Ray Illingworth 1932-2021: One of the great England cricketers from the clean shaven era
Yorkshire cricket has been much in the news for less than great reasons recently but Ray Illingworth, who has sadly died at 89, comes from another clean-shaven cricketing era.
Illingworth was captain of Yorkshire and England and after retiring at 51 in 1983 he became an England cricket selector. A spin bowler and batsman he achieved considerable success in what looking back was the great clean shaven interregnum of English cricket.
He came after the beard of W G Grace and the moustaches, sometimes waxed, of the 1930s and largely before the era from the 1970s when players like Mike Brearley and Ian Botham appeared with beards.
He is reputed on at least one occasion to have told a player who appeared on the field unshaven to return to the Pavilion and smarten himself up. However that may simply be a reflection of the general clean shaven cricketing era in which Illingworth played.
The Sunday Times (26th Dec) reports that when Illingworth was Chair of Selectors he complained about England captain Mike Atherton in the 1994/5 Ashes series in Australia. He told to the Sun that ‘the modern trend of not shaving makes me angry. The captain is the worst culprit’
One of the greats of the post-1945 game his pogonophobia notwithstanding.
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