Cricket and History
by Ross McMullin
The editor asked me to write a memoir covering my background in cricket and my career as a historian.
On 1 February 1961 I retreated to my parents’ bedroom. As an eight-year-old cricket enthusiast with three younger siblings, I needed a peaceful sanctuary. I kept listening to the transistor, riveted, for over after over as Slasher Mackay and Lindsay Kline managed to hang on to draw the Fourth Test against the West Indies in Adelaide. Ten days later I was among the world record crowd at the MCG for the Fifth Test of that wonderful series.
Early 1961 is my first clear memory of my interest in cricket, which proved to be lifelong. I played, watched and read about a lot of cricket while growing up as a fast bowler without a suitable physique. I liked batting and treated it seriously, but it was not my strong suit.
This was starkly evident in 1969 when I batted twice for my school’s first eleven and failed to score. In the most important match I was lured forward to my first ball by a mysterious leg-spinner and should have been stumped. Next ball I groped again and was stumped. I was able to contribute with the ball, though that same spinner told me later his solitary run that whole season was nudged off my bowling.
This was Derek Leong, and we found ourselves embarking on Law–Commerce together at Melbourne University the following year. We were far more interested in cricket, past and present, than we were in the course, and I saw numerous matches at the MCG. An aunt was regularly giving me the latest Wisden as a Christmas present, and Derek and I started buying cricket books from Roger Page.
We also played for University in the District cricket competition. I started in the thirds, was promoted to the seconds, and attended a practice session close to Christmas that was presumably voluntary as not many attended.
Someone who did, though, was none other than Geoff Boycott. This was the 1970-71 Ashes series, and his teammates might have been enjoying the beach but the driven champion typically wanted a serious hit somewhere. It was astonishing to find myself bowling to the masterly technician who was described as the world’s best batsman.
I’d been developing variations for my medium-fast deliveries, not only conventional swing and cut but also something unusual, though it became more common later — a fast leg-break. I sensed I’d have one chance. Once Boycott had seen my fast leggie he wouldn’t be deceived by it, so I had to land it properly the first time. Fortunately I did. It worked more often as a slower ball than as a leg-cutter that changed direction, and it was the change of pace and therefore length that misled him. He tried to adjust his shot, but only managed to hit it crisply back to me, and I was relieved to hold the catch in my follow-through. Afterwards his amiable compliment in that broad Yorkshire accent sounded like “Well bowled, little booger”.
One thing led to another, and I was invited to join the net bowlers helping the English team before the ensuing MCG Test. We bowled to them every morning before play, and then remained with them during the match. Boycott was dismissed by Froggy Thomson for 12, came and sat near me, and asked how he should have played the delivery differently. Brian Luckhurst proceeded to make a century despite a broken finger. I had bowled him in the warm-up with a yorker and kept hoping our bowlers would test him with one, but he batted grittily all day till just before stumps when he was out — bowled by a Doug Walters yorker. The whole Test was an amazing experience for an 18-year-old cricket enthusiast.
There was more. England’s vice-captain, Colin Cowdrey, was out of form, so he organised an extra net session. Afterwards he thanked the bowlers with characteristically charming generosity. I returned home to find my parents — teetotallers both — hosting a dinner party. My father genially asked what I’d been up to, which enabled me to startle the gathering: “I’ve been having a drink with Colin Cowdrey”.
That same month I was promoted to the University firsts. This was an immense thrill, and depending on the toss I could be bowling to Test captain Bill Lawry. But Northcote batted first, Lawry didn’t play, I didn’t set the world on fire and was soon back in the twos.
My next match in the firsts was on Cup Day the following season. It was a one-sided affair. Carlton made plenty, Uni collapsed, and I came in second last bareheaded (helmets were unknown). John Snow, the renowned fast bowler, was holidaying with Carlton after winning the Ashes for England. He was coasting. I had a rush of blood and somehow decided it was a smart idea to hit Snow back over his head — you know, something to tell the grandchildren. Didn’t work. My expansive mishit smashed the ball nowhere. Snow picked it up off the pitch scornfully and glared at my temerity. The next one, much quicker, was a bouncer. I barely saw it but managed to survive, and my 19 not out was third-top score.
My interest in cricket extended in other directions. Derek and I, together with our university friend Bruce Sivewright, were members of the Australian Cricket Society. During the early 1970s we co-edited the ACS publications Pavilion and Extra Cover. I also contributed articles. An early one, I believe my first published writing, was an article for Extra Cover about Robert Rose after his devastating accident. In addition, a story of mine about Froggy Thomson appeared in the 1975 issue of Pavilion.
Having graduated I had to change clubs and transferred to Prahran. After playing sometimes in the firsts at Uni but mostly not, I was pleased to become a regular in the Prahran firsts — throughout the 1975-76 season and the start of the next — until it all suddenly stopped at Glenferrie Oval when I slipped over while bowling and landed on the pitch knee first. I couldn’t continue, limped off, had surgery, didn’t play for months and never again in the firsts.
