My Favourite Cricketer by John Stern

Author:John Stern
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A & C Black Publishers Ltd
Published: 2010-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

ALAN KNOTT by MARK POUGATCH

The eccentricities of genius

Mark Pougatch loved Alan Knott for his uniqueness – and his hankie

Headingley 1981 was a Test match that immortalised Ian Botham in the eyes of so many teenagers that he’s still their cricket hero a quarter of a century later. For lovers of English fast bowling, it was Bob Willis’s finest hour and they argue his achievements are too easily overlooked. For one 13-year-old growing up in East Sussex, though, it was a match which reaffirmed that, good as Bob Taylor was with the gloves, his batting wasn’t up to it, and England had to bring their No. 1 wicketkeeper back into the side.

Alan Knott was England’s undisputed keeper between his Test debut in 1967 and the Packer affair that split the cricket world a decade later. In that time he played in 89 of England’s 93 Tests – a testament to his durability, fitness, dedication and all-round startling ability. Knott the cricketer was in many ways a one-off. Whereas Taylor might have been the keeper easier on the eye and more orthodox, Knott developed his own style, taking the ball on his knees when he could have stayed on his feet and catching the ball one-handed more than budding keepers are taught to do. His batting was even more idiosyncratic. He could sweep spinners to distraction, never minded chipping the ball over the infield, changed his grip when he thought it appropriate and in 95 Tests averaged just under 33 with five centuries and 30 fifties.

His initials APE were

in keeping with simian,

craggy looks

It was Knott the keeper that made such an impression on my young mind. My father was a mad keen cricketer and, although we lived in Sussex, he was a Kent member. He wanted to use a field in the village in which we lived for his wandering team called The Grannies, which this summer celebrates its 50th anniversary. Dad wrote to both counties asking for advice from the groundsman but only Kent replied so he became a member there. As I started playing cricket it quickly became apparent that I couldn’t really bowl so, being sporty and athletic, wicketkeeping became an obvious alternative. Thus it was he would take me off to the St Lawrence ground occasionally to watch Alan Knott keep to Derek Underwood, and with plenty of cricket on terrestrial TV, I could watch him whenever I wanted.

Knott fascinated me from the start. His initials APE were in keeping with his somewhat simian, craggy looks. He stretched constantly, even in the last over of the day, and it always seemed to me this was as much about keeping his mind active and boredom at bay as the limbs loose. Even today I rarely keep wicket (when I do make it on to the field) without a long-sleeved shirt to protect my elbows and there was even a time, when I was much younger, that I had a handkerchief peeping out of my pocket in homage to the great man.

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