Tough, durable, unyielding...

Close personified qualities that helped him brave many a challenge on a cricket field

Brian Close, who last died Sunday of lung cancer at 84, did not fulfill the promise he showed after perhaps the greatest rookie season in cricket history. Yet to call him an underachiever is to ignore his contributions as one of the legends of the game.

He was stubborn, shrewd and insanely courageous in the face of physical danger — all stereotypes given to those from his native county in England, Yorkshire, which is also home to the team with more titles than any other in the County Championship.

Other cricketers have shown courage when facing off against the formidable fast bowlers from the West Indies. Close, though, took that to the extreme when he walked directly toward the imposing Wesley Hall while Hall was bowling at Lord’s in 1963. And when Close was recalled by England at age 45, he stood unflinching as delivery after delivery was aimed at his body by West Indies pace bowlers.

“His toughness was legendary,” Michael Holding, one of those West Indian pacemen, said. “The mere fact that England thought Close, 45 years old, was the right man to come back to face West Indies in 1976 with the four-man pace attack shows you what they thought of him.”

In the field, Close would stand only feet from the hardest-hitting batsmen, taking a huge personal risk so he could invade their comfort zones. He psyched out the West Indian captain Garry Sobers, then the finest batsman in the world, into hitting a simple catch to him in 1966.

When an alarmed batsman asked, “What will happen if the ball hits you between the eyes ?” Close calmly retorted that the rebound would be caught by another fielder. He also argued that the ball could not hurt much since “it is only on you for a second.”

The Sobers catch came during a brief but highly successful spell for Close as England’s captain. He won six of seven matches before he was fired in 1967 after accusations of time-wasting during a Yorkshire county match. He was replaced by Colin Cowdrey, a fine player but a mediocre captain, in a move that many said reflected English cricket’s preference for social grace over technical competence in its leaders.

Close’s talents as a leader were also evident when he captained Yorkshire. His team included Geoffrey Boycott, Fred Trueman and Raymond Illingworth, all contenders for a spot on the all-time most cantankerous team. Yorkshire won three consecutive County Championships from 1966 to 1968, the last time it repeated as champion until it did so again last week.

When he fell out at Yorkshire, he decamped to Somerset, previously a cheerful rural outpost of the English game, and turned that team into a trophy contender. Though initially contemptuous of the one-day format when it was introduced in the 1960s, he learned how to apply his vast knowledge to that format and was appointed captain for England’s first home one-day series against Australia, in 1972.

His biography was called ‘I Don’t Bruise Easily.’ That may have been the case, but he also had enough confidence in his athletic skills to play soccer for Arsenal, golf with a single-digit handicap and once tell teammates that he could take down Muhammad Ali.

Those talents were never more evident than in 1949, when at age 18 he not only became the youngest player ever for England — a record that still stands — but he also became the only player to notch 1,000 runs and grab 100 wickets over all matches in his rookie season.

His toughness did not mean he was immune to all hardships, though. He never forgot or forgave the veteran players he idolised but who scarred him with their treatment during England’s tour of Australia in 1950 and 1951. Two years of compulsory military service and a knee injury suffered while playing soccer in 1952 also took their toll on Close.

He remained a very good player, and he was as durable as he was tough — he also was the oldest player ever to play for England since 1948 when he was recalled in 1976. Only one other player, Wilfred Rhodes of Yorkshire, had a longer career at the county level than Closes’s 27 years. And though he played only 22 Test matches, he was the first to play one in his teens, 20s, 30s and 40s, a feat later matched by two others, Sachin Tendulkar (who played 200 Tests) and Shivnarine Chanderpaul of the West Indies (164).