The Spin | The freewheelin` Bob Willis: tribute to a cricketing iconoclast
(The Guardian Sports News)

Willis represented more than sporting excellence, and put all of himself into his bowling, punditry and even his Dylan fandomThe world is a shocking place, full of daily tragedy and injustice. But in the last week, nothing pierced The Spin to the heart like the death of the great Bob Willis - at 70, gone well before his time.On the face of it, this makes sense: Bob Willis was a giant of English cricket. The Spin is too young to remember his playing career, but so definitive was his defining moment that to detail it is almost cliche. With England on desolation row - 1-0 down in the 1981 Ashes series and with Australia needing a paltry 130 to win the second Test - he dared their batsmen to stare into the vacuum of his eyes, and they could not. In 15.1 overs, he returned career-best figures of 8-43, hauling his team home by 18 runs to complete the single greatest endeavour in English cricket history - for all Ian Botham´s million-dollar bashing to set it up. Continue reading...