Spirit On The Water (12 page)

There was general disbelief around the ground when people realised what was about to happen. You can watch the entire last over on
YouTube
and very entertaining it is too. Rod Marsh, who was keeping wicket for Australia, can be seen shaking his head and clearly indicating that he does not approve. Even Ian Chappell, who was commentating on the game, says “No, Greg, no, you can’t do that”.

The captain of a cricket team has more power and responsibility than the captain of any other sports team. He decides who bowls, what field to set (unless S.F. Barnes or Ian Botham is bowling), what the batting order should be, and is generally in charge in a way that football and rugby captains are not. So, when Greg told his brother to bowl underarm, Trevor really had no choice. He could have tried to persuade him against it, I suppose, but being the younger sibling probably didn’t help in that regard.

Chappell junior duly rolled the ball along the ground. McKechnie blocked it and then threw his bat in the air in disgust. He was subsequently censured for bringing the game into disrepute for doing this. Who says the ICC hasn’t got a sense of humour?

Australia had won but most of the 50,000, predominantly Australian crowd, booed as the players came off the pitch. The climax of a great game of cricket had been snatched away from them. Replays later showed that it was technically a no ball because Dennis Lillee had forgotten to walk in to his correct fielding place and so Australia had one too many players outside the inner fielding circle. In the excitement the umpires, understandably perhaps, had not noticed.

The repercussions were immediate. It seems that nobody apart from Greg Chappell thought that what he did was a good idea. The Prime Minister of New Zealand, Robert Muldoon, didn’t beat about the bush. He described it as “the most disgusting incident I can recall in the history of cricket”. For good measure he went on to say that “it was an act of true cowardice and I consider it appropriate that the Australian team were wearing yellow.”

Even the Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, called the act “contrary to the traditions of the game”. Sir Donald Bradman “totally disapproved” of what had happened. Commentating for
Channel 9
at the time, Richie Benaud described the act as “disgraceful” and said it was “one of the worst things I have ever seen done on a cricket field”. Harold Larwood, aged seventy-seven at the time and living in retirement in Sydney, probably summed it up best when he said that it was “a bloody stupid thing to do.’”

So, that’s his older brother, Rod Marsh, 50,000 Australian spectators, two Prime Ministers, Sir Don Bradman, the esteemed Richie, Harold Larwood and probably the Pope and the Duke of Edinburgh all indicating their disapproval of Greg Chappell. If he
felt under pressure during the game, heaven knows what he must have felt like in the immediate aftermath.

In my view, it could all have been avoided if the umpires had had the presence of mind to invoke the Laws of Cricket, as laid down at the time.

Law 42 covers Unfair Play in the game of cricket:

Well, it seems pretty obvious that Greg Chappell had broken that rule by saying to the umpire that the last ball would be bowled underarm.

A blind man could see that what Greg Chappell instructed his brother to do was “unfair play”, so one would hope the umpires could have spotted it.

The umpires could, and should, have called ‘dead ball’ when Trevor Chappell rolled the ball along the ground.

There you have it. All the umpire had to do was say to Greg, ‘Look mate, this isn’t on. It’s unfair play, it’s against the spirit of the game and it’s contrary to Law 42.’ Had the umpire done that,
nobody would have complained about his decision and both Greg and Trevor Chappell would have been spared the burden of carrying the ‘underarm incident’ around with them for the rest of their lives.

The latest version of the very comprehensive Laws of Cricket (they take up fifty pages in
Wisden
), now has a new section at the beginning called The Preamble. It sets out to define The Spirit of Cricket and is quite clear that the major responsibility for ensuring the spirit of fair play lies with the captains. The umpires’ job is to intervene where necessary.

The updated clarification of what is meant by the ‘spirit of cricket’ didn’t stop Paul Colllingwood not quite getting the hang of it in 2008. The opposition were …... New Zealand! The incident took place at the Oval during the 4
^th
ODI. New Zealand were chasing England’s fairly modest total of 245 when Ryan Sidebottam collided with Grant Elliott, who was going for a quick single. Although it’s tempting to speculate that England’s Mr Angry deliberately took out Elliott, in fact the collision was completely accidental.

Grant Elliott was knocked to the ground. The ball was thrown to the bowler’s end and Elliott was run out. Collingwood, who was captain, later said that he had to make a “split second decision”. That’s not quite right as the umpire, Mark Benson, asked him if he was absolutely sure that he wanted to uphold the appeal. Collingwood thought about it, said yes and so Elliott had to go. There were boos from many sections of the crowd. I remember watching the game on television at the time and hoping that New Zealand would go on to win. Luckily for Collingwood they did, off the last ball of the match. The England captain could not have asked Luke Wright to roll the last ball along the ground even if he had wanted to. This action had been outlawed immediately following the match in 1981.

