Thommo Speaks Out by Ashley Mallett

Author:Ashley Mallett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO016000, SPO054000
ISBN: 9781741764116
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2009-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

9 THOMMO IS A KNOCK-OUT

The umpire, Tom Brooks, came down the track to try and calm the players down. Lennie and I were having a bit of a verbal stoush. I knew how volatile Lennie could get, but Tom wasn’t about to let us be. ‘Now listen here, umpire, you don’t know the history between us and you don’t know Lennie. This is between me and Lennie—so stay out of it.’

Despite missing the second innings of the Fifth Test in Adelaide and the whole of the MCG Sixth Test, then bowling his heart out on the unresponsive England wickets in 1975, Thommo still managed to take a veritable truckload of English Test wickets within a twelve-month period. He took 33 wickets at 17 Down Under in 1974–75, and 16 at 28 in England 1975. Nine Tests in all: 49 wickets at an average of 21.

Thommo was fit and rearing to go and his partner in speed, Dennis Lillee, was bowling even better now than he had in England in 1972. Lillee was no longer dependent upon all-out speed. He had learnt to mix his pace better and use the leg and off-cutter to great effect. One of the disappointments for England was Geoff Boycott’s absence in both the Tests Down Under and in England. It was amazing that Boycott ruled himself out of the tour of Australia. Some suggested that he wasn’t too keen to play to Thomson–Lillee pace combination; however, when he pulled out of the tour, Thomson was very much an unknown quantity to all but a few in Australia and Lillee was on the comeback trial, there being no guarantee that he would bowl as well in Test cricket as he once did before his back injury. But Thommo has his own theory:

I think that when FOT [Dennis Lillee] and I came on the scene, Boycott went AWOL. I don’t think for a moment that he was scared of being hit, but I do think he had a fear of failure, which is pretty hard to understand for a bloke of his ability.

It was unfortunate that Boycott didn’t tour, because I would have liked to have had a crack at him. He was a good player, no doubt, but by the time I got to bowl to him in a Test match, he was nowhere near the player he was a few years before.

It was extraordinary that the two heroes of Illingworth’s successful Australian tour in 1970–71, Geoff Boycott and John Snow, missed the 1974–75 Australian tour. Boycott, of course, ruled himself out, but Snow was omitted. The moody Sussex fast bowler was accused of not trying in county games and he had an on-field altercation with Indian batsman Sunil Gavasker which went down like a lead balloon with the officials at Lord’s. Many believed that once the strict disciplinarian Alec Bedser was named England tour manager, Snow didn’t have a hope of getting a spot. Others maintained that England captain Mike Denness would not be able

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