The Cricketer asked our writers and former players to reflect on their introduction to the world's most famous Test series
The Cricketer asked our writers and former players to reflect on their introduction to the world's most famous Test series.
Today it's the turn of columnist MICHAEL HENDERSON...
The winter of 1970/71 was my introduction. Starting in Brisbane on November 27 matters were not resolved until February 17, when England won the seventh (!) Test in Sydney by 62 runs. The third had been abandoned without a ball bowled.
Raymond Illingworth was the captain, John Snow the hero. Has any England fast bowler performed more nobly overseas than Snowy did on that tour?
Other players did their bit. Boycott, Brian Luckhurst and John Edrich formed a get-past-that three-openers policy, Derek Underwood bowled beautifully, not least on that final morning at the SCG, and Alan Knott's keeping was unsurpassable.
Peter Lever offered able support for Snow while the fourth Test, which England won by 299 runs, marked the international baptism of Bob Willis, who went on to enjoy one of the gilded careers.
It was during that Test that Illingworth stood up for John Snow, who had decked Terry Jenner with a bouncer that wasn't a bouncer, and grabbed for his pains by a hook on the Hill.
Terry Jenner is hit by John Snow
Lou Rowan, for whom the adjective 'officious' barely does justice, was the umpire who warned Snow, and Illingworth also had to contend with David Clark, the MCC manager on that tour, who could barely tolerate the captain, and who had made it plain he wanted Colin Cowdrey leading out the players.
Thanks to Rowan, and the other one-eyed Australian umpires, England did not win a single lbw decision in that series, and got only one on the tour, which Peter Lever, the successful bowler, later said wasn't out.
Some things, it has to be admitted, were not better in the past.
It wasn't that last match which fired my young imagination but waking up one December morning, during the second Test in Perth, to hear Greg Chappell make a century on his debut.
As I recall he reached three figures by driving down the ground for four.
For some reason that stroke, and the crowd's response, remains vivid whereas images of more recent matches, seen time and again, leave little or no trace.
MORE FROM THE CRICKETER: Jason Gillespie named Sussex head coach