Bob Willis: A Cricketer and a Gentleman by Bob Willis & Mike Dickson

Author:Bob Willis & Mike Dickson [Willis, Bob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781529341355
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2020-08-06T03:00:00+00:00

May you grow up to be righteous,

May you grow up to be true,

May you always know the truth

And see the lights surrounding you.

May you always be courageous,

Stand upright and be strong,

May you stay forever young . . .

And, apart from the grey hair (!), that was Bobby. He knew the truth, he lent us his wisdom and he lived his life with the heart of a lion.

This piece originally appeared on ESPN Cricinfo on 6 December 2019.

Getting to know Bob

Michael Holding

I first played against Bob in 1976, but I didn’t have a lot of interaction with him in that series because it was my first tour of England and I was also ill for part of it. I didn’t know many people anyway, because I hadn’t played any county cricket. So I think the first time I got to know him a bit more would have been in the 1980 series, when he and Ian Botham were close and Beefy was a friend of Viv Richards. By 1984 I knew him a lot better, and that led to an incident in the Headingley Test match that still brings a smile.

It was Friday the 13th, I remember, and I was batting and getting a few runs against Bob. As we went off the field at the end of a session, I ran up to him and tapped him on the back to get his attention. Now, Bob had bowled quite a few bouncers at me, so I don’t know what the spectators might have been expecting – they probably thought I was going to have a few angry words with him – but what I actually said was, ‘Oh, Bob, don’t worry, it’s my day today: I’ve had four winners on a yankee as well!’ And he burst out laughing. He knew I liked to dabble in the horses, you see. When I got to the dressing room I couldn’t help wondering what the people in the stands must have made of it all.

Bob and I built much more of a relationship when we were at Sky. I started there full-time in 1998, but before that I worked with Bob and the Sky team on the England tour of the West Indies in 1993–94 – though strictly speaking it wasn’t a Sky production, as it was TWI who had the rights for cricket in the Caribbean back then. That was the series when Brian Lara got all those runs in Antigua. Bob was on commentary when Lara broke the world record for the first time.

The first overseas tour I did for Sky was a very important one for me. It was England’s tour of South Africa in 1999–2000. Bob, Paul Allott, David Lloyd, Beefy – they were all there, and there was a lot of rain, which meant we ended up playing a lot of cards. Paul Allott, who plays bridge well, taught the rest of us, and that helped build the camaraderie.

Away from the pitch and the commentary box, Bob was a lot of fun.

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