For the love of Snow
To a young lad in '70s England, he was the embodiment of rebellion, raw pace and rock n' roll cool. Forty years later, except for the pace, not much has changed.
JAMES METTYEAR | FEBRUARY 14, 2018
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In his own land John Snow is the great forgotten strike bowler. In the wider cricket world, the likes of Sunil Gavaskar, Ian Chappell and Dennis Lillee - who rates him second only to Andy Roberts in the top ten fast bowlers of his time - hold him in the highest regard. But at home, while there is much on his "cricket rebel" persona and membership of the Awkward Squad, appreciation of his contribution to the England Test Team is meagre. His omission late last year from BBC Sport's longlist for the All-time Ashes team, is one example; David Frith's recent reminiscence of when he sat down with John Arlott and Jim Swanton to conduct a similar exercise for the Cricketer 40 years ago is another. If only from the statistical perspective, neither panel got their sums right.
Snow played 49 Tests for England between 1965 and 1976, taking 202 wickets at an average of 26.66, a strike rate of 59.5 and economy rate of 2.68 an over. Good, but not remarkable on the wickets front. In terms of averages, though, among genuinely fast England bowlers, he is fourth.
If the ICC's current ranking algorithm is applied - which courtesy of San Jose-based stats maestro Dave Wilson it is here - 70% of Snow's Tests and 76% of his aggregate wickets, were against the strongest opposition available - Australia and West Indies. In the Ashes, 83 wickets at 25.61 and a wicket every 61 balls over 20 matches puts him ahead of Trueman (79) and Larwood (64) and way beyond Tyson (32) in the wickets column - all three offered by the BBC as contenders for a place in the all-time team. On the 1970-71 Tour, against perhaps the strongest batting line-up Australia have ever fielded, his 31 wickets at 22.8 were the best since Larwood, and have not been bettered away from home since. In his four series against Australia, Snow was the leading England wicket-taker three times, and at home in 1968, he was second. Against West Indies, 72 wickets at 26.62 and a strike rate of 49.2 over 14 matches, is equally strong......
Average speed and the intent behind the aura of menace might be subject for debate, but the sheer beauty of Snow's action and approach is beyond it. For me, only Michael Holding has given greater aesthetic pleasure. Alan Ross pinpointed where that beauty lay: "When the mood is on him he makes fast bowling as natural an activity as breathing. He lopes into a gently accelerating rhythm that achieves tension and menace without evident stress."......
When I asked Frith and Bob Willis why Snow was so undervalued - and they both agree he was - both cited the Gavaskar incident and its aftermath. Frith thinks it did Snow, "almost irreparable harm".
Still pre-greatcoats, we watched every ball of the Lord's Test when the incident happened. We gloried in Snow's highest Test score (73) in the first innings, but when in India's second he collided with Gavaskar, we felt physically sick. It looked bad. It was all over the news that evening, and even my father, who had no interest in the game, observed: "Things aren't looking good for your hero." They weren't.
In fact, it was nothing like as heinous as it first looked. For Gavaskar, it was "just one of those things". Later he would choose Snow as one of his idols, and considers him "a good friend off the field" - but for Billy Griffith, secretary of the MCC, it was the "most disgusting thing" he had ever seen on the cricket field. Dropped again.
He would come back, even later in that same series, and on the insistence of Illingworth, for the whole of the 1972 home Ashes. But until Tony Grieg took over the captaincy after the Lillee and Thomson shellacking Snow so ludicrously missed, it was almost as if the powers that be were looking for any excuse to leave him out.
A Test career frustratingly so much less than it might have been, and a reputation perhaps indelibly stained.
For the love of Snow | The Cricket Monthly | ESPN Cricinfo
