Cricket Best Moment: December 2019

Sunday 22 December 2019

Jeff Thomson Australia 1972–85

Jeff Thomson was a freak of cricketing nature. In his pomp, he was an exceptional athlete with suppleness and elasticity of frame enabling him to deliver the ball in a way. Which, if not unique, was certainly very rare, and mighty effective. Shuffling into a side-on position as he approached the crease, he started with his bowling arm low before it followed a mighty arc from behind his back and over his head.

Some people found this made it hard to get a clear sight of the ball, but I didn’t think that was the main problem. Jeffrey Robert Thomson was born on 16 August 1950 at Greenacre, Sydney, New South Wales. He is also famous as "Thommo", considered by many to be the fastest bowler of his generation.

Jeff Thomson won pride of place in the local Bankstown newspaper, The Torch, in an article headed ‘Sports Star’: Sports star of the week fast bowler 20-year-old Jeff Thomson won his award for his performance in a Bankstown-Canterbury District Cricket Club’s third-grade match against St George when he took 10 wickets for 31 runs.

Thommo gets a rapid development in 1972-73 and left a big impact on the First-Class debut match against New South Wales against Western Australia. Overall, he gets 17 wickets in that season and given a chance against Pakistan for second Test replacing Bob Massie. Unfortunately, he could not meet selectors expectation, by leaking 110 runs with wicketless in that match.

Jeff Thomson was just quick, even when after he was at his peak. Thommo, peak, in fact, only lasted a few years before an injury diminished his powers but when he was at the top it was one of the greatest sights in cricket. Unless, of course, you were the batsman, in which case you had absolutely no time to appreciate the aesthetics.

When he was sending shock waves through the game in the mid-1970s, many batsmen brave enough to be interested in what was happening, but young enough not to be involved. Many crickets lovers remembering to watch TV highlights of the 1974–75 Ashes series in Australia in which ‘Thommo’, with the help of Dennis Lillee at the other end.

They were terrorized England’s batsmen and some of those images still burn bright, such as Keith Fletcher being clattered on the St George’s badge of his cap and the ball bouncing out to cover. (It also provided what would become one of the great after-dinner stories about David Lloyd’s pink Lite some protector being knocked inside out by a ball from Thommo, with excruciatingly painful consequences for ‘Bumble’.) It was awesome to watch and remains awesome to contemplate.

Mitchell Johnson created similar mayhem in England’s ranks in 2013–14. Their mettle was tested and found wanting, and they had the advantage of wearing helmets. Imagine what it would have been like had they faced Johnson without such protection, and you have an idea of what it must have been like facing Thomson circa 1975.

He also had an immense physical and psychological impact on the West Indies when they toured Australia the following winter. He took 29 wickets in six Tests against them as opposed to 33 in five against England, which suggests they coped marginally better, but the main difference was that it galvanized them into improvement.

It was an especially a formative experience for the likes of Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, and Michael Holding. It hardened them to the realities of Test cricket and when West Indies assembled a fearsome pace attack of their own, they did not think twice about using it to the full. Lillee and Thomson taught them that much. No wonder batsmen around the world offered up silent prayers of thanks when Thomson was involved in a collision with a teammate, Alan Turner, in the field during a Test in Adelaide and dislocated his right shoulder.

Understandably, he never quite had the same flexibility or power in that shoulder again. He lost pace, it was as simple as that. It was tragic for him, but great news for his opponents, and we in the England camp were duly grateful. If he was awesome before his injury, he was still very good after it. He took 20 or more wickets in the next three series he played, starting with the tour of England in 1977 when he was left to spearhead the attack on his own, Lillee having joined Kerry Packer.

Jeff Thomson bowled mighty fast against Clive Lloyd’s West Indians in 1975–76, but during the Perth Second Test match he heard the tragic news that his flat-mate Martin Bedkomer, who had gone north to try and find a Sheffield Shield place with Qld, was killed when hit in the chest batting for Toombul in Brisbane grade cricket in December 1975. After the Test match, Thommo flew to Sydney to attend his friend’s funeral.

Thommo initially and admirably decided to stay loyal to Establishment cricket and the efforts he put in on Australia’s behalf when the team were missing many frontline performers were most impressive. Clive Lloyd said that one of the things the West Indies found most striking about Thomson at his peak was his ability to come back late in the day with the old ball, and still, summon up some explosive pace to shake you out of the complacent assumption that you were nicely settled.

