7
Matches
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Near fatal
As Dale Steyn’s reverse swing unhinged the Australians at Port Elizabeth in late summer 2013–14, Ryan Harris’s defensive prod saw the ball balloon high above him and the stumps.
The game had gone into extra time on the fourth night and Steyn’s prodigious in-slanting swingers were proving near unplayable, especially in deteriorating light.
The South Africans were storming to a series-squaring win and Harris was defending as though his life depended on it.
Sensing the ball may land on his stumps, Harris defended his wicket, only to edge the ball just wide of the off stump before breaking into a relieved grin.
Hoping to last into a fifth day when rain had been forecast, the Australians forfeited their last three wickets in the final eight overs, last man Nathan Lyon falling with just two balls to go.
It was so dark, South Africa’s captain Graeme Smith was unable to continue with frontman Steyn, the final over being bowled by finger spinner Dean Elgar.
South Africa’s victory squared the series at 1–1 before Australia won the decider in Cape Town.
See also: ‘You’re scared, aren’t you?’
***
Christmas comes early
We were in downtown Nottingham at an Aussie-only Test-eve party being run by the good-humoured Lancastrian David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd. Among the assembly were Australia’s selection chairman John Inverarity and three of the touring party James Faulkner, Matthew Wade and Nathan Lyon.
It seemed certain that Faulkner and Wade weren’t playing, but Lyon … surely he must be ‘in’? At his previous Test, just months early in Delhi, he’d taken nine wickets, including a ‘seven-for’.
‘Nathan,’ I said, bowling up to him after the speeches, ‘what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be resting up back at the pub.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘They haven’t picked the side yet.’
Unbeknown to all of us, rookie Ashton Agar from the Melbourne southern suburbs had been chosen from outside the original squad to play his first Test … but everyone had been instructed to keep it hush-hush, to shield the Melbourne teenager from a pre-match media storm.
It was a shock selection, totally from left field.
The following morning, as our Events Worldwide tour group walked in past the very welcoming gate attendants, there in front of the historic player’s pavilion was the unmistakable lofty frame of Glenn McGrath handing a cap to a smiling, dark-haired, very lean lad.
‘Who’s that?’ asked one of our Australian Cricket Society group members. Sure enough it was Ash Agar, who’d originally been on tour with Australia ‘A’ before tagging along with the main group … we thought just for the experience.
Among the immediate onlookers were John and Sonia Agar, Ash’s mother and father plus his two younger brothers Will and Wes who’d just flown in from Melbourne. They’d been tipped off. All had the widest grins. Christmas had come early.
Thanks to England’s seam master Jimmy Anderson, the Test soon turned pear-shaped, and when Agar emerged from the historic Trent Bridge dressing-rooms on the second morning, Australia was 9-117 in reply to England’s modest 215. After the batting nightmares of India, where the Australians were thrashed 4–0, it seemed little had changed. ‘They’ll never recover from this,’ said Michael Vaughan on the BBC’s Test Match Special.
Most nineteen-year-olds would surely have been overcome by the enormity of the occasion, but Agar played with refreshing purpose from the outset, shocking the English with the sheer quality and fluency of his stroke play. Using a favourite banged-up old bat, with the vellum reinforcing hanging off it – shades of David Hookes in the Centenary Test – Agar struck Graeme Swann for a soaring 6 over long-off and in the following over pulled Steven Finn with remarkable authority over the head of the square leg umpire. ‘I thought I was giving a Test cap out to a bowler, not a batsman,’ said guest commentator McGrath. ‘He doesn’t look like a No. 11 at all.’
Agar made 35 of the first 50-run stand with the more senior Phil Hughes, who’d come in at No. 6.
Against all odds, by lunch the pair had extended their stand to 112, only the third century stand for the last wicket at Australian Ashes level. Agar was 69 not out. And his runs had come at better than a run a ball. Surely no No. 11 had played with such assurance. If there had been a more exhilarating topsy-turvy session in recent Ashes history, I couldn’t remember it. Australia had lost five wickets, but also scored 154 at almost 5 an over to snatch the unlikeliest of leads.
The unknown Melbourne teenager dominated conversation with the lunchtime browsers in Peter Wynne-Thomas’s wonderful Trent Bridge library at the back of the members. Agar had played as well as anyone in the match but Wynne-Thomas, seventy-nine, hadn’t seen even one ball. ‘I’ve got the day off on Friday. The game still should be going then, shouldn’t it?’ he asked.
With ease and aplomb, Agar was challenging the highest-scoring No. 11s in history and as he entered the 90s, we all crossed our fingers and feet, refusing to leave our seats, hoping and praying he could reach 100. An on drive against Anderson to the press box was played with one foot raised imperiously. It was the shot-of-the-match, shades of Graham Yallop at his most artistic. Australia’s captain Michael Clarke marvelled at the freedom and nonchalance of Agar’s strokes. ‘It looked like he was having a hit with his little brothers on the beach.’
At 95 Agar equalled West Indian Tino Best as the highest-scoring Test No. 11 of all, but cruelly at 98, just two runs short of becoming the first No. 11 in Test history to reach three figures, he succumbed amidst a bouncer barrage from Stuart Broad, holing out to Graeme Swann, one of three boundary riders positioned for a top-edged pull.
Masking his disappointment with a smile, Agar shrugged his shoulders and walked off to a standing reception.
Pre-match, one of the umpires Kumar Dharmasena had asked Clarke how good a bowler Agar was. ‘He’s good,’ replied Clarke, ‘but he’s an even better batsman.’
Later that day, Agar claimed his first Test wicket, England captain Alastair Cook caught by Clarke at slip. From unknown reinforcement to star status – in just thirty-six hours … it had been a heady start. And had Australia snatched victory, it may have well been the most extraordinary debut ever in Ashes annals.
***
Moving on
Brad Hodge knew it was time to retire from first-class ranks. It was the opening match of the 2009–10 Sheffield Shield season in Adelaide, and Victoria was headed for a huge score. Peter George had just taken the second new ball and Hodge was on strike.
‘Just as he was running in,’ said Hodge, ‘I heard a little voice in the back of my head. It was “Shippy” [Victoria’s coach Greg Shipperd] telling me to get through the second new ball. Get through to stumps. Re-launch tomorrow.’
‘I knew exactly what he wanted but somehow that wasn’t my plan. To Peter George’s second ball I hit it straight back over his head for 6. I’d never done it in my career before. It just wasn’t in my make-up, but it signified that something was wrong, the commitment to knuckle down wasn’t there anymore.’
Within a month the little Victorian master was gone, to concentrate purely on Twenty20s.
***
At Durban one night Mike Hussey began to count his bruises … sixteen … seventeen … eighteen – all courtesy of the South African express Dale Steyn.
‘Steyn wanted to hit you, hurt you and get you out – preferably in that order,’ Hussey said. ‘And like the best fast bowlers he preyed on weakness.’
The floodlights were on late in the day, the wicket unpredictable and an extra half an hour called for. Somehow Hussey survived, but not before several hits and one he only just avoided that had taken off like a Super Ball. Wicketkeeper Mark Boucher, twenty-five metres back, only just stopped the ball from going for 4 with one almighty one-handed leap.
The next morning it was on again, Steyn charging in and obtaining extraordinary, intimidating lift.
Hussey had always prided himself on being professional, keeping his emotions in check and focusing on the next ball. This time, however, after another searing lifter skimmed his helmet, he blew up, shouting and screaming abuse back down the wicket at the South African.
‘Excuse me, what did you say?’ asked Steyn, before Hussey launched into a fresh tirade.
A half-smile appeared on Steyn’s face. ‘You’re scared, aren’t you?’
‘Too right I am,’ said Hussey. ‘Now get back and bowl!’
Marcus North, the non-striker, was laughing. ‘You stay down that end Huss. I’m happy down here.’
It’s the only time in twenty-five years from the juniors at Wanneroo to the Test team that Hussey ever lost his cool.
He said he felt like a dartboard and it took him years to regain his poise and confidence against the short ball. Steyn remains the most difficult, menacing and skilled fast bowler ‘Mr Cricket’ ever faced.
***
The 2006–07 Boxing Day Ashes Test remains one of Matthew Hayden’s most treasured cricketing memories. For the fifth time in six MCG Tests, he ‘tonned up’ – and so did fellow Queenslander Andrew Symonds.
Having short-arm-jabbed change bowler Paul Collingwood down the ground and twenty rows back into the members to register his first Test century, Symonds jumped with such force into the arms of non-striker Hayden that he jerked back his helmet and accidentally cut his face.
