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. It wasn’t beautiful but it was effective as Willis bowled as though his life depended on it. As indeed it did: he had been told he was going to be dropped when Mike Brearley gave him the new ball.
That performance was probably the best thing that had happened to English sport since the World Cup in 1966. For a few hours the country seemed to stop as everybody rushed to find a TV. That’s why sport is so important: films and plays affect us, but we know they’re made up. Politics changes our lives, but we know politicians aren’t what they seem. Willis was completely authentic (as Ben Stokes was this summer when he defied the Australians to win a Test match on the same ground that should have been unwinnable).
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