To Collingwood’s credit he did apologise immediately after the match when he had had time to reflect on what he had done. It wasn’t quite in the same league as Greg Chappell’s underarm incident but shows what can happen when a player is under pressure. Collingwood simply made the wrong decision. Chappell’s action, on the other hand, was premeditated and tantamount to cheating, even though it was technically within the laws of the game, Law 42 notwithstanding!

Collingwood gave up the one day captaincy soon afterwards but the following year, during the Champions Trophy in South Africa, he was to be embroiled in yet another ‘spirit of cricket’ controversy, once again with New Zealand. Why are New Zealand always involved?

During their Group match, Collingwood received a vicious delivery from Kyle Mills that reared off a length and went through to the keeper. Collingwood glanced at the square leg umpire and took a couple of steps down the wicket to examine the spot where the ball had pitched. Brendon McCullum then threw down the stumps. Collingwood was clearly out of his ground but there was some dispute as to whether umpire Daryl Harper had called for the end of the over. As it was Daryl, he probably wasn’t sure whether he had either.

Considering what had happened at the Oval fifteen months earlier, the Kiwis could be forgiven for wanting to get some revenge. What goes around, comes around. Collingwood obviously wasn’t trying to go for a run but he was out of his crease. After some discussion, Daniel Vettori, the New Zealand captain, showed that he at least did understand what is meant by the ‘spirit of cricket’ and withdrew the appeal. Collingwood went on to top score with 40 but New Zealand won the match. The ‘good guys’ had won both times.

New Zealand have not always been the ‘good guys’. In 2006, Brendon McCullum ran out Muttiah Muralitharan when he left his crease to congratulate Kumar Sangakkara on scoring a century. The ball was not ‘dead’ so he was within his rights. The captain, Stephen Fleming, could have called Muralitharan back but chose not to. New Zealand went on to win the match.

The so-called ‘spirit of cricket’ is difficult to define but usually easy to spot if it is broken. At the start of the third Ashes Test at Edgbaston in 2009, Australia’s wicket-keeper, Brad Haddin, broke a finger in the thirty minutes between the toss and start of play. Ricky Ponting, had nominated the team in writing before the toss, so a replacement could be allowed only with the England captain’s consent. By the laws of the game, Strauss did not have to let Australia bring in a new keeper but he did and it felt the right thing to do. The ‘spirit of cricket’ was upheld. Graham Manou was the grateful beneficiary and went on to make his début.

The main reason why the underarm incident in the New Zealand versus Australia match is still talked about to this day is that what happened was so manifestly against the ‘spirit of cricket’ that it was obvious to all and sundry, except Greg Chappell. So why did he do it?

Although his immediate reaction was to say that it was within the rules, he soon apologised and has been apologising for it ever since. Given the torrent of condemnation that engulfed him, he had little choice. Some years later Chappell’s defence, or explanation, was that he felt that he was having some sort of physical and mental breakdown.

It was the beginning of the new professional era for Australian cricket following Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket. There were a lot of problems to sort out including scheduling of games, contracts and playing conditions. As Australia’s captain, Greg
Chappell was involved in all of this and things had just got too much for him.

The pressure of non-stop cricket had taken its toll. When coupled with all the off field activities that he was involved with, Chappell was no longer enjoying the game at which he excelled. In the back of his mind, as his brother began to bowl that last over, was the thought that if Australia won the third One-Day Final they would only have to win one more game to clinch the series. If Australia went 3 – 1 up, the last game would not have to be played. He did not want to take the risk of the third game ending up a tie and having to play yet another game.

Australia did indeed go on to win the fourth game, relatively easily. Greg Chappell, booed to the wicket as he went out to bat but then cheered as he went off having scored 87, was named Man of the Finals. Australia had won the series 3 – 1 and the fifth and final game was not required.

So, what to make of the enigma that was Greg Chappell? As a batsman, Chappell was a class act. John Arlott was of the view that, “for most of the 1970s, Greg Chappell was probably the best batsman in the world.” He was a tall, stylish, right handed batsman, particularly strong on the leg-side, which included a highly individualistic shot off his hips from a very upright stance. He inherited the Australian captaincy from his brother, Ian, in 1975 and tried to raise the standards of dress and behaviour that had deteriorated somewhat during his brother’s reign. Greg Chappell was conscientious and demanding, acquiring the nickname of ‘the major general’. And yet, ironically, it is he that is associated with a famous act of bad sportsmanship not his more raucous aggressive older brother.

