Ray Illingworth - Time As England Supremo - One Man Committee

One Man Committee

As would be expected from all the evidence cited above about his time as a player and captain, Illingworth was a shrewd and deep thinker about the game of Cricket. His commentary on the poor England test side of the late 1980s was worth listening to even if it just highlighted where England were going wrong. Having seen England thrashed 4-1 at home in the 1993 Ashes and beaten badly by West Indies in 1993-94, Illingworth was appointed "supremo" of English Cricket in 1994 and spoke of making changes. The progress made by the young inexperienced side Atherton had taken to the Caribbean in 1993-94 was discarded and some old faces reappeared in the summer of 1994 such as Graham Gooch, Phillip DeFreitas and Steven Rhodes. Illingworth made it quite clear that he wanted balanced sides with an all-rounder batting at 6. The problem was that at the time - England were "between all rounders" as Ian Botham had retired the previous season (though in truth had not been worthy of a place since around 1987) and it was several years before Andrew Flintoff would replace Botham. As such, under Illingworth, players like Craig White, Dominic Cork and Ronnie Irani were tried with only Cork achieving any success - though Cork's success was limited to the ball only.

For all of the sound common sense that Illingworth had demonstrated as a player and reinforced as a commentator, his abrasive man-management style was woefully out-of-date by 1994. Examples of this were his readiness to speak to the media to criticise his own players as he did twice with Mike Atherton: firstly during the dirt in the pockets scandal in 1994 and later the same year during the Melbourne Test match. Further evidence if any were required is Illingworth's public argument with Devon Malcolm just after Malcolm had produced a rather wayward burst of bowling in the 5th test of the 1995-96 South African series which had seen a large 10th wicket stand take place which effectively cost England the match.

While Illingworth was undoubtedly a brilliant captain, a fine off spin bowler and a useful batsman at international level, his reappointment to international colours as administrator in the mid 1990s proved to be wholly unsuccessful.

He was awarded the CBE for services to cricket in 1973 and made an honorary member of the MCC. He was the fourth cricketer to be elected to Yorkshire's 'Hall of Fame'.