3
Bloopers, Gaffes, Quips & Sledges
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Proving himself
When Mark Boucher first played for South Africa, a senior player Daryll Cullinan took him aside and bluntly told him he was the worst wicketkeeper ever to play in the national side. ‘I don’t know how you got into this side,’ he said. ‘[Rival keeper] Nic Pothas is a far better cricketer than you.’
Boucher was told that he wouldn’t last the tour out and that in in two months’ time he’d be lucky to be selling used cars in East London.
It was personal abuse he used as a motivation each and every day of a fabulous international career. Over a decade later, when injury forced his premature retirement, Boucher had taken 999 dismissals, more than any other international wicketkeeper, in 467 matches across all three formats of the game. Cullinan never did apologise.
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‘And while you’re at it, call an ambulance’
Flame-haired English county journeyman Steve Kirby was so infuriated by Chris Schofield’s agricultural hitting in a one-dayer that he told the umpire he’d be going around the wicket and while he was at it, ‘call an ambulance’.
The next ball disappeared into Headingley’s West Stand for another 6 and Kirby was soon retired from the crease to spend the rest of the innings brooding the injustice of slog-fest cricket.
***
Uncompromising … but playful
Matt Prior drove one hard, straight at Ricky Ponting at silly point, the ball bouncing directly at Ponting’s head. He heard the ball crunch and watched as Ponting spat out some blood.
‘You all right, mate?’ asked Prior.
‘%#*& off.’
The next day, with the Ashes regained, the Australians came into the English rooms to congratulate the victors and enjoyed a beer or two, any onfield angst dead and buried. Ponting picked up one of Andrew Strauss’s favourite bats, examined it closely, said ‘What a piece of shit this is,’ and playfully dumped it into the ice box where all the beers had been chilling.
The English boys loved that. They’d been telling Strauss all week it was a plank.
***
Close but no cigar
The 2005 Edgbaston epic was the most gripping Test I’ve ever attended. From Andrew Flintoff’s fabulous hitting and deadly, high-pace reverse swing to Australia’s remarkable weekend revival led by the incomparable showman Shane Warne, it was a truly memorable twenty-hour Test.
In the thrilling final hour with Australia edging totally against the odds towards an incredible escape, Radio Sport National’s Andrew Kuuse, back in our Melbourne studios, kept phoning for updates. We must have done six or seven crosses.
‘Why does Andrew keep ringing so often?’ asked my wife Susan.
‘Let him,’ I said. ‘It’s bringing us luck.’
It was my fiftieth birthday and I had fifty quid on Australia to win at very long odds, so it was shaping up as quite a celebration until last-man Michael Kasprowicz was given out by Billy Bowden caught down the leg side, ending the most gripping Ashes Test of the new millennium.
With Australia just a boundary short of the greatest of all escapes, ‘Kasper’ gloved a lifter from Steve Harmison through to England’s wicketkeeper Geraint Jones, but his right hand was off the bat at the time. Technically he wasn’t out.
Now Kasper uses the dismissal as part of his sports night routine: ‘I single-handedly revived Ashes cricket,’ says the affable Queenslander, ‘though unfortunately that hand was off the bat at the time!’
After years of Ashes disappointment, the celebrations for England’s series-squaring win were wild and widespread in Birmingham and beyond and triggered renewed interest in the game nation-wide. For a while, it even took football off the back pages of the tabloids … and even in July that’s normally near-impossible.
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No, it’s not just another cricket match mate …
Just nine months later, at Johannesburg, Kasper and Brett Lee were involved in another crucial tenth-wicket stand and this time scored the final 19 to win to ensure a clean sweep of the South African series, the Australians bravely chasing down 294.
A trademark Lee slash to the point boundary secured a two-wicket win in one of Ricky Ponting’s proudest of all captaincy moments.
It also averted one helluva dressing-room rumble between close mates Ponting and the badly concussed Justin Langer, whose 100th Test match had been reduced to one ball after he was concussed by Makhaya Ntini.
With late wickets tumbling, Langer had been strapping on his pads to go in at No. 11. ‘What are you doing Alfie?’ Ponting had asked.
