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

The fact is that, in going for 97 minutes without runs at Adelaide in 1947, Evans holds the record for Test Match immobility. What the records fail to state are Hammond’s words to the incoming batsman - ‘Stay there if you can, Godfrey’ - an edict so successfully observed that, with the wicket-keeper undefeated on 10 two-and-a-half hours later, it was the Australians, fielding in 107 degrees heat, that were happy to settle for a draw. Lest anyone thus associate him with the more tenacious kind of limpet, this was the same Evans who went on to score 98 before lunch in a Test Match and, for good measure, who made 47 in 28 minutes in a match at Old Trafford more popularly associated with the great achievements of Jim Laker. The fact is, here was a batsman quick, agile, deft between the wickets, yet capable of the sheet anchor role if required. A Test aggregate higher than Bailey, Benaud and Headley belies his reputation as the “Cheeky Chappie” of cricket. Here, quite obviously, appearances could be deceptive. Of Evans the wicket-keeper there are two schools of thought: those who admired his brilliance and applauded it, and those who admired it and questioned it. Of the latter, Benaud, while acknowledging Evans’ wondrous agility, rates him below both Tallon and Grout, largely because he, Evans, was thought to drop more chances than they. Arlott, too, noted an early tendency to ‘hold the impossible catch and miss the simple one’. If such were true, this was surely the reason he stood up to the stumps far more than did any other keeper. Here Evans was victim of his own genius, for natural agility allied to physical strength led him almost invariably to take up the closest available position to the action. Fearlessness will always exact its toll and Evans, with his boxer’s physique, was as near fearless a cricketer as lived; a delivery that would have peppered, say, Alan Knott like buckshot, meant no more to him than the pat of a tennis ball. One suspects, too, that like many a maestro, Evans reserved his best performance for the big occasion, and that the bulk of such mistakes as he made occurred at moments of relative low drama in the game. Denis Compton himself gives this opinion, placing Evans the ‘big match’ performer at the very top of the wicket-keepers’ pantheon. Evans was rarely concerned with the accumulation of records but, at the same time, there is one record of which it is known he is extremely proud - namely that, of his 1066 first-class dismissals, nearly a quarter were stumpings. Even in Tests, the ratio remains better than one in five. At the end of this book, there is a table comparing his performance with other leading Test match wicket-keepers showing only Oldfield and Ames having a higher percentage of stumpings in their Test Match careers at a time when spin bowling was more prevelant. In modern comparisons, Rodney Marsh, who remains nearly 100 Test dismissals ahead of his nearest rival, achieved a ration marginal better than 1 in 30: while for Knott, second in the list, the figure rises to a dizzy 1 in 14. Neither statistic reflects on these excellent cricketers who had much to contend with, including the dearth of top class spin-bowling. Nonetheless, it is instructive: Evans’ instinct was to stand up to all but the fastest bowling; if this led him to occasional errors, its efficacy, not to mention its psychological effect on foe and friend alike, is there in the records. In contrast to most of his contemporaries behind the stumps, he was a very extrovert cricketer, relishing the acrobatics and flourishes that can be introduced into wicket-keeping, not that this showmanship detracted from his performances - he was the automatic choice for England both at home and overseas. Between his first Test Match appearance at The Oval in 1946 and his retirement from Test Cricket in 1959, England played 103 Test Matches in which Godfrey Evans kept wicket in 91. Of the twelve matches he missed, five were on the 1951/52 visit to India, a tour for which he did not make himself available. He hit 1,000 runs in a season four times (1947, 1949, 1950 & 1952) with 1,613, av. 28.80 in 1952 as his best, but ever keen to play to the gallery, he rarely treated the bowling seriously. It was said originally that Evans was picked for England to complement his Kentish colleague, D V P Wright, and they actually appeared in 21 Test Matches together, but Wright played his last Test Match in the winter tour of 1950/51. 5