Thanks for this GC. Bob Cowper just preceded my following of cricket but talk of his MCG innings in commentary made me aware of him.
He retired at 28 to build a hugely successful career in stockbroking and merchant banking. I remember upon hearing this, being stunned that anyone would give up cricket for work!!!! The innocence of youth!!
I became aware later on that one of the influencing factors behind his decision was the meagre earnings awarded to cricketers in his time.
His brilliant business acumen and sense of fairness was not only a major influence on Chappelli but also resulted in his involvement in the development of WSC.
I admired him for whilst building a hugely successful business career and living in Monaco he was still willing and able to give so much back to the game and its players.
Vale Bob Cowper

Hi BG,
I spent some time working for a management company. The GM’s moved from property to property on a near annual basis such that they virtually never had to produce the results they had forecasted in the business plan for that particular business over the financial year in question.
I think that is like being a selector. You ride the wave of a successful team until they are all on the cusp of retirement. Then not having created adequate progression plans you retire and look back on the successes enjoyed during your era and smugly nod at suggestions that the current crisis created by you wouldn’t have happened on your watch.
The history books show that you were a highly successful selector and everyone sagely nods their heads and concurs that they wish you were back at the reins!!!

Hi Paul,
I was counting on a more profound strategy than just hope but you are probably correct!!

Hi BG
He’s a gun fieldsman who can’t bowl and his recent batting form’s indifferent at best.
This comment you made about Cam Green while quite correct unfortunately could readily be applied to Marnus also.
While as you said Marnus spent the first half of his career building an impressive record he did so largely at home. Like David Warner he averages mid 30’s away and mid 50’s at home. His 40.66 from one tour to India is his only average over 40 abroad.
I don’t think and would not advocate for a second that the selectors should drop him from the WI series based on failures in the WTC final but I would advocate it for what would then be 27 tests without a century.
Even then I would be happy to see him included in the touring party to the Caribbean but perhaps not in the starting eleven.
Other players have strong claims to be in the top 6.

There are a few other adages which spring to mind around this issue.
All of these points about Marnus’s ongoing selection were being made prior to the Indian tour last Summer. Seven tests later. A 5-1 win/loss record and a 25 average striking at 43 as Marnus’s contribution since then.
“We are what we do repeatedly. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.”
Twenty-six tests and nearly 50 test innings without a century does not scream excellence.
I think given Australia’s record over those 26 tests that players who have been and seemingly will continue to be overlooked in favour of Marnus deserve to be kept out of the side by a player whose record in that period is excellent.
All players go through slumps. That is understandable and acceptable. Twenty six tests is getting well beyond a slump and into the realms of a career for many players.
If the selection of Marnus to open in the WTC is the fait accompli it appears to be then surely that is his final chance or the selectors are also well covered by the wisdom of Aristotle.

Amen!!

I guess because international cricket coaches are a relatively new thing captains often still seem to be the ones in the crosshairs when sides are underperforming.
In RL where coaches have been around as long as the game itself they seem to be the ones most often held accountable when changes are deemed necessary.
Anyway well done Rohit, being the captain of the national team in a country with 1.6billion where cricket is a religion is a real achievement!!
If the captaincy of the Australian cricket side is up there with the prime ministership then captain of India must equate to the papacy – no offence your eminence should you read this!!
Hope you enjoy your retirement Rohit!!

I recognise that there are two sides to the coin and stamping it out is not an easy fix. As you say we would all hate to see a player really badly hurt mistakenly ordered to get up and play on.
I really don’t have an answer. Sending the suspected diver off for a medical assessment would ruin the spectacle!!
I think I am really just bemoaning the fact that the custodians of the game- the players and coaches- who are the ones best placed to address many of these blights within the game that fans despise are in fact the people most responsible for their very existence and continuation.
I remember many years ago watching soccer and thinking smugly to myself how pleased I was that diving didn’t happen in RL!!

