Here’s a trivia question for you – other than Sir Donald George Bradman AC, name one Australian Test cricketer who has been knighted for his services to cricket?
Give up? There aren’t any.
Here’s another question – other than Sir Richard John Hadlee MBE, name one NZ Test cricketer who has been knighted for his services to cricket?
Give up? That’s right, the same answer – there aren’t any.
Here we have two very successful Test cricket playing nations with combined test caps between them of nearly 750, and only two knighthoods. Work out your own percentage on that one, my calculator appears to have limited decimal places.
Meanwhile, and perhaps unsurprisingly, mother England, the home of the Monarchy and all of the knighting swords, with over 700 Test caps of their own, have had 14 players knighted, including a couple of administrators and a journalist, who didn’t ever pad-up in a Test.
English cricket knights include the likes of Jack Hobbs, Alec Bedser, Ian Botham, Alastair Cook and Geoffrey Boycott. No doubt all great players fully deserving of the honour, but surely their Majesties could have found some other knighthood contenders amongst the cricket loving loyal monarchists from the antipodes?
After all, Australian and NZ cricketers are better than the English.
Alastair Cook celebrates reaching 200. (Photo by Morgan Hancock/Action Plus via Getty Images)
In a just world, where The Crown rules equally for all of its loyal subjects, Australia should at the very least have the likes of Sir Victor Thomas Trumper, Sir Stanley Joseph McCabe, Sir Raymond Russell Lindwall, Sir Richard Benaud, Sir Robert Baddeley Simpson and Sir Dennis Keith Lillee.
They just roll of the tongue don’t they, and what about Sir Keith Ross Miller who at one time was reputed to be very close to Princess Margaret. Surely that must count for something.
In more recent times, and if The Lord Botham of Ravensworth (AKA Beefy, Both and Guy the Gorilla) is deemed worthy of the honor, wouldn’t it have been no less appropriate to pay homage to Sir Shane Keith Warne, Sir Ricky Thomas Ponting and Sir Glenn Donald McGrath?
Personally, I’d like to have seen David Clarence Boon, Rodney William Marsh, Kevin Douglas Walters and Jeffrey Robert Thomson arise from their knees with their KBEs in hand after receiving the royal tap on the shoulder. It would certainly make the pos-investiture cocktail party a memorable occasion.
Let’s not forget our Kiwi cousins, who have every right to feel aggrieved that John Reid, Geoff Howarth, Stephen Fleming and John Wright all missed out on a knighthood, and how flash does Sir Colin De Grandhomme sound?
It’s hard to say what the reasons are for this disgraceful imbalance in the knighthood numbers. Remnants of empire, the British class system, home team favoritism, or perhaps just a cold fear of the colonial upstarts?
Maybe, like Australian cricket captain Bill Woodfull, some of the shunned players were offered knighthoods but turned them down? Woodfull was hardly the first or last to reject the honour, with the likes of Stephen Hawking, T.E Lawrence and even Peter O’Toole, the actor who played T. E. Lawrence in the movie, all preferring to maintain their distance from the Monarchy.
Whatever the reason, the imbalance is magnified ten-fold when you run through the list of cricket knights from the Caribbean. The West Indies have produced 330 test players since they played their first test in 1928 (that’s less than half of the combined Australian and NZ tally for the numerically challenged) and yet 13 of them have been knighted.
Gary Sobers (Photo by S&G/PA Images via Getty Images)
That’s right, 13, and not just any old players either. In fact, their knighted players list reads like a West Indian Dream Team, and looks something like this:
1. Sir Conrad Cleophas Hunte
2. Sir Cuthbert Gordon Greenidge
3. Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards
4. Sir Richard Benjamin Richardson
5. Sir Clive Hubert Lloyd
6. Sir Everton de Courcy Weekes
7. Sir Garfield St Aubrun Sobers
8. Sir Clyde Leopold Walcott (W/K)
9. Sir Anderson Montgomery Anderson Roberts
10. Sir Curtly Elconn Lynwall Ambrose
11. Sir Wesley Winfield Hall
That’s certainly some line-up. Eleven of the greatest cricketers ever, with 895 tests, 52,111 Test runs, 142 centuries, 227 half centuries and 1,090 test wickets between them, and sitting on the sidelines are the fearsome Sir Charles Christopher Griffith and the great all-rounder Sir Frank Mortimer Maglinne Worrell, just in case any of the First XI come down with a tummy bug.
More power to the Windies, and a very deserving group, and perhaps they’re now beginning to wonder why the likes of Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Courtney Walsh, Desmond Haynes, Lance Gibbs and Malcolm Marshall haven’t been added to their ranks.
More knighthoods for cricketers I say. Who do you think has been unlucky not to receive a knighthood for their services to cricket?
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