There have been 13 father-son partnerships to play for England, with the son’s feats eclipsing those of the father in all but two of those cases. In honour of Stuart Broad’s 500th Test scalp in front of his old man, Phil Walker celebrates the lot.

Charlie Townsend (2 Tests, 1899) & David Townsend (3 Tests, 1935)

Father: Mildly revolutionary wrist-spinner-bat who debuted at 22 on account of the prodigious amount of turn he put on his leggies, before qualifying to become a solicitor and wisely walking away.

Son: In the spirit of the times, David played for England before meddling in county cricket, called up for a Windies tour on account of a swell run of undergrad form at The Parks; it mattered not that he averaged 12 from three matches, for like his father, the Bar was calling.

Fred Tate (1 Test, 1902) & Maurice Tate (39 Tests, 1924-1935)

Father: Willowy upper-echelons medium-slower whose only Test appearance was a harrowing affair, beginning with Trumper’s legend-making century on the first morning (Tate 11-1-44-0) and finishing with our hero – having earlier dropped a crucial catch – upended, stumps-splayed, just four runs shy of Ashes victory. The story goes that he made it his life’s work to ensure that his boy did rather better.

Son: “How well the son atoned for the father’s misfortune!” wrote the Wisden Almanack upon ‘Chubby’ Mo’s passing; no one of the time, from Hobbs to CB Fry, held back on Tate’s greatness as a purveyor of slowish off-breaks, sharpish leg-cutters and slippery skidders across a 25-year career with Sussex and England which delivered 2,784 wickets – 38 of which came during the 1924/25 Ashes, a series record that stood for 28 years.

Joe Hardstaff snr (5 Tests, 1907-1908) & Joe Hardstaff jnr (23 Tests, 1935-1948)

Father: Flat-capped son of the Nottingham soil who took it to the Australians in 1907/1908 to earn their affection and the nickname Hot Stuff.

Son: Prolific Notts run-wrangler – 24,000-plus, all told – who was as elegant as they come, making his mark as Hutton’s foil at The Oval in 1938 only for war to rob him of his prime years.

Frank Mann (5 Tests, 1922-1923) & George Mann (7 Tests, 1948-1949)

Father: Collar-upstanding swing-era archetype who buckled his swash for Cambridge, Middlesex and briefly England, forging a reputation for good times, wartime bravery – thrice wounded in World War I – and giving it some damn good welly with the bloody old willow.

Son: Cheerful up-and-at-’em sort who rose to become an acclaimed regiment officer, smashed the family’s only Test hundred, against South Africa on a tour he naturally led himself; the Manns played 12 Tests between them and captained them all. Quite right too.

Len Hutton (79 Tests, 19 hundreds, 1937-1955) & Richard Hutton (5 Tests, 9 wickets, 1971)

Father: Perhaps the most complete English batsman of the Twentieth Century.

Son: Perhaps the most complete editor of The Cricketer of the Twentieth Century.

James Parks (1 Test, 1937) & Jim Parks (46 Tests, 1954-1968)

Father: His magic 1937 summer yielded over 3,000 runs, 101 wickets and a solitary Test cap, opening with Hutton against New Zealand, though he made just 29, and returned to Sussex, where he was more at home.

Son: Yet another instance of the son outdoing the father, ‘Young Jim’ was a multi-gifted keeper-batsman and occasional slow bowler who only took up the gloves when Sussex were short of a gloveman; his skills were so natural that he kept in 43 of his 46 Tests.

Colin Cowdrey (114 Tests, 22 centuries, 1954-1975) & Chris Cowdrey (6 Tests, 4 wickets, 1984-1988)

Father: Portly high-trousered strokesmith ordained to captain England from the moment his own father burdened him with the initials MCC.

Son: Genial understudy hilariously promoted to the top job by his godfather Peter May during the slapstick ‘four-skippers’ series against West Indies in ’88.

Micky Stewart (8 Tests, 1962-1964) & Alec Stewart (133 Tests, 1990-2003, 15 centuries)

Father: No-nonsense loyalist with great hands who valued industry above all else, with the possible exceptions of 1) Chelsea Football Club 2) Surrey County Cricket Club and 3) Her Majesty, The Queen.

Son: No-nonsense loyalist with great hands who valued… etc.

Jeff Jones (15 Tests, 44 wickets, 1964-1968) & Simon Jones (18 Tests, 59 wickets, 2002-2005)

Father: Distinctly slippery fast bowler who would have played more for England if injury hadn’t blighted his career in his pomp.

Son: You guessed it.

Alan Butcher (1 Test, 1979) & Mark Butcher (71 Tests, 8 centuries, 1997-2004)

Father: Stylish lefty; also left-handed.

Son: Dashingly erratic No.3 who helped drag English batting through the late-Nineties misery-era into the fun times of the mid-noughties.

Chris Broad (25 Tests; 6 centuries, 1984-1989) & Stuart Broad (138 Tests, 485 wickets, 2007-2020)

Father: Strapping left-hander who burned briefly, bagging three Ashes tons and an International Cricketer of the Year gong before his stumps-smashing, umps-baiting streak became too much; later re-emerged, amusingly, as an ICC match referee, even securing the gig to see his boy take his 500th.

Son: Bolshy cocksure match-winner with a penchant for blondes and Australians turned era-defining sensei of web-friendly shithousery, viral interview segments and full-of-length series-clinchers. Will outrun them all.

Arnie Sidebottom (1 Test, 1985) & Ryan Sidebottom (22 Tests, 79 wickets, 2001-2010)

Father: A top-rank one-cap wonder and one of the last dual professionals, playing for Man United, Huddersfield and Halifax; if it wasn’t for football, and a rebel tour to South Africa, the seamer would have nabbed more than that single cap.

Son: Wholehearted cricketer whose mop up top disguised a supreme swing bowler whose leftishness was briefly the talk of English bowling.

David Bairstow (4 Tests, 1979-1981) & Jonny Bairstow (70 Tests, 2012-2019)

Father: Pugnacious keeper-bat with a heart the size of Yorkshire.

Son: World Cup-bossing counter-punching hitter in a perpetual clinch of point-proving chippiness with selectors who will do well to swerve the accusation that they’ve chucked him around and mucked him about.