Bob Willis’s contribution to English cricket will never be forgotten

Certain days in the long and sometimes glorious history of English cricket are so brightly coloured they can never fade. Two such are the 20th and 21st of July, 1981. Age and the passing of time cannot weary them. The old tape has been played and replayed so often, it becomes all but impossible to discern between the facts of the Headingley test that summer and the legend it has become. Sometimes the facts are legendary enough. 

That was Botham’s match, of course, but also Bob Willis’s finest hour. Without Willis and his eight wickets for 43, Botham’s heroics, his 149 not out that gave England a sniff of victory they had no right to contemplate, would have been little more than a gallant act of defiance in a long-doomed cause. Botham gave England a chance; Willis took it. 

Now Robert George Dylan Willis – he added the Dylan out of respect for Bob Zimmerman and, it was sometimes said, because three initials were better than two if you wanted to play for England – has died at the age of 70.