Ray spoke to me from his Yorkshire home to answer your questions about cricket, his life and opinions and to thank Corridor readers on his election to The Yorkshire Cricket Hall of Fame – I began with that.

The readers of The Corridor of Uncertainty website have elected you as the fourth person to enter the Yorkshire Cricket Hall of Fame. Have you anything to say to the people who voted for you?

I’m obviously very proud of that, because the most important thing in my life was when I received my Yorkshire cap back in ’55. As we always said - Fred, myself, Close and people like that - getting your Yorkshire cap probably meant more to you at that time than getting your England cap. So therefore getting voted for like that is very important to me and I feel very, very privileged.

Over the years, many of Yorkshire's very best players have ended up playing for somebody else towards the end of their careers - Wardle, Trueman, Close, Sidebottom, Gough, Silverwood, Lumb, and now probably McGrath as well as yourself. Why do you think that is? Is there a reason for that?

I think there is, very much so, particularly in our day we always said that we won the Championship in spite of the Committee and not with the help of them. I think that the Yorkshire Committee were very badly run for a very long time. The reason I left was because we didn’t even have contracts and when you get into your thirties to have no security whatsoever… I mean they say we’ll tell you in August if we want you – a gentleman’s agreement – yeah, a gentleman’s agreement one way.

In later years I think there have been problems but not anywhere near the problems that we had through the forties, fifties and into the sixties. Now they get very good contracts and things like that. I just think its dissatisfaction with things that are happening around them from a cricket point of view. I don’t think there’s much to argue about off the field now. They get their sponsored cars and life’s much more comfortable than it was in the forties, fifties and sixties.

What’s your view on the current situation at YCCC?

Well they’ve got themselves now into a real mess unfortunately. I thought at the time that Adams coming wouldn’t be a bad idea, but he’s really let them down and left them – well I don’t know where they’re going to go now because they’ve more or less said that Dave Byas wasn’t the man to do the job and moved him sideways. So can you put Dave Byas back in charge or do you go looking for somebody else?

I’ve spoken to Stewart Regan this morning and he’s said that David Byas is not an option. He’s basically been offered the other job and they’re waiting for his answer on that.

I think that’s fair. If they felt he wasn’t good enough when Adams was coming and wasn’t the right man then to go back would be a mistake.

If you were in charge at Yorkshire now who would you appoint as captain?

(laughs) It’s difficult from the staff they’ve got. Possibly the man they’re trying to get to do it is McGrath but he doesn’t seem to be happy taking the job. I’m not inside enough to know exactly what’s happening, but they haven’t really got a lot of options at the moment. A lot of people thought at one time that Richard Dawson would be a good captain, but he hasn’t proved good enough to hold his place consistently and he’s left now. At the moment without bringing in another overseas player, which would be difficult to give him the captaincy as he doesn’t know the players and the tradition there is at Yorkshire. They’re really in a bit of a situation both financially and player-wise at the moment. I really don’t know where they’re going to go. Someone’s got to pull a rabbit out of the hat to may be do a job for a year or two.

As a Spinner himself, what do you make of the emergence of Adil Rashid and Mark Lawson?

Mark Lawson I’ve known for a long time. He went through our juniors at Farsley and was getting into the first team for a year or so and then unfortunately Dave Byas said they couldn’t play in the Bradford League and made them move into the Yorkshire League. I felt very upset about that seeing as they’d come through our juniors from fourteen years of age. I felt that was another bad mistake that Yorkshire made, which was Dave Byas’ decision.

They’re both very good cricketers. Lawson should have played a bit more than he has done. They’re both outstanding prospects and Rashid can bat. By playing them both towards the end of the season they won them a couple of matches.

They pretty much saved Yorkshire from relegation.

Yeah. I’m not saying that they should both play together at the start of the season in April and May when there’s a lot of damp about and the seam bowlers are having a field day, but I think there’s always a place for one of them. On the covered pitches they play on at the start of the season you do need to have something different. The ball skids on a bit and if they don’t read them properly you can still get wickets. People think spinners can only get wickets on an absolutely turning pitch and that’s not true. There are many ways you can get them, with an arm ball and things like that. If the spinners a good bowler he’ll always get wickets. He won’t get 6-20 but he might come out with 2 for 30 or 40 in about twenty overs if he’s a good bowler and they could be two vital wickets. What people forget is that some batsmen don’t play spin well whatever the conditions are and you can work on that, but if you’ve got no spinners in the side you can’t.