That was Thommo to a tee. Even in his second career, he was always full-on, quick enough to keep you on your toes, and always trying his utmost. England faced him again on a 1979–80 tour of Australia in a warm-up match against Queensland, and they were vividly recalling the ducking and weaving. He appeared in one Test against England that time but more on the next tour when he played a much bigger part in Australia’s win.

Despite not being given the new ball, he took 22 wickets at 18.68 in four matches, which rightly suggests he had intelligence as well as a raw pace. Used in short bursts, he remained very dangerous. On one occasion David Gower was facing Jeff Thomson shortly before lunch at Sydney, where he perhaps bowled best of all, I looked behind to see Rod Marsh, the wicketkeeper, with his handheld up by the peak of his cap, suggesting that Thommo bowl a bouncer.

I then looked at Thommo, who was by now at the end of his mark, and back at Marsh. It was classic ‘I know that he knows that he knows that I know’ but now I hadn’t a bloody clue whether Thommo would go for the double – or treble – bluff or what! I could have tried ducking well before he got to the crease and released the ball but in the end.

It faded into a damp squib moment as I ended up leaving a length ball outside the off-stump. I can only apologies that the end of the story was not more interesting. By the time I faced him again during the 1985 Ashes when he was recalled to the Test side after a long absence, he was a shadow of his former self and no longer as serious a threat, but the legend of Thommo had long since been established and it won’t die if the game is played.

Many cricket lovers always remember him as someone who was competitive, uncomplicated and bloody good fun. In 2016, Jeff Thomson included in the Australian Hall of Fame cricketer. Wisden wrote: "it was easy to believe they were the fastest pair ever to have coincided in a cricket team".

Mike Brearley, the Middlesex the captain who led England during the World Series Cricket incursion said of Thommo:

“Broken marriages, conflicts of loyalty, the problems of everyday life fall away as one faces up to Thomson”

To his eternal credit Thommo remained true to himself. He refused to slow down to achieve more accuracy. He was a fast bowler and he was to do it his way. He would not bow down to convention. All outpace was his motto in cricket but in life itself Thommo lived in the fast lane.

Thommo had great affection for his mates, to whom he was fiercely loyal. His rise in the game eventually came, but only after years of frustration and conflict with those who reckoned he should go about his cricket in a more conventional manner. By the time he got back to the Test stage for his second crack at the big time, Thommo was the fastest bowler in the world.

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Tuesday 17 December 2019

Big Bird Joel Garner West Indies Fast Bowler

Just his personal statistics were enough to inspire anxiety at the prospect of facing Joel Garner. At 6ft 8in, few bowlers have stood taller, and with those great big long arms and mighty levers of his, not many grounds had sightscreens big enough to accommodate the top of his bowling arm.

Joel Garner was phenomenally accurate, but the one word you had to focus on was ‘bounce’. You were always looking at a length ball from him and thinking: ‘How high is this going to bounce?’ ‘High enough’ was mostly the answer. Although he could generate bounce, though, or perhaps precisely because of it, there was great danger in the balls he bowled of fuller length.

A lot of his wickets – almost half in Tests, in fact – were bowled or leg-before, the batsmen no doubt worrying about the ball that might threaten the glove or head only to find one homing in on their stumps instead. Garner was a great purveyor of the Yorker, the old sand-shoe crusher or big toe breaker.

The Yorker is a delivery that modern-day batsmen have found ways to lever to the boundary in one-day cricket but in Garner’s day we were happy just to keep it out, whatever the game, whatever the situation. You might be doubt very much if even today batsmen would be hitting him for six if he got his Yorker in. He was quicker than people thought.

If he wound it up, he wasn’t far behind Michael Holding and Andy Roberts in pace. That wasn’t always his role though. The West Indies bowling was so strong that some of them – and Joel was one – inevitably had to fulfil roles they would not have done had they been playing in almost any other side.

He started his Test career in 1977 but it was not until 1984 that he took the new ball, Clive Lloyd preferring to use him as something of a stock bowler. But once the new ball was his, Garner became even more potent than he had been.

Somerset naturally used him differently when he played for them and he helped them win trophies with some explosive bursts. The first time I faced him in a major encounter was in the World Cup final of 1979. It was not to be my proudest moment. That was decidedly up against it, chasing a big total and already well behind the rate required, and Joel was hardly the man to give you something to play within that situation.

