“As long as there is a Yorkshire man in the England side, England will do well,” that was the claim when this writer was growing up.
Was it a truth or was it a myth, and who perpetuated the myth?
As a cricket-mad youth who shared his birthday with the great Sir Leonard Hutton, the first professional player to captain England I grew up romantically believing this to be true.
With England heading to Australia for the Ashes in the now very near future, much has been made of the quality of the side heading “down under,” and whether England has the talent to be competitive let alone win the Ashes. The one thing going in their side’s favour is the fact that they have a Yorkshireman at the helm in captain Joe Root.
Root is the tenth Yorkshireman to captain England; although some may dispute that.
The first was Lord Hawke, who played his whole career for Yorkshire and captained the county and England, but he was in truth born in Lincolnshire. Yorkshire has over the years laid claim to him being theirs so that should be enough. Lord Hawke toured Australia in 1887-88. At that time there were two England teams touring Australia, and he was captain of one. One team was backed by a group from Melbourne and the other by a group from Sydney. Hawke played in three matches against South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria, before hearing that his father had passed away and that he was now 7th Baron Hawke of Towton; a place in Yorkshire. He relinquished the captaincy and headed back to England. He would later play and captain five Test matches all against South Africa, and win all five.
The second man to captain England was Lieutenant-Colonel Ronald Thomas “Rony” Stanyforth, CVO, MC. A man whose name is not that familiar to many cricket followers. He was born in Chelsea however his father was the son of the local member of Parliament for Ripon in Yorkshire. Like Hawke he also captained England against South Africa in 1927-28 to two wins, one loss and one draw. Unlike Hawke only three of Stanyforth’s sixty one first-class games were played for Yorkshire County Cricket Club in the County Championship, and all three came in 1928 after he had captained England. So was he a Yorkshireman?
The next man was definitely Yorkshire through-and-through, Sir Francis Stanley Jackson, known during his playing days as the Honourable Stanley Jackson. He was born in Leeds but schooled at Harrow where famously he was Winston Churchill’s fag. A fag was a traditional practice in British public schools whereby younger pupils were required to act as personal servants to the older boys.
Jackson holds the record today for playing the most matches in a career without playing a Test match away from home. He captained England in five Test matches in 1905, winning two and drawing three to retain The Ashes. These were the last Test matches of his 20 Test career and he was captaining England for the first time. He won all five tosses, and also topped the batting and bowling averages for both sides, with 492 runs at 70.28 and 13 wickets at 15.46.
Jackson then became a Member of Parliament and was the representative for Howdenshire (Yorkshire) from 1915-1923. In 1927 he was appointed Governor of Bengal and in 1932 when making a speech in Calcutta survived an assassination attempt. It has been said that he ‘sidestepped and ducked five pistol shots’ fired at close range by a girl student named Bina Das.
The next Yorkshireman to take charge of the national team was Norman Yardley who hailed from Sheffield. He was appointed vice captain on the 1946-47 Ashes tour of Australia, with Wally Hammond captain. Prior to the fifth Test, and with England already 2-0 down and having lost the Ashes, Wally Hammond had a crippling attack of fibrositis the day before the Test. This meant that he was forced to withdraw and Norman Yardley took charge. Hammond remained in the dressing room and gave advice to the new skipper. It did not help as England and Yardley lost the Test by five wickets.
Yardley stayed on as captain of England in the Summer of 1948 when Sir Don Bradman’s Invincibles swept all before them and won the five Test series 4-0 to retain the Ashes. His record against Australia was captain in six Tests, lost five and drew one.
Pudsey’s Len Hutton was regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the world prior to World War II. During the War he injured his left arm during training. After a failed operation he had to have a bone graft. The final outcome was that he was left with his left arm almost two inches (5cm) shorter than his right. The fact that he managed to return to the Test arena was remarkable. One shot that he had to drop from his repertoire was the hook as he could no longer roll his wrists when playing the shot.
