Cricket On The Beach (Timeline 10/27/62 - Australia)

by James Philip

  That week will forever be remembered not for the cricket but for the death of Alban George ‘Johnny’ Moyes.[93]

  [He] was a great Australian... Few Australians have been better known or respected by the Australian public than Johnny Moyes...

  Many people were familiar with his voice on the radio... He was no armchair cricketer...born in South Australia he played for that State until the war in 1914. He was selected to represent Australia in South Africa in 1914, but the tour was cancelled...

  He was a fine soldier....

  Moyes had just finished the first year of his medical studies at the University of Adelaide at the outbreak of the First World War. He had served with the 48th Battalion, raised in 1916 as part of the Australian Imperial Force after the heavy losses in the Gallipoli campaign specifically for service on the Western Front. Three times wounded he was awarded the Military Cross for valour for his part in the Battle of Bullecourt during the Battle of Arras in 1917 during the course of which the battalion suffered 435 casualties. He was eventually invalided home in 1918 having attained the rank of Major.

  After the war, following a remarkable recovery from severe war wounds and serious illness, he played for Victoria. When he came to New South Wales in 1922 he played for Gordon. With Charlie Macartney and C.E. Kelleway [he] held a record for fast scoring – 220 in 83 minutes. It is recorded that he hit the ball many times onto the railway lines from [the] Chatswood Oval. He was always a player and advocate of bright cricket; but he never expected batsmen to take foolish risks merely to score quick runs...

  The author of twelve books on cricket, including a history of Australian cricket, he had an encyclopaedic memory for cricket history and statistics. As commentator and author, he did much for sport. Her Majesty the Queen awarded him the MBE for his services to cricket...

  Meanwhile, the Australian selectors, having had a week to rest their men had brought 23 year-old Neil Hawke, a right-arm medium fast bowler and competent bat into the Twelve for the Adelaide Test in place of Victorian fast bowler Colin Guest who – given the more than helpful bowling conditions had been horribly unlucky - missing out on selection in Sydney. At Sydney the selectors had toyed with replacing Ken Mackay’s steadiness with Guest’s ‘fire’ but after the disaster at the SCG, Hawke’s all-round credentials became a safer bet and ‘Slasher’ Mackay’s place in the side was cemented a little longer.

  In Adelaide there was disappointment that no South Australian was in the twelve, let alone the final eleven

  Absence had not made Ted Dexter’s heart fonder or more sympathetic to the body of the press pack awaiting MCC back in Sydney on the team’s day-long stopover before it flew, after a series of delays, on to Adelaide on the morning of Wednesday 23rd January.

  That afternoon MCC practiced at the Adelaide Oval.

  That evening Ted Dexter summoned his ‘brains trust’ and in the morning a hand-written copy of the team sheet was posted behind the bar on the ground floor of the team’s hotel.

  Much to the chagrin of the majority of correspondents ABC had been given a copy of the team sheet, as had Jim Swanton, John Woodcock of The Times, and a couple of Australian reporters but nobody else.

  There was much talk about Dexter and his men having ‘gone into the bunker’; an even worse manifestation of the thing which had so blighted the previous tour to the Antipodes in 1958-59.

  Ted Dexter has been known to guffaw: ‘The thing about a nuclear war is that afterwards you find out who your real friends are!’

  England had named the eleven that had triumphed in Sydney plus Ray Illingworth. The final XI would be finalised on the morning of the match once the ‘brains trust’ had had a good, long look at the Adelaide wicket.

  Practice was optional on the Thursday; the tourists had had precious little opportunity to put down their bats or rest their bowling and throwing arms so by common agreement practically everybody decamped to nearby Glenelg to spend several hours on the beach.

  The Australians, who tended to be a little more preoccupied with net practice as a big game approached had enjoyed a mixed time in the under-prepared nets at the Adelaide Oval. Ted Dexter, Len Coldwell and Ray Illingworth had wanted to turn their arms over – just long enough to loosen up – but given up after a few minutes because it was too dangerous for the local grade cricketers who had offered to bat to give the Englishmen ‘targets’. The local men were game enough; but the England captain did not want to court further controversy by hospitalising any of the volunteers.

