David Steele was a comparative rarity at test level - a genuine selection-panel coup. A grey-haired middle-order batsman for Northants, he played in steel-rimmed spectacles and looked years older than his actual 33. He had Tony Greig to thank for his inclusion in Greig's first Test as captain, against Australia in 1975. Steele's England career lasted only eight matches and little more than a year, but in that time he became a national hero, averaging 42 against the best fast bowlers in world cricket. Steele based his defence on a firm, long-striding, forward stroke, and stood up to Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, then to the fearsome West Indian pace quartet of 1976 (Roberts, Holding, Daniel, Holder). Far from showing fear, Steele appeared to revel in it. Yet until Greig plucked him out of county cricket, Steele had scored only 16 hundreds in 12 seasons with an average of 31. Described by The Sun's Clive Taylor as "The bank clerk who went to war," Steele scored 50 and 45 on his debut at Lord's after losing his way from the home dressing-room to the Long Room, and added 106 against West Indies at Trent Bridge. A well-liked and drily humorous Staffordshire man who was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1975, Steele had another triumph: he persuaded a Northampton butcher to reward him in kind in his benefit season, and finished up with 1756 lamb chops - one for every run he scored.
John Thicknesse