Left-arm spinner who has died aged 78 played alongside Ian Botham and Viv Richards in county’s glory days, experience he passed on to Jos Buttler and many others
Away from the bright lights and the hungry eye of television, cricket unfolds as it has always done, with a quiet welcoming handshake across the generations. Dennis Breakwell was the quintessence of that.
Breakwell died this week at the age of 78, after a 15-year career as a slow left-arm bowler at Northamptonshire and Somerset, and more than 20 years as a groundsman and coach at King’s College Taunton. There he cut the grass, watched, and became a touchstone for generations of young cricketers passing through the school, including Jos Buttler.
“I first came across him when I was playing for Somerset in the under-12s,” says Buttler, who is at home recovering from an injury that has kept him out of England’s white-ball tour to Australia. “He was doing the grounds at King’s College and the school would host county weeks throughout the summer holidays. I joined King’s a couple of years later on a cricket scholarship, and he was someone I met again when being shown around, the heartbeat of the school.
“I saw a quote of him talking to Richard Walsh about me, he said he didn’t really coach me but talked to me, which is what I remember most. We talked about cricket and all sorts of stuff, he’d bowl at me, set up a net at lunchtime and have a wicket ready – this wasn’t just for me but for everyone.
“I played golf with him, went fishing with him. He just had a love of life. I can hear him coming now, his laugh and a ‘hello son’, he had an amazing way with him. He made you feel comfortable. He had such knowledge and I loved his old stories of playing with Ian Botham and Viv Richards, he was awesome. It’s very sad he’s passed away, you wish you’d got a chance to spend more time with him.”
Breakwell spent his early years at Wantage Road, joining Northants at 16. After paying his dues in the second XI, he made his debut in 1969 and he topped the bowling averages for the club in 1970, playing alongside such memorable cricketers as Peter Willey and Colin Milburn – and was a passenger in the terrible car accident when Milburn lost his left eye. But then Northants signed Bishen Bedi and Breakwell’s opportunities were limited so he moved down to Taunton in 1973. He was a live wire, and soon moved into a flatshare with Richards and Botham.
“He had a few scrapes with Beefy in his youth,” remembers Vic Marks, who played with Breakwell for Somerset. “They enjoyed a good night out in Taunton and were big mates, and in fact he was Liam [Botham]’s godfather, and there is a lovely photo of Dennis, Viv, Ian and Cath, and Liam wrapped in swaddling clothes. He was a lovely character, effervescent, selfless, and a great fount of energy and fun in the dressing room.
“He was part of the side when we first won a trophy in the Gillette Cup Final in 1979, when everything started buzzing, with the freakish arrival of Viv and Ian. He was one of the older ones and an essential part of the team. He was exciting with the bat, he could smack it if it came off, and solid with the ball.”
Marks also remembers Breakwell hiding in the cupboard when Imran Khan was rushing in for Sussex when the team were looking for a nightwatchman. But most of all he remembers someone who would do anything to help a young cricketer.
“He worked like a Trojan at King’s College, putting on all sorts of festivals. I remember when Jos started to touch the heights, he made the effort to play a golf day with Dennis. Dennis was a very nervy cricketer, bouncing around, uptight, and I remember asking him if he managed to watch Jos when he was playing. He said, yes he did. I asked if he found that difficult. And he said, ‘I don’t watch him live!’
“He was a big favourite, part of the lovely furniture around Taunton, an adopted son. He used to field on the boundary in the days when you could graze at third man and he would swoop around and zip the ball in on top of the stumps and the River Stand would purr with pleasure. It was quite touching, when the news broke there were floods of expressions of sadness on the old players’ WhatsApp group, all saying how wonderful he was.
“He was one of those guys that touches many generations of cricketers, some good, some not quite so good, He was such a generous soul and not stuck in the good old days.”
Buttler, who must have had scores of coaches in his high-flying career, still holds a special place for Breakwell. “Mentors are crucial. When someone asks you who is the best coach you ever had, they are probably expecting a coach who you worked with for England, but your most influential coaches come from a younger age, they shape you at that time.