Greg Chappell scored over 7,000 Test runs for Australia, including 24 centuries, at an average of nearly 54. His Test average
puts him in the same bracket as Tendulkar, Lara and Ponting of recent players and slightly ahead of Viv Richards and Sunil Gavaskar who were his contemporaries. He was an outstanding slip fielder and took 122 catches in his eighty-seven Tests. At the start of his career, Chappell spent two summers at Somerset and developed his skills in the county game, as many overseas players began to do around that time. Although primarily a batsman, Chappell went to Somerset as an occasional leg spinner but came back a very useful medium pacer.

After the controversial series against New Zealand, Greg Chappell chose not to go on the next tour with the Australian team, which was to England. The furore over the underarm incident may well have played a part in his decision. Had he toured England in 1981, it is reasonable to assume that the epic Botham/Willis Headingley Test match would never have happened in quite the way it did. So you could say that some good did come out of Chappell’s decision to ask his brother to bowl that underarm ball.

Although George Headley had captained the West Indies for one Test in 1948, no black man had been appointed as captain of the Caribbean Islands cricket team for a series prior to 1960. This despite the fact that the West Indies had been blessed with the three Ws who had dominated their cricket from the late 1940s through to the late 1950s. Frank Worrell, Everton Weekes and Clyde Walcott were born within eighteen months of each other and all within a couple of miles of the Kensington Oval, Bridgetown in Barbados. They were all great players by any standard but none of them had captained the West Indies at cricket.

Frank Worrell had been Jeffrey Stollmeyer’s vice captain in the 1953/54 home series against England. However, in the next series against Australia, Denis Atkinson, a white Bajan, had replaced Worrell. As it turned out, Atkinson had to captain in three of the Tests when Stollmeyer was injured. Atkinson was an inexperienced captain and not in the same class as Worrell, Weekes and Walcott, who were all in the side, but had the disadvantage of being black. Atkinson was also appointed as captain for the tour to New Zealand which was to take place a year later, with another white man, Bruce Pairaudean, as his vice captain.

Clyde Walcott, in his book
Island Cricketers
, had a generous explanation for these decisions. The three Ws all played League cricket in Lancashire, and were therefore professionals. Walcott reckoned that the West Indies Cricket Board wanted an amateur
captain, as was the tradition in England until 1952. In that year, Len Hutton was appointed captain of England despite the misgivings of some of the English cricket establishment. Hutton wasn’t black but he was a professional.

The captaincy was further complicated by inter-island rivalry. The islands of the West Indies were all individual territories, each with their own government and culture. They came together for the purposes of cricket but otherwise were very independent. With Hall and Griffith to open the bowling and the three Ws supported by Sobers and Hunte, Barbados could probably have put out a team to match any country in the world, but that’s another matter.

Colonial rule was coming to an end in the 1950s. Two of the bigger islands, Jamaica and Trinidad, were moving towards independence.
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Black men were moving into positions of power and authority in government and commerce, but the captain of the West Indies cricket team remained a white prerogative. This was patently absurd and not sustainable.

Maintaining that only a white man can captain the West Indies at cricket is a bit like saying only an old Etonian can be Prime Minister of Britain
14
. It doesn’t mean to say that the successful candidate can’t do a good job, it’s just that it does rather restrict the possible applicants. John Goddard, initially, was a popular and successful captain particularly when he led the West Indies to their first series victory in England, in 1950. However, when he was brought out of virtual retirement to lead the team to England again in 1957, there was discontent and discord in the touring party. The West
Indies lost three of the Tests by an innings and the other two were ‘losing draws’. It was not a happy side and this was reflected in their performances.

In fact, Frank Worrell had been offered the captaincy twice. Once for the home series against Pakistan in 1957/58 and again for the tour to India and Pakistan in 1958/59. He turned both down as he was studying for his degree in England. Significantly, neither he, nor any other black player, had been given the opportunity to captain against the two most prestigious (and white) cricketing countries – England and Australia.

While Worrell was studying for his degree in Manchester, Gerry Alexander, a white Jamaican and a Cambridge cricket blue, captained the West Indies to India and Pakistan in 1958/59. They beat India but Roy Gilchrist, the volatile fast bowler, was sent home for disciplinary reasons. The second leg of the tour against Pakistan was lost.

