two great ashes stories

[Ken Gargett]

those who enjoy cricket must get on to the guardian site. they are doing 20 stories. the first one of warney's first ball in ashes cricket was riveting. they are beautifully written - some of the best sports writing i've seen in a long time - and feature great stuff from both sides.

here are two goodies (they are about half way through so plenty more great stuff to come). one starts with the lillee/thommo demolition of england but then morphs into the story of cowdrey - for those of us old enough to remember, wonderful stuff.

the second was the coming of age of aussie cricket under border - one of my absolute fave players. hard as nails and this is why. i was in the states during that tour but remember getting up at ridiculous hours, pre internet, to call home to get scores.

any cricket fan will love this stuff.

20 great Ashes moments No9: Lillee and Thommo savage England, 1974

The two great Australia fast bowlers left England so battered and bruised they had to call for an unlikely reinforcement

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Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson at Lord's in 1975, a year after terrorising the England batsman in Australia. Photograph: Peter Cade/Getty Images

The day the MCC touring party flew to Australia to defend the Ashes in October 1974 was an opportunity for sober analysis of their prospects. Pessimism generally prevailed specifically because of the absences of their most prolific batsman and bowler. Geoffrey Boycott, in self-imposed exile or martyrdom, according to whose side you were on, wintered in Fitzwilliam and Cape Town while John Snow, left at home on the explicit instructions of the chairman of selectors and tour manager, Alec Bedser, for being "not a good team man", composed more melancholy poems and rounded off his benefit year in rural West Sussex.

Four years earlier when Ray Illingworth's side regained the Ashes after a dozen years in Australian hands, Boycott had scored 657 runs at 93.85 and Snow had captured 31 wickets at 22.83. If Illingworth later became a caricature of pig-headed inflexibility as England's team manager it is his tragedy that it tends to overshadow his outstanding gifts as a captain, never better illustrated than when harnessing two such singular men and defeating Australia over a long, arduous series by attrition, skill, character and fortitude.

Perennial optimists ferreted for reassuring evidence that MCC were not damned even before their aircraft's wheels had kissed the Adelaide runway and found some comfort in the frailties of the home bowling attack. Dennis Lillee had not taken a Test wicket since his 51st in January 1973 and had spent 18 months out of the game following vertebral surgery. Reports about the fearsome pace of Jeff Thomson had been received, a customary pre-battle blitzkrieg of shrill clamour designed to shrivel the bowels of Englishmen, but the tyro had played just the one Test, and that with a broken foot two seasons previously, taken no international wickets and had managed to earn a place in the New South Wales Sheffield Shield side only once since Christmas 1972. He took seven for 89 in the first innings of his last match for NSW, recalled after breaking bones, teeth and stumps in Bankstown's colours, but his lack of first-class games had persuaded him to move to Queensland in the southern winter of 1974 and when the tourists arrived he had yet to make his debut in the maroon cap of his adopted state.

In Australia's past seven Tests Max Walker had opened the bowling with Jeff Hammond, who was now injured, Tony Dell, Geoff Dymock and Gary Gilmour, all of whom were lively and had potential but did not possess the raw pace and naked hostility to terrify MCC's seemingly seasoned and hard-bitten batting line-up. When MCC picked five seam bowlers of their own – Bob Willis, Peter Lever, Geoff Arnold, Chris Old and Mike Hendrick – John Woodcock's sentiment in the Times that "with MCC's attack so overweighted with speed, the faster the pitches the better" was common. Defeat was thought probable though not inevitable but no one predicted a violation by aggressive fast bowling, a mugging of such insouciant forcefulness that it stirred the spectre of Bodyline even though it had to be conceded that Australians found that particular analogy ironic and hysterical.

Draws with South Australia and Victoria were followed by victories over NSW and Queensland, the latter team keeping Thomson hungry by restricting him to 21 overs in the match. Lancashire's David Lloyd who had made his England debut and played five Tests in the summer of 1974, scoring an unbeaten double century against India and averaging 71.20, was ruled out of the first Test at the Gabba when he fractured his little finger during fielding practice. His absence spared his hand further punishment as Thomson took nine wickets and Lillee four in Australia's 166-run win while John Edrich and Dennis Amiss, both double victims of the torrid bounce and velocity Thomson's artless yet beguiling and athletically-pure catapult action generated, were left nursing a fractured index finger and thumb respectively.

