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Late afternoon on Saturday, I was on a train. Rain spat angrily at the windows. Apple lit up and the WhatsApp message read, “We wanted to share the sad news with you. Mike passed away peacefully at 16.34 surrounded by his family.” The English countryside raced by, an indistinct picture of grey landscape and flooded fields. The news was a shock but not unexpected. After a complication during relatively routine surgery little more than a week ago, Mike Procter went into cardiac arrest. From unconsciousness, he never woke up. A bright and powerful flame had been snuffed out. Just like that. Proc, gone.
I had four cricketing heroes as a kid – first Ted Dexter and John Snow, then Barry Richards and Proc. At Lord’s in the 1973 Gillette Cup final I heard the public announcer say, “From the pavilion end… Mike Procter”, and I shivered. In he sprinted, the winds blowing back his hair as he exploded into that unique action and dramatic result. In all things cricket, Proc was the runaway dream. Gifted, good-looking and great fun, he knew no enemies. In the cricketing homes he loved most – Natal, Rhodesia and Gloucestershire – it was a love that did not go unrequited. In fact, the adoration knew no boundary and it came from spectators, team-mates and opponents alike.
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He bowled those fast inswingers, and later, he lobbed up big-spinning offbreaks; he caught most things at slip and he batted as if in a hurry, smiting the ball through and over the off side with extraordinary timing and power. He is one of only three men to have made first-class hundreds in six consecutive innings, the others being Sir Donald Bradman and CB Fry.
He partied hard, married young (to the glamorous and no-nonsense Springbok tennis player Maryna Goodwin, just four months after they met), travelled widely with bat and ball, won trophies, signed for Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, and almost never failed to honour a commitment. What a franchise cricketer he would have been!
Upon retirement he tried commentary before turning his hand to coaching, international match-refereeing, and the role of South African chief selector. He was a cricketing man in its best sense, a liver and lover of life – charming, thoughtful, kind. He had his flaws, his kryptonite if you like – a drink, a fag and a punt among them, but was never judged. I imagine the Australian allrounder Keith Miller to have been the forebear of the Procter way: few thoughts of strategic plans and due process, more of sparkling performance and the shindigs that followed.