Afterwards Symonds hugged his mate again saying, ‘Do you know, I never thought this would happen.’
Symonds had averaged just 18 coming into the game and as he was walking in, with Australia 5-84 chasing 159, the provocative Kevin Pietersen derisively called him ‘a specialist fielder’.
He played a wild swipe early at England’s Saj Mahmood and took twenty-two balls to score his first run but having settled, played with the force and personality of a seasoned Test player, an lbw shout from Monty Panesar after he’d just reached 50 his only close-call.
His press conference was hilarious. He talked about giving the English bowling ‘some Larry Dooley’ (punishment) and he did again and again.
Symonds’ reign at the top was to be briefer than some, but few were greater entertainers … and I’ve seen no finer fieldsman.
***
‘You’re on your own mate’
In 1997, Natal’s captain, the free-flowing Dale Benkenstein had been eagerly anticipating for weeks the Test-eve contest with Shane Warne. No matter what, he was going to whack him, as hard and as often as possible.
Kingsmead was in tip-top condition, ideal for runs and Benkenstein struck two 6s from his first three balls. ‘Game on, Warnie,’ said wicketkeeper Ian Healy, ‘he’s coming at you.’
When the next ball disappeared first bounce over the mid-wicket fence for 4 more, Healy laughed and said, ‘All right Warnie, you’re on your own mate.’
In all, Benkenstein helped himself to 17 runs from the over, Warne returning the most un-Warnelike figures of zero for 89 from twenty balls, Benkenstein finishing with 103 from 130 balls.
***
Shutting up shop!
Clean-hitting Northants opener Mal Loye never believed in ‘shutting up shop’ and playing for a break. Lancashire’s star import Muthiah Muralidaran was operating. There couldn’t have been more than eight or ten minutes to the interval and it was decided that Loye would just see Murali out and wait until the afternoon to really go on the attack.
To Murali’s first ball of a new over Loye launched himself at a full-pitched delivery and struck it high and handsome into the members. Three more 6s followed in quick time and Loye went to lunch not out. His partner, the Australian Mike Hussey could only shake his head in wonderment. In just ten minutes when he should have been playing for time, he’d just destroyed the figures of the greatest off spinner in the history of the game.
***
Barbecued ball
Border was on its way to a comfortable nine-wicket victory against Boland at Paarl, South Africa, in 1994–95. Returning local hero Daryll Cullinan was in tip-top form and lifted Boland’s Roger Telemachus onto the grassy mounds and straight onto one of the many sizzling lunchtime braais. It took several minutes before the ball could be retrieved from the fiery coals and another ten minutes while the players waited for it to cool down. Finally Telemachus dared to hold the ball, complained that it was scarred and a replacement was called for.
***
Surprise visitor
President of Cuba, the very revolutionary Fidel Castro was in Barbados one in-season Saturday in 1994, and was passing a cricket ground where St John the Baptist was playing Police. He stopped his car, got out and asked if he could have a bat. Having faced three balls and missed them all from the Police bowler, he thanked his hosts, walked back to his car and drove off again … baseball rather than cricket being his game.
***
An old-fashioned hip-and-shoulder
Streakers have been a part of cricket since the mid-’70s. Generally juiced-up and with promises from mates to pay their fine, away they go with mixed results.
One New Zealander had his backside paddled five times by Greg Chappell at Eden Park in 1977. Terry Alderman missed eighteen months of Test cricket having dislocating his shoulder chasing and tackling a crowd member in 1982 during a Test in Perth.
Andrew Symonds downed a 26-year-old Brisbane man with a meaty hip-and-shoulder in mid-match of an ODI final against the Indians at the Gabba in 2008.
Had he been Sonny Bill Williams, the invader may have been truly buried.
In the lead-up to the ODI finals there’d been some angst between the two teams and Matt Hayden, Symonds’ mate and running partner, sauntered past India’s provocateur supreme Harbhajan Singh and said, ‘See that Harbie’ … as if he was next.
Solo, one of Symonds’ sponsors, wanted to run an ad campaign ‘SLAM IT DOWN FAST’. Most thought it hilarious, though one exception was Symonds’ girlfriend Kate, who thought Symonds could have hurt both himself and the invader.
***
Tit for tat
Matt Hayden was batting against New South Wales on a Gabba greentop in 1991. Steve Waugh from close range wanted to remind him that it was only his second first-class game and started calling him ‘Fat Boy’ and reminding him that ‘you’re not playing schoolboy cricket now’.
Hayden replied in kind. ‘I don’t care who you are,’ he said. ‘This is our home turf here, mate.’ Neither refused to back down.
Waugh had taken a healthy dislike to Queenslanders and when it was announced a special grove of twelve trees would be planted in honour of the twelve Queenslanders who won the state’s first Sheffield Shield against NSW in 1994–95, Waugh retorted, ‘We’ve got one of those too. It’s called the New South Wales State Forest.’
***
Mission accomplished
West Torrens was playing Salisbury in the Adelaide grade grand final and all week leading into the game David Hookes had been chirping Peter ‘Sounda’ Sleep about how he intended slogging him for 6 after 6 – from his very first ball.
On the first day of the final, Wayne Phillips was batting when Hookes came in … and guess who was bowling?!
West Torrens was ‘two-for’ and going nicely, but Phillips was sure Hookes, given it was a final, would play himself in before looking to hit Sleep out of the attack.
Sleep came in and sent down a regulation leggie, full and on off stump and Hookes swung as hard as he could, proceeding to only ‘toe’ it. But given he was using a ‘Hookes Hurricane’ from Gray-Nicolls, the ball still made it over the fence at square leg for a maximum.
Hookes looked back down the wicket at his mate Phillips and smirked. Mission accomplished.
***
A big wicket
It was mid-Test at Lord’s in 1989. England’s domineering No. 3 Robin Smith had just struck Terry Alderman for consecutive boundaries to move into the 90s.
Walking back to his mark, Alderman exclaimed, in a very loud voice, ‘You’re not going to get me, you mongrel.’
An over later, Alderman castled Smith for 96. It was a crucial dismissal which helped the Australians win the second Test by six wickets.
***
Lock me up
No cricket team had a better ‘record’ than the Cadell Prison XI Terry Jenner captained one day at Waikerie. ‘We had a murderer, a drug pusher, two embezzlers, a couple of bank robbers and a few blokes who’d tried to diddle social security,’ he said.
On arrival, Jenner and his motley crew hopped off the bus and a little plump kid from the opposition asked who was captain.
‘I am,’ said Jenner.
‘Have you got a scorer?’ asked the kid.
‘Yeah, Mum’s here. She’s bought the afternoon tea too …’
Jenner said he’d score and the kid said, ‘What? You! Aren’t you in for embezzlement?’
‘Mate,’ said Jenner. ‘I can add up. I just forgot to bank it.’
Cadell won the game after Jenner so slowed the final overs that the game finished in near darkness.
The little kid was far from impressed by Jenner’s gamesmanship and as members of the victorious team were being escorted back onto the bus all high-fiving and slapping each other on the back, he yelled at Jenner, ‘You’re going to be reported for your conduct, Jenner.’
‘What are you going to do?’ said T J. ‘Lock me up?’
MENTOR: Terry Jenner with his star pupil Shane Warne
IN PRISON: Terry Jenner spent time in prison on embezzlement charges after his playing days ended. Later he resurrected his life as Shane Warne’s leg-spin coach
***
Expect the unexpected
Phil Edmonds’ response to some lofty hits from the New Zealander Richard Hadlee at the Oval one afternoon was to bowl two bouncers in a row, quite a surprise given he was a gentle left-arm finger spinner.
***
Alive to tell the tale
It was the 1984–85 Victorian District cricket final between Carlton and St Kilda at the Albert Ground. Gary Cosier was on strike to Blues expressman and former teammate Rodney Hogg and casually flicked a 6 from the first ball after the luncheon break, high, wide and handsome backward of square leg.
Hogg glared and marched back, preparing to unleash a bouncer as fast as he could bowl it. Just as he was sprinting in to bowl, Cosier pulled away and called non-striker David Johnstone down the wicket to have a chat.
‘What’s going on?’
‘You know what happens now, don’t ya Johnno,’ said Cosier. ‘He’s going to bowl his short one isn’t he?’
‘Yeah mate, just get under it.’
‘No mate, I’ve gotta hook it. Gotta hook ’im. I can’t … ahh %#*& ’im … I have to hook it.’
Johnstone reminded him of the state of the game, how it was a grand final, and hadn’t the Saints been 3-37 not that long ago?
‘No, mate, gotta hook ’im,’ Cosier insisted.
