Keith Fletcher
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Keith William Robert Fletcher | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
20 May 1944 Worcester, Worcestershire, England |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Batting style | Right-handed batsman (RHB) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling style | Leg break | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Source: [1], 21 February 1982 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Keith William Robert Fletcher OBE (20 May 1944, Worcester, Worcestershire, England) is an English former cricketer, who played for Essex and England. He later became England's team manager. His nickname was "The Gnome of Essex", so christened by his Essex teammate, Ray East, because Fletcher's winklepickers had begun to curl up at the toes due to wear.
Cricket writer, Colin Bateman, noted "Fletcher was a tough cookie, a shrewd man who could bluff opponents like the most disarming of poker players. He evoked loyalty in his teammates and admiration from his opponents, even when they were beaten by the sucker punch". Bateman added "the sacking of Fletcher as England captain remains one of English cricket's shabbiest sagas".
Fletcher played 59 Test matches and twenty four One Day Internationals. His Test tally of 3,272 runs came at an average of 39.90.
Keith started playing for his village side while living with his parents in Caldecote, before moving to Royston, Hertfordshire to play for the Cricket Club's second team at the age of thirteen, and it was not long before he moved up to play for the first team. It was whilst playing for Royston that he hit his first ever century, and he produced his best ever bowling figures to take 9-20 on his first team debut.
His county cricket career at Essex began at the age of seventeen. His England debut occurred in 1968, at Headingley against Australia. A baptism of fire, he found hostility from the Yorkshire crowd who felt that Phil Sharpe should have been preferred, and Fletcher's experience was not helped by dropping regulation catches at slip. A first innings duck seemed to be the portent of his early introverted batting stints in the national team.
...
Wikipedia