Greg Chappell Fierce Focus by Malcolm Knox

Author:Malcolm Knox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hardie Grant Books
Published: 2011-10-08T04:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

GOING UNOFFICIAL

During that last Test, I went to dinner with Ian, Rod and Rick McCosker at the Melbourne Hilton. Ian had invited a guest: the trade union leader Bob Hawke. We wanted his advice on how to get together, as cricketers, to put our case to the ACB.

That summer, the Test match gate receipts had passed a million dollars for the first time. Our pay had gone up to $400 per man, plus $75 in expenses. It was now costing the Board $5000 to put the whole team on the field for matches in which its income was on average $200,000. A recent survey in Cricketer magazine of the top twelve players in each state found that only two of the 60 respondents said they were getting ‘sufficient financial rewards’. Forty believed the poor pay would force them into premature retirement.

Hawke didn’t think it was a good idea to be too confrontational. ‘Set up a players’ association,’ he said. ‘Don’t call it a union.’ We had another meeting at his home in Brighton, and Ian put forward more ideas on improving communications with the Board and setting up a retirement fund for long-serving players. We didn’t see Hawke as a ‘Labor’ man; it was more that he had negotiating skills that we lacked, and could point us in the right direction. We settled on Bob Cowper, the retired Test batsman who had done very well in business, as an intermediary with the board. But, as usual, cricket got in the way and we never really developed the plan. Ian got caught up in a ‘strike’ of South Australian players late in the summer, over the issue of the selectors expanding their squad without telling the players; but at the same time he was leading them to a victory in the Sheffield Shield, a remarkable achievement considering they’d come last the previous year.

Within a couple of weeks, he and I were off to South Africa with the International Wanderers, managed by Richie Benaud. We had a combination of Australians, New Zealanders, Englishmen and Kent’s West Indian player John Shepherd, to play three ‘Test matches’ against South Africa. Judy also came with me to see some of the game reserves.

In 1976, going to South Africa would carry much less baggage than it would by the 1980s. The ACB gave us their blessing, as they had when Ian and I had flown over for quick doublewicket competitions. South African cricket had done a lot to integrate multiracial participation, and the leading lights such as their former captain turned administrator Ali Bacher and the Johannesburg lawyer Joe Pamensky hoped the international cricket community would recognise their efforts and play against them. A reward for cricket would send a message to a sport like rugby, which had done little to integrate. But it wasn’t to be.

Personally, I felt sorrow and sympathy for the South African cricketers. It was such a shame they didn’t get to play Test cricket. Consequently, they were deadly serious about winning their games against us.

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