Emburey - An Autobiography

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JE: It was very much a last-minute decision. It was really decided when we were in Sri Lanka. It was only a couple of weeks before it happened. Your respective counties were the dominant forces in the domestic game for much of the 1980s. What was behind that? GG: We used to throw to each other. I was talking to Andy Flower last night and that has gone out of the game. JE:…he was more annoyed because, when he came off, he had this gash above his eye and his partner didn’t notice it. 'Siamese twins' JE: I still play for Lashings and Graham actually played a game against us at the HAC ground in the City. He swept a ball off me, got a top edge and cut his eye – he didn’t have a helmet on.

JE: And the next game at Edgbaston was very similar. Australia needed 140-odd and it followed a similar pattern.Emburey recalls: “But his speech was just a load of gibberish so Frances said ‘Oh, for f***’s sake, Philippe, just sit down. Then she got up and gave the best man’s speech.” You were both part of hugely successful county teams, Essex and Middlesex – what was it like playing against each other? In the third Test at Headingley the heroics of Botham and Willis brought about an astonishing 18-run victory to level the series… JE: We were set in our ways from a young age. I remember Graham doing all these bloody press-ups, about 72 of them – and I could do about seven! So straight away it was clear he was into keeping fit and I wasn’t. I played football in the winter but I didn’t like doing any exercise unless it was actually sport, whereas Graham… GG: The last time we played against each other, which was also my last game, was just a few years ago.

Emburey has mixed feelings about the venture to South Africa in 1982. "The obvious attraction was a lump sum in the bank; but I'd have thought twice about going if I'd known the ban would last three years - that stunned all of us. Assuming I would have been chose for England's tours, and played my share of Tests at home, I have lost financially. I missed playing very much in 1982, but last year I was resigned to it. The only times I missed it then were when England were struggling and I thought I might have helped." JE: That used to piss me off. It’s like playing golf. I used to play the shot out of turn because I was too impatient for the guy behind me to hit the ball. I wanted to get into a rhythm by bowling and a lot of sides knew that so used to slow me down. It really annoyed me. GG: It was a friendly rivalry but it was a rivalry. I didn’t want John to get the better of me but there was no needle in it. GG: You played a lot of squash though. We used to play squash at Lord’s even during Test matches if we were both out or it was raining. And of course, our England careers pretty much coincided with each other. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ He is a member of famous with the age 71 years old group. John Emburey Height, Weight & Measurements Frances played an unexpectedly central role in Emburey’s wedding day in 1980. Emburey chose Phil Edmonds, rather than Gooch, as his best man because he had a “closer day-to-day relationship” with his Middlesex team-mate than with Gooch at that stage of their careers. JE: Yes and it got to the point where one day the Essex boys moved my case out of the Middlesex dressing room and into their own.