, to raise his ugly head. ‘There wasn’t much R and R back then. No central contracts. Few days off, unless you were injured. The day after Headingley I was playing at Edgbaston for Warwickshire against Sussex in a Gillette Cup tie. We lost, and the headline in the Sun claimed that I was “one over the eight”. They must have thought I had been on the lash the night before.’
England used 20 players in 1981, ‘including three wicketkeepers’, says Willis, who was one of three players, along with Botham and Geoffrey Boycott, to appear in all six matches. ‘We would win a match convincingly, and then there would be two or three changes for the next game. Can you imagine Graham Gooch and David Gower being dropped for the final Test? Yet it happened that year.’
Those men grew up in a different age, when touring life could be long and arduous, and the pay was modest. On his first tour, to Australia in 1970-71, Willis received a fee of £450. Now senior England players are millionaires, with properties in Chelsea, Barbados and Dubai. ‘I have no qualms about what they earn. If they are paid well at the top level the game will attract good players. I am very pleased we have a strong England team. The Test game needs a boost, and the current players are keeping cricket on everyone’s lips.’
Although he was a cricketer, and has since worked for Sky TV as an analyst, the game has never kept Willis captive. He is that rare being, a sportsman with hinterland — though, to be fair, cricket tends to produce rounded men. Mike Brearley, Willis’s captain on that famous Monday in Leeds, took a double first at Cambridge, and now works as a psychoanalyst in north London. Michael Atherton, another Cambridge man, is cricket correspondent of the Times.
Best Dylan show? ‘Portsmouth, 2000. A fantastic set’. And worst? ‘The Isle of Wight Festival in 1969, when he was miles away. I was playing for Surrey in a championship match, which began on the Saturday. Hampshire made hundreds, and I knew that with us having the Sunday off, I wouldn’t be bowling on the Monday morning. But it was a close thing. On Sunday night there were thousands of us trying to get off the island.’
His other musical passion, the operas of Richard Wagner, came later. ‘In Vienna one winter, with some friends from Birmingham, we could go either to a bierkeller or to the State Opera to hear Meistersinger. I chose Wagner.’ After instruction from a close friend, Joe Burgess, and exposure to the Welsh National Opera’s Ring Cycle in Birmingham, conducted by Sir Reginald Goodall, he became a committed Wagnerian. He has probably visited Covent Garden as often as he played at Lord’s.
In December 1998, in Adelaide, his worlds merged. At the Oval he was able to watch a Test between Australia and England, and over the River Torrens he could attend a Ring cycle at the city’s Festival Theatre. Adelaide is also the home of his great Aussie pal, Geoff Merrill, the star winemaker from McLaren Vale. Together with Merrill and (as night follows day) Botham, he has established a range of BMW wines.
‘A love of wine, and of Australia, is one of the things that has kept Beefy and myself close. Loyalty is a word that describes our relationship. Ian had some difficult times in his career, and I hope I was some kind of support. Mind you, when he talks of having “a glass” of wine, he means four bottles! His daughter Becky is getting married next month, and the Adelaide crowd is coming over, so that’s a week you can write off.’
So, bottle drained, this most modest of English heroes cycles off across the river.