Celebrating 175 years - Melbourne Cricket Club

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SPORTS HERITAGE Fast bowlers join hall of fame Former Australian fast bowlers Glenn McGrath and Charlie Turner are this year’s inductees into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame (ACHoF). Inducted at the Allan Border Medal dinner on February 4, McGrath and Turner had much in common despite careers more than a century apart. Tall, right-arm fast bowlers, both men hailed from country New South Wales. Each was the outstanding Australian fast bowler of his era and their superb records demonstrate the dominance each had over opposition batsmen over a prolonged period. Thrust into Test cricket in 1993 after limited first-class experience with New South Wales, McGrath became by far the greatest Australian fast bowler of his generation. In a 14-year Test career spanning 124 matches, McGrath’s 563 wickets at 21.64 is the highest tally by a fast bowler and fourthhighest of all-time. His unrelenting accuracy and immaculate length also posed problems for batsmen in limited overs internationals and his 381-wicket haul is the sixth-highest in history. In the 2007 World Cup, McGrath’s swansong for Australia, he took a record 26 wickets and was named Man of the Tournament. Winner of the Allan Border Medal (2000) and named as aWisden Cricketer of the Year in 1998, McGrath was inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame last December. Charlie Turner was a formidable opponent, particularly on wet surfaces. Possessing a rhythmic run and a square-on action at the point of delivery, Turner took 6/15 on Test debut at Sydney in 1887. In 17 Test matches between 1887 and 1895 – all against England – Turner took 101 wickets at 16.53, the best average by an Australian bowler with more than 100 wickets. He was largely responsible for England’s lowest Test score – 45 – when he took 6/15. Turner is the first and only bowler to take 100 wickets in an Australian first-class season. He took 992 wickets in a first-class career spanning 15 years and in 2008 was one of the inaugural 11 members of the New South Wales Cricket Hall of Fame. The ACHoF, housed in the MCG’s National Sports Museum, was established by the MCC in 1996 with 10 inaugural inductees and now honours 37 of our Test-playing greats. The selection panel comprises MCC committee member David Crow (chairman), former Test captains Bill Lawry, Mark Taylor and Richie Benaud, Australian Cricketers’ Association chief executive Paul Marsh, Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland and media representatives Malcolm Conn and Gideon Haigh. TOP LEFT: Charlie Turner took 101 wickets in just 17 Tests. LEFT: Glenn McGrath was simply the best paceman of his generation. MORE OLYMPIC TORCHES FOR NSM COLLECTION The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) has donated two Olympic torches for display in the National Sports Museum at the MCG. Chef de mission of the 2012 Australian Olympic team and AOC executive member Nick Green presented the London Olympic Games torch to MCG Trust chairman John Wylie at an Olympians Club of Victoria dinner in November (right). At the same function, chef de mission of the 2010 Australian Olympic Winter team and AOC executive member Ian Chesterman presented the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games torch to MCC president Paul Sheahan. Both objects will be added to the Faster, Higher, Stronger gallery in the National Sports Museum, alongside torches from every modern Olympics ever staged bar one – the elusive Helsinki torch from 1952. 8 MCC NEWS March 2013
SPORTS HERITAGE Neil Harvey to join sporting greats at the MCG A bronze statue of Australian cricket great Neil Harvey will grace the Yarra Park/MCG precinct before the end of the year as the latest addition to the prestigious Avenue of Legends project sponsored by Australia Post. Harvey will be in the safe hands of sculptor Louis Laumen whose handiwork has been so admired in the Tattersall’s Parade of Champions statues ringing the MCG. The Australia Post Avenue of Legends will see a minimum of five statues placed in Yarra Park, extending from the MCC members’ entrance up an avenue towards Wellington Parade. The first statue – that of cricketer Shane Warne – was unveiled before the 2011 Boxing Day Test, while a bronze sculpture of six-time Melbourne premiership coach Norm Smith was completed by Lis Johnson in September last year. Neil Harvey is one