Brian Close, the only England captain to be sacked ... never better illustrated than his recall at the age of 45 against a ferocious Windies pace artillery including Michael Holding, Andy Roberts ...

Brian Close is arguably one of the men best placed ... but you sense it was that bowling whirlwind of a Windies team: "They were the nastiest bowling side." Close almost winces at the memory.

There should be joy, too. Young men like Root play for a club built by great men and not least among that list of great men was Brian Close.

Yorkshire great, who has died aged 84 after a battle with cancer, was renowned for his ferocious battles with West Indies' great fast bowlers of the 1970s Brian Close, the former Yorkshire and ...

For that miscued sweep, Close spent four-and-a-half years in the wilderness and, from a possible 244 Tests that England played between his first and last appearances, featured in just 22 of them ...

More stories have been told about Brian Close, or to be precise his eccentricities, than probably any postwar cricketer except maybe his fellow-Yorkshireman Fred Trueman. Close's courage ...