Hutton toured Australia under Hammond and Freddie Brown, he had also played against the Invincibles. When Brown stepped aside Hutton was the obvious choice to take over the captaincy, but he was a professional and England had never had a professional captain the side. Hutton declined the offer to become and amateur in order to take on the role and in 1952 was appointed England captain. In his first series against India England won 3-0 and Hutton scored 399 runs at an average of 79.80.
In 1953 Australia headed to England, they had held the Ashes since 1934. Hutton was only appointed captain on a match-to-match basis. By the time the fifth test came around Hutton was being criticised for playing negatively, neither side had won a Test; although the weather had played its part too. He lost the toss for the fifth time in the series, but won the Test match and the Ashes. This was England’s first series win against Australia since the infamous “Bodyline” series of 1932–33 and their first such home series win since 1926. Hutton was the toast of the nation.
By 1954 the pressure of expectation on Len Hutton became too great and on medical advice he took a break from the game. Just like Joe Root today he was the mainstay of England’s batting and also their captain. The pressure is best summed up when at a team conference he was reportedly asked why he was not more aggressive towards the Australian bowlers. His reply was, “That’s all very well for you, people expect you to be out. They expect me to stay in.” How true is that for Joe Root half a century on?
Yorkshire Post cricket writer JM Kilburn wrote “People did expect Hutton to stay in and they came to expect so much of him that anything less than a century represented failure. His dismissal for 0 demanded headlines and probably an interview with the bowler. Momentary loss of form meant an inquisition into his past, present and future concerns. He was always news.”
Hutton did return to captain England in Australia in 1954-55. England lost the first Test but won the series 3-1. Hutton along with Percy Chapman becoming the only England captain to win consecutive series against Australia. Mike Brearley and Andrew Strauss would become the only other two England Captains to achieve the feat. Hutton retired from Test cricket after the series having captained England 23 times and won eight Tests and only lost four.
Rawdon-born Brian Close would be the next Yorkshireman to take over the reins of the England Captaincy in the West Indies in 1966. He would be in charge in a series against India and Pakistan. Then what was classed as ‘unsporting behaviour’ while captaining Yorkshire in a fixture against Warwickshire in which his side bowled two overs in 15 minutes, saw Close was stripped on the captaincy and not taken to the West Indies. Yet his record as captain in seven matches was six wins and a draw.
Colin Cowdrey took over but when he snapped his achilles tendon, Ray Illingworth another player from Pudsey, who had just been appointed Yorkshire captain and was not assured of a Test match spot, was given the captaincy. It was suspected that when Cowdrey had recovered he would take back the role, yet so successful was Illingworth, that never happened.
On his watch England beat the West Indies 2–0 in 1969, then against a powerful Rest of the World side lost 1-4 in 1970, won the Ashes in Australia in 1970–71, beat Pakistan in 1971, then surprisingly based on their form lost to India in 1971. The side then regrouped and held on to the Ashes in 1972 before losing to a strong West Indies team in 1973.
When Illingworth became captain England had lost only one of their previous 14 Test matches, and none of their last 7. He continued that run to a record-breaking 27 Test Matches without defeat in 1968–71. At the time the Test Matches against the Rest of The World were regarded as official Tests so this record was not acknowledged. The International Cricket Council then decided that they should not count as official Tests.
In 1968 against Australia in England the series was drawn one test all, and Australia retained the Ashes. Australia won the first test at Old Trafford and England did not manage to square the series until the final Test at the Oval.
In 1970-71 England toured Australia with Illingworth at the helm. This was a tough tour as there were seven Test matches in the series and overs were eight-ball overs. The first two Tests were drawn and the third abandoned without a ball being bowled after three consecutive days of rain. England won the fourth Test, the fifth and sixth were drawn and England won for a second time to claim the series 2-0 in Sydney.
The feather in Illingworth’s cap was that this was the only time a touring team had played a full Test series in Australia without defeat.
Fitzwilliam’s Geoffrey Boycott was appointed vice captain of England and like Illingworth took over the reins when the captain Mike Brearley was injured in Pakistan. Boycott would captain the side in four Tests for one win, one loss and two draws. That loss being the first time that New Zealand had defeated England in 48 years.
