The XI
Save Our Series – players parachuted in to a tour
By Jacob Savill
1George Gunn
In 1907/08, Nottinghamshire batsman George Gunn was in Australia for health reasons, recovering from a haemorrhage of the lungs. The sun, his friends agreed, would do him the world of good. The best medicine, however, turned out to be of a wholly difierent kind. That winter, MCC were touring Australia, and after sudden illness to their captain, Arthur Jones, Gunn was suddenly called in as replacement batsman. With his health clearly returning, he made scores of 119 and 74 in the first Test, at Sydney, and would go on to play the entire series.
2Alastair Cook
Has a batsman ever slotted in so smoothly as Alastair Cook on his Test debut in Nagpur? With Marcus Trescothick returning to England with anxiety, England turned to Cook, who was in the Caribbean with the A team. His youth, he was 21, helped him cope with the gruelling journey, which took three days. He made 60 in the first innings before he was bowled by a beauty from Irfan Pathan, and then he made an unbeaten 104 in the second innings, setting up a declaration, although the match was drawn. GeoffBoycott purred about him on the radio (no easy feat to make him do that) and Mike Selvey predicted he would make 10,000 Test runs – a wild underestimation.