The Cricketer Magazine – June 2018

The XI

By Carly Odell

and James Coyne

Bespectacled cricketers

1

Geo rey Boycott

Boycott’s career pathway was defi ned

by the fact that he needed spectacles.

He played under-18 football for Leeds

United, but when his eyesight started

to deteriorate at the age of 17, he had

to give up, as contact lenses had not

been invented in 1957. When he turned

to cricket, Boycott batted in glasses for

Yorkshire, but would hand them over

to the umpire when he was called on to

bowl. Just before his Test debut in 1964,

Boycott started wearing contact lenses,

and has done ever since.

2

Virender Sehwag

The gallivanting India opener

debuted his spectacles during the

fi rst Test against Australia at Chennai in

2013, when he was 33. The opener had

previously trialled them in fi elding and

training, but decided to bat in them when

he was told he no longer had 20/20 vision.

For the second Test at Hyderabad he

swapped the specs for contact lenses, but

was then dropped for the next match at

Mohali after he scored 27 runs over the

two matches.

3

Imam-ul-Haq

Imam starred for Pakistan at

Under-19 level and made his full

debut last year in an ODI against Sri

Lanka, and scored a century. Imam is also

the nephew of the great Inzamam-ul-

Haq, who is now national selector. Their

batting styles do have some similarities,

but there is the obvious di erence that

Imam bats left-handed and wears glasses.

The 22-year-old did try out wearing

contact lenses while batting, but found

them uncomfortable and would rather

wear glasses. He hopes to have corrective

laser eye surgery soon.

4

Walter Hadlee

The captain of the famous 1949 New

Zealand team, who drew all four Test

matches in England, always wore horn-

rimmed glasses while playing. Hadlee

himself won only 11 o cial caps in an era

when Australia did not deign to play their

neighbours, but his son, Richard, went

on to be one of New Zealand’s all-time

greats. Hadlee’s skinny and bespectacled

look sometimes had him likened to an

accountant, and lo and behold... he was a

qualifi ed chartered accountant.

5

Clive Lloyd

West Indies captain for 11 years – and

their most successful – Lloyd has

perhaps the most heroic reason for why

he needed to wear glasses. At the age

of 12, he attempted to break up a fi ght

in school in Georgetown and ended up

getting poked in the eye with a ruler,

forcing him to need to wear his iconic

thick-rimmed glasses to be able to see

properly. Lloyd fashioned white-rimmed

spectacles before he switched to contact

lenses and ended his international career

with more 7,000 runs.

6

Dirk Wellham

In the days of sixth Test matches,

Wellham briefl y illuminated a 1981

dead rubber at The Oval with 103 on

debut for an Australia team falling out

with each other; he had struck a century

on fi rst-class debut for New South Wales

six months earlier. He was stranded on

99 for 25 minutes, including a drop by

Boycott. He did not pass 36 again, and

after one-o appearances in both 1985

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