Barry Knight 1938-2025

GH on a gentil, parfit Knight

It took Richie Benaud to make the perfect gesture. England’s cricketers had come in to mingle with their Australian hosts after the 1962 Gabba Test. Twenty-four-year-old all-rounder Barry Knight struck up a conversation with Bill Lawry, which Benaud presently joined. Did Knight, the Aussie skipper wondered, have a souvenir of his first Test down under? When Knight said he did not, Benaud plucked the baggy green from Lawry’s head, and gave it to Englishman. ‘You do now,’ he said.

Barry Knight in the Saxon seaxes of Essex

Different time, different habits - further support, perhaps, for Chappelli’s contemptuous snort that the baggy is ‘just a piece of cloth.’ From Benaud, however, it was also a far-sighted gesture. Knight, who has died aged eighty-seven, was a fine and versatile all-rounder who earned twenty-nine England caps in the 1960s. Then, after following the example of Harold Larwood and settling in Sydney, he more than earned that Australian cap as a mentor of Allan Border, the brothers Lee and sundry others. The span of his cricket life beggars belief. Knight was coached at Essex by Walter Mead, a contemporary of WG Grace’s, and his first county captain Arnold Quick wore only the one glove, a Trumper-like fetish; he later conversed with Rhodes, took the field against Bradman, bowled to Sobers, faced Jeff Thomson, and coached not only Kerry Packer but James Packer. No, really, he did.