D.L. Amiss not out 262

Now a veteran of this parish, Bob Borsley comes out to bat again:

Fifty years ago, at the age of nine, I developed a serious interest in cricket, and one of the things I learned at an early stage was that my county, Warwickshire, had a very promising 15-year-old batsman called Dennis Amiss. By the mid-1960s he was a key member of the Warwickshire side, and when I saw him bat with my hero Bob Barber, he looked almost as good. He first played for England in 1966, but he didn't establish himself as Test batsman until 1972, when he switched to opening the innings. His finest hour was at Sabina Park in 1974, when he scored 262 not out to save the Test after England were 230 behind on the first innings. It has to be conceded that the West Indies bowling was not especially strong at that time, after the retirement of Hall and Griffiths and before the emergence of Roberts and Holding. However, to score 262 when the next highest score was 38 (from fellow Warwickshire batsman John Jameson) was a very major achievement.

The following winter Amiss like other English batsmen struggled against Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, and he finished the series with three successive ducks. In 1975 he lost his England place, but he returned to score a further Test double century in the fifth Test against the West Indies in 1976 (a match best remembered for Michael Holding's devastating second innings bowling). He played his final Test in 1977 and ended with a Test average of 46.30, better than other heroes of mine, Tom Graveney with 44.38 and David Gower with 44.25, and not far behind Geoff Boycott's 47.72. Whatever his weaknesses against the fastest bowling, Amiss was undoubtedly one of the best two or three English batsmen of the 1970s.

The way the books tell it:

In the end this became the great escape story - a match apparently lost by England but finally saved by Amiss who batted for the last nine and a half hours... [Amiss] turned the third ball of the [final] day firmly but straight into the hands of Sobers at backward short leg. It fell out again. Thenceforth, England played cricket of real courage as pressure built up both on the field and in the crowd. - Wisden 1975

Thursday February 21st was a good day for England: the day that Dennis Amiss, the quiet pipe-smoker who once looked so nervous in Test Matches that it seemed he would never be able to make the most of his abilities, and who even now had to take sleeping pills occasionally to stop his worrying at nights, became a national hero. - Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Testing Time

[The game] was saved, Amiss remaining fittingly undefeated at the end after nine and a half hours of immense concentration and stamina in which he scored 262, hitting a six and 40 fours. The assistance he needed was provided by Underwood, Old and Pocock who each stayed with him for over an hour. - Tony Cozier, The West Indies: Fifty Years of Test Cricket

[For links to the other posts in this series, see here.]