As a former England Ashes winning captain, spinner and manager, would you have played Ashley Giles or Monty Panesar this winter?

I would have always have played Panesar without any doubt as I’ve always believed he’s a fine bowler. I’ve always believe that if you lose control in the field you don’t win the game. That’s where you win the game in the field. I know you need runs on the board but if you bowl really well and control things in the field you bowl people out for 300 or something like that and you’re always in with a shout. If a side can go on and make 500 odd you are never going to win the game, or very rarely, unless you bat like England did in the last match.

Getting runs on the board isn’t the bowlers’ job is it really?

No. I think Duncan Fletcher is giving the wrong impression to the batsmen because what he is basically saying is you seven aren’t good enough to make runs so we need someone at number 8. I always used to say to the batsmen you seven can bat, you are picked for your batting, now go on and bat! The other four are bowlers who are supposed to win us the match by taking 20 wickets.

What do you think of Duncan Fletcher in the England coaching role? Is his time up?

It’s difficult to say. I think he’s done a reasonable job. They say he’s improved batsmen playing spin, but I’m not so sure about that. All he’s done is got everyone sweeping and how many wickets have we lost by batsmen playing the sweep shot? I think he came in at a reasonable time when he had four or five goodish quick bowlers. If he’d gone back to the middle nineties when we’d nobody then it doesn’t matter how good a coach you are if you haven’t got four or five quick bowlers in test cricket.

And the improvement against spin didn’t really show up on the fifth day in the second test match.

No it didn’t. I think Panesar would have bowled well on that particular pitch at Adelaide. It was turning off the normal part of the pitch and I think he would have certainly caused some problems.

Who was the best bowler he ever faced and who was the most difficult batsman to get out?

They are difficult ones. You go back to the fifties and sixties there were so many great batsmen. You can pick the 3 W’s from the West Indies to start with, and that wasn’t so bad just to start with. Bill Lawry always took a lot of getting out – he was a stubborn bloke. There were so many batsmen of a certain type and standard that you couldn’t say one was harder than anybody else. You could probably pick twenty batsmen so it’s a difficult one.

Did you have a bunny – a decent batsman who you always fancied your chances against?

I think the bloke that always used to be my bunny was Alvin Kallicharran. He wasn’t a bad player but I used to get him out nearly every time I bowled at him. Sometimes it works like that. I used to get out to Sony Ramadhin the same way – he’d either bowl a really good ball or something would happen and the ball would bounce of a length. You have people like that both for and against.

Do you think that today’s young players have the same pride in representing the County that was so obviously there when you and your contemporaries started out?

I can answer that in two letters – N O. It doesn’t mean the same to them these days I’m sure of that. I think they are proud to play for Yorkshire, but I think at the end of the day it comes down to LSD (pounds shillings and pence) to be quite honest and I don’t think they would care who they were playing for as long as they were getting that. We played through the sixties when we knew damn well that there were two or three players in every county side who were earning quite a lot more than we were. Nowadays they’d just leave.

And after what you said earlier about your Yorkshire cap meaning more to you than an England cap, that’s the reverse now isn’t it?

Without a doubt, that’s all they’re interested in because all the kudos that goes with it and the financial rewards, you can’t even begin to compare it now.

Which match of your career-player and coach-do you look back on with the fondest memories?

I think that’s got to be winning the Ashes in Sydney. I had a lot of great matches for Yorkshire, when we won the Championship for the first time in 1959 and things like that, but winning in Sydney in the 1970/1 Ashes, a six month tour with five matches in the last six weeks because of the extra test. People don’t realise how hard in January and February it is to win out there – they’re just realising that now.

You say that you were out there for six months – it’s a bit different now – do you think the current team have had enough time to prepare?

I just think they got it completely wrong. There were only two players in the team that had played in Australia before and let them go out there and play hardly any cricket at all. You need at least four state games before you start playing the tests because you’ve got to get battle hardened. We didn’t come back from India as early as we could have done, we came dashing home again and then the wives were all going out a week or so later. I mean if you can’t miss a week it’s a poor do. When you see the Flintoff’s and Vaughan’s by their million pound houses in Barbados and a million pound home in Yorkshire if they aren’t prepared to sacrifice a little bit then it’s a shame.

Because your career doesn’t last forever does it?

