by James Philip
Nonetheless, Playford, a man so famous for blatant gerrymandering in favour of his own supporters that his methods were openly called ‘Playmandering’, made a soberly respectful speech about the courage of the tourists carrying on; contenting himself with just a couple of dour jibes at Liberal Prime Minister Menzies for delaying ‘South Australia’s guests’ in Canberra.
It was Playford who coined a familiar expression to sum up the anxieties of the moment, observing that although most Australians loved to hate the Old Country in public while treasuring it in private, one ‘never knows what one has lost until it is almost too late’.
The Premier of South Australia was not the first stoic figure to utter those sentiments with the threat of a tear forming in his stern eyes in the months and years to come.
That was the night shots were fired at the US Embassy compound in Canberra; within days dockers were refusing to handle American registered ships, or cargo bound for the ports of California, Oregon and Washington State.
President Kennedy’s voice came over the airwaves claiming he had acted for the good of all mankind; from Soviet Russia and most of Europe there was only silence and soon American bankers and industrialists were flying into Australian airports brandishing sacks full of dollars, buying up land, mineral rights and chunks of the Australian economy suddenly paralysed by the global catastrophe. It was a sign of things to come when the Australian Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies’s Parliamentary comments about putting the question of ‘all future overseas investment in our country having to pass an Australian national interest test’, drew a sharp, less than diplomatic public response from the US Ambassador, William Battle.
This however, was just background noise to the English tourists. Dexter and Sheppard had rejoined the party over the weekend, the former having gone golfing on Sunday and Monday, as if he had not a care in the World.
No sooner had play ended on the fourth day of the South Australia game that the grind of touring bit hard upon the Englishmen abroad. Within an hour the party was onboard ‘The Overland’ a great silver monster of a train departing Adelaide for the thirteen hour overnight journey to Melbourne. Within the bowels of the monster there was precious little space for weary bones to stretch, or even for friends to gather; the sleeper bunks – arranged feet first fore and aft, and the size of, coffins – and the confined, crowded atmosphere of the rumbling, rattling train frustrated sound slumber. The cricketers drank canned beer, tried to snatch forty winks before in the morning the train pulled by two diesels eventually surmounted Mount Lofty before halting at Ballarat for breakfast, and eventually passing onwards through a suburb called Sunshine, trundled into Melbourne.
‘The Overland’ was late into the capital of Victoria, and a large crowd awaited the arrival of the cricketers at the Windsor Hotel, a truly grand Victorian edifice built in 1884 on Bourke Hill on Spring Street. The Constitution of Australia had been drafted in one of its rooms in 1898 but of more interest to the tourists several of their number remembered the hotel fondly from their stays at it on previous tours. One or two men even remembered the Head Porter, Norman from 1958-59.
A trip to the Melbourne Cricket Ground – the MCG – and a net session had been planned but it was late morning by the time the party had disembarked and properly ‘arrived’ at the Windsor Hotel. Spurning practice in the afternoon Dexter led a contingent, including several journalists to the Flemington Race Course where the Australian Oaks was on the card where it had been arranged that the Duke of Norfolk would present the cup to the winner.
It was a burning hot day.
And in the hotel bar that evening the heat of the day just passed was an excuse to sup cooling beers and later to sleep a last hazy sleep before the cold reality of their situation began to fall upon the English cricketers.
Chapter 8 | Melbourne
On the Wednesday and Thursday MCC practiced in the nets and on the outfield of the greatest cricketing amphitheatre in the World. The scene of the first ever ‘Test Match’ in 1877 the great stadium had been under almost continual development ever since it opened in 1853. A thousand souls had witnessed the start of that first ‘Test’ between Australia and England; and over ninety thousand had watched a single day of the match against the West Indies two years ago. Known also as the spiritual home of Australian rules football the Melbourne Cricket Ground – the MCG - was a temple of Antipodean sport and when it was full, as it might well be at some stage during the Second Test either side of the New Year there was no more daunting, or exhilarating arena in cricket.
But during those practice days there were only a handful of journalists and a few score of spectators to witness the Englishmen limber up for the forthcoming four-day match against an Australian XI.
