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Kevin Pietersen’s exit as England captain, and the sacking of coach Peter Moores, left Australian cricket delighted with their old rivals’ self-inflicted wounds ahead of this year’s Ashes.
But history just might be on England’s side.
The last time a flamboyant and controversial South Africa-born captain resigned in dramatic circumstances ahead of a home series with Australia, and was replaced by a Middlesex opening batsman, things didn’t turn out too badly.
Back in 1977, talented all-rounder Tony Greig, born in South Africa but qualified for England thanks to his father, a decorated Royal Air Force pilot during the Second World War, was England’s captain.
Like Pietersen, Greig was a tall, dashing and charismatic figure, who was a reporter’s dream with his penchant for headline-grabbing quotes.
He too had recently led England in a Test series in India, only in Greig’s case he had emerged on the winning side
However, after 14 Tests as captain, it emerged that not only had Greig signed to join Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, he’d personally and secretly recruited many of the world’s top players as well.
Greig, like Pietersen, was stripped of the captaincy and accused of being a self-centred mercenary.
However, the then Sussex star’s insistence that Packer would ensure that all international cricketers would at last be paid something nearer their true commercial worth was proved correct.
Before the first Packer series got underway in Australia, there was the small matter of the Ashes.
In Greig’s place, England promoted his vice-captain Mike Brearley.
As an opening batsman he was to have nowhere near the success that Pietersen’s successor Andrew Strauss has already enjoyed at Test level, although Brearley’s early international career saw him up against the fearsome 1976 West Indies pace attack.
But Brearley, academically gifted enough to gain a first-class degree from Cambridge University, was able to maintain harmony in an England dressing-room where three key players were Packer men – Greig, wicket-keeper Alan Knott and spinner Derek Underwood, now the holder of the prize ‘establishment ‘ post of MCC President.
Greig, answered doubts about how he would perform for England once news of his ‘defection’ with 91 in the drawn first Test at Lord’s.
Brian Close, who had a brief spell as England skipper in the late 1960s, said Brearley, for all his tactical insight and man-management abilities, was a lucky captain.
That luck was evident in 1977 as England won three successive home Tests for the first time since 1886.
Australia were without injured fast bowler Dennis Lillee, against whom Greig had scored a superb hundred in Brisbane in 1974, for a series which saw Geoffrey Boycott, England’s pre-eminent batsman, end his self-imposed three-year exile from international cricket.
That summer also saw England hand a Test debut to Ian Botham, the man who would fill the hole left by Greig’s absence, which became permanent after the series finale at The Oval.
But not even Botham, like Greig a superlative slip-catcher, was a good enough bowler to take Test wickets as both a swing bowler and an off-spinner.
Greig’s pivotal role in World Series Cricket and his subsequent career as a cricket commentator with the Packer’s Channel Nine television station, have overshadowed a fine international career.
Asked years later if he had any regrets, Greig said: “None at all. No, one. I would have loved to have come clean straightaway.”
Pietersen quit last week after just three Tests in charge, claiming he couldn’t work alongside coach Peter Moores who was sacked as a result of the row.
Since losing the captaincy, the star batsman had repeatedly stressed his commitment to England and promised to support Strauss fully on the upcoming tour of the West Indies for which the squad departs on January 21.
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