My favourite cricketer: John Emburey

Middlesex and England spinner Phil Tufnell pays tribute to his mentor for county and country

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John Emburey was a huge person in my life, a great mentor. 

When I first went into the Middlesex dressing room, in the mid-1980s, it was like going into an England one really. There were huge characters, nearly all England players. It was a pretty daunting place to be. 

Embers took me under his wing, though. He was 14 years older than me, and nearer the end obviously, although he had a long first-class career (going on until 1997).

This new book I have written talks about the pitfalls of being a professional cricketer, and he showed me the path. I learnt so much from him: about field settings, how to bowl… all sorts of things. 

He taught me how to think like a spinner. You have to build your overs. You have to work out batsmen – their techniques, styles and the way they played. I was just running up and bowling before that, but he taught me the nuances of it. 

Lord’s has changed now a bit. I think I only bowled 20 overs from the Pavilion End. It was always me from the Nursery End, bowling up the slope, and him from the Pavilion, bowling down it.

Middlesex didn’t mess about in those days. The batsmen got a load of runs, the seamers took a load of wickets, then us spinners used to come on and suffocate them.

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Navjot Sidhu is caught by Robin Smith off Phil Tufnell during the third Test of the 1992/93 tour to India

Embers had bowled with Phillipe Edmonds, who was a fantastic left-arm spinner, so filling his shoes was daunting. A different character to me of course. John and I also developed a very good partnership, though.

He really was a fantastic fella, a great laugh, and he loved a drink in the bar: he always had time for a pint and a pie with you after the game. He was always the leader of the team dinners and meetings.

We went to India together in 1992/93 when we encountered Navjot Sidhu. Crikey O’Reilly, what a tour that was. Sky’s Spinwash ’93 was fabulous, it really did encapsulate what it was all about. It was such a strange trip, doomed from the start: great chaos but also great fun as we had to stick together. We just tried to get through it.

We lost a couple of tosses and the India batsmen played well on some decent pitches. We had to keep ourselves going.

The thing that amazed me was that Sidhu’s six-hitting attack on Embers shouldn’t have happened.

Our match against the Indian Board President’s XI at Lucknow was heading for a draw, and we could have walked off half an hour earlier. Goochie said we hadn’t had enough bowing, though, so we stayed on. It annoyed Sidhu and he took it out on us, hitting Embers for four sixes.

It was brutal. Brian Lara, Carl Hooper and Mark Waugh were others who could do it to you. They were all good players of spin, who liked hitting sixes.

I haven’t seen so much of Embers lately – there were a few Zoom calls during lockdown. It will be good to catch up on all those fun times.

This article was published in the October edition of The Cricketer - the home of the best cricket analysis and commentary, covering the international, county, women's and amateur game

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