  Dexter and Bedser had had their first look at the wicket.

  A typical Adelaide wicket; hardly any grass, flat, likely slow and possibly low bouncing, so trustworthy that it would be the Devil’s own work to remove a well set batsman. The only thing to do was win the toss, and thereafter bat sensibly for at least a day-and-a-half, ideally two, and then pray very hard that the top ‘dusted up’ on the last couple of days.

  The track had ‘draw’ written all over it.

  Such a wicket was tolerable for a ‘timeless’ match, or even a six-day one. Five day’s might not be long enough for either side to prise a result out of it.

  Chapter 19 | Fourth Test

  Ted Dexter tried very hard – and almost succeeded – in stifling a heartfelt sigh of relief when he called right at the toss and was able to inform his opposite number that England would take first use of the pitch.

  Knowing that the press pack would castigate him for timidity Dexter had, nonetheless, decided to rest the ‘Sydney destroyer’, David Larter in favour of Ray Illingworth. One glance at the wicket and he had thought a result so unlikely that the last thing he wanted to do was wear out his most effective strike bowler on Adelaide’s bowlers’ graveyard. He had no intention of publically ventilating his internal debate but had he still been interested in explaining himself; he would have explained that whatever manner of wicket was prepared for the Fifth and final test at Sydney it would almost certainly be quicker, bouncier and in no way as unfit for ‘good cricket’ as the pitch on which the Third Test had been played. Moreover, Sydney always took spin on the last two days. Sydney was a ‘result pitch’ and given the wear and tear his men had already endured he needed to keep his ammunition as dry as possible.

  In fact Dexter was tempted to also rest Brian Statham in favour of Len Coldwell and to bring in Barry Knight so that Fred Trueman could put his feet up, too. In the end he settled for standing down Larter, the Northamptonshire speedster was by far the least robust of the three seam bowlers, and tearing up the team sheet posted on Wednesday night would have been bad form. Not actually in contravention of the playing regulations pertaining to the tour; just bad form. And besides, he had no intention of working either of his veteran fast-medium bowlers overly hard in a futile cause at Adelaide.

  The England captain was smiling broadly as he returned to the dressing room and remarked: ‘We’re batting. Fill your boots, chaps!’

  Peter Parfitt obviously had not been listening; his other problem was that Alan Davidson in particular, and increasingly his speedier partner, Garth McKenzie had now seen enough, more than enough of the Middlesex batsman to have started to ‘work him out’.

  Parfitt was not a natural opening batsman. Practically all the runs he had scored to earn his place on the aircraft and ship carrying the party to Australia had been in the Middlesex middle order, and the four centuries he had scored prior to leaving England had all been against Pakistan. Without disparaging the Pakistani seamers in that era, none of them was a patch on either Davidson or McKenzie, and no team analysed an opponents’ batsmen’s techniques with such meticulous, cruel rigor as Richie Benaud and his team.

  Parfitt lacked the intuitive nimbleness of foot, the career opener’s perfect sense of where his off stump is at all times and therefore, he tended to play at a lot of balls he could happily have left alone. As a left-hander, this problem was exaggerated since right-hand bowlers were invariably firing balls ‘across his bows’ from over the wicket.

 
; This mattered even on a featherbed like the Adelaide wicket; meaning that neither Davidson, McKenzie, or Mackay needed to bowl a particularly nagging, accurate, or mean line on or just outside Parfitt’s off stick to persuade him to eventually play a rash shot; anywhere within eighteen inches of his pads was fine.

  That Friday morning in front of over thirty thousand cheering and happily partisan spectators Peter Parfitt soon wafted airily at a ball that David Sheppard would simply have ignored, and nicked a catch behind into Barry Jarman’s waiting gloves.

  That was in Alan Davidson’s third over of the day from the Cathedral End.

  England 18 for 1.

  Nobody ever really ‘worked out’ Ken Barrington. Now and then this or that theory might gain a little traction, offer a bowler a moment or two of fleeting hope. His technique was rock solid, if a momentary chink in his armour was exposed he made the tiniest of adjustments and hey presto, the Surrey master was impregnable once again.

