Classic Reads: Merv Wallace by Joseph Romanos

During the winter off-season in New Zealand, I’ve been reading a book about New Zealand’s hugely under-rated batsman Merv Wallace. Wallace was a member of the 1937 and 1949 New Zealand touring teams to England. Wallace receives considerable attention in Rod Nye’s Martin Donnelly biography and Richard Boock’s recent Bert Sutcliffe biography. The respectful mentions of him in these books made me want to read further.

Merv Wallace: A Cricket Master (Joel Publishing, 2000) is researched and written by Joseph Romanos in discussion with the late Merv himself, and is, I feel, an important addition to New Zealand’s cricket history. Much has been said and written about other members of the ’49ers such as Walter Hadlee, Martin Donnelly, John R Reid and Bert Sutcliffe, but till this book appeared little was known about the extent of Wallace’s contribution to New Zealand cricket.

Romanos expertly fills in the gaps with enthusiasm and energy. He is an ardent admirer of all sports but cricket is a large part of his focus. Romanos has again produced an excellent biography with impressive knowledge, artful use of photos and memorabilia, comprehensive research and a humanist empathy for the subject and his life. I must thank too the benefactor Sir Ron Brierley’s financial commitment to the publication of this book.

The story about Merv begins in Grey Lynn, Auckland, where he was born and raised. It follows his early advances into cricket as a schoolboy and later as a young man playing his club cricket for Point Chevalier (which amalgamated with Parnell) and his First Class cricket for Auckland (captaining them 23 times from 1939-1958). Wallace’s final First Class match was for Lord Cobham’s Governor-General’s XI in the 1960-61 season.

The two main chapters of interest (as a player) are the tours of England in 1937 and 1949 where he was among New Zealand’s best batsmen on both tours. In 1937, under Curly Page’s captaincy, it’s safe to say he was the leading New Zealand batsmen of the period (between Stewie Dempster and Bert Sutcliffe) and was well written up by the English cricket writers. Pelham Warner wrote in The Cricketer: ‘Wallace has, so far, proved himself the best batsman … Short in height, Wallace is strongly built and times the ball beautifully. He has a very good eye, is quick on his feet and seems to possess all the strokes.’

He topped the 1937 tour averages in England and Australia with 1887 runs at 41.02 but, as Romanos points out, never fulfilled his Test potential, losing his best years of Test cricket to the Second World War. Wallace’s contribution as a player could’ve been greater at Test level marking him out clearly as one of our greats. Instead, he finished with a modest Test average of 20.90, no Test century, and sadly a mostly forgotten player status in the game.

The other side to Wallace’s story is his role as a coach and selector and his influential job as a sporting goods proprietor. Wallace spent a good deal of time, after retiring as a player, coaching and selecting teams, both at international and domestic level. His major success came when he coached New Zealand to their first ever Test victory over the West Indies in 1956-57. Yet, as Romanos notes for reasons unknown, Wallace was not used often as a coach and selector by the New Zealand Cricket Council. It’s baffling to know why. Walter Hadlee and other members were clearly friends of Wallace’s with no axe to grind and who respected Wallace’s ability. Wallace’s input as a coach and selector for New Zealand should’ve been greater at international level but instead, as with his batting, we only had tantalising glimpses of what he could’ve done for New Zealand cricket.

Despite this, Wallace was always involved one way or another. For years, he ran a sporting shop in Auckland: Wallace and Webb Ltd. There are delightful chapters here on Wallace’s influence through the shop, his passing on of tips to players, coaches, fathers and schoolboys who visited. As well, Romanos captures the essence of Wallace by presenting a whole chapter of Wallace’s views on cricket giving out his handy tips. Some of these appear dated now, but it seems a nice way to preserve Wallace’s mind and thoughts on the game throughout the period where he made his largest contribution.

This book proved hard to track down but was worth the effort. I searched local book fairs, second hand shops and the Wellington Public Library and could find no copy. It wasn’t until I stopped by the New Zealand Cricket Museum’s Library at the Basin Reserve, Wellington, that I was able to borrow a copy and it was well worth the wait.

