by James Philip
The party had returned to its hotel for an evening meal before clambering into a bus for a long trek down the Hume Highway back to Melbourne where close to midnight the latest expedition to the outback concluded.
As one tourist dryly observed to Ian Wooldridge of the Daily Mail - over a nightcap – on the subject of the onerous and badly thought out demands of the MCC’s itinerary: ‘I know the World blew itself up but honestly, you wouldn’t treat a dog this way!’
Fred Trueman and Geoff Pullar, both looking fit and rested greeted their team mates at breakfast with the news that ‘the Reverend’ – David Sheppard – and Lord Ted were expected in Melbourne later that morning from ‘wherever they’ve been the last few days’. They were also able to pass on the news that: ‘Poor old Dave’ – David Allen – was still in Brisbane, and ‘not a well fellow’.
Everybody wanted to know the news about Fiery Fred’s ‘lumbago’.
‘Lumbago!’ The Yorkshireman objected scornfully. ‘One bloke wants to slice me up and have me lie on me back for six months; the other says for me to bowl in the nets a bit and do some exercises!’
Nobody listening could be in any doubt as to which of the two medical blokes’ advice England’s talisman had listened to!
‘I’ll give the state games a miss, have a run out in the odd country game and I’ll be as right as rain for the Test Matches!’
Chapter 13 | M.C.G.
It was anticipated that Ted Dexter would not play at Melbourne as he had speaking engagements on each of the first two nights of the state game and by his own admission he had not held a bat in his hand since the Brisbane Test. That was not to say the suggestion on the evening before the match that he would be ‘resting’ and at some stage ‘netting’ in preparation for the Second Test was in any sense well received by either the ground authorities or the Victorian public; eventually prompting a rethink in the MCC camp and Lord Ted’s inclusion on the scorecard shortly before the match was scheduled to commence.
In the event rain washed out the first and part of the second day’s play at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Whereupon, Cowdrey winning the toss put the home side in on a wicket with damp patches where the torrential downpour of the previous night had apparently, seeped under the covers.
A thing that is often forgotten about the – to contemporary eyes – tightly packed, frenetic touring schedule was that in many ways it was comparable, long plane flights apart, with the demands of any English domestic cricket season. Back home the tourists played every day of the week from late April to September with hardly a break; Monday to Saturday in county cricket and in benefit and other charitable Sunday afternoon games most weekends. Players would often spend a week away from home on a ‘tour’ of say, the West Country, or down in London, or up in Lancashire or Yorkshire, or might drive a hundred miles there and back each day to appear in a fixture day after day. When the County Championship had resumed in 1946 after the Second World War teams had travelled everywhere by train and taxi, by the mid to late 1950s individuals drove, hither and thither around the country in an endless summer promenade with hardly a ‘rest’ day, cramming in as many as thirty or more three-day matches into a four to five month season. In those days Test players would finish a county game on a Tuesday evening, and motor or entrain for a contest against Australia or South Africa, India, Pakistan or New Zealand, perhaps at the other end of England and be on the field again on Thursday morning; often at the close of play at the end of a five-day international a man would rush off the evening to be at a ground two hundred miles away bright and early the next morning to commence his county’s next Championship game.
Of course, touring Australia was different. The journeys were sometimes interminably longer and the tourists were not ‘at home’, and many of the men they were playing with, their present comrades in arms, were actually men they had ferociously competed against for many years. Friendships were often forged on overseas tours but sometimes, old enmities inevitably festered. Brian Statham, ever the gentleman might not have openly flaunted his disdain for ‘batsmen’; Fiery Fred made no secret of his contempt for the majority of the breed, and like it or not, there was if not a rift, then an indefinable gap between the amateurs and the professionals in the MCC party.
