Tom Graveney dead: Farewell to an exquisite batsman and man of true principle

Tom Graveney, who has died aged 88, was a great batsman, a generous commentator and a man of unwavering principle. He played for England between 1951, when he was 24, and 1969, when he was 42, and the exquisiteness of his touch never faded.

The durability of his career told of a natural player but also one of determined, cussed nature. There were turbulent periods in his life as a cricketer and he was not wont to take a backward step, which was exactly at odds with his front-foot approach to batting.

Figures hardly do justice to the service Graveney gave to English cricket, though as the scorer of 47,793 first-class runs and one of only 25 players to have made a hundred first-class centuries there is plenty of statistical evidence.

Graveney, for one reason or another, never entirely won the trust of whichever selectors were in office at any given time. The word was that they worried about him when the going was tough but Graveney was also his own man, ready to defend his corner on behalf of himself and his team-mates.

Sacked as captain of Gloucestershire when he was at the height of his powers, he joined Worcestershire (though he was forced to miss a season of county cricket to qualify). By then he was 34, but the best was still to come.

His deeds with England after being recalled at the age of 39 (for the second time after a gap of three years) were the stuff of legend. In his first Test back against a formidable West Indies side, he made 96 and then, with a broken thumb in the second innings, a stoic 30 not out, which nearly brought victory.

At the height of the infamous political affair when Basil D’Oliveira was, disgracefully, not picked for a tour of his native South Africa, it was Graveney who comforted his county colleague. D’Oliveira recalled that Graveney said: “I can’t believe they’ve done this to you, Bas.”

Graveney’s international career ended in a petty dispute. Almost a year before the Test match in which he was playing in Leeds, Graveney had agreed to play in a match organised for his benefit. It was to be staged, as it turned out, on the rest day of the Test in which Graveney had already made 75 in England’s first innings.

England’s selectors told him to withdraw. Graveney had given his word and drove south to the match, returning to the team hotel late at night. He was discovered, admitted what he had done and, at the age of 42, was suspended. He never played for England again.

He went on to a long career as a television commentator and in 2004 he became the first former professional cricketer to become president of MCC.

Of his batting, the great cricket writer Neville Cardus wrote that if everything about batting was forgotten you could reconstruct its grammar from watching Graveney. Watching Tom in 1966 against West Indies that is, on reflection, about how it felt.