The three casualties plus Keith Fletcher's injury when hit on the funny bone in the nets left MCC with only the captain, Mike Denness, Brian Luckhurst, the gingerly recovering Lloyd and their sole Brisbane hero, the swashbuckling centurion Tony Greig, as fit batsmen to play Western Australia. If Fletcher recovered in time for the toss of the Perth Test, which was scheduled for nine days after the Gabba carnage, the tourists were still down to five.

Bedser contacted Lord's and requested a replacement, one specifically nominated by Denness. At home in Bickley, a portly 41-year-old man was surprised to be summoned to the telephone on a chilly December evening. He had played his last Test, his 109th, 42 months previously and, though Colin Cowdrey remained an important player for Kent with 1,000 runs in each of the past three seasons, the idea of him resuming his international career and touring Australia for a sixth time had appeared so remote that only his stalwart advocate, the Daily Telegraph's EW Swanton, had even floated his candidacy back in September.

But someone who could withstand world-class fast bowling, someone who could not be intimidated, someone with soft hands and a barn-door defence, someone cheerful enough to fortify the battered, bruised and merely terrorised was required.

If Boycott was not available who was there? Greig would have chosen David Steele or Brian Close, as indeed he did when he succeeded Denness, but the Kent captain was convinced that his long-time county colleague, the veteran who would go on to be addressed as "Sir Colin" then "Lord Cowdrey" but who was then less formally known by his team-mates as "Kipper", was the ideal choice. And Bedser, who had shared his 50th Test with Cowdrey's debut 20 years earlier at the Gabba, concurred. "I'd love to," said Cowdrey to the invitation and began packing. Having seen enough of the first Test highlights he astutely loaded his coffin with an arsenal of foam padding.

Because of a faulty plane, it took him 47 hours to get to Perth, and when he walked through customs in his MCC blazer carrying two bats, the British press treated it in identical fashion to the Brookfield old boys celebrating the recall from retirement of Mr "Chips" Chipping at the outbreak of the first world war and his belated elevation to headmaster. Eyes misted over and large ones were raised in his honour.

He had three days to conquer jet lag and prepare for the second Test, six nets to adjust his eyes and get ready to bat in a first-class match for the first time in 110 days.

Perhaps like the majority of batsmen who made their names in the 1950s with the south-east counties – Kent, Surrey, Essex and Middlesex – Cowdrey lacks a modern champion. Where Tom Graveney still inspires the West Country romantics and Ted Dexter's elegance earned the enduring lyrical embrace of Sussex, Cowdrey is an unfashionable cricketer to acclaim. His status as the ultimate establishment man, MCC both in name and symbolically, his diffidence and introspection when captain and suspicion over his conduct during the Basil D'Oliviera affair have clouded the panache of his batting at his best.

When Cowdrey was 18 his range of strokes and execution of them had Len Hutton thinking of him as the heir to Wally Hammond. At 41 he had his century of centuries and was the only man ever to have played a century of Tests but there was still an air of sadness that he never quite managed to fulfil the ambitions of those who invested so much hope in him as a teenager. Instead of becoming the greatest English batsman he ended up one of the most successful.

Disappointment is a cruel emotion which undeservedly taints the brilliant youth who becomes the merely very good adult but in Cowdrey's case at least the example of physical courage he demonstrated in answering England's call, first against West Indies in 1963 with his wrist in plaster and again 11 years later gave his Test career an uplifting encore. For all his achievements before, the image of him emerging into the dazzlingly intense Australian sunlight, his eyes half-lidded to protect them, helmetless, of course, plump and beaming is the abiding one for most who were born in the past six decades – Samuel Pickwick walking towards the sound of the cannon.

An hour earlier Ian Chappell had won the toss. "I sent them in to bat," Australia's captain said. "Purely on the basis that they were so hammered mentally from Brisbane that I thought we had the psychological edge, so let's sort of bang it home." This was a good 15 years before the emergence of the Barmy Army, remember, and the crowd was loud and partisan. With a 24 tinnie-per-person maximum allowance each day, it was only going to get worse.

