THE WACA CHRONICLES: PART I

Cowdrey’s comeback at 42, Bumble’s box and Lillee’s aluminium bat

The Waca at Perth is one of world cricket’s iconic grounds and will be missed by many England fans – in spite of their dire Test record there.

With its bouncy and rapid pitch, imposing floodlights, bright blue skies and the Fremantle Doctor gusting across the ground, conditions are intimidating for touring sides.

England have only won once there, against the Packer-decimated hosts in 1978/79, in their 13 Tests. That was their third time there. Their first, fifth and sixth Tests were drawn, and they have lost their last seven.

Test cricket did not come to Perth until 1970/71, but England have always played warm-up matches against Western Australia, and it is traditionally where the tourists land. In 1946, for instance, they disembarked from a Ministry of War transport carrier at Fremantle. In 1962/63 they made an inauspicious start to the tour there, losing by 10 wickets to a Combined XI.

^{Colin Cowdrey pictured on his way to join the Ashes tour in 1974}

England drew the second Test of the triumphant 1970/71 series in that inaugural Test at Perth. The tourists totalled 397, Brian Luckhurst making 131, but Australia claimed a first-innings lead of 43, thanks to Ian Redpath’s 171 and 108 from debutant Greg Chappell.

England declared on 287 for 6, with John Edrich making 115, and Australia reached safety on 100 for three. After the match, manager David Clark criticised both captains for cautious play and England for their short-pitched bowling. Asked if he would prefer four more draws or Australia to win 3-1, he replied, “I’d rather see four results”.

Ray Illingworth only found out what Clark had said when told by a journalist the next morning, and his team were angry, after reading the newspapers at the airport.

The 1974/75 encounter is recalled for Colin Cowdrey’s comeback. Now nearly 42, he joined for his sixth tour to Australia (equalling the record of Johnny Briggs) as cover for Edrich and Dennis Amiss. Jeff Thomson refused to take his age into consideration, promising: “Cowdrey is going to cop it as quick as anyone.”

He came in to bat at No.3 in the second Test, joining debutant David Lloyd at the crease. Lloyd told Cowdrey: “You stay up that end against Max Walker because it’s all going off down this end.” Cowdrey described it “as the most generous act I ever knew in cricket”. Lloyd was left flabbergasted, though, when Cowdrey, after settling in, told him: “This is fun.”

^{David Lloyd shows off his broken box}

He had approached Thomson and shook hands with him. “Good morning, my name’s Cowdrey,’ he said. Thomson said: “I shook hands with him. I thought, ‘Good luck if you think that’s going to do you any good’.” Cowdrey put his body on the line, however, grinding out 22 from 101 balls as England struggled to 208 all out. 

Australia established a huge lead, but somehow England avoided an innings defeat. Cowdrey opened the second innings and made 41. But he lost his partner when Lloyd retired hurt on 17 when he was struck in the groin by a delivery from Thomson.

“We wore little pink plastic boxes which were totally unsuitable,” said Lloyd. “It cracked open and what I had inside fired through before the box snapped shut again like a guillotine coming down. I lose my voice just thinking about it. There’s retired hurt and then there’s retired hurt.” He returned to reach 35, but could not prevent Australia winning by nine wickets. 

England were in trouble early on in the second Test at Perth in 1978/79, slipping to 3 for 2 after being put in. David Gower and Geoff Boycott played contrasting innings to haul their side to 309, Gower’s 102 being much more entertaining that Boycott’s 77, which spanned 337 balls, and his only four came from overthrows. Australia managed only 190 in reply, and although Rodney Hogg took 10 wickets in the match, Australia were set 328 to win. They slumped to 161 all out, losing their last six wickets for 20.

England made a rapid return to Australia just a year after their last tour there (although they refused to put the Ashes up for grabs), and came face to face with Dennis Lillee, who had missed 24 official Tests after his two-year spell in Packer cricket.

England expected fireworks from Lillee with the ball, but not with his bat. A friend had persuaded him that an aluminium bat could be an innovation for cricket, after seeing how metal baseball bats were popular in the United States. So Lillee gave his new ‘Combat’ an outing in the previous Test, against West Indies at Brisbane. No one seemed to notice the different, though, for he lasted only seven balls for a duck.

^{Dennis Lillee speaks to umpires about his broken bat}

Now he was using it against England at the start of day two of the first Test at Perth, and they did notice. He drove the third ball of the morning through the covers for three, and it should have gone for four. The bowler, Ian Botham, and his captain, Mike Brearley, protested to umpires Max O’Connell and Donald Weser. “I didn’t even know what it was, to start with,” said Brearley. “It just sounded like an odd, old bat that made a funny noise.”

Brearley had won the toss and put Australia in – only once before had an England captain won a Test in Australia when asking the opposition to bat first, and that was in 1912, in Melbourne – and the sequence continued, with Australia triumphing by 138 runs. Botham bowled brilliantly, taking 6 for 78, but Kim Hughes resisted superbly until he fell to Derek Underwood one short of a century in Australia’s 244.

Lillee took out his frustration, after the bat fiasco, on openers Derek Randall and Boycott, removing them for ducks, and finishing with four wickets. Australia built an imposing lead with a second-innings total of 337, thanks to Allan Border’s 115, although he had to retire on 109 after being hit.

Geoff Dymock destroyed England’s hopes of saving the game, and they slumped to 215 all out, despite Boycott making an unbeaten 99, only the fourth time an England batsman had carried his bat.

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