Giving room to try and carve one through cover just gave him a sight of many stumps. Several England batsmen were out for zero, bowled, one of five wickets he took in the space of 11 balls as the game sped to its conclusion. Amazingly four England batsmen were bowled, the other caught behind.

How to score runs off him was a big puzzle for us as aside. England faced him again a few months later in a one-day series in Australia without making much headway and when faced with him for the first time in Tests in England the following year his control was incredible. In the first Test he bowled 57.1 overs off which just 74 runs were scored (at a cost of seven wickets); in the second, 39.3 overs for 57 runs (and six wickets).

It was some small crumb of comfort to England, having been dropped after the first game, to see that others found him no easier to play. Over the course of the five Tests, he sent down 212.4 overs for 371 runs and 26 wickets. His metronomic capabilities should not be overstated, however.

Every blue moon there might be something you could have a go at. He might sometimes give you something outside off stump you could flail at, or something short you could try and help over the slips. He played in the Jamaica Test in 1981 in which Graham Gooch and David Gower both scored 150s.

It was a quick, bouncy pitch but fortunately it was also true in its bounce. Somehow, England found away on that occasion. He came into the West Indies side as a stand-in for a home series against Pakistan in 1977 and was an instant success. He took 25 wickets in five matches, although there were tell-tale signs that he still had things to learn.

His wickets cost 27.52 each and went at more than three runs an over. These were expensive figures for Joel. Of the 14 series, he subsequently played, his average strayed over 23 only four times and his economy rate over three runs per over only twice. He was very, very consistent. He was also a fine catcher around the slips and gully.

He was perhaps fortunate to arrive on the scene just as West Indies were reaching the peak of their collective powers and finish in the late 1980s before the decline in Caribbean cricket had begun. Remarkably, he played in only five defeats in his 58 Test matches (in which he took 259 wickets at an average of just 20.97).

A lot of that was down to his reliability but of course, he was playing in a side with very few weak links. To be part of the most feared pace attack of all time almost automatically qualifies you to be one of the great individual bowlers. They were all immensely skillful as well as quick, and all decent men too.

As a bloke, Joel was a particularly lovely guy, with those big genial eyes of his and that typically Bajan air of laid-back affability. He was known as ‘Big Bird’ not just by his own team but by everyone. There was a lot of affection for him, if not for his bowling.

Saturday 14 December 2019

Ray Lindwall Australian Premier Fast Bowler 1946–60

Australian Ray Lindwall raised the standard for fast bowlers in the ten years after the Second World War. Ray Lindwall represented Australia in 61 Tests from 1946-47 to 1960. Raymond Russell Lindwall born on October 3, 1921, in Sydney and died on 23 June 1996 at the age of 74. Lindwall approached like a graceful robust wave, erupted a quick burst of speed and the positioning the arms at 45 degrees, and legs spread in the long stretch of the final stride.

When he was 11 years old, he watched the body line series, when English bowlers terrifying Australian bowler with beamer with wide eyes and arrogant way. At that time, he decided to become a fast bowler. He was not a flamboyant character like Keith Miller, but very much admired by people due to his phenomenal records.

He was a terrific athlete who could have excelled at several other sports had he not chosen cricket. Ray Lindwall could have easily been a rugby league international player when he ran 100 yards in just 10.6 seconds. The mechanics of his run-up and delivery were widely admired. Fred Trueman, who, like Richie Benaud (writing in the The 1970s), rated Lindwall the finest fast bowler he had seen, described Lindwall’s approach to the wicket as the most rhythmical of all.

Genuinely fast bowlers of earlier eras had rarely maintained their speed and menace for long in Test cricket but Lindwall did. No out-and-out quick bowler had previously taken even 100 Test wickets. He was not only becoming the first to 100 wickets but was the first past 200 as well and by the time of his last match in 1960 had 228 to his name (exactly half of them against England).

At that time only the fast-medium Alec Bedser of England, with 236, had taken more test wickets. Ray Lindwall in full cry was reckoned to be one of the great sights of the era. His action was not without its impurities. His arm was not as high as it might have been at the point of release, but this slanginess helped him make the ball leave the right-hander very late in the flight.

Once, Trevor Bailey said that he never encountered a genuine fast bowler who moved the ball in the air as much or as late as Lindwall. He further adds that he was also the most devastating exploiter of the new ball. By way of variation, Lindwall brought the ball back in off the seam.

Ray Lindwall’s ‘drag’, a method by which bowlers took advantage of the back-foot no-ball rule then in operation (no-balls were measured by where the back foot landed rather than the front foot) to steal some extra distance before release, was controversial but also perfectly common.

