Bill Lawry
William Morris Lawry is an Australian former cricketer and commentator who played for Victoria and Australia. He captained Australia in 25 Test matches, winning nine, losing eight and drawing eight, and led Australia in the inaugural One Day International match, played in 1971. Following his retirement, Lawry spent over 40 years as a commentator on Channel 9, and is considered as one of the game’s most iconic voices.
A left-handed opening batsman with a reputation for resolute defence, Lawry had the ability to spend long periods of time at the crease. As his career progressed, he wound back his strokeplay to the point where he was described by an English journalist as "the corpse with pads on". Lawry was unceremoniously dumped as captain and player for the final Test of the 1970–71 Ashes series in Australia. Lawry's sacking is regarded as one of the more distasteful incidents in Australian cricket history—he was not informed personally of the selectors' decision before the decision was first broadcast on radio and he only became aware of his fate when confronted by reporters. Lawry was part of the Nine Network cricket commentary team until 2018, by which time he had been in the role for 45 years.
Early career
Lawry was born in the Melbourne suburb of Thornbury. He was given the names William Morris after the early Prime Minister of Australia, William Morris Hughes. His father Alfred played amateur cricket until the age of 51. Bill never saw his father play, who was aged 47 when Bill was born. Aged nine, he played competitive cricket for the first time with the Thornbury Presbyterian Church team. He spent three years there, as well as playing for Preston Technical School. When he was twelve, he entered Melbourne's district competition playing for Northcote's fourth team, working his way up to the First XI by the age of sixteen. At the time, he was apprenticed as a plumber and attending Preston Technical College. Lawry was selected for Victoria's Second XI at the age of seventeen. He made a duck against the South Australians and did not see any further action for the Seconds for the rest of the summer of 1954–55. The following season, Lawry was recalled to the Seconds and scored 183 against South Australia.A few months before turning nineteen, Lawry made his debut for Victoria, against Western Australia at the Junction Oval in the 1955–56 season. He scored only three as the hosts took an innings victory and it was his only senior match of the season. He played in all but one of Victoria's matches in 1956–57, but had modest results. He passed fifty only twice, scoring 51 against Queensland in his fourth first-class match, and making 74 against South Australia two games later. He made only one and seven against arch-rivals New South Wales in a low-scoring match that ended in the first tie in Sheffield Shield competitions. He ended with only 248 runs at 20.66.
Lawry was dropped completely in 1957–58 and did not play a match for his state even though they were depleted with Test representatives overseas in South Africa. The left-hander stayed on the sidelines for the first half of the following season when the Test players returned. Recalled for Victoria's match against the touring English cricket team in 1958–59, he scored 24 and 22, failing to seize his opportunity against international opponents. He also bowled at first-class level for the first time, bowling two overs without success. However, he was retained in the team, and scored fifties in four of the remaining five innings of the season and ended with 361 runs at 60.16.
In 1959–60, the national team were away on an eight-Test tour of the Indian subcontinent, opening up opportunities for players in domestic cricket. Lawry played in all 10 of Victoria's inter-state matches. After starting the season with 70 and 50 not out against Western Australia, Lawry went into a form slump and accumulated only 56 runs in his next six innings. He scored 85 and 33 and took his maiden first-class wicket in the next match against South Australia, but his form remained modest until the end of the season. He scored fifties in consecutive matches before registering his maiden first-class century, 127, against Western Australia, before scoring an unbeaten 38 in the second innings to see the Victorians to their target of 46. He ended with 666 runs at 44.40 for the season.
His batting form remained modest at the start of the 1960–61 season, scoring only 148 runs in the first seven innings of the summer. In the first match of the season against South Australia, he took a wicket in each innings, the only time he took more than one wicket in a first-class match. His summer's total of two wickets was the most he ever took in a season.
