CHAPTER 3
Australia
In the late English summer of 1978, Mike Taylor, the experienced Hampshire all-rounder, asked me if I fancied a season in Australia. Kerry O’Keeffe, who had spent a period at Somerset with Mike’s brother, Derek, had been on to him about a young pro playing for a club he knew that needed shoring up. I could barely contain myself.
Come season’s end, I packed a couple of bags and set off on the second real adventure of my life. Two winters earlier, I had captained an English Schools team, under the name the Dragons, to Rhodesia and South Africa. We had some success and after the tour I took the overnight train to Durban to play three months of club cricket for Berea Rovers. I was eighteen, hung out at the youth hostel in town, and lived the life of a young man besotted by cricket and the avenues down which it led.
But the dream was different. I had a cinematic vision of Australia, in which the blue horizons cut a sharp line between sea and sky and where the terracotta desert stretched so far from view that no man could ever occupy its space. My father had told me about Richie Benaud, my mother about Keith Miller. I had seen Dennis Lillee at Lord’s and Jeff Thomson at Southampton. The Chappells had spent many a summer’s day in the garden at home in London, and on many a winter night their deeds had been transmitted via radio to a little boy who could repeat their figures more easily than his times tables.
The Australian captain’s wicket had been the greatest prize, both at home and on the telly. It was a love–hate relationship. I could mimic Ian Chappell’s stance, and his back-and-across move to play the hook. I could chew his gum, reposition his box and tug on the brow of his baggy green cap. The buttons of my shirt were undone to the breastbone, the sleeves were turned up at the cuff, the collar pointed to the sky. I could run in like Lillee, leaning well forward, pumping my arms and reaching the crease with a raucous surge of momentum. I could scream his appeals on my haunches, a finger raised to the heavens and a look of disgust at the umpire’s decision. And I could wipe the sweat from my brow with a single swipe of my right index finger. Only Chappell and Lillee could stop Dexter, Boycott, Higgs and Snow in the backyard of 106 Priory Lane, London, SW18.
During Ashes tours Down Under, I would listen to the wireless until the small hours claimed me. In 1970–71, I heard Alan McGilvray and John Arlott talk of Ray Illingworth and Bill Lawry; of Snow and Terry Jenner; of Boycott and Johnny Gleeson; and of the Sydney Hill and the old scoreboard. Once, a mean teacher at boarding school left me bereft when he confiscated that wireless. It was returned when the rawness of the loss became apparent to the headmaster, Charles Brownrigg. He reasoned that a little boy’s tired mornings were a fair trade for enthusiasm and the knowledge of a game that he suspected would play a huge part in that boy’s life.
Through the northern winter of 1974–75, we watched highlight reels of Lillee and Thomson doing terrible things to English batsmen. One ball from Thommo hit Keith Fletcher on the badge of his cap and flew 25 yards to cover, where Ross Edwards took the ‘catch’. Another hit David Lloyd in the nuts, where a small, pink Litesome box (protector) inverted and shattered. Colin Cowdrey arrived from England aged almost 42 and rotund. He walked out to bat at Perth and diverted to the non-striker’s end to introduce himself to Thomson, who was pawing at his mark. Thomson told him to piss off and bat. Within an over Cowdrey had been hit twice. Legend has it that county batsmen hid behind the sofa when the BBC played the news footage of these frightening moments.
Australia had, in no particular order, the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, the Sydney Cricket Ground, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the Adelaide Oval, the WACA and the Gabba. It had sheilas, beaches, barbecues and cold beer; Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall and John Newcombe; Malcolm Fraser, fourteen million people, Norman Gunston, Paul Hogan; sharks and crocs, the bush, the outback; AC/DC, Clive James and cricket. And I wanted to see it all.
I was at the very back of the plane, coincidentally sitting next to Wayne Larkins, the Northamptonshire opening batsman. I didn’t know him personally but had admired his sparkling strokeplay from afar. We were soon friends and instead of sleep, we smoked a million cigarettes and drank a lot of beer. It was a long, hard flight and I emerged for the first time into the bright, early morning Australian light with a weary step. I was met by the club captain, Robert Holland.