  That Adelaide wicket was one of those Ken Barrington – had he been that sort of character – might have swooned over. As it was he unhurriedly played himself in, a thing accomplished in a couple of overs on such a batting paradise, set out his stall and began to accumulate runs with a remorseless, pitiless intent. In the four years his partner that morning, David Sheppard, had been away doing his good works in the East End, Barrington had been honing his skills, building his experience and now, aged thirty-two he was in the absolute prime of his cricketing life. The recent war had robbed him of so much, torn away his old life in England and he planned to make somebody pay for that. For today, and tomorrow he would take his revenge on the Australian bowlers.

  David Sheppard meanwhile having been out of sorts, and understandably distracted throughout the tour seemed to have found a vein of his real form, going to his half-century shortly after lunch and progressing sedately to 66 when, unaccountably his concentration lapsed and he played all around a gun-barrel straight delivery from Ken Mackay, who up until then had been toiling manfully at the City End without any real expectation of troubling, let alone dismissing a batsman.

  This was the cue for Ted Dexter to stride to the middle and play a typically dashing, debonair knock either side of the tea interval, perishing on 87 slapping a Bobby Simpson leg break into the cover fielder’s midriff. The ball was in Neil Harvey’s hands before he had moved; it hit him and he clung onto it.

  That was 253 for 3 with Barrington, at that juncture advancing on his century like a stately man-of-war shouldering through the water while the battle raged elsewhere.

  The Australians were by this stage hot, bothered and had it not been for the boon of seeing the back of the England captain when he looked set to wreak untold havoc on a tiring attack, despairing. Benaud, seeing a chink of light at the end of a very long tunnel, not waiting for the new ball to become available recalled McKenzie for an all out effort with the old cherry and attempted to hem Colin Cowdrey in with close catchers.

  This achieved nothing but a quickening of the run rate as Cowdrey picked off the young fast bowler; and Benaud’s bowling when he replaced Simpson, was repeatedly clipped and deflected into the vacated wide open spaces of the outer. To add insult to injury Barrington went to his hundred cutting and driving successive deliveries from Alan Davidson to the off side fence.

  The day ended with England on 311 for 3; Barrington on 107 and Cowdrey on 46 not out.

  Saturday was a cooler day but if the bowlers had hoped the altered weather would ease their burden they were to be sorely disappointed. The second new ball – so cavalierly despatched the previous evening – quickly became a scuffed rag and Richie Benaud went almost completely on the defensive. He kept a token slip fielder but otherwise his men were spread far and wide around the Adelaide Oval ‘waiting for something to happen’.

  All that actually ‘happened’ was that Ken Barrington systematically took on, and ground down each of the Australian bowlers except Alan Davidson, whom he continued to play with watchful respect until he was well past two hundred.

  On and on it went.

  The crowd, over thirty thousand on that last Saturday in January 1963 sprinkled with boisterous seaman off the two Royal Navy ships docked at Port Adelaide – the carrier HMS Hermes and her guard ship destroyer HMS Cassandra – began to barrack the fielders.

  At the tea interval the talk was of ‘when will Dexter declare’.

  England stood at 495 for 3: Barrington on 201, Cowdrey having batted relatively sedately, dealing in ones and twos most of the day had reached 124 not out.

  Dexter’s vice captain opened his shoulders and hit out twice after the break, possibly signalling an imminent declaration. However, when he was out caught at deep mid on for 136 there was no declaration. Instead, Tom Graveney entered the fray and began to slowly, surely build his own innings as if Dexter planned to bat on until Kingdom Come!

  Actually, Ted Dexter was bored stiff by then. If anything the wicket was playing easier and easier, showing no signs of deterioration and England could probably have batted another day. As it was there was no declaration that evening.

  At the close England had attained the commanding heights of an unassailable 633 for 4; with Barrington unbeaten on 278 and Graveney 45 not out. Richie Benaud too, had given up, summoning in turn every one of his men except Barry Jarman to turn his arm over. Garth McKenzie had gone for 152 runs, Davidson 114, Mackay for 108, Benaud for 133 and Bobby Simpson for 74.

  The next day was Sunday.

  Ted Dexter waited until half-an-hour before play commenced on the Monday to declare; only to be roundly criticised in sections of the press for denying Ken Barrington the opportunity to go to his triple century on the third morning.