Moreover, in suggesting that the Englishmen ought to have been accustomed to the demands of their ‘cricketing life’ this ignores the fact that Ted Dexter’s side had only finished its home season in September and embarked for Australia in October, with many of its members still nursing injuries and licking wounds barely healed from the summer campaign. Theoretically, a month-long passage by sea would have ‘rested’ those in need – both physically and mentally - of a respite but even this traditional ‘travelling time’ had been severely curtailed by the decision to fly half the way before boarding the Canberra at Aden.
Additionally, long overseas tours – the party was scheduled to be away at least six months – in the post-1945 era were not things that families and friends ‘back home’ invariably bore with the quiet stoicism of earlier eras. A cricketer’s peripatetic life tended to explore each and every crack in a marriage at the best of times, and while for some men spending half a year in the Antipodes was a blessed escape, for others it was painful. For the wives and girlfriends left behind an Australian tour was perhaps the biggest test. If its longevity was not bad enough previous Australian tours had proven, beyond reasonable doubt, to offer a man so inclined endless opportunities to...stray. Away from the cricket Australian women gravitated onto the arms of the dashing heroes from the Old Country; and when all was said and done the Englishmen abroad were young, red-blooded males of the species...
Even in normal times the tour might have been the leaden straw that broke marriages and probably signalled the end of, certainly the apogee of many men’s careers. To play cricket for MCC and England in Australia was to put one’s hand into the fire, and it changed one for ever after.
And that was even in times when the World was not half wrecked and every man dreaded what, if they ever returned, would be awaiting them back in England.
Understandably, it was almost impossible to concentrate on the cricket in the weeks after the cataclysm. In retrospect, it was probably not until around the time of that rain-ruined match against Victoria in Melbourne that native British bloody-mindedness finally re-asserted its iron grip.
As often happens it was as likely that this sea change in the ‘team outlook’ can be traced to a single event that had nothing to do with Lord Ted’s patrician leadership, professional pride or even patriotism. No, probably it had more to do with a general sense of ‘what else can go wrong?’
Hindsight, as they say, is the single precise science known to man.
Fred Titmus, the Middlesex off spinner tripped over a cricket bag momentarily dropped in the corridor outside the MCC dressing room while carrying two cups of tea.
‘I was so concerned not to spill the tea or drop the cups that I neglected to attempt to avoid injury in the fall; with the end result that I bashed myself insensible for a second – my head clouting the dressing room door – and as cups, saucers, tea and my dignity went flying, I stuck out my right arm in such a way that when I hit the floor I dislocated the shoulder...’
Efforts – well-meaning but excruciatingly painful efforts – were immediately made to ‘pop’ the arm back into its socket before it was realised that the fall had also damaged the poor man’s right collar bone and within twenty minutes Titmus was being driven to the nearest hospital where later that afternoon he went under the knife, and his tour concluded. One can only imagine how he must have felt that day; there had been no word of his wife Jean and daughter Dawn – who had been at home in Enfield on the night of the recent war – and it was even money that his days as an international cricketer were over.
In the meantime Victoria, one of the weaker state teams despite being captained by twenty-five year old William Morris Lawry, that tall, Roman-nosed, pigeon fancying, implacable ope
ning batsman, and including Ian Redpath[79] and Bob Cowper – two future stalwarts of Australian batsmanship – and tearaway fast bowler Ian ‘chucker’ Meckiff[80] around whom such virulent controversy had swirled on MCC’s previous tour in 1958-59, had been invited to have first use of what looked like a rain-damaged wicket by Colin Cowdrey.
Ted Dexter and Alec Bedser, the latter still styled ‘Assistant Tour Manager’ but who was to be the de facto ‘manager’ of the rest of the Australasian expedition, had accompanied Fred Titmus to hospital around lunchtime.
MCC’s captain, Colin Cowdrey, having named both Titmus and Dexter in its eleven had approached Bill Lawry – more in hope than expectation – requesting ‘one or two’ substitutes might be employed for ‘fielding purposes’.