It gave batsmen less time to react than they have under today’s laws – and in Lindwall’s case, you needed every split second available. Ray Lindwall was the most feared fast bowler in the world in the later 1940s. With Keith Miller as his new-ball partner, Australia knew they had a combination of bowlers of rare power and menace, and neither of them was reluctant to use the bouncer.

They first came together properly in the Ashes series of 1946–47 – they had appeared in one Test before that against New Zealand but did not open the bowling – and Lindwall’s seven for 63 in the first innings of the final Test in questionable light was a chilling portent of torments to come.

When the sides met again in England 18 months later Lindwall made the new ball count in almost every innings and finished with 27 wickets at just 19.62 apiece, even though he played only a small part in one Test because of a strain. He bowled more than half his victims and when he shattered England’s first innings at The Oval with figures of six for 20 – England all out for 52, still their lowest total at home – and followed up with three for 50 in the second, seven of his nine victims had their stumps hit.

Bradman’s ‘Invincible’ won the Test series 4–0 and went through the entire tour unbeaten, Lindwall taking 86 wickets at 15.68 in all matches. The following year the South Africans prepared for the arrival of Lindwall and Miller by practicing against baseball pitchers, although as it turned out Lindwall was not at his fastest because of a groin problem.

He still took 12 wickets in the series at an average of 20.66 and claimed another 15 at 22.93 when England was trounced in Australia in 1950–51. It was then the turn of the West Indians to endure Lindwall and Miller on their own pitches. Lindwall captured 21 wickets to Miller’s 20. So dependable was his action and physique that Lindwall did not have.

What could be remotely described as a bad series with the ball between making his debut in 1946 and the tour of England in 1953. Hence, during that time his average never rose above 23. So accurate was he that even if he did not take wickets, he rarely went for runs.

Ray Lindwall suffered a dip when England regained the Ashes in Australia in 1954–55 but within weeks was back among the wickets in the Caribbean, where he also scored one of his two Test centuries. Lindwall was a more than useful lower-order batsman although in what was generally a strong and successful side – Australia lost only nine of the 61 Tests in which he appeared – runs were rarely needed from him.

The hundred he scored in the third Test of the 1946–47 series at Adelaide made good what was already a strong position, but nevertheless the way he struck the ball was a fair indication of his class; coming off 90 balls. Although, it was at the time the second fastest scored by an Australian.

As a youngster, Lindwall was inspired by watching Harold Larwood bowl at Sydney during the Bodyline series and there was perhaps something similar in their styles. Lindwall was lucky in his mentors. He played his early cricket for the St George club in Sydney under the captaincy of Bill O’Reilly and Bradman took him under his wing during his first tour to England in 1948.

Wally Hammond ! England Giant Batsman 1927–1947

Wally Hammond was a giant among England cricketers. Their premier batsman in the period between Jack Hobbs and Len Hutton while offering them so much more besides. He was a superb slip catcher and a highly able fast-medium bowler who fared best in Tests on the harder overseas pitches.

Tall and strong, he could take great workloads in his stride and be rarely out of the action for long. Walter Reginald Wally Hammond born on 19 June 1903 and his first-class career lasted from 1920 to 1951.

There were similarities in style with Jacques Kallis as a Test all-rounder. Because both were bowlers who could have accomplished more if their batting had not taken priority. Both were natural fielders, but wonderful technician though Kallis was. Wally Hammond was certainly the more imperious, attacking and influential batsman.

England never lost when Hammond scored a hundred, as he did on 22 occasions – a national record until Alastair Cook overhauled him in 2012. He also lost only one of six series as England captain after giving up his professional status to take on the job. Hammond was not lucky though.

The only son of a Royal Artillery major who was killed in the First World War, his career stalled for two years over a battle for his services between Kent, the county of his birth, and Gloucestershire, the county he ended up serving for 20 seasons. The serious illness cost him a season at a crucial stage in his development and then when he did establish himself as the world’s best batsman. He was along coming a diminutive Australian called Don Bradman to steal the position from him.

When he led England on a tour of Australia after the Second World War, the team were not ready to resume serious Test cricket and he himself was 43 years old and not fully fit. But unsurprisingly his team took a hammering and he bowed out from international cricket a loser.

