Return To The Fray
Leicestershire benefited from his return, winning four one day trophies and the County Championship in 1975. After announcing his retirement from the first-class game in 1978 he returned to Headingley to manage the Yorkshire team, despite his testy relationship with Geoff Boycott. In 1982, faced with an under-performing team on the field, he made a return to the playing arena and replaced Chris Old as captain. The side won the Sunday League in his final season in 1983 but failed in the championship, finishing bottom for the first time ever. The title of the book he wrote about this era was The Tempestuous Years.
He left Yorkshire in 1984 and carved out a successful career as a media pundit, often fiercely critical of the England Test team. Eventually he became the Chairman of England's Board of Test Selectors and the England Cricket Coach in 1997. He clashed with England captain Mike Atherton over team selection.
Read more about this topic: Ray Illingworth
Famous quotes containing the words return to the, return to, return and/or fray:
“We draw our Presidents from the people. It is a wholesome thing for them to return to the people. I came from them. I wish to be one of them again.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“This spending of the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have gone up garret at once.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“O God of our flesh, return us to Your wrath,
Let us be evil could we enter in
Your grace, and falter on the stony path!”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast
Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)