Lawry, knowing that he was about to go out to bat on what might turn out to be a distinctly ‘sticky wicket’ might reasonably, given the regulations covering such matters in those days, have refused this entreaty. However, with a grunt of resignation he had retorted: ‘Change the scorecard, mate. Let’s play this game with eleven a side!’
It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship between two cricketers – and men – who superficially could not have been more different. The intense, driven Lawry and the laid back privileged English amateur to whom everything had seemed to come so easily; the one combative, apparently uneasy in his own skin, the other insouciant, gifted with an ease of manner and charm that bordered on the regal.
When one local paper criticised Lawry for ‘going soft’, Cowdrey for once in his life, brusquely defended his opponent.
‘When people glibly talk about the spirit of cricket this is exactly what they mean. Mr Lawry has demonstrated that the finest traditions of the game are alive and well in Australia and all Australians should applaud him to the rafters!’
The following day the two men attended morning service together in Melbourne[81].
However, Lawry’s generosity was soon forgotten on the field of play.
MCC, now down to practically its last eleven fit and available men brought in a half-fit Geoff Pullar to replace Dexter, and Raymond Illingworth for Titmus. Having taken three off-spinners to Australia, Illingworth was the last man standing. Resting Fred Truman and holding back Brian Statham - he was too valuable to risk in the light of Trueman’s troubles – the new ball had been handed to David Larter and Len Coldwell.
The Victorian Openers Bill Lawry and Ian Redpath hardly laid a bat on ball in the first few overs. Redpath played and missed as the ball jumped and jagged off the wicket; Lawry took a succession of hits to his chest and arms.
Inevitably, twenty-five minutes into an abbreviated afternoon session a ball from Larter reared up off a length, smashed into Redpath’s gloves and ballooned into Tom Graveney’s waiting hands.
At the tea interval Victoria were 40 for 4; with only Lawry holding firm, bruised and defiant on 17. Larter had taken all the wickets to fall.
Commentators who actually witnessed John David Frederick Larter, Northamptonshire’s Inverness-born force of nature bowling in his pomp, speak of a man of moods who suddenly blossomed into an awesome ‘destroyer’.
In the non-stop hurly burly and the tedium of one county match after another of an English summer he could become, notwithstanding his commanding six feet seven inch stature, anonymous, disinterested in proceedings, a little off colour and preoccupied with this or that niggling strain or discomfort, and his bowling action – a thing of many moving parts at the best of times – disjointed and ugly. But when he was ‘in the mood’, right from the outset of his career as he came rampaging in off his over-long curving run like a spear-wielding warrior of yore, his front leg stiff and braced as his right leg dragged through the crease, and his right arm came over and his left flew downward almost to the earth adding impetus to his delivery he could be the fastest bowler in Christendom. Everything about him was long levers and one wondered all the while how his lean frame sustained such stresses and strains, and where some days his ‘devil’ went away; for once it was summoned or refound he became a terrible, frightening, unplayable bowler.
England’s great fast bowlers; like Harold Larwood, Larter’s former Northamptonshire team mate Frank ‘Typhoon’ Tyson, and of course, Fiery Fred, had been smaller men – by at least a full head – and skidded the ball onto a batsman, or unnerved them with the trajectory of their short-pitched bowling, but David Larter was different. When he was on song his normal ‘length’ ball reared into a batsman’s ribs, forcing him back, ever closer to his stumps softening him up for any ball pitched ‘in his half’, often finding him on the back foot when he ought to have been forward, and Larter’s bouncer, unlike those of his fellows was sometimes hurled into the wicket very nearly on ‘his’ normal length. There were days when one just did not attempt to hook or pull Larter; it was too dangerous.
When he was ‘in the mood’ it could seem to onlookers like a man bowling at boys.
Although he was only twenty-two years old Larter had played for Suffolk in the Minor Counties Championship before joining Northamptonshire. He had been his county’s leading wicket taker in 1961 (70 at an average of 19.87). In 1962 he had taken over a hundred wickets, including nine in his Test debut – and thus far, only England cap - against Pakistan.
