Five Summers Five Flags - University of New South Wales Cricket ...

Somehow teams got chosen and off we went to Manly for the first match. Manly were a formidable side and had
won a premiership not long before through Mike Pawley’s excellent spin bowling, his aggressive captaincy and, as he
described it, a team of runners. After tea on the first day, as Manly battled their way to 211, it dawned on me that
behind the student disorder there were several very good fieldsmen and several very good cricket minds.
The old St George team had been a good catching side but with the exception of the superb Brian Booth and to an
extent myself, everyone waited for the ball to come to them or jogged after it in gentlemanly style. I’d made it clear I
expected the Uni boys to keep an eye on me in the field, to charge after the ball and whip it to the keeper whenever
they got it. And they did. What’s more a couple of sharp snicks were snared in the slips without any fanfare, and
Chappo slid onto a magnificent catch in front of the sightboard that had me staring in disbelief.
We almost got there but perhaps were a bit frightened to win, but on the Monday we stared down Sydney Uni by
four runs to chalk up our first win. Three losses followed but at the VG we comfortably accounted for Ray Tozer’s St
George with Jock’s fine catch off Brian Booth the turning point. Still, at Christmas we were three wins for seven losses
and not looking good with 200 in the first game our highest score.
From there we were not to lose a game, with four wins and three rain-affected draws. We charged up the table to
finish sixth. Essentially we mastered the art of playing on the slow turner at the VG. We’d bat first at every opportunity,
hang in there as the top order struggled, and finish with a Gulgong-led flourish at the tail. The emerging Greg
Watson (Gulgong), Dick Pym and the extraordinary in-swingers of Steve van der Sluys were surprisingly effective
early and then spinners Mark Ray and Paddy Grattan-Smith would prise out the rest with help from what was
becoming a very fine fielding team.
Most of our wins had been against teams in the bottom half of the table, but we’d got quite a boost from two very
fine wins in the Rothmans knockout, the one-day competition – one-day matches but not limited overs. We beat the
representative ACT team and the Bob Simpson-led Western Suburbs, helped each time by two good opening partnerships
between Mark and myself that gave us enough runs to let Mark and Paddy go to town.
An opening partner for Mark was a real problem and I wasn’t the answer. Nor were Jim Robson, Chappo, Dave
Pratt or Jock Martel suited to the job. We’d had a real boost with the arrival of Rob Mansfield to take over the keeping,
but he would not be returning next year. Nor would van der Sluys, which meant our pace bowling was thin. OK,
we were becoming competitive, but premiership contenders we weren’t. We needed a reliable opener, a keeper good
at handling spin, a bit more steel in the middle order and another quick. And a wrist-spinner on our turning wickets
would help.
Solving those problems over the off-season was the key to the unsheathing of the Bee’s stinger!
Jim Robson poses for the Herald at the start of the 75-76 season.
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