Maybe it’s just an age thing, but the death of Bob Willis has left me — and, I am sure, a whole generation of cricket lovers — feeling more than usually bereft. Since when has the passing of a sports-person triggered quite such an outpouring of genuine emotion? But only now are we seeing quite what an extraordinary figure he was. And it wasn’t just cricket: he loved Bob Dylan, Wagner and wine, as should all right-thinking folk.
He was a huge, gangling figure with arms like windmills and an awkward ungainly action once described as being like a first world war biplane taking off into a headwind. He bowled very fast and usually seemed to be starting his run-up from beyond the boundary. God knows what it was like to face him: pretty scary, I imagine.
It was certainly not much fun for the Australian batsmen on that July morning at Headingley in 1981 when he achieved the impossible, taking 8 for 43 and helping England to win a Test match that they should have lost by a mile.
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