There is a sad irony with where the game has come.
In the days when thuggery was rife it was a matter of pride to get up and to attempt to show you were not hurt and get on with the game.
Much of the thuggery has been removed from the game and that is a positive step.
Unfortunately what it has been replaced by is another less manly form of cheating in the game.
I accept I am a neanderthal for saying that but I was largely taught to play hard and fair and win (or lose) by being the better team.
I despise players who take dives and preferred seeing players rise to their feet and get on with trying to win the contest fairly and squarely by being the better side.
Lying on the ground feigning injury in order to get an undeserved penalty is clearly within the rules of the game but certainly not within the ethics as I know them.
It was even ridiculed in the kids comedy movie “The Mighty Ducks” and yet here we are decades later watching highly paid professional athletes supposedly at the top of their profession engaging in it.
If that is the height of professional sports it is a sad thing.
I am not quite sure that I would have been able to look at myself in the mirror had I ever taken a dive. I acknowledge that I definitely wouldn’t have been able to had I engaged in thuggery either.
I am not denigrating the individual players in saying this but rather the way they are taught to play the game.
I know that removing diving from the game it is a pipe dream and will is an irony with where the game has come.
In the days when thuggery was rife it was a matter of pride to get up and to attempt to show you were not hurt and get on with the game.
Much of the thuggery has been removed from the game and that is a positive step.
Unfortunately what it has been replaced by is another less manly form of cheating.
I accept I am a neanderthal for saying that but I was largely taught to play hard and fair and win (or lose) by being the better team.
I despise players who take dives and preferred seeing players rise to their feet and get on with trying to win the contest fairly and squarely by being the better side.
Lying on the ground feigning injury in order to get an undeserved penalty is clearly within the rules of the game but certainly not within the ethics.
It was even ridiculed in the kids comedy movie “The Mighty Ducks” and yet here we are decades later watching highly paid professional athletes engaging in it supposedly at the top of their profession.
If that is the height of professional sports it is a sad thing.
I am not quite sure that I would have been able to look at myself in the mirror had I ever taken a dive. I acknowledge that I definitely wouldn’t have been able to had I engaged in thuggery either.
I am not denigrating the individual players in saying this but rather the way they are trained to play the game.
I know that removing diving from the game is a pipe dream and will never happen but I appreciate having the opportunity to air my views that the ROAR provides.

As a devotee of international cricket I want Rabada at Lord’s too. I think we all want the best players playing in the biggest games.
Whether he SHOULD be playing is another story!!
Anyway he will be playing and I am happy that rightly or wrongly the best players will play!!
I also think it’s great that we are able to get comments first hand from someone who has extensive knowledge about hiding personal issues!! Not just some random guy in the street but a real world class expert on the subject.

Hi GG
We played something like 20 series in 15 years after the ban was lifted. I think we have played about 4 since. I really miss them. There is a big hole in my cricket history from during the ban and it feels like I am in the middle of another one. I really enjoyed the tussles with SA in the 1990’s and 2000’s.

Hi Jimmy,
I wonder if that ever happened to a potential Yorkshire cricketer in the day. Anyway I am sure they could have smuggled him back over the border no questions asked!!!!

Was it?? I never knew that!! Thanks

I never understood why it was not just based on where you were born!! Fullstop. You know where you were ORIGINally actually from.

Hi TLN
I thought my maths may have been flawed. To make it fit I counted 132 years back to their first win. Less 10 years during the wars when there was no shield and 8 years when it was the Pura Milk cup. So 132-10-8 left 114!!
So not exactly a 114th anniversary but the 114 SS winner since their first!!
Come on Choppy is excited- don’t burst his bubble!!
A stretch I know but there is some flawed logic in there somewhere when you are trying to get the numbers to fit the narrative!! It is doable!! 😂 😂

Hi Choppy
I might be out in my maths here but given that there were 10 seasons during the wars when the SS was not contested and another 8 years when it was not called the SS I am pretty sure this season was also the 114th anniversary of their first SS victory!!!
But 14’s aside there are two records in most runs and most wickets by Boof and Grum respectively that were both set predominantly with SA that are really unlikely to be surpassed.

Hi BG,
And as a very young boy one of the first cricket books I read was – I am pretty sure “The Art of Cricket” in which it details that you should only ever appeal if you believe that the batsman is out!!
The book of course was written by a batsman!!!

Hi ADRAD!!
Ah now that would be a World XI!!!! 😂 😂

Hi BG,
“Even though we were right”. I guess that statement really is what created this article for me. Players who really play within the spirit of the game as opposed to simply playing within the rules.
Cricket is a game that imo has a depth of spirit generally lacking in many other sports. Hence the term “it’s just not cricket”.
The Johnny Bairstow dismissal for example really has never sat completely comfortably with me. Yes it was technically out. Yes he was a dozy p***k for walking out of his crease and perhaps got what he deserved. Yes my U/10’s coach told me never to walk out of my crease. However, in a bat vs ball contest was it really within the spirit of the contest. Was Richie successfully appealing when Joe Soloman’s cap fell on his wicket?? While legal is a mankad viewed as being outside the spirit of the game??
Taking a dive in the football codes is within the rules but largely frowned upon. I think the furore surrounding Sandpapergate was more about the fact that it was outright cheating and without the spirit of the game than about it being outside the rules of the game. To a large extent we hold the people who represent our country to a high standard.
So technically bodyline was within the rules of the game at the time and Australia as such had no right to complain but certainly during the series and throughout the years since it has been perceived as unsportsmanlike and as such outside the spirit of the game.
I think what this article encapsulates is how much as lovers of the game we argue about events when they occur but we fervently admire the players who play to the spirit of the game and it is when the spirit is betrayed that the outrage arises.
Strictly speaking Larwood according to the rules of the game was 100% correct in his defence that “he did nothing wrong”!!

