Lives in Cricket No 2 - Johnny Briggs

‘When he walked from the pavilion at Old Trafford (under his arm that mummy of a bat of his, in the ancient binding) one had the notion that if he came down too heavily on the turf he would bounce back again into the dressing room through the window.’ ‘Recollect how he went to the wicket. He was, one thought, like a happy boy going for a walk or rather in quest of adventure. His eyes shone humour at you; his every movement was alive, and youthfully alive.’ ‘One has known dull days and dull cricket before the advent of Briggs, but he had just to show his face and a light passed over the field, and with it companionable warmth.’ ‘He was a man into whose body the humours of summer entered day by day – sunshine, wind and refreshing dews.’ ‘No cricketer who ever lived was so much the child of nature as Briggs.’ ‘This man a subtle bowler? you might well have asked, looking at his bland eyes, yet he was a very Heathen Chinee of cricket. He bowled you a left-handed ball with a quite casual motion; his arm swept over almost ingratiatingly. His run to the wicket was modest, and a little mincing. But if the turf were at all susceptible to spin, the ball he sent you had a bottle imp inside it. It might twist so viciously that a little tuft of grass was cut from the pitch; it might scuttle to the base of your stumps like a mouse; it might jump up at you and rap your knuckles abominably.’ ‘Yet it was hard to be short with him despite his deceit. He was a child playing tricks with you. When he bowled you neck and crop there was a cocky little strut in his walk as he moved to mid-off to tell him exactly how the ball had pitched on your legs and hit your off wicket. And again it was hard to be short with him. Obviously he had bowled you in sheer fun; you simply had to join in the general laughter.’ But Cardus, who was knighted in 1967, added: ‘There is in the eyes a look of a man not born to be funny frommorning till night, day in and day out. The old tragedy of the comedian, indeed, was in Briggs.’ Another man whose opinion one must respect in regard to Briggs’ merit was the legend himself – W.G.Grace. With 54,000 runs spread over 44 seasons and 2,800-plus wickets costing less than 18 each, What are we to make of him? 88