A regular feature charting the lives of some of the game’s stars, this week Bumble looks back on a colourful life spent in the game which has taken in playing, coaching, umpiring and broadcasting.
BEST ADVICE RECEIVED
My dad was a lay preacher and he always just said, “Be yourself ”. Whatever I’ve done, I’ve followed those two words. I got in trouble as a coach with my bosses but I was just being myself and I ain’t going to change. It’s held me in good stead in broadcasting. Peter Baxter, who first got me started on Test Match Special, he used the same two words. “How does it work?” I asked him when I started. “Be yourself,” he said. The same two words have helped me all along.
BEST PLAYER YOU’VE PLAYED WITH
The brand of cricket right at the minute is no fear. Well, Tony Greig played nofear cricket. That’s how he conducted himself – in cricket, in his life and in business. He was a genuine all-rounder, up and at ’em, and a visionary for his time. He left a massive mark on cricket, as a player, as an innovator and as a broadcaster.
He was a terrific bloke, too – gregarious, mischievous, and he could be quite cutting at times. But he was bloody good company and made an impression on me. I just thought, “I wish I could have been a bit like that”. His broadcasting in the vintage years at Channel Nine, with Bill [Lawry], Richie [Benaud] and Chappelli [Ian Chappell] was absolutely box-office. I had goosebumps when I did a couple of stints there.
TOUGHEST OPPONENT
Joel Garner gave me some sleepless nights. He was so tall, so big. That front foot came up and I used to think, “This bloke’s going to tread on me”. I had neither head nor tail of how to play him. Not a clue.
You’ve always got some sort of gameplan against Hadlee or Marshall or Roberts. No such gameplan against Garner. Do you get under the bouncer? Do you ride it? I’m certainly not going to play it. And there’s the toe-crusher that you know is coming, and he just doesn’t miss.
Garner always moved up a gear when he bowled at me and one time in Barbados, after we’d both retired, I asked him why. He said, “Well you turned me down at Lancs”. I said, “No, no, no. You were playing at Littleborough, I wanted you to come to Lancs and the powers that be had taken advice from Clive Lloyd, who’d recommended Colin Croft”. He’d got the wrong Lloyd!
THE GAME’S BIGGEST CHANGE
I had occasion to spend a day with Lancashire Cricket Club a while back. Glen Chapple, who was coach at the time, asked me to go along and spend a day with the team. I watched a sit-down tactical meeting ahead of the T20 Blast, the coaches and the analyst were there and it was like a