“I think back to Somerset and Jason Kerr at the academy and then Dennis and his great friend James. They were there at a very influential time of your life. As much as Den and I talked about cricket and scoring runs and how to play, his attitude to life and fun and how cricket could be a part of that, that is the most impressionable stuff. He was someone you warmed to being around.”
What a legacy, what a life.
Going south
Jimmy Anderson’s potential move to Surrey at the age of 44, to send down reams of red-ball overs at the Oval while the Ashes are going off elsewhere (imagine!), would make him the latest in a long line of northerners who have trooped down south to further their careers.
Jim Laker was born in Shipley, and caught the eye of Yorkshire as a boy, but after serving in the second world war was recommended to Surrey by the president of Catford CC, where he had been billeted. He played a couple of times against the Combined Services XI before he signed on the dotted line and never looked back, the engine room, alongside Tony Lock, of Surrey’s attack in those Championship-winning years. But the most famous match of his life happened back in the north, at Old Trafford in 1956, where his 19 for 90 remains the best analysis in Test history.
Jordan Clark, who took one of the most satisfying hat-tricks in the Championship – Joe Root, Kane Williamson, and Jonny Bairstow – while wearing the red rose, followed the path down to the Oval, where he was part of the Championship winning sides of 2022, 2023 and 2024. And Matthew Fisher joined Surrey from Headingley for 2025, finishing the 2026 season with Surrey’s best bowling figures of the year, a central contract and a spot on the Lions red-ball and white-ball tours against South Africa.
Darren Gough amazed the world when he decided to play for Essex for three years after his divorce, helping the club to successive one-day league titles in 2005 and 2006. He was lured back to Leeds with the offer of the captaincy.
Scott Borthwick had a mixed time when he left Chester-le-Street for the Oval after Durham were relegated in 2016, and he returned to the north-east, also as captain, in 2021; while Gary Keedy spent his final season in south London after 18 years at Lancashire. Gareth Batty moved to Surrey from Yorkshire, spending two spells at the club as a player before returning as a very successful coach. He has now left for Chennai Super Kings, leaving his successor with the job of sweet-talking the oldest swinger in town.
Stat of the week
Zimbabwe became the first team in Test cricket history to score more than 500 runs in the first and second innings of a Test with scores 504 and 523 for 5. Afghanistan, in the other completed innings of the same Test also scored 514.
Quote of the week
This whole interview process was rushed and botched. Ussie [Khawaja] was sitting next to Cameron Bancroft. Ussie was not interviewed. How is that a thorough investigation? It baffles me” – David Warner backs his childhood friend Usman Khawaja over his allegations that the entire Australian team knew about the illicit use of sandpaper on the 2018 tour of South Africa.
Memory lane
November 2001 | The match referee, Mike Denness, disciplined six Indian players during the second Test against South Africa at Port Elizabeth. That included Sachin Tendulkar, for running his nail around the seam of the ball, the captain, Sourav Ganguly, for failing to control his team, and four others for excessive appealing, including Virender Sehwag who was handed a one-match suspension for charging towards the umpire. A farcical press conference followed, effigies of Denness were burnt in Indian streets, the International Cricket Council backed Denness, but the South African board agreed with the Board of Control for Cricket in India and the two teams played out an “unofficial” third Test that was unsanctioned after Denness was replaced. The affair became highly charged, exposed “an enormous communication problem,” in the words of the ICC president-elect, Ehsan Mani, and almost wrecked England’s tour of India.
Still want more?
The sexism that cricket writers have always faced has been made worse by social media, writes Anjali Doshi.
Jack Snape on the wounds in Australian cricket that have been reopened over sandpapergate by Usman Khawaja’s book.
Amid the fallout, Khawaja denied “throwing anyone under a bus” while Mitchell Starc maintained he knew nothing of the ball-tampering plan at Cape Town in 2018.
While in England the club cricketer at the centre of the “Clicky Ponting” cheating scandal, Brian Devine, has been banned for two years and his club, Saltburn CC Second XI, relegated.
The Nottinghamshire spinner Liam Patterson-White has earned his first England call-up, with a place in the Test squad to tour South Africa. More details here.
And the ECB is forecasting losses of £50m in 2027 despite it being an Ashes summer, reports Matt Hughes.
