Famous Cricketers No 41 - T.G.Evans, C.B.E.

GODFREY EVANS Thomas Godfrey Evans was born on 18th August 1920 in Finchley, Middlesex. At the age of 6 months he moved, with his mother, to Cliftonville, near Margate, Kent. His father was an electrical engineer, who worked abroad for considerable periods of time. His mother died when Godfrey was only three years old and he went to live with his grandfather at the aptly named house, “Lords” at Sheldwich near Faversham. He was sent to Boarding School and eventually moved to Kent College in Canterbury where all sports were encouraged. During the holidays he played in a family cricket team from an early age and in 1937 was offered a trial by Kent. When he arrived for his trial, Evans stated he was a wicket-keeper because L E G Ames was his hero. He performed well and was offered a contract by the County in May. Ames was very helpful to Evans, as well as W H V Levett, the other very good Kent wicket-keeper at the time. In fact, Evans had received no formal coaching in wicket-keeping before joining Kent. During 1937 he played for the Club and Ground and in 1938 for the Second XI where he gained his Minor Counties Cap scoring two centuries during the season. He tried his hand at professional boxing, fighting as a lightweight (9st 9lbs to 9st 12lbs), was unbeaten, but was persuaded by the Club to give up the sport to protect his hands and eyes for cricket. Evans was also very proficient at hockey and squash. He appeared in a handful of Kent matches in 1939 and when he kept wicket Levett often stood at first slip to pass on advice and encouragement. Evans enlisted in the Army in June 1939, at the second attempt, by lying about his age, stating he was 27 years old, when he was actually 18. After initial training, he was posted to Aldershot, promoted to sergeant and found time to play cricket for Aldershot Command, The Army and eventually the wartime England side against The Dominions. He married Jean in 1941 and set up house in Bearstead, Kent. In 1945 he was posted to Scotland for training before going to France and then Frankfurt in Germany. For his age, he was demobilised early in January 1946, because the army now thought he was 32 years old so he was able to report at Kent for the start of the 1946 season. Evans now regarded himself as a wicket-keeper but competition at Kent came fromAmes and Levett. However, Ames had a back problem and decided to concentrate on batting and Levett, an amateur, stepped back to give Evans his chance. This he took with both hands and within twelve months he was recognised as the leading wicket-keeper in England. He was chosen by Wisden in 1951 as one of their Five Cricketers of the Year and the citation read “To play with him is as much a tonic to the jaded cricketer as to watch him is a source of delight to the spectator, and of no man could it more truthfully be said that he has an ideal big match temperament. Whether batting or keeping wicket, he brims over with unshakeable self-confidence. In other spheres of life he is the same - tireless and aggressive, revelling in the action of the moment. To appreciate to the full his vitality it is best to see him abroad, chasing a ball to the boundary or sprinting to the dressing room at the end of an exhausting day under a burning sun which has sapped the strength of the majority of his colleagues.” Evans the cricketer, had two distinct aspects, for he in fact began his career as a batsman who sporadically kept wicket - not, as later happened, a wicket-keeper who batted sporadically. The suspicion must be that his was a character that lacked the gritted-toothed durability of the great batsmen, and indeed Bradman himself wrote of the ‘considerable ability behind the light-hearted smile ... suggesting a short and happy stay at the crease’. Trevor Bailey, partner in crime in more than one Evans innings, noted his ‘bright and breezy’ approach to the task and his strong preference for the ‘shovel shot with which he would scoop the ball out towards midwicket’; nonetheless, whatever his temperamental shortcomings, Evans’ technique was sufficient to accumulate 2439 Test runs and two England centuries (one more, incidentally, than Bailey). While a Jekyll and Hyde approach to the art is nothing new, to appear in the record books for both fast and slow scoring smacks of perversity. 4