William Holland and Emily Dickson married on 20 May 1909 in Northern Ireland. They produced seven children, five boys and two girls, the second of whom was Bill. In 1927, just before the Great Depression started to bite, they took the monumental decision to leave their home and start a new life in Australia. Bill was fifteen years old.
They sold the family shop for £400 and used most of the money to pay the fares. This was long before the assisted-migration scheme that spawned the phrase ‘ten-pound Poms’ and encouraged many families to search for a brighter future in the great southern land. The tickets were bought in Pomeroy, County Tyrone, and with bags packed, the family caught the ferry from Northern Ireland to Liverpool on 17 December 1927. They carried all they possessed for almost a mile along the docks to find their ship, the Demosthenes. It is about as brave a thing as you could imagine: no money and no idea of what lay ahead. The journey at sea took eight weeks.
On arrival into Sydney, they were told to head up the hill to the employment agency. Bill was asked if he could ride a horse, to which he replied yes—a mighty lie but he figured he would learn pretty quick if needs must. He was sent to Warren, 333 miles north-west of Sydney, where two Irish brothers took him in and taught him the ways of the jackaroo. By day he ran the cattle; by evening he worked the farm, washed the clothes, cooked and cleaned. He was well liked and never grumbled about his lot. He wrote regularly to William and Emily, who had stayed around Sydney.
After two years of this uncompromising life, and having saved every penny he earned, Bill told the brothers he was returning to the city. They paid him out and wished him well. He knew how damn lucky he had been to find kindred spirits deep in the heart of country Australia. He was not so lucky in Sydney, where there was no work and so, after a brief period in New Zealand where he learnt the finer details of farm life from his uncle, he joined the army in 1933. Corporal Bill Holland was stationed in Darwin, where he helped build the military base and married Marjorie. With a stroke of good fortune, and with Marjorie pregnant, he was transferred back to Sydney around the time the Second World War broke out. Their first child, William junior, was safely born in a Sydney hospital. The next day, the Japanese attacked Sydney Harbour in mini-subs—two-man submarines—forcing a total blackout of the city. Marjorie was pleased to find she still had her boy a week later.
Bill left the army in 1946, receiving an 11-acre parcel of land at Kanwal, near Wyong, for his efforts. With his own hand, he turned next to nothing into a home: the home in which his second son, Robert, lived for the first three years of his life. Then the family moved to Morisset, where Bill built a chicken farm. But it wasn’t the chickens that Robert first recalled.
‘Dad made me a cricket bat when I was eight years old. He made it from an old piece of hardwood timber, like a fence paling. I can recall him cutting the timber and shaping the handle to a round shape, using a rasp. I thought the bat was great and it was well used in cricket matches at the Pipers’ house and also at the Dewhursts’ place. Though the bat was suitable for use with a tennis ball, it could not be used with hard cricket balls because they jarred your hands badly.
‘We played cricket on the long and wide concrete footpath that led from the Pipers’ front gate to the high front steps that were also made of concrete. The location was ideal, as we didn’t need a backstop [wicketkeeper] because any deliveries the batsman missed would be stopped by the steps. Cricket was also played in the sloping paddock at the rear of the Dewhurst house across the road from our place. The batsman would bat at the higher end of the paddock and hit the ball downhill. Charlie Dewhurst, the father of Danny, Sally and Laurie, used to play with us from time to time. He used t
o bat and hit the ball a long way down the sloping paddock. I remember thinking, “How can anyone hit the ball so high and so far?”
‘Charlie used to arrange a number of cricket matches each summer, for kids up to, say, twelve years of age, because there was not any junior cricket played in the Morisset area. The only opponents that I can remember were Dora Creek and the patients of Morisset Psychiatric Hospital. My brother was one of the best players for Morisset, while Noel Thompson was the star player for Dora Creek. I played in a couple of these matches and would have been about nine years old.’
Having enjoyed holidays at Coal Point, on the fringe of Lake Macquarie, the family decided to move there and Bill built them a family home. In fact, Bill took to building as a profession, and single-handedly developed and sold ten properties that gave his family a comfortable life. Days by the lake and in the local town of Toronto were a joy and Robert played more and more cricket, especially in the yard at Coal Point Primary School.