During the tea break everybody expected the carnage to continue apace upon the resumption of play. This said, after the first few overs playing Len Coldwell’s fast-medium seamers on the supposedly ‘damaged’ wicket had been relatively straightforward. In fact, following tea the Melbourne pitch seemed perfectly flat and even-paced at the end that David Larter was not bowling!
Bill Lawry somehow survived, seeing off the pace merchant’s first ‘spell’ of eleven eight-ball overs either side of the break.
Larter’s figures were: 11 overs – 2 maidens – 28 runs – 5 wickets.
Victoria had slumped to 61 for 6; Barry Knight having nipped out Raymond ‘Slug’ Jordan, the state’s wicketkeeper – by then somewhat shell-shocked - after he had spent an anguished quarter of an hour ducking and diving to preserve life and limb at the other end against Larter.
With the towering fast man’s withdrawal from the attack everything calmed down for an hour before a rain squall swept up from the south and ended proceedings for the day with Victoria having reached the heady heights of 133 for 6; with Lawry unbeaten on 71.
When Ted Dexter returned to the ground that afternoon as the rain began to fall he wondered what all the fuss was about. Subsequently, he was to remark that when he walked into the MCC dressing room everybody seemed to have put a little distance between themselves and David Larter. It was as if the team had belatedly realised that there was a ‘dangerous beast’ within their midst.
Colin Cowdrey had explained: ‘It was as if David was bowling on a rain-ruined wicket and everybody else was bowling on the flattest wicket imaginable.’
‘Doing it again tomorrow is the real trick!’ Fred Trueman had put in. Fiery Fred had been given cause to wonder if his own star had just been eclipsed and he clearly did not like it!
Fred Titmus’s misfortune and David Larter’s brutal assault on the Victorian batsmen seemed like two sides of a coin, the one balancing the other for the hour; but in the bigger picture, hardly likely to change the course of the tour. After all, Larter’s ‘afternoon’ might easily prove to be a flash in the pan; while Titmus’s injury denuded the party’s now scarce spinning resources to breaking point.
It was this which prompted Ted Dexter, without mentioning it to Alec Bedser, to book a long distance telephone call to Perth, in distant Western Australia.
‘Tony,’ the England captain had declared as soon as the civilities were concluded, ‘Fred Titmus has broken his shoulder and David Allen is laid up in hospital in Brisbane. How are you fixed to drop what you are doing and join us for the next few matches?’
After Monday’s play was abandoned without a ball being bowled after a day of intermittent gentle rainfall beneath consistently glowering
skies, Bill Lawry had declared the Victorian innings closed overnight. There was speculation that the authorities had nudged his elbow in this, hoping that the news that MCC would be batting on the morrow against Ian Meckiff might attract a crowd sufficient to balance the State Association’s costs staging the contest.
At one point there were some four thousand souls in the great arena, lost in its vastness on the final day of the match.
On the truest and ‘quietest’ of surfaces Ian Meckiff ruffled few feathers as the tourists enjoyed a long day’s batting practice graced by a Cowdrey master class in effortless timing.
MCC reached 297 for 3 at the end of the match; Cowdrey 126 not out, Barrington 84, Sheppard 51 with the centurion abjuring the option of declaring late in the day and unleashing David Larter again on his hosts.
Chapter 14 | The Southern Oval
Although the Second Test was scheduled to commence in ten days time on Saturday 29th December 1962, the MCC’s itinerary now mandated that the tourists should be transplanted to South Australia, there to fulfil another country game and a second four-day fixture against the State XI played over the Christmas period on the 22nd, 24th, 26th (Boxing Day) and 27th of the month, before dragging all the way back to Melbourne.
Given that there was nothing to be done but to get on with it the tour’s informally convened brains trust – now comprising Dexter, Bedser, Cowdrey, Trueman and Statham, and would shortly co-opt Tony Lock ahead of the Second Test – began to lay a revised plan of campaign.