His retirement in South Africa, he lost most of his money in bad investments and spent his final years struggling with ill-health following a car accident before dying in Natal in 1965, aged 62. He had a reputation, too, as a somewhat moody and uncommunicative person. Which was sadly at odds with the cricket he played because teammates, opponents and those watching from the stands all testified to the glory of Hammond in full flow.

He was a batsman of the classical, majestic school,’ Bradman said. ‘Of lovely athletic build, light as a ballet dancer on his feet, always beautifully balanced Bert Oldfield, who stood behind the stumps for many of Hammond’s great innings against Australia, described him as ‘the perfect batting artist’. Tom Goddard, a Gloucestershire and England teammate, reckoned he was even better than Bradman.

Once Don Bradman said he never saw anyone so strong on the off-side as Hammond and it was for his cover-driving that Wally Hammond was best remembered. There is a celebrated photograph of him cover-driving, his trademark handkerchief hanging out of his right pocket.

In his early years, he was a particularly aggressive and adventurous batsman. Therefore, England’s demands meant that he had to rein himself in and grind out the big scores then needed to win Test matches in Australia, where games were played to a finish.

On the 1928–29 tour, which England won 4–1, Hammond contributed a then-record 905 runs. He batted seven and a half hours for 251 at Sydney, another six and three-quarter hours for 200 at Melbourne, and then spent a total of almost 12 hours at the crease in Adelaide while scoring 119 in the first innings and 177 in the second.

Wally Hammond appetite for runs was immense – what you might call Bradman que if it were not a phrase that would have annoyed him. He scored seven double-centuries in Tests (only Bradman with 12, Kumar Sangakkara with 11, and Brian Lara with nine have made more) and no one has scored more doubles against Australia (Hammond made four to Lara’s three, while Graeme Pollock, VVS Laxman, and Sachin Tendulkar scored two apiece).

In all first-class cricket, Hammond’s 36 scores of 200 or more has only been beaten by Bradman (37). His 336 not out against New Zealand at Auckland in 1933 was briefly the world Test record score before being beaten by Len Hutton’s 364 in 1938 and while the bowling may not have been the strongest. He made his runs at a tremendous rate, his whole innings occupying less than five and a half hours.

In all Tests, spanning 85 matches from 1927 to 1947, he scored 7,249 at an average of 58.45. He held the Test run-scoring record from 1937 until 1970 and of the 39 batsmen who, as of 1 January 2015, have scored more Test runs, only Sangakkara has done so at a higher average. These are seriously impressive figures, but he did experience some difficult times against Australia.

Moreover, notably in England in 1930 and 1934 when he ended up dropping down the order from his favored number 3 position in the hope of rediscovering form. Australia during his time possessed two great leg-spin and googly bowlers in Clarrie Grimmett and Bill O’Reilly (who dismissed Hammond ten times in Tests) and they found a way to expose his relative weakness on the leg side. Even if he scored runs, they made sure he scored them more slowly than before.

It is hard to tell what extent he also suffered from the presence in the opposition of Bradman – whose 974 runs in just seven innings in the 1930 series obliterated Hammond’s 1928–29 record – but it was undeniably the case that if England were to compete with Australia, on a regular basis, they needed runs from their star performer. From 1930 onwards, Hammond outscored Bradman in only five of the 27 Tests in which they opposed each other – and in one of those Bradman was injured and did not bat.

But it would be easy to overstate these problems. Hammond added three more centuries in Australia to the four he scored there on his first tour, the last of them a match-winning 231 not out at Sydney in 1936–37, while his 240 at Lord’s in 1938 saw him at his majestic best. Nor did he reserve his best for international cricket.

Wally Hammond maintained a remarkably high standard in county cricket as well. He was dominating the national batting averages throughout the 1930s and regularly finishing among the leading catchers. That said, he perhaps touched a peak in 1928 during his first home summer as an England cricketer when in all first-class cricket he scored 2,825 runs, took 84 wickets and held 78 catches.

During Cheltenham Week in August he scored 139 and 143 and took ten catches against Surrey before following up with 80 runs and 15 wickets (nine for 23 in the first innings) against Worcestershire. Neither his catches for the season nor his catches in the match against Surrey have ever been beaten by an outfielder. Of the seven batsmen who have topped 50,000 first-class runs.

He took 732 first-class wickets at an average of 30.58. As an allrounder, he stands second only to Garry Sobers. He captained England side in 20 test matches, and winning four, losing three, and drawing 13.Wally Hammond’s average of 56.10 is clearly the highest, Herbert Sutcliffe standing next on 52.02, while only Hobbs and Patsy Hendren have managed more first-class hundreds than Hammond’s 167. His 819 catches put him fourth on the all-time list among non-keepers.

