Mike Brearley has not only proved the most durable of that high-quality crop of Cambridge batsmen from the early Sixties, but saved the peak of his remarkable career until Lewis, Craig, Griffith, White and Hutton had all retired. To play for England and captain the champions are the game’s highest rewards, and Brearley did both in 1976.
Born in Harrow on April 28, 1942, John Michael Brearley had cause for filial pride at an ideal time in his cricketing education when his father who had appeared once for Yorkshire against Middlesex at Sheffield in 1937, played for Middlesex at Swansea and Bath in 1949. Horace Brearley thus had the distinction of playing first-class cricket for three matches, but another summoned to Bath on that occasion in a crisis caused by Test calls was a young off-spinner named Titmus, who, 27 years later, played a key part in Mike Brearley’s title-winning team.
Mike Brearley took his time to fulfil his potential in the game, but after leading Middlesex to the Championship in 1976, he was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year the following year.
To Fenner’s spectators during Brearley’s four seasons there, it would have seemed inconceivable that a dozen years would pass before such a talented batsman was capped. Brearley, however, decided that cricket would be secondary to academic development and so has actually had three cricket careers – orthodox progress from school prodigy to the heights of the first-class game, a more-or-less fallow spell, then successful return to full-time play. It is a measure of his talents that, like an old-fashioned scholar-sportsman, he has climbed such peaks, despite the sterner, modern approach.
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Leading Middlesex has not prevented Brearley from remaining the many-sided person of his twenties. He has taught at adult education classes and helped at a clinic for disturbed adolescents. He also served on the Cricketers’ Association committee, believing that, in financially difficult days, cricketers must fight to make their voices heard.
For the future Brearley relishes the thought that the Middlesex he moulded, “should be a good side for the next five years”. When he finishes he intends “either to play very little or to find some league cricket. I like to enjoy the game, but I must play it competitively”.
The Wisden award was the start of a memorable period for Brearley. After Tony Greig’s suspension for joining Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, he captained England to an Ashes victory. He went on to become one of England’s greatest captains – and continued to gather honours for Middlesex
