No cricketer was more devastating on rain-affected pitches than Derek Underwood, who has died aged 78. “Deadly”, as he was known both to friend and foe, took more Test wickets – 297 – than any other English spin bowler, and stands sixth on the all-time list of England wicket takers.
Playing for much of his career when pitches were left uncovered outside play, he became expert at exploiting “sticky dog” surfaces. For Kent and England he took five wickets or more in an innings 153 times, 17 of them in Test matches.
His most famous big hauls came against Australia in 1968 at the Oval, where a match-winning seven wickets for 50 runs allowed England to draw the series with six minutes to spare in the final Test, and in 1972 at Headingley, where he had six victims to secure the Ashes on a pitch ridden with fungus.
It would be wrong, however, to suggest that Underwood was reliant on suspect pitches for wickets. He did much of his most damaging work on very presentable surfaces, and was extremely hard to play on any type of track. When uncovered pitches were fully phased out in 1981, his effectiveness did not diminish.
An unorthodox slow left-arm bowler, Underwood had a long, flat-footed run-up and delivered the ball virtually at medium pace from wide of the crease, relying much less than the average spinner on flight and guile and more on subtle variations of pace. He could certainly turn the ball, but his real strength lay in his supremely tight line and length, which piled pressure on batsmen until they cracked.
A lean, pleasant man of a quiet, nervous disposition who lived for cricket and kept a detailed record of all his performances, he begrudged every run that was scored off him, maintaining that bowling was “a low mentality profession: plug away, line and length, until there’s a mistake”. Of English left-arm spinners there have been only two who exceeded him in talent – Wilfred Rhodes and Hedley Verity.
Born in Bromley, then in Kent, Derek was the son of Evelyn (nee Wells) and Leslie Underwood, and attended Beckenham and Penge grammar school. He played for Farnborough and then Beckenham before signing for Kent in 1961. He made his debut two years later against Yorkshire at Hull as a 17-year-old, bagging Ray Illingworth as his first victim and taking 100 wickets in his first campaign, the youngest player to do so in a debut season.
He exceeded 100 wickets for a second time in 1964, when he had his best figures of 9 for 28, against Sussex at Hastings on a dry, dusty wicket, and again in 1966, when he topped the national averages with 157 wickets at 13.80 apiece and was called up for two home Tests against the West Indies at the age of 21. From 1968 he became a core member of the England side, establishing his deadly reputation that year during the fifth and final Ashes Test against Australia at the Oval.
With England 1-0 down in the series, Australia were 85 for five on the last day when a thunderstorm drenched the ground. However, a desperate mop-up operation by the crowd allowed play to restart with 75 minutes remaining, and in the concluding half-hour Underwood took the last four wickets for just six runs in 27 deliveries, securing his final scalp with only six minutes left and ending up with 7 for 50.
It was one of the most dramatic finishes in Test history and although the win was not enough to prevent Australia from retaining the Ashes, it squared the series 1-1 and was a great face-saver for England. Underwood later called it “the outstanding memory of my cricket career”, and Wisden named him as one of its Cricketers of the Year.
He took his 100th Test wicket and 1,000th first-class wicket in 1971, aged only 25, and in 1972 had another memorable day in the “‘Fusarium Test” at Leeds, where a fungus of that name got into the pitch, creating trouble for the batsmen. Having taken four wickets in Australia’s first innings, Underwood ran through their second with 6 for 45 to give England a 2-1 series lead that allowed them to retain the Ashes. Two years later, on a more benign pitch at Lord’s against Pakistan, he took his best Test figures of 13 for 71, consisting of five for 20 in the first innings and eight for 51 in the second.
In 1977, at the age of 32, Underwood became one of a handful of English players to sign up to Kerry Packer’s unauthorised World Series Cricket circus in Australia, and as a result he was dropped from the Test side. When the WSC storm blew over two years later, he was chosen for the 1979-80 series in Australia, playing 12 Tests after his recall and being appointed MBE for services to cricket in 1981.
In March the following year, however, he finally burned his international bridges by taking part in a rebel tour of apartheid South Africa, after which he was banned by England for three years and jettisoned for good.
He continued until 1987 at Kent, with whom he had been a major force in a glorious period from 1967 to 1978, winning three County Championships, three John Player League titles, three Benson & Hedges Cups and two Gillette Cups – all in semi-telepathic partnership with the England wicketkeeper Alan Knott.
He appeared in 86 Tests, taking his 297 wickets at an average of 25.83, and might have had another 50 victims but for his involvement with WSC and the rebel tour. In all first class cricket he amassed 2,465 wickets – putting him 14th in the all-time list – at 20.28.
A rather comical right-handed batsman at the tail end, he had an ungainly shovel shot as his stock in trade and was insecure against bouncers. Yet for many years he was England’s plucky nightwatchman, effective in that role even if he rarely looked comfortable at the crease. In 1984, in the twilight of his career, he posted an unlikely 111 for Kent against Sussex, the most unexpected century of the season.
After his playing days he worked with his brother, Keith, for a company that sold artificial cricket pitches, and was president first of Kent in 2006 and then of MCC in 2008.
In 1973 he married Dawn Sullivan, and they had two daughters, Heather and Fiona.
• Derek Leslie Underwood, cricketer, born 8 June 1945; died 15 April 2024