Merv Wallace: A Cricket Master is a must read for those interested in the key figures who’ve developed the game here as well as New Zealand’s reputation as a cricketing nation over the past century. As John R Reid writes on the cover: “Merv Wallace was the most under-rated player to have worn the Silver Fern. This long overdue book pays eloquent tribute to a great cricketer.”

Merv Wallace: A Cricket Master
by Joseph Romanos
(Joel Publishing, Wellington, 2000)

Article © Mark Pirie 2011

Cricket poetry in the NZ Cricket Museum Newsletter

The latest edition of the NZ Cricket Museum Newsletter, Winter/Spring 2011, includes a series of cricket poems from A Tingling Catch, further information about the museum’s touch-screen interactive project and a prose piece by Madeleine Marie Slavick on Jonny Brugh’s one-man play The Second Test (also included on the Tingling Catch blog).

You can download the newsletter as a free PDF from New Zealand Cricket’s website.

The poems from A Tingling Catch were ‘The Record’ and ‘To Bert Sutcliffe, Master Batsman’ (my own poems), 'Ken Wadsworth' by Brian Turner, ‘Poet & Cricketer’ by Ron Riddell (for the late David Mitchell) and ‘A Tribute to R J Hadlee’ by Ian Donnelly.

A further poem of mine, ‘At the Basin’ for Daniel Vettori, first published by Joseph Romanos in The Wellingtonian, was also included.

Thanks to David Mealing at the New Zealand Cricket Museum for his work on this as well as the exciting new touch-screen interactive initiative.

The New Zealand Cricket Museum now has a new website too: http://www.nzcmuseum.co.nz/



NZ Cricket Museum Newsletter
Winter/Spring 2011

Martin Crowe’s cricket comeback

The cricket news story of the week was the tweeted intention of cricket great Martin Crowe to return to First Class cricket at age 48.

I really hope Martin can pull it off. His forced retirement in 1995 because of a dicky knee was a big blow to New Zealand cricket. I’m sure he would’ve become the first New Zealand batsman to post 20 Test centuries - the mark that Test batsmen often aim for.

As it stands, he has an average of 56 in First Class cricket. It’d be great to see him don the pads for Auckland to reach his 250th game. Let’s hope his body stands up to the fitness levels required for making the mark.

It made me think of another cricketing comeback. On the 1964/65 tour of India and Pakistan, New Zealand legend Bert Sutcliffe came out of retirement at age 41. He went on to score 151 not out against India at Eden Gardens and averaged 45.66 for the four match series. That was the innings where Sutcliffe featured in a big partnership with a young Bruce Taylor who went on to score a Test century himself (105).
Sutcliffe didn’t fare so well on the Pakistan leg (averaging 15.25 and battling illness) and on the ’65 tour of England he was hit on the head by Freddie Trueman and retired hurt in his last Test appearance after making 53 in the first innings. The unbeaten 151 (355 minutes at the crease) in hot subcontinent conditions will mark as one of his best Test innings.

I wish Martin well for his intended comeback. Anyone wishing to know more about Sutcliffe’s comeback should read Richard Boock’s excellent biography, The Last Everyday Hero: The Bert Sutcliffe Story.

Article © Mark Pirie 2011

Harry Ricketts reviews Bert Sutcliffe biography

The latest issue of New Zealand Books (Autumn 2011) features a review of Richard Boock's The Last Everyday Hero: The Bert Sutcliffe Story (Longacre, 2010) by Harry Ricketts.
New Zealand Books (http://www.nzbooks.org.nz/) is a quarterly review journal that specialises in reviewing local books. It's good to see Boock's biography getting a substantial review there. One point of note. Harry says that Boock could've made more of the available material about Sutcliffe. For instance, Harry notes that John Arlott's piece on Bert Sutcliffe in Arlott's 100 Greatest Batsmen doesn't seem to have been referred to at all. Snippets from Arlott could've added to the book no doubt. Here's a quote from Arlott's piece on Sutcliffe: 'Like all the best batsmen, he was strong off the front foot or back - and his forward strokes were quite scholarly in method - his driving was handsome, but his hooking and pulling were equally effective.' I like the idea of Sutcliffe's strokes being 'scholarly in method'.
Other New Zealand batsmen in Arlott's 100 Greatest list (1989 ed.) are Martin Donnelly, Stewart Dempster, John Reid, Martin Crowe, Bevan Congdon and Glenn Turner.

