The Twelfth Man 2019

David Graveney (L) with Chris Barron Review For our second afternoon meeting of this winter programme James introduced David Graveney to a good-sized audience at the Holiday Inn. Graveneys are one of the great families of English cricket. David’s uncle, Tom was an elegant batsman with Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, captaining both counties, and playing in 79 Tests for England, one as captain at Headingley against Australia in 1968. David’s father, Ken, was a prolific right-arm fast bowler with Gloucestershire from 1947-1964 and once took 10-66 in an innings. Ken captained his county between 1963 and 1964. David Anthony Graveney OBE was born in January 1953 and has been a leading figure in English cricket under a number of different caps. He was a useful right-hand batsman and an orthodox left-arm spinner who represented Gloucestershire from 1972 to 1990, captain from 1982 to 1988, Somerset in 1991 and Durham from 1992 to 1994, captain in 1992 and 1993. He took 981 wickets in 457 first-class matches, with a personal best of 8-85, and 287 wickets in 382 List A limited-over matches, with a personal best of 5-11. He managed the rebel tour to South Africa in 1989-90. David was chairman of the England Test selectors from 1997 until 2008, taking over the position from Ray Illingworth, and in the 2006 New Year Honours he was awarded the OBE for services to cricket. In January 2008 David was switched to the role of national performance manager, monitoring young players in domestic cricket. David is a chartered accountant and a former chief executive of the Professional Cricketers’ Association. David commenced by telling the audience that he had been robbed at lunch when Dickie Bird had the last of the fishcakes and also robbed by James who, in his introduction, wiped out the first page of his notes by covering his family history. However David did give us further interesting information about his family history and then covered his career highlights. These covered many interesting and amusing stories including his maiden first-class wicket (Basil D’Oliviera) who kindly ran down the wicket to be stumped for 0. He also made a deal with Malcolm Marshall not to bowl bouncers and he would not field a long-on when Malcolm batted! The stories continued and proved to be a fascinating insight into county cricket in that golden era, concluding that part of his presentation by describing his last move to Durham and their development in county cricket; an interesting mix of experience and youth which included playing with the legend that is Ian Botham. Amongst the stories David included one about their West Indian bowler going missing one particular cold day who was eventually found in an airing cupboard trying to get warm! David then talked us through his retirement and various roles and experiences from then. The question and answer session proved lively with subjects including international cricket, England wicket- keepers, batsmen, Jonny Bairstow’s recent football injury, county cricket prospects, and the possibility of a conference system. He ended with the state of local cricket and efforts to sustain it. The afternoon was yet another highly successful session and would have continued much longer if time and circumstances had allowed. DAVID GRAVENEY 19 November 2018