By John Harms
The summer of international cricket started on Friday at the SCG – which is a departure from tradition. But what chance tradition in these shaky Covid times?
It’s the right time of the year. We’re used to it. Usually, towards the end of November, all eyes would turn to the Gabba for the first day of the First Test. Brisbane would be buzzing and, in the loungerooms and kitchens and workplaces of Australia, people would be turning the cricket on.
But the weekend’s cricket was in Sydney, and was a different form of the game.
I remember, so clearly, childhood days of waiting for the Test series to start. That slow lead-up month, keeping an eye on the touring side as it made its way around the country, playing (most of) the states. Who were those new names, some so exotic? Zaheer Abbas? Some not: John Snow? Some, seemingly with just one name like Chandrasekhar. Looking up their career stats and profiles in the ABC Cricket Book that Dad had bought for us.
I recall being at school on hot days of shimmery heat, crows squawking in the pepperina trees. Perspiring forearms on the exercise book. On the opening day of the Ashes Test in Brisbane in 1974, the Oakey Primary School XI stood at the school-gate waiting for Hector Varley’s dad to pick us up in his canary-yellow Kingswood to take us in to the big smoke to play one of the Toowoomba schools. I had a red Sanyo pocket trannie and we listened as Alan McGillvray described Tony Greig stirring up the Chappell brothers. Or 1978, during the Packer years, when we were sitting in a Maths exam as the Test got under way. Our English teacher, a Welshman called Clive Yeabsley, was supervising that exam while listening to the opening session of the cricket in an earpiece. He eventually picked up a piece of chalk and, grinning through his big beard, wrote Australia 6/36 on the blackboard, which came as a genuine shock, and was almost grounds for special consideration.
While at uni, the start of the Gabba Test coincided with the end of exams and the Hill was the place to be – days of total freedom and release, before heading Down the Coast for a few weeks.
And so the Gabba Test started the summer. It marked that moment for years.
My first memory of the Gabba Test comes from the first series I can recall with any clarity,1970-71, and this summer marks its fiftieth anniversary. (Really?) Australia v England. We batted first and Keith Stackpole made 207 – but he was lucky. A photo in the newspaper the following morning showed he should have been given out before he’d reached twenty, as Geoff Boycott had thrown down the stumps with Stacky clearly short of his ground. Then the series went to the WACA – the first ever Test there – when young G.S.Chappell made a century on debut. We were really into cricket by then. So we pestered Dad to take us to the MCG Test. We lived in Shepparton, before moving to Queensland a couple of years later. It rained and rained and that MCG Test was abandoned – the first ever one-day international was played instead. The Test was re-scheduled for late January. We drove to our cousins’ home in Croydon and got the train to Richmond – heading, excitedly, to the MCG for the very first time. While walking across to the stadium, a taxi pulled up and out jumped Colin Cowdrey! We said hello, he signed our autograph books, and we helped carry his bags to the players’ entrance.
What followed, though, was one of the great revelations. Passing through the turnstiles, I saw the MCG. So vast for an eight year old. I only knew it in black and white and framed by our TV screen. It was enormous. The grass was so green. The stands were so high. The crowd was expectant, as I was. We attended the first two days, which culminated in Bill Lawry declaring and leaving Rod Marsh stranded on 92. I remember standing on the seats in the Southern Stand to applaud another Bacchus boundary. I was in the grip of the great stadium and all that happened within.
Yes, that is fifty years ago this summer and, living in Melbourne, I can now jump on the train at the end of the street and be at Jolimont in about a dozen minutes. I have been hundreds of times over the years.
And, just like the promise of a new summer of cricket, the MCG never loses its appeal. This Boxing Day Test will be a celebration of cricket and the great ground.
The summer of international cricket started on Friday at the SCG – which is a departure from tradition. But what chance tradition in these shaky Covid times?
It’s the right time of the year. We’re used to it. Usually, towards the end of November, all eyes would turn to the Gabba for the first day of the First Test. Brisbane would be buzzing and, in the loungerooms and kitchens and workplaces of Australia, people would be turning the cricket on.
But the weekend’s cricket was in Sydney, and was a different form of the game.
I remember, so clearly, childhood days of waiting for the Test series to start. That slow lead-up month, keeping an eye on the touring side as it made its way around the country, playing (most of) the states. Who were those new names, some so exotic? Zaheer Abbas? Some not: John Snow? Some, seemingly with just one name like Chandrasekhar. Looking up their career stats and profiles in the ABC Cricket Book that Dad had bought for us.
I recall being at school on hot days of shimmery heat, crows squawking in the pepperina trees. Perspiring forearms on the exercise book. On the opening day of the Ashes Test in Brisbane in 1974, the Oakey Primary School XI stood at the school-gate waiting for Hector Varley’s dad to pick us up in his canary-yellow Kingswood to take us in to the big smoke to play one of the Toowoomba schools. I had a red Sanyo pocket trannie and we listened as Alan McGillvray described Tony Greig stirring up the Chappell brothers. Or 1978, during the Packer years, when we were sitting in a Maths exam as the Test got under way. Our English teacher, a Welshman called Clive Yeabsley, was supervising that exam while listening to the opening session of the cricket in an earpiece. He eventually picked up a piece of chalk and, grinning through his big beard, wrote Australia 6/36 on the blackboard, which came as a genuine shock, and was almost grounds for special consideration.
While at uni, the start of the Gabba Test coincided with the end of exams and the Hill was the place to be – days of total freedom and release, before heading Down the Coast for a few weeks.
And so the Gabba Test started the summer. It marked that moment for years.
My first memory of the Gabba Test comes from the first series I can recall with any clarity,1970-71, and this summer marks its fiftieth anniversary. (Really?) Australia v England. We batted first and Keith Stackpole made 207 – but he was lucky. A photo in the newspaper the following morning showed he should have been given out before he’d reached twenty, as Geoff Boycott had thrown down the stumps with Stacky clearly short of his ground. Then the series went to the WACA – the first ever Test there – when young G.S.Chappell made a century on debut. We were really into cricket by then. So we pestered Dad to take us to the MCG Test. We lived in Shepparton, before moving to Queensland a couple of years later. It rained and rained and that MCG Test was abandoned – the first ever one-day international was played instead. The Test was re-scheduled for late January. We drove to our cousins’ home in Croydon and got the train to Richmond – heading, excitedly, to the MCG for the very first time. While walking across to the stadium, a taxi pulled up and out jumped Colin Cowdrey! We said hello, he signed our autograph books, and we helped carry his bags to the players’ entrance.
What followed, though, was one of the great revelations. Passing through the turnstiles, I saw the MCG. So vast for an eight year old. I only knew it in black and white and framed by our TV screen. It was enormous. The grass was so green. The stands were so high. The crowd was expectant, as I was. We attended the first two days, which culminated in Bill Lawry declaring and leaving Rod Marsh stranded on 92. I remember standing on the seats in the Southern Stand to applaud another Bacchus boundary. I was in the grip of the great stadium and all that happened within.
Yes, that is fifty years ago this summer and, living in Melbourne, I can now jump on the train at the end of the street and be at Jolimont in about a dozen minutes. I have been hundreds of times over the years.
And, just like the promise of a new summer of cricket, the MCG never loses its appeal. This Boxing Day Test will be a celebration of cricket and the great ground.
John Harms is a Melbourne-based writer, historian and publisher. He is editor-at-large of the popular sports writing site The Footy Almanac.