The best coach England never had

While cricket mourns Bob Woolmer it is less well known what befell another former England allrounder who also became an outstanding coach.

In mid-March this year, Tom Cartwright was shopping in Neath, South Wales, when he suffered a massive heart attack. Paramedics eventually revived him and took him to hospital. But his brain had been starved of oxygen. He was bed-ridden and had lost the power of speech; he lies, still seriously ill, in Neath Port Talbot Hospital.

These should be jubilant days for Cartwright, aged 71. Nine days after his collapse he was due to launch his biography by Stephen Chalke, The Flame Still Burns, in Coventry. Alec Bedser, 90 next year, was going to be there. So was former England opener Bob Barber who had flown in from Switzerland. Other Test players, including Vic Marks, Mike Smith, David Allen, and Alan Oakman, were expected to honour one of the game's great medium-pace bowlers.

"He was especially delighted that Alec was coming," says Chalke. "Alec was a great hero of Tom's - a master craftsman who was happy to work hard and to serve the game without fuss, just as Tom has done. Tom had seen the finished book and was thrilled with it. He had so many interviews lined up and he had so much he wanted to say about the present state of English cricket. It's tragic that his heart attack happened when it did. He is getting a little better. His doctors say it's a minor miracle that he's come through as far as he has. But there's still a long road in front of him." The flame still burns but it flickers now.

Cartwright was no ordinary medium-pacer. He hit the bat high and hard first for Warwickshire, then Somerset and finally Glamorgan, taking 1,536 first-class wickets at 19.11 runs apiece. He also scored seven centuries, one of them a double. He played just five times for England and had he been fit enough to accept the invitation to tour South Africa in 1968-69 the history of the game might have been different; Basil D'Oliveira replaced him, the tour was cancelled and South Africa banished from the game.

When he finished playing in 1977, he became perhaps the best coach England never had. He taught Ian Botham how to bowl and in the book Botham says: "He always had time, always had faith in me. I couldn't have had a better man to teach me." Before his voice was silenced, Cartwright used this book to give a deeply thoughtful critique of the modern game and its methods.