See also my own blog review of Boock's biography (December 2010).

Don Clarke as a cricketer

Rugby player Jeff Wilson is a well known recent example of the double international in New Zealand cricket. Some others were Eric Tindill, Martin Donnelly, Curly Page, Charlie Oliver and Brian McKechnie. Wilson, an All Black winger, after hanging up his rugby boots, returned to cricket and was a surprise selection in the 2005 one-day and 20/20 series against Australia. He had previously made a promising start to his international cricket career at age 19 in 1993 (scoring 44 not out off 28 balls against Australia) before opting for rugby.

In 2005, Wilson was again effective in the warm up tsunami relief series against a touring World XI (taking 3-6 in one match) but against the full strength Australian side at Eden Park he was carted for 43 runs off 4 overs in the only Twenty20 match. His last ODI game saw him take 1-68 off 9 overs. His lone wicket was that of Adam Gilchrist.

Another of those who played cricket and rugby is All Black fullback and rugby legend Don Clarke (1933-2002) known as “The Boot” for his goal kicking. Clarke never played international cricket in contrast to the others mentioned above.

When I was reading Richard Boock’s recent Sutcliffe biography, it reminded me again of Clarke’s cricket playing days. There’s a description of Clarke in the book by Graham Dowling: ‘[Clarke] was medium-fast; big and strong. He lumbered in and gave it plenty. His size gave the impression of lumbering, I suppose, but he was a pretty good provincial bowler.’ His First Class span was 1950/51-1962/63. Clarke bowled for Auckland and Northern Districts as a right arm medium-fast bowler. He took 117 wickets at a very good average of 21.14, including four five-fors and one ten wicket haul.

At the end of his playing days, he left New Zealand in the 1970s for South Africa where he set up a tree-felling business. He died from cancer in 2002 at the age of 69.

Recently I came across a poem for Don Clarke. I’ll include it on the “Tingling Catch” archive. The epigram doesn’t specify rugby or cricket but is a nice tribute to the effect his status had on his fellow contemporaries, this time a poet:

F W N WRIGHT

Epitaph for Don Clarke

Mourn for a generation, ours

Its passing and its loss of powers.

Poem © F W N Wright

F W N (Nielsen) Wright or Niel Wright was born in 1933, the same year as Clarke, and wrote the epitaph after Don’s death in 2003. It appeared in his epic poem The Alexandrians. The author’s note at the end of the book states: ‘Don Clarke is my age. He was greatly distressed to find himself dying of cancer, having felt invincible. His heyday as a footballer was 1953-1964, dates that are highly significant I suspect for all his generational coevals (what statisticians so oddly call cohorts), certainly for me. My generation felt loss of powers in being pushed aside by the baby boom generation in the late 1960s and also now by death.’ It’s interesting that in New Zealand our sportsmen are seen as figureheads of their generations, defining people of a period in our culture and history. They represent the past as significant emblems, and their glittering playing careers can mirror the height of their generation's powers, an idea that recurs in some of the cricket poetry in A Tingling Catch when players are discussed and paid a tribute.

Article © Mark Pirie 2011

Sources: The Last Everyday Hero: The Bert Sutcliffe Story by Richard Boock (Longacre, 2010); Wisden Cricketer’s Almanack 2003; ESPN Cricinfo; and The Alexandrians: Day 198 by F W Nielsen Wright (Original Books, 2003).

Summer Reads: The Bert Sutcliffe Story

Review by Mark Pirie of The Last Everyday Hero: The Bert Sutcliffe Story by Richard Boock, Longacre, RRP $39.99. Foreword by Alan Davidson.

Richard Boock’s recently published story of Sutcliffe’s life is an excellent cricket biography. It utilises the detailed research of author Rod Nye who died before his own work on Sutcliffe could be realised. Nye, a cricket lover, wrote the biography of Martin Donnelly, one of our greatest players, and was working on the Sutcliffe biography at the time of his death in 2004.