  Bill Lawry began as he meant to continue, intent on batting out the remaining three days, in survival mode. Bobby Simpson was a little more expansive but not much. For thirty to forty minutes while the ball was at its hardest the odd delivery gained some small purchase off the surface, or deviated a fraction in the air, thereafter there was no joy whatsoever for the two opening bowlers. They tried everything they knew, varying pace, line - Trueman bowled several swift off breaks – even pedestrian bouncers to try to induce a false shot, all to no avail.

  After forty minutes Dexter rested Trueman and a couple of overs later, withdrew Statham from the attack. The England captain had come on as first change bowler and soon Tony Lock was wheeling away at the Riverbank End.

  Of all the Australian Test grounds Adelaide was in those days by far the most picturesque, and if a cloud passed over the arena, the most English; vaguely reminiscent of Worcester transported down under with the field of play laid out beneath the spires of St Peter’s Cathedral. However, for a bowler on a typical Adelaide wicket there is little solace in the garden surroundings of the city’s famous old Oval. More often than not a man must strive in hope rather than expectation of error, all but powerless to influence the tide of events.

  The fifth wicket of the match eventually fell twenty minutes after lunch. Bobby Simpson’s lulled into a lapse of concentration. Since he had come to the wicket batting had been like an extended net session. Cricketers get bored; even in the middle of a Test Match they get bored, especially when it is ‘too easy’. Few men bestride the stage of international sport and invariably, those who attain such heights have got there not necessarily solely by dint of exceptional natural - god-given or born talent according to one’s preference – but because they relish the fight more than the majority of their peers. When the going gets too easy such men can occasionally mislay their motivational wellspring. Without a threat, a challenge, or the stinging bite of adversity what is the point?

  Simpson cut at Tony Lock’s ‘arm ball’ shortly after raising his fifty, feathering the ball into John Murray’s gloves.

  Australia were 83 for 1 with Bill Lawry entrenched on 28.

  Neil Harvey took guard, noting peripherally that Fred Trueman and his captain were deep in earnest conversation a little out of earshot. Harv
ey had decided that this was his penultimate Test, although still only thirty-four he had been in the Australian side for the last fourteen years, averaging nearly fifty in his seventy-eight caps. Still at the height, or perhaps, very close to his peak he had determined to bow out with his skills and his reputation unbowed. After so long at the top his final appearance at each of the old Australian Test grounds – each the scenes of past personal glories – was an emotional occasion.

  ‘Give me the ball,’ Fred Trueman demanded. ‘Now’s the moment to shake up the beggars!’ Or words to that effect.

  Judging that Fiery Fred was in ‘one of those moods’ when he wanted nothing less than to start pulling up tree stumps, Dexter relented.

  ‘Just two or three overs, Fred.’

  The temperature beneath a burning southern sun was soaring into the nineties and the last thing Dexter wanted to do was risk ‘ruining’ his talismanic spearhead bowler on ‘that’ wicket.

  Notwithstanding, Australia went in to the tea break 162 for 7 and honestly and truly, nobody knew how it had happened.

  Neil Harvey had been the first to go, bowled neck and crop by a ferocious yorker that whistled under his bat and sent his leg stump spinning into space.

  Later people said it was like watching Trueman in the mid-fifties, a raging bull; he was a whirlwind of tearaway pace, breathing fire as if he was bowling on a green Sheffield or Headingley wicket rather than on the flattest, un-grassed wicket in the Antipodes. Fred Trueman had got angry about something and that afternoon there was no stopping him.

  Brian Booth wore a short pitched ball which was onto him before he completed his shot, edged balls over the slips and then parried a rising ball – which had no right to climb so precipitately at him on that wicket – into Tony Lock’s hands at short leg. Norm O’Neill perished stepping back and cutting into Ray Illingworth’s hands at cover point. Western Australian Barry Shepherd whose obduracy and courage had so impressed everybody on debut in the middle of the Sydney debacle stuck around playing half-a-dozen defiant shots before he too perished, top edging a pull down long leg’s throat. Then it was the turn of the all-rounders to try to stem the tide; Davidson and Mackay mixed blocking with sudden flashes of aggression, inevitably Trueman removed them both.