Back he went to his crease and settled over his bat, only to pull away again, this time when Hogg was just on the point of the popping crease. Again he walked up the wicket to Johnstone.
‘What mate?’
‘I’m going to hook ’im, okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘But … mate,’ he said, looking Johnstone right in the eye. ‘If anything happens mate, make sure my wife gets me money and you can ’ave my cricket gear.’
Back Cosier went to the crease, with Hogg absolutely livid at the delay. Cosier faced up. Sure enough it was a bouncer straight at his eyes. Launching himself at it, he could get only his glove to the ball and up it ballooned into the slips where John Scholes took a simple catch.
As he was walking off, Cosier said, ‘Ah well, Johnno … at least I’m still alive.’
A bruised-and-battered Johnstone was to make 93 in a low-scoring final which the Saints won, just.
A few days later he ran into John Scholes, Carlton’s captain who enquired about all his welts.
‘I’ve found a remedy,’ said Johnstone.
‘Oh, what’s that?’
‘Chammm-pagne!’
***
A war zone
Opposing Rodney Hogg was like being in a war zone and invariably he bowled at his fastest against St Kilda. He reckoned they were the blue bloods, the silver-spoon brigade. One day at Dandenong, opener Andrew Lynch only just evaded a short one and found Hogg had extended his follow-through to the batting crease. ‘This prick is not only playing for his spot in the side,’ Hogg said to his slip cordon, ‘he’s playing for his %#*&ing life.’
***
Ferociously fast
Even after his shoulder reconstruction, Jeff Thomson could still bowl at a frightening rapidity. At the Basin Reserve in Wellington in 1982, Thommo twice struck Kiwi debutant, nineteen-year-old Martin Crowe on the back of the helmet.
‘It was a nightmare,’ Crowe said. ‘Thommo frightened the daylights out of me. The guy was years ahead of what I imagined Test cricket would be like. I was not seeing the ball at all. Here I was against the greats. It was a bit too much for me. It damaged my confidence for a long time.’
***
Fastest he faced
Never before had Greg Chappell been in such pain. Facing Joel Garner at the MCG in 1981–82, he was hit under the heart, badly winding him and it took four or five minutes before he could breathe properly again. ‘It felt as though it had gone right through me,’ he said. ‘It felt like the fastest ball I’d ever faced. The pitch was known back then for its variable bounce and this one just took off.’
Once, in 1974–75, Chappell was hit flush on the side of the jaw by the Englishman Peter Lever but avoided injury as somehow, instantaneously, he’d puffed up a cushion of air in his cheeks and that absorbed the blow. ‘There’d been overnight rain and the covers had leaked,’ said Chappell. ‘There were about six wet patches about the size of a fifty-cent piece on a good length. I played forward to this one and it must have hit one of those patches. It lifted sharply and the next thing I knew the ball appeared over the top of my wrist heading straight for my face. All I could do was swish my head to the side before the ball struck me. That was scary.’
***
Advantage Lloyd
Word had spread that Derek Underwood had a ‘special ball’ he’d developed to dismiss his nemesis, giant West Indian Clive Lloyd.
Lancashire was playing at Dartford and in Clive came, swinging almost from ball one. So often were Underwood’s ‘mystery’ deliveries roosted onto the rooftops of neighbouring properties that one lady rang the police and said her house was under attack. Underwood finally got his man, but not until Lloyd had made 168.
***
Rare ticker
So hard was Bruce ‘Stumpy’ Laird thumped on the hand by Joel Garner in a Test in Melbourne that he dared not remove his glove, telling his opening partner Julien Wiener he’d never get it back on again.
At twenty-nine, he had waited a mini-lifetime to wear the baggy green and wasn’t going to concede now.
Wiener, in his first Test in front of his hometown crowd, felt it quite an achievement to be able to bat until lunch on the opening day against the high pace of Roberts, Holding, Croft and Garner – the West Indies’ fearsome four.
‘But my lasting memory of that game was Stumpy’s sheer courage,’ he said. ‘He got 69 in the second innings with a broken hand. He had every excuse not to be playing yet he somehow batted for four and a half hours. Talk about ticker. Stumpy had it in spades.’
***
A summer to savour
To see arch rival Geoff Boycott’s middle stump cascading at the MCG was one of the greatest moments of all for Ashes hero Rodney Hogg. The accompanying roar which greeted the wicket could be heard for miles, my colleague Peter McFarline later writing that it all but lifted the roof of the old Southern Stand.
Hogg took ten wickets in Australia’s only win of the 1978–79 summer, but says the effort left him exhausted.
‘The lunch interval couldn’t come quick enough for me that day,’ said Hogg. ‘I’d got a couple of wickets, including Boycott and had four or five full-blooded, full-on appeals. I was that excited the adrenaline had dragged all the energy out of me. I was gone.’
In taking forty-one wickets at 12.75 in six Tests against the visiting Englishmen, Hogg was in a rare zone, which he was never able to repeat. ‘Everything fell into place that season,’ he said. ‘I’ve never bowled any better. I tried to. But I never did.’
***
No leader
At Wellington in 1977–78, Geoff Boycott was so furious at having been castled by Richard Collinge in England’s first-ever loss to New Zealand, he all but shirtfronted a young autograph hunter who had dared stand up close to the pavilion steps and ask him to sign his book.
The young boy burst into tears and England’s physiotherapist Bernard Thomas took the autograph book inside and made Boycott sign. To Boycott’s credit, he also came out later and apologised to the lad.
Boycott was simply too intense for the role of captain, a job thrust upon him after Mike Brearley broke his arm midway through the wintertime tour of Pakistan.
This day at the Basin Reserve, he was almost beside himself when England was bowled out for 64 by the two Richards, Hadlee and Collinge.
Come the next Test, a week later in Christchurch, he was again tetchy as New Zealand saved the follow-on. Bob Taylor the wicketkeeper could see heads starting to droop and he called to Boycott, ‘Come on, keep going … just one more wicket to get and we’ve still got a good lead.’
‘You %#*& off back behind the wicket and leave it to me,’ came the reply.
‘Well, do it yourself then.’
Batting a second time, England were labouring thanks to Boycott’s stern defence just when quick runs were needed to set up a declaration. ‘I’ll sort it out,’ said Ian Botham, promoted to No. 4. He deliberately ran Boycott out, the skipper returning to the rooms, putting a towel around his head and ignoring all and sundry.
When asked by Chris Old if he wanted him to go in and score some runs quickly, Boycott replied, ‘You can please yourself.’
Bob Willis was left to do the rest of the batting order, an overnight declaration followed and England won the game easily. ‘In the end, magnificent bowling won us the game, but the captain gets no credit for that from me,’ said Taylor, normally the most affable of backroom boys.
***
Retired, for good
The great Alan Davidson was representing New South Wales Past v. Present when the young express Jeff Thomson was reintroduced, taking just five balls to dismiss the much-loved ‘Davo’. Speaking at the after-match, Davidson grabbed a white towel and threw it onto the floor in front of him saying, ‘I throw in the towel, Jeff – you’re too good for me.’
***
They tossed on Thursday
The feature Perth grade game of the round was between Fremantle and Midland-Guildford, both teams stacked with internationals and internationals-to-be, Freo’s frontliners including Geoff Marsh, Kim Hughes and Graeme Wood and MG’s Bruce Yardley, Tony Mann and Mark O’Neill.
Selection was a particular headache as a Shield game the following week allowed the stars to only be available on the first Saturday.
Opposing captains Phil O’Meara (Freo) and ‘Rocket’ Mann (MG) were mates and it was decided the toss would be made on Thursday via phone, with WACA board member Geoff Churack supervising.
So mid-morning Thursday in the BMW showrooms at inner Victoria Park where he worked, O’Meara tossed, Mann called over the phone and everyone knew what they were doing come training and selection later that night.
‘Can’t remember who won that toss or who ended up playing,’ said O’Meara, ‘but it was the only phone toss I’ve ever made.’
***
A touch of the Brute Bernards
St Kilda v. Collingwood was always a big game in the ’70s, as it meant Nigel Murch v. Keith Stackpole … the tearaway, abrasive Saint with the blond hair and Bondi Beach tan versus the equally competitive just-retired international.
This day on a belter at the Junction, Murch induced an early Stackpole tickle behind and as wicketkeeper Geoff Tamblyn was delightedly throwing the ball in the air, an unconcerned Stackpole was casually re-marking his guard, wondering what all the fuss was about.
Unfortunately for the explosive Murch, who had turned purple with fury, the only other person in the immediate proximity who didn’t think Stackpole had hit it was central umpire Keith Butler.
