6
Loves
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He’s no hero, he’s a serial cheat
After a self-imposed fourteen-month exile from Test cricket, Graham Thorpe achieved the century of his life against Shaun Pollock, Makhaya Ntini and co. at the Oval in 2003, after a match-eve text message from his ex-wife Nicky, clearly still angry at the breakdown of their relationship. ‘Hope the South Africans break your head,’ she wrote.
Six years earlier, Thorpe had admitted to a one-night stand during a tour of New Zealand, beginning an acrimonious breakup with his wife who at one stage went public in the Sunday Mirror in a story headed ‘HE’S NO HERO, HE’S A SERIAL CHEAT’.
When David Gower split with his long-time girlfriend and fiancée Vicki, they published a small advertisement in The Times:
David Gower and Vicki Stewart would like to put their friends and themselves out of their misery and confirm that sadly they have decided to separate as amicably as possible and go their own ways. As the matter has already been the subject of speculation by some members of the press, they hope that this brief announcement will obviate the need for further comment.
And did it? No, of course not!
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Third time lucky
Mike Hussey had great plans to ask the love-of-his-life Amy Preston to marry him in Perth on New Year’s Eve, 2000–01. ‘Why not spend New Year’s at home this year?’ he asked.
Amy thought that was an excellent idea. Better still, why not have their friends around for a fair-dinkum NYE party!
Hussey did a quiet re-think and pencilled in Australia Day night and a big fireworks display he intended to take her to …
‘But once again she invited more people to come with us!’
He’d already bought an engagement ring – ‘it was burning a hole in my pocket …’
Allan Border Medal night in Melbourne was looming, they were away from Perth – and their friends – so he took Amy for lunch at St Kilda pier … ‘and away I went,’ he said.
Amy said ‘yes’ and they had an extended honeymoon in Hawaii and America on the way through to England and for Hussey, a second season of county cricket with the Northants.
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Love at first sight
Shane Warne was on a high having made his first ever 70 for Victoria before rain caused an early finish to a Shield game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
That afternoon at a trendy South Yarra watering hole, he first saw wife-to-be Simone, blonde and leggy, playing pool with a friend.
Warne was immediately besotted and finally, after much banter back-and-forth, successfully extracted the all-important phone number from Simone, only to later inadvertently discard the cigarette packet on which he’d scribbled her number!
At that stage he didn’t even know her surname (Callahan) and it was months before they again met, by chance, at a Victorian cricket sponsors day.
Shane was as persuasive off the ground as he was compelling on it, and his lost cigarette packet story was finally accepted and they stepped out, romance soon blossoming. Warne proposed on a rowboat on a day off during the 1993 Ashes tour.
Their 1995 wedding at historic Como on the banks of the Yarra was one of Melbourne’s social events of the year.
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‘Show me what you can do, son’
Terry Jenner was on parole when he first met Shane Warne, who back then was a chubby blond with spiky hair and a cheeky grin. He had just returned from a youth tour of the West Indies where he’d been voted Australia’s most popular player.
‘I’d never heard of him,’ said T J. ‘We shook hands; he was genuine in his grip and looked me right in the eye.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ asked Warne.
‘Come down to the nets here [Adelaide No. 2] and bowl me a leg break.’
The two walked over to the nets, chatting and without any real warm-up, Warne bowled a leg break which curved half a metre and spun almost as far! It was a seemingly effortless, yet magnificent delivery.
‘%#*& me,’ said Jenner to himself. ‘What have we got here?’
‘Must have hit a stone, son,’ Jenner called to Warne, tossing the ball back down the wicket. ‘Bowl me another.’
The next one hummed, veered and ripped. ‘That’s enough for today,’ said Jenner.
It was the start of a friendship and a mentoring role for Jenner that made him the most wanted leg-spin coach in the world.
And 700-plus Test wickets later, Warne was to become the ultimate bowling legend of them all.
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Ummm … if you don’t mind me asking
Joel Garner loved Australia and Australians loved him. Lean and ever-so-long at 203 centimetres (six feet eight inches) he was always in demand among autograph hunters and never short of dancing partners when the Windies partied, which was most nights.
