TONY GREIG
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Greig played 58 Tests for England averaging just over 40 with the bat, scoring 3,599 runs. With the ball he averaged 32 taking 141 wickets. Tony bowling for England in India in 1977 when he led his country to only their second series win on the sub-continent
Of course the opposition prized his wicket greatly and in one-day games the opposition crowds loved to hate Tony, a sign of his enormous contribution to Sussex. MAIN: Members of the Greig family, including his wife Vivian, at the tribute to Tony held at the Sydney Cricket Ground in January. LEFT: Tony bowling for England in India in 1977 when he led his country to only their second series win on the sub-continent
During the winter of 1976-77 Tony was at the height of his powers. England won 3-1 in India and Tony became only the second England captain to win on the sub-continent, Douglas Jardine being the other. However, during the Centenary Test at Melbourne that followed Greig’s triumphal tour, the storm clouds were gathering which would ultimately explode at Hove on May 11 1977. The start of Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket dominated the front pages of the broadsheet and tabloid papers. At the time, the Packer Revolution was sensational news. The sedate world of English cricket was turned upside down overnight. The ultra-conservative establishment was vitriolic and indignant at the loss of its star players and the England captain to private enterprise. Court writs were served, Packer players ostracised even in their own dressing rooms and the public could not comprehend such insolence. In May 1978 Tony’s Sussex contract was terminated by mutual consent and he quietly slipped out of the UK and did not return for a very long time. Of course Greig’s actions, seen as heresy at the time, ultimately commercialised the professional game beyond recognition, while rewarding players their true worth and introducing
much-needed sponsorship to international and domestic cricket. Floodlights and coloured clothing were just the start. Today’s generation of millionaire cricketers have every good reason to thank Tony Greig. After a fractious peace broke out in 1979 and Packer won control of Australian TV cricket coverage, Greig moved to the Channel Nine commentary box where he would stay for over 30 years. Greig played 58 Tests for England averaging just over 40 with the bat, scoring 3,599 runs. With the ball he averaged 32 taking 141 wickets. If Packer had not happened it is possible Tony could have played 100 Tests and scored 7,000 runs and taken 300 wickets, putting him right up there with the absolute best of the game’s all-rounders. On a personal note I remember his heyday at Sussex with great affection. He, more than any other Sussex player during the late 1960s and early 1970s, fired my enthusiasm for cricket and Sussex CCC. As a kid he was great to watch, always involved in the game with his searing off drives, unique ‘engine pistons’ bowling action and bucket hands at slip. ‘Tony Greig walks on Water’ was the view in the ‘Cowshed’. And so said all of us! Of course the opposition prized his wicket
greatly and in one-day games the opposition crowds loved to hate Tony, a sign of his enormous contribution to Sussex. Off the field there was a real human heart and he was a very approachable man. As a 14-year-old I wanted so many pictures of Tony autographed (to his despair). He invited me to his home for tea and cakes and signed all 32 pictures! When I was 18 Tony gave me a lift in his white Jaguar from Leicester to Worcester and bought me a fillet steak. I was just a ‘green behind the ears’ teenager. He was Captain of England. It seemed surreal then as it does now, but Tony really was a decent man and arguably the Godfather of the Sussex Family we know today. I was fortunate to see so much of Tony’s career. I recall his career-best 226 against Warwickshire at Hastings in 1975. Having passed 200 just after tea on the first day he decided to try and emulate Sobers and go for six sixes. The first four off Peter Lewington’s off-breaks easily cleared the boundary, the fifth went up a mile and was caught just inside the long on rope. ‘Greig the Colossus’ was the headline the next day. Indeed he was.
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