[4] He left school at the age of 14 and started playing for Farsley Cricket Club main XI shortly after the end of World War II in 1945.

[citation needed] The Yorkshireman was 'tough, combative, grudging, shrewd, and an instinctive reader of the game',[7]: 194–195  and an experienced, no-nonsense captain who expected his team to play like professionals.

He was originally chosen over his rivals like Brian Close as he was not a threat to Cowdrey's long-term captaincy due to his age and inability to establish a regular spot in the Test team.

Under Illingworth, England defeated the West Indies 2–0 in 1969, held a powerful Rest of the World side to 1-4 in 1970, won the Ashes in Australia in 1970–71, defeated Pakistan in 1971, somewhat surprisingly lost to India in 1971 but then regrouped and held on to the Ashes in a tight series in 1972 before eventually losing a series to a strong West Indies team in 1973.

The seasoned pros of England in Boycott, Edrich, D'Oliveira, Illingworth himself, Underwood and Snow faced the upcoming young Australians (Ian and Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee, Rod Marsh, Doug Walters) who would dominate for the middle part of the decade.

The series was drawn 2–2 but included tight games at Headingley and particularly the Oval, where the match lasted almost six days with Australia chasing 242 with only 5 wickets in hand.

[citation needed] In 1973 Illingworth's tenure as captain of England ended, and it was rather a sad one in that an easy victory over a budding New Zealand team was followed by a heavy defeat by a highly efficient West Indies side.

West Indies had first use of a quick but perfectly even batting wicket and made 650 at a rapid scoring rate as England's bowling attack of Willis, Arnold, Greig, Underwood and Illingworth were humiliated by Kanhai, Sobers and Bernard Julien.

[citation needed] This record was not recognised at the time as the games against the Rest of the World XI were counted as Test matches and was subsequently equalled by Clive Lloyd's West Indies in 1981–84.

[citation needed] There was no tour in 1969–70 and no tourists in 1970 as the series with South Africa was cancelled due to the Basil d'Oliveira Affair and concerns over anti-apartheid demonstrations that had led to barbed wire at Lord's.

Rather than send an unprepared team to Australia, a Rest of the World XI was formed primarily from overseas players in the County Championship, captained by Garfield Sobers, and including the South Africans Graeme Pollock, Mike Procter, Barry Richards and Eddie Barlow.

[10]: 94–95 Unlike his predecessors, Illingworth insisted on good hotel accommodation, decent sporting facilities, better travel arrangements, higher allowances and pay, and fought hard to get them, which was greatly appreciated by the players.

[10]: 81  In the final Sydney Test Clark tried to push Illingworth back on to the field when he took the team off because of the crowd throwing beer cans after the Snow-Jenner incident.

A furious Illingworth said he would not return until the playing area had been cleared and the crowd had calmed down and objected to Clark constantly siding with the Australians against his own team.

When the team returned to England, Illingworth said that "all hell would break loose" if anyone was denied his good conduct bonus (as with Fred Trueman in the West Indies in 1953–54),[16] but this did not happen.

He revealed, in an interview with Shyam Bhatia, 30 years after the loss, that he regretted not bowling Brian Luckhurst's occasional left arm spin against the Indians on a sluggish pitch which had blunted Derek Underwood.

In 1972–73 he declined to tour India, Tony Lewis leading the team instead, and when he took back the reins in 1973 he beat New Zealand 2–0, but lost 2–0 to the West Indies and Illingworth was dropped as England captain in the middle of the final test at Lord's.

After announcing his retirement from the first-class game in 1978 he returned to Headingley to manage the Yorkshire team, despite his testy relationship with Geoff Boycott.

[citation needed] Illingworth left Yorkshire in 1984 and carved out a successful career as a media pundit, often fiercely critical of the England Test team.

[23] Illingworth was one of ten members of Leicestershire's first County Championship winning team in 1975 to have a road in Leicester named after him by the city council.

Chris Balderstone, Peter Booth, Brian Davison, Barry Dudleston, Ken Higgs, David Humphries, Norman McVicker, John Steele and Roger Tolchard were the others.

He had insisted that he believed in assisted dying and he said that he did not want to "live the way his wife had suffered" from the disease for the past twelve months prior to her death and instead he would "leave the world peacefully".

[26] In later years Illingworth played an unnamed member of the crowd in a cricket match alongside Brian Close, in an episode of the TV drama Heartbeat called “Stumped”.