Lillee opened the bowling on his home ground and it took Thomson from the other end five deliveries of his first eight-ball over to crack Luckhurst's knuckle. The Kent opener, though, batted on with Lloyd for 53 minutes, both flying by the seat of their pants to fend off Lillee but making the most of Thomson's wayward line to put on 44 before Luckhurst was caught at gully. In came Cowdrey to a fair and warm reception. Later, at the MCG, he was heckled from Bay 13: "Get back to Greyfriars, Billy Bunter." Yet at the Waca he was welcomed cordially.

Straight away he got into line and when Thomson replaced the wicket-taker Walker, Cowdrey approached the bowler. One difference between the two sides generally was that the Englishmen wore collar length hair because it was the fashion while the Australians' hair and moustaches were more a reflection of their attitude. The sight of Cowdrey among them was somewhat incongruous – as if Bill Haley had been summoned to headline Altamont.

"Good morning, my name's Cowdrey," he said. Thomson has told the story so often, with ribald twists introduced depending on the audience, that it is hard to know precisely what he said in response but his latest account, gives a flavour: "As I handed my hat to the umpire, I was revved up and just wanted to kill somebody and Kipper walked all the way up to me and said: 'Mr Thomson I believe. It's so good to meet you.' And I said: 'That's not going to help you, Fatso, now piss off.'"

Lloyd and Cowdrey stayed together for a minute over two hours. At one point, after Cowdrey was hit on the buttock, Lloyd was astonished to find his partner saying: "This is rather fun."

"Fun?" said Lloyd. "I've been in funnier situations." They stuck together, though, wearing the blows, defending their throats, slowly feeding on the scraps to crawl along at two-an-over and put on 55 until Lloyd fell one short of an Ashes 50 after lunch with England one short of three figures. Back in the dressing room Denness said: "Lloyd's body was quivering. His neck and the top half of his body were shaking, suffering from the effects of never having to move so quickly in all his life."

From 99 for one before Lloyd's dismissal, England collapsed to 208 all out with Walker and the golden arm of Doug Walters doing as much damage as Lillee and Thomson. England then fielded for four-and-a-half sessions as Australia made 481, which included one of the greatest Ashes innings – Walters's century after tea on the second day, which he brought up off the last ball with a stunning pull for six, audaciously in front of square.

Luckhurst's hand had swollen so much from the first-innings blow that he struggled to put on his batting glove so Cowdrey again accepted Denness's invitation, this time to open for England for the first time since 1967.

"Bumble" and "Kipper" sound like a pair of Dickensian fogeys but England's first two were far from decrepit and Cowdrey, shielded by his foam, and Lloyd, a Reader's Digest in a sock strapped to his thigh for further protection, showed their pluck against the barrage with a stand of 52 despite being surrounded by four slips, two gullys, forward-short square and a leg slip. The pair did not have long to savour their 50 partnership before Thomson struck again, leaving Lloyd's wicket intact if not the normal pitch of his voice.

Cricketing decorum offered myriad synonyms for the precise location of the blow: midriff, amidships, abdomen, upper thigh, groin, pelvis and protector. The last was the most accurate though "protector" was a misnomer.

and requires no embellishment to make men wince.

"I was wearing a pink Litesome box and it had holes in," said Lloyd. "It was completely useless. You can put you soap in one, that's about as useful as they are. Everything that should have been in that pink Litesome had found its way through the holes and was trapped now on the outside, No wonder I somersaulted into the floor and landed straight on my head. I didn't need a doctor, I needed a welder to get this box and all its contents apart."

With Lloyd off the field undergoing what Thomson called "a very delicate operation like a jigsaw puzzle" Cowdrey in partnership with his captain continued to defy the quicks, scoring 41 before Thomson trapped him leg-before. The following morning, with England only two down overnight, Lloyd had been told to prepare to resume at the fall of the next wicket which came about two minutes into the morning session.

