A Cricket Life
A regular feature charting the lives of some of the game’s stars, this week the former South Africa and Gloucestershire all-rounder who passed away in February.
NATURAL GIFTS
No one had ever taught me anything about bowling. I had a peculiar action, it was totally natural. No one ever tried to change it.
I think coaches had one look and just said, “Carry on, let’s see what you can do”. I don’t think anyone envisaged I would end up being the fast bowler that I became.
I was small in stature when I was younger and it was only in the later years that I had a longer runup and generated pace. I wasn’t in the real fast bracket – probably just below that, around 93mph.
When I first came over to the UK everyone said, “You don’t bowl around the wicket as a seam bowler” but I would jump towards the stumps and bowl almost wicket-to-wicket with a very high arm action, and that’s how I got all my lbws. It was like a left-arm over bowler bowling inswing.
THE BEST YOU’VE BOWLED
That would be the semi-final of the B&H Cup against Hampshire in 1977 [when Procter took 6-13 in 11 overs including a hat-trick]. It was a beautiful day at Southampton, a brilliant wicket and fast outfield. It was a full house, a crowd of 10,000 perhaps, and we were 100-odd for one wicket at lunch but then batted very poorly after that and succumbed to 180 all out. It wasn’t very good batting, to be honest.
I realised we were way under par, particularly with [Barry] Richards and [Gordon] Greenidge opening the batting for them. I bowled over the wicket and it swung a little bit, but not much. I thought I’d change to bowling around the wicket, just for a change. To get it to swing I realised I had to pitch it right up, as close to the blockhole as I could, and I ended up getting four wickets in five balls.
From 18-0 they were suddenly 18- 4. We ended up bowling them out and winning by seven runs. It was a fantastically exciting game and we went on to win the final.
THE BEST YOU’VE BATTED
Two innings stick out. One was when we were playing against Mike Brearley’s Middlesex. We were bowled out for next to nothing in the first innings and they set us a target of 260-odd. Brearley gave his bowlers, which I think would have included Wayne Daniel, Phil Edmonds and John Emburey, a substantial amount of time to take the wickets but I ended up on about 130 and we won the game with 20 minutes to spare. I enjoyed that one very much.
Another came at Sheffield [in 1971] when Geoffrey Boycott was captain of Yorkshire. Boycs, in his wisdom, decided to set us a target – something like 200 in 40 overs – and we were 10-3 against a pretty good attack. Mike Bissex, who I was batting with