Unlike today, when international and interstate schedules are much more cluttered, playing first-grade District cricket in the 1970s enabled you to encounter luminaries familiar with an altogether different stratosphere like John Snow. I faced Froggy Thomson, Ian Callen, Jim Higgs and others who bowled at Test level including Keith Stackpole and Trevor Laughlin. Celebrated Test batsmen I bowled to included Paul Sheahan, Bob Cowper, Sadiq Mohammed and even Rohan Kanhai, who had scored a century in both innings of that 1961 Adelaide Test that had so enthralled me; the Sun published a photo of me bowling to Kanhai in 1975, which retains its special spot in my study (and is reproduced alongside). However, such experiences were over for me, and I had to see if I could find other enthusiasms.
By this stage I was a profoundly dissatisfied solicitor. I didn’t want my future to be probates and conveyancing. I’d always liked history, and I’d steered my university subjects in that direction if possible, as Gareth Evans confirmed when assessing my constitutional law essay: “Good rousing politics and history, but not enough law”. However, I had no idea how to turn liking history into a job.
The process can seem with hindsight like clear-sighted analytical progress towards another career, but at the time it felt anything but. The big step was leaving the law in mid-1976, when I joined the national archives. I was studying Australian history at Melbourne Uni, though this was a one-off single subject in the evening prompted by interest, not with any idea it might lead somewhere. But the History department encouraged me to do more, so I did another part-time subject in 1977 together with a minor thesis, which qualified me to tackle postgraduate research. To do this full-time, though, I needed a scholarship and they’d all been allocated. Continuing at the archives, I was unexpectedly notified in mid-1978 that someone awarded a scholarship no longer wanted it, so it was available. I acquiesced quickly, and I’ve been doing historical research and writing ever since.
World War I’s devastating consequences for Australia was already an absorbing theme. I chose a WWI topic for my thesis and became a professional cricketer for a season as captain-coach of Ashwood. This was no sinecure. Ashwood had numerous teams to supervise (an under-age side had a quiet teenager named Paul Reiffel), and against Mont Albert I found myself facing Froggy Thomson, who dismissed me for not many.
I spent much of 1979 in Canberra, researching at the Australian War Memorial in the daytime and the National Library at night and weekends. I immersed myself in the newly released Charles Bean papers and became acquainted with the amazing Pompey Elliott along with many others. I found the research fascinating. Engrossed in the prime minister’s actual wartime letters in the library one April Saturday with Lake Burley Griffin a radiant backdrop through the window, it hit me like an epiphany that I’d found — at last, aged 27 — what I wanted to do.
My PhD topic changed to a biography of Will Dyson, the brilliant Australian war artist and writer. It was published in 1984 and shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year Award. I began research on a biography of Pompey Elliott, visiting the battlefields and perusing English archives, which led to some cricket in London for Australia House. These were one-day social matches starting in the afternoon, but we treated them as our own personal Ashes and relished outright wins in the long evening light.
Having returned home, I noticed an advertisement seeking a historian to write the ALP’s centenary history. I applied and was chosen. This was an immense task that stretched me big-time, but The Light on the Hill was launched by Prime Minister Bob Hawke on schedule in mid-1991. Various assistants made this possible, none more of course than my wife Joan, who gave birth to our two children while I was writing it.
I reverted to Pompey, and in 2002 Scribe published Pompey Elliott, which won awards. My keenness to highlight his unique war letters resulted in a separate book, Pompey Elliott at War: In His Own Words. Another book along the way was So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the World’s First National Labour Government.
Meanwhile I’d been contemplating a different theme. I wanted to retrieve forgotten Australians of outstanding promise who exemplify our lost generation of WWI. The research involved was substantial — just as well I like the detective part of the caper. Farewell, Dear People appeared in 2012 and won national awards including The Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History.
I had in mind a second multi-biography on this theme that would feature further Australians of rare potential. This time I was looking forward to highlighting a cricketer, Norman Callaway, a long-forgotten classic example of our lost generation. He played just one innings at first-class level: he came in aged 18 with New South Wales 3 for 17 and proceeded to make 207 in glorious fashion. But two years later Australia lost this highly talented Test prospect when he died at Bullecourt.
Life So Full of Promise was published in 2023 with a superb photo of Norman Callaway on the cover. With cricket featuring in the other family stories as well, Life So Full of Promise is in effect two books in one — not only a second lost generation multi-biography, but also a cricket book by virtue of the amount of cricket in it. Naturally I was delighted when it won The Age Book of the Year Award, but what has also been very special personally is that Life So Full of Promise connects my history writing about WWI all the way back to my initial forays as a novice author half a century ago for the Australian Cricket Society and Pavilion magazine.
Ross McMullin is a historian, biographer and storyteller. He co-edited Pavilion in the 1970s with Derek Leong (who assisted with the writing of this memoir) and Bruce Sivewright.