Doug Insole, English cricket’s great power-broker, dies aged 91
Doug Insole, who captained Cambridge University and Essex, laying the foundations for the county turning into one of the post-war powerhouses of cricket, has died, aged 91.
An excellent leg-sided batsman, he played nine Tests for England, and scored more than 25,000 firstclass runs, and 54 centuries, including one against every other contemporary county.
After he retired, his influence extended much further, to the point where he succeeded Sir George Allen as the eminence grise or power-that-was in English cricket.
When Sir Donald Bradman flew to London to discuss the vexed problem of throwing after England’s tour of Australia in 1958-59 had brought the issue to a head, who better to pick him up from the airport? Insole’s discretion was absolutely assured. Had he become the head of MI5 or MI6, never would there have been a leak.
He was an England selector for 19 years, although he was not the chairman when Geoffrey Boycott was dropped for slow scoring against India in 1967. But his discretion – or power to keep controversies under the table – was never more tested than when he helped the MCC to avoid universal condemnation for their role in keeping Basil D’oliveira out of the 1968-69 tour of South Africa.
Another instance occurred when Don Topley alleged in a national newspaper that the Sunday League game and championship match between Lancashire and Essex at Old Trafford in 1991 had been fixed. Insole was the chairman of Essex – and very little was subsequently heard. A fine slip fielder and occasional wicketkeeper, Insole yet again demonstrated what a safe pair of metaphorical hands he had when he was the manager of England’s 1979-80 tour of Australia. Fences had to be mended after Kerry Packer had launched World Series Cricket and the Australian Cricket Board rather sold out to him in the compromise. Nobody was so certain not to get involved in a row, not to wash dirty linen in public.
If he will take many secrets to the grave, Insole wrote one book – about his cricket and his football, where he was another fine player and even more influential administrator. His death follows that of the Essex wicketkeeper Brian Taylor earlier this year, so the last two survivors of England’s 1956-57 tour of South Africa have gone.
Obituary: News, P25