Tony Greig
Anthony William Greig was a South African–born cricketer and commentator. Greig qualified to play for the England cricket team by virtue of his Scottish father. He was a tall all-rounder who bowled both medium pace and off spin. Greig was captain of England from 1975 to 1977, and captained Sussex. His younger brother, Ian, also played Test cricket, while several other members of his extended family played at first-class level.
A leading player in English county cricket, Greig is thought by some former players and pundits to have been one of England's leading international all-rounders. He helped Kerry Packer start World Series Cricket by signing up many of his England colleagues as well as West Indian and Pakistani cricketers, a move which cost him the England captaincy. He is also known for a controversial run-out of Alvin Kallicharran in a Test Match against the West Indies in 1974, and often clashed with Australian fast bowler Dennis Lillee on the 1974–75 Ashes Tour in Australia. His statement in the lead-up to the 1976 tour of England by the West Indies that he intended "to make them grovel" was met with severe criticism.
Greig became a commentator following the end of his playing career, later emigrating to Australia. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in October 2012; he died in Sydney on 29 December 2012, from an apparent heart attack.
Early life and career
Greig was born to a Scottish father, Alexander 'Sandy' Greig, an RAF officer posted to Queenstown, Union of South Africa, and a South African-born mother, and was educated at Queen's College, Queenstown. Many former Sussex players had been recruited to coach the cricket team at Queen's College—during Greig's schooldays, Jack Oakes, Alan Oakman, Ian Thomson, Ron Bell, Richard Langridge and Mike Buss all came from overseas for off-season work. All of them noticed Greig's developing abilities which, after a first-class debut for Border in the Currie Cup, led to a trial at Sussex when Greig was 19. Greig's father helped him decide between university study or pursuit of the Sussex offer. "He used to slam into me for not reading enough, for being generally immature. He would look at me sometimes and say 'Boy, when I was your age I was fighting a war', but in the end he grinned and said: 'Go over to England for one year, one year mind, and see what you can do'".After Greig scored 156 in 230 minutes against a strong Lancashire attack in his first game for Sussex, his future direction changed irrevocably. He wrote a brief note to his father, telling him he would not be coming back to go to university. Greig set a goal of making the England Test team in six years, though he returned to play in South Africa during the winter for a number of years, eventually transferring to Eastern Province for the 1970–71 season.
Controversy and triumph in the Caribbean
Greig was now experimenting with finger-spin to complement his medium pace. He set off to the West Indies with the England team in early 1974 and ran straight into a major controversy. On the second day of the first test at the Queen's Park Oval in Trinidad, the West Indies had cruised to a first innings lead of 143, thanks mainly to 142 not out from Alvin Kallicharran. With four wickets still in hand, the home team was in a dominant position when the last ball of the day was bowled to Bernard Julien, who blocked it past Greig and then headed off to the pavilion with Kallicharran. According to Wisden India:"Julien fended towards Greig's right, and thought he'd seen off the day as he turned around and began walking back. Alan Knott, the England wicketkeeper, seemed to think the same as he dislodged the stumps, but even as he did so, Greig, who had collected the ball, threw down the stumps at the non-striker's end, with Kallicharan already out of the crease, on the way to the dressing room. Greig appealed, and the umpire gave it out. There was confusion as everyone in the venue came to terms with what had happened. Some only realised when the wickets column on the scoreboard ticked over to seven, and according to an ESPNcricinfo piece looking back at the incident, the crowd began to boo. The commentators on radio speculated that, given Knott had dislodged the stumps before Greig broke the stumps, the ball was dead, and on the basis of that, the scoreboard reverted to 274–6.
In a meeting involving the two captains, the West Indies board representatives and England's tour manager Donald Carr, it was decided – after two and a half hours – that Kallicharan would be reinstated, despite the umpire standing by his call. In a press conference the next day – a rest day – the captains announced that, in the "interest of cricket as a whole" the appeal against Kallicharan had been withdrawn. The statement also contained an apology from Greig, with the Englishman and Kallicharan publicly shaking hands when play resumed."