In pre-war tours and even since the 1945 war this fixture had very nearly enjoyed the status of an ‘unofficial Test’; but lately the Australians had viewed it as simply a ‘Test trial’. Over the years the fixture had alternated between Melbourne and Sydney, depending on which ground had two or one Test Matches in a given touring schedule. Normally, such a ‘trial’ match would have attracted a modest attendance in comparison to a ‘Test’ but in the current circumstances nobody really knew how the public would respond. In Adelaide the ground had been packed on the first two days but the MCG needed to empty half of the city to be similarly ‘crowded’.
The Australian selectors chaired by Sir Donald Bradman had named their team some days previously – driven by the exigencies of allowing men time to travel and prepare for the match in good time – but for the MCC filling in its team sheet was problematic. The ‘brains trust’ responsible for picking a given eleven – Alec Bedser, Dexter, Cowdrey and often David Sheppard and or Tom Graveney, Brian Statham and Fred Trueman, although nobody needed to ask Fiery Fred his opinion because he always made his thoughts crystal clear in advance, and often, afterwards also – would have selected every member of the party had they been able. If only because the eleven sent out would have something to occupy their minds for at least a part of every day of the match; and therefore less free time to mope and brood on all those matters they could do absolutely nothing about.
There was an argument for treating the match as a ‘proper Test’; another for giving all the men not expected to feature in the First Test in Brisbane in three weeks a ‘run out’. Broadly speaking this latter meant ‘resting’ Fred Truman, who had a sore back anyway, Brian Statham, Fred Titmus or David Allen, one of whom would probably be the spinner at Brisbane, John Murray, the likely wicket keeper, and or opening batsmen David Sheppard and Lancastrian Geoff Pullar. Braving complaints that either Trueman or Statham ought to have played, this was the option Dexter mandated. Or would have had not Tom Graveney suffered a bought of chronic fibrosis on the eve of the match.
In batting order MCC fielded Parfitt, Pullar, Barrington, Dexter, Cowdrey, Knight, Illingworth, Smith, Allen, Coldwell and Larter; against the tourists the Combined XI under veteran Neil Harvey[56] included Bobby Simpson, the Western Australian captain Shepherd, twenty-two year old Victorian Bob Cowper the son of a former Australian rugby captain and basically, a strong hand of first reserve Test bowlers.
Fred Trueman was actually having the first of several X-rays during the tour on his ‘niggling’ lower back as play began on Friday 9th November after an hour’s delay following overnight rain. Present in the crowd of over thirty thousand were many former greats of Australian cricket – Bill Ponsford, Lindsey Hassett, Bill O’Reilly, Keith Miller, and Bill Woodfull – who had joined the two teams at a reception and dinner the evening before.
The Australian XI won the toss and by the close of an oddly overcast day in which both Neil Harvey (121) and Bobby Simpson (107) had scored hundreds the home side had reached 281 for 4. On a flat wicket England’s second string quicker bowlers had been toothless when they were not wayward, and only two late wickets by Illingworth, bowling steadily had in any way reined in the batsmen. Two bursts of torrential rain on Saturday curtailed play wit
h the Australians on 357 for 5. Harvey eventually called a halt half-way through another, rain-interrupted day on Monday when his men had attained 500 runs for the loss of just six wickets.
The tourist’s were down to three fit bowlers by then; Larter having limped off with a suspected ankle problem earlier that morning and Allen having twisted a knee fielding. MCC’s woes went on when both Parfitt and Pullar were back in the pavilion with only twenty on the board. Barrington had steadied the ship but Dexter spooned a catch to mid wicket mistiming a hook for 23, and then Cowdrey ran himself out after a misunderstanding with Barrington. At the close the visitors were 144 for 5.
Notwithstanding the MCC’s collapse – described by many journalists as a somewhat ‘distracted affair all round’ – the main topic of conversation in Melbourne was the weather. At this time of year ninety degrees Fahrenheit in the shade was ‘par for the course’, not mid sixties with tropical rainstorms.
