Derek Underwood, a unique bowler for Kent and England, has died aged 78.
Kent chairman Simon Phillip said in a statement: “The Kent Cricket family is in mourning following the passing of one of the greatest ever players.
“Derek made an outstanding contribution to both Kent and England, winning trophies for club and country and etching his name in the history books forever.
“It was a privilege to watch Derek weave his unique magic on a wet wicket. His inclusion in the ICC Hall of Fame shows the appreciation he received in world cricket.
“Advocating for the global growth of our game while protecting the rich heritage of our sport, Derek has also made substantial contributions both off and on the field and will be greatly missed by everyone at Kent Cricket.”
His last public appearance was at Canterbury Cathedral in March 2020, for Kent’s celebration of their 150th anniversary. His gaze was unseeing as he met former teammates, but amid his battle with dementia he found a few words: “They tell me Knotty and I made a good combination.”
Underwood was a unique bowler in the sense that he was the only significant left-arm spinner who had bowled at medium pace. How well he did that was summed up by the nickname by which he was commonly known: “Deadly.”
From his debut for Kent, aged 17, he would run a long way for a spinner – almost the length of a pitch – with one arm floating in front of him, the other behind him – and with a full body turn he would strike the ball in the surface. There was no place for a batsman to hide. He couldn’t run down the wicket because of Underwood’s pace, and when he went the opposite direction he ran into the hands of Alan Knott, without much doubt the greatest wicketkeeper who ever stood up to turn.
“Deadly was the ultimate professional with a ball in his hand,” said Paul Downton, Kent’s director of cricket, who also kept wicket for him. “He was fiercely competitive, hated to give away, a dream for his captain, whether at Lord’s in an Ashes Test or at Derby on a Monday afternoon in front of anyone.”
But as a fellow spinner for Sussex, Robin Marlar analyzed Underwood: Most top bowlers have fast-twitch shoulder muscles, but Underwood was rare in that he had slow-twitch shoulder muscles, suggesting he did not have a strong delivery. Hence his long run-up to generate the pace that his left shoulder could not fully convey.
Underwood’s impact was so immediate that he became the youngest bowler to take 100 first-class wickets in his debut season, and at the end of it he was 18 years old. His statistical peak came in 1966 when he took 157 wickets at just 13 apiece.
For the first half of his career, pitches in county cricket were left uncovered if it rained during the day – and Kent used many outside grounds where cover was rudimentary. But even after the pitches were covered, his spin and unerring accuracy continued to take a hundred wickets a season until he ended his first-class career with 2,465 of them at just 20 runs each.
There was a brief period when Ray Illingworth, as England captain, favored Worcestershire’s left-arm spinner Norman Gifford on dry pitches. Not many held the same beliefs, and Underwood was otherwise a regular in the England Test squad at home or abroad until he joined World Series Cricket in 1977 and went on a rebel tour of South Africa in 1982. John Thicknesse, cricket correspondent for the Evening Standardhad made a bet when Underwood first played for England that he would take 300 Test wickets, as only Fred Trueman had done, and was particularly disappointed when Underwood ended his England career – by touring South Africa – with 297.
His most famous hour was the 1968 Oval Test final, when he ran through Australia on a damp surface to square the series, although Australia retained the Ashes. In 1974, the Lord’s field was not supposed to be damp at all, as the test fields had to be covered at all times by then, but rain had leaked under the covers. Relations between England and Pakistan have often been tense and it was just as well that more rain caused the Test to be called off before Underwood walked through Pakistan’s second innings.
What was almost unique, apart from Underwood’s method, was his personality. Most large bowlers are predators by nature; Underwood was as mild and non-lethal as a guy can be. I remember coming out of an Indian Airlines toilet in 1981-82, after using all the facilities at the same time, and Deadly was the only passenger whose smile was sympathetic.
“Without the ball, Deadly was the opposite of an athlete: ten against two, a reluctant practitioner, a fag with a cup of tea twenty minutes before the game and a fag with a pint of beer after the game,” Downton recalls. ‘A completely honest, old-fashioned professional, one of the politest, most generous men you could meet. Always gave people his time, loved talking about cricket, incredibly humble, a very good man.
That’s why Underwood, despite being a former professional, was president of MCC in 2008, nominated by his former England captain Mike Brearley. He had already obtained an MBE.
With ball in hand, however, he was a dentist, drilling one tooth after another, girl after girl, until one too many times the batsman was bowled forward or propped over and caught close. Colin Cowdrey was the most agile slipper, Knott. his supreme henchman.
There were no helmets in Underwood’s day until the first prototypes in 1977, and they were for batsmen. Knott had to stand up on dodgy pitches to medium pace without a helmet or visor to protect him from a ball flying off the edge – or a flying bail, like the one that ended the career of South African Mark Boucher. Knott was a human doll, extremely flexible. A look up to tell Underwood to throw the ball up, a look downfield to tell him to pass the ball: that was the only signal in their symbiosis.
Yes, it was true. Knott and Underwood were a good combination.