Keith Stackpole 1940-2025

GH remembers the archetypal Victorian

The hard-hitting opening batter is ever a favourite. He turns the game on its head. He hunts the hunter. The crowd rises - they’re still talking about twenty minutes of Sam Konstas on Boxing Day. Back in the day, however, they were a rarer species. Which is why they continue recalling Keith Stackpole - brawny, beamish and bottom-handed - who has died aged eighty-four.

Stacky averaged 37 across forty-three Tests between 1966 and 1974, but it was how he made them, boldly and mainly off the back foot, that counted. He was a cricketer of great gusto, also rolling out leg-breaks, fielding on the bat, and practising in a pullover in an effort to stay at his 95kg fighting weight. John Arlott called him ‘an ample picture of of well-fed health, good naturedly plump’, and as ‘cheerfully consistent as he was consistently cheerful’. He also recorded a teammate saying of Stackpole: ‘God must be a Victorian.’ Explained Arlott: ‘He is the type of batsman people - except his opponents - like to see have luck. He, for his part, is never chastened and rarely driven to caution by being missed; rather his grin grows broader and he thunders more exuberantly on.’