Boock’s final account of Sutcliffe’s life is a testament to Nye’s research methods and Boock’s own heartfelt commitment to the project. Doubly moving is that a number of Nye’s interviewees have passed away too before Boock's book was completed.
In this book you will find New Zealand team-mates of Sutcliffe as well as overseas players and officials talking about Bert and describing his deeds and innings first-hand. His extraordinary First Class playing career stretched from 1941/42-1965/66. What is remarkable is the consistency of the Sutcliffe portrait that emerges. Through the different voices of the era, Sutcliffe materialises as a kind, generous, egalitarian and popular man, the life of every party, and above all a batting ‘genius’. Most relate just how good a cricketer he was. Arguably, as Walter Hadlee comments, ‘he was the greatest cricketer New Zealand has produced’.

The book itself starts in explosive and unconventional manner, taking us straight into the Tangiwai disaster, the death of Bob Blair’s fiancée Narissa, and the Second Test at Ellis Park, South Africa, on the 1953/54 tour where Sutcliffe returned from hospital, took a swig of whisky and clubbed seven sixes on his way to an unbeaten 80. Of course, the story is now folklore (as seen by Jonny Brugh’s recent stage adaptation The Second Test and my own poem to Bert in A Tingling Catch) and perhaps why Nye wanted his book started at this moment in time. It was, of course, how the Sutcliffe legend began for many. From there Boock takes us deeper into Bert’s life story but in a more conventional manner, tracing Bert’s life from schoolboy cricket to retirement years, and ends with a poem read by Iain Gallaway as Sutcliffe’s ashes are deposited on Carisbrook in the exact fielding spot where Sutcliffe took his catch against the touring MCC in the 1946/47 season.*
One of the best things about Boock’s biography is its sheer range of contributors. Players young and old lend their support to the project, and as with any good history, forgotten sporting names and connections rear their heads. The lesser-known names all shine in fabulous batting-like partnerships with their star. Merv Wallace gets significant mention for his input into New Zealand cricket. It’s great to hear Walter Hadlee, John Reid, Australian Alan Davidson and Iain Gallaway talking about Sutcliffe alongside lesser known names like Noel McGregor, Eric Watson, West Indian Sammy Guillen and Tony MacGibbon. One of the finds was former New Zealand batsman Bill Playle’s account of the ill-fated 1958 tour of England. Nye’s brother Lindsay interviewed Playle, now living in Australia, in support of his brother’s
project.

Overall, it’s a fitting tribute to Bert’s life. It’s also very revealing of the cricket hierarchy of the time, particularly the poor selection choices made on tours to England in 1958 and Pakistan, India and England in 1965, the tight scheduling of games, and the dangerous and unsanitary conditions players faced in those days when touring Pakistan and India. If I have a minor quibble, it’s the lack of endnotes to properly reference the book’s sources. Instead, we have a short bibliography. Maybe it was too academic but the attention to detail might’ve added to the book. For instance, quotes like that made by Walter Hadlee above need clear dates to put these comments in historical perspective.

Another remarkable part of the Sutcliffe legend is that Bert (who still holds the New Zealand record for the Highest First Class batting score of 385) never played in a winning Test team. Suffering from ill health after returning from the tour of Pakistan and India, Sutcliffe listened on the radio as New Zealand defeated the West Indies in 1956 for their first ever Test win. He may not have won a Test but after reading Bert’s story, there’s no doubt that Sutcliffe at least had won the hearts of all, most notably his nation. Boock has successfully taken on Nye’s extensive research and produced a compelling account.

Review © Mark Pirie 2010

*This year the urn containing Sutcliffe's ashes was reported lost and a search for them called off by the Otago Cricket Association when attempting to relocate them to the University Oval. "Dad's ashes are proving as elusive as bowlers found taking his wicket," his son Gary said. "Maybe there is a message here. Dad's wishes were that he would love to have his ashes scattered at Carisbrook."

See the related news stories below:

‘Cricket legend Bert Sutcliffe’s ashes lost’, NZPA, 12 August 2010:

http://www.3news.co.nz/Cricket-legend-Bert-Sutcliffes-ashes-lost/tabid/415/articleID/170254/Default.aspx

‘Search for Bert Sutcliffe’s ashes called off’, NZPA, 13 August 2010

http://www.3news.co.nz/Search-for-Bert-Sutcliffes-ashes-called-off/tabid/415/articleID/170514/Default.aspx

The Last Everyday Hero:
The Bert Sutcliffe Story
by Richard Boock
(Longacre: 2010)