The last in the line before Joe Root was a man born in Eccles, Lancashire. A man who at one time would never have played for Yorkshire because he was born outside the county. In fact that rule delayed his involvement and it was only when Yorkshire changed that rule Michael Vaughan was approached to come and play. To many in Yorkshire this would never have happened, a Lancastrian wearing the white rose of Yorkshire! To make matters worse he is a great-great-nephew of the early 20th century Lancashire and England cricketers Ernest and Johnny Tyldesley.
Yet his family had moved to Sheffield when he was nine. Vaughan has always viewed Sheffield as his home, and Yorkshire has always viewed Vaughan as one of their own.
In 2003 Vaughan took over the England captaincy from Nasser Hussein. It is fair to say that his batting suffered initially as a result of the added responsibility, but soon it all started to click. In 2004 England recored eight consecutive victories and were unbeaten in 11 matches. So come the Ashes series in 2005 there was a belief amongst the players and expectation amongst the fans. In a thrilling series England won 2-1 to win back the Ashes for the first time since 1986-87 when Mike Gatting had won in Australia.
There can be no doubt that the influence of Yorkshire on the Ashes has been a strong one.
Since the resumption of this contest after World War II there have been 39 Ashes Test series. England has won 14 of those series, Australia has won 20 and there have been five drawn series. In England there have been 20 series played of which England has won nine series and Australia eight, with three drawn. In Australia there have been 19 series played in the same period, twelve have been won by Australia, five by England and there have been two drawn series.
Of those 14 series in England with a Yorkshireman at the helm there was a series win by Sir Len Hutton and Michael Vaughan plus a series drawn under the leadership of Ray Illingworth which saw England retain the Ashes. Joe Root in his first Ashes series as captain also managed a drawn series in 2019. Only Norman Yardley suffered defeat in a series as captain of England.
In Australia five series have been won by England since the War and of those two were captained by Yorkshire men in Hutton and Illingworth.
In 42 Ashes Test matches captained by Yorkshire men England has won 13, drawn 18 and lost 11. Sir Stanley Jackson did not lose a game against the old foe, while both Hutton and Illingworth, who both were captain in a series home and away, both had the distinction of winning a series without losing a Test. Norman Yardley was the only one to not win a single Ashes Test, losing five and drawing one. Four of those loses coming against Bradman’s Invincibles.
Joe Root has history on his side, but one wonders if he has the players to support him. One feels that like Hutton there will be a huge responsibility on his shoulders every time that he walks to the crease. When he was unveiled as Captain in 2017 Root was quoted as saying “I’d like to be a captain that wins.” He then added “I hope the cricket will be enjoyable to watch. It should be entertaining.”
Yet many an England fan would forgo the entertainment if Root could snatch the Ashes from Australia’s grasp. It was said of Hutton that “he concentrated to win” and that “his satisfactions in cricket were derived from the study of its problems, the endless scheming and preparation to overcome the challenge of opponents, wickets and weather.” Those words could easily have been written about Root.
Hutton’s captaincy in that first series against Australia in 1953 was constantly under the microscope, just as Root’s will be in Australia. Hutton’s opposite number Lindsay Hassett was also under pressure having to follow Sir Don Bradman as captain. Interestingly Root’s opposite number Tim Paine is also under pressure, but from the media. Hutton was criticised in that series for being overly cautious, but when he won the Ashes for the first time in 21 years his captaincy was described as “appropriate.” From then on his leadership is said to have grown in authority.
No doubt Joe Root will be well aware of the success of Hutton and Illingworth who have gone before him, and as a student of the game one would expect the same caution when required, and equally the attacking instincts of Illingworth when victory is within sight.
With all rounder Ben Stoked having been added to the touring squad, will Root now have what it takes to win the Ashes in Australia? Will that old saying come true once again, that there is ‘nowt to worry about with a Yorkshire man not just in the team, but at the helm?’
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