‘I’m going to bat.’
Ponting had been genuinely concerned for his mate’s safety and family, telling him if he took another hit on the head it could be fatal.
‘It’s only a cricket match,’ he’d said.
‘No, mate,’ Langer had answered. ‘It’s a Test match.’
‘Well, I’m captain and I’m not allowing you.’
‘If you don’t let me go out there, our friendship is over.’
Team manager Steve Bernard had even been assigned to stand at the gate to stop Langer from entering the arena had Kasprowicz or Lee been dismissed.
Thankfully the game was won without ‘J L’ – and everyone could laugh about it afterwards …
***
Greg who?
Greg Blewett was chuffed. He’d joined an elite band including Doug Walters and Bill Ponsford to make centuries in each of his first two Ashes Tests.
His roomie was Shane Warne and the pair walked into their Perth hotel room together after Blewett’s repeat ton. More than a dozen A4-sized envelopes crammed with faxes and other messages had been stashed under their door. ‘Hey Warnie,’ said Blewett, ‘everyone loves Greg Blewett tonight.’
The pair began to read a few and at the message count 15–0 Warne’s way, Blewett gave up. Only one of the messages – and there would have been almost a hundred – turned out to be for him!
MINOR CELEBRITY: Greg Blewett
***
Warne 1, Hussey 0
Victoria had just been bowled out in a Mercantile Mutual game in Perth for not many and Shane Warne was introduced into the attack early to try and change the game fortunes. Mike Hussey, twenty-one, was playing his first one-dayer for Western Australia and wanting to be positive, launched himself at an above-eye-level leggie from Warne, only to be done by drift and drop and stumped through the gate.
‘Ha, ha, seeya, idiot,’ said Warne running past him down the wicket.
***
Back in your box, Pat
The outspoken Protea Pat Symcox was doing his best to ruffle the tempers of several of the Australians. Mark Waugh was at the non-striker’s end and casually asked, ‘When was the last time you actually took a wicket?’
***
Come in, Daryll
So convinced was Shane Warne that Andrew Strauss was his ‘bunny’ that he started calling him ‘Daryll’ after South Africa’s Daryll Cullinan whom he believed he could dismiss in his sleep.
‘As much as I hated being compared to Cullinan,’ Strauss said, ‘secretly I was worried there was more than a grain of truth in his assessment.’
Warne dismissed Strauss eight times in just ten Tests.
See also: No escaping Warnie
***
Hair, hair Mike
There are few nicer men in cricket than England’s mid-’60s Ashes captain M J K ‘Mike’ Smith, well known for his trademark gold-rimmed glasses. Years after his playing days ended, Smith was managing an MCC touring team to the Caribbean when the telephone rang in his hotel room. He’d taken off his glasses and reaching for the phone, picked up the hair dryer and started speaking into it! True.
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Les Favell’s last hurrah
Much-loved Les Favell played his last game, a mid-weeker, at his beloved Adelaide Oval in late summer 1986, for Old South Australia v. Old Victoria.
Then fifty-six, Favell opened the batting with his long-time partner John Lill. He hadn’t played for years but raced into double figures in almost no time before going for his favourite pull shot and skying it to mid-on and ex-politician Don Chipp.
There was just one spectator camped on the northern embankment in front of the Moreton Bay figs. ‘You always get out like that, Favell!’ yelled the man.
LAST HURRAH: Opposing captains Les Favell (left) and Gary Cosier toss at the Adelaide Oval
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A work-out from Simmo
Mark Taylor says it was a miracle he and close buddy Mark Waugh survived their first games together in Hobart and continued to represent New South Wales – let alone each play more than a hundred Test matches.
When inducting Mark into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in Sydney in 2014, Taylor divulged the anger of coach Bob Simpson after the pair slept in and missed the 9.10 a.m. bus to Bellerive Oval mid-match during their very first appearance for NSW in the mid ’80s.