Alexander was the Windies wicket-keeper and a useful lower middle order batsman. He had expected Worrell to take over as captain for the visit of the MCC
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to the Caribbean in 1959/60. The West Indies Board persuaded him to carry on, and this did not go down well with the majority of the cricket loving population.

The series started in Barbados with a draw. Worrell scored 197 not out and shared in a West Indies record fourth wicket partnership of 399 with Sobers. It was during the Second Test in Trinidad that C.L.R. James, the author of
Beyond a Boundary
, started a campaign to have Worrell appointed as captain for the forthcoming tour to Australia.

James was a revolutionary Marxist who enjoyed reading Shakespeare, Thackeray and Dickens; a cricket lover who didn’t see a Test match for fifteen years while living in the United States.
He was a friend of various luminaries including such disparate figures as Sir Learie Constantine, Jomo Kenyatta and Edith Sitwell. He returned to Trinidad, the island of his birth, in 1958 to edit the political newspaper
The Nation
. James used this as the platform for his campaign to make Frank Worrell the first black captain of the West Indies. His arguments were on purely cricketing grounds. He did not make colour an explicit issue; he didn’t have to.

On the third day of the Second Test at Trinidad there was a riot, with bottles being thrown on to the field. The catalyst was when Singh, a local player in his first Test match, was adjudged run out. None of the rioting, or bottles, was aimed at the English players but play was interrupted. The underlying causes among the 30,000 crowd included the oppressive heat, unhappiness with the West Indies batting performance (they were 98 – 8 when the players had to leave the field) and a general discontent exacerbated by the writings of James.

England went on to win the Second Test and the series, with the remaining three matches being drawn. As wicket-keeper, Alexander had an outstanding series with 23 dismissals. He was by and large a popular captain with the West Indies team and some were unhappy with James’s editorials in
The Nation
, even if they sympathised with them. Worrell was phlegmatic about the campaign and did not involve himself directly.

Alexander made himself available to captain the tour to Australia but said that he was equally happy to play under Worrell whom he liked and respected. He also acknowledged the difficulty of captaining and keeping wicket at the same time. The West Indies Board met and debated the issue for two full days before announcing that Worrell would be captain and Alexander vice-captain.

At the age of thirty-five, Frank Worrell became the first black man to lead the West Indies cricket team in a series. A huge
amount rested on his shoulders. Success would show the world in general, and the West Indies Cricket Board in particular, that a black man could lead the West Indies. Failure would give succour to the doubters and possibly set back West Indian cricket for years.

C.L.R. James had also hoped to get Roy Gilchrist reinstated into the West Indies squad. Gilchrist looked to Worrell for advice and guidance and saw him almost as a father figure. James thought that Worrell could encourage him to apologise for his misdemeanours in India and get him rehabilitated back into the team. This didn’t happen and James had to settle for a part in helping to get Worrell appointed as the West Indies cricket captain.

The Australian tour did not start particularly well for Worrell. He was suffering from food poisoning when his opposite captain, Richie Benaud, met him at the airport. In their first two state games, the West Indies lost to Western Australia and drew against South Australia. Next, they comfortably beat Victoria thanks to a double century from Rohan Kanhai and the spin bowling of Ramadhin and Valentine.

The West Indies then lost by an innings to a strong New South Wales side captained by Benaud. Worrell scored 51 in the first innings but then pulled a leg muscle and didn’t bat in the second. He missed the drawn match against Queensland, the last game before the Tests began.

Although Weekes and Walcott had retired from Test cricket, a new generation of West Indian batsmen was coming through. As well as Kanhai, Worrell could call on the reliable Conrad Hunte and the incomparable Garry Sobers. Wes Hall was developing into a fearsome fast bowler and Lance Gibbs, the off-spinner, was just starting out on his career. He replaced Ramadhin in the Test side for the last three matches.

So, Worrell was blessed with talented players in the squad but could he get them playing as a team and not just a group of skilful individuals? Worrell was probably past his best as a batsman but he still made runs at key times in the series, batting at number 5. He also usually opened the bowling with Hall but it was his contribution as captain that was unique.

The memorable series started in Brisbane with one of the most exciting Tests ever played. It was variously described at the time as ‘The Greatest Test Match’, ‘The Greatest Cricket Match’ and even ‘The Greatest Game ever played with a ball’. Pretty impressive billing and not a bad way for Worrell to begin his Test captaincy!

