Jill Rutter on watching cricket with Prime Ministers and others

Oborne & Heller on Cricket

Jill Rutter had many high-profile roles in British public service, including Director of Communications at the Treasury and a spell in the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit. She is now a Visiting Professor at King’s College, London and a senior Fellow at the Institute For Government (which has the uphill task of promoting better government.) She has been a regular and trenchant commentator on Brexit issues and the machinery of government (especially when this breaks down). But most important, she is a lifelong cricket lover, which is why she is the latest guest on the regular podcast by Peter Oborne and Richard Heller. Peter still being away on assignment, Roger Alton again takes the new ball in his place.
Jill talks about her early life in Birkenhead, where she developed her obsession with cricket although top-class cricket matches with Lancashire were not easy to access, being overwhelmingly concentrated on Manchester. She remembers walking with her father through fields to bucolic club matches, and occasional excursions to the festive one-day matches with the Rothman International Cavaliers, with stars such as Rohan Kanhai. She describes her feelings of isolation as a girl watching cricket matches and the lack of encouragement for her and other girls to play the game, although at school she was coached by the then England women’s wicketkeeper, Sheila Plant.

Her first Test match (England v Australia Old Trafford 1968) was a dull drawn affair. Alan Knott gave her his autograph, Geoff Boycott refused and rebuked Knott for giving his. (Her father mistook Alan Knott for a schoolboy.)

County cricket became much more accessible when her family moved south and she became a member of Surrey CCC. Apart from the Oval she went to many outgrounds, and regrets that they have fallen out of use.

Jill vividly describes the qualities that made her fall in love with cricket at an early age: the sheer beauty of great batsmen, the excitement of fast bowlers (but not when used for sheer intimidation), and the mix of players of all shapes and sizes. Above all, the constant drama and the potential for any individual player to change the course of a game, sometimes (like Jack Leach at Headingley last year) using their non-chosen and unrated skill.

She enjoys all formats – and will go to the 100 if it gets going. Lockdown has made her an addict of the IPL. She especially likes Womens T20, and all international matches with fans from the Asian diaspora, which both have a completely different atmosphere for woman and children as spectators. She calls for an end to the alcoholic culture of men at nighttime T20 matches.

Jill joined HM Treasury in 1978 and she tells how she very quickly discovered its strong cricket culture, although after Botham’s epic at Headlingly 1981 senior penny-pinchers stopped her and her colleagues from using official phones to check the Test match score. She was lucky to be posted to the private office of another Surrey CCC fan – John Major, then Chief Secretary to the Treasury. She took him to the Oval to watch Graham Hick, whom he had never seen before. She and other favoured officials were invited to watch cricket passages on his ministerial television.

She describes senior official colleagues who played for the celebrated Mandarins cricket club (colours mandarin orange and civil service grey). The most eminent was Robin Butler, who became Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service: unsurprisingly he was a very correct batsman. She formed an enduring bond with cricketlovers in the civil service and still watches matches with them, both here and in Australia. She loves the atmosphere at Australian grounds – if she is not too close to the Barmy Army. She discusses the prospects for England’s next Ashes visit.
And much more...