‘It was my twenty-first the night before, we were roomies and either forgot to set the alarm or chose to ignore it,’ said Taylor. ‘Everybody else had shot through to the ground and we got the phone call from “Simmo” and on arrival had an hour’s worth of Simmo’s fielding drills – the classic Simmo work-out with absolutely all the bells and whistles.
‘It was a lesson for us, for sure.’
***
Not so encouraging
It was late in the mammoth, record-breaking stand of 462 between champion South Australians Wayne Phillips and David Hookes at the Adelaide Oval. ‘C’mon boys,’ said Tasmania’s wicketkeeper Richard Soule, ‘let’s get a wicket before lunch.’
A terse Tassie captain David Boon called, ‘That’s what you said yesterday, you #*%&head.’
***
Out lbw
An ABC news announcer, unused to the vocabulary of cricket declared solemnly that a batsman had been dismissed ‘leg behind wicket’.
***
Always Frank
‘Mugs like me don’t announce their retirements,’ said straight-talking Rodney Hogg. ‘They just get dropped!’
***
Viv Richards had been most un-Vivlike with a string of small scores approaching the Boxing Day Test match in Melbourne. This time the West Indian maestro was in stellar form and was 173 not out when last man, rookie fast bowler Courtney Walsh emerged from the rooms to the cries from teammates to ‘Hold on for Viv.’
Out without scoring in two of his previous three Test innings, Walsh’s expectations were modest. He did, however, want to hang in there for Viv. But when he saw a juicy, flighted one from slow bowler Murray Bennett, he momentarily forgot his role and lofted it straight over the long-on fence. He dared not look at Viv in case of an admonishment from the master blaster. Viv sauntered down. ‘Young man …’ he said, pausing, ‘you know that’s a big hit on this ground.’
So relieved was Walsh not to be reprimanded by the great man that when Bennett tossed up another, he repeated the shot and it again soared for a maximum. ‘Hey young man,’ said Viv this time. ‘Don’t get carried away now. I still want that double.’
He got there and in fact was tenth out when he tried for his fourth 6 of the innings only to hole out to the boundary riding Greg Matthews. It was one of the few times in his career Viv had been out-hit by a No. 11. Their stand was worth 53 in even time.
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Not-so-favourite son
On returning to New Zealand after the 1983–84 World Series Cup tournament in Australia, Glenn Turner said, ‘When you come back from there you almost feel like you’ve been in Vietnam. What pleased me was that as the tour went along I got more and more boos as I went out to bat. That meant I’d been doing all right.’
***
No thanks, Greg
Packer-signee and Test captain Greg Chappell was at the Waldorf, the Australian team’s London base, when by chance in the lobby he met chairman-of-the-board Bob Parish, who’d just arrived from Melbourne.
‘Just as I was getting out of the lift he was getting in,’ said Chappell. ‘ “Hello Bob,” I said. “I wonder if we can have a chat at some stage?”
‘ “I don’t think we’ve got anything to discuss,” Parish said coldly and closed the lift behind him.’
Within months, the World Series Cricket revolution followed, cricketers and cricket administrators having come to a giant impasse …
***
Wow, he’s even thinner than me …
Pencil-thin former Victorian and Australian fast bowler Ian ‘Mad-dog’ Callen was tickled when he first saw Sikander Bakht’s frail physique. The mid-’70s Pakistani fast bowler was even thinner than himself. Callen reckoned Sikander was so thin he could hide behind a goal post and use his cricket bat cover as a sleeping bag.
***
Not much pep
‘Come on boys,’ Greg Chappell would say pre-match as the players were heading out. ‘Wish the bowlers good luck, field well and tonight will be all the more enjoyable.’
So often did he tend to repeat the same words as captain that the mischievous Rod Marsh would stand behind him, miming the Chappell address word for word.
‘And you, Rod Marsh,’ said Chappell one day, half-turning in his direction, ‘can go and jump in the lake.’
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Freewheeling
During the 1977 tour of England, two senior players asked the dashing but inconsistent Kim Hughes how he would feel about batting all day. ‘Great,’ said Hughes, ‘I’d be 550 by stumps!’