No it doesn’t. I mean you are talking about ten years at the very top maximum probably. Out of that their wives and families are all paid for to go out now and that didn’t happen when I was playing. We couldn’t afford it and had to pay for our own wives to get out there.

What was it like getting out of bed after going back to top flight cricket at the age of 50?

It wasn’t a problem because I always kept myself fit. I played my last season at Leicester when I was forty-six and went back to Yorkshire as manager. I did the pre-season training (more or less) with the boys, and kept having a little bowl and bat in the nets so I was pretty fit. My first game back, if I remember, was a one day match against Derbyshire. We were having such a tough time with numbers that I came back and got 3-20 odd in my eight overs, all three internationals – Barry Wood, John Hampshire and John Wright and that was my first bowl in a match coming back.

Devon Malcolm-still any animosity there?

Not so much animosity. I just regret that he didn’t carry out the promises that he’d made to us. What people forget is that when we played our last match at The Oval I called him in and me and Peter Lever were not happy with his follow through. He wasn’t following through straight, he was falling away. It was about educating him. When he got things right he bowled superbly. We said look are you prepared to work with Peter before we get out there, and when we get out there in the month before the tests on your action. If it doesn’t work out we won’t force you to do anything you think is completely wrong. If you have tried it out with Peter in the nets and it’s worked I can tell you now that you’ll be going to South Africa – this was before the side was picked. He promised everything. When we got to South Africa I’m sorry to say he didn’t do anything he’d promised and it was really sad. All you need to do is ask him how many matches he played once I’d finished as manager.

What caused the falling out with Geoff Boycott and have you made up?

Yeah we’ve made that up. I think possibly over Boycs career I got on with Boycs better than anybody. Yeah we fell out, but I think we both appreciated each other and I spoke to him more than anyone else when I was first captain. Sometimes before I’d asked the question he’d given me the answer that’s how much on the same wavelength we were. It was just a personal thing, Geoff got selfish with his own game too much and that was my reason for falling out with him. The biggest problem was he had such a cult following at Yorkshire, They were the people that caused the real break up because without them I would have disciplined Boycs and we would have got on with it and been alright. He would have realised what he had to do and what I had to do as the manager and that would have been fine and I don’t think there would have been any problem. Because of these two thousand members that were prepared to hold demonstrations all the time there was all the trouble. It split the county and the team down the middle.

Hard to pin down off the top of your head but could you name an all-time great Yorkshire XI?

Len Hutton was the best I ever played as a batsman and Fred Trueman was the best fast bowler I ever saw. I’ll have to pick people I’ve played with and seen from my era. The best left armer is Johnny Wardle and Boycott would get into the side as well. Closey would come into the side, probably Bob Appleyard. I don’t know who I’d have as the other opening bowler, that would be a hard one. I’d probably pick, as I did see him a little bit, Bill Bowes. On the batting side, and I did see him play quite a bit, Maurice Leyland would probably get in as one.  How many is that?

That’s eight, you need three more. Would you put yourself in?

I think I would to be quite honest, in my time certainly. I got over 25,000 runs and took over 2,000 wickets and only nine people have ever done that in the history of the game, so I think I’d warrant a place in the side anyway. I’d have to go for a wicket keeper obviously – that would be Jimmy Binks. So we need one more and I think we need another batsman – it’s a difficult one is that as we’ve had some good batsmen – I’m going to go for Frank Lowson. Although I didn’t play along side him I think he was a very good player. A lot of the times people said they couldn’t tell the difference between Len Hutton and Frank when they were batting together. If I had more time it might be different and I’m just talking about people I’ve seen play.

1.      Len Hutton

2.      Geoffrey Boycott

3.      Maurice Leyland

4.      Brian Close

5.      Frank Lowson

6.      Ray Illingworth

7.      Johnny Wardle

8.      Fred Trueman

9.      Jimmy Binks

10.  Bill Bowes

11.  Bob Appleyard

Would any of the recent Yorkshire players be anywhere near selection – like Gough and Lehmann?

(Laughs) I don’t pick oversees players. Yes, if Lehmann was a Yorkshireman he would have got in, of course he would. If I’m picking a Yorkshire side I want Yorkshiremen. Goughie could come in to it.

Do you still drink in The Fleece?

Occasionally, but I tend to go in the cricket club.

Okay Ray that’s the lot. Thank you!

It was a tremendous pleasure to interview Ray. Not often I have a conversation with a cricketing legend before lunch. Many thanks to Ray for his time.