In those days a little bit of banter between aggrieved bowler and umpire was often allowed, but this day it was all one-sided. ‘You have got to be %#*&ing kidding!’ roared Murch who was known for his volatility. ‘Keith,’ he implored the umpire, ‘he %#*&ing smashed it!’
Next ball, Stackpole thick edged through the infield. Instead of running past the bowler as was the norm, he lined Murch up mid-pitch and ran straight at him. They collided and within seconds they were wrestling with each other at the popping crease, with unbreakable headlocks which would have done Brute Bernard proud.
Butler had seen it all before and like Jack Little was tempted to give them the ‘ten count’. Instead he said, ‘Unless you stop it straight away, you’re both going on report.’
The protagonists released their holds, dusted each other off and went about their business, Stackpole making yet another sizeable score when it counted.
***
Fines all round
So distressed was the veteran 38-year-old Sam Trimble after being struck six times on a bouncy Sydney greentop that he retired hurt and was ferried to hospital short of breath with suspected broken ribs.
As was customary on touring Sundays, then cricket-free, the Queenslanders held an early evening mock ‘court’ and fined Trimble for (a) coming off early and (b) staying two hours at the hospital. Sam was too sore to laugh so just had to agree and keep dipping into his pocket.
The next day, sporting a fibreglass hip pad strapped around his sore ribs, he was struck several times again, causing Queensland team manager Ern Toovey to complain against the short-pitched attack from the NSW pair Steve Bernard and Dave Colley, saying it wasn’t cricket. He, too, was fined … for speaking out of school.
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The Eleventh Commandment
After taking a caning from Keith Stackpole in the opening Test of Australia’s 1973 Caribbean tour at Sabina Park, local fast bowler Uton Dowe was further embarrassed when a sign was erected in the outer: ‘DOWE SHALL NOT BOWL SHORT AT STACKPOLE’.
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Henry, it is too wide
Henry Gunstone, ‘the Bush Bradman’ was most indignant. Having led by 80-odd on the first innings, his beloved St Andrews had collapsed to 5-18 in its second innings of the 1972–73 Grampians Grand Final and was suddenly in danger of an outright reversal.
Earlier in the innings, the umpires had banned one of the club bats from the St Andrews’ kit, saying the reinforcing around its middle was like sandpaper and was damaging the High School XI’s ball.
Out marched Gunstone. ‘You can’t ban a bat unless it’s too wide,’ he said.
The umpires duly measured the bat and what do you know, the bat was too wide!
High School won the flag in a thriller, thanks to an 80-run sixth-wicket stand. It was the first and most memorable of five bush premierships for the High School XI’s captain David Daws.
***
Why isn’t he running, Dad?
Colourful cricket writer ‘Sugar’ Ray Robinson rated Garry Sobers’ masterly 254 for the Rest of the World against Australia in Melbourne in 1971–72 as equal to any double-century scored against an Australian attack, including Graeme Pollock’s superlative 274 in the Durban Test of 1970. Sobers struck thirty-three 4s, one of which rebounded back almost to the head of Dennis Lillee’s run-up, while Lillee was only just completing his follow-through.
One young spectator remained lukewarm, however, about Sobers’ stand-and-deliver boundary hitting. Often Sobers would play his shot and just stay where he was, rather than running. ‘It was rather boring really,’ said the nine-year-old, totally unimpressed.
***
A wicket of a lifetime
It was Terry Jenner’s most satisfying dismissal: Ian Redpath, c. G Chappell, b. Jenner, 17, Melbourne, November 1970.
‘T J’ had developed a defensive slider to keep opposing batsmen on the back foot and bowled three in a row to Redpath before unleashing a slower, wider, traditional leg break, which Redpath scooped straight to short cover.
Jenner took eight wickets for the game and days later was chosen to make his Test debut against Ray Illingworth’s touring MCC.
***
Thanks Lockie
First-time MCC tourist Brian Luckhurst was on 96 and facing the left-arm spinners of ex-Englishman Tony Lock, who was captaining Western Australia.
‘Lockie,’ said Luckhurst, ‘One more 4 and I’m all yours.’
Lock obliged with a full toss which was pulled to the boundary for his maiden ton Down Under. Two balls later, Luckhurst duly got himself out, safe in the knowledge that a Test spot was almost certainly his.
***
The best knock ever
Paul Sheahan had never before or since seen superlative cover driving to rival South African Graeme Pollock at Durban in 1970. Pollock made 274, ‘the best innings in any game in which I played,’ said Sheahan.
Sheahan was one of four men patrolling the covers to Australia’s No. 1 fast bowler Graham McKenzie. ‘We were only ten to twelve yards apart, yet Pollock still smashed them past us, the ball often rebounding yards off the boundary fence.’
Sheahan said Pollock walked out after Barry Richards’ spectacular morning solo with an air of arrogance which suggested, ‘You’ve seen the pupil, now watch the master.’
Pre-tour Bill Lawry had declared Ian Chappell the finest batsman in the world. South Africa won the four Tests 4–0. Chappell averaged 11 and Pollock 74.
Sadly, it was to be the last Tests Apartheid-driven South Africa contested for more than twenty years. The greatest team since Don Bradman’s Invincibles had no-one to play against.
***
Mosman–Middle Harbour was playing at Bankstown in a late-season grade game in Sydney in 1968–69. It was a beautiful batting wicket and Ian Craig, then thirty-three, kept wondering why he was constantly nicking the ball down to third man.
‘It was high pace from both ends,’ he said. ‘I’d never heard of these two boys Jeff Thomson and Len Durtanovich. They were only eighteen or nineteen but they were very, very quick. They were hitting the bat far earlier than I was anticipating.
‘Jeff, of course, became even faster, the fastest bowler I’ve seen,’ he said. ‘And Len Durtanovich became Lenny Pascoe and played quite a few Tests too.’
In what proved to be his final innings in grade cricket, Craig made 54. Thomson finished with four for 55 and Durtanovich one for 50.
Craig rated Thomson’s blitzing pace that Saturday afternoon as right up there with Wes Hall, Frank Tyson and the New Zealander Gary Bartlett, the three fastest bowlers he’d ever opposed.
‘Wes was the very fastest I faced,’ he said. ‘I played against Frank Tyson briefly but he was not at his prime. Probably the fastest spell of all came in the [first unofficial] test at the Basin Reserve in Wellington [in 1960]. The wind was howling down the ground and their express bowler Gary Bartlett was bowling with it. I couldn’t even see the wicketkeeper [Eric Petrie], he was that far back. He was very, very fast that day and on a wicket which was very green. I was a bit reluctant to stay that day.’
***
Grandstand finish
Twenty20 cricket it wasn’t, but it was still a remarkable chase by Victoria to run down a target of 235 in less than two hours against Queensland in a thrilling Gabba finish. The Victorians made the runs with three minutes and four wickets to spare thanks to Bob Cowper who scored 88 not out in an hour to help convince selectors of his worth to tour England with Bobby Simpson’s 1964 Australians. A willing ally was the hard-hitting Keith Stackpole who made 46 in half an hour.
In just five and a half hours, 440 runs were scored. The Melbourne Sun News-Pictorial headlined their match report: ‘VICTORIAN BATS DO THE IMPOSSIBLE’.
STROKEMAKER: Bob Cowper
***
Loving it
Teenage South Australian Ian Chappell celebrated Christmas 1962 with his maiden Sheffield Shield century against New South Wales.
The two captains, SA’s Barry Jarman and NSW’s Richie Benaud were chatting about the game and the identity of the bright new batting star.
‘Who? Young Chappell?’ Jarman replied. ‘Why … did he say something to you out there?’
‘No, he didn’t have anything to say,’ Benaud said. ‘He just had a big grin all over his face every time he faced a ball from me. It was driving me up the wall.’
***
Ted Dexter was at his imperious best, peppering the outer crowd with giant 6-hits on his way to a century before lunch against an Australian XI in Melbourne. Wrist spinner Johnny Martin had just been hit out of the attack, his first three overs going for 39. The carnage continued with the introduction of Tom Veivers, an off-spinning all-rounder from Beenleigh, Queensland. After two dot balls, attempted off-breaks which speared straight through, Dexter confronted the next two and calmly bunted them into the Southern Stand. ‘One was so big it almost hit the top tier roof,’ said Veivers. ‘It was huge.’
‘My first over went for 14 and Johnny trotted up to me and said, “I don’t feel as bad now mate.” ’
Veivers went for almost 150 runs without taking a wicket and was effectively knocked out of Test contention for twelve months.