On the final morning MCC collapsed to 198 all out on wicket that was blameless against Australia’s second string attack; only Ken Barrington stoically unbeaten on 74 had prevented a complete rout. Following on Parfitt (37) and Pullar (16) put on a dour unbeaten half-century stand in two hours before the rains killed off the match for good.
Over seventy thousand paying spectators had come through the turnstiles over the four days, three of which were badly rain-disrupted, and but for the weather perhaps twice as many might have enjoyed a spectacle of cricket.
Originally, the plan was for the tourists to travel straight to the airport for a two hour evening flight up country to Griffith for a one day match against Southern New South Wales but there was a problem with the aircraft; and the party spent most of the night in the less than luxurious lounge of Essendon Airport.
The Duke of Norfolk and a sizable proportion of the travelling press had by this time already temporarily disengaged from the ‘up country party’, decamping for the next ‘civilised’ leg of the tour, namely to Sydney by the time the unfortunate thirteen players under the supervision of Ted Dexter and Alec Bedser – Fred Trueman, David Larter, Tom Graveney, ‘resting’ minor knocks and strains, and David Sheppard, presumably in case of need of ecumenical support, having travelled with the Grand Old Duke - waited for their delayed flight as the rain hammered down outside.
In a tour which had more than its share of dark moments; this was as gloomy as any. A cloud had begun to descend on the party and ‘Lord Ted’ was clearly as ‘cheesed off’ as anybody.
Chapter 9 | Griffith & Sydney
The ‘Griffith Episode’, arising out of MCC’s obsession with maximising the profitability of the tour and a cack-handed approach to negotiating playing engagements, was an object lesson in what can go wrong when a gentlemen’s club in London agrees a list of dates with similar associations of enthusiastic, well meaning ‘amateurs’ half a world away. Plans made months before the tour party was even selected frequently took little or no heed of practical considerations, assuming basically, that everything would be all right on the day.
Thus, even if the travel arrangements had worked perfectly MCC was scheduled to rush to the airport from the Melbourne Cricket Ground – at the same time everybody else was returning home from their day’s labour – catch a two-hour cross country flight to the middle of nowhere, arriving at around nine in the evening, and the next morning take on a rested and highly motivated ‘local’ side.
In the event the MCC’s plane landed at Griffith’s red mud airstrip some eleven hours behind schedule at a few minutes after eight o’clock in the morning. Notwithstanding, the first international cricket team to visit Griffith – only forty-five years old in 1962, an agricultural town of some eighteen thousand people, which like nearby Leeton (nearby in outback terms, that is some thirty miles away) had been purpose-built to take advantage of the Murrumbigee Irrigation Scheme based on the damming of local rivers in the early part of the century – was greeted by a cheering crowd several hundred strong.
As always on these occasions local dignitaries proudly deluged their visitors with superfluous information about their locale; but that morning the welcoming ceremony was abbreviated and a fleet of cars and taxis transported the cricketers to their hotels so that they could hurriedly breakfast, brush up and hasten dustily to the one oasis of green in an otherwise sun-dried, brown rolling landscape, the Griffith Exies – Ex-servicemen’s Association - Oval where a collection of hard, fit-looking raw boned men from places with names like Cootamundra, Yass, Wagga Wagga, Yendra and Yoogali eagerly anticipated taking on England’s finest, albeit weary, very nearly hung-over and somewhat testy heroes.
By noon Brian Statham was being ‘carted’ to all parts of the ground much to the loud approbation of a crowd of some six thousand people. The fun went on for the best part of an hour under a burning sun in temperatures in the high nineties before the flamboyant Essex all-rounder Barry Knight’s persistently accurate, sharply paced seamers removed two batsmen with successive balls and Statham, who had taken a brief ‘breather’ returned and reduced South New South Wales to 97 for 4. Looking to set a ‘sporting’ target in the one-day fixture the locals flayed away at Fred Titmus and David Allen’s off breaks, the innings closing at 161; leaving MCC to chase victory in the remaining two hours of play.
