Sixty years on from my Test debut, cricket has changed for good – and bad

There were no Lions tours in those days or England pathway programmes. I didn’t know anybody in that England team apart from my Yorkshire colleagues. At the pre-match dinner on Wednesday night, this little fella came up to me and introduced himself as Walter Robins – the chairman of selectors. I had no idea who he was.

He said he would give me two matches for certain and would like to give me three but had a Test series to win so we would see how it goes. It was a wonderful thing to say. It gave me so much confidence because I knew I would be given a proper chance rather than judged on one game or one innings.

After the selectors left the dinner we had a pre-match meeting at which Ted Dexter, the captain, spoke about how we would bowl at their batsmen. They had a formidable line-up – Bill Lawry, Bobby Simpson, Ian Redpath, Norm O’Neill, Brian Booth and Peter Burge. Fred Trueman, with a few chosen words, had them all out in no time. “Simpson? Couple of outswingers then a nip backer and he’ll be gone. Lawry? A couple of bouncers, a yorker and it’ll be good night vicar.” In his head he had five for nought in no time. That was our Fred.

‘There was no cap presentation’

My match fee was £100. There was no cap presentation, or speeches by former players like there is today. Today it is a big thing. I was just handed a cap and sweater in the dressing room. I can’t even remember by whom, which shows how unimportant it was in those days. Society was a lot less sentimental then than it is now. Today it is a big thing. I didn’t have a car then so my mum couldn’t come to Trent Bridge to watch. TV was in its infancy with poor quality black-and-white pictures, but we couldn’t afford one anyway so Mum and Dad had to listen on the radio.

We had only 12 players at the match – two spinners if England needed them – rather than the big squad of 15-plus like today. John Edrich trod on the ball in practice and overnight his foot became swollen so he could not play. England had to pick all five bowlers and Fred Titmus as a stand-in opening batsman.

Fred was my partner and I didn’t know he was deaf in one ear. I pushed a single to the on-side and called for a run but he didn’t react because he couldn’t hear me. Neil Hawke ran across, picked up the ball. Meanwhile, Titmus panicked and stumbled while Hawke threw it into Wally Grout behind the stumps. As Titmus was just getting up off his backside Wally held the ball over the stumps and then threw it back to Hawke, refusing the run out because Fred had slipped over as he was impeded by Hawke. It was great sportsmanship.

I thought of that during the Jonny Bairstow incident at Lord’s. Wally was a tough old b—— but he played fair. He did not even consult the captain, Bobby Simpson, and he could have run Fred out but just tossed it back. I played with great, tough Aussies but in the heat of the moment that generation of Australians instinctively knew right from wrong and how to be sportsmen. At Lord’s last summer with Pat Cummins and his team it was win at all costs – he didn’t understand the phrase “it’s not cricket”.