Originally a batsman who bowled only in the nets, Veivers had been enlisted into Queensland’s attack as a substitute for an injured Ray Lindwall, when stand-in captain Ken Mackay had looked around for someone to bowl. ‘Tommy, you can’t do worse than the rest of us. Have a go.’
Veivers had taken two wickets and bowled such a tight line that he had been encouraged to concentrate on his bowling.
***
Lord’s hero
Blond fast bowler Frank Misson wasn’t your typical No. 11. He’d opened for Sydney District at senior grade level and had two half-centuries to his credit and a near 20-average in the first-class arena.
In a low-scoring, ultra-tight Test at Lord’s in 1961, Misson’s unbeaten Test-best 25 allowed 49 invaluable runs to be added at the tail-end of Australia’s first innings. He also took four key wickets, three in England’s top-order.
Eventually set 71 to win on an increasingly difficult wicket, Australia limped to the line, losing five wickets including the first four for just 19.
Of the crucial tenth-wicket stand with Ken Mackay, Misson said, ‘We put on a few. They had Freddie Trueman and Brian Statham as their fast bowlers. Back then there was an unwritten code that fast bowlers don’t bounce other fast bowlers so I was able to get onto the front foot a bit.’
England conceded singles to his partner Mackay to get Misson on strike but he batted beautifully and was rarely troubled.
This was the famous ‘Battle of the Ridge’ Test in which opener Bill Lawry made 130 under the one-time captaincy of Neil Harvey, who later rated it as one of the bravest and most valuable innings he’d ever seen.
***
Swingin’ it in the tropics
Alongside his majestic double-century in the Christmas ‘Test’ against New South Wales in the mid-’60s, Jack Potter delights in remembering his one-and-only ‘four-for’ in Sheffield Shield cricket in tropical Brisbane in the early ’60s.
‘It was about 4.30 p.m. on a hot opening afternoon in Brisbane and “the Phantom” [Bill Lawry] decided to take the second newie to try and finish the Queensland innings off as the spinners were getting nowhere.
‘In his second or third over, Ian Meckiff broke down. Colin Guest was at the other end and “Phant” had no-one else to bowl mediums. It was about 5 p.m. by now and Bill came up to me and said, “You know that shit you bowl in the nets? Those little innies and outies? Just tie down an end and we’ll finish ’em off in the morning. We don’t want to bat tonight against Wes [Queensland’s high-profile import, West Indian express Wes Hall].”
‘Lesson No. 1: Never give a part-time or non-bowler a new ball in heavy atmospheric conditions and ask him just to tie an end down. The bloody thing was swinging everywhere and I got four wickets in four overs and we bowled ’em out with twelve minutes left to play. It meant Bill and Dave Anderson from my club Fitzroy going out to face one over from Wes and you don’t want to know: Lawry, c. Burge, b. Hall, 0, right on stumps!
‘I was Bill’s vice-captain but I reckon it took about a month for him to talk to me because I’d got them out and he’d made a duck. We just ignored each other even when we batted together. It wasn’t my fault he gave me the new nut!’
***
A one-off
Dr Ian McDonald, Colin’s older brother and the Australian team’s medical officer on the 1959–60 trip to India and Pakistan was a fine wicketkeeper in his own right – without quite being Test class. He was even selected for an Australian XI in 1952–53 against Jack Cheetham’s Springboks. Had he been more prolific with the bat, he would certainly have had an even more distinguished first-class career.
He’s particularly proud to have played alongside his brother in Don Bradman’s last Sheffield Shield match in Australia in 1948–49, Bradman scoring 30 and Dr Ian 32! The Don batted only once in the game, having twisted his ankle in the field – Dr Ian treated him.
***
It was Aussie icon George Tribe’s farewell to Lord’s in 1959. Northants were playing Middlesex and had lost 5-10 late in their first innings when Tribe, in at No. 6 but marooned in single figures, was joined by Northants’ last man Michael Dilley.
‘Just get forward, play straight and we’ll see how far we can go,’ said George.
Dilley carried out his instructions beautifully, allowing Tribe to hit boundaries and farm the strike.
‘I knew it was my last match at Lord’s and I wanted to finish with a bang,’ said Tribe.
‘I wanted to hit a 6 and break the pavilion window in the Long Room. Freddie Titmus was bowling and I smashed it towards the pavilion, up and over the fence … only to land short.
‘I’d hit the 6 I wanted but I was disappointed as I’d failed in my attempt to create history!’
The last pair added 75, Tribe scoring 56 not out and Dilley 24. The match was drawn.
ICONIC: Melburnian George Tribe was an all-rounder of rare talent. Family circumstances precluded him from returning to Australia in 1948 to vie for selection for Don Bradman’s Invincibles. He was hero-worshipped in English county circles
***
Go for it ‘Toey’
The aggressive Les Favell was taking a liking to Hughie ‘Toey’ Tayfield in the touring game against Transvaal (1957–58). After one thunderous 4, Tayfield exclaimed, ‘I’ll murder this prick – in the next Test …’
From close range came the voice of wisecracking teammate A I ‘Scotch’ Taylor, ‘Why not do it now?’
Favell made 75 but Tayfield never did catch up with him. ‘Favelli’ didn’t play in the Tests.
***
Karachi go-slow
Australia’s first official trip to the Subcontinent in 1956 produced some extraordinary cricket, including Australia’s first defeat by Pakistan in the inaugural Test between the countries on a coir matting wicket at Karachi.
In their own home conditions, Pakistani seam masters Fazal Mahmood and Khan Mohammad were every bit as confronting as Jim Laker and Tony Lock from just a few months earlier in the UK.
Fazal, ‘the Alec Bedser of Pakistan’, could literally bowl all day. He was a fitness disciple, rising at 4 a.m. most mornings for two hours of running and exercises. At night he was invariably in bed no later than 9 p.m. In this one-off Test, he bowled seventy-five overs, virtually unchanged, taking thirteen wickets for 114.
In the first innings when Australia was bowled out for 80, Ian Craig batted forty-five minutes before lunch without scoring, before being dismissed immediately afterwards – still without having scored.
‘Everyone was equally at sea,’ Craig said. ‘Keith Miller played and missed five balls in a row. The ball was coming so slowly off the matting that it was possible to keep it out and the edges tended not to carry, but it took some concentration just to survive. I was mentally exhausted at the interval and was soon out afterwards caught behind still not having broken my duck.’
In his last Test, Miller’s 21 was the top score. Only three others reached double figures: Colin McDonald 17, captain Ian Johnson 13 not out and Ron Archer 10.
In reply, Pakistan lost two for 15 by stumps, their run aggregate a record low 95 for the entire day’s play.
A century stand the following day between A H Kardar and Wazir Mohammad wrested the advantage, the Australians being beaten by nine wickets.
The outfield was so lush that the Australians reckoned 150 runs in a day’s play would have been an excellent score. So disciplined were Fazal and Khan Mohammad that they rarely bowled anything even back of a length, let alone short.
On the fourth day of the match, only 112 runs were scored, the fourth lowest-scoring Test day ever.
This was the game Australia’s captain-elect Ron Archer caught a spike in the matting and wrenched his knee so badly he never played another international.
***
A long time coming
Teetotaller Ken Mackay had been promising for years that if Queensland ever defeated powerful New South Wales away from home in Sydney he’d celebrate by downing his first beer.
It took a decade, but in the New Year of 1956 it finally happened, Mackay’s 203 pivotal in Queensland taking first innings points, its first points of any sort on the road against NSW since Sheffield Shield cricket resumed after the war in 1946.
Mackay walked back into the visitors’ rooms with the whole team standing and applauding, one teammate with a bottle and another with a glass. There was no backing out of it. Mackay’s reaction to the beer? ‘It may be my last!’ he said.
NON-DRINKER: Ken ‘Slasher’ Mackay
***
Dream debut
Central Cumberland leg spinner Jack Treanor was thirty when he debuted for New South Wales in Brisbane at the eleventh hour following an injury to Alan Davidson. He promptly took a hat-trick against the Queenslanders, dismissing Ken Archer, Ley Sanders and Peter Burge with consecutive deliveries on his way to five for 146.
***
Faster than Freddie
In the early 1950s, most English counties played a pre-season trial match, involving both regulars and three or four prospective first and second XI players.
In 1954, Yorkshire ventured north to the seaside town of Redcar, captain Len Hutton opening the batting alongside Frank Lowson.