The West Indies batted first and were soon 65 for 3 with Cammie Smith, Hunte and Kanhai all falling to Alan Davidson in an exhilarating first hour; at which point Worrell came to the wicket and provided Sobers with the calmness and support that allowed him to blossom. Sobers completely dominated the Australian bowling. He had the knack, when in form, that all great players have of dispatching the good ball to the boundary. His century came in just over two hours. Sobers received a standing ovation from the crowd and was also warmly congratulated by Benaud and the Australian players. Many regard it as the best of his 26 Test centuries.

In those days, the new ball was taken after 200 runs and it was only twenty-five past two when Davidson and Meckiff had the opportunity to take it. This was in stark contrast to the previous Test match played at Brisbane, in December 1958, when Trevor ‘Barnacle’ Bailey batted for seven and half hours for 68. Bailey and Co clearly did not believe that they were there to entertain the paying spectators. The daily run totals for the first four days of that Ashes Test were 142, 148, 122 and 106!

Thankfully, Worrell and Benaud’s approach was completely different. The whole series was played in a wonderfully positive spirit by both teams. They did not see winning and entertaining as mutually exclusive.

Neither Sobers nor Worrell were troubled by the new ball until Sobers was out to possibly the worst delivery of the day. Sobers contrived to hit a wide, leg-side full toss from Meckiff into the hands of Kline at mid-on. He paused at the wicket for some time, unable to believe that he had played such a shot, and then was applauded all the way back to the dressing room. He had stroked 21 boundaries in his 132. Jack Fingleton described it as “an immortal innings”.

As is often the way with long partnerships, Worrell followed him soon afterwards. He made 65 in just over two and half hours and had been the perfect foil for Sobers. Joe Solomon had replaced Sobers and, with a correctness and wisdom appropriate to his name, also scored 65. He was out just before the end to Bobby Simpson, a part-time leg-spinner and the West Indies ended the day on 359 for 7.

Australia would have anticipated bowling the Windies out fairly quickly the next day. Benaud opened with Davidson and obviously did not expect to need him to take a second new ball, which was due if the score reached 400. Things went to plan when Ramadhin was soon out but Alexander and Hall had other ideas. Wes Hall batted rather in the style of a more successful version of Devon Malcolm. Frank Worrell had suggested a change to his grip when seeing him bat in the nets, and Hall began to put it into practice. He scored exactly 50 in a blistering partnership of 86 with Alexander.

One over from Meckiff went for 19 and Benaud reflected afterwards that 19 was exactly the number of runs scored in one pre-lunch session in the England versus Australia Test match at
Brisbane two years earlier. Benaud also reported hearing an Australian wit shout from the crowd at the end of the same over ‘Eh Benaud, which one of those blokes is Sobers?’

Gerry Alexander was out for 60 soon after Hall, and the West Indies innings ended on 453. Wes Hall told his captain that he could have got a century but had deliberately got himself stumped once he had got to 50 as he needed to conserve his energy to bowl. Worrell’s reaction is not recorded but neither he nor Hall could get an early breakthrough when they opened the bowling. Australia made steady progress and eventually got a first innings lead of 52, thanks mainly to a cautious 92 from Bob Simpson and an increasingly confident 181 from Norman O’Neill.

The West Indies only managed 284 the second time around, Worrell top scoring with 65. Alan Davidson took 6 for 87 giving him 11 wickets in the match. Together with his attractive 44 in Australia’s first innings, he was already one of the candidates for man of the match.

Australia only needed 233 to win. They were soon 7 for 2 and then 57 for 5. Wes Hall charged in and bowled twelve eight-ball overs
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in a row. He was exhausted but had taken four of the wickets to fall. Ramadhin and Valentine would surely finish the Australians off? Ramadhin bowled Mackay and, at 92 for 6, Benaud joined Alan Davidson at the wicket. They managed to get to tea without further loss but a West Indies victory looked a certainty.

After tea, Benaud and Davidson moved the score along. The West Indies bowling attack, including Sobers mixing his medium quick stuff with slow spin, could not get the breakthrough. The
Australian batsmen were taking any number of quick singles and the West Indies fielding was looking ragged. Worrell remained calm throughout and urged his men to relax but concentrate. It is not always easy to do both of these things at the same time in such circumstances!

With an hour to go, Australia needed 60 runs to win. The West Indies needed 4 wickets. With half an hour to go, Australia needed 27 to win. The West Indies still needed 4 wickets. The 200 was up so Worrell played his last card. The new ball was taken and Wes Hall brought back for one last effort. Despite some near misses and run out scares, Benaud and Davidson held firm.