Hi GC,
I have just finished rereading a couple of chapters of a book called “On The Ashes” by Gideon Haigh which references the plight of mental illness in The Golden Age. Both Billy Midwinter- famous for playing test matches for both Ashes combatants- and Harry Trott – successful captain of the first five test ashes series – spent time in Kew Asylum while Harry’s brother Albert committed suicide in England where he had been playing cricket.
Drewy Stoddart and Arthur Shrewsbury were also suicides from the era and more recently Peter Roebuck.
You are right it is often one of those difficult subjects that is overlooked.

Sorry Rowdy,
It just strikes me that any side with this many poms is going to struggle!! 😂 😂

Hi GC,
I replied to your great write up on Wasim Raja and as I returned to the rather mindless task I was doing I couldn’t shake the feeling that Australia’s success on the international stage is not entirely due to the quality of its individual cricketers as it is to a team ethos which many of our competitors are simply culturally devoid of.
Unless I am blinkered I simply cannot imagine a junior player in Australia being expected to dry a senior player’s socks. It just isn’t the way we think!!
NZ of course took it to another extreme with the All Blacks sweeping the dressing room after themselves. However, the Black Caps also seem to punch above their weight.
We are all familiar with the players vs professionals culture within English cricket and the caste system within Indian society and the West Indies being a collection of different countries and cultures.
It must make it nearly impossible to create a team culture in such environments where one player will put in extra when a team mate is down.
I wonder whether the “Australianism” that John Arlott refers to as the strength of Australian cricket is this meritocracy within which we live and play that enables players to play for the team rather than themselves.
Wayne Bennett in “Don’t Die With The Music In You” talks about the strength of his teams displaying itself off the field in examples such as one player agreeing to go out of his way to drop a team mate home from training. If the player agrees to Bennett immediately believes that the side will have a good season. If not – he has work to do. Not on fitness, conditioning, skills or technique but on attitude and team culture.
The more I read the more I think our culture of equality underpins our success on the sporting fields where any player from any background is capable of succeeding and progressing to the highest level.
I am not saying that there will not be clashes within the team between players but I think these will be personalities at war rather than any cultural aspect.
Really- the lucky country!!

Hi GC,
The body of knowledge from contributors to the roar is breathtaking and I love it. It is one of the reasons I used to read it before contributing just for that reason.
Here is yet another player that I knew of who via outstanding records against the WI as you referenced above and India in India- so two of the toughest assignments in cricket- showed a mettle when things were at their toughest and yet had very ordinary results against everyone else.
If he was Australian he would be a national hero. Apparently he despised the hierarchy within the team and refused to hang out to dry the socks of a senior player. He sometimes practiced without pads to keep him at his sharpest and was guilty of the Pakistani cardinal sin of being an outstanding fielder!! 😂 😂
In the finest traditions of Australian cricket he apparently clashed with the PCB as he was made to feel like he was being selected on a match by match basis while there existed a clique within the team for whom selection appeared guaranteed!!
Why does all this sound so familiar????
In his case though many considered that speaking his mind cost him the captaincy!!
Thanks again GC – I really enjoyed looking into Wasim Raja and have as such been able to add another player to my list of favourites!!

Hi ADRAD,
It was Rockley Wilson his former coach at Winchester

Hi ADRAD,
Yeah hard to not acknowledge most of these and as you say would be icons of the game over here if Australian.
I have never been able to find anything but would love to know how the bodyline series was reported as it unfolded in the British tabloids.
I well imagine after Bradman’s destruction in 1930 that they were being lauded as heroes- as well they might.
But I have wondered if there was much reference to the use of leg theory or just reporting on the days play more generally as it unfolded.
There were, of course, a number of players- notably Gubby Allen and the “conscientious objector your majesty” Nawab of Pataudi – who were opposed to the strategy and more broadly many within the broader cricketing community but to quote Chappelli in reference to the 1974-75 ashes “if you got ’em use ’em” so while possibly in not such a directly brutal fashion Jardine has certainly not been Robinson Crusoe in the use of fast bowlers as intimidatory weapons!!
WG Grace, Beefy, Broad, Snow – I am sure would have been national heroes had they been Australian!!