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Heart of gold
It was my first time in the hallowed press box at the Sydney Cricket Ground and arriving nice and early, I dived into one of the vacant front seats just near ‘the Prince of Scorers’ Ernie Cosgrove.
Within minutes, a tall, silver-haired figure loomed and glared straight at me.
‘Where are you from, son?’
‘Melbourne.’
‘Thadda be right.’
It was Bill O’Reilly, one of Australian cricket’s all-time legends.
Addressing Cosgrove, who was busying himself lining up all his pencils and stats books, the Tiger said, ‘How many years Ernie do yer reckon I’ve been sitting in this same seat? Thirty maybe thirty-one years?’
By now I’d flushed a beetroot red and apologising profusely for having dared take the great man’s seat, I shimmied down one, Tiger extending his hand and formally introducing himself.
For the next four or so days I sat beside him, marvelling at his stories from playing with ‘Chuck’ Fleetwood-Smith to meeting Henry Lawson. It was on-the-spot education for which I have always been grateful.
Tiger would write his stories in impeccable longhand in an old VANA exercise book and dictate his stories to a copytaker around tea each day before heading off to find a mate or two for a yarn.
He was always particularly chirpy at Test match time in Adelaide when Lindsay Hassett was on the ABC. Each morning just before noon when Lindsay’s first stint was ending, Tiger would rise from his place in the old open-air Mostyn Evans Stand and say, ‘Might go and stretch my legs.’ Downstairs into the bottom bar he’d head and have one lined up as Lindsay was just arriving. ‘Fancy seeing you here,’ Tiger would say and the two old mates would pick up on their conversation where they’d left it twelve months earlier.
In Brisbane the day Kim Hughes resigned in tears, we all finished early and Tiger took one or two of us downstairs into the Cricketer’s Club for a refresher. By the time it was his hook, the numbers had risen from three to a Baker’s dozen. Tige looked around, did a quick calculation and said, ‘Is it thirteen [beers] lads?’
The man had a heart of gold.
See also: He threw his boots away
FORMIDABLE: Bill O’Reilly
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He said it
‘These [players] are not professionals … they were all invited to play and if they don’t like the conditions there are 500 000 other cricketers who would love to take their places.’ – Alan Barnes, Australian Cricket Board secretary, 1975.
***
Seeing red
‘Deadly Derek’ Underwood rarely lost his temper. He simply seemed too imperturbable.
But this day he saw red big-time when Keith Stackpole got a big edge to an attempted cut shot and to the amazement of wicketkeeper and bowler was given not out.
It was such an obvious caught behind that only a few of the tourists had even bothered to appeal. Stackpole grinned and cashed before finally falling to a return catch to a still fired-up Underwood who shocked all and sundry around him by saying, ‘You’re out now, Stack %#*&ing #@*^ Pole.’
***
Like most bowlers, Bob Massie can quote exact specifics about his most treasured batting performances.
Bob’s headline moment at the crease came in Sydney against the 1972–73 touring Pakistanis when, in a perilous situation, he made 42 and shared an important late-order stand in what proved to be his Test farewell.
One of his Perth umpiring mates Ron Harris told Massie pre-match that if he scored 20 he’d shout him a schooner for every additional run he made.
Only two were forthcoming, however, and each time Massie sees his mate, he reminds him he’s still twenty schooners behind …
***
What was that, Rod?
On his first visit to the WACA Ground in Perth (1970–71), the much-vaunted South African Barry Richards played at and missed his first ball of the day. It flew through to West Australia’s wicketkeeper Rodney Marsh who in a deliberately loud voice said to first slipper John Inverarity, ‘Gees, I thought this bloke was supposed to be able to play a bit.’
At the end of the day’s play, with Richards 325 not out, ‘Invers’ whispered to Marsh, ‘Yep, he can play a bit.’
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‘Keith who?’
During the extended 1969–70 tour of Sri Lanka, India and South Africa, the great Keith Miller was among those to question Bill Lawry’s leadership and ongoing value to the Australian XI. Miller, as always, was straight to the point: ‘Replace him now,’ he trumpeted.
When the Australians arrived home, having been beaten 4–0 by the emerging Springboks, Lawry was asked at a press conference what he thought of Keith’s criticism.