Redcar had a rangy young bowler with an extraordinarily long run-up. He bounded in athletically and sent his first delivery past Len Hutton’s nose. The Test icon had barely seen it. When the second delivery did much the same, Len turned to the wicketkeeper, standing halfway back to the fence and called, ‘Who’s this chap?’ The keeper had no idea. He’d never seen him before. The Redcar captain was at slip and produced a piece of paper from his pocket and said, ‘Well … his name is Tyson, Frank Tyson … apparently he’s a student at Durham University.’
Hutton said, ‘I’ll have him in Australia [in 1954–55]!’
At the change of overs, Hutton told the skipper to get a message to Freddie Trueman who was playing snooker at the nearby Lobster Pot pub. ‘Tell him we’re up against a bloke who is as fast as him,’ said Len.
And later that year, Tyson was to tour Australia, ahead of Trueman. He wasn’t just as fast, he was faster.
***
No heroes
County bunnies Cecil ‘Sam’ Cook and B D ‘Bomber’ Wells were opposing the spitfire pace of F H Tyson one day. Neither was in a hurry to get body behind ball. To one flyer Wells essayed an extravagant scythe and successfully connected, losing hold of his bat in the process. ‘Please, someone catch it,’ he called. They did and the agony was over.
Bomber’s permanent place in any batting order was No. 11. He was a menace to his own teammates if he batted any higher. If he did happen to hit one and called ‘yes’, his mates knew that was merely the basis for further negotiation …
***
The last word
Bomber Wells had taken his talents to Trent Bridge and was bowling at Yorkshire’s Brian Close one day at Scarborough. Close was in good nick and at 184, his first-ever double-hundred was in the offering.
Wells rifled one of his spinners down the leg side and Close swept the ball high and wide of deep backward square leg fieldsman Merv Winfield, only for the lad to run like the wind and take a brilliant running catch inside the boundary, just as the batsmen were running their third: D B Close, c. H M Winfield, b. B D Wells, 186.
Wells couldn’t resist a good-humoured send-off. ‘Always was your weakness, Closey,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’
‘Caught in the leg trap!’ said Wells.
***
It was the first week of August 1953. Lindsay Hassett’s Coronation Year tourists remained undefeated and talk was building of the team emulating Don Bradman’s Greats of ’48, who went thirty-four games without defeat.
Warwickshire gave the Aussies a particular fright, Australia losing its first five wickets for just 50 on the final afternoon after a seemingly generous declaration from Tom Dollery setting them just 166 in even time.
The Edgbaston wicket was turning square and after the early collapse, only the pertinacity of visiting captain Lindsay Hassett saved an embarrassing sub-100 all out score.
Batting nearly three hours for 21, Hassett shouldered almost all of the menacing Eric Hollies’ bowling himself, defending the ones on the wicket and leaving alone those which weren’t.
The ‘Brummie’ crowd began to boo and slow handclap and at a change of ends, Hollies said to Hassett, ‘The natives are getting restless.’
Tapping his bat, Hassett replied, ‘The first chap coming onto the pitch is going to get this around his ears.’
‘It’s not the first chap you’ll have to worry about,’ said Hollies matter-of-factly.
His figures that go-slow afternoon were an extraordinary 22-16-14-2.
***
Advantage Barrington
Ken Barrington was in his first season of county cricket with Surrey and this day at Hove, was playing for keeps, as if every delivery from the wily Sussex offie Robin Marlar was loaded with TNT. When he did use his feet to get to the ball, he’d merely pat it back to Marlar.
In between overs, his partner Jim Laker suggested that he shouldn’t just push at the ball. ‘If it’s there, go through with your shot. Hit it hard … if it’s not, stay back in your crease.’
The next over, Marlar again tempted Barrington to use his feet, down he danced and whacked it hard and high, way over mid-on and clean out of the ground.
‘Is that what you mean, Jim?’ asked Barrington, breaking into his trademark toothy grin.
***
‘Great, I hardly missed a rally!’
The 1948 Lord’s Test coincided with Australian John Bromwich’s march into the final at Wimbledon.
A television had been installed in the visiting dressing- rooms – quite a novelty for the Australians – and Lindsay Hassett, padded up and ready to go in at the fall of a wicket, was keenly following proceedings, point by point.
Suddenly there was a shout of, ‘He’s out!’ and Hassett slipped out of the rooms and into the middle. Within minutes he was back again – having been dismissed first ball.
Taking his same seat, still with his pads on, he clapped delightedly as Bromwich took a set. ‘Well done “Brom” … Great, I hardly missed a rally!’ he said.
***
The most famous blob of all
It was Bank Holiday week and the much-loved boy from ‘Brum’ Eric Hollies was bowling himself into England’s Test team with an ‘eight-for’ – the best analysis of anyone against Don Bradman’s 1948 tourists.
Included were star trio, openers Bill Brown and Arthur Morris who hit their wicket and the Don himself, bowled by a Hollies toppie.
Afterwards, Hollies spoke with his captain Tom Dollery, declaring that Bradman could not detect his googly as he’d invariably played it hurriedly and very late.
‘Here’s your chance, Eric,’ said Dollery on the final afternoon when Bradman came in a second time in his usual slot of No. 3. Just 40 or so runs were needed to win.
Hollies just smiled and told Dollery there was no way known the Australian champion would see his googly, ‘not right now anyway’, and proceeded to bowl only leg breaks for the rest of the game. He was sure Bradman had come to the wicket purely to take a closer look at him.
The final Test, Eric’s first against Australia, was the following week and Hollies happened to be bowling when the Don entered to a tumultuous reception. He’d initially planned to bowl the googly first-up but reasoned Bradman may well be expecting it.
So he held it back until his second delivery. Bradman picked it as his normal leg break, went to let it go, only for the ball to snap back, take the inside edge and break his stumps for the most famous blob of all.
The near sell-out crowd at the Oval were initially so stunned that they remained silent before giving Bradman the biggest standing ovation he claimed he’d ever received.
‘It was the ball of my life,’ said Hollies, ‘and no-one [initially] said a word!’
***
No time to celebrate
So packed was Australia’s touring schedule in 1948 there was no time to immediately celebrate the greatest win of Don Bradman’s career, at Headingley when the team chased down 400 in the fourth innings to win the fourth Test and the Ashes.
Within an hour of Neil Harvey making the winning hit, the team was shuffled onto a bus and down to Leeds railway station for the four-hour journey to Derby and the team’s next fixture, starting the following morning.
At the station a young autograph hunter had an opportunity to gain some of the most famous signatures of all, but he wasn’t interested. ‘I don’t want thee,’ he said. ‘I want [local hero] Len ’Utton.’
Champagne corks were popped twenty-four hours later at Derby, some indulging more than others. Bill Johnston, as only he could do, took one of the catches of the match the following day holding his left hand up for the catch only to take it with his right!
***
Ninna’s fairytale entry
Neil ‘Ninna’ Harvey was only nineteen and making his Ashes debut at Headingley, replacing the injured Sid Barnes.
Undefeated in the first three months of the tour, the Australians were leading the Test series 2–0, but conceded 496, and in reply had lost their best three players cheaply: Arthur Morris for 6, Lindsay Hassett 13 and Don Bradman 33 – in the same Dick Pollard over. It was at this point that Harvey came in at No. 5.
He’d had time to buckle only one pad when teammate Sam Loxton rushed in saying, ‘Hurry up, Nin. “Braddles” is out. Good luck!’
Fastening his other pad and grabbing his gloves, the teenage left-hander hurried out, having been spared the nervous, worrying period of waiting to go in.
At 3-68, the innings had stalled. ‘What’s going on out here?’ Harvey is reputed to have said on arrival to Keith Miller. ‘Let’s get stuck into them!’
All these years on, Harvey cannot remember if he actually said it or not. But he was soon reassured as Miller advanced at Jim Laker and lifted him straight back down the wicket for a stirring 6 which made Harvey think, ‘Maybe this Test cricket isn’t as hard as I thought.’
Three hours later, after century stands with Miller and Loxton, he was out, having made 112 in one of the most impressive entries of any Ashes newcomer.
He was just months older than Australia’s youngest Test century-maker, Archie Jackson.
As Harvey had walked into battle, hatless, with quick, short strides, his head moving from side to side surveying the field, his skipper Bradman had offered a silent prayer. If ever Australia needed a youngster to excel this was the moment.
‘I knew Neil was a good player,’ Bradman was to write later. ‘He had the strokes and the temperament, but surely it was asking too much of him to succeed where we had failed. There wasn’t a man in that vast audience prepared for what followed.’
Journalist Andy Flanagan said, ‘There was a jauntiness, an air of indifference, perhaps of confidence, in the very approach of this lad to the colossal test confronting him. Was he intimidated? No!’