Worthy though the ‘country’ team’s attack was, first Peter Parfitt, then Dexter, in angry, dismissive fashion savaged the erratic medium pace bowling and earnest short and wide spinners’ best efforts, slashing the winning boundary with ten minutes to spare as the shadow of a light blue aircraft flown by old Etonian Geoffrey Keighley, once a Yorkshire amateur flashed across the Oval at low altitude carrying joyriding newspapermen. Keighley had flown to Griffith from his farm over eighty miles away; out in the bush nobody wanted to miss the party.
The ‘party’ really began as the cricketers trooped – sweat-soaked and dehydrated – off the field. There were only three hotels in Griffith, each owned by one of three Irish brothers. Nobody ever established if the three social clubs in the town were also under the same management because by the next morning many of the tourists had, more or less, banished the trials and tribulations of the previous day in the revelry.
In the normal run of things all tours are a mixture of the good and the bad; most tourists hope that the two will balance each other out. Good day, bad day, tolerable day, and so forth. If on the field the battle was invariably of an intensity rarely experienced at home, it was honest strife and toil and the banter from the ‘outer’, especially for fieldsmen near the fence was expected to be loud, frank and largely disparaging with only rare moments of genuine wit. But whereas during earlier tours there had, now and then been real hostility in the country, this time around the MCC were greeted and feted like prodigals returning to the fold. Initially, this was slow to penetrate the sporting psyches of all the players, and when it did in the beginning it engendered a reckless, careless reaction before men got used to the idea that both they and the land through which they were travelling had changed, forever and in ways it was going to take them all a lifetime to understand. Sporting rivalry, enmity in fact remained but the men in the baggy green caps sworn to their cricketing downfall were actually blood brothers now.
However as the MCC touched down at Mascot Airport in Sydney[57] on the day after the Griffith ‘episode’ there was the gnawing awareness that every time the party returned to a big city there was more bad news from home.
Superficial reminders of home jarred horribly; the party was booked into the Hampton Court Hotel on Bayswater Road adjacent to King’s Cross and before dinner the Duke of Norfolk explained that in England members of the committees of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Nottinghamshire and ‘the other Midland counties’ had combined as ‘the voice of English cricket’, while discussions continued vis-a-vis the ‘arrangements for the season of 1963’ and the ‘oversight’ of the ‘Australasian Tour’. Apparently, this ‘steering committee’ was already considering the practicality of staging, and the form of,
the following year’s County Championship.[58]
More than one player greeted this news with an involuntary guffaw of incredulity and a despairing shake of the head. Nobody knew if their families were alive or dead and the old fools were talking about next year’s fixture list!
It smacked of shades of moving the deck chairs on the deck of the Titanic!
Ted Dexter had appeared to cheer up a little after his knock at the Griffith Oval, today he was aloof, untalkative again and terse with several of the Australian journalists who wanted to know whether the tourists would seek to play more ‘attractive’ cricket against the powerful New South Wales state team that weekend.
‘Of course we will!’ He had declared, frowning with impatience. ‘Why do you think we’re carrying on?’
When asked if he still meant to retire from the game in 1963 the England captain just shook his head.
During the previous English summer he had, while discussing the preoccupations of many amateur cricketers involved in the English First-Class game, mooted the possibility of pressure of work limiting his cricket in 1963.
It was that night that the telegram confirming that his wife and daughter were ‘alive and well’ in Sussex arrived in Sydney. Both Fred Trueman and Brian Statham received similar news about their families the next morning as the Duke of Norfolk’s entreaties for news of the cricketers’ loved ones to ‘the authorities’ finally began to bear fruit. Alec Bedser discovered that his twin brother Eric had survived while the party was still in the city. But good news for some was unbearable for others; there seemed to be no survivors from London, or the Weald of Kent, the Medway towns were gone and there was never to be ‘good news’ from any of these quarters.
In those days a side first united by its fears was split by relief and ever greater despair. For Ken Barrington, vice captain Colin Cowdrey, Peter Parfitt, Geoff Pullar, David Sheppard and John Murray there would never be ‘any’ news, and even for those spared in those comparatively early days the knowledge that their loved ones, relations and friends at home were living in a wrecked, starving, pestilential wintery world became scant comfort made all the worse by the warmth, sunshine and hospitality of an Australian nation horrified by the madness of kings.