Batting style Right-hand bat Role Writer Name Mike Selvey | National side English | |
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Full name Michael Walter William Selvey Born 25 April 1948 (age 75) ( 1948-04-25 ) Chiswick, Middlesex, England | ||
Bowling style Right-arm fast-medium | ||
Mike Selvey (Michael Walter William Selvey, born 25 April 1948, Chiswick, Middlesex, England) is an English former Test and county cricketer, and now a cricket writer and commentator. Selvey played in three Tests for England in 1976 and 1977. His county cricket commitments included service to Surrey, Middlesex and Glamorgan.
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Life and career
Selvey was educated at Battersea Grammar School, the University of Manchester and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He played cricket for Surrey and Cambridge University before joining Middlesex in 1972, where he spent the majority of his playing career.
Selvey made a dramatic debut in Test cricket against the West Indies at Old Trafford in 1976, when he opened the bowling and took the wickets of Roy Fredericks, Viv Richards and Alvin Kallicharran for only six runs in his first 20 balls. He took 4 for 41 in that innings, and 6 for 152 in the match, but still ended on the losing side as England were beaten by 425 runs.
He only played two more Tests and failed to take a single wicket in either of them, in part due to Alan Knott dropping a routine chance from Roy Fredericks in his second test at the Oval in the same year; the West Indies went on to make 687 as England were blunted by Viv Richards' 291.
Despite his exclusion from international cricket after 1976, Selvey was a key part of a Middlesex attack that won the County Championship outright 3 times (1976, 1980 & 1982) while Selvey played for Middlesex and shared the title once, in 1977. In addition to their first-class successes, Selvey won 2 Gillette Cups in front of his home crowd in 1977 (taking 12–4–22–2) and in 1980 in the London derby final, with Selvey once again bowling a tight spell to restrict the opposition (12–5–17–2 on this occasion). Selvey took 101 first-class wickets for Middlesex in the 1978 season, a feat that has not been matched by any Middlesex fast bowler since.
Selvey features in Mike Brearley's The Art of Captaincy and is quoted by Brearley as lamenting his notable skills as an into-the-wind bowler by remarking that his nose seemed to get flatter every year, as he would invariably be asked to bowl into the wind whilst Wayne Daniel and Vince van der Bijl bowled downhill with the wind behind them.
In 1983 he moved to become captain of Glamorgan, but persistent injuries forced him to retire after only a season and a half.
He subsequently became a summariser on BBC Radio's Test Match Special, beginning his TMS career in 1984 in India, a role he continued with until being dropped from the team in 2008. Shortly after his retirement from playing cricket, Selvey became cricket correspondent of The Guardian newspaper. He's also become a regular summariser and guest on Talksport.
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