England in West Indies 1980/81

[fredfertang]

England in West Indies 1980/81

After Gareth's reappraisal of West Indies tour of England in 1980 Martin looks back at the return encounter that took place in the Caribbean less than a year later.

 

[Biryani Pillow]

Another good read

Very strange Tour.

The Jackman affair should never have blown up.

I remember that if England's batting ever got set Lloyd would forget about attacking fields and strangle the scoring rate until a breakthrough came along.

In the situation all the England tons were great innings.

Peter Willey was (is) one tough hombre).

The Holding over to Boycott sounded fast on the radio......

Still recall hearing the stunning news about Ken Barrington. I don't know how the England team managed to play that morning.

 

[wpdavid]

It was a mixed bag. Obviously the death of Kenny Barrington over-shadowed everything. I think it was obvious enough at the time that keeping the score to 2-0 wasn't a bad effort. We thought that Gooch and Gower had stepped up a gear, and figured that they'd have no trouble with what looked a markedly inferior Aus attack a few months later. Shame it didn't turn out that way.

Roland Butcher was always going to be a daft selection, being largely based on a quick bash near the end of the Nat West (still Gillette?) cup final. Athey was far too young to be thrown in against that lot. Woolmer surely should have toured. Probably the best captain we never had, and the player who lost most by signing up with Packer. We all thought that Willis was near the end of the road when he went home early: none of us could imagine him captaining the side 15 months later.

 

[fredfertang]

I had forgotten about the Procter business when I started out on the research for this - I remember it being said that he could be selected for England but I don't recall it ever being seriously suggested that he would be, yet Boycs was very clear that he felt he should have been - I wonder whether it might have been different if the 80/81 tour had been to Australia

.. and I agree that the Jackman business was a nonsense - I thought then, and still do, that his call-up was just a bit of muscle flexing from Lord's or maybe even beyond that - there were plenty of other decent county seamers who might have made the trip