He represented England side in 85 test matches, scoring 7,249 runs at an average of 58.45 including 22 centuries, 24 fifties, with the best score of 336*. Overall in all first-class matches, Wally Hammond played 634 matches, scoring 50,551runs at 56.10 including 167 hundred, 185 fifties, 732 wickets, with the best of 9 for 23. These records clearly describe his caliber in the cricket world. He was a true English legend.

Wednesday 11 December 2019

Richie Benaud Australia, 1952 – 1964

Richie Benaud, the Australian leg spinner displayed flair in everything he did. Whether it was aggressive batting, intelligent and varied leg-spin, brilliant close catching, instinctive and positive captaincy. Even though insightful TV commentary, which is probably what most people, too young to have seen him play for Australia, know him for.

Richie Benaud born on 6 October 1930 at Penrith New South Wales in a cricketing family. His younger brother John Benaud played 3 Test for Australia from 1972-73 to 1973-74. His father Louis, was a leg spinner, playing grade cricket in Australia. Richie was mostly inspired by his father's leg-spin abilities. He has been famous for more than 60 years and what underpinned everything with him throughout that time was a deep love and understanding of the game.

If he was to be remembered for just one thing, it perhaps ought to be leadership. Richie Benaud more than anyone led Australian cricket out of the doldrums in the late 1950s. His all-round cricket before he formally took over the national captaincy in 1958. He, along with his opposite number Sir Frank Worrell, did a great deal to revive general interest in Test cricket in a bold way. They conducted what turned into a truly epic series between Australia and West Indies in 1960–61.

That famous series started with the celebrated tied Test in Brisbane in which Benaud’s run-out for 52 with seven runs needed proved a major turning point during the game’s climax. Tactically he was razor-sharp, while never losing sight of the fact that a captain could realistically. The only hope to control so much of what happened during a game spanning several days and many hours. One of his most famous sayings was! “Captaincy is 90 percent luck and 10 percent skill. But don’t try it without the 10 percent.”

He certainly had that 10 percent and, like Mike Brearley, appeared to possess the uncanny knock of creating his own good fortune. Probably by being so good at anticipating what might happen next. If conjuring victory from defeat in the 1981 Ashes was Brearley’s defining achievement. Richie Benaud finest hour was a not dissimilar Houdini-like act at Old Trafford 20 years earlier, only a few months after the historic contests with Worrell’s team.

Then, with the series standing 1–1 after three matches and England 150 for one needing only a further 106 to take a 2–1 lead. He chose to forget that he was handicapped by a shoulder injury and, operating from round the wicket and into the rough. The bowled his country to unbelievable victory with a spell of five for 12 from 25 balls, thereby retaining the Ashes. If Brearley can claim to be England’s finest captain of all time, the same status might be accorded Benaud among Australian leaders.

He was inspired to bowl leg-spin by watching Clarrie Grimmett. Richie Benaud first played for New South Wales at the age of 18 and for Australia at 21. However, it took him time to fulfil his talents at the highest level. He smashed a maiden Test hundred in just 78 minutes at Jamaica in 1955. Where circumstances were extremely hard for the most taxing – six other centuries were scored in the same game – and it took him 25 matches to record his first five-for.

Richie also tasted a fair bit of defeat in his early years, finishing on the losing side to England in three straight Ashes series. English conditions were hardly conducive to leg-spin and he made a little impression with the ball on the 1953 and 1956 tours. Therefore, even accounting for his Manchester triumph in 1961 his Test wickets in England cost almost 40 apiece). Which is fairly high for his caliber? His best bowling analysis was 7 for 56 against India at Madras (now Chennai) in 1955-56.

Then things clicked on a tour of the subcontinent that followed straight on from the 1956 tour. Australia lost to Pakistan on a matting wicket in Karachi but Benaud then proved the decisive player with 23 wickets in three Tests in India in a series Australia won 2–0. A year later he produced what ranks among the finest all-round performances of all time in South Africa, where in five matches he scored 329 runs and took 31 wickets.

Only two other players – George Giffen and Ian Botham – have ever scored 300 runs and taken 30 wickets in the same series. Australia won that series 3–0. Moreover on the tour Benaud’s return in all first-class matches was a stupendous 817 runs and 106 wickets. When Ian Craig fell ill, Benaud was the natural choice to take over the captaincy against England in 1958–59. He took to the promotion effortlessly.

