Selvey made his Test debut against the West Indies at Old Trafford in 1976, when he opened the bowling and took the wickets of Roy Fredericks, Viv Richards and Alvin Kallicharran for only six runs in his first 20 balls.
[4] Despite playing no international cricket after 1977, Selvey was a key part of a Middlesex attack that won the County Championship outright three times (1976, 1980 and 1982) and shared the title once (1977).
He was also in the Middlesex teams that won two Gillette Cups, in 1977[5] (when his figures were 12-4-22-2) and in 1980 in a London derby final against Surrey, when he again bowled a tight spell (12-5-17-2) to restrict the opposition.
Selvey features in Mike Brearley's The Art of Captaincy and is quoted by Brearley as lamenting his notable skills as an into-the-wind bowler by remarking that his nose seemed to get flatter every year, as he would invariably be asked to bowl into the wind whilst Wayne Daniel and Vince van der Bijl bowled downhill with the wind behind them.
He also joined BBC Radio's Test Match Special as a summariser, beginning with England's 1984 tour to India; he continued with this role until being dropped from the team in 2008.