‘Conditions were horrendous. We played on badly laid concrete or any piece of grass we could find. I was very competitive. By the age of thirteen I had begun spinning a ball out of the front of my fingers off the laundry-room wall. I learnt about side spin and over spin. My wrists and fingers became very strong. Soon, albeit under-arm, I could flight the ball too.’
He played fourth grade at the local club, Southern Lakes, at thirteen. He was picked in third grade because he held two catches. Gaining confidence, he had a crack at leg spin and took 50 wickets at 10 apiece. The next year, aged fourteen, he played first grade.
He remembers jumping off the bus from Booragul High School each afternoon at five minutes to four and running home to catch the start of the last session of live play in the televised Sheffield Shield matches. Richie Benaud, Peter Philpott, Gamini Goonesena and Johnny Martin were the glamorous wrist spinners of the time, and young Holland could not get enough of them.
‘Everybody bowled leggies in those days. Television allowed me to see stuff I’d never seen, to see the standard that I needed to achieve. I worked on landing the orthodox leg break ball after ball. Then I worked on the square leg break, the 45-degree leg break, the topspinner, the little wrong ’un, the big wrong ’un and the slider. I never truly mastered the wrong ’un and never got close to the flipper.’
Bob played representative cricket for Newcastle at all age groups but there was never a sniff from the New South Wales selectors. In the late 1960s, he worked in Sydney as a draughtsman at the Department of Lands and commuted back home to play for Southern Lakes at the weekends. In the summer of 1970–71, while working on his Civil Engineering diploma, he was talked into a season for Bankstown with Jeff Thomson and Lenny Pascoe. It was a memorable experience.
‘We only had four bowlers—Thommo; Lenny; Barry Thebridge, an off spinner; and me. Often enough one of Lenny or Thommo wouldn’t turn up so I’d take the new ball. Lenny fought with everyone—umpires, captains, fielders—and would frequently take it out on the opposition by bowling six bumpers in an eight-ball over. Thommo was quick but bowled mainly half-volleys and yorkers, with the occasional short one. He definitely wasn’t so bloodthirsty back then. Though having said that, we did have some fun saying to blokes who came out to bat after a night on the lash, ‘Hey, mate, Thommo put two in hospital last week. How you feeling?!’
After that and a successful degree, it was back to Toronto and seasons in the sun with Southern Lakes. Invariably, the team would finish bottom of the log and Dutchy, as the cricket bubble now knew him, was among the leading wicket-takers in the league. Matches for Northern New South Wales against touring sides were the highlight, and he vividly remembers bowling to Boycott at Newcastle Oval in 1978–79.
‘I got 4 in the first innings but don’t remember bowling to him. In the second innings, I bowled eighteen wicketless overs, most of them to Geoff, whose bat was as wide as the lake. He made a second-innings hundred to ensure England won a match in which they had not played especially well. Each morning and evening of that game, he lined up voluntary net bowlers from the local clubs and they wheeled away from dawn until dark. On one occasion, only a fellow called Gordon Geise was left standing, and even he gave in when his boots split at the seam of the sole and the upper. Boycott asked what size he was and upon learning they were both size 9, lent him his spare pair so that Geise could bowl on and on, through the fading evening light. “Do they fit well, lad,” said Boycs at nightfall. “They do, mate,” replied the exhausted Geise. “Then they’re yours for 20 bucks,” said Boycs!’
Dutchy finally made his debut for New South Wales that summer, against Queensland at the Sydney Cricket Ground. He took 1 for 113 in nineteen overs, while Trevor Hohns, the Queensland leggie, took 11 in the match. At last, though, the selectors had identified the talent and Dutchy was to become a regular feature at New South Wales practices. The following summer, Kerry Packer’s ‘rebels’ returned to the dressing room. The tension was obvious, he says. There was jealousy and mistrust.
