The Twelfth Man 2020

08 09 A golden ticket for the miracle of Headingley (part two) in 2019. And on that cloudy, but sublime Tuesday afternoon, as I stand and wave and chant ‘England, England’ and ‘We want Bob’ with the hoards of other unbelieving supporters, I’m sure that I will never, ever witness first-hand such a dramatic day of Test match cricket. AN INTERLUDE Botham never again reached the heights of 1981, although he was pretty good in the 1985 Ashes win under David Gower. The previous summer Bob Willis had played the last of his 90 Test matches, ironically at Headingley, where the West Indians flogged him in to retirement. New personal heroes came and went down the years and then in 2005 a thrilling Ashes Test series captured the public’s im- agination like few previously. Michael Vaughan’s men, led by Flintoff and KP, finally regained the urn, although Leeds missed out on hosting any of those captivating matches. The last of Headingley’s Ashes Tests, before 2019, proved a shattering let down – England easily beaten by an innings and 80 runs back in 2009. A decade passed and then… Sunday 25 August 2019 We had tickets for days three and four of the 2019 Headingley Ashes Test, but by post-lunch on Friday England’s first innings was in tatters – 67 all out. They had somehow conceded a first innings deficit of 112 and looked gone. It appeared that our day four tickets would not be needed; I was angry and disap- pointed. The two Joe’s (Root and Denly) saved some face late on Satur- day, yet like Headingley ’81 we all went home that evening to await the inevitable. That was until just after a quarter-past four the following day! THE MOMENT “What a feeling when I rocked back and struck it through a gap in the covers. If you needed to order a ball with one to win this was custom made – short, wide and perfect for the cut shot. I knew I’d hit it for four as soon as the ball made contact on the bat.” * The roar is simply unimaginable from the packed Headingley crowd on this broiling late August afternoon. Pat Cummins has just been smashed to the cover bounda- ry by Ben Stokes. Another England all-rounder has his arms stretched wide, and shortly his unlikely fellow hero, the No.11 with the troubling specs, will embrace him. The noise is deafening, the disbelief is staggering, the achieve- ment is titanic and this boy of 1981, now a much older man, has just witnessed a second Headingley miracle. Safely behind the boundary boards this time we cheer and cel- ebrate! * Quote from Ben Stokes: On Fire My Story of England’s Summer to Remember Footnotes: Ian Botham was voted Wombwell’s 1981 Cricketer of the Year and in 2019 Ben Stokes won both the Society’s George Spofforth Cricketer of the Year and the Denis Compton Memorial Award for Flair. * December 4 2019 – after such a dramatic and exciting summer for English cricket, which revived distant memories of 1981, it was so sad to hear the news of Bob Willis’s death on that winter afternoon.