The first ball from Thomson hit him in the neck and as the bowler retrieved the ball from the pitch he looked up at Lloyd and said: "G'day ya Pommie bastard."

The batsman Tiggered along as best he could until he was out for 35 and though Fred Titmus and Old delayed defeat with a stout rearguard stand, Thomson finished with five for 93 and Australia wrapped up a nine-wicket victory with more than a day to spare.

At the end of play Richie Beanud said: "It was a great disaster for England. I haven't seen a more pathetic batting display from an England side for many a year." How harsh that contemporary verdict looks, before Thomson and Lillee raced to 100 wickets and beyond, before Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Wayne Daniel, Colin Croft, Joel Garner and Malcolm Marshall. Looking back at it now it is far from pathetic. It seems positively heroic with Cowdrey and Lloyd, like George Mainwaring and Frank Pike as depicted in the closing credits of Dad's Army, marching into danger, defying the odds, determined to do their duty whatever the cost to themselves.

With thanks to Mike

Read the full article at:http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2013/may/28/20-great-ashes-moments-lillee-thommo-1974#ixzz2UkhxoFlq

20 great Ashes moments No8: Allan Border, no more Mr Nice Guy, 1989

Australia's captain epitomised a hard-nosed approach that was to form the bedrock of the great sides that followed

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Allan Border was friendly with England captain David Gower during the losing 1985 tour but the Australian vowed to 'show the bastards' four years later. Photograph: Adrian Murrell/Allsport

Throughout much of the 1980s Australian cricket was a mess, the national team cast about on the winds of rebellion, hamstrung by retirements and peppered by regular defeat. Yet in the 1990s the Baggy Green side was one of the greatest the sport has seen. A generation of England fans grew up knowing the Australian side only as an all-conquering force, one who would habitually humiliate whichever side England sacrificially put out to take them on. The pivot between the old, shambolic and (crucially) Ashes-losing Australia of the 1980s and the new, terrifying Pommie-pounding Australia of the 1990s came in the Ashesseries of 1989. And perhaps the simplest way to encapsulate the spirit of that summer is with two bottles of champagne and a glass of water.

First, the bubbly. Terry Alderman, written off before the series as over-the-hill, a 30-something whose potency had been eroded by years of injury, a has-been that never really was, confounded the critics with match figures of 10 for 151 as Australia tore England apart in the first Test at Headingley. The bowler whose swing swung the game in the tourists' favour pipped Steve Waugh and Mark Taylor to the man-of-the-match award, accepted his magnum of champagne, then ordered it to be put on ice until the Ashes were back in Australian hands.

That was the first bottle in our tale. The second makes its appearance in the hands of a waiter at lunch on the second day of the fifth Test. Taylor and Geoff Marsh had batted through the entire opening day, Australia, 3-0 up with two games to play, the Ashes already heading back down under, were 370 for one, well on their way to amassing 400 plus in their first innings for the fifth time in five matches. Marsh had at last been dismissed for 138 in the morning session and, "to celebrate", the England captain David Gower ordered himself a glass of the good stuff. If it was meant to be a self-deprecating attempt at light humour in the face of a crisis, it came across as a gesture of utter demoralisation, a sign of England's all-too-obvious inadequacies and impotence in the face of a Baggy Green steamroller. And, coupled with Alderman's magnum, it showcased the contrast in attitude between the sides – one shrugging its shoulders, one ruthlessly hell-bent on victory.

Which brings us on to that glass of water. Later in that Test, during England's doomed attempt to avoid the follow on, Robin Smith, arguably the only England player to come out of the series with any credit, asked the Australian captain if he might have a glass of water. "No you ******* can't, what do you think this is – a ******* tea party?" came the unequivocal response from Allan Border. This was a new Australia and a new Border. No more Mr Nice Guy.