From the outset, Harvey danced to the turn of Jim Laker, hooked the pace of Ken Cranston and effortlessly lent into drives against England’s biggest fish, Alec Bedser.
He didn’t even appear unduly worried when Dick Pollard shaved his stumps early in his knock.
Showing amazing maturity for one so young, he played the copybook shots and some of his own, several times striking against the Laker spin and scoring leg-side 4s.
The 100-run stand with Miller came in just eighty-five minutes. At lunch, Harvey, the baby of the team, was 70 not out. When he reached three-figures, the Yorkshire crowd gave him a reception normally reserved for one of their own. It was Saturday and the ground was close to capacity. Harvey shyly hung his head, having already waved his bat in his excitement.
Bradman said it was one of the greatest innings any batsman, young or old, had ever played. Wisden called it ‘a terrific onslaught … glorious stroke play’.
Harvey said he’d gained great confidence batting with Miller. ‘If my nerves needed a tonic to settle them, this was it. There’s no doubt that standing at the other end watching somebody smack the bowling over the fence can do wonders for your own confidence. I tried to follow Keith’s example and gradually got on top of the bowling. When my 100th run came up I felt as though I had won the state lottery. My lifelong buddy Sam was batting with me at the time and we were both so excited that one of us nearly got run out as Sam dashed down to pass on his congratulations.’
Asked later about the nerve he showed in hitting against Laker’s spin, Harvey said, ‘They were half volleys weren’t they?’
The great writer Neville Cardus said, ‘Here is a great and beautiful batsman in the making … the boy showed us real cricket in a Test match. Like all Australian batsmen, he is strong on the on side, but has a pretty square cut and when he was 88, he’d made 32 by means of this neglected stroke.’
Legendary Jack Hobbs said, ‘I want England to win but directly I saw Harvey’s masterly yet carefree batting, I wanted him to get his 100.’
This was the match in which Australia scored 3-404 in its second innings to record a remarkable win, Harvey fittingly hitting the winning runs. ‘Had I not,’ he said in 2014, ‘and Don had hit them, he would have finished with a Test average of exactly 100. So you can blame me for him averaging only 99.94!’
The previous highest fourth-innings score to win a Test match in England was 263 in 1902. In Australia it was 332.
The Don described Australia’s win as ‘glorious’ – the finest win of his Test career.
TEST TICKET: From Day 5 of the 1948 Leeds epic where Australia chased down 400 runs on the final day. Don Bradman said it was the standout game of his wonderful career
Andrew Dicarla
***
It could only ’appen in Yorkshire …
The local village blacksmith was playing a marvellous innings, repeatedly sending the best the opposition could offer to the mid-ropes and a large turnip patch.
Captain and vice-captain of the fielding team conferred and it was suggested all the bowlers bowl wide outside the off stump. ‘Good,’ said one to the other. ‘I’m getting tired of fetching the ball from that infernal turnip patch.’
The next over, the blacksmith, in true Twenty20 style, walked to the off side to the first ball bowled and flicked it neatly to his favourite mid-wicket scoring zone … one bounce, two bounces, three bounces straight … ‘No, it has been fielded,’ said one of the locals. And with a terrific heave, the vice-captain threw down the blacksmith’s wicket before he’d had a chance to complete even one.
The captain raced over to his deputy and congratulated him warmly. ‘I’m glad to see the last of ’im,’ he said. ‘That was a great throw.’
‘Ooh aye,’ said his vice-captain, ‘but you’d better give me a hand to find the ball. That were a turnip I ran him out with!’
***
Now you see it …
During his stellar Indian summer in 1947 where he made more than 3500 first-class runs, Bill Edrich went on a rampage against Yorkshire and in the second innings greeted the second new ball with 4 6 4 4 4 from five Frank Smailes deliveries. The ball was tossed back to Yorkshire’s captain Brian Sellers who stared at it and said, ‘Hey Frank, what have you done with that nice new ball I gave you five minutes ago!’
***
With my compliments, son
Cricket-loving Labor politician Dr H V Evatt was so taken by Arthur Morris’s twin centuries on debut for New South Wales in 1940–41 that he invited him to Stan McCabe’s sports store and told him to ‘buy the best bat in the place … on me’. Which Morris did.
***
Bouncer happy
Keith Miller was unimpressed when Morris hooked a first-up bouncer to the backward square boundary in a Shield game at the MCG. ‘Ever seen a whole over of bouncers?’ snarled Miller. The shorter he bowled, the harder Morris hooked, Miller’s over going for 23 runs with four boundaries in a row – plus a bye. Arthur made 110.
***
The injustice
Don Bradman liked to score off the first ball he received, a tuck or a flick to leg his favourite means at the start of any innings.
In a radio interview on the eve of a Shield match in Melbourne, local express Ernie McCormick promised that if he was bowling when the Don came to the wicket the following morning, the Don would not score off his first ball.
McCormick was bowling when Bradman came in and made quite a show of taking everyone away from the leg side and stacking the off side with five slips and a gully, mid-off, cover and extra cover.
Ernie delivered the ball at great pace – he was the fastest bowler in the world in the late thirties – and this one pitched it at least a foot outside the off stump going away.
At the last second, Bradman lightly skipped across the pitch and pulled the ball which came to rest just inside the square-leg fence and the batsmen ran 5!
Ernie stood in the middle of the pitch, arms aloft, protesting to the Almighty on the injustice of it all.
***
Would you mind hanging on, old chap?
Len Hutton was on the verge of passing Don Bradman’s 334 at the Oval in 1938, when an attendant walked towards the gate. It was almost time for drinks. Two of those assembled nearby, cricket writers Jim Swanton and R C ‘Crusoe’ Robertson-Glasgow left their seats and engaged the attendant, fearing an interruption to Hutton’s concentration. He was duly persuaded to wait until after Hutton had the record.
***
Happy chappy
Yorkshire’s long-time stumper Arthur Wood brought an unparalleled humour and happiness to any cricket field he graced.
So overjoyed was he at his enlistment into England’s XI for the final Ashes Test of 1938 that he took a taxi from Scarborough to London, saying he wanted to ‘do it in style’.
Coming in at 6-770, he made a rollicking half-century, full of zestful upper cuts and adventure. On his return to the pavilion with England’s score nearing 900, he threw his bat across the dressing-room floor in mock anger saying how he always lost his head in a crisis.
Once when an opposing batsman was enjoying more than his share of good luck, Wood gently asked if he’d ever walked on water.
When the South African Jock Cameron was taking to Hedley Verity one day, hitting him for 30 from one over, Arthur called down the wicket, ‘You’ve got ’im in two minds Hedley. He doesn’t know whether to hit you for 6 or 4.’
***
Revenge
Ernie McCormick was proud to have dismissed Wally Hammond with the first ball he ever bowled him, in Brisbane in 1936–37. Two years later at Lord’s, he dismissed him again – this time for 240!
***
Benign Tiger
Banker cum cricket administrator Jack Ledward was among a legion of batsmen to be totally befuddled by Bill ‘Tiger’ O’Reilly.
The Richmond and Victorian batsman built a fine record in the late ’30s against almost everyone, except for O’Reilly’s New South Wales.
‘I just couldn’t lay bat on him at all,’ he said.
Pitted against O’Reilly again in a game at the MCG between the 1938 Australian Ashes touring team and The Rest, Ledward fell to his nemesis, as usual, for just 12.
‘During a break because of bad weather Tiger advised me to keep on the back foot to him. I’d been trying to play him off the front foot most of the time because that was the way I liked to bat. I followed his advice and made 85 in the second dig.’
***
Hush hush
Having just made a pair at Lord’s of all places, Jackie Badcock walked into a hushed dressing-room, no-one offering even a ‘bad luck’.
‘A bloke makes a pair,’ said Badcock, ‘you wouldn’t think your mates would give you the arse too.’
***
Ruling without fear or favour
Just back from South Africa where he’d made three Test 100s in a row, John ‘Jack’ Fingleton fondly grabbed his presento Springboks cap and was walking out to field during a grade game when his captain Alan McGilvray stopped him.
‘Where are you going with that, Jack?’
‘To field.’
‘You wear the Waverley cap. You’re playing for your club.’
‘Who are you [to say that]?’
‘Don’t take me too far, Johnny.’
McGilvray walked away and led his players onto the field, Fingleton last out – with his Waverley cap on.
***
Good news week
It was a Tuesday in late January and baby-faced Bill Brown was catching the tram from Marrickville headed for the Sydney Cricket Ground. As he got on, his cricket bat slung onto the side of a much-loved kit bag, the conductor enquired, ‘Where are you going, son?’