He made his major breakthrough in the fifth match of the season when he hit 266 against New South Wales at Sydney in 1960–61, shortly before the Australian selectors chose the team for the 1961 Ashes tour. It was more than half of his team's 4/457. Lawry followed his double-century with scores of 66, 83 and 85 in consecutive innings, and then ended the interstate season with a 134 against Queensland. He had scored 840 runs at 56.00 up to that point in the season and was selected for the tour of England. He scored 202 runs at 50.50 in three warm-up matches before the Australians departed for the British Isles.
Test debut
Lawry was sent to England as a backup opening batsman for the incumbent pair of Colin McDonald and Bob Simpson, who had performed well against the pace attack of the West Indies during the previous season and were expected to be retained for the Tests. Adapting quickly to English pitches, Lawry bounced back after failing to pass 30 in his first two matches to make his first century on the tour against Surrey at The Oval, which defeated Australia in the corresponding match on Australia's previous tour in 1956. This time, Lawry seized the initiative in an innings described by Wisden as "one of the most significant of the whole season" and "a flowering of technique and temperament". Batting for four and a half hours, Lawry scored 165, reaching his century in three hours. He compiled 101 runs between lunch and tea, producing an array of powerful drives through the off side, while his hooking prompted Denis Compton to compare him to Don Bradman. The Australians took a 180-run first innings lead and the Victorian opener made 22 not out to seal a ten-wicket win in the second innings. Lawry followed up with 100 and 24 not out in a nine-wicket triumph against Cambridge University and 104 on his first appearance at Lord's, against Marylebone Cricket Club, who boasted several Test players in their ranks. Continuing this form in the second innings, Lawry hit 84 and combined with Simpson to take Australia to 0/186, whereupon they declared and bowled the hosts out to win the match. He added 72 against Oxford University, and in eight matches leading into the Tests, Lawry had totalled 720 runs at 80.00.Consequently, the selectors moved Simpson down the order to number six to accommodate Lawry for his Test debut in First Test at Edgbaston. In a drawn match, he made a steady 57 in Australia's only innings of 9/516 declared. Between Tests, he added an even 100 against Kent. His innings in the Second Test at Lord's—dubbed the "Battle of the Ridge"—was described by Wisden as "an indomitable effort of sheer graft under severe pressure with the ball flying about". Taking bruising blows from the hostile pace bowling of Fred Trueman and Brian Statham on a pitch with irregular bounce due to the presence of a ridge, Lawry reached 32 at stumps on the first day after England were bowled out for 206. The following day, Australia moved from 4/111 at lunch to 5/183 when Peter Burge was dismissed for 46 with Lawry on 99. Lawry resisted for six hours, to register his maiden Test century of 130, while no other batsman on either side passed 66. It helped Australia to take a match-winning first innings lead, eventually leaving a target in the double figures for the second innings. It was his fifth hundred of the tour, giving him over a thousand runs inside two months. Lawry continued his fine form in the two matches before the next Test, scoring 70 and 35 against Somerset and 122 against Lancashire. In the latter match, he took 1/24 from four overs, his only first-class stint with the ball during the whole tour, and his heaviest bowling workload in a first-class match.
Lawry then scored a pair of 28s as England squared the series at 1–1 in the Third Test in a low-scoring, three-day encounter at Headingley. He then scored against Northamptonshire. In the Fourth Test at Old Trafford, Lawry played a part of innings that was crucial in Australia winning the series. After making 74 in the first innings, he and Simpson put on an opening partnership of 113 in the second, the first century opening partnership of the series. Lawry went on to make 102, helping to set a match-winning target before skittling England on the final afternoon.
After the match-winning performance in Manchester, the latter stages of Lawry's tour were comparatively unproductive. He made a duck in his only innings in the drawn final Test at The Oval, and scored 109 against the Gentlemen of England, but made only two fifties in the last six first-class fixtures of the tour.
Nevertheless, Lawry topped the batting aggregates with 2,019 runs at 61.18 in first-class matches and 420 at 52.50 in five Tests. He struck the most centuries on tour, with nine triple-figure scores. Only Bradman and Neil Harvey had made over two thousand runs in an English tour since the Second World War. As a result, he was named as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1962.