‘Keith who?’ replied Bill.
***
Fun and games with Bill and Neil
Bill Lawry once told Neil Hawke he was the most accurate bowler he’d ever opposed. ‘You keep hitting the middle of my bat every time!’ he said.
Hawke returned the banter. ‘Bill,’ he said, ‘you were the worst captain I ever played under. Twice you sent me in to bat in the middle of a hat-trick!’
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Immovable
So heavy was England’s super chunky opener Colin Milburn that when half a dozen well-wishers from the Tavern bar invaded the field to congratulate him and hoist him into the air after his debut Test century at the home of cricket, Lord’s, they couldn’t lift him up!
One carried a full pint of Guinness and offered it to Milburn who was mighty tempted, but politely declined. ‘Anywhere else but at Lord’s I would have downed that pint,’ said Milburn. ‘I was thirsty.’
***
A fear of flying
Brian Illman’s time at the top with South Australia’s Sheffield Shield team in the ’60s was brief but his nickname of ‘Bags’ lives on. Every time he’d hop on a plane he’d throw up.
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The one and only Johnners
The BBC’s ‘clown prince’ Brian Johnston had a wonderfully whimsical broadcasting style. From talking cricket to chocolate cake, his delightful sense of fun forever bubbled. Sometimes he’d lapse into uncontrollable bouts of giggles, try to talk again and lose it completely.
He relaxed every commentary box he was in and made it fun for viewers and listeners alike with his squeaks, squirms and nonsense.
Prior to Johnners, cricket broadcasts had purely been descriptive, occasionally poetic and invariably very accurate. Johnners communicated with the listeners in a way no-one had ever done before. He told the story of the game in vivid word pictures … and then some.
At Edgbaston during an Ashes Test, he noted one of the TV cameras had scanned down and centred on Neil Harvey, positioned at leg slip, during the Headingley Test. ‘There’s Neil Harvey at leg slip,’ began Johnners, ‘with his legs wide apart waiting for a tickle.’
In 1976 at the Oval, when the West Indies were smashing England, he famously said, ‘The bowler’s Holding, the batsman’s Willey.’
A small, terribly excited dachshund ran onto the pitch at Headingley one day. ‘He’s a splendid little chap,’ Johnners said, ‘he’s wagging his tail like mad. And I can tell you he’s a fast bowler because he’s got four short legs and his balls swing both ways!’
In describing the bottom-protruding stance of Hampshire’s Henry Horton, Johnners wanted to say that he reminded him of a gent sitting on a shooting stick. He had three goes at it and didn’t get it right once!
Johnston loved it when his favourites did well, like Denis Compton at the Oval in 1956. Making his first appearance of the Ashes summer after knee surgery, Compton played with much of his old verve and motored into the 90s in a grand stand with captain Peter May. Johnners was on TV and said what a wonderful moment it would be for ‘Compo’ and how his 100 would be so well deserved. Next ball he was promptly caught by Alan Davidson in Ron Archer’s leg trap. Denis’s wife Valerie was aghast and blamed Johnners – commentary lesson No. 1: never pre-empt!
JOHNNERS: Fun-loving broadcaster Brian Johnston brought fun and frivolity into every cricket broadcasting box he frequented
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Hitting them long and hard
Frank Woolley was adjudicating for a limited-overs match at Canterbury in the ’60s. Brian Statham, one of the greatest fast bowlers, and sharp in pace, was at the top of his mark ready to bowl. Frank leaned over the balcony and remarked in amazement to his companions, ‘He hasn’t got a long-on or a long-off!’
No matter who was bowling, Frank always tried to hit them long and hard.
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Derek who?
Johnners was working on Test Match Special with Freddie Trueman, who was in a typically belligerent mood, downgrading most in the English XI, particularly one he just couldn’t stand in bowling: all-rounder Derek Pringle.
Maybe it was the Pringle earring, university background or his Porsche … maybe Freddie just didn’t think he could bat or bowl. This day Pringle came in with the scoreline 7-200-odd.