of the finest batsmen to have played for Australia. In 79 Tests, starting with a century on debut during Bradman’s “Invincibles” tour of England in 1948, the left-hander scored 6149 runs at 48.41, with 21 centuries. In 2000 he was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame and was also selected in Australia’s Test Team of the 20th Century. MCC Library cricket guru Ray Webster first saw Harvey as a 10-year-old schoolboy and was smitten. “He was the No. 1 batsman in the world for a decade and certainly belongs in that short list of great players below Bradman,” said Ray. “I saw him again against Peter May’s team in 1958/59 at the MCG when he made 167. He always had all the time in the world to play his shots and was simply beautiful to watch.” Louis Laumen was busy viewing “props” when we spoke with him in February. He was most impressed with a pair of boots from the era (“It’s so important to get the detail right”) and was searching for a pair of pleated, high-waisted creams, a full-cut shirt, a jumper typical of the fifties and a bat, perhaps one of Harvey’s from the MCC collection. He was also recruiting “life models”, men of about 5ft 7in with the physique of Harvey so that he can dress them and reconstruct the approved pose. “That way I can see how the clothing folds and so on as the shot is played,” Neil Harvey’s classic batting style he explained. “I take photos of the model and then work from that.” Louis expects to start on the Harvey statue in May after he finishes another laudable assignment – a statue of our first Olympic champion, Edwin Flack, for Melbourne Grammar School. His MCG work will be unveiled in December. Bert’s baggy green now at the MCG The MCC added to its magnificent collection of baggy green caps worn by Australia’s Test cricketers in January when it secured a cap worn by freakish left-arm bowler Bert Ironmonger. Ironmonger, who took 74 wickets at 17.79 in 14 Tests between 1928 and 1933, was the fourth-oldest cricketer to make his Test debut, first breaking into the national team at the ripe old age of 45 years and 237 days. He also played in the infamous Bodyline series in 1932/33, took a hat-trick for Victoria against England in 1925 and was selected in the MCC Team of the Century in 1999. Cecily Reeves, a cricketer herself in the 1940s and a passionate follower of the game, donated the cap to the museum in the name of the Hamilton family, in memory of her father Walter Hamilton. In the 1930s, Ironmonger had given his baggy green cap to Walter, who was a trainer at the St Kilda cricket and football clubs for 25 years. Hamilton handed it on to his son Lawrence in the 1950s, but Lawrence’s interest in cricket was minimal so he passed it on to his sister’s husband, the cricket-mad Walter Reeves. “Walter played district cricket for Essendon,” said his widow Cecily when she visited the MCG to donate the cap. “He only wore the cap once. He put it on one day in a match against Footscray. He made a duck, so he never wore it again!” The donation is another opportunity to remind our Australian cricketers that there is no better place to secure such a treasured memento, and display it for future generations, than to donate it to the club’s collection. “We are delighted that an important piece of Australian cricket history has joined our collection,” said MCC curator Helen Walpole. “We would love to hear from other Australian cricketers or their descendants who may have these treasured baggy green caps and other objects stored away.” Footnote: While a fine bowler, Ironmonger was pedestrian in the field and as for his batting, A.G. Moyes coined one of the great putdowns when he noted: “He went to the wicket mostly as a gesture to convention.” Cecily Reeves (second from right), who has donated Bert Ironmonger’s baggy green cap to the MCC, with daughters Colette, Alison and Judy. March 2013 MCC NEWS 9
Page 1 and 2: March 2013 | No. 153 | ISSN 1322-37
Page 3 and 4: CLUB NEWS From the President Paul S
Page 5 and 6: CLUB NEWS Join us in a birthday cel
Page 7: CLUB NEWS It’s au revoir to Frenc
Page 11 and 12: MCC CRICKET “Clubbies” return t
Page 13 and 14: MCC CRICKET FROM LEFT: Peter Hellia
Page 15 and 16: CLUB SPORT Singapore stopover actio
Page 17 and 18: FUNCTION NEWS ABOVE: MCC president
Page 19 and 20: FUNCTION NEWS Fine fare for all in
Page 21 and 22: FUNCTION NEWS A comedy blockbuster
Page 23 and 24: MEMBERS’ NEWS Support the Dees in

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