Jack Russell

At 61 years old, Jack Russell has this physical status:

It was not until his late teens that it was pointed out that he would turn into an international wicket-keeper, as he was a budding fast bowler that was building up a good reputation at junior level. He was clocked at 75 mph at the age of 14, although the only issue was that the majority of his bowling was waist-high. He then moved onto unorthodox off-breaks, which were deemed illegal right from the start, and so he started to keep wicket for his school.

Russell made his test debut for England against Sri Lanka in 1988, nearly becoming the only player to score a century for England as a nightwatchman.

Russell would be involved in a number of controversial Test selections. He was frequently passed over in favour of Alec Stewart on account of the latter's superior batting ability. Russell, however, was considered the best wicket keeper in the world at the time, and could also be an unorthodox but resolute lower-order batsman. In 1990, he was one of Wisden's five Cricketers of the Year, with Wisden stating:

It was his batting that got the fans on their feet – not the high scores, but the determination to stay and grit it out against the Australians. So, with mentor Alan Knott, Russell turned up early for the second Test at Lord's, and for four hours had the MCC ground staff boys bowling plastic balls at him – without Russell batting a stroke, just ducking and diving to miss the short deliveries. That day, he also adopted some suitably pungent language in response to the Aussies' sledging, and after he had scored 64 not out, the Aussies never tried it on him again. In the third Test at Edgbaston, he scored 42, the second highest score of the first innings. But his greatest achievement was to come in the fourth Test at Old Trafford, where in the summer of the South African cricket rebels and near-certain defeat, for six hours he held up Aussie celebrations by scoring his highest-ever score in cricket, 128 not out, to almost save the Test for England. It was also his maiden century in all forms of cricket, an achievement only matched by one other Englishman in the twentieth century – Billy Griffith against West Indies in 1947–48 – but it was largely forgotten in the furore of the South African debacle, and the loss of the series. Russell finished the Ashes series as England's third-most-successful batsman, with 314 runs and an average of 39.25.

The summer of 1989 gave Russell a run in the England side, but his batting rarely reached such heights again. With England commonly struggling in these years, to give the side more balance Alec Stewart often got the gloves ahead of Russell due to his superior batting and increasingly reliable keeping. England's dilemma was epitomised in an unusual incident in the third test of the Ashes in 1991 when Russell dismissed Dean Jones stumped off the bowling of Gladstone Small, at the time a manner of dismissal only commonly pulled off from spin bowlers. In spite of this indication of Russell's skill behind the stumps, with results poor, England dropped him for the next test in order to accommodate another bowler. The Wisden review of the tour observed: "It was an ironic reflection on the gulf between the teams that Jack Russell, the one Englishman other than Gooch who could have been certain of selection for a Combined XI, was unable to hold his place as England's wicket-keeper because of the length and helplessness of the tail".

Russell remained a popular figure, and his exclusion from the England side for the tour of India and Sri Lanka in 1992, along with that of David Gower and (initially) Ian Salisbury, sparked public outrage. It also hardly helped the side, who lost all four Test matches on the tour. He would still thereafter be called up when England needed a good man behind the stumps, and had some successes, helping to steady a nervous run chase during a rare victory against the West Indies at Old Trafford in 1995, Christopher Martin-Jenkins observing on this occasion that "the fighting qualities and underestimated batting skill of Jack Russell" helped England to overcome a "crisis". Russell's ability to stay at the wicket was again demonstrated on 4 December 1995 against South Africa in Johannesburg where he shared a stand of 119 with Michael Atherton to help England save the match. He batted for 4 hours 34 mins scoring just 29 off 235 balls, and of those scoring runs from only 14 of those balls. It is symptomatic of how wicketkeepers' contributions behind the stumps are neglected that it is often forgotten that, in the same match, Russell also broke the Test world record for the most dismissals in a match (a record now held jointly with A. B. de Villiers and Rishabh Pant).

The following summer Russell made his second and last Test century, against India at Lord's, helping again to secure a draw for England, and winning the man of the match award. Yet three test matches later, with England struggling against Pakistan, as Wisden observed: "Once again, Russell was the first casualty of England's bid to level the series. Atherton's statement after Headingley that they would not sacrifice the wicket-keeper showed that a week in sport is about as long as seven days in politics". Curiously at the time Russell had a better batting average in Tests for a designated wicketkeeper over the time period encompassing his career than Stewart, or any England player. But Stewart made his first Test century as a wicketkeeper that winter, and Russell would only thereafter play five more Tests.

Eventually after an unsuccessful final tour of the West Indies in 1998, he decided to retire after being left out of the following winter's Ashes tour squad. Former England wicketkeeper Godfrey Evans commented that Russell "was discarded not because of anything he'd done but because Alec [Stewart] was a better bat and they were trying to cover for the lack of a proper all-rounder. There was a terrible irony about all this: we were the worst Test team in the world and our one player of undeniable world class couldn't get into the side."

Russell turned himself into part of the hub of Gloucestershire's one-day success, and together with captain Mark Alleyne won a couple of ODI caps. In 2002, he set a world record when conceding no byes in Northamptonshire's mammoth 746–9 declared. After an inconsistent season due to persistent back problems, he retired from county cricket in 2004, just short of the age of 41.

Source