At one function an inquisitive young woman approached and said, ‘Mr Garner, Mr Garner, I have a question for you.’
‘Yes, ma’am, what is it?’
Looking admiringly at him from head to toe, she said, ‘Gosh, Mr Garner, you’re big … you’ve got long arms, long teeth, long neck, long hands, long feet … ummm … if you don’t mind me asking … umm … are you built in proportion?’
‘Ma’am,’ said big Joel, grinning broadly, ‘if I was in proportion, I’d be ten foot eight.’ And with that the woman fainted.
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Look out, Roo
Behind Joel Garner’s wide smile was a tigerish competitor. Bruce ‘Roo’ Yardley was on strike and big Joel hissed, ‘After I get through with you, you’ll be Inchley and not Yardley.’ Soon afterwards he broke Yardley’s toe.
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Frightening times
Mike Gatting had just been poleaxed by a Malcolm ‘Maco’ Marshall bouncer during an ODI at Sabina Park. As Allan Lamb passed his bloodied teammate, it was impossible not to notice his nose had a decided tilt to the left.
Marking guard through a trail of blood, Lamb prepared to duck as Marshall rattled in, only to stop halfway through. Strolling up to the umpire, Marshall gave him the ball and said, ‘I can’t bowl with that. There’s a piece of Gatt’s nose stuck in the seam.’
Come the Test match, Lamb started with a square slash to the point boundary against Marshall only to hear Viv Richards call from slip, ‘No more drive balls Maco. I want him to smell the leather.’
The next whizzed past a retreating Lamb.
‘C’mon Maco,’ said Viv. ‘Let’s see a serious delivery.’
Lamb turned to Richards and asked what he meant. ‘It’s one you eat, Lambie,’ said Viv.
Later in England’s innings, tailender Phil Edmonds was twice beamed by the even faster Patrick Patterson, the second thudding into his chest like a missile, Edmonds tumbling over his stumps as if he’d been shot.
Watching on was Edmonds’ wife, Frances. ‘I was totally aghast,’ she said. ‘My first thought was in which drawer at home were my husband’s insurance policies.’
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Fast on his feet
Man-about-town Bruce Francis was boundary-riding for Ian Chappell’s Australians at Trent Bridge and struck up a conversation with a set of good-looking young girls sunning themselves in deckchairs. ‘Good afternoon girls,’ he said.
Throughout the day he fielded various offers and partook in some chocolates and ice-blocks. So famously were they all getting on that he even asked one of them out for a drink that night.
In the rooms afterwards, as was custom, the two teams met for a beer, Francis finding himself sitting opposite Tony Greig.
‘What’s Donna doing tonight?’ asked Greig, looking him straight in the eye.
‘Waddaya mean Greigy?’
‘That was my wife you just invited out for a drink!’
Having been told that Donna Greig was part of a large contingent of wives and partners at the game, Francis was as always fast on his feet. ‘Well, Greigy,’ he said. ‘At least you have to admire my good taste.’
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The Bradman of Spin
Without meeting Clarrie Grimmett, ‘the Bradman of Spin’, Ashley Mallett would never have played for Australia … not as quickly anyway.
Clarrie, seventy-six, was trimming a large peppercorn tree at his Adelaide property when Mallett knocked on the door and was ushered out the back.
Grimmett was a hero to Mallett, even though he’d played his last Test match thirty years earlier.
‘I’m up here, Ashley,’ called Grimmett from around six metres up.
Down the tree he shimmied like a man half his age and asked Mallett, then twenty-two and freshly arrived from Perth to bowl him a few on his lovingly manicured backyard wicket.
Within minutes he stopped and called down the wicket, ‘Ashley … I could play you blindfolded!’
Even Mallett’s best deliveries had failed to unduly worry the veteran.
The next hour of instruction was sheer gold for Mallett, who just twelve months later was to play the first of his thirty-eight Tests for Australia.
Grimmett’s advice revolved around keeping the ball above the batsman’s eye line. Mallett’s deliveries had been so flat that even a 76-year-old had been able to play him with ease.