The seeds of the new era were sown in the Ashes series of 1985, one that for Australia had been preceded, in Border's words, by "a monumental **** fight" following defections from the squad for a rebel tour of South Africa – "I was a very unhappy captain, and I clearly had a very unhappy team on my hands." Border's team, defending the urn won back in 1982-83 by Greg Chappell, lost 3-1 to Gower's England, but the atmosphere was convivial – there's an illustrative photograph in Border's autobiography of the two captains at the end of a day's play during that tour, Border clasping his opposite number in a handshake with one arm, the other draped chummily across Gower's shoulders, smiles all round. It was too convivial for some. "AB, these blokes are belting the hell out of you," Ian Chappell told the Australian captain, "but you're out there being their best mate, for Christ's sake." Border would remember those words, and act accordingly, on his next visit to England.

Even fresher in Australian minds was the chastening beating they suffered on home soil at the hands of the West Indies in 1988-89. "We got beaten by the West Indies in the Boxing Day Test – they smashed us up and embarrassed us – and we made a pact afterwards it would never happen again," said Dean Jones, the Australian No5. "That was the biggest turning point we've had in Australia. Everything changed for us. AB and all the players were harder on ourselves."

The tourists disembarked from 26 hours in business class (the first time an Australian side had not flown economy to England – "'Aussies mean business' had a nice ring to it," reckoned Border) to be greeted by the usual "worst touring side ever" headlines. There was no doubt the home side expected to win. Gower had announced himself "supremely confident" of not just retaining the Ashes but beating the Australians on his reappointment as captain in April. If the confidence of the England side and media looks ludicrous in hindsight – and in poring over the faults of the visitors they entirely overlooked the weaknesses in their own side – it's worth remembering that since winning the second Ashes Test at Lord's on 27 June, 1985,Australia had won only five of 34 Tests, and of the 13 Tests played away from home in that period they had won none. In the 1980s up to that point they had won just one series on foreign soil – and that a one-match affair in Sri Lanka – and they had won only three series anywhere since 1983. The future greats in the side – Taylor, Waugh, Healy – were yet to reveal their greatness. They even lost their opening three-day match of the tour in a low-scoring game against Worcestershire then drew against Somerset in the next. Yet even during those games Border had a new demeanour. He had always been a rugged character, a battler, but this was a new, harder edge – he refused to talk to the opposition, and demanded complete discipline and commitment from his team in the field. And from England's point of view, the counties made the mistake of throwing fuel on the fire.

In 1985 Border had complained about county sides fielding below-strength lineups in tour matches, so in 1989 counties were offered cash prizes – a share of £25,000 – for wins over the tourists, in a rather ill-thought-out attempt to ensure competitive matches. It certainly did that but a side-effect was that county sides tended to prepare result pitches. Fiery, bouncy, mind-your-head pitches. In the final tour match before the first Test, against Derbyshire – who fielded Devon Malcolm and a young West Indian named Ian Bishop – the Australian batting lineup were peppered with short deliveries. Fuelled by the cold pizza served up for lunch, they were bowled out for 200 in their first innings, 180 in the second and scraped home by 11 runs . That experience was the final straw. In the first Test Australia would be determined to, in Border's words, "show the bastards".

And show them they did. At Headingley, scene of Border's lowest point in 1981, Gower won the toss (at which the Australia captain did not speak to his counterpart) and put the tourists in. Taylor smashed his first Test century, Waugh did likewise, Australia declared at 601 for seven and despite England avoiding the follow-on, Alderman bowled the tourists tovictory in the fourth innings. The champagne went on ice.

After another game of what Border described as "bounce the Aussie" against a Lancashire attack including Wasim Akram and Patrick Patterson, Waugh made an unbeaten 152 in the first innings at Lord's, Merv Hughes was warned for intimidatory bowling and an Australian side went two up after two Tests in England for the first time since Donald Bradman's side in 1948.

Two moments at HQ again illustrate Australia's new-found focus. Border points to the incident when he swiped at and missed a triple-bounce ball from Neil Foster. England were tickled, the Australian captain furious: "Maybe in 1985 I'd have responded to such an incident, and their joking, with a bit of light-hearted banter of my own." This time around there was just naked rage. After the match the Australian camp received a telegram from the makers of the Crocodile Dundee films: "The party is on us. When and where do you want it?" Again it was decided to wait until after the Ashes were secure.