England was trounced 4–0 and if the methods of Benaud’s pace attack was questioned. This was at the height of the ‘throwing’ controversy – his own bowling was beyond reproach and he was leading wicket-taker on either side with 31 at 18.83. A year later Australia toured Pakistan and India again and this time won both series and Benaud was again the star with 47 wickets in the eight Tests at and a marvelous average of 20.19.

Then came the stubborn victories, both by 2–1 margin, over West Indies and England. With his shoulder problem causing him increasing difficulty. Because his effectiveness as a bowler began to diminish but he nevertheless retained the Ashes at home in 1962–63 with a 1–1 draw. He played one more series, at home to South Africa in 1963–64. Because initially as captain but then under Bob Simpson, before retiring from all cricket at the age of just 33. In fact, Benaud has left two- or three-years cricket to make his records more impressive.

If that was sad, the story of the second, triumphant phase of his Australia career was not. During it, he averaged five more points with the bat than he had earlier, and nine points fewer with the ball, while Australia won 19 Tests and lost only five. At the time of his retirement, Benaud had taken 248 wickets in 63 Tests Matches with the best of 7 for 72 and taking five wickets on 16 times and one time to grab 10 wickets in a match. As a mini all-rounder, he scored 2,201 runs at 24.45 with the highest score of 122 against South Africa at Johannesburg in 1957-58. Indeed, more than anyone else for Australia up to that point and second only to Fred Trueman among all nations.

He had also captured a record 266 wickets for New South Wales. And overall, he had a whole bag of tricks – googlies, flippers and top-spinners, countless variations in flight – and was very accurate by the standards of his breed. My entire experience of Richie is of him as a broadcaster, first listening to him and then, behind the microphone, working alongside him in the commentary box for Channel Nine and the BBC. He was indeed the guru of cricket commentary.

His selection of words and manner of delivery were always pitch-perfect. To a novice such he was generous of spirit, always happy to talk and pass on advice. It is easy in our business to fire from the hip but one of his great aphorisms is ‘Engage brain first before speaking’ and he was always very careful to avoid making sweeping statements about issues that might develop and force some revision.

His influence extended into many areas. He was a key adviser to Kerry Packer during World Series Cricket. A groundbreaking venture that was highly controversial at the time but for which all well-remunerated modern cricketers should be thankful. Taking together his contributions on and off the field, he must rank as one of the most significant cricketing figures of all time. Richie Benaud captain for Australia in 28 Test Matches with 12 wins, 4 lost, 1 tie, and 11 draws.

At the age of 84, he diagnosed with skin cancer in 2014. He fought with cancer with brave heart but eventually, he died in his sleep on April 10, 2015. Many great players attended his funeral like Shane Warne, Michael Clarke, Ian Chappell and his close family and friends. Richie Benaud handed the last baggy green cap to Mitchel Starc and Simon Katich. He was, in fact, most influential cricket personality post era of World War II. Many cricketers believe this is the second greatest loss after Don Bradman. His chirping voice will be forever missed by cricket lovers.

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Tuesday 10 December 2019

Malcom Marshall - A Small Fearsome Bowler

One of the trickiest questions is who the best bowler was David Gower ever faced. Inevitably his mind turns to the West Indies quick men who gave him the most torrid times of my career. Trying to pick one out, given all their strengths and differences, is not easy but the palm would have to go to Malcolm Marshall.

I was far from the only batsman of my generation who felt like that. And perhaps most persuasively of all, his West Indian peers rated him ever so highly. Andy Roberts and Michael Holding both conceded that he was probably the best.

My respect and admiration for him was one of the reasons why in 1990 I joined Hampshire, where he had long been an established star – respect, admiration and an instinct for the preservation that saw this as a sure-fire way to reduce the chances of me having to face his bowling.

‘Macko’ had blistering pace when he wanted it and could pepper you with bouncers when he felt like it. But he also possessed the nous to temper that pace when conditions suggested he would fare better by slowing down, pitching the ball up and swinging it late both ways.

Everything about him was quick, from the sprinting run-up to the quick action to the ball that whistled around your ears. His instinct for assessing conditions was only matched by his knack for working out what tactics, and what field settings, worked best for each opponent. He knew his mind and knew what he was trying to do.