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Old favourites
First-time Australian tourist to the West Indies, leg-spinner John Watkins had a favourite pair of Grosby ‘Shipmates’ shoes, which he wore everywhere, even when running laps of the local ovals.
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Demolition duo
Explaining the success of the Ray Lindwall–Keith Miller partnership in the late ’40s and early ’50s, noted commentator Alan McGilvray said they were fiercely competitive and great friends. ‘They roomed together, drank together, bowled together and in the end they were one machine, committed to the destruction of whomever they happened to be playing.’
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Cricket mad? You betcha …
Richard Hutton, Sir Leonard’s son, was in Calcutta (now Kolkata) with a star-studded Commonwealth XI, the likes of which included several mega-champions, from Richie Benaud to Garry Sobers.
During the practice, the whole ground was swarming with little Indian boys trying to catch a close-up glimpse of the visiting stars.
One of the boys approached Hutton and asked his name.
‘It’s Hutton,’ he said.
‘Are you the son of [the record-breaking] Len Hutton?’
‘Yes.’
‘I love him.’
‘You love him!’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We all love him.’
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Happiest in the company of cricketers
No Australian prime minister rejoiced in the science and ambience of cricket quite like Sir Robert Menzies. He instituted the annual PM’s international, tossed the coin in the first eight matches, six of them against English sides and even adjourned parliament so members could listen to the description of the thrill-a-minute ‘sticky wicket’ Test from Brisbane in 1950.
Retired Test spinner Bill O’Reilly had been in a good paddock when cajoled out of a very happy retirement to play in the inaugural PM’s game in 1952. Menzies was so delighted at the success of his recruiting that he composed the following verse:
Who is this man with creaking bones,
This ancient offering oaths and groans
Bowling round-arms and that most vilely?
Sir, ’tis the ghost of Bill O’Reilly
Asked on another occasion by a political colleague what was the most pressing problem facing the country, Menzies replied, ‘The most pressing problem facing Australia today is how to get another wicket before lunch.’
Menzies coaxed a 54-year-old Sir Donald Bradman out of retirement to play in his 1962–63 PM’s match, sponsored a young Keith Stackpole to visit Clarrie Grimmett in Adelaide and learn the secrets of leg spinning and urged national selector Jack Ryder to pick his personal favourite Ken ‘Slasher’ Mackay – ‘You pick your Cabinet, Bob,’ he was promptly told. ‘I’ll help pick the Test team!’
When the Brits tabled the Commonwealth Prime Ministers conference in London one January, Menzies replied, ‘Aren’t any of your people aware of the Test dates?’ The meeting was changed to June, the day after the Lord’s Test, beginning a familiar pattern …
‘If I reach Valhalla,’ Menzies once said to friends, ‘I hope to find cricketers sitting on my right and left because I am happy in their company.’
VALHALLA: Robert Menzies loved cricketers and they loved him. He is pictured with both ‘his’ teams for the 1960–61 Prime Minister’s XI game at Manuka Oval, Canberra.
Standing, left to right: C R Morrison, Conrad Hunte, W M Marshall (assist-manager), Tom Dewdney, Alf Valentine, Garry Sobers, E B Alves (masseur), Cammie Smith, G E Gomez (manager), Sam Loxton, Wes Hall, Jackie Hendriks, Colin McDonald, Alan Connolly, Norman O’Neill, Richie Benaud, John Cope, Brian Booth;
sitting: Rohan Kanhai, Peter Lashley, David Evans, Joe Solomon, Gamini Goonesena, Gerry Alexander, Ray Lindwall, Robert Menzies (Prime Minister of Australia), Bill Lawry, Chester Watson, Brian James, Sonny Ramadhin, Mac Holten, Lance Gibbs
IN HIS ELEMENT: Prime Minister Robert Menzies with the MCC’s Ted Dexter and a 54-year-old Don Bradman in his last match
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Brotherly love
George Bonnor, the 1890s goliath, had a tremendous physique. So far could he throw and so mighty were his phenomenal smites he was often called ‘Apollo’ or the ‘Colonial Hercules’. At 199 centimetres (six feet six inches), however, he wasn’t as tall as his two brothers who simply referred to him as ‘Shorty’.