For the third Test at Edgbaston England recalled Ian Botham, despite the fact that he had neither scored a first-class fifty nor taken five wickets in an innings for two years, and rain came to the rescue. But at Old Trafford in the fourth Test (ahead of which England were rocked by the announcement of a rebel squad to tour South Africa) there was no escape from the throttling, aggressive fields, disciplined bowling and belligerent dismantling of the England attack. Three-nil, the Ashes back in Australian hands, but the relentless tourists and their captain were not yet satisfied. "We had some unfinished business: we wanted to win the series 5-0, the greatest winning margin by an Australian team. We had a team meeting at which the feeling was very much: 'Let's go for the jugular.'"

At Trent Bridge Taylor and Marsh did not just go for the jugular – they ripped it out and made balloon animals with it. The first day ended with Australia 301 without loss, the opening pair becoming the first players to bat through an entire day's play in a Test in England and only the third openers to do so anywhere. The home side by this stage were in disarray – Australia won by an innings and 180 runs.

The ordeal was nearly over for Gower and England. On the opening morning of the sixth Test Border was asked if he would like England to up their game a little, just to try his side's mettle, to see how his youngsters responded to pressure. "Nope," came the reply. England, who with their team selection took the number of players used during the series to 29 (Australian, in contrast, used 12), escaped with a rain-affected draw after Border, ruthless to the end, had delayed a declaration on the final day. An earlier end to the Australian innings "would have given England a sniff of victory and I had no intention of doing that".

The demolition work was complete, England reduced to rubble. Australia, 4-0 winners for the first time since 1948, had their party courtesy of Crocodile Dundee's box-office takings, flew home for ticker-tape parades and prepared for a new era of hard-nosed dominance. England hunkered down for a rebuilding job that would take a decade. That was definitely no tea party.

[mazolaman]

Wonderful writing Ken, thanks for the link.

I can remember Border well.

I will look out for the rest on the Guardian, cheers.

[Danston]

Great stories Ken, I grew up watching cricket in the 90s with England getting a pasting from your boys and pretty much everyone else! Looks like we have AB to thank for getting the ball rolling

[Ken Gargett]

one of my great (and they are extyremely few indeed) moments playing cricket was actually replacing border in a game. when i was living in england, got a call about 6am on a sunday morning, about an hour after i'd crashed. the bloke, whose voice i couldn't recognise, asked if i could replace the great man for a game he had coming up. assumed it was idiot mates but couldn't pick them and so, fortunately, was not really rude - it was early.

turned out to be some ex-pat old bloke, lovely guy, who'd done very well and had his own ground. every year he did a game amongst locals etc and had got to know border well and border would come over and play in it. he was on a tour so they needed an aussie and someone put me up (i must have been the only aussie they knew).

it was a pretty low standard affair but good fun. sadly i did not do anything that might have justified the decision. think i got a blob and then when keeping, i remember getting a stumping that i was very pleased with. until the dodgy ump from the other side (as was the way woth games like this) has gone 'not out'. i am outraged at this, pointing out that he still hasn't got back in. ump says i took it in front of the stumps. utter rubbish but bugger all i could do. needless to say, i was not required again.

[CaptainQuintero]

Being born in 87 I grew up with only knowing internationals resulting in thrashings from Oz, it was just expected ala England going out on penalties. In fact it wasn't until about a decade ago that I became aware that you lot could be even beaten at sport *cough*2003 Wilkinson *cough*

[mazolaman]

Being born in 87 I grew up with only knowing internationals resulting in thrashings from Oz, it was just expected ala England going out on penalties. In fact it wasn't until about a decade ago that I became aware that you lot could be even beaten at sport *cough*2003 Wilkinson *cough*

being just a little bit older...a decade or so..boo, I can remember us also getting stuffed by the great West Indies sides that were king before the Ausies. So, I had lots more years of England generally being beaten. I think the Windies began the philosophy that Border adopted...must win, no surrender. Like Jeff Thompson, the Windies bowlers were frightening.

