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Mike Brearley was probably the only Test match leader whose captaincy
seemed to have a physical presence. Aussie commentator Allan McGilvray
likened the working of Brearley's mind to the ticking of a clock and
reckoned opposing batsmen were intimidated by what was almost a cocoon
of thought enveloping them. Brearley's mind was the most important thing
he brought to the game. He should have been some great academic in an
important university, not wasting his time on a game. He was engrossed
in academia in the U.S.A. for a number of years when he might have been
honing his batting style and has himself admitted that it was only the
offer of the Middlesex captaincy that lured him back into county cricket
in 1971.
He could have been a great Test batsman if he had had the
interest. He was taken to South Africa with England in 1964-65 as the
most promising young batsman on the scene. He was one of the first
sportsmen to break away from the cosseting of the apartheid government
and head off to see places like Soweto for himself. He was lost to
cricket for the rest of the 1960s. He was chosen as opening bat against
the West Indies in 1976 and played in the Centenary Test of 1977, so he
was in the ideal place to inherit the captaincy when Tony Greig fell
from favour. He took two teams to Australia, one winning the Ashes and
was called back from retirement in 1981 when he is credited with
inspiring Ian Botham to the great deeds that changed the course of that
series. He was a top-class slip fielder, having been a wicket-keeper in
his early years. (Bob Harragan)
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