‘Here comes old Derek – good luck,’ said Johnston, ever amiable.
‘Aye,’ added Fred, ‘good cricketer Derek Pringle – not a bad lad – do your bit for the old country.’
Then with his hand over the microphone so he couldn’t be heard on national radio, he turned to colleague Jonathan ‘Aggers’ Agnew and said, ‘Who the bloody hell picked this twat?!’
***
Fun with Hawke-Eye
Freddie Trueman was also a fabulous raconteur and the life of every party he attended. We were all at Neil Hawke’s place at Westlakes one Ashes night in Adelaide and after hitting golf balls as far as possible out into the lake as the sun went down, Trueman settled himself down and told stories, almost all about himself. Afterwards you wondered how he possibly could have taken only 307 Test wickets …
Aggers was just a rookie commentator when he first shared the Test Match Special microphone with Trueman. Play had been momentarily stopped at Headingley due to bad light and some light rain and on the TV monitor behind them, a flashback to Lord’s 1963 was being shown, with three of Fred’s opening deliveries all being flayed to the ropes by the thrill-a-minute West Indian Conrad Hunte.
Fred caught Agnew’s grin and glanced back at the monitor, saw Hunte help himself to a third boundary and said, ‘Hey Jonathan lad, funny thing that, how much slower you look in black and white.’
***
Deafy by name …
At Trent Bridge during his farewell Test series in England in 1953, Australia’s wicketkeeper Don ‘Deafy’ Tallon was padded up and waiting to bat late in the day when his captain Lindsay Hassett said, ‘When you get out there, Deafy, give the light a go.’
Must to the amazement of the Australians, who were five-down for not many, Tallon sailed into the bowling, playing a series of extravagant shots like it was a Sunday social. His luck didn’t hold and he was soon back in the pavilion, where a quizzical Hassett approached him for an explanation. ‘I thought you said when you get out there, have a go!’ he said.
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Once bitten, twice shy
As a teenager, one of Don Tallon’s foremost cricket idols was the gifted and artistic Archie Jackson, whose career was tragically cut short by illness.
The young Tallon got to play against Jackson, who was struggling against a local wrist-spin bowler. Seeing his plight, Tallon whispered to Jackson that the spinner didn’t have a wrong-un. Jackson relaxed and made a big score.
Tallon never did forget his lesson and from then on, would not give a batsman the time of day, let alone any hints.
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Forty winks
It was a stiflingly hot afternoon mid-match in the 1948 Headingley Test and Alan McGilvray was broadcasting with England’s ex-Test captain Arthur Gilligan. ‘I’ll just ask Arthur what he thought of that,’ said McGilvray, not realising that Gilligan had his eyes firmly shut and was in fact taking forty winks.
Quickly surveying the players who were changing ends, Gilligan said, ‘Alan, you have described it so perfectly I really have not got anything to add.’
‘That’s very nice of you to say that,’ and the broadcast proceeded, Gilligan not daring to ever take a mini-nap in mid-over again.
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‘You can open your eyes up now son …’
But for his maverick ways, including a much-publicised run-in with Don Bradman, Cec Pepper would almost have certainly been one of Bradman’s 1948 immortals.
Having been shunned by officialdom in Australia, Pepper took his substantial frame and skillset to the Lancashire Leagues where he was king for a decade and more.
A young Frank Tyson, England’s fastest-ever bowler, opposed Pepper one day as an up-and-coming teenager at Middleton. ‘I played six balls in a row from him and missed every one of them,’ said Frank, then sixteen. ‘The umpire called, “Over,” and mightily relieved I looked up and there was Cec down at my end. “You can open your eyes up now son, I’ve finished!” ’
INTIMIDATING: Cec Pepper never retreated or apologised for his aggressive on-field persona
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One man’s trash …
Victoria was playing Queensland in a Shield game at the MCG in the early ’50s and George Thoms was talking to his opening partner Colin McDonald about an opposing paceman whom he thought was quite good.
‘Wadda you think of ’im, Col?’ he asked.
‘He couldn’t bowl over a barrel of shit.’
***
Were you there too?