[Ken Gargett]

being just a little bit older...a decade or so..boo, I can remember us also getting stuffed by the great West Indies sides that were king before the Ausies. So, I had lots more years of England generally being beaten. I think the Windies began the philosophy that Border adopted...must win, no surrender. Like Jeff Thompson, the Windies bowlers were frightening.

being a touch older, i can assure you it was not the windies. it was ian chappell and his team. they hated losing in 71, i think, to illingworth and the 4 zip thrashing we copped at the hands of the brilliant barry richards and magnificent graeme pollock et al. he transformed the team into a bunch of mates who'd do anything for each other and play as hard as nails on the field and enjoy life off it - and greatly influenced border in time. they thrashed the west indies (after england) 5-1 i think. and this was no dud west indies team - clive lloyd, michael holding, alvin kallicharan, lawrence rowe, viv richards, lance gibbs, andy roberts, greenidge, fredericks - some of the greatest cricketers.

apparently lloyd was so bushwhacked by it all that he swore never again and seeing what thommo/lillee/gilmour/walker did to them decided they needed the same thing (and didn't that come back to bite us). hence the windies fast bowling attack that followed.

for me, chappell remains the greatest captain i have seen (before anyone says brearley, chappell not only deserved a spot as a batsman but justified it). he made things happen, played so hard but behind the scenes did so much.

an example - never made public but i am assured it is true - was apparently that after keith miller left his wife (and chappell was a great mate and admirer of miller), chappell would always drop by whenever he was in sydney or melbourne - no idea where she lived - to make certain she was okay and see if she needed anything - and did it for decades after. the theory being that aussie cricket was a family and whatever else happened, you looked after your own. i admire him enormously.

[mazolaman]

being a touch older, i can assure you it was not the windies. it was ian chappell and his team. they hated losing in 71, i think, to illingworth and the 4 zip thrashing we copped at the hands of the brilliant barry richards and magnificent graeme pollock et al. he transformed the team into a bunch of mates who'd do anything for each other and play as hard as nails on the field and enjoy life off it - and greatly influenced border in time. they thrashed the west indies (after england) 5-1 i think. and this was no dud west indies team - clive lloyd, michael holding, alvin kallicharan, lawrence rowe, viv richards, lance gibbs, andy roberts, greenidge, fredericks - some of the greatest cricketers.

apparently lloyd was so bushwhacked by it all that he swore never again and seeing what thommo/lillee/gilmour/walker did to them decided they needed the same thing (and didn't that come back to bite us). hence the windies fast bowling attack that followed.

for me, chappell remains the greatest captain i have seen (before anyone says brearley, chappell not only deserved a spot as a batsman but justified it). he made things happen, played so hard but behind the scenes did so much.

an example - never made public but i am assured it is true - was apparently that after keith miller left his wife (and chappell was a great mate and admirer of miller), chappell would always drop by whenever he was in sydney or melbourne - no idea where she lived - to make certain she was okay and see if she needed anything - and did it for decades after. the theory being that aussie cricket was a family and whatever else happened, you looked after your own. i admire him enormously.

Remember Jardene and Larwood? Thankfully, we're not old enough to remember them. I guess they won at any cost.

I suppose you will have seen "Fire in Babylon", the film?

It's a bit of a hagiography, but in essence it describes the Windies touring Australia, playing the Chappell era team.

You're probably correct in that Chappell's team was the first "must win" team, but at what cost? The film describes the treatment the Windies were given while there, from players and crowds, and, as you say, Clive Lloyd created the fearsome Windies team that spanked all our arses for a few years..

[Ken Gargett]

Remember Jardene and Larwood? Thankfully, we're not old enough to remember them. I guess they won at any cost.

I suppose you will have seen "Fire in Babylon", the film?

It's a bit of a hagiography, but in essence it describes the Windies touring Australia, playing the Chappell era team.

You're probably correct in that Chappell's team was the first "must win" team, but at what cost? The film describes the treatment the Windies were given while there, from players and crowds, and, as you say, Clive Lloyd created the fearsome Windies team that spanked all our arses for a few years..

ta for that. haven't seen it. will keep an eye out.

yes, of course, the bodyline tour, though they took it a hell of a lot further than anyone, i guess.

even as i was writing the above, i know there'd be others before chappell. i don't remember too much anti west indies feeling at all from that tour. they have always been very popular here? mind you, they would have absolutely hated being thrashed - who wouldn't? don't think it went anywhere near as far as border in 1989. that did make a lot of people uncomfortable, though beating the poms does make us feel a bit better.

i see warnie says that if no KP, we'll win. i think that might be warnie having a bit of fun.

