WORLD SERIES CROAKIT

I'm with Greg Baum: the Benson & Hedges, Carlton & United, Carlton, VB, Commonwealth Bank World Series Cup triangular tournament is well past its use-by date. It's been a has-been since Straya lost the 1996 World Cup and decided to use it to trial potential World Cup players. (Not that there wasn't a world class selection of dud matches before 1996.) The downshot was a decade - decayed - of tedious summer TV filler. Although, it is still better than 99% of the shit in the summer FTA schedule.

From the Packer circus to a sideshow

It was once a fixture of the Australian summer, but the axing of cricket's triangular series was due.

THE tri-series was good while it lasted. I think. It's hard to remember. It's hard to remember many one-day matches and tournaments outside World Cups. It's the nature of the beast: fleetingly exciting, but barely outliving their day. Their one day.

But while the new arrangement is a better fit for today's schedule, and each old series was prone to blend into the next, there are plenty of great memories.

The Underarm. Of course. As it happened, I never saw the moment in question. Living up in the Pilbara we only had ABC TV; they in turn, only showed the Tests. The tri-series must have been a concession too far and was kept quarantined on Channel Nine. Actually, we didn't even have the Tests in 1980/81. Obviously crass, commercial cricket was a step-by-step adjustment for the buffers at the ABC. After Aunty telecast the slaughtered lambs in 1978/79, which was the last season the ABC owned the rights - whatever "owned the rights" meant to the ABC - the Pilbara missed out on the Tests until (I think) 1982/83 when they struck a deal with Nine to telecast Test matches to this wide brown land's cricket blackspots. The one dayers weren't shown until a few years later; in fact, I lived up north until January 1985 and I don't remember ever seeing a one-dayer on the telly. So I heard the underarm on the radio at a barby with a bunch of Kiwis. You might say their reaction was robust. Speaking of radio, it was via the ABC that I came to loathe the phrase "6WF and regionals will now leave us for the Country Hour." They said it like it was a warm and cozy invitation, but they could get well and truly fucked. I've never once wondered about the price of cows and completely AND absolutely resented Aunty's bare faced fucken audacity. Still do. To this day the two words "country" coupled with "hour" are enough to make me want to throw things and yell "Fuck off!" at the radio.

AB's Ton. In 1984/85 the Windies belted us in every one-day game through that summer, but in the first final AB smacked them for a hundred as we knocked up a tidy 250 odd and rolled them for about 200. (Remember, 250 was a pretty big score in them olden days. In the early nineties at the MCG I once watched the Windies chase about 230 and when the scoreboard showed their target run-rate had crept above four-an-over the crowd went "Ooooooo!".) Sadly, in the second match we knocked up an even better score, about 270, and had them 5 for about 180, but Logie and bloody Jeff bloody Dujon saw them home. Naturally, they spanked us in the third final.

Waugh's Catch. In 1988/89, not long after winning the 1987 World Cup, we had started to get our act together after the Dreadful Years. Still sadly, though, the Windies were belting us in Tests. But we beat them in a memorable one-dayer at the MCG in January; the win capped by Steve Waugh's great running catch that took him round the back of the sight-screen. There was some debate about whether the catch was legal because Waugh had taken it out of play after he caught it. It would have been nice had the catch capped the season, not just the match. As it turned out, we won the first final in a squeaker, got belthed in the second final at the SCG, then were on the end of a shocking DuckyLoo (or whatever the mind bending rain delay calculations were called back in the eighties) which allowed the Windies to pinch the third final despite only facing about ten overs.

Bevan's Four. New Year's Day 1996 at the SCG we rolled the Windies for about 180 and looked a good thing to win until we were suddenly 6 for 30 odd. Up stepped Bevan, who, with the assistance of Reiffel, Healy and Warne, managed to reduce the target to four runs with one ball left. The rest, as they say, is fruit for the sight-screen. What Roger Harper was doing bowling the last over is beyond me, but that straight four was gold.

Tony's Hat. The cricket details of this memory are very hazy. It was a one-dayer at the SCG in 1982/83 and I went with my cousin who had seats in the Brewongle stand. Going in through the gates before play my cousin suggested I buy a hat since it was that sort of day, so I purchased a green and yellow cap. Naturally, as soon as I put it on, the sky clouded over and it started to rain. We sat in our seats for a while, soaking up the rain, when my cousin started laughing at me. Turns out the rain was causing the green dye to leech out of the cap and stream down my face; oddly, not the yellow dye. Even odder, I was sure it was January 1982/83 but I cannot find a record of this match at CricInfo. Help!

Comments

[David Barry]

1.

This was a rain-affected one-dayer at Sydney in January 1982/3.

[Tony T.]

2.

No, I was in Melbourne then. You know, I might be all turned around. Maybe it was one day of the Sydney TEST.

Anyhoo, after this game, I flew from Adelaide to Perth sitting next to Tom Hogan.

[Australian Atheist]

3.