Arthur Morris was in the UK on business and Don Bradman’s famous last-innings blob came up in discussion.
‘Yes, I remember it well,’ said Morris to his colleague.
‘Oh, were you there on business or pleasure?’
‘I was actually playing … I was at the other end.’
‘Oh … umm … that must have been great.’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘Oh sorry … did you make any?’
‘Matter of fact, I did.’
‘Oh … how many?
‘I made 196!’
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The young Nugget
Keith ‘Nugget’ Miller was so pint-sized at fifteen that he had to use a cut-down bat. On the prompting of one of his mates at Melbourne High, down to the Junction Oval he went for a try-out with powerful St Kilda, where his hero Bill Ponsford had played. ‘Ponny’ also lived in Elsternwick at 24 Orrong Road, and as a boy, Miller would wait outside his front fence hoping the great man would come out for a game.
Having begun bowling in one of the main nets at the Junction, he was told by one of the club’s interstate players to throw the ball to somebody else. ‘I want some proper practice,’ he called.
Miller went down to the fifth net where there were only one or two others. He didn’t come from one of the elite private schools, and wondered if that was why no-one seemed particularly interested in being friendly.
He practised again later in the week. Same story. One of the older players, a prefect at Melbourne High, told him he was wasting his time there and if he was really keen to play district cricket, why not try South Melbourne at the opposite end of the lake?
‘Talk about a different story at South,’ Miller told me years later. ‘Their coach Hughie Carroll took an immediate interest in me. I was one of the kids he’d coached on a Sunday morning at Billy Nicholls’ home nearby. Apparently he’d also seen me play in the seconds at Elsternwick and he put me in the firsts straight away. Once I’d played one first XI game I was theirs. Had I played seconds or thirds, St Kilda could have come and grabbed me as Elsternwick was not in South’s recruiting zone.’
The next time the St Kilda players saw him, he was representing South against St Kilda. He was the only player in either team with short pants, but he batted more than an hour for 12 and finished not out. Given his snubbing by St Kilda, Miller always claimed that dozen as the most satisfying of his life.
At the end of that first season, 1935–36, he was judged South’s Most Improved and awarded a trophy by supermarket magnate Archie Crofts. His highest score, 61, had come after South had lost 6-30.
At eighteen, Miller was working as a clerk for an oil company and combining Australian Rules football at Brighton Football Club with cricket. He hit his first major century for Victoria against Tasmania in Melbourne in February 1938 and over Christmas–New Year 1939–40, recorded his first century in Sheffield Shield ranks, against Clarrie Grimmett and South Australia. One of the greatest careers of all was unfolding.
***
Excommunicate that man!
So enchanted was the BBC’s Howard Marshall by Bill ‘Tiger’ O’Reilly’s hostility during one of the ’30s Tests that he adapted the tune of a well-known sea-shanty and in mid-over broke into song:
If you’re the O’Reilly
They speak of so highly
Gor’ blimey O’Reilly
You are bowling well.
It was good radio but the ‘Gor’ blimey’ failed to impress everyone. One of Marshall’s regular correspondents, always anonymous, wrote in:
My dear Slobber-chops [Marshall],
Now you’ve done it. Gor’ blimey indeed. We know that you’re not the Archbishop of Canterbury but need you descend to blasphemy? I hope they excommunicate you.
See also: Pioneers of Test Match Special
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Home truths
Bill O’Reilly was once asked if he had ever run out anyone at the bowler’s end Mankad-style? ‘No, no-one was ever that keen to get down the other end,’ he said.
TIGER BILL: Bill O’Reilly
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Well-wishing from the hill
Walter Hammond was the English batsman everyone wanted to see in the ’30s. His driving was imperious and appetite for runs inexhaustible. As they did with Bradman, fans flocked to see just him play, home and away.
In Sydney during the Bodyline summer, MCC openers Herbert Sutcliffe and Bob Wyatt shared a century stand, but one fan on the Hill remained unimpressed. He wanted to see the No. 3: Hammond. ‘Come on, Wyatt,’ he called, ‘get out. We’ve seen all your strokes. You’ve got ’em all except one – and it’ll be a bloody good job when you get that one. That’s sunstroke.’