West Indies secured a seven-wicket victory in this test match, Greig making only a modest contribution with the bat. This was not the last time Greig courted controversy both on and off the field.
However, despite this initial setback, Greig dominated the remainder of the series scoring 430 runs at 47.7, taking 24 wickets at 22.6, and seven catches. He scored 148 runs, backed up with six wickets, in the third Test in Barbados, 121 in the fourth test in Guyana and won the fifth test in Trinidad for his team with bowling figures of 8 for 86 and 5 for 70. Many of his victims in this game were gained via off-spin, a new addition to the Greig repertoire. This victory enabled England to draw the series.
Road to the captaincy
During the summer of 1974, England faced three Tests against India and three against Pakistan. Overall, Greig averaged 41.5 with the bat and grabbed 14 wickets. His highlight was a century against India at Lord's. This was a good tune-up for the Ashes tour of Australia at year's end, where England would probably start favourite and Greig would be a key player. Shocked by the Australian fast bowling attack of Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee, most English batsmen struggled in the first Test at Brisbane. However, Greig played a lone hand with 110 in the first innings.Greig played in the first World Cup in England in 1975, when his team was eliminated by Australia in the semi-final. Although suited to the one-day game, Greig never really produced a major performance in the 22 ODIs that he played for England. After the tournament ended, Australia stayed on to play four Ashes Tests. England lost the first match at Edgbaston, and blame fell on the captain Mike Denness, who had just endured a 1–4 defeat in Australia. Denness was sacked and Greig appointed, to high expectation that he would play aggressively and fearlessly in an endeavour to counteract the Australians' strengths.
Commercial skipper
The transformation was swift. In the Second Test at Lord's, Greig received a huge ovation on his way to bat and delivered 96 runs. He scored 41 in the second innings and took three wickets in a drawn match that favoured England. The run continued in the next match at Leeds with England poised for victory at the end of the second last day. But vandals destroyed the pitch during the night and Greig agreed to abandon the match, thus conceding the Ashes. The final game ended in a long-winded draw. With a long gap between England commitments, Greig headed to Australia for the 1975–76 season to play grade cricket in Sydney. Greig was well known among colleagues as a man who wanted to take commercial advantage of his profile as a leading sportsman. He signed a number of endorsements and appeared in commercials in Australia, including in his ads for the new breakfast cereal "Nutri-Grain", where his catchphrase "It's just like a cricket bat with holes" struck a chord."I intend to make them grovel"
When he returned to England, Greig caused more controversy in the lead-up to the 1976 series against the West Indies. Appearing on television to discuss the coming summer, he spoke of the West Indies players:The outcry was instantaneous. The word "grovel" had sinister connotations for West Indian people, many of whom have slave ancestry. Moreover, apartheid and the Gleneagles Agreement were prominent issues of the day, so a white South African using the word "grovel" heavily accentuated the faux pas. The West Indian fast bowlers took great delight in adding yards to their run-up when Greig came to the wicket and their supporters took equal delight when his wicket was captured. At times during the series, the West Indies were roundly criticised for their use of short-pitched bowling. To compensate for his unusual height and attempt to combat such bowling, Greig held the bat at shoulder height as the bowler ran in, thus not using a back swing of the bat. While it helped him to combat the short ball, it left him vulnerable to the yorker and he was bowled quite regularly for a top-order batsman: five times from his nine innings in the Test series, and once more in the second one-day international match. Outside of a formidable performance in the fourth Test at Leeds, where he fought back with 116 and 76 not out and shared a big partnership with wicketkeeper Alan Knott, Greig scored just 51 runs from his other seven innings. Worse, his bowling lost penetration and he took only five wickets as England slumped to a 0–3 series loss. However, Greig did not lose his sense of humour: exaggeratedly playing on his "grovel" comment, he pretended to crawl on his hands and knees in front of the open stands on the Harleyford Road side of The Oval in the last Test match, delighting the crowds that had previously jeered him.