I can still remember that Beven 4 off the last ball like it was a couple of years ago.

[Mark]

4.

You're right about old style run rates. Growing up in the 70's watching the John Player League, Gillette Cup and B&H Cup, anything around 5 an over was considered a really steep ask.

Chasing 250 off of 60 overs was a 'mammoth' target - whereas today, sides batting for 60 overs would back themselves to get at least a hundred more than that!

[Pedro the Ignorant]

5.

Hansie Cronje's admission and conviction killed the one dayers for me.

All those nail biting finishes, one ball to play, three runs to get, etc etc and the mongrel was taking money to throw the game.

I have no reason to believe that every other team wasn't doing exactly the same thing, nobody gives a rat's arse about any player's ODI stats and the lure of the almighty dollar has been hinted at in the Oz dressing rooms more than once.

Kill it off, sez I.

Bring on the mighty Twenty/20 matches wherein I laugh and point, light incense bowls fuelled by ancient jockstraps to raise Bradman's Ghost and have him curse the "marketing gurus" who bastardised our beloved game to the point of parody.

[James Dudek]

6.

Come on Tony lift your bloody blogging game mate. This post is crying out for YouTube clips to be embedded in it.

Look, I'll save you the blushes and link to Steve Waugh "best outfield catch your ever gonna see":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU1ku6B4ONI

[Fredfillis]

7.

Hey Tone ... I saw all of those on the telly. Well, not the last one.

82/83 was against the Poms and Kiwis.
Check this out. http://www.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1980S/1982-83/OD_TOURNEYS/WSC/

I went to a game Vs the Poms at the SCG and managed to get into the members. After the game I was talking to Jeff Thompson in the rooms when Kim Hughes asked me very nicely for sex. Or maybe he said "fuck off". I met most of the Aussie players plus Gower and Botham and shared a taxi with Carl Rackemann and his girlfriend after an unspecified quantity of schooners of "new".

This was the game I was at. I don't recall it raining though. http://www.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1980S/1982-83/OD_TOURNEYS/WSC/AUS_ENG_WSC_ODI2_11JAN1983.html

[Adam 1.0]

8.

My favourite memory of the summer series is David Boon bowling Phil Emery in an Australia vs Australia A game at the MCG.

Second is the wild Tim Zoehrer comeback against the West Indies at the WACA. Absolutely wild scenes even though he did nothing.

Third is Michael Slater somehow ending up bowling against Zimbabwe in Hobart.

Meanwhile I've had another idea for a tournament - it's called the Ford Ranga Cup and is only played between redheaded players from around the country.

[Carrot]

9.

Can someone explain the "Ranga"/"Ranger" thing? I really thought that I'd heard them all.

Don't think you'd get a decent 'Strayan side of gingers. But you'd probably get a gun Saffa team. They're everywhere in that part of the world, or so I'm told...

[tONY]

10.

Possibly a team of duds, though - Gary Cosier and Fat Cat Ritchie are 2 notables I can think of. And what colour was Boofhead's hair before he shaved off what was left? Sorry, personal bias.

[Tony T.]

11.

For starters, Ranger rhymes with Banger, Sanger and Clanger. But don't let the sound confound you. Ranger comes from Orange, as in Oranger.

Craig McDermott is another Bluey.

For you foreign types, a Bluey is a Redhead with Orange hair.

[Tony T.]

12.

Great vision, James.

"Probably the best outfield catch you've ever seen."

Bill might get an argument from John Dyson. Sadly the only YouTube of Dyson is from Headingly '81, which I am still too traumatised to watch; despite the soothing balm that is countless English floggings since and Adelaide '06.

(Dyson caught Sylvester Clarke, which I'm sure you've been hanging out for.)

There was a great one hander by a West Indian at the World Cup in 2003, but I can't remember who snagged it, or who was the batsman, or who the Windies were playing. I'll see if I can hunt it doon.

[David Barry]

13.

That Windies catch Drakes' catch to dismiss John Davison wasn't it?

[tONY]

14.

I saw the Dyson catch on TV at the time, and I have a recollection he was wearing blue - was it in a state game? It was definitely a better catch than Waugh's, good though that is.

[tONY]

15.

No, wrong again - test match vs Windies.

http://www.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1980S/1981-82/WI_IN_AUS/WI_AUS_T2_02-06JAN1982.html

Speaking of Dyson and state games, though, I remember around the same time NSW making 305 in a one-dayer against South Australia. Rick McCosker make 150 odd, and I think Dyson also made 100 as his opening partner. At the time, you just thought "impossible"!

[Tony T.]

16.

That's definitely the catch I meant. Drakes just stuck one mitt up down at the boundary. Lucky he did, too, because Aussie Davo was flogging them.

22.1 Hinds to Davison, OUT: picked up for the maximum at long on, Drakes waiting for it, taking a brilliant catch just before the ball went over the rope to end a great innings by this Canadian batsman

Any idea what "picked up for the maximum" means?