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Too late
A raw young amateur was standing-in as captain of Leicestershire and despite numerous bowling and field changes, the opposition approaching 6 p.m. was 300-plus for the loss of only a few wickets.
Not once had the amateur approached the team’s senior professional George Geary for his opinion. In desperation he walked up to Geary just before stumps and asked who he thought should go on. ‘Put the clock on,’ said Geary, unimpressed. ‘And then we can all go ’ome!’
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Keep it up, Al!
Vic Richardson loved aggressive cricketers and was particularly enamoured by a Frank Woolley cameo at Canterbury one day. Alan Fairfax was bowling at the old legend, then forty-three, who was still striking them wonderfully well.
After watching several more being drilled to the offside palings, Fairfax asked Richardson, ‘Do you think it is all right bowling on his off stump like this?’
‘All right?’ said Richardson, ‘it’s bloody marvellous. We’re all enjoying it.’
SHOTMAKER: Frank Woolley
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Let ’em rip, Eddie
Douglas Jardine was about to face Aboriginal express Eddie Gilbert, noted for jogging in from five or six yards (4.5 to 5.5 metres) and with a withering whip of the arm, bowl at speeds of up to 145 kilometres per hour. ‘Come on Eddie,’ yelled one barracker. ‘Give it to this bastard … it was his forefathers who took all that land from your bloody forefathers!’
PACE LIKE FIRE: Eddie Gilbert bowled at withering speed from just five or six paces
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Mighty Mitta
Federation-era St Kilda and Victorian right-hander Jimmy Ainslie was known to all and sundry as ‘Mitta’. He spoke with a lisp and was unable to pronounce the ‘s’ in ‘mister’.
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Cricket’s Greta Garbo
Among the game’s finest, few were ever interviewed less often than the reclusive Jack Gregory, who carried a deep mistrust of the media to his grave.
A Sydney journalist cornered him outside the SCG dressing-rooms and asked why Charlie Kelleway had been dropped from Australia’s 1926 Ashes touring team.
‘Blowed if I know,’ said Gregory.
The headlines the next day read: ‘Gregory cannot understand why Kelleway was dropped’!
Pivotal in Australia’s run of eight successive Ashes wins in 1920 and 1921, Gregory backed intimidating express bowling with cavalier big hitting, at Johannesburg in 1921–22 scoring the fastest Test century by an Australian in just seventy minutes – without even bothering with batting gloves. He was also an outstanding slip fielder with lightning reflexes. No-one stood closer to the wicket, especially to the spinners. Some of his catches from the slow bowling of Arthur Mailey were truly miraculous.
Succumbing to a knee injury in the opening international of 1928 at Brisbane’s Exhibition Ground, Gregory limped off the ground and calmly told his teammates, ‘I’m finished boys.’
The only ‘interview’ the electrifying all-rounder did give years later was with cricket writer and collector David Frith in 1972. He visited Gregory at his house at Narooma, on the NSW south-coast where the Test giant lived alone, fishing, playing bowls and occasionally watching the cricket on television.
‘He was not discernibly pleased to see me,’ said Frith. ‘He had stolidly resisted interviews for half a century and my diffident announcement through the flyscreen door that I had driven 200 miles down from Sydney expressly to see him left him quite unmoved.’
Frith had some books for Gregory, hoping he’d sign them. ‘You’d better come in,’ Gregory said at last and Frith had half an hour to remember with one of Australia’s finest. Not daring to take notes, he drove to the nearest beach and recreated the conversation in longhand and sent it to The Observer in London and onto the English Cricketer.
Frith referred to Gregory as Garbo-like – ‘the most elusive and evasive of cricket’s illustrious living’. Reprinting their conversation hadn’t caused any harm. In fact it had been good for the game, given Gregory’s near-fifty-year silence.
Had Frith stopped for petrol as he’d originally planned, he would have missed the elusive all-rounder as Gregory had just been on his way out …
CHARLIE: From the 1928–29 Wills Cricket Season set of cigarette cards