‘Moore Park,’ said the twenty-year-old, ‘for the cricket.’
The conductor laughed, looked at the youngster’s old bat and even older kit bag and said, ‘You won’t get a game there, son … there’s a big match on. England is playing.’
Once inside the rooms, Brown asked NSW’s captain Alan Kippax who was playing. Kippax laughed and said it was more a matter of who wasn’t. Several England players were being rested – including menacing Bodyline duo Harold Larwood and Bill Voce, fellow fast bowler G O B ‘Gubby’ Allen and even captain Douglas Jardine.
‘When we heard Larwood and Voce weren’t playing,’ said Brown, ‘suddenly the sun was shining, the grass was greener and the birds were singing.’
Against the weakened MCC attack, the tyro scored 69, an important innings which helped him into the touring team to England just twelve or so months later.
DOMINATOR: Having helped teammate Bill Brown to his century, Don Bradman opened out as only he could
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Caring for others
Bill Brown was in his 70s when he was joined by Don Bradman at the crease for New South Wales in Sydney one afternoon in 1933–34. The second new ball was almost due. ‘Bill,’ said the Don, ‘we must get you to your 100 before the next new ball,’ and proceeded to feed Brown the strike with a series of singles.
‘I managed to get my 100,’ Brown said later. ‘Don would have been only 15 or 16 at the time. By the time I was into my 120s he’d passed me! And all in about an hour and a bit. He really did care for his partners.’
***
A generous spirit
Other than the captaincy of the Test team, there was no more prestigious position in Australian cricket than being captain of New South Wales, long-time producer of the bulk of Australian cricket’s genuine champions.
The NSW state captaincy role in the first half of the 1931–32 international summer was shared between three: Test pair Alan Kippax and Bert Oldfield and in their absence, Dr R H B ‘Reg’ Bettington, a fine Oxford-educated leg spinner, a superb all-round swimmer and athlete, a wonderfully perceptive writer and a generous, free spirit.
Bettington spun the ball sharply both ways from a high-stepping bouncy run-up, his variances so well disguised that even the master Jack Hobbs was said to be hesitant.
On return to Sydney, Bettington was an automatic selection in NSW’s best team.
This particular season, however, a youngster by the name of Bill O’Reilly, back from his schoolteaching apprenticeship in the bush, was also impressing with his wrist spinners delivered from height and at a rare hostility.
In late December, Bettington captained NSW’s two southern tour matches in Adelaide and Melbourne. Bowling in tandem with the new chum, he took four wickets and O’Reilly nine, including a ‘five-for’ at the MCG when Victoria batted one short – No. 11 Harry Alexander had gone to Caulfield Racecourse to lay some bets and hadn’t made it back in time.
Australia was playing a New Year Test in Melbourne against the visiting South Africans and Bettington was again chosen to lead NSW in its home Shield game against Queensland. Stunned that no room had been found in the XI for O’Reilly – Bettington considered him an outstanding talent and even then one of the world’s best bowlers – Bettington promptly made himself unavailable.
O’Reilly was reinstated and within a month the young ‘Tiger’, flailing, see-sawing approach and all, was making his Test debut, beginning one of cricket’s outstanding careers.
***
Poor Dick Tyldesley
Don Bradman was totally merciless at the crease … on bowlers and fieldsmen. At Leeds in 1930 when he motored to his record 334, including 300 runs in a day, he was particularly savage on the leg breaks of the heavyweight Lancastrian Dick Tyldesley and seemed to make a point of hitting the ball in his direction in the field.
Wherever the rotund Tyldesley was placed, Bradman happened to find him, hitting the ball a yard one side and then a yard the other. Tyldesley ran and ran and chased until he was red as a tomato. It was to be the last of his seven Tests.
***
A defining blow
A young Neville Cardus was assistant coach to Yorkshire and England’s Ted Wainwright at Shrewsbury School. At supper one night he noticed a large dent above Wainwright’s left eyebrow and was told it happened at Scarborough against the Australians. Ernie Jones had bounced him. He tried to hook and missed.
‘Did it knock you out?’ asked Cardus.
‘Ah were knocked silly – unconscious,’ said Ted. ‘An’ it were last match of the season. An’ when ah came to mi senses, season was all over, an t’averages were in papers!’
***
Bodyliner
Few were jettisoned as quickly into senior cricket as Bodyline batsman-to-be Leo O’Brien. As a seventeen-year-old he made a century with Mentone’s second XI, one of the interested onlookers being Leo Rush, a stalwart at Richmond. He invited the teenager to attend training and he played his first games at second XI standard in sandshoes before being picked in the firsts and playing against St Kilda kingpins Don Blackie and Bert Ironmonger in the 1924–25 Melbourne District cricket pennant final.
In his second season, O’Brien opposed ‘the Big Ship’, 46-year-old Warwick Armstrong, who was still sending down his lofty leg breaks for Melbourne CC. ‘If he happened to overpitch, he’d call, “Hit it,” ’ said O’Brien.
One straight drive made it to the fence, a shot O’Brien fondly recalled, even as an 85-year-old for an interview for my magazine Cricketer.
O’Brien faced the Queensland tearaway Eddie Gilbert and said he was ‘lightning fast’ for two or three overs but lacked stamina. ‘They made him bowl in boots – I’m sure he preferred to bowl in bare feet,’ he said.
He was batting in Melbourne against the 1932–33 Englishmen, captained in this match by Bob Wyatt and was taking guard when he noticed all the fieldsmen bar one were stationed behind him. ‘But I’m the left-hander,’ he called.
It was the first shots in the acrimonious Bodyline summer where Harold Larwood and Bill Voce bowled short and straight at opposing batsmen.
Weeks later, O’Brien was Australia’s twelfth man in Adelaide when Bill Woodfull told him ‘there are some terrible things happening out there Leo’.
Earlier he’d been struck under the heart by Larwood and was still in pain when he emerged from the showers, with a towel wrapped around him. Into the rooms came the two English tour managers P F ‘Plum’ Warner and R C N Palairet to check on his health.
Woodfull immediately exploded. ‘There are two teams out there. One is playing cricket. The other is not. The game is too good to be spoilt. It is time some people got out of it. Good afternoon.’
Warner left in tears and O’Brien relayed the incident to the rest of the team. Within hours the story had ‘broken’ in the major newspapers, sparking an angry exchange of telegrams between the rival administrations.
Weeks earlier, in Melbourne, O’Brien had made his Test debut, scoring 10 and 11, batting ahead of Don Bradman.
‘Bill Woodfull came in and said, “We’ve won the toss. We’re batting.” I had my fielding creams on and having looked at the order, went and changed into my batting trousers. I was in at three, behind “Woody” and Jack Fingleton.
‘My kit was alongside Braddles and Don was also changing. I put my right pad on first and then my left and noticed he was also padding up. Looking across at me, he said, “You don’t seem to have much confidence in me Leo!”
‘He obviously thought he was in at the fall of the first wicket. I told him, “I’ve had a look at the batting order … I’m down for three.”
‘Obviously I was there for a quick fall of wicket. Don just took off his pads and walked off without saying a word.’
An hour later Bradman was in and out, having been castled first ball by Bill Bowes, bottom edging a long-hop onto his leg stump. It remains one of the most famous blobs in Ashes history.
***
A Bodyline comment
‘When I saw [Jack] Fingleton’s body, black and blue from toes up to his chest, I knew that it was wrong.’ – Dr W L Calov, Waverley CC (Sydney) life member
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Where is everyone? (1)
So dark it was during one county match that next-man-in Nottingham’s Charlie Harris emerged from the pavilion carrying a flare and made off in the general direction of square leg.
‘Over here, Charlie,’ said his batting partner Walter Keeton.
Finally making it to the wicket, Harris took guard and told the umpire Joe Hills, ‘I can hear you, Joe, but I can’t see you!’
Play was soon abandoned.
***
Where is everyone? (2)
Few could stonewall like short-as South African Charles Frank who’d first played internationals as a teenager against the visiting Australian Imperial Forces XI shortly after the Great War in 1919.
So promising were his performances that when an Australian Test team played three homeward-bound Tests following their triumphant 1921 tour to the UK, Frank was one of six newcomers to debut.
The first match was in faraway Durban and the second in Johannesburg, where Frank was a hometown hero. His boss at work told his fellow workers it was all right to go and see Charlie bat, ‘but when he’s out, you must come back to the office’.
The workers didn’t return for two days – Frank batting more than eight hours on the mats for a matchsaving 152.