Hard Men of Cricket

[wpdavid]

However, there was one man at that Club at the time who was the epitome of the 'hard man' - Arthur 'Ticker' Mitchell.
Hutton said of Mitchell, “A very hard man. Too hard for me really.”
The young Len Hutton, early in his career found himself sent to field beside Mitchell in the slips. Normally the slips were reserved for elder statesmen, while the young did the running about. Mitchell eyed the future knight and master batsman critically. “What the **** are you doing here?” he asked.
Mitchell's batting matched his attitude. Herbert Sutcliffe opened with him pre WWII and said of him, ”As grim and steadfast as a piece of stone from the Baildon Moors that are so near his home.”
Bill Bowes described an incident involving Mitchell thus: “Arthur ‘Ticker’ Mitchell who never gave a word of praise (and who once growled under his breath after Ellis Robinson had made a spectacular dive and caught the ball with his finger-tips, ‘Gerrup, th’art makin’ an exhibition o’ thiself.’)” What would he make of the current behaviour of cricketers?
Geoffrey Boycott remembers Mitchell when he was Yorkshire's coach: “Literally hundreds of Yorkshire boys feared Arthur Mitchell. Many a lad went home on a dark winter’s night with tears in his eyes after a roasting. I can never remember Mitchell uttering one word of praise . . .You were really lucky if he restricted himself to: ‘Not too bad, but keep that left elbow up’"
Finally Fred Trueman's view of the man: “A man of dark intensity who seemed to growl rather than speak. If the occasion arose when praise was called for, the words had to be forced from a sparse vocabulary. The type of man who, if he went riding with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, would not noticeably enliven the party.”

So a bit of an arsehole really.

tbf that sort of attitude towards younger cricketers wasn't unusual back in the day.

 

[wpdavid]

"My first objective is to hit the batsman. The moment I hit them, I know I've got them. Then they'll run away from my bowling and it's an easy thing for me." - Roy Gilchrist

Nah, that's nothing to do with hardness.

 

[wpdavid]

Wasn't South Africa's Brian MacMillan reputed to be a seriously tough bloke? I think it was Darren Gough who said that although the Australians gave it plenty of verbals, they were softies once you got to know them. Whereas MacMillan really wasn't.

 

[jcas0167]

Mark Taylor recounts a couple of anecdotes about MacMillan involving Border and Warne from 2 minutes in. A number of South African players from that era seemed pretty tough. Kepler Wessels was apparently a handy boxer and now coaches it in Queensland.

 

[Burgey]

Kepler boxed golden gloves iirc

 

[howitzer]

Kepler boxed golden gloves iirc

Ironically 'Johnny Won't Hit Today' Douglas won an Olympic gold in boxing. He definitely hit that day.