He was among the sharpest of competitors. Andy Roberts was credited with, pardon the pun, marshaling the long line of great Caribbean fast bowlers of the 1970's and 1980's. But Malcolm Marshall took things to a new level of sophistication.

They know about fast bowling in Bridgetown and I remember once watching him from the stands there playing for Barbados in an island game: he was moving the ball around to the alarm of the batsmen in an exhibition that had the small gathering of locals looking on with me purring their approval of a master technician at work.

What made him stand out? I reckon he was my equivalent of the previous generation facing Jeff Thomson in his pomp. ‘Thommo’ may have had a couple of miles an hour on Marshall but at the speeds at which they were operating that did not make a lot of difference.

The great thing about Thommo was that he would keep coming at you all day long, and he would keep getting a bounce. Marshall was the same: always coming. He had a lovely fluid action that disguised quite how much effort he was putting in and it was amazing that he never seemed to get tired. You needed to be aware of that extra effort. He wouldn’t necessarily bowl at the speed of light all day, but he could step things up at any moment if he wanted to.

David Gower remember at Antigua in ’1986 when England was battling to avoid yet another defeat at West Indian hands. I’d managed to bat a long time for 90 when out of nowhere on a docile pitch Marshall managed to bowl me a snorter of a bouncer – and one of those balls that ‘got big’.

In truth, I would contest the validity of the dismissal (honest!) as I was given out caught behind even though the ball narrowly missed my glove before flicking my shoulder. But it was the fact that Marshall had suddenly extracted so much extra bounce that produced the wicket.

Malcolm Marshall was relatively small for a fast bowler at 5ft 11in and this made him predominantly awkward. The Marshall bouncer tended to skid on to you. If a taller man dropped the ball short, there was a fair chance it would go over your head.

But his best bouncers gave you nowhere to go and nowhere to hide. A lot of people besides Mike Gatting, who once famously and painfully misjudged a hook shot against Marshall, found this out to their cost.

Malcolm Marshall broke my right wrist on that 1986 tour, although I didn’t realize it was broken until about a year later when an X-ray on another blow. However, this time from Merv Hughes, highlighted the damage. I just thought it hurt, a lot. I first came across him on a Young England tour of West Indies in 1976 and even though he was only 18 years old it was clear that he was someone I might be coming up against a lot more in the future.

In fact, because of the emergence of World Series, he was chosen to tour with West Indies just two years later after only one first-class appearance for Barbados. He had to wait a few years to become a regular in the Test side. But his early promotion meant that he was able to learn on the job from some of the finest of fast bowling minds. He also learned a lot from joining Hampshire as a replacement overseas player for Roberts.

His breakthrough year was 1983 when he took 21 wickets in a home Test series against India before hot-footing to England to take 134 wickets in the championship for Hampshire (it is now almost 50 years since anyone took more wickets in an English season – Derek Underwood with 136 in 1967 the last to have done so).

Shortly after, he took 33 wickets in six Tests in what are usually arduous fast bowling conditions in India, having been given the new ball for West Indies for the first time on the suggestion of Holding.

It was a role he relished and after that he just got better and better. Even though he was playing in a mighty the powerful attack, he regularly proved himself the dominant fast bowler on either side, never more so than during the 1988 series in England when he took 35 wickets in the five matches at just 12.65 apiece.

West Indies never lost a Test series in which he featured and by the time of his last Test in 1991 he stood as the leading wicket-taker in West Indies history to that point (376 in 81 matches), with an average of 20.94 unmatched by any out-and-out fast bowler of the 20th century.

Malcolm Marshall, raised by his mother and grandparents after his father died when he was an infant, grew up idolizing Garry Sobers but his dreams of becoming a fully-fledged all-rounder never quite materialized. Even if he was a more than useful lower-order batsman (he scored seven first-class hundreds, but his Test-best was 92).

He was a great cricketer but also a lovely man who gave his all for the teams he played for. He was mortified at missing out on Hampshire’s cup final wins of 1988 and 1991, especially as he had also tasted defeat by one run in the Nat West Trophy in 1990, but this made victory all the sweeter when it came in the Benson & Hedges Cup in 1992.

There was never any element of him keeping things to himself; on the contrary, he enjoyed sharing information and this made him a wonderful coach in his later years, notably at Natal where he mentored Shaun Pollock among others.

Malcolm Marshall early death from cancer in 1999 at the age of 41 was a desperate loss to all his many friends in the game and beyond. But he left memorable cricketing memories in their fans. He was a true legend of all time.