‘We all arrived for pre-season training and the WSC guys sat on one side of the room, the rest of us on the other. So, Rick McCosker, Trevor Chappell, Doug Walters, Len Pascoe, Kerry O’Keeffe over there; Peter Toohey, Steve Rixon, John Dyson, David Hourn, me and others over here. I remember a meeting when the team was announced with Chappell opening and Dyson left out. Dyson was beside himself, Trevor was by no means a natural opening batsman. You could have cut the air with a knife.
‘I played the fifth Shield match of the summer instead of David Hourn but mainly scurried around with the drinks and bowled in the nets. Anyway, I got picked more regularly in the early 1980s and began to take wickets. In the 1983–84 season I was one of the leading wicket-takers in the Shield and started the next season just as well.
‘In late November 1984, it happened. Carolyn and the kids had been in Sydney watching the Shield game and we loaded up the Cortina station wagon to drive back to Toronto. We were just past Hornsby and Carolyn turned on the six o’clock news. Almost immediately, the Test team was announced. I was in it. Well, we drove onto the shoulder of the highway and just sat there in shock. Then, impromptu, we all started cheering: the three kids, Carolyn and me, cheering away. Then we drove home. When we got there, our neighbour Joy had a huge white sheet over the front of the house and had written in big, black marker “Dutchy in Test team. Congratulations, Dutchy Holland!” All around the town people seemed pleased.
‘It was quite a debut. [Holland is still the third-oldest cricketer to make his Test match debut for Australia and remains the oldest to do so since 1928.] They could play a bit, those West Indians. We were smashed through but I got a couple of wickets. It was the match when Kim Hughes resigned and cried in front of the television cameras. I’ve always got on well with Kim and felt badly for him. I went to the manager, Bob Merriman, and suggested we look after him, take him away from the spotlight and certainly not let him be left alone in his room. Bob said they had it covered. I suppose he thought “What would this new boy know?” But I was 38; I knew enough.
‘Allan Border took over in Adelaide but we lost again. Kim played but was mentally shot. I should have bowled around the wicket at Viv Richards and certainly the left-handers, Larry Gomes and Clive Lloyd, but I didn’t. Don’t know why, really. Was nervous about it, I think, and there wasn’t much communication between the senior guys in the team and us new boys. Funny that. There’s this long journey to play for Australia, and when you get there you feel like you’re starting out again, even at 38. I was left out of the Boxing Day Test (22–24 and 26–27 December in those days), when Craig McDermott and Murray Bennett made their debuts and Viv got 208, so that was a lucky miss! It was a time of great change after Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rodney Marsh had retired. We weren’t to know it then but Kim Hughes was on the brink of leading a rebel tour to South Africa too.
‘Anyway, I was back in the side for the Sydney Test, as promised by Rick McCosker, who was one of the selectors. We played four bowlers—shades
of Bankstown days—Geoff Lawson and McDermott, Murray Bennett the left-arm spinner, and me. We won the toss on a damp pitch and chose to bat. Kepler Wessels played a fine, brave innings of 173 and I took 6 for 54, including Viv, having had him dropped by Greg Ritchie at mid-off in the previous over. Then I got 4 for 90 in the second innings and was given the man-of-the-match award. Can you believe it? Man of the match against West Indies! So it’s not difficult to answer the question when I’m asked about the highlight of my career.’
Holland toured England later that year but felt he bowled too much in the early part of the tour—taking wickets, mind you—and was therefore jaded by the time the tests reached the pointy end. He found the margins of error against David Gower close to negligible and, in response, began almost exclusively to bowl flatter leg breaks simply to retain some control. He kept reminding himself of a brief meeting with Bill O’Reilly, who told him much as Benaud told Shane Warne: ‘Master the leg break, ball after ball. Don’t let the bastards off!’ Warne always says that the wrist spinner’s first challenge is to stay on. After that he needs a lot of love. In all, Dutchy claimed 34 wickets in eleven Tests. He played a season in New Zealand in 1987–88 and finished second on the list of wicket-takers in the Shell Trophy. In 1988 he hung up his first-class boots, aged 42. Any regrets?
‘I’d like to have played more!’
A Beautiful Game Page 4