[CaptainQuintero]

That reminds me, what's the general feeling in warnie's erm "transformation" of the last few years down there?

Although to be fair.....Liz Hurley, can't knock the means to an end there!!

[Ken Gargett]

warnie being warnie. and yes, can't knock the result.

that said, i suspect that liz hurley was someone who was seen as very attractive, bit aloof, made a mistake with hugh grant but crap happens.

but warnie? think people now think of her as a very attractive gibbering idiot.

done her rep far more harm than warnie's.

[Bill Hayes]

Fire in Babylon is definitely worth a look. There's great footage of Thommo chasing down a feral pig. Hilarious.

[Ken Gargett]

Fire in Babylon is definitely worth a look. There's great footage of Thommo chasing down a feral pig. Hilarious.

possibly have seen it then as definitely watched that. insane.

[mazolaman]

Well, acording to the Windies players (!) they were heavily racially abused while in Aus, and this is what drove them to literally want to kill the batsman when bowling, and they did want to kill em....Tommo was the same though wasn't he?!

I don't imagine the Windies would have been made much more welcome here in the UK, back in the rascist days of the early seventies.

i guess that's the beauty of sport, there's always an iconoclast around the corner, who will tear up history, and do it their own way, to win.

I miss having those great Windies teams, as I was awe inspired by the sight of Holding, Marshal, Garner and Roberst tearing in, and Greenidge, and Richrds bullying a bowling attack.

Border was a great captain, as was Chappell, Waugh, and Ponting, the latter having fewer talented players to use near the end of his carreer.

I doubt Clarke will come near to them.

As for England, at times I despair. Very talented batsmen failing against New Zealand. Chucking wickets away. The batting line up seems to comfortable, and lacks balls. We lack a Collingwood type gritty player who will stay limpet like for a day, and we have a few like Bell who flatter to deceive. As for Pietersen...pah, no doubting his quality, but it comes and goes, and the bloody Ego....

We have one of the best bowling attacks in world cricket, who keep digging us out of the dirt!

[Ken Gargett]

it might be a series for bowlers as i'm sure our quicks are our strength, such as it is.

i have absolutely no doubt that crowds at the games re the windies would have been horribly racist and abusive. footy crowds of the day even worse (though i always take issue with the claims of mark ella that he and his brother glen were boo'd at ballymore when they made their debut for the wallabies. there was enormous booing certainly, but it was the crowd booing bob dwyer, the coach, for picking them ahead of local heroes and better players - mclean and gould. nothing to do wioth race. we got done by scotland and they went out, and the other two came in for the next test and it was a record win).

but yes, the crowds would have been poor. i was thinking more about the relations between the players. i'd always heard that they got on pretty well. the real clash was chappell and greig. not chummy at all in those days.

but again, no serious sportsman likes copping a thumping so possibly some ill feeling.

[mazolaman]

Yep, without doubt, the drubbing received also turned the "calypso boys" in to a fiersome side!

I think Clive LLoyd was the architect of that, another great captain.

I don't think I would have said "I intend to make them grovel" as Greig did...he payed for that!

BTW, enjoying reading these articles..just finished the Gary Pratt tale..

[Ken Gargett]

Yep, without doubt, the drubbing received also turned the "calypso boys" in to a fiersome side!

I think Clive LLoyd was the architect of that, another great captain.

I don't think I would have said "I intend to make them grovel" as Greig did...he payed for that!

BTW, enjoying reading these articles..just finished the Gary Pratt tale..

lloyd a brilliant captain and sensational batsman on his day.

i saw him fielding in a game at the gabba, before injury moved him to the slips, and he pulled off some miraculous saves. he was up with bland, rhodes, sheahan, ponting without question.

it may surprise you but i am yet to read the pratt one. i must say though, it will need to be a seriously good argument to convince me it deserves a spot in the top 20 ashes moments, even for england!