Derek William Randall (born 24 February 1951) is an English former cricketer, who played first-class cricket for Nottinghamshire, and Tests and ODIs for England in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Known to cricketing colleagues and fans as "Arkle" after the racehorse, but always "Rags" to himself, he was one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1980. The cricket writer Colin Bateman said, "The Retford imp was, and still is, one of the most fondly admired figures in the game... the rolling gait and big sad eyes make him Chaplinesque – and like all clowns, there is pathos behind the public image... At times, genius sat on Randall's shoulders – the only trouble was it would not stop fidgeting". Randall played 47 Tests and 49 One Day International matches for England as a right-handed batsman before retiring to become a coach and cricket writer. First-class career Randall first came to note as a cover fielder, as one-day cricket forced fielding standards to improve. His run out of Gordon Greenidge in the 1979 Cricket World Cup final highlighted this, and his partnership with David Gower was a feature of the successful England team of the immediate era after Kerry Packer had announced the onset of World Series Cricket. Known for his eccentric movement at the crease, Randall was a determined batsman, specialising in hooks, pulls, cuts and cover drives, the former being used most memorably against Dennis Lillee in the Centenary Test in Melbourne in 1977 when he made 174, the highest Test score by any Nottinghamshire batsman playing for England in the history of Test cricket (a record Randall held until Tim Robinson made an innings one run higher at Headingley against Australia in 1985). After learning his cricket at Retford Cricket Club, Randall made his Nottinghamshire second XI debut in 1969, and his first-class debut against Essex at the end of May 1972, scoring 78 from number eight in the batting order, joint top-scoring with captain Brian Bolus, with the next highest score being Garry Sobers' 32. He won plaudits for his talent in the covers, won his Nottinghamshire cap in 1973 and went on to score 28,456 runs in all first-class cricket. Randall batted for the successful Nottinghamshire team of the 1980s, twice winning the County Championship